by Carlos Latuff

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said on November 3, 2009 that the Palestinian Authority, and all Palestinian parties, must immediately end any and all illusions about the United States or its president, Barack Obama, and instead reject its "negotiations" based on surrender and rely on the Palestinian people and their resistance, unity and national rights.

Comrade Rayya Amin, of the Information Office of the PFLP, said that it must be abundantly clear that Barack Obama is nothing more than U.S. imperialism in new packaging, saying that the United States is an enemy of the Palestinian people and the Arab people, and all progressive and peoples' forces in the world. Comrade Amin stressed that the policy of the United States had not changed in any way, and was engaged in the same strategic alliance with Zionism and conquest of the Arab world that has always determined its actions. She demanded that the PA and all Palestinian, Arab and progressive forces cast aside any and all illusions about Obama and "change" and instead struggle to confront U.S. imperialism and the occupation.

Comrade Dr. Maher al-Taher, member of the PFLP and leader of its branch in exile, said that the U.S. administration is entirely hostile to the Palestinian people and has put all of its efforts into trying to force us to surrender by calling upon Palestinians to enter into unconditional "negotiations" with the occupier, recognizing none of the national rights of the Palestinian people.

Comrade Taher emphasized that the U.S. call for the resumption of so-called negotiations means that the U.S. wants to provide a Palestinian cover of surrender for the ongoing aggression of the Zionist enemy and its policies of Zionization of Jerusalem, escalation of settlement and land confiscation, and present a false image to the world of a "peace process". He said that the occupation wants a so-called "peace process" on the basis of force and intimidation, and said that there can be no "peace" with this enemy. Furthermore, said Comrade Taher, the only road forward for Palestinians is to continue the resistance, end internal division, and unite Palestinian ranks through the reconstruction of the Palestine Liberation Organization on clear national principles and rejecting the entire project of "political settlement" and "negotiations" under the auspices of the United States.

He emphasized that the U.S. is not an "honest broker," nor "neutral," but is instead a hostile party against Palestinian, Arab and Muslim interests and must be dealt with on that basis. He denounced the Netanyahu strategy of so-called "economic peace," noting that he wants to pay for Palestinian surrender with donor funds while continuing settlements, land confiscation, home demolitions and the imprisonment of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners while denying the Palestinian right to return or ending the occupation, and noted that the U.S. is involved in a direct partnership with Netanyahu in denying Palestinian national rights.

Comrade Jamil Mizher, member of the Central Committee of the PFLP, demanded that the Palestinian Authority end its reliance on the U.S. administration and President Barack Obama, saying that all must instead rely on the Palestinian people and uniting our forces in order to confront the occupation.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera Forum on November 2, 2009, Comrade Mizher described the U.S. position approving of Zionist settlements as "scandalous," and demanded that all forms of direct and indirect negotiations with the occupation be immediately ended. He said that all Palestinian and Arab illusions about Obama must be discarded immediately, and that anyone who claims to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people must instead rely on Palestinian national rights and requirements. Furthermore, he called for an end to official Arab silence and complicity with the U.S./Israeli attacks on Palestinian rights, emphasizing the need for popular Arab pressure to support Palestinian resistance.

Comrade Abu Ahmad Fouad, member of the Political Bureau of the PFLP, reacted to the U.S. Congress' official denunciation of the Goldstone Report on war crimes in Gaza on November 3, 2009 by denouncing the Congressional resolution and affirming that this only makes yet more clear that there should be absolutely no illusions about the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. Comrade Fouad said that this once again reaffirms that there is no change whatsoever in U.S. policy toward the Arab-Zionist conflict, or its policy that supports the Zionist entity and all of its crimes and massacres against the Palestinian people.

Comrade Fouad said that the congressional resolution, House Resolution 867, comes on the heels of the announcement of Obama's Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, a few days ago that the fascist Zionist regime of Netanyahu was making "unprecedented concessions," stating the US' support for its settlement and land confiscation program, as well as the enemy's actions in Jerusalem and at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Comrade Fouad denounced the warm reception Clinton met in Arab capitals while she affirmed the U.S. support for unlimited Zionist expansionism and attacks on the Palestinian people's rights, and stressed that these positions "are and always have been the real position of the Obama administration, and any postures to the contrary are nothing more than smokescreens to mislead Arabs and Palestinians."

He said further that the primary objective of Clinton's visit was to support Israel while promoting deceit about "peace" and "negotiations", but made it clear that the U.S. position is fully aligned with the Zionist policy of aggression, colonization and Zionization before the eyes and ears of the world.

Comrade Fouad commented also on recent joint military exercises between the U.S. and Israel, noting that the U.S. war machine is a full partner in Israeli state terror, recalling the comments of the commander of the U.S. naval ship, the USS Higgins, that the "defense" of Haifa is the same as the "defense" of San Diego, California.

source: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=59730

As an early and enthusiastic Barack Obama supporter and a professor of international relations who teaches Middle East politics and American foreign policy, I have been often asked in class and in public forums, “What do you think Obama will do regarding Palestine?”

My answers came down to that there was likely to be a dramatic improvement in the tone of American-Arab relations and with the Muslim world in general, but only within the limits of a continuing stalemate in Palestine.

This prediction has turned out to be all too true, as welcome as better general relations are. I am more pessimistic now, nine months into the Obama administration. I would say now that even when or if the domestic agenda calms down, if some form of health care gets passed, the economy recovers and the withdrawal of troops in Iraq takes place as planned, there will be no substantive improvement in the plight of the Palestinians. Israel will continue its policy of changing the facts on the ground, each day making concessions on settlements, Jerusalem, the wall and a multitude of other anti-Palestinian activities all the more difficult.

I have two reasons for this view — one direct, one indirect. Although far from Palestine, the war in Afghanistan is now Obama’s war. This increasingly evident futile effort — to do what? — eliminate al-Qaeda? bring democracy to the country? secure Pakistan? The list grows with each headline. I realize the pledge to root out terrorist bases was largely a promise driven by the campaign. Democrats are eager to show they are as murderous as Republicans on any issue related to national security, especially during an election campaign. Obama, however, seems sincerely committed to his policy. “The right war, the right time. It is not a war of choice but of necessity.” So goes the rhetoric. What president ever says a war he supports is the wrong war fought at the wrong time and is not necessary? And of course the war in Afghanistan remains a politically cheap way to establish Obama’s national security credentials. How many Americans object to the killing of Muslims, so long as any connection, however tenuous, can be made with terrorism, however ill defined? Given the interconnectedness of political issues, Obama cannot afford to lose any domestic support. Muslims will thus continue to provide the pound of flesh demanded by the Shylocks of national security.

Foreign policy elite retains hold on Palestine issue

Although I more or less anticipated these dreary developments, I retained my hope for Obama’s Palestinian policy. Perhaps, I reasoned, by demonstrating “strength and resolve” in Afghanistan, he would buy some leeway in Palestine? Always a slender hope, this thread now seems severed. Despite the appointment of George Mitchell, the foreign policy elite which has dominated Palestinian issues for decades remains intact. Apart from some rhetorical flourishes, almost immediately recanted or “put into the context of our undying commitment to our greatest ally, Israel,” nothing has changed. Settlements expand, despite their manifest illegality and official condemnation by the UN, the US included sort of. The wall continues to lengthen, creating more misery for Palestinians. The military incursions continue at the slightest excuse, killing and maiming civilians, including women and children.

I realize that Obama is much more skeptical than Bush-Cheney of Israel’s ultranationalist religious right. But how much difference will this make since the only viable opposition is also a right-wing party with a Palestinian platform virtually indistinguishable from the current extremist government that has avowed anti-Palestinian racists, like Avigdor Lieberman, in the cabinet? Let me suggest why I believe the Obama administration is not committed to substantive change in America’s policy toward Israel, which is to say America’s virtual absorption of the Israeli point of view in Palestine and the entire Middle East. Again, we must make an inference, since it is foolish to go by US rhetoric in this region. For any positive change to take place in Palestine, if America is to be taken seriously as an “honest broker” in the region, still the official policy, despite being thoroughly discredited, I believe it is imperative for Obama to discuss the danger of Israeli nuclear weapons.

My principal reason for pessimism is that every time Obama or Hillary Clinton refer to the unacceptability of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, they refer to non-existent Iranian weapons and ignore hundreds of Israeli nuclear warheads. The American mantra reconfirmed by Obama-Clinton is “no nuclear weapons in the Middle East.” Who can disagree with this? Who wants nuclear weapons in the Middle East or anywhere else for that matter? The difficulty with the American mantra could not be more simple or compelling. It is false in its premises and false in the facts. Americans have accepted nuclear weapons in the Middle East, so long as they are Israeli. And Israel has had nuclear weapons for over 30 years, hundreds of war loads and missiles capable of reaching every capital in the region. Every time an American official intones the mantra that “nuclear weapons are unacceptable in the region,” the hypocrisy bell clangs. Therefore, my critical indicator of change in American policy regarding Palestine is this: Would Obama say that all nuclear weapons in the Middle East are unacceptable, including those of Israel? So far there has been a resounding silence, except for the hypocrisy bell. Clang! Clang!

Much more is at stake than political consistency and the credibility dependent upon it. There is a much greater problem entailed in the mantra than a flagrant double standard. The very stability of the region, one of the principal objectives of American foreign policy, is being held hostage to this absurd mantra. So long as Israeli nuclear weapons are ignored, there can be no nuclear stability in the region. As every nuclear strategist knows, it is inherently unstable for only one adversary to have nuclear weapons. Nuclear deterrence, that is, nuclear stability, requires mutually assured destruction (MAD). This doctrine holds that stability requires that each nuclear power has the ability to retaliate effectively after the most devastating attack possible. This is called “second strike capability.” To be effective, it must inflict unacceptable damage to the nation which struck first. This has been the logic of nuclear stability ever since the Soviet Union developed its ability to strike the US. Its only assumption is the belief in the sanity of those who hold the nuclear triggers. Like it or not, precarious or not, MAD has worked. There is no reason to believe its fundamental logic no longer applies. It has applied regionally as well, as the case of India and Pakistan demonstrates.

Of course, the assumption of sanity is properly called into question by religious and other fanatics. No one wants such true believers to have control of nuclear weapons. “Aha! Therefore, we have to stop the Iranians!” The problem with this corollary of the American mantra is that it ignores Israeli fanatics, who are more firmly in control of Israel and its nuclear weapons than Islamic fundamentalists are in control of Iran and its non-existent nuclear weapons. No one doubts that Israel would use nuclear weapons on the Arabs, whether or not they have been attacked with such weapons. Everyone fears that Israel, rather than be defeated, would resort to nuclear Armageddon. Indeed this is one of the principal reasons that America does all it can to avoid an Israeli defeat. To the degree this is true, American foreign policy is held hostage to the existence of the Israeli monopoly of nuclear weapons, a fortiori, when Israel is controlled by right-wing fanatics, as is the current case.

There are alternatives to giving in to the threat of Masada. One is of course the denial of the American mantra. This would recognize the logic of deterrence by allowing Iran to develop a second strike capability vis-à-vis Israel. Or America could provide the second strike force by guaranteeing the nuclear security of every country in the region. America has provided nuclear deterrence for Japan for 60 years. America has made it clear that a Soviet or Russian attack on Europe would be considered an attack on the US. One can only wonder, however, if this protection applies to Muslim Turkey. If so, it has been kept very quiet. Or, thirdly, nuclear stability can be obtained by disarming Israel. Each of these options requires American acknowledgment of the existence and danger of Israeli nuclear weapons.

Nuclear instability a risk

Failure to do so condemns the region to nuclear instability, because (1) it gives Israel a free hand and (2) it gives other powers in the region an overwhelming incentive to develop their own deterrent capability. The American mantra that “nuclear weapons are unacceptable in the Middle East” is thus far more than hypocritical. It undermines American interests in the region, chiefly oil. And it imperils the lives and property of hundreds of millions of people. As a political realist, neither of these factors would, by itself or in combination, condemn American policy, if there were a reason to run these tremendous risks. What is this reason? The survival of Israel? There are two things wrong with making Israeli survival the predominant objective of American Middle East policy. It assumes that 5 million Israeli Jews are more important than more than 200 million Arabs, to say nothing of Turks and Iranians. No one even makes this argument in public, except the religious zealots of the Chosen People. Moreover, leaving human life aside, it assumes that resourceless Israel is more important than energy-rich Arab lands. Can one imagine an American capitalist making such an argument? Or an American motorist? From the realist perspective, unless it can be reasonably argued that Israel helps America meet its strategic objectives in the Middle East, America’s unquestioned support of Israel is absurd. One need not even get to the question of morality, the murder and oppression of millions of Palestinians, to conclude that America’s alliance with Israel comes at much too high a price.

It is important to note that this conclusion does not even broach the difficult topics surrounding a viable Palestinian state. My point is that no serious discussion of these topics can be undertaken until American policy makers acknowledge the facts of Israel’s nuclear monopoly. For Israeli nuclear weapons have emboldened right-wing Israeli governments to further and deepen their oppression of the Palestinians. And Israeli nuclear weapons have intimidated American policy makers who do believe that a Palestinian state is not only just but necessary for good relations with the Arab world.

I am compelled to warn that the next time we hear Obama intone the mantra that “nuclear weapons in the Middle East are unacceptable,” we should hear more than the “clang! clang!” of hypocrisy. We should hear the bell sounding the knell of political rationality. And what will take its place, if not the irrational forces of hatred, bigotry, racism and fanaticism?

'We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the era of impunity,' Nadia Hijab, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Palestine Studies, was quoted by IPS in response to the findings of a 574-page report by a four-member United Nations Fact finding mission. The mission, led by internationally-renowned former South African supreme court justice and chief prosecutor in the international tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, investigated alleged war crimes committed by Israeli troops in Gaza in a 23-day bloody, unprecedented onslaught against a largely defenseless population. 

But Hijab was not the only one who expressed optimism. Others did, encouraged perhaps, by the report’s use of terminology unfamiliar in a conflict where empirical experience has shown that Israeli actions, no matter how outrageously violent, will have no meaningful legal repercussions whatsoever. 

Goldstone’s report, released on September 15, made some important recommendations, following a most thorough investigation that was carefully compiled by the mission – which was organized by the UN Human Rights Council last April. 

One is that the UN Security Council should set up a team of experts to monitor Israel’s investigations of the war crimes committed in Gaza. If Israel fails to do so, then the situation should be referred to the Prosecutor in the International Criminal Court (ICC). 

This raises many questions, lead amongst them is: did Israel commit war crimes in Gaza, and, second, is Israel capable of conducting an honest investigation into those crimes, considering the state’s bloody legacy and lack of any serious legal accountability. 

Goldstone answers both questions. 

“The mission concluded that actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly in some respects crimes against humanity, were committed by the Israel Defense Force,” Goldstone told reporters on September 16. He also said that the Israeli government has carried out no credible investigation. 

Despite his recommendations that UN experts follow the progress of the internal investigation by Israel, and the Palestinians (since they too were accused of violating international law by lobbing home-made rockets into Israel, without taking into account the possible harm to civilians) it’s puzzling why Goldstone would think that any genuine investigation is possible in the first place.

Goldstone knows, as many of us already do, that the events in Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of 1,387 (other estimates put the number at 1,417, mostly civilians, including over 300 children), the wounding of thousands more, the targeting of an already dilapidating infrastructure (hospitals, police stations, factories, schools, and even chicken farms) of a deprived and besieged society was very much a political decision made at the highest levels by the likes of Olmert, Livni, Barak and other serial criminals who have tormented Palestinians for too long. 

Palestinians were also chastised for rockets fired from besieged Gaza. Of course, Goldstone was not expected to justify or applaud the homemade rockets, or even underline their lack of effectiveness, as four Israelis were killed by rocket fire, during the period of the war. Out of the nine Israeli soldiers killed in the fighting, four were killed in friendly fire. 

While both Hamas and the PA fully cooperated with Goldstone and his colleagues, Israel fully rejected the mission, refusing entry into Israel or Gaza, forcing the use of alternative routes into the besieged strip, through Egypt. 

Israeli officials claim that the report was pre-written, rendering it biased from the start. They used the same predictable pattern of smears, redundant diatribes and predictable language. 

Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said the report created unjust “equivalence of a democratic state with a terror organization,” in reference to Hamas. 

Following the good old democracy reference, racism kicks in. “We have nothing to be ashamed of, and don’t need lessons in morality from a committee established by Syria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Somalia,” Levy said. Apparently dark-skinned people of the South are both incapable of being democratic or moral. Only Israel and her allies are capable of those qualities. 

“The Goldstone report has set a new standard for equating the behavior of democratic nations and terrorists,” wrote Richard Sideman, President of the New York-based American Jewish Committee in a letter published in the New York Times on September 18. 

The same disingenuous sentiment utilized by Levy and Sideman (how curious that both seemed to be using the same script) echoed by many Israeli officials and their lobbyists abroad, who went into crisis management mode following the release of the report. 

But why should they care? 

Could it be because Goldstone called on the 192-member General Assembly to establish an escrow fund so that Israel can compensate Palestinians in Gaza? Israel would never spend its hard-earned US tax payers money on such frivolous matters. 

Could it be because the Human Rights Council is convening on September 29 in Geneva to discuss the report, and could call for its transfer to the Security Council, and even the ICC? 

Could it be because the report’s findings might empower an already growing boycott movement world-wide? 

Could it be because it’s much harder to doubt the credibility of Goldstone, to smear him as anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew? 

Could it be because all these factors are escalating Israeli fears that the “era of impunity” is indeed over? 

“Perhaps next time we set out to wage another vain and miserable war, we will take into account not only the number of fatalities we are likely to sustain, but also the heavy political damage such wars cause,” wrote Israeli columnist Gideon Levy. 

One would have to wait for the next miserable war, the next massacre to find out whether Israel has learned its lesson. Until then, thousands of starved, desperate yet resilient Palestinians in Gaza continue to live in their makeshift tents, atop the rubble, which was once called home, awaiting food, cement and international justice. 

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author of several books and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London), and his forthcoming book is, “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon.

Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam, the custodian of its two holy mosques, the world's energy superpower and the de facto leader of the Arab and Muslim worlds — that is why our recognition is greatly prized by Israel. However, for all those same reasons, the kingdom holds itself to higher standards of justice and law. It must therefore refuse to engage Israel until it ends its illegal occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights as well as Shabaa Farms in Lebanon. For Saudis to take steps toward diplomatic normalization before this land is returned to its rightful owners would undermine international law and turn a blind eye to immorality.

Shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967, during which Israel occupied those territories as well as East Jerusalem and the Sinai Peninsula, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution stating that, in order to form "a just and lasting peace in the Middle East," Israel must withdraw from these newly occupied lands. The Fourth Geneva Convention similarly notes "the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."

Now, Israeli leaders hint that they are willing to return portions of these occupied territories to Arab control, but only if they are granted military and economic concessions first. For the Arabs to accept such a proposal would only encourage similar outrages in the future by rewarding military conquest.

After the Oslo accords of 1993, Arab states took steps to improve their relationships with Israel, allowing for recognition in the form of trade and consular agreements. Israel, however, continued to construct settlements, making its neighbors understandably unwilling to give up more without a demonstration that they would be granted something in return.

Today, supporters of Israel cite the outdated 1988 Hamas charter, which called for the destruction of Israel, as evidence of Palestine's attitude toward a two-state solution, without considering the illegalities of Israel's own occupation. Israel has never presented any comprehensive formulation of a peace plan. Saudi Arabia, to the contrary, has done so twice: the Fahd peace plan of 1982 and the Abdullah peace initiative of 2002. Both were endorsed by the Arab world, and both were ignored by Israel.

In order to achieve peace and a lasting two-state solution, Israel must be willing to give as well as take. A first step should be the immediate removal of all Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Only this would show the world that Israel is serious about peace and not just stalling as it adds more illegal settlers to those already occupying Palestinian land.

At the same time, the international community must pressure Israel to relinquish its grip on all Arab territory, not as a means to gain undeserved concessions but instead as an act of good faith and a demonstration that it is willing to play by the Security Council's rules and to abide by global standards of military occupation. The Arab world, in the form of the Arab peace initiative that was endorsed by 22 countries in 2002, has offered Israel peace and normalization in return for Israeli withdrawal from all Arab territories including East Jerusalem — with the refugee issue to be solved later through mutual consent.

There have been increasing well-intentioned calls for Saudi Arabia to "do a Sadat": King Abdullah travels to Israel and the Israelis reciprocate by making peace with Saudi Arabia. However, those urging such a move must remember that President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt went to Israel in 1977 to meet with Prime Minister Menachem Begin only after Sadat's envoy, Hassan el-Tohamy, Sadat's envoy, was assured by the Israeli foreign minister, Moshe Dayan, that Israel would withdraw from every last inch of Egyptian territory in return for peace. Absent a similar offer today from Israel to the leaders of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, there is no reason to look at 1977 as a model.

President Obama's speech in Cairo this summer gave the Arab and Muslim worlds heightened expectations. His insistence on a freeze on settlement activity was a welcome development. However, all Israeli governments have expanded settlements, even those that committed not to do so.

No country in the region wants more bloodshed. But while Israel's neighbors want peace, they cannot be expected to tolerate what amounts to theft, and certainly should not be pressured into rewarding Israel for the return of land that does not belong to it. Until Israel heeds President Obama's call for the removal of all settlements, the world must be under no illusion that Saudi Arabia will offer what the Israelis most desire — regional recognition. We are willing to embrace the hands of any partner in peace, but only after they have released their grip on Arab lands.

Prince Turki al-Faisal is chairman of the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies. He has been director of Saudi intelligence and ambassador to Britain, Ireland, and the United States.

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

I also strongly condemn and reject the interference of the Israeli military censorship, who tries to impose his dirty mission on newspapers, websites and blogs, published outside Israel with continued terror, bullying and intimidation done by many front organizations and individuals of lacking intellect, who call themselves “glorious” names “Fancy Titles” but who in fact work for Israel and the IDF censorship office in Beit Agron, and who also get paid by them.

I strongly condemn the military censorship imposed on my correspondence with my homeland Palestine, by Israeli military “security” in the post office, in the West part of occupied Jerusalem, people who open and empty my packages of it’s content, destroying my videos which shows the crimes of the military occupation in Palestine. (See a copy of a letter from the Post office informed me that my letter had arrived at their office opened and damages).

Yesterday I was forwarded an email been sent by one of these “Fancy Titles”  people, IDF fronts abroad, who tried bully a German website which translated and published my article into removing my article, thus de-facto imposing the IDF censorship in a foreign publication. See the e-mail attached as a PDF. This slanderous and menacing E-mail was sent to German government ministers in copy. The writers of this badly written E-mail questioned the validity of the information I mention in my article, and the validity of my sources. While the Email was sent to another website and only forwarded to me, I thought it appropriate to answer these small-time bullies because the article is mine. My response to the threat Email sent to LinkeZeitung as a PDF. I will translate both e-mails as soon as I can.

As a journalist I know how to get direct access to ministers and government offices; I have documented the crimes perpetrated by Israel since my family left their homeland in the north of Palestine, today called Israel, 61 years ago.

After the criticism of  the “Fancy Titles” people against my latest article body snatching by the IDF and their partners in crime at Abu Kabir, I have decided to publicize each crime with further details to show that Israel is a state of cutthroats and thieves next to being a criminal occupier.

I am also sure that all the governments know what happened to the Palestinians since 1948 until today, and that Israel is established on the destruction and genocide of the Palestinian nation. But while these governments are paralyzed and unable to do much about about the Israeli genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the violations of the international humanitarian laws because of their thorough infiltration by zionist elements, I have decided to go ahead with my work exposing further details about the Israeli crimes, whether the criminals and their allies and frontmen like what I write or not.

I will not start from the story of my relative murdered and autopsied. First I will start presenting the full details of the murder of three children and the abduction of their bodies and autopsy which I mentioned before. Here is the Press Release issued by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights concerning this crime.

here is the testimony in Arabic by the director of Al-Shifa’a hospital in Gaza as PD F.

(I was not able to translate it because of the horrible things which are described. Perhaps the people “Fancy Titles” and the IDF military censorship will be able to translate it)  I hope that the bullies from “Fancy Titles” people will enjoy it).

Below is a Press release which I received in 2002

Press Release

New evidence in case of three Palestinian children unlawfully killed by Israeli forces

Ref: 11/2002

Date: 30 January 2002

New evidence has been obtained demonstrating the excessive and disproportionate use of force by Israeli forces against three Palestinian children killed last month. According to recent statements made by the Israeli military commander of the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli forces used “Fletchette” shells (shells containing dart-like shrapnel which is fired over a large area upon impact) in the incident when the three children were killed.

PCHR, the legal representative of the victims’ families, expresses its serious concerns regarding this case and reiterates its call for the international community and the United Nations to initiate a full, independent and impartial investigation into the case, to bring to justice those responsible and to provide effective reparations, including adequate compensation for the families of the victims.

On Sunday, 30 December 2001, Israeli forces fired artillery shells at three Palestinian children north of Beit Lahia, killing them. The victims, all from Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in Gaza, were:

• Ahmed Mohammed Banat, age of 15.
• Mohammed ‘Abdel-Rahman El-Madhoun, age of 16
• Mohammed Ahmed Lubbad, age of 17.

At approximately 17:40 on that day, an Israeli tank positioned in the vicinity of “Elli Sinai” settlement, north of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, fired four artillery shells at a Palestinian agricultural area, under full control of the Palestinian National Authority, approximately 1200m south of the settlement.

Then, Israeli forces opened fire at the area from heavy and medium machine guns. Approximately 30 minutes later, the Israeli forces issued a statement claiming that they had killed three gunmen who were attempting to enter “Elli Sinai” settlement. Later, the Israeli forces stated that the three children were attempting to plant bombs in the area. A later statement from the Israeli military asserted that the children were armed with knives.

The Israeli authorities did not immediately release the bodies of the three victims and did not issue information regarding their identities or ages. Three families from Sheikh Radwan neighborhood notified PCHR about the disappearance of three of their children while they were returning home from a visit to a friend in Beit Lahia.

This raised fears that the three children might be the victims killed by Israeli forces. On 2 January 2002, PCHR, through an Israeli lawyer, Andre Rosenthal, sent a message to the Israeli military legal advisor, requesting the recovery of the three bodies to the Palestinian National Authority in order to be identified, and called for an investigation into the case. The bodies were handed over to the Palestinian National Authority on the same day, but no investigation was initiated by the Israeli military.

PCHR has continued to follow up the case internationally and within Israel. On 8 January 2002, PCHR sent appeals to John Dugard, Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Arab Territories, including Palestine; Asma Jahangir, Special Rapporteur for Summary, Arbitrary, and Extra-Judicial Executions; and Olara Otunnu, Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children in Armed Conflict. PCHR requested that they take immediate steps to ensure a thorough, independent and impartial investigation into this incident is conducted, and that other cases of possible willful killings and excessive use of lethal force perpetrated in the Occupied Palestinian Territories be similarly investigated, with appropriate legal action taken.

In addition to following the case through its lawyer in Israel, PCHR coordinated with the Public Committee against Torture in Israel (PCATI), and Physicians for Human Rights, providing the two organizations with information, in order for them to pressure inside Israel for an investigation into the case. In its letter to the two organizations, PCHR stated its initial comments and conclusions regarding the incident:

 

• The children were fired at from a significant distance, when they had posed no threat to the lives of Israeli soldiers.
• The three children were extra-judicially killed since no efforts were made to arrest them.
• The victims were unarmed civilians under the age of 18.
• The bodies were taken to the Legal Medicine Institute in Abu Kabir without the approval of their families and without a court decision.
• An autopsy conducted by Palestinian officials indicated that the bodies had been mutilated and that one of the victims had been trampled by a large vehicle.

Following a request by Member of Knesset Tamar Jabotnisky, the Israeli parliamentary foreign and security committee held a session on 23 January 2002 to address this case. Representatives of the PCATI and Physicians for Human Rights attended the session.

In his statement before the committee, the Israeli military commander of the northern Gaza Strip revealed new information which supports the conclusion that the children were willfully killed.

His statement can be summed up in the following points:

• At approximately 17:48 on 30 December 2001, three suspects were noticed in the vicinity of “Elli Sinai” settlement. The officer in command of a tank fired four artillery shells at the three, killing them.
  
• One of the bodies was then run over by the tank. The tanks shells fired contained nails (flechettes) which were scattered as far as 100m away from the point of impact.

In his statement before the committee, Director of the Legal Medicine Institute (Abu Kabir) explained that the victims died having sustained injuries inflicted by the nails in the shells and that one of the bodies had then been run over by a tank. This information further supports the conclusion that the killings were willful and a violation of international human rights and humanitarian law.

The Israeli military representative also produced video footage before the committee showing that the victims were positioned at a significant distance from the Israeli military position. It is PCHR’s opinion that this information collectively indicates that the Israeli military extrajudicially killed the three, and used excessive and disproportionate force. All evidence indicated that the victims had not posed any threat to the lives of the Israeli soldiers, that the soldiers had not resorted to less lethal force as required by international standards and had made no attempts to arrest the suspects prior to opening fire. The video footage also reaffirmed that the victims were unarmed contrary to claims made by the Israeli military.

The session was adjourned, to be reconvened later this week, pending receipt of the report of the Israeli Legal Medicine Institute on the case.

In light of these developments, PCHR asserts:

 

The killing of the three children was willful and extra-judicial in violation of international human rights and humanitarian law, and that Israeli forces have full legal responsibility for their deaths, including with respect to the provision of compensation to the victims families, in accordance with international law.

In immediately resorting to the use of artillery shells despite no threat having been posed to the lives of the soldiers, the Israeli forces employed excessive and disproportionate force.

It was not the first time that Israeli forces have employed “Fletchette” shells against Palestinian civilians. A number of Palestinian civilians have been killed or injured by such shells, including when no threat was posed to the lives of Israeli soldiers, according to PCHR’s investigations.

Despite all these facts, Israeli forces have not initiated a full and proper investigation into this case or many other similar cases. The autopsy of the bodies took place at the Israeli Legal Medicine Institute without the approval of the victims’ families and without a court decision – according to the director of the institute, the bodies of the victims were brought to the institute without having been identified in contravention of Israeli law.

The video footage showing the killing of the three children should be made public.

The international community and the United Nations must call for a thorough, independent and impartial investigation into this incident, and that other cases of possible wilful killings and excessive use of lethal force perpetrated in the Occupied Palestinian Territories be similarly investigated.

The use of such shells against a civilian population is unlawful under international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. The Israeli military commander also confirmed that an Israeli tank ran over the body of one of the victims.

SOURCE: http://www.kawther.info/wpr/2009/08/28/fancy-title-people-and-the-idf-against-journalists

The plan keeps the Israelis as occupiers, but with a few twists like in Oslo, such as political prisoners should be released. It seems to be asking Palestinians to sanction occupation instead of dismantling the system of the occupiers. Critics note that no one should be asked to trade freedom for political prisoners in exchange for accepting control of their air space, or any other type of control.

Legislative Council member Hassan Khreisheh told PNN Wednesday that he is among those who have obtained a copy of the draft plan which US President Barack Obama intends to announce during the next month.

The draft is in heavy circulation in Palestinian and Arab circles, and addresses a new American plan.

Media sources report that during his recent meetings in the US, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak also saw the American plan to be launched by Obama.

A spokesperson for the Egyptian president said the US administration is planning to announce a political plan with regard to Palestine and the Israelis at the beginning of the opening of the new session of the United Nations General Assembly in September.

The Israelis have yet to heed the dozens of United Nations resolutions, both from the General Assembly and the Security Council, on the issue. If Obama is looking for a new resolution it is expected that the Israelis will honor it only if it is clearly in their favor.

According to Khreisheh of the PLC, the draft plan includes ten basic points, including:

- An international presence in the Jordan Valley and other areas in the West Bank.

- Reducing the areas of East Jerusalem to be under Israeli control, with respect to the Islamic religious sanctities. It will be under the sovereignty of Arab and Islamic countries.

- Resolving the Palestinian organizations and turning them into political parties.

- Keeping the major settlement blocs in the West Bank, and negotiating on small settlements in three months.

- To keep other areas in the West Bank, demilitarized zones, with Israeli control of the skies.

- To intensify the Israeli-Palestinian security coordination in the West Bank.

- The Palestinian Authority to prevent the establishment of any military alliance with any regional state.

- An assurance by the United States for a Palestinian state in the summer of 2011.

- Agreed to accommodate the number of refugees in the Jordan Valley and other areas in the West Bank, and specifically between the towns of Nablus and Ramallah, and the establishment of an international fund to support the refugees.

- Israel begins release of Palestinian prisoners, with the start of the signing of this Convention, continue to release for a period of three years.

As usual, the Zionists were ready with sharpened teeth to shred his efforts by their usual Hasbara methods of sending their false poisonous comments in an attempt to mask any efforts at explaining what is really going on in Palestine. One of the comments left by one of those Zionists on his blog complained that ‘Hebron Arabs today have access to 98% of the entire city. Jews have only access to 3% of Hebron’.

In the comment of this ‘anonymous’ reader, what seems to look like an innocent number of complaints, should the reader not know much about that part of the world he/she will fall a victim to the false impression that the presence of the Israeli Occupation in my hometown is justified and not an illegal occupation according to international law and even by Israeli standards. His comments sounded like as if they are coming from a victim who is supposed to have equal rights of access.

The 3% of the Jews in Hebron he was talking about are not supposed to be there, the occupying force according to international law is not supposed to allow or facilitate the transfer of its own citizens to the occupied areas.

He complained that the owners of the city – the Arab Palestinians – have access to 98% of their own city and the occupiers who are called for well-known media manipulation reasons ‘the settlers’ have access to 3%. ‘The expression settlers’ seems to be a very benign use of the language for a malignant reason. Of course the total according to his figures makes the population of Al-Khaleel more than 100%, this is a good example of what happens when Israeli authorities employ cyber amateurs to defend its crimes against the Palestinians, they work very fast so that they conjure numbers that do not make any sense. The Zionist state employs thousands every year to work on character assassination of the writers who bring to light any information about the absurdity of the Israeli occupation in Palestine, like Mr Kassab.

This shows how far they can go to fabricate false stories by throwing numbers without any verifications or referencing, and as usual, the Westerners swallow it all because the numbers and figures are connected in their experience with studies and statistics, and methods we all respect and do not doubt their credibility. I want to surprise ‘Mr anonymous’ and tell him that the people in Al-Khaleel are supposed to have 100% access to their own city because it is their home. It seems that the Zionists are full of themselves to a point they think that people can’t figure out that it is unacceptable for a total stranger to come from as far as Russia to occupy the living room of any Palestinian by hooliganism, and deny the owner access to his own kitchen or bathroom. Blocking the way of the locals is preaching their human rights and this is what the claimed 3% Jewish ‘settlers’ are doing in my hometown.

Those Jewish ‘settlers’ who have access to 3 % of my home have killed three students while walking on campus in 1986 for no reason whatsoever. Those 400 gun-wielding settlers are guarded and protected by 1,500 Israeli soldiers who witness their daily attacks on the unarmed local Palestinians and do nothing about it even though they are supposed to protect the locals according to International law. The Israeli authorities tend to demolish any home, should the owner build one brick without their permission, but at the same time claim that they could do nothing to handle the illegal presence of the Jewish settlers in the heart of Al-Khaleel, occupying the roof tops of the Palestinians homes and throwing their rubbish on them every day, and calling the Palestinian women whenever they open their doors ‘whores’.

I guess those ‘chosen by God’ people show the Almighty as an under-achiever, he could not even choose a respected lot who behave themselves when he went to choose his own loved lot. I would imagine no ordinary person would ever choose to be a friend with someone with a bad reputation and despicable manners like the Jewish settlers, let alone a wise compassionate God, but it seems that they know that the Western world is a hypocritical lot, they would support their claims even though they are a secular majority who deny even the presence of God, but when it comes to Israel suddenly they turn to be serious believers of every claim told by the Zionist lot, and the angel halo appears shining, bright and glowing above their heads, you can almost touch their holy wings. Even those who have just converted to Judaism only yesterday for visa reasons to work in Israel and care less about Moses, Jacob, Solomon, or any other prophet mentioned by any holy book, turn by a swift magic wand into very religious people even when they are posing naked in adult magazines to promote tourism in ‘the Holy Land’.

My brother-in-law is a doctor whose clinic is located in the heart of the city of Hebron, where the settlers are turning the people’s lives into living hell because they are God’s chosen brats.  His practice is located in an area where poor, sick, underprivileged people need medical attention. The soldiers who are supposed to be guarding the locals according to international law are not doing so, on the contrary, they are helping the settlers to occupy the rooftops of the neighbouring houses including his clinic, the soldiers themselves used to urinate in the water reservoir on the rooftop of his practice to drive him out, and to evacuate the area from the last few Palestinians who were persevering and trying to get on with their miserable lives against the odds. For years he used to go every single day to his practice and just set there, even though he knew perfectly well that he could not treat the ever-decreasing number of sick people who could reach his clinic, not because of the intimidation of the settlers and the hygiene problems only, but because they are hindered by tens of roadblocks and obstacles as well. But he never gave up on his mission, he continued to go to work every morning anyway – to send the Israeli occupying forces a clear message of ‘I am not leaving’. All his patients knew about his daily struggle and used to knock on his home door asking for help at odd hours, he could not turn them back, but one can imagine what kind of life this must have been for him and for his wife and children who hardly have any privacy at home, and who could not anticipate when the next banging on the door will start.

Many times he would go to his work and could not come back home that day because a new curfew had started while he was in his practice.

This is a reality every single Palestinian in my hometown has to deal with day in day out. I remember asking him once ‘what you were doing in the clinic then if you could not treat your patients’? He smiled and said I used to help my wife in her housework. I have been able to pick the leaves of almost 30 Kg of Oregano one summer to dry them for family use for the rest of the year’.

Storing food to manage during the curfews is another problem. The Israeli authorities used to cut the electricity of the city on purpose until all the stored food kept in homes’ freezers rotted and was no longer edible, besides subjecting the lives of sick people in the operation theatres at the hospital to great danger. My late husband told me about a number of surgical operations he had to perform at Princess Alia Hospital which turned to be a challenge when the electricity was cut off, besides the fact that most drugs including anaesthetics were banned, many patients were stitched without any sedation. Those are only a few kinds of inflicted pains the people had to deal with.

Year after year of hardships taught the Palestinians to find their own solutions, the people knew that the curfews can be imposed at any time, and for no reason whatsoever, no one is allowed to look through a window or walk outside the door during such enforced siege, no shops will be opened, no cars are permitted to take a dying person to hospital. The people of Al-Khaleel had to find solutions to this hard reality. They were forced to become self-sufficient and learn how to survive, no more they rely on freezing their food, they started drying, pickling, salting, and bottling the very little they managed to cultivate in their home gardens.

The same paid Zionist to attack the article and assassinate its writer’s character says ‘Close to 100 Jews have been killed in the Hebron region by Arab terrorists, in cold blood over the years and this number does not include 67 Jews murdered in Hebron 80 years ago, during the 1929 riots and massacre’.

I dare this person who threw at us the first rounded figure using his ‘close to’ expression to come with any evidence of his claim, but still I would like to tell him that according to official statistics by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics the number of reported innocent civilians killed in Hebron by Israeli soldiers in only 8 years not 61 years, between 29 September 2000 – 31 December 2008 is 265 people, those were all innocent civilians.

This same person evidently employed by the Foreign Ministry of Israel to bleach its burned image is complaining about what he described as ‘noise’ in my occupied home town, he claims ‘the Muslim call-to-prayer begins at about 4:00 AM and is repeated five times daily, with other public interludes, until after 11:00 PM, waking up sleeping people and preventing them from sleeping, with this noise being broadcast from numerous points in the city’.

For goodness sake, if you do not like living there just go back where you came from, you are living in our home, you have no right to tell us how to behave or complain about our worshiping rituals, at least the not chosen people who still worship God unlike his own chosen people who smeared his name. So…this chosen by God man considers calling for prayers a ‘noise’, while shelling, bombing, and demolitions of homes, snipers’ bullets whizzing all the time, and hovering military aircrafts since 1967 are not? How about sleeping somewhere else where you will have the right to sleep without being disturbed by the ‘non chosen people by God’.

The same chatterbox complains as well about the Ibrahimi Mosque which no more is treated with the dignity and respect it deserves, he says ‘the largest hall, the Isaac Chamber, is off-limits to Jews so that Moslems may hold their prayers there’. I guess he forgotten to mention that the Israelis occupy more than half the Mosque and as such Muslims have no access to their own place of worship, and the 3 main entrances are fitted with metallic security doors and Muslims have access through one entrance only where they are searched and humiliated, men and women, before every prayer by God’s chosen people. But most of all he forgot willingly to mention that a fundamentalist racist Jew shot down 29 Muslims while kneeling in prayer in that same mosque and was considered a hero by the Jewish Zionist society.

Not only that, he lies through his teeth, he claims that ‘Most of those 400 settlers are children, and they aren’t gun-wielding’. Oh really, that is fascinating information, so…the fourth strongest army in the world could not handle less than 400, people the majority of which are children? I would indicate such a story-teller to the Israeli Foreign office should he want to knit a lie, to do some research… and make a lie-proof story because there are people who read and there are those who do their own research. And by the way, when 4000 years ago, the prophet Abraham came to my city as an Iraqi immigrant, he bought the cave which became later the burial place for his wife from us, we the Palestinians, the people of Al-Khaleel…surely you are not serious to believe that whoever buys a cave owns the whole country, and pass it as an inheritance to his believers wherever they are!!!

Visit Palestinian Mothers to see some films of the scenes this article talks about.

Read the magazine online at: http://www.badil.org/al-majdal/al-majdal.htm

Bethlehem, August 2009: The BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian
Residency and Refugee Rights announces the release of its Spring /
Summer 2009 issue of al-Majdal, Badil's English-language quarterly magazine.

This issue of al-Majdal draws on the research and experience of the
participants in the Israel Review Conference
(http://israelreview.bdsmovement.net), and the topics on which they
focused to provide an overview of routes, challenges, and
recommendations for "Litigating Palestine." They evaluate past attempts at taking Israel and its abettors to court, assess the role of law in
attaining justice for victims, and ­perhaps of particular interest to
non-lawyers ­the role of civil society in supporting legal battles to
attain justice for Palestinians.

A recurring theme is the consistent interference of executive and
legislative branches of government to shield Israel and its agents from
prosecution. Susan Akram and Yasmine Gado's article on civil tort claims
in U.S. courts shows how the U.S. government has consistently interfered
to ensure that courts dismiss Palestinian cases on procedural and
jurisdictional grounds. Bill Bowring looks into the situation in Europe
making it clear that Palestinians “do not have the possibility of
addressing complaints to the European Court of Human Rights and the
European Court of Justice.

Contributions in this issue also explore possibilities for legal action
that can potentially overcome ­or at least bypass  someome of these
limitations, by targeting third parties. John Reynolds describes the
case targeting the U.K. government as a third party complicit in Israeli
violations. Deborah Guterman examines the case of Quebec courts against
Canadian corporations involved in the construction of Israeli colonies
in the West Bank. Karen Pennington and Joseph Schechla revisit US courts
in an examination of whether recent precedents targeting Islamic
charities may reopen the door to challenging the Jewish National Fund
and other Zionist para-state organizations as charitable organizations
in that country.

As this issue goes to print, news is circulating about the change in
Spanish universal jurisdiction laws as a direct attempt to protect
Israeli war crime suspects from prosecution. Meanwhile, there is an
ongoing legal challenge to Heidelberg Cement for its plunder of quarries
in the occupied West Bank, and a German-E.U. challenge to European
imports from Ma'ale Adumim's Soda-Club. The U.K. has announced a partial
arms embargo on Israel, while U.K. courts have dismissed the case
challenging the U.K. government for its failure to fulfill its
obligations under international law with respect to Israel's activities
in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. These are some of the many
examples of the ways in which the courtroom has developed as a site of
struggle to attain justice for Palestinians. As such, it is important to
learn from the experiences of the past and coordinate action for the
future in order to increase chances for success.

———————————
Visit the al-Majdal homepage at http://www.badil.org/al-majdal/al-majdal.htm

or download the full PDF version of this issue of al-Majdal at:
http://www.badil.org/al-majdal/2008/autumn-winter/majdal39-40.pdf

Annual subscriptions to the printed version of the magazine are
available for Euro 25 (4 issues).

Subscribe online at
http://www.badil.org/paypal/publications.htm
or through email requests addressed to the editor at info@badil.org

Palestinians are waiting to return home

Jerusalem – Ma’an News Agency, 20 July 2009 Senior Hamas and Fatah officials stated their objections on Sunday to what they said were US suggestions that Palestinians accept a land swap with Israel and give up the right of return.

The officials said that the US is pushing for a final status agreement with Israel that does not include the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, and maintains so-called Israeli settlement blocs in the West Bank.

Senior Fatah official Hatem Abdul Qader, who deals with Jerusalem issues, said “the United States is trying to deceive the Palestinians through these proposals, which they think are creative, but [exist] only in their imaginations.” He called for the US to take concrete steps to stop Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements as an alternative.

The official said, “If the United States cannot take small steps in this direction, then how it can make these big leaps that will not be accepted by the Palestinians?”

“The main challenge for this administration is to stop the settlements and land confiscation, particularly canceling the Israeli decision to confiscate 139,00 dunums [of land along the Dead Sea shores and to stop the settlement plans in Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.”

If the US takes these “basic steps,” it could lead to “real peace,” he said. He also said that Palestinians refugees cannot give up the right to return to their homes in what is now Israel, basing their claim on UN Resolution 194. “Going around [Resolution 194] will not lead to real peace between Palestinians and Israelis.”

Meanwhile Hamas senior official Salah Bardawil said that “the issue of land swap was proposed since the Camp David negotiations … President Yasser Arafat rejected this at the time then and paid his life as a price for this rejection.”

Bardawil also said “We cannot accept anything that is proposed by the Americans regarding this issue.” He said “all Palestinian factions” believe that a resolution to the conflict should be based on an Israeli withdrawal from the land it occupied in 1967 (the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem), the creation of a Palestinian state, and the realization of the right of return.

He also stated Hamas’ “categorical rejection” of the alleged American proposals. “It’s a waste of time for the US administration headed by [Barack] Obama to begin its political maneuvers with a rejected argument.”

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=213367 via http://australiansforpalestine.com/breaking-news-hamas-fatah-us-wants-palestinians-to-abandon-right-of-return

Every year since June 1967, Israelis celebrate Jerusalem Day. To Palestinians, it is a day to commemorate, to unite, and continue the fight for a free Palestine and a free Jerusalem. To Palestinians, Al Quds is not only the holy sites, the ancient houses and the beautifully old streets and alleys, it's the land and the people. The Zionists are not ashamed of celebrating a “state” that is built on the bodies of Palestinians and on the ruins of their homes and villages. Speeches and articles on such occasions often talk of how proud they are of their army, those “courageous men” fighting for their state: a state that is watered with the blood of its innocent victims, not the blood of its “courageous” men, for there is no courage in fighting an unarmed civilian population, in killing little children and walking on the bodies of raped women and bullet-riddled elderly to reach a state. They are only courageous as long as they are heavily armed, take away from them their machine guns, tanks and apaches and not one soldier of this “courageous army” would dare stand against a small unarmed Palestinian child. In the internet there’s a countless number of videos and photos that show just how “courageous” they soldiers are: heavily armed they shoot at little school children, beat women and elderly, and take photos near the bodies of slain Palestinians as souvenirs of their “trophies”. But when their weapons are taken away from them, they start crying and are faster than the wind. Yes, the Zionists, with their ideology and history, have a number of things to “celebrate” and be “proud of”: a listing of all the “courageous” acts of the Zionists and their army and their “state”, towards Palestinians and other nations, would be too long, thus a few keywords: Ethnic cleansing, massacres, theft (land theft, theft of property, cultural theft, etc…). As with the Nakba of 1948, during the Nakba of 1967 the Israeli army, the “courageous and most moral army in the world”, carried out organized and wide-scale ethnic cleansing and destruction, particularly in East Jerusalem and the area surrounding it.

The Latroun area, well-known for its ample water resources and fertile land, is located northwest of Jerusalem and close to the Green Line. Before 1948, this area consisted of a number of picturesque villages: Latroun, Imwas, Yalu and Beit Nouba. Imwas alone had a population of 1450 inhabitants and owned some 55,000 dunums of agricultural land. During the Nakba of 1948, the Zionist terrorists tried occupying Imwas several times, but were defeated. As a result of the truce-agreements signed at the time, Imwas lost some 50,000 dunums of its land, some of which becoming a No-Man’s land. The village Latroun, ethnically cleansed of its residents who were forced to move to nearby Imwas, fell within this assigned No-Man’s land. During the 1967 war and with the withdrawal of the Jordanian army, the Israeli army was able to occupy the Latroun area. The three Latroun villages: Imwas, Yalu and Beit Nouba, were ethnically cleansed before being completely wiped off the map. Zionist propaganda claims that the 3 villages were already empty when the Israeli army arrived. But the testimonies of the residents of the 3 villages, in addition to testimonies of some of the Israeli soldiers who were present at the time, speak of a premeditated forced expulsion. Israeli photographer Yosef Hochman, who accompanied the soldiers at the time, reported that when he asked Major General Uzi Narkiss, who was Commanding General of the Central Command in 1967 and gave the orders for the destruction of the villages, why the 3 Latroun villages were destroyed, “Narkiss answered that it was revenge for what happened there in 1948.”[1] In his memories of the 1967 war, Moshe Dayan wrote about the destruction of the Latroun villages and half of Qalqilya: “[houses were destroyed] not in the battle, but as punishment … and in order to chase away the inhabitants.”[2]

On the morning of the 6th of June, Unit 4 of the Israeli army entered the 3 villages accompanied with tanks and bulldozers, yet another proof that the destruction was pre-planned. The majority of the inhabitants had stayed in their homes, because they feared a repetition of the 1948 expulsion and because they had nowhere else to go. Some had left the day before in fear of massacres similar to those committed during the Nakba. Others found refuge in nearby Imwas Monastery. In Imwas, under the orders of Yitzhak Rabin, armoured military jeeps wandered the streets and with loudspeakers ordered the villagers to leave, giving them only 3 hours to gather their possessions. Many refused to leave, so they were forced out under the threat of gun before the bulldozers started razing the houses. The Israeli soldiers told the residents to go to nearby villages such as Yalu and Beit Nouba, which were also being ethnically cleansed. As the villagers made their way out of the 3 villages in groups, the soldiers shot over their heads to hurry them and as warning not to come back. Zahda Abu Qtaish from Imwas remembers:”They told us to come with the children to the Mukhtar’s (community-leader) home. I replied that I couldn’t; I had bread baking in the oven, the closets were open, the house was not tidy, the chickens were hungry. The Jew said it was not important, that later I could come back and fix everything. I took the children. One was holding my hand, one was on my shoulder, one was holding my dress. When we got the Mukhtar’s house, the Israelis said to keep walking, to go to Yula. I pleaded that the house was open, that the bread was in the oven. We left everything, our clothes, our money, everything. When I reached Yula, my legs gave up. Everybody from Imwas was there. We were told to keep walking. We walked for three days to Ramallah (north of Jerusalem). A lot of people died on the road. My feet were bleeding. For the next two months we slept under trees. We had no tents, no blankets. We slept on dirt. My family was thirsty and hungry.”[3]

Even those who found refugee in the nearby Latroun monastery were also expelled by the Israeli army. In a testimony made by Al-Haq, Nihad Thaher from Imwas recalled: “At the dawn the following morning, 6 June 1967, some of the nuns went outside to inform the Israeli soldiers that several residents of Imwas village were present inside the monastery. The soldiers asked us all to get out. After we had done so, we were told by one of the Israeli captains to walk along the road to the city of Ramallah. He told us not to return to our houses and threatened to kill us if we did… thus, we were expelled on Thursday 6 June 1967. The Israeli soldiers were lined up on both sides of the road and would admonish anyone who asked for permission to go to their house to bring milk or food for their children. I was one of those who asked as I had my wife and three children to look after. My eldest child was five years old, the second was 3 years old and the youngest was 8 months old. My children were barefoot and half-naked. We walked on foot between the Israeli jeeps and tanks towards Beit Nouba, and then to Beit Liqya. There, the Israeli soldiers found a Jordanian soldier attempting to surrender. They started to beat him in front of everybody and then shot and beheaded him.”[4] Ahmad Abu Ghoush from Imwas recalled:”Some families went to the Latroun Ministry believing they would be safe there because it was a Christian place but they were not. My family first went to Yalu, then Beit Nouba, then onto Beit Ur before finally being forced to walk all the way to Ramallah. The soldiers emptied all the houses in the villages and forced everyone out onto the streets. The only way open was to Ramallah and they told us to go there. Other soldiers were saying `Go to Jedah, all the land before there is ours and if you stop before Jedah we will kill you!`… people took keys, small things, some were forced to go with no shoes or real clothes, they were forced out in just their nightclothes, I saw people walking barefoot. We walked all the way to Ramallah, 32 km with no food or water, it took us about nine or ten hours. Four people from the village died during this journey.”[5] ‘Aysha Hammad, who lived on the outskirts of Yalu testified to Al-Haq: “On the fourth day, I believe it was 9 June 1967, several people who had fled the village returned. In the evening, my husband came home and said: the Israelis are in the village and they are calling through loudspeakers.” The Israelis were saying “all residents of Yalu must leave to Ramallah. Those who don't will be in danger.” I got my 3 children ready, but couldn't carry anything, as I was six months pregnant. We walked to the nearby village of Beit Nouba, only one kilometer from Yalu. As I entered Beit Nouba, I saw several bulldozers guarded by Israeli soldiers razing houses in the village to the ground.”[6]  In the documentary Film “Memory of the Cactus”, directed by Hanna Musleh, Hochman comments on a photo he took at the time of an elderly couple forced to leave their home: “I took pictures of a couple trying to put everything onto a donkey and it fell off. With a soldier waiting for them to try again, and it fell off again.”[7]  The glee on the soldier’s face shows how much these criminals enjoyed what they were doing.

The first days of the occupation, bulldozers were used to flatten the houses, later with the arrival of the engineering unit of the Israeli army, explosives were used to blast the houses and wipe out the 3 villages completely. Houses, schools and mosques were destroyed. This wide-scale destruction of property, accompanied by looting, took place during and after the war. Few days later, the Israeli army announced in radios that the residents of the villages could come back. But when they did come back, not only did they find their villages destroyed, but were also shot at by Israeli soldiers, killing a number of them (it was reported that at least 5 Palestinians were killed this way). Amos Kenan, a journalist who served as a soldier during the 1967 war, recalled the story of Beit Nouba:

“We were told it was our job to search the village houses; that if we found any armed men there, they were to be taken prisoners. Any unarmed persons should be given time to pack their belongings and then told to get moving – get moving to Beit Sira, a village not far away. We were also told to take up positions around the approaches to the villages, in order to prevent those villagers who had heard the Israeli assurances over the radio that they could return to their homes in peace – from returning to their homes. The order was – shoot over their heads and tell them there is no access to the village. The homes in Beit Nouba are beautiful stone houses, some of them luxurious mansions. Each house stands in an orchid of olives, apricots and grapevines; there are also cypresses and other trees grown for their beauty and the shade they give. Each tree stands in its carefully watered bed. Between the trees, lie neatly hoed and weeded rows of vegetables. At noon the first bulldozer arrived, and ploughed under the house closest to the village edge. With one sweep of the bulldozer, the cypresses and the olive-trees were uprooted. Ten more minutes pass and the house, with its meagre furnishings and belongings, has become a mass of rubble. After three houses had been rowed down, the first convoy of refugees arrives, from the direction of Ramallah. We did not shoot into the air. We did take up positions for coverage, and those of us who spoke Arabic went up to them to give them the orders. There were old men hardly able to walk, old women mumbling to themselves, babies in their mother’s arms, small children weeping, begging for water. The convoy waved white flags. We told them to move on to Beit Sira. They said that wherever they went, they were driven away, that nowhere were they allowed to stay. They said they had been on the way for four days now – without food or water; some had perished on the way. They asked only to be allowed back into their own village; and said we would do better to kill them. Some had brought with them a goat, a sheep, a camel or a donkey. A father crunched grains of wheat in his hand to soften them so that his four children might have something to eat. On the horizon, we spotted the next line approaching. One man was carrying a 50 kg sack of flour on his back, and that was how he had walked mile after mile. More old men, more women, more babies. They flopped down exhausted at the spot where they were told to sit. Some had brought along a cow or two, or a calf – all their earthly possessions. We did not allow them to go into the village to pick up their belongings, for the order was that they must not be allowed to see their homes being destroyed. …. We asked the officers why the refugees were being sent back and forth and driven away from everywhere they went. The officers said it would do them good to walk and asked “why worry about them, they’re only Arabs”? …. More and more lines of refugees kept arriving. By this time there must have been hundreds of them. They couldn’t understand why they had been told to return, and now were not being allowed to return… The platoon commander decided to go to headquarters to find out whether there was any written order as to what should be done with them, where to send them and to try and arrange transportation for the women and children, and food supplies. He came back and said there was no written order; we were to drive them away. Like lost sheep they went on wandering along the roads. The exhausted were rescuing (In other testimonies, Kenan writes here: the weak die).[8]  Towards evening we learned that we had been told a falsehood – at Beit Sira too bulldozers had begun their work of destruction, and the refugees had not been allowed to enter. We also learned that it was not in our sector alone that areas were being “straightened out”; the same was going on in all sectors.”[9] Part of them went to Ramallah, where they slept in the bus station for a week, but the majority walked all the way to the Bridge and crossed to Amman. During this second Nakba, some 400,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes. In 1988 Narkiss talked of the transfer operation in an interview:” I placed several buses in Jerusalem and in other cities (of the west bank), written on them: “to amman – free of charge” the bus used to carry them to the (partly) destroyed Allenby bridge and then they would cross it (to Jordan).” He also mentioned the daily telephone calls of Pinhas Sapir, Finance Minister at the time: “Pinhas Sapir used to phone me twice a day, to ask: how many [Arabs] got out today? Is the number of the inhabitants of the West bank diminishing? The number [of those being transported by the buses] began with 600 and 700 persons a day, and then it began to decline until it reached a few scores, and after two or three months the [bus] operation stopped.”[10] 

Although often denied by Israel, some houses were destroyed on the heads of their inhabitants, those being mostly elderly and handicapped, who either refused to leave or didn’t have enough time to leave before the destruction began. Some died on the way to Ramallah and other places after being expelled by the Israeli army, and others were shot dead by the Israeli army as they tried to return to their villages. The Latroun monks went to Imwas days after the village had been occupied. “Father Tournay, Catholic priest who has lived in East Jerusalem since 1945 and was head of the Ecole Biblique there, said the Latroun monks “smelled bodies” rotting inside the demolished homes.”[11]  In testimonies collected by Al-Haq, a number of eye witnesses, who snuck into the 3 villages immediately after the destruction, mention bodies under the ruins of houses or decomposed bodies in the area. In Beit Nouba, at least 18 residents were found dead under the rubbles of their houses. Ahmad Isa from Beit Nouba testified: “We tried to enter the village from several locations, but we were prohibited from doing so by the soldiers. Accordingly, we were forced to take refuge in Beit Sira, which is close to our village. My father and I snuck to our house in Beit Nouba in order to bring back food, oil and mattresses. We saw horrible things along the way, namely several men and women who had been killed: Lutfi Mahmoud Hassan Abu Rahhal, Mahmoud Ali Baker, who was blind and who appeared to have been killed as a result of his house being demolished while he was inside it … the bodies of another 3 men who were also dead had been thrown amongst the trees: Al Abed Ayyad, Isa Muhammad and Abdallah Zuhdi.”[12] Dr. Ismail Zayid from Beit Nouba recalled:” In the course of the Israel army’s occupation and destruction of my village of Beit Nouba in June 1967, 18 people died under the rubble of their demolished homes because they were too old or disabled to get out of their houses in time, before the Israeli explosives were effected to destroy the houses…. One of those killed was Mohammad Ali Bakr, an uncle of my mother. He was old and infirm, and was buried alive under the rubble of his home in Beit Nouba, not far from ours. My mother also told me that when the Israeli army came to blow up our house, they told my uncle Hussain Zayid, an elderly and arthritic man whose ability to move was severely limited, that they would first blow up the western part of our house, which was in a walled quadrangle. They said they would then move to destroy the eastern part of the house, and should he still be there, he would not be given the opportunity to leave.”[13]  In Imwas, at least 10 residents who were not able to leave their homes because they were either elderly or handicapped, are till today unaccounted for, suspected to have been killed inside their houses when the Israeli army destroyed these houses. A further 5 at least died on the way to Ramallah or were killed by landmines. Ahmad Abu Ghoush remembered:” There were ten elders in the village including one disabled man. They didn’t leave. We know they didn’t leave because they couldn’t, but nobody ever saw any of them again after that night. One soldier has written a testimony which said he ´saw another telling one of these old men to leave his house, but the man refused saying `I can't walk and I won't leave! You can kill me but I will not leave!`”[14] Dr. Musa Abu Ghosh from Imwas remembered: “In spite of all the difficulties, some of the younger people managed to infiltrate back to their homes to pick up some belongings, and when they dug into the rubble, some found bodies. A relative of mine was found this way – Hasan Shukri, the son of my cousin. He was 19, an invalid, paralyzed from polio. They found his body underneath his house.”[15] Ali Salma from Yalu said: “After 20 days (towards the end of June), I, together with another resident of my village, went to Yalu through the valleys, mountains and fields. As we reached the Beit Nouba fields, I saw 4 corpses laid out beside each other. They were: Ibrahim Shuebi, Al Abed Tayeh, Zuheir Zuhdi and Isa Abu Isa. All of them were from Yalu. I didn't examine the corpses because they were swollen. We entered the village at around midnight. We first went to the demolished home of Abu Wasim where we saw the body of Isa Ziyada and more demolished houses. We were both very scared. We both took some stuff from the rubble of his house and left to go back towards Kharbatha.”[16]

When the Israeli soldiers were done with their “duty”, more than 10,000 people had been forcibly expelled, no less than 39 residents were reported killed or are till today unaccounted for. In his article “Outrage at Emwas”, John Goddard writes: “I collected 39 names of people said to have been killed in the villages, 17 from Imwas, 11 from Beit Nouba, and 11 from Yalo.”[17]  Some 1464 houses were destroyed: 375 in Imwas houses, 539 in Yalu and 550 in Beit Nouba. A couple of months later, the villagers were allowed back to the Latroun, but only to collect their harvest. “my brother drove our truck. We saw everything destroyed, just the mosque was still standing. People were crying and weeping, some were just standing, looking, speechless … some had lost all their land in 1948 but had tried to rebuild their lives and now it had all happened again. People needed anything so took whatever they could find and put in into trucks. Some people found a sheep or a goat but the houses were totally destroyed. We found our `cawasheen` (a big box containing important documents such as deeds to property and land) but couldn’t get any clothes or anything else. We knew there was nothing left but we wanted to see what had happened to our village …”[18] The British reporter Michael Adams visited Imwas in 1968, wrote: “When my companion and I came to Beit Nouba 6 months after Kenan, much had changed. Most significantly, the rubble had disappeared. It had taken the Israelis 6 months to clear it, in great secrecy; while relays of volunteers were engaged in this macabre task, the authorities closed the approach road to Latroun…. Without a guide, I should probably have driven straight through without realising that there had been villages here at all. The demolition squads had been thorough. But when we stopped the car and got out to look, there were plenty of tell-tale signs; it isn’t easy, even in 6 months, to wipe out a thousand years of history without leaving a trace. There were a few pieces of masonry, a broken tile, a twisted rod of steel from some concrete extension and – a sure sign that people had once lived here – the cactus hedges, which the Palestinians use to protect their gardens and orchards against marauders, were starting to grow back. They are very hard to eradicate.”[19] 1970, the illegal settlement “Mevo Horon” was built on the lands of Beit Nouba. Three years later, the Jewish National Fund of Canada funded the establishment of a recreational park, the Canada Park, on the ruins of Imwas and Yalu. Zahda Abu Qtaish from Imwas remarked when she first visited the Canada Park: “I couldn't believe it …My home was down to the ground. They had turned the village into a park. They called it Canada Park. I cried and cried.”[20] Ahmad Abu Ghoush from Imwas talked of his visit to the park: “When returning to the park I had mixed feelings. It’s very hard, standing on the ruins of where you used to live while seeing people laughing, eating and enjoying themselves.”[21]

The ethnic cleansing of the 3 Latroun villages is only one example of the on-going ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the Judization of Jerusalem. In 1948, Israel occupied 85% of Jerusalem (the west part), 4 % were declared No-Man’s land, and the remaining 11% (including with the Old City) fell under Jordanian rule. Up to 80,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes in West Jerusalem and 40 surrounding villages. The villages were wiped off the face of the earth and the homes, lands and property confiscated. In June 1967, during and after the war,  Palestinians were expelled from East Jerusalem and the surrounding villages, like the Latroun villages. The war was officially over on the 10th of June, 1967 and on the night of 10/11th of June, Israel began with its first measures to Judize East Jerusalem: the ethnic cleansing and destruction of the Magharbeh Quarter and the Al-Sharaf neighbourhood of the Old City. Given only 3 hours notice, the residents of the Magharbeh Quarter were ordered to pack their belongings and leave. The Quarter was then destroyed to make place for a plaza in front of the Western Wall. Palestinians living in Al-Sharaf neighbourhood were also expelled to enlarge the Jewish Quarter. Among others, Ben-Gurion, Dayan, Kollek and Lahat were responsible for the destruction of these Palestinian neighbourhoods. The eviction and destruction was carried out rapidly to avoid international attention and criticism. The residents were removed by force from their houses by Israeli soldiers. The bulldozers were ready, and the orders were to finish the eviction and destruction that very same night. Al Sharaf neighbourhood and the Magharbeh Quarter were emptied of their residents: over 6000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and an estimated 135 houses were destroyed in the Old City. The boundaries of Jerusalem were redrawn by central command chief at the time, Rahavan Ze’evi. “The line he drew “took in not only the 5 km² of Arab east Jerusalem – but also 65 km² of surrounding open country and villages, most of which never had any municipal link to Jerusalem. Overnight they became part of Israel’s eternal and indivisible capital.”[21] In 1980, East Jerusalem was annexed to Israel.

Major General Narkiss, who was Commanding General of the Central Command in 1967 and had approved the destruction of the Magharbeh Quarter, recalled before his death in 1997 that a few hours after the capture of East Jerusalem, he was urged by Rabbi Goren to blow up the Aqsa mosque. Although Rabbi Goren’s wish was not fulfilled, it was the first of many future attempts by fanatic Jews and the Israeli government to destroy the Aqsa, whether directly by attempts to burn it or indirectly by building tunnels underneath it. Excavations beneath the Aqsa mosque and the area surrounding it continue, and the several tunnels dug beneath it weaken its foundations. At the same time, much needed renovations to the Aqsa and its surroundings are not permitted. Today, there is almost no Palestinian neighbourhood in Jerusalem that is not threatened with destruction, demolition and ethnic cleansing. Despite international criticism, Israel goes on in its Judization of Jerusalem. While illegal Jewish settlers from all around the world are allowed to buy property in Jerusalem and settle in it, and illegal settlements are rapidly expanding with ring after ring of settlements suffocating the city and the surrounding Palestinian villages and towns, Palestinian Jerusalemites are losing their homes and their lands and their birth right in their city Jerusalem. While Israel continues its brutal military occupation and the destruction of Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Palestinians have two “prime ministers” and two sets of “cabinets” and a “legislative council” whose building is off-limits to Palestinians and where the “representatives of this so-called authority” are either locked up in Israeli jails, in the Gaza open-air prison or the West Bank ghettos or need Israeli permits to move between the Zones A, B or C, D, E and F and all the rest. Maybe while they fight over who gets to be the next president, they might want to stop for a minute and remember that the state they are fighting to rule is STILL under military occupation and that “their” people are either being massacred or expelled by this brutal occupation.

Today, the original inhabitants of the Latrun villages and their descendants are scattered around the world, some live in the Ramallah area, others in Jordan.  Adams found it difficult to convince editors to publish articles about the Latroun villages. “The Israeli government and whoever in the army command gave the order to destroy the villages, must have thought that it was possible to rearrange both history and geography in this way: that if they carted away the rubble and raked over the ground and planted seedlings where the homes of 9000 people had been, all of which they did, they would be able to get away with it. Why? Because of the Holocaust, and because Western newspaper editors don’t like to be called anti-Semitic.”[23] When Israel offered money to the inhabitants of the Latroun as compensation for their stolen lands and destroyed houses, they refused. Ahmad Abu Ghoush from Imwas remembers: “My father was on the committee that negotiated with Israel. They were offering money as compensation for our land and homes. My father told them `we will not accept all the money in the world for one dunum of Imwas, and we will not accept one dunum in heaven for one dunum in Imwas!`. The Israeli’s told him that he had three choices `…one, you can go the same way as Abdul Hameed (an exiled Palestinian activist for the Right of Return); two – prison; three – put something sweet in your mouth and keep quiet!”[24] For Zahda Abu Qtaish and all those expelled from the Latroun, things are clear: “I see everything; I remember everything; I will never forget.”[25]

Names of Latroun inhabitants killed under the rubble of their houses destroyed by the Israeli army, or on the road when they were expelled by the Israeli army:[26]

Hajar Khalil

Zaynab Hasan Khalil

Yamna Abu Rayalah

Fatmah Al Qbeibah

Hadia Al Qbeibah

Riyadh ElSkeikh

Hasan Nimer Abu Khalil

Hasan Shukri Abu Ghosh

Amnah Al Sheikh Hussain

Ayshah Salamah

Ahmad Hassan Al Saed

Ali Ismael Abdullah

Khaleel Jazar

Muhammad Abu Illas

Zaynab Ahmad Musa

Isa Ziyada

Hussein Hurani

Ali Alarab

Naimeh Hammad

Halimeh Hamadallah

Sabha Alarab

Fadda Ziyad

Sabha Mallah

Mahmoud Khalil

Ibrahim Shueibi

Suheil Musa

Abdel Rahim Tayeh

Isa Ibrahim

Abdel Karim Nimer

Lutfi Mahmoud

Hassan Abu Rahhal

Mahmoud Ali Baker

Al Abed Ayyad

Isa Muhammad

Abdallah Zuhdi

Bakr Hasan Shukri

Zuheir Zuhdi

Isa Abu Isa

The one year old daughter of Ahmad Atiyah

Sources:

www.emwas.org

www.palestineremembered.com

www.alhaq.org

www.nakbainhebrew.org

www.cactus48.com

http://izayid.tripod.com

www.canpalnet-ottawa.org

http://yayacanada.blogspot.com/2009/01/wiped-off-map.html

www.palestinemonitor.org

www.youtube.com

www.palestine-encyclopedia.com

http://prrn.mcgill.ca

http://www.ynbu3.com/vb/showthread.php?t=2103

Forty-four testimonies of uprooted Palestinians, summarize the crime of raping a homeland and expose the truth with clarity and sincerity that many tried to efface or hide, sometimes due to ignorance or avoiding it, and mostly with design and dubiousness.

Emigrants… displaced… uprooted?  This is the ordinary and simple question that may not stop us and possibly may make ourselves ask some questions about it, on the pretence that the result is one: An occupied homeland and a dislodged people. But there is a great difference between uprooting and emigration, and there is a purpose or purposes to establish and engrave this understanding in people’s minds.

This could be the importance of this book, which lays light not only on the Palestinian memory, but opens the file of the Nakbah, details, documented events and keeps asking the question, "who is responsible for the loss of Palestine? The British mandate, the Belfour declaration, the Sykes Picot agreement, Zionist gangs and their savage terrorism and massacres, or the weak unstable Arab regimes… or is all these together?"

Questions that put us back at square one, in relation to happenings and  events, placing us in an open confrontation with our memories, sentiments, givens and culture about Palestine that the book, “Testimonies of Uprooted Palestinians” published by Baheth Center for Studies, in which its writer the political striver and researcher, Adib S Kawar, wants to  focus on various different personalities with different characteristics, standards of education, professions who came from most occupied Palestinian cities and villages. The book speaks with sincerity and righteousness about their roots that go deep in Palestinian soil that were not eradicated along with their uprooting from it; so its veins remained flooded and boiling with Palestinian Arab blood. And the image of which remained alive in their memory with great yearning for return. Facts were recreated as if they are being lived, documented, alive with details, developments and witnesses to uncover the falsity of Zionist claims and defy them fully. The war of annihilation that Zionism practiced even before the Palestinian Nakbah is still an imprint and testimonial that the book refers to is in many patterns and examples, which unmask the enemy’s racism as expressed by many Zionist researchers and historians such as Benny Morris, the Beer Shiva University (Ben Gurion University) professor and "new historian" who uncovered in his interview in Haaretz daily http://www.google.com.lb/url?  “Survival of the Fittest” the massacres that Zionist invaders committed against the indigenous Arab population with the purpose of uprooting what he called “The Barbarians”, claiming that there is no moral problem in slaughtering Palestinians, and thus he blames Ben Gurion for his incompletion of the uprooting process, and he looks forward for the opportunity for Zionists to complete the long awaited aim to do so.

Kawar refers in his book to the role of the Zionized American press in adopting Zionist claims and refers to the “Source”, a novel by James Michener that connects the Palestinian “emigration” with secret orders by Arab field officers, which aims at the evacuation of Palestinian Arab civilians, and orders them to create the most possible chaos, confusion and infringement of public civil services as mentioned in page 961 of this Zionist novel, “Assure them that Arab Armies shall take control of all Palestine and tell them 'you shall be able to return to it and take possession of Jewish properties'." Kawar also referred to the operations of Judification of Palestine, and building of Zionist only colonies (settlements), which are, were and sill active to change the geographical, cultural and constructional features of Palestine to prove the great Zionist lie that “Palestine is a land without a people for a people without a land” and evidencing the legend of the historical and divine promise…

Forty-four testimonies of uprooted men and women from all over Palestine that bear indications, occurrences and information that uncovered many secrets and facts that some people were not aware of or Zionism tried to hide from the public’s attention which also have no longer been discussed in the political scene today. Common factors among strivers, thinkers and ordinary citizens who were brought together by a common cause and one cause of worry, also could be the common dream of returning to the Palestinian homeland where their roots still remain and which is their source of identity: George Habash, Shafik Al-Hout, Ahmad Al-Yamani “Abu Maher”, Salah Salah, Abdul Latif Kanafani, Ibrahim Quombarji, Khalil Al-Wazir “Abu Jihad” and many others who put light on live memories that never tires from embracing the homeland and moving around with it, whether in schools, homes, work along with the youthful friendships and their playgrounds. Some of those passed away have left behind documents and testimony in more than one sort or document or another. Some are still alive, breathing the homeland as a dream that should one day materialize as a living fact. All suffered from exile, but were never fatigued with waiting for their first step on the long road on the way of return to their dear and beloved stolen homeland.

A documented book in more than four hundred pages, the introduction of which was written by thinker, striver Dr. Anis Sayegh with a testimony of his own that sighs with the pulse of Palestine’s lover breathing with a long deep and rich experience. What could be the most outstanding in Dr. Sayegh’s introduction is the Biblical concept of the “Exodus” that spread throughout more than thirty centuries coupling this expression of Jewish history from one side and Biblical myths on the other, considering this so-called fallacious “Exodus” in its foundations, sources, meaning stands ashamed in front another factual, actual and felt exodus in millions of proofs, which is the exodus of three quarters of a million Palestinian Arabs forcefully and savagely uprooted by the force of arms and Zionist terror. Dr. Sayegh reflects the sufferings of their writers, artists men of letters with what was called then the literature of uprooting. He didn’t forget while throwing light on the importance of these testimonies to write his own distinctive testimony in which he related his family’s life in Tiberius (Tabariya) and a lot about life in his beloved town and his birthplace to lay light with his pen that glows with yearning for a childhood, the arteries of which roar with the love of Palestine.

Along with the introduction we have a prologue by the author, the forty-four testimonies that chronicle for the most outstanding personalities of the period and information… What did Adib Kawar want to say in his book, and why now, after over sixty years from the uprooting?

The writer, critic and striver Adib Kawar said: “Palestinian’s memory should always be alert, alive, ardent and continue to live and take roots in their children and grandchildren’s memory and never tire from remembering the stolen homeland.”

But who is Adib Kawar? He also briefly replies that he is a Palestinian from Nazareth, but he lived since 1938 in Lebanon where he studied public administration and political science in the American University of Beirut and graduated in 1954, and among his classmates were the present Lebanese minister of foreign affairs, Fawzi Saloukh and Ambassador Khalil Makawi. Kawar said he was among the first generation of the founders of the Arab Nationalist Movement in the early fifties of the twentieth century.

How was his starting with nationalist striving? He replied: "The start was while studying in the American University of Beirut, which was at the time the center of political and national activism, and it was the birthplace of the Arab Nationalist Movement with Dr. George Habash, Dr. Wadie Haddad, both from Palestine, Dr. Ahamad Al-Khatib from Kuwait where he became a parliament member and headed the biggest block deputies in it, Saleh Shibel and many others from various Arab countries: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and others." Kawar’s start was in Al-3oroba Organization in the preparatory Section of the International Collage which joined forces with the Arab Nationalist Movement pioneers in the university, then the movement had a widespread development in the Arab homeland from the Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean. Kawar said the movement stirred the Arab street and lead to an Arab awakening. Among it activities were leading big demonstrations against the Baghdad pact organized by the colonialist powers, the Palestinian cause and anti-imperialism in Algeria, Morocco etc. Student demonstrations in Lebanon were joined by activists from certain organizations and university and school students in Lebanon. This demonstration and others organized in various Arab nationalist occasions lead by the movement were confronted by police during which a martyr fell in addition to some injured demonstrators by police fire. He was arrested along with other demonstrators and some students were expelled from the university who were later admitted to Egyptian universities by order of the late President Gamal Abdul Nasser, but Kawar was lucky enough to be allowed to finish his graduation year.

In the American University the Al-Orwah Al-Wothqa Society established more than two decades earlier as a cultural and literary society to develop into an Arab Nationalist center of activities through which student and other forces were activated to stir the Arab street. Its membership covered besides members the movement members of other parties active at the time such as the Communist Party and the Syrian Nationalist Social Party, but it was always controlled by the A. N. M. A year later the university’s administration closed Al-Orwah forever in an attempt to cripple political and nationalist activism. During his membership in this society he organized the first and second Arab book fair.

The activities of Al-Orwah were continued by the Arab Cultural Club as a center of political and Arab national activism outside the university’s campus. The club continued organizing the book fair, the 53rd exhibition of which shall be organized during the current year, which became one of  the largest of its sort in the Arab homeland. Kawar was editor in chief of the club's quarterly magazine “Arab Culture.”

Kawar is the author of a number of books:

1-  “Jewish Women in Occupied Palestine” 1968 published by The Palestine Research Center (Arabic)

2-  “Zionist Propaganda in American Fiction” Published by Baheth Center for Research (Arabic) in two editions 2004 and 2005 and in English available on CD.

3-  “Testimonies of Uprooted Palestinians” 2007 Published by Baheth Center for Research (Arabic)

4-  “Palestinian Education under the Two Occupations” (Arabic) Ready for printing

  At last why are these testimonies, and at this time in particular? Kawar says in principle they are to refute the idea, the Zionist movement and its state, “Israel” to try to convince the world that Palestinians deserted their homes and homeland voluntarily, or by orders from their leaderships or both.

In fact they were uprooted though ethnic cleansing operations, terrorist massacres/annihilation and raping and murdering Palestinian girls by members of Zionist gangs. We believe that the best proof for such war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinian Arabs is the writings of the  racist Zionist new historian, Benny Morris, who blamed Ben Gurion for not completing once and for all his ethnic cleansing crimes, refer to Morris’ interview with Haaretz ARI SHAVIT – SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST? AN INTERVIEW WITH BENNY ….ere are also documented testimonies and proofs that the Jewish Legion in the British Army counting about sixty two thousand men and women well trained and some had actual combat experience during WW II in North Africa and Europe, most of who were sent to Europe to fight the Fascists and the Nazis took the advantage of their presence in Europe to collect European Jews, train them wherever they were and send to Palestine instead of fighting the Axis forces. On the other hand Arab forces that took part in defending Palestinian Arabs against the Zionist invasion forces in Palestine did not exceed twenty two thousand fighters. Including Arab Armies, Al-Inqaz army and Palestinian resistance men-  http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?lg=en&reference=24197

It is very important to note that the Governments of Egypt, Jordan and Iraq were tied by treaties with Great Britain that gave the latter the “right” to control the political and military decision of these three countries. It is also important to note that Great Britain’s aim during its mandate on Palestine was the application of the Balfour Declaration, and to facilitate the establishment of a Zionist state in Palestine, that is why it insisted on during is negotiation with France on the Sykes Picot agreement to have Palestine as its share while dividing their spoils of the Arab territories of the old Ottoman Empire. This is why it was encouraging military training and arming Jews while Arabs were denied this right. This went to the extent if any Palestinian Arab was caught even with an empty bullet was sentenced to life imprisonment if not hanging, actually tens of them were hanged. Many Palestinian Arab leaders were exiled to remote British colonies such as the seychelle islands in the Indian Ocean.

    As to how in Adib Kawar’s opinion the liberation of Palestine shall be fulfilled sixty one years after the Nakbah, he confirms that today it shall be achieved earlier than yesterday, but now it shall now not be by Arab Armies, it shall be by popular resistance. The example of the withdrawal of Zionist occupation forces from Gaza unilaterally was the result of years of armed resistance and struggle and not willingly by the Zionist entity, also the failure of the Zionist forces to crush Palestinian resistance during the 23 days long Zionist war on Gaza is also a good example. And the example of Lebanese resistance forces obliging the Zionist occupation of South Lebanon to unilaterally withdraw from occupied South Lebanon in the year 2000 as well as the failure of the Zionist assault on Lebanon July/August 2006 to crush the Lebanese resistance is a big proof of that. He said it is the first time in the history in the Arab Zionist struggle an Arab victory against the Zionist entity achieved.

Adib Kawar is now dedicating all his time and efforts after retiring in research, writing and translating and coordinating with hundreds of Arab and foreign activist for the Palestinian cause mainly through internet and other means of communication, he assures people that resistance is not terrorism, and that the Zionist entity is the biggest terrorist organization in the world and throughout history, which could only be defeated with popular resistance. He says that he shall continue his struggle by use of the pen to uncover the truth about our Arab causes, and confirm Palestinian Arab rights in their homeland.

:
“فلسطين لن تُحرَّر إلا بالمقاومة”

بيروت – سلوى التميمي:
أربع وأربعون شهادة، تختزل جريمة اغتصاب وطن وتطرح بصدق جارح حقيقة يحاول الكثيرون طمسها أو الهروب منها . أحياناً بجهل، وغالباً بتعمد غير بريء ومشبوه .

مهاجرون . . نازحون أم مقتلعون؟ هذا السؤال العادي والبسيط قد لا يستوقفنا وقد لا نطرحه على أنفسنا باعتبار أن النتيجة واحدة: وطن محتل وشعب مشرد . لكن ثمة فرق شاسع ما بين الاقتلاع والهجرة، وثمة هدف أو أهداف لتكريس هذا المفهوم وزرعه في الأذهان .

من هنا ربما تأتي أهمية هذا الكتاب الذي لا يضيء فقط على الذاكرة الفلسطينية بقدر ما يفتح ملف النكبة، تفاصيل وأحداثاً موثقة ويعيد طرح السؤال من جديد: من المسؤول عن ضياع فلسطين؟ الانتداب البريطاني ووعد بلفور أم العصابات الصهيونية وإرهابها الوحشي ومجازرها أم هو واقع الأنظمة العربية المفكك والهزيل أم هو كل هذا معاً؟

أسئلة تعيد خلط الأوراق والوقائع والأحداث وتضعنا في مواجهة عارية ومكشوفة مع مخزون ذاكرتنا ووجداننا وثقافتنا حول فلسطين قضية وشعباً يطرحها كتاب “شهادات لمقتلعين فلسطينيين” الصادر عن باحث للدراسات والذي تعمّد معدّه المناضل السياسي والكاتب د . أديب قعوار أن يسلّط الضوء على وجوه متعددة وشخصيات متباينة تغطي مساحة فلسطين المحتلة مدناً وقرى . وتتحدث بحميمية وصدق عن جذورها الضاربة في عمق تراب الوطن والتي لم تُستأصل باستئصالها منه . فبقي الدم في عروقها فلسطينياً حتى النخاع وبقيت الصورة في ذاكرتها حيّة حتى اللهفة . فجاءت الحقائق كأنها وليدة اللحظة موثقة ونابضة بالتفاصيل والوقائع والشهود لتكشف عن زيف ادعاءات العدو وتنسفها من جذورها . ولعلّ حرب الابادة التي انتهجها منذ ما قبل النكبة ولا يزال هي من السمات والشواهد التي يؤشر إليها الكتاب حيث يورد الكثير من النماذج التي تفضح عنصرية العدو وعلى لسان عدد من الباحثين الصهاينة من أمثال المؤرخ بني موريس الأستاذ في جامعة “بئر السبع” المعروفة بجامعة بن غوريون، والذي كشف في مقابلة معه له مع جريدة “هآرتس” معنونة "البقاء للأفضل" المجازر التي ارتكبت بحق الفلسطينيين من أجل استئصال من أسماهم البرابرة، مفصحاً عن ان لا مشكلة اخلاقية في ذبح الفلسطينيين وبالتالي فهو يعتب على بن غوريون لأنه لم يكمآنذاك عملية الاستئصال هذه ويأمل ان تحين الفرصة للصهاينة ليتسلموا المهمة يوماً!

ويتطرق قعوار في كتابه الى دور الاعلام الأمريكي المتصهين في تبني وتكريس الادعاءات الصهيونية مشيراً الى رواية “الينبوع” للكاتب الأمريكي جيمس ميشيز التي تربط هجرة الفلسطينيين بأوامر سرية الى ضباط الميدان العربي تقضي بإجلاء جميع المدنيين كما تأمرهم بخلق أقصى حدّ من التشويش والارباك والاخلال بالخدمات العامة كما جاء في صفحة 961 من الرواية “أكدوا لهم أن الجيوش العربية ستستولي على كل فلسطين وسيكون بإمكانهم العودة اليهاوحتى الاستيلاء على أملاك اليهود ” . كذلك يتطرق قعوار الى عمليات التهويد وبناء المستوطنات التي كانت ولا تزال تنشط في تغيير معالم الوطن تحقيقاً للكذبة الكبيرة بأن فلسطين أرض بلا شعب لشعب بلا أرض أو إثباتاً لأسطورة الحق التاريخي والوعد الإلهي .

أربع وأربعون شهادة لمقتلعين من مختلف أرجاء فلسطين حملت دلالات ومعطيات ووقائع كشفت الكثير من الأسرار والحقائق التي غابت أو غُيّبت ولم تعد تتصدر المشهد السياسي اليوم . قواسم مشتركة لمناضلين ومفكرين ومواطنين عاديين جمعتهم قضية واحدة وهمّ واحد، وربما هو حلم واحد العودة الى أرض الوطن حيث المنبت والجذور والهوية . جورج حبش، شفيق الحوت، أحمد اليماني “أبو ماهر”، صلاح صلاح، عبد اللطيف كنفاني، ابراهيم قمبرجي، خليل الوزير “أبو جهاد” وغيرهم أضاؤوا على ذاكرة لم تتعب من احتضانها للوطن والترحال به ومعه عبر البيت والمدرسة وأصدقاء الطفولة ومرتع الصبا والشباب . بعضهم رحل تاركاً شهادته موثقة في أكثر من مطبوعة . والبعض لا يزال يتنفس الوطن حلماً لا بد أن يصبح حقيقة . وآخرون أتعبتهم المنافي ولم يتعبهم انتظارهم الطويل للعودة الى الوطن .

كتاب موثّق في أكثر من أربعمائة صفحة قدم له المفكر والمناضل د . أنيس صايغ في شهادة موقّعة بنبض العاشق لفلسطين وبصدق الباحث وعمق تجربته . ولعل أبرز ما تطرقت اليه مقدمته مفهوم “الخروج” التوراتي والذي شاع على امتداد أكثر من ثلاثين قرناً وتوأمة هذا التعبير للتاريخ اليهودي من جهة ولأساطير التوراة من جهة أخرى، معتبراً ان هذا الخروج الوهمي في أساساته وأصوله ومدلولاته ومزاعمه يقف ذليلاً أمام خروج آخر حقيقي وواقعي وملموس في ملايين الأدلة والتجسيدات وهو خروج ثلاثة أرباع المليون فلسطيني من ديارهم خروجاً قسرياً ووحشياً وارهابياً . ويعكس د . صايغ معاناة هذا الشعب في ابداعات كتّابه وفنانيه وأدبائه وما سمي آنذاك أدب الاقتلاع . ولا ينسى وهو يضيء على أهمية هذه الشهادات ان تكون له شهادته الخاصة والمتميزة والتي استحضر من خلالها اسرته في طبريا والكثير من ملامح الحياة في مدينته الحبيبة ومسقط رأسه طبريا ليضيء قلمه ويتوهج حنيناً لطفولة تضج عروقها بعشق فلسطين .

مؤسس في حركة القوميين العرب

ومن المقدمة الى الشهادات الى مجموعة من الوثائق التي تؤرخ لأبرز أصوات تلك المرحلة ومعطياتها . . ماذا أراد أديب قعوار أن يقول في هذا الكتاب ولماذا اليوم وبعد ستين سنة على الاقتلاع؟

يقول الكاتب والناقد والمناضل أديب قعوار “لا بدّ للفلسطيني أن تبقى ذاكرته حيّة حاضرة ومتقدة وأن تعيش وتترسخ في ذاكرة أبنائه وأحفاده وألا يتعب من استحضار الوطن” .

ولكن من هو أديب قعوار؟ أيضاً يجيب وباختصار أنه فلسطيني من الناصرة لكنه عاش منذ سنة 1938 في لبنان حيث درس العلوم السياسية والادارة العامة في الجامعة الأمريكية سنة 1954 ويذكر من زملاء الدراسة د . فوزي صلوخ والسفير خليل مكاوي . وقعوار كما يقول من مؤسسي أو من الرعيل الأول لحركة القوميين العرب ومنذ أوائل الخمسينات .

كيف كانت بدايته مع النضال؟ يقول: الانطلاقة كانت من الجامعة الأمريكية في بيروت حيث كانت آنذاك تشكل مركزاً قومياً سياسياً ومنها انطلقت حركة القوميين العرب مع د . جورج حبش ووديع حداد ود . أحمد الخطيب الذي أصبح رئيس كتلة نيابية في مجلس النواب الكويتي وأيضاً صالح شبل وجميعهم من طلبة الجامعة وقد شكلوا بداية “منظمة العروبة” والتي اصبحت لاحقاً حركة القوميين العرب وقد انتشرت في العالم العربي من المحيط الى الخليج . ويضيء قعوار على بعض أنشطة الحركة في 1954 حيث حرّكت الشارع العربي وشاركت في أضخم التظاهرات ضد حلف بغداد . وقد تعرضت تظاهرة الطلبة في لبنان الى القمع واطلاق النار فسقط فيها شهيد كما تمّ اعتقاله وسجنه لليلة واحدة الى جانب اعتقال وسجن العديدين وطرد بعضهم خارج لبنان

. مؤلفات الكاتب: شكل الدولة العربية لعتيدة – 1955 / المرأة اليهودية في فلسطين المحتلة 1968 /

الدععاية الصهيونية في الرواية الأمريكية (عربي وانجليزي) طبعتين 2004 و 2005 /

شهادات لمقتلعين فلسطينيين 2007 / التعليم الفلسطيني تحت الاحتلالين (جاهز للطبع)

وفي الجامعة الأمريكية في بيروت أيضاً تأسست “جمعية العروة الوثقى” باعتبارها جمعية ثقافية لتتطور لاحقاً الى مركز نشاط قومي عربي كانت الحركة تدير من خلالها أنشطتها كالانتخابات النقابية والطلابية وتحريك الشارع وكانت تضم أبرز الأحزاب آنذاك كالشيوعيين والحزب القومي السوري لكن حركة القوميين العرب كانت تشكل مركز الثقل فيها . وبعد تظاهرة سنة 1954 تم طرد عدد من الطلبة ولأنه كان في سنة التخرج فقد اكتفي بتوجيه انذار له .

يقول قعوار “انتميت الى النادي الثقافي العربي والذي انبثق من جمعية العروة الوثقى باعتبارها جمعية ثقافية لتتحول لاحقاً الى مركز لنشاط القوميين العرب وبعد توقيفها أخذ مكانها “النادي الثقافي العربي” والذي يستمر نشاطه حتى اليوم وكنت آنذاك رئيس تحرير مجلة النادي واسمها مجلة “الثقافة العربية” والتي كانت تصدر أعداداً فصلية متخصصة بمواضيع فكرية عربية تتناول في كل عدد منها دولة عربية كفلسطين أو الجزائر وقد أقمنا أول معرض للكتاب العربي أثناء دراستنا الجامعية وفي مركز العروة الوثقى ليتابع النادي الثقافي هذا النشاط لاحقاً ويستمر فيه” .

ويتطرق قعوار الى مرحلة النضال العربي والى ما تعرضت له حركة القوميين العرب من انشقاقات نجم عنها ولادة الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين . وليتابع نضاله لاحقاً عبر الكتابة والأبحاث وفي مجلات وصحف متعددة كمجلات "الثقافة العربية:، المقاصد"، "الآداب"، "تاريخ العرب والعالم" وغيرها وفي بعض الصحف العربية .

ماذا عن مؤلفاته الأخرى؟ ربما من أهمها وكما يقول كتابه عن المرأة اليهودية في فلسطين المحتلة والذي صدر سنة 1968 . وفي سنة 2004 أعدّ لمركز باحث للدراسات ثلاثة كتب منها الدعاية الصهيونية في الرواية الأمريكية وباللغة الانجليزية الذي ترجمه لاحقاً للعربية كذلك "شهادات لمقتلعين فلسطينيين" وهناك دراسة عن "شكل الدولة العربية العتيدة" أصدره سنة 1955 مؤتمر الخريجين العرب في القدس وهو بصدد الانتهاء من كتاب “التعليم الفلسطيني تحت الاحتلالي”.

وأخيراً لماذا هذه الشهادات وفي هذا التوقيت بالذات؟ يقول قعوار انها في الأساس لدحض الفكرة الأساسية التي روجتها الحكومة الصهيونية وحاولت من خلالها اقناع العالم بأن الفلسطينيين تركوا أرضهم اختيارياً أو بأوامر من القيادات العربية .

فالحقيقة انهم اقتلعوا اقتلاعاً وعبر عمليات تصفية عنصرية ومجازر ارهابية واغتصاب للفتيات وليس أدلّ على هذه الجرائم وعمليات الإبادة من شهادة بني موريس الذي يلوم بن غوريون فيها لأنه لم يكمل عملية تصفية الشعب الفلسطيني . كما ان ثمة شهادات موثقة تؤكد ان الفيلق اليهودي الذي كان ملحقاً بالجيش البريطاني وعدده 62 ألف امرأة ورجل مدربين تدريباً عسكرياً للقتال في فلسطين وليس للمشاركة في الحرب العالمية الثانية وكانت مهمتهم الأساسية جمع اليهود وتدريبهم على القتال حيثما وجدوا وليس القتال ضد الجيش الألماني . وفي المقابل لم يكن عدد عناصر الجيوش العربية وجيش الانقاذ والمقاومة ليتجاوز 22 ألف نسمة آنذاك الى جانب أن حكومات مصر والأردن والعراق كانت مرتبطة مع بريطانيا بمعاهدات تخوّلها السيطرة على القرار العربي والعسكري علماً بأن همّ بريطانيا خلال الانتداب كان تطبيق وعد بلفور وتسهيل اقامة الكيان الصهيوني على أرض فلسطين، لهذا كان اصرارها خلال تطبيق معاهدة سايكس بيكو أن تكون فلسطين ضمن حصتها ولهذا كانت تشجع على تسليح وتدريب اليهود في الوقت الذي تحظر على عرب فلسطين حمل السلاح ومن كانت تجد معه “فشكه فارغة” كان يعدم أو يسجن مؤبداً وقد شُنق العشرات في فلسطين، أو سجنوا وعُذّبوا ونفي قادتهم إلى أماكن نائية مثل جزر سيشل في لمحيط الهندي .

أما كيف يرى أديب قعوار تحرير فلسطين بعد ستين عاماً على النكبة؟ فيؤكد أنها اليوم أقرب من الأمس وأن تحريرها لن يكون عبر الجيوش العربية وانما عبر المقاومة الشعبية ويعطي غزة كمثال اذ خرج منها الصهاينة مندحرين تحت ضربات المقاومة لا طوعاً، كذلك الحزام الحدودي في لبنان . ويرى أنها المرة الأولى في تاريخ القضية الفلسطينية التي نحصد فيها انتصارات .

يبقى أن المناضل أديب قعوار والذي يشغل وقته اليوم بعد تقاعده بالعمل في الأبحاث والتأليف والترجمة والتواصل عبر الانترنت مع مؤيدي القضية الفلسطينية يصر على أن المقاومة ليست ارهاباً وأن الدولة الصهيونية هي أكبر ارهاب عرفه التاريخ وأنه سيواصل العمل النضالي وإن كان عبر القلم لكشف الحقيقة وتكريس حق شعب فلسطين في وطنه وأرضه .

دعواتكم .. .. …

Forty years of PLO leadership, tens of thousands dead, several hundred thousands faced forced exiles from Kuwait, tens of billions stolen and unaccounted for, civil wars in Jordan and Lebanon, and the best thing that could come out of this leadership is Oslo, where the PLO through the Palestinian Authority became contract manager for the Jewish Occupation, thus relieving Israel of the financial and legal obligation it has as an occupying power. Added to this catastrophic failure is more than 15 years of negotiations with Israel that saw drastic shrinking of what is remaining of Palestinian land while Israel continues with its ever expanding military and settler occupation. If anyone thinks that this leadership could succeed in achieving the return of some 5.5 million to what is now Israel, they should think twice. This leadership and this Palestinian government sitting in Ramallah or Gaza could not and does not have the power or the authority to remove one single dirty Israel checkpoint, let alone help a dying mother get to a hospital on the other side of this security checkpoint or allow a ton of fuel for besieged Gaza.

To the millions of Palestinians in exile who had to endure horrific difficulties for the last 61 years, living in refugee camps with open sewers, exposed to the cold, heat and rain, denied basic rights of residency if not citizenship, with no jobs, no futures and in the case of Lebanon denied basic human rights to some 40 professions and jobs; even denied building materials similar to those living in Israel’s besieged Gaza. The dream of going home to Jaffa, Haifa, Safad, Ramleh and Lod will always be there, simply no compromise on the Right of Return. Under Oslo, the brilliant Palestinian Trio of Arafat, Abbas, Qurai and the PLO gave up the "Right of Return" for the "Right to Manage" the Jewish Occupation for and on behalf of Israel.

Without financial support from Arab Gulf Countries and with dried up financial support from Palestinians who were forced out of the Gulf as a result of Arafat and the PLO support of Saddam and his invasion of Kuwait, and having recklessly and criminally wasted tens of billions of the people’s money either in fraudulent investment or tens of billions stashed away in French and Swiss banks by the leadership for their own use, Arafat and the PLO were desperate to conclude a deal with Israel at any cost and under any condition, undermining the smart, intelligent and diligent efforts of the late Dr. Haider Abdul-Shafi, who was leading the negotiations under the Madrid Conference. The Palestinian Trio of Arafat, Abbas, and Qurai – afraid of losing control to an upstart leadership from inside of Palestine – decided to open their own back channel and negotiate a separate deal with Israel that preserved their leadership and self-serving interests while deferring key and important issues to Palestinians such as Jerusalem, Palestinian Refugees, and Jewish Settlements and borders to a later date. Of course Israel was desperate to have someone like Arafat put an end to the "Intifada" and to have some one like Arafat take over the financial obligations of the occupation and the civil administration of the West Bank and Gaza, freeing it to keeping control over the land, the Jewish settlements and all security matters. The Palestinian Trio of Arafat, Abbas and Qurai were that willing to be administrative and financial partners.

Taking advantage of Oslo and the reckless stupidity of the Palestinian negotiators, Israel made good and effective use of "facts on the ground" and the deferment of key issues such as Settlements, Jerusalem and borders as it went about creating more facts on the ground. Ever expanding settlements, expanding "security zone" to protect these settlements, taking over more and more land for the "security" of the settlements, taking more additional land for the protection of settlers through the creation of "Jewish Only Roads" the use of which is limited exclusively to Jews. Israel expanded its activities and control in the West Bank, while the Palestinian Authority; "self governs" and became a willing party to administer ever shrinking Palestinian territories continuing to negotiate managing the occupation for 15 years.

The most likely scenario is for the PLO and the Palestinian Authority to succeed in allowing the "Right of Return" to several thousand Palestinians who left during and after the 67 War and allow them to return to whatever remains of the West Bank in the "autonomous Palestinian areas" within Eretz Israel, while concluding a partial financial deal with Israel for and on behalf of the Palestinians exiled in 47 and 48. This financial compensation will go to the treasury of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, to the pockets and bank accounts of the leadership, leaving the people out in the cold. The other part of the financial package will go to the Arab countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt as compensation to create and establish permanent settlements for those refugees living in these countries. Some countries like Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and some countries in Latin America may offer to accept several thousand refugees giving them permanent home away from Palestine as a favor to Israel.

Knowing Israel and how its leaders think and based on the recent establishment of several Jewish and Israeli organizations with the purpose and mission to seek compensation for those Jews who left the "Arab world" similar to compensation paid to Jews who lost their properties in Europe, Israel will be the winner. Most likely the Arab countries will be asked to foot the bill for the compensation of Palestinian refugees, perhaps with Israel paying a small and nominal share if any. Israel on the other hand will make sure it gets a substantial share of the money set aside for the Palestinians and will use this money to compensate Jews who lost properties in the Arab world. In the final settlements, Israel will get the lions share of compensation, perhaps in amounts exceeding $150 billion for its Jews while the Palestinians will end up getting the crumbs, whatever's left over after the PLO, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab countries agreeing to "resettle" the Palestinians such as Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt get their cut and share. For sure Israel will make like a bandit, getting hundreds of billions in compensation for its Jews while refusing to allow the Right of Return or pay compensation for those it exiled in 1947-1948. The Arab countries of the Gulf will end up paying compensation to Jews who left their homes and properties in the Arab countries as part of the settlement with Israel paying almost nothing but getting most.

That is why there is an urgent need for the Palestinians of the Diaspora to organize in more than just websites, annual conferences and sharing of email messages. They need to organize into a legal entity or entities that will have the right of "legal" representation of those Diaspora and exiled Palestinians supported by the best and brightest legal minds in the world, making sure they have the right to sit at the table, the right to self representation, independent of the PLO or the Palestinian Authority or the Arab League. Time is short and is not on the side of those exiled and they need to put their act together before it is too late and before they are sold out in a regional bazaar.

The Palestinians should have individual rights and choices of either choosing to go back and live in Israel as citizens of the state; return and live in the "autonomous areas" set aside for Palestinians (Palestinian Authority) within Eretz Israel, or get a direct financial package with the right to chose where they want to finally settle. The United Nations should offer the people their choice to go wherever they choose in the world. America and Europe should open its doors to these new immigrants. Yes, Diaspora Palestinians should and must have the individual Rights of Return or the individual Rights of Choice. The Palestinians should also learn the lessons of the Holocaust, where the Holocaust became a business, a bonanza for Israel and the lawyers leaving the victims with hardly anything. We must make sure that the Nakba and the Jewish Occupation does not continue to be a financial bonanza for the Palestinian leadership while the victims continue to live in misery and constant humiliation and insecurity. On the other hand, Israel must not be rewarded for its crimes and must pay dearly to the victims, the exiled Palestinians. Financial rewards or compensation will never be enough for 61 years of suffering, exiles, humiliation and murder.

Palestinians remember and they are not defeated. They will not renounce their rights and their land. The land, the culture is their life, and no one has the right to deny it to them. One day, Palestinian wounds will heal, but until then, let no one forget. Let everyone bear witness to what the Israeli Jews and their supporters did to the Palestinian people.

If you go half a kilometre north along the Nablus Road from St George’s Cathedral, you will see a tent where Palestinians living in the Sheikh Jarrah district of East Jerusalem are protesting against orders for their houses to be demolished. If you visit the tent, you will be given coffee and can learn about the eviction of Mohammed and Fawzi Al Kurd and their five children from the house the family has lived in since 1956. In 2001 settlers occupied part of their home. The Israeli Supreme Court ordered the settlers out, but the order was never implemented. At 4 am on 9 November 2008, Israeli soldiers evicted the Al Kurds. The following day a tent was erected for them but the Israeli military removed it and replacements – the present one is the sixth.

/*Protest tent in Silwan in front of some of the 88 properties threatened with demolition*/

After years of opposing eviction, Mohammed Al Kurd died of a massive heart attack two weeks after being forced out of his home. Another 28 families in the area live under the threat of their homes being demolished to make way for 200 settlement units for Jews.

Many other Palestinian neighbourhoods in Jerusalem are also under threat. The best known is Silwan, just south of the Old City. There are demolition orders on 88 Silwan properties which house 1500 Palestinian Jerusalemites who inherited them from their parents and grandparents. Most were built before Israel came into existence, and the land in this area has been owned by Silwan families for hundreds of years.

The ethnic cleansing (‘Judaization’) of East Jerusalem is being carried out by a combination of gerrymandering and terrorisation of the Palestinian population to get them to leave. Planning and zoning laws are framed so as to favour Jewish expansion. A dozen armed settler groups live in buildings erected illegally in Silwan. Another tactic being used here is to declare areas to be archaeological sites which Palestinians are prevented from entering by armed guards. Several settler homes have been built on these sites.

Not only are Palestinians in East Jerusalem having their houses taken from them, but a large and increasing amount of land round the periphery of Jerusalem is being swallowed up by a ring of Jewish settlements. About 35% of Palestinian land in Jerusalem has been stolen in their construction. I went on a visit to one such settlement, Nof Zion, on a tour organised by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). Nof Zion is on the edge of, but inside, Palestinian East Jerusalem. It is classed as an ideological settlement because a number of Zionists committed to taking over the houses and land belonging to Palestinians will live here. Most of the 400 apartments are being sold to wealthy Jews at present living in the US and France.

Under the 1947 UN Partition Plan, Jerusalem was declared an international entity to be controlled by the UN. In 1967 Israel took over the whole city by force. According to international law, East Jerusalem is occupied territory, so it is illegal for Israel to settle its own citizens here. The Fourth Geneva Convention, which was ratified by Israel in 1952, states that an “Occupying Power shall not transfer parts of its own civilian population into territories it occupies." Many UN resolutions have attested the illegitimacy of Israel’s annexation of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem is continuing and accelerating.

In 1948, most of the property in West Jerusalem, and nearly all that in East Jerusalem, belonged to Palestinian Muslims and Christians. Since then most of it has been stolen from them and the process continues. The theft of land and property from non-Jews in Israel and Palestine is unacceptable. These are racist crimes which must stop. What can those of us living outside Israel do? We can boycott Israeli goods, cultural and sporting activities; we can persuade organisations to disinvest from companies whose activities and products are involved in the occupation of Palestinian areas and the oppression of Palestinians; and we can press our MPs and MEPs to apply sanctions on Israel until it respects United Nations resolutions and adheres to the norms of international humanitarian law.

(thanks to David Halpin for the forward!)

No one can undo “the Catastrophe” or “al Nakba” that befell the Palestinian people when an organized Jewish group called Zionists decided that they wanted a homeland for Jews to call their own—even if that homeland was already a vibrant and rooted homeland to a people of deep honor and respect. No amount of “spin” or denial will ever change what happened in 1948—the truth is the Palestinians were wronged.

The Palestinians of 1948 were a simple and yet principled people. They could not accept the Jewish people’s unfair method of forcefully taking their homes, freedom and prosperity through arrogance, violence and murder. They refused to be erased or ignored. Their will to persevere could not and would not be shaken, but, alas, today their honor and respect, the very virtues that defined them elude them. The outcome of constant beat down—both physically and mentally—by one of the most brutal and abusive occupations in modern times.

The Israeli occupation of Palestine has seen people displaced and living in refugee status—sometimes twice over. Yet, they adapt to every obstacle placed in detriment to their survival. Forever waiting until justice prevails, they remain steadfast.

Israel’s occupation has and continues to kill people and destroy families. It demolishes homes and creates destruction and despair under the guise of entitlement. It is an occupation that choked the want-for-life out of otherwise viable young men and women who opted to kill themselves and other innocents espousing the violence they grew up in and unintentionally creating harm to their cause and families. They were children that grew up wanting to live; wanting freedom; wanting justice for their people. They were children that grew up without the tools or leadership to guide them to meet those goals. They left this world and their noble struggle robbed of the opportunity to understand the true concept of “give me liberty or give me death.”

The recent Israeli attack on the people of Gaza in retaliation for rockets launched by militants again saw Israelis break all international and moral codes. Israel’s unscrupulous leadership closed the borders of Gaza with willing neighbors as partners in crime. The unconscionable act of keeping people from fleeing to safety and stuck like fish in a barrel as Israeli planes dropped bombs on them and ground troops shot to kill is appalling. It left an overwhelming number of innocent people deliberately dead. In addition, it maimed, widowed and orphaned Palestinians who now find themselves alone, hungry, helpless and hopeless. And yet, the people of Gaza continue to be held captive without food, water, or access to medical care as was the case for years preceding Israel’s noxious operation and unilateral evacuation. The complacency of the world, void of absolute indignation and action, is inconceivable as the calendar pronounces 2009.

Occupation never ended in Gaza or anywhere else in the Palestinian territories. Palestinians have been denied fundamental necessities required to govern and live with the most basic of human rights.

It is time to remember that Palestinians are victims in this situation. Palestinians have suffered immeasurably. This is a conflict about land and can be solved. It is between the Palestinians and the Israelis. This conflict is about what the State of Israel has done to the Palestinian people for land. It is not about how Arab countries treated Jews in past, present or future. It is not about anti-Semitism. It should not negate the Zionist movement, based on the need for Jews to have a homeland of their own. A right people deserve, but not one that mandates the denial and demise of another people—the Palestinian people.

The Holocaust perpetrated on innocent Jews and often referred to in manifestation and parallel to this conflict should provide the moral compass deterring deviations from the notion of “never again” no matter who the aggrieved.

Palestinian suffering at the hands of Israel continues and, unfortunately, those hands have been aided by the hands of Palestinians themselves. This is what needs to be reflected on. The leaders and martyrs alike mean nothing when the people and land they gave their lives for cannot stand together. Their loss means nothing. Palestine will remain lost when their very own forget that they are all brothers and sisters whether Fattah or Hamas; Muslim or Christian, or any other ideology, faction or collection of groups.

The sanctity of the Holy Land should help guide the end to this conflict. It should touch the heart and soul of spiritual people everywhere. How can Israel strive to make the Holy Land a Jewish-only state, with Jewish only roads and areas? That racism will keep all of the children of Abraham forever apart. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all come together in Jerusalem—a marker to all that seek its control. Sole religious claim to Jerusalem covers-up, whether knowingly or not, the plight of the Palestinians and subsequently the ability to bring about resolution through justice due them.

The fact that Palestinians are more divided today than united on the ground in Palestine and worldwide speaks to the profound loss of virtues that once defined the most noble of noble people in the Middle East.

Sadly, on yet another commemoration of Al Nakba, the Palestinians have forgotten what it means to be Palestinian.

Saffiya Shillo is a Palestinian American peace activist based in Chicago.  She co-developed a dual narrative program with Deputy Director Aliza Becker that they have given in many Chicago-area synagogues. Saffiya is a board member of the Palestinian American Women's Society and previously served as president of the Palestinian American Congress-Chicago chapter and as president of Arab American Family Services. She presently works as a sexual assault crises counselor and bully prevention trainer. Shillo previously worked as Director of Ethnic Affairs for the State of Illinois' Office of Lieutenant Governor and Director of the Arab American Institute's Chicago office.   She is also a syndicated columnist for the Arab Writers Group http://arabwritersgroup.wordpress.com/

When one speaks of or advocates non-violence, does he promote such an idea because he believes that historically it has been a more effective means of liberation, or is it purely because he thinks that it is a more self-respecting means of struggle? 

In recent history, many advocates of non-violence have been celebrated as modern day icons. From Ghandi to King, songs are written in their honor, their life stories fill the pages of our children’s history volumes as noble examples of which everyone must aspire to emulate. Holidays are instituted in their honor and around the world; streets and boulevards carry their namesake. 

Why is it that the “establishment” goes to such great lengths to lift up these individuals? Where are the holidays commemorating the life and sacrifices of Malcolm X, where are the stories of Crazy Horse or Geronimo? Could it be possible that these figures remain in the shadows of pacifists because their ideals shook up the status quo just a little too much? When the “establishment” celebrates individuals for their non-violence, could that be another way of recognizing them for making just enough commotion, but not too much commotion?

For decades, the Palestinian struggle for freedom was largely a non-violent movement. With occasional pockets of armed resistance, Palestinians in the occupied territories employed methods of general strikes, demonstrations and the like to express their demands and desires to finally live in freedom. And yet these were the years where Palestinians saw that great majority of their homeland swallowed up into what is now the State of Israel. Land was stolen with no recompense to its owners, prisons burst at the seams with prisoners who never received a trial, houses demolished by the hundreds, entire orchards of olive and fruit trees ransacked and burned. All this was carried out in the confines of an “Intifada-free” society.  So, it might be suggested that Palestinians gave non-violent resistance more than a fair shot.

It seems that there is an ongoing trend among many in the “establishment” to celebrate those broken and oppressed refugees who in spite of more than sixty years of bondage call for non-violence or passive resistance. While the intention is in itself honorable, one must question the timing.

Recently, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released a report entitled: “UN: 70% of Palestinian youth oppose violence to resolve conflict with Israel”. The report addressed a survey conducted in the occupied territories that interviewed 1200 youth in the West Bank and Gaza. The survey found that nearly 70 percent of young adults in the occupied territories do believe that the use of violence is “not helpful” to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The report stated that only 8 percent found violence a necessary tool, and it also found that 80 percent of young Palestinians are depressed, 55 percent being “extremely depressed”.

In recent months, Palestinians have endured some of the most painful blows since the early years of Israeli rule. The recent bloodletting in the Gaza Strip claimed the lives of more than 1400, wounded thousands, and robbed millions of any sense of security, safety and hope for a better world. Human rights groups around the world decried the Israeli genocide as war crimes, World leaders committed to filing charges at the International Court of Justice and have Israeli leaders tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The liquidation of Gaza became center platform in Israeli elections. Cluster bombs, white phosphorous and God only knows what other illegal weapons were unleashed on a starved and sieged civilian population where relief workers strived to pinpoint just what chemical weapon only leaves behind the evidence of a human skeleton?

Amidst the grief and rage that followed, Belgium found it fitting to nominate one sorrow-stricken doctor and father of three lovely daughters from Gaza, the Nobel Prize, in recognition of his efforts to promote peace between Palestinians and Israelis. The 55 year old physician, Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish, lost his three children in a most viscous way, when Israeli shells hit his house, crushing and suffocating all those inside. Dr. Abu al-Aish just happened to be talking on Israeli television about the suffering of the people of Gaza when he was informed that the shell hit his home with his family inside. He suppressed his anguish long enough to express his hope that his daughters would be the last victims of Israel’s attack.

While it cannot be denied that such a man deserves the highest honor for his commitment to the population of Gaza, and for the personal sacrifice he has endured, the irony of his distinction coming at such a time, after the most horrifying of sieges, after the grisly killing of his children, but more, after the grieving father responded with a poignant message of “reconciliation”.

In the midst of this mess, where is the call for Israel to embrace non-violence, would the media and the world community press the Israelis to embrace non-violence, had they endured such atrocities such as those witnessed in Gaza?

And once again, the intentions of the “establishment” come in to question. One has to wonder, if Abu al-Aish would have responded with the resolve of so many grieving parents who vowed to “never leave” to “rebuild” to “resist until victory or death in its pursuit”, would he still be recognized for his efforts to promote peace among Palestinians and Israelis?

Just why does the UNDP find it fitting to highlight a survey that concludes that most Palestinian youth find violence “unhelpful” at such a time? And why does the world renown a man who calls for reconciliation, a term that somehow suggests a conflict between people of equal standing, while his daughters rest in fresh graves? Some may suggest that non-violent resistance in such situations is the embodiment of the dignified struggle.

Others might call it surrender.

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of www.PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London), and his forthcoming book is,  (Pluto Press, London)

With amazement the world public has noticed in recent weeks that war crimes had apparently been committed in Gaza. (1) Even Israeli soldiers and military staff now report about their own cruelties against the Palestinian population, cruelties that we do not even know from movies. (2) The stylish T-shirts, that promote the shooting of pregnant Palestinian women by indicating that in this way you can kill two human beings with one bullet, appeared strange to people abroad, too. (3) Moreover, the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as Israeli foreign minister horrifies the public. (4) There would be further reasons to be disgusted, like the ongoing ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, the plans for expanding the illegal settlements, some killings, the abduction of Gazan fishermen and so on, but these details do not enter the global discourse, because, well, because they never did. The question is: how genuine is the amazement about what happened in Gaza?

Did anything change in Israeli politics? Are those really completely new phenomena, suddenly coming up in the discourse, out of thin air? Or do we only witness the consequences of a continuing strategy that had begun more than sixty years ago? There are good arguments for the latter alternative, especially when you look at the facts. Let us, for example, revisit the year 1948 …

Deir Yassin and the Human Rights

1948 was a special year. It was marked by Plan D, the Israeli plan to ethnically cleanse Palestine. (5) Jewish troops expelled about 700,000 people from the indigenous population of the country and killed many of the men in combat age. Even in 1936, after the Palestinian revolt, the Palestinian elite had been persecuted. This was shortly after the first Palestinian party was founded which was to represent the interests of the native population in the two fronts struggle against the British occupation and the Zionist conquerers. "Punishments" like the demolition of residence houses were firstly used by the British and were adopted later by the Zionists. In 1948, several Jewish terror groups were known, like the Haganah, Irgun, the Stern Gang, Lechi and others. They killed, took the land away from the local people and later contributed several prime ministers who were accepted by the world public without any difficulty – very similar to today.

Don't think that the pogroms against the population of Palestine during the execution of Plan D were secret. When the future Prime Minister Menachem Begin had the Arab village of Deir Yassin attacked on April 9 and many of its inhabitants killed (certainly including children and women) in order to terrorize and horrify the people, this was covered in the world press. Begin defended his deed with a typical Israeli bonmot: "The massacre of Deir Yassin not only had its justification – without the 'victory' of Deir Yassin there had never been a State of Israel." (6) Four years later, the same Begin attempted to kill the German chancellor Adenauer (7) and in 1978 he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

When Deir Yassin went through the press, the horror about this deed was huge, very similar to today after Gaza. Everybody was surprised and disgusted, even perpetrators like Haganah and the Jewish Agency. A pattern came into being, the pattern of shooting and crying, i.e. killing with subsequent lament. This has worked: there have never been any consequences for Israel. The killings, the expropriations and the humiliation of the local population until today belong to the salient characteristics of Israeli politics. Nothing has changed.

At the end of 1948, large portions of Palestine were "Palestinian-free", much more than the designated part of the land that the international community and the UN had granted to the Jews (with the explicit demand that the local people be treated well). We remember that the international community decided to give some land to the victims of the European genocide against the Jews and everybody was happy with the Palestine decision … except, of course, the people who lived in the region, because it was their land according to all international and logical standards. Weapons and myths (8) silenced them.

1948 was also the year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In December, when Israel was established on the blood of the Palestinians, the world celebrated the Human Rights and did not care about Palestinians. The world wanted human rights with exceptions, but this did not work. Now, sixty years later, we begin to understand that.

The Aryan state did not work, let's try a Jewish state …

During its history, Israel has continued the Deir Yassin policy, and today there is less than 10 or 5 percent of the land left to the Palestinians. On global refugee days people do not talk about Palestinians, although they are the biggest group of refugees in the world with far over 5 million people. This works because Palestinians (and Arabs and Muslims in general) are needed to fill the role of the anti-Semite which is substantial to the Zionist ideology.

It is, as if the world said: the Aryan state did not work, let's try a Jewish state … Is it really surprising that we witness stunning similarities between the two today? (9) The Israeli population today is exactly confronted with the "final solution" subject now, because Israel cannot make peace on the one hand (this would imply justice for Palestinians, an unthinkable idea in Israel's decision-making) and needs to end the conflict, on the other. With extremely violent politicians like Netanyahu and Lieberman the "transfer" plan comes closer, an idea to just expel Palestinians en masse like in the old days. Of course, if this happens, it will not mean peace, but more violence and even stronger resistance. So let your imagination fly and think about what a final solution could look like.

It is not known how many Palestinians must die before the world recognizes that they are human beings and not anti-Semites. Right now the killing goes on, the Gaza peak did not evoke a real criticism yet. Israel is encouraged to go on to see how far it can go. Do not think that this was it, do not think that Israel will now see that it cannot go on like this. The Zionists have learned that they can do anything with impunity. On March 22, 2009, a total of 14,000 tons of new US weapons arrived in Ashdod on the German cargo ship "MS Wehr Elbe" (owner: Oskar Wehr KG, Hamburg). (10) With these weapons alone, tens of thousands of people can be killed.

The Jewish state will collapse, like the Aryan state has collapsed, because both have the seed of self-destruction in them. Both are clearly racist, violent and expansionist in nature. This time it hits Arabs and Muslims instead of Jews. For over sixty years the international community has been blind to this fact, although it is so obvious that ordinary people know it and talk about it – not politicians or journalists or others who need the public.

Countries like Germany even have a "reason of state" to secure the persecution of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, calling it a "historical responsibility". There is no other possible reason to introduce a reason of state if it was not for something highly illegal that needs to be hushed up.

We may still save the rest

The repressive tolerance of Western countries like Germany and the USA makes it possible to write all this down, because it usually has no "harmful" effects towards change. A lot of people think that – unlike the Nazi state – the Zionist state cannot be overcome by violence and thus will prevail. This is an error. Racist regimes of this ilk end up in self-destruction if they are not overcome from the outside. What is important now: we can still save lives. We cannot save the about 1,500 dead in Gaza anymore. But we may still save the rest.

At the end of May, the Free Gaza Movement will organize a flotilla of boats, the Hope Fleet, to break the siege of Gaza. You can support them. (11) The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is present in Palestine to shield Palestinians from the Zionist killers (12). You can support them and save lives. This is a critical phase and every hand is needed, every tongue and every cent. Boycott Zionists now! Take it seriously now! Boycott non-Israeli journalists and politicians who support the killing! Argue with them! Support those Jews who are committed against violence and for peace in Palestine. For the sake of humanity and of yourself: do not take part in this murder.

NOTES:
1. E.g. in the German "Spiegel", "Israelische Armee: Gaza-Veteranen schockieren mit Aussagen über wahllose Morde." by Ulrike Putz, Beirut, http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,614286,00.html
2. See e.g. 'Shooting and crying', von Amos Harel, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072475.html
3. See e.g. http://news.sky.com 20 March 2009, "Israeli Army T-Shirts Mock Gaza Killings", by Dominic Waghorn (URL too long)
4. Guardian 25 March 2009, "Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's shame", by Neve Gordon, http://www.redress.cc/palestine/ngordon20090327
5. Ilan Pappe, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine", 2006
6. Markus A. Weingardt (2002): Deutsche Israel- und Nahostpolitik. p. 33
7. See e.g. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 12 June 2006 "'Im Auftrag des Gewissens'. Begin war Drahtzieher des Adenauer-Attentats", www.faz.net/s/RubFC06D389EE76479E9E76425072B196C3/Doc~E35BBCD5A37DA47809AD4F6A865C6332B~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html
8. Myths like "A land without a people for a people without land", "Arab aggressions/ David vs. Goliath", "anti-Semitic Arabs/Muslims", Palestinian Nazi cooperation (it was far less effective than Zionist Nazi cooperation), Arab military superiority (Jordan was the only country with a decent army then, and the Jordanian king was successfully promised a part of the prey, namely the West Bank); also see John Rose (2004), "Myths of Zionism"
9. This comparison is still forbidden in the mainstream, "for the security of Israel", but it is as obvious as it is founded and necessary. See my essay "The Second Case", Feb. 5, 2009, http://www.anis-online.de/1/essays/23.htm
10. Amnesty International, Press Release, April 1, 2009, United States Delivers Massive New Weapons Shipment to Israel, Confirmed by Pentagon, Says Amnesty International, http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGUSA20090402002&lang=e (NB: The German government is co-guilty, cf. (in German): http://www.radio-utopie.de/2009/01/23/Bundesregierung-dementiert-Wissen-ueber-Waffentransport-nach-Israel-Chronologie-der-Wehr-Elbe-Affaere)
11. See press release and updates at www.freegaza.org
12. http://palsolidarity.org

SOURCE: http://www.freegaza.org/en/home/804-shooting-and-crying-nothing-new-since-1948–or-is-it

On 19 March heavily armed paramilitary police violently dispersed a meeting at the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem, confiscating posters, leaflets, placards and computers.

Israeli police also raided schools, social clubs and community centres to foil activities celebrating Arab culture in the occupied city which Israel considers its "united and undivided capital".

Several organisers, including East Jerusalem lawmaker Hatem Abdel-Qader, were arrested on charges of disturbing peace.

Israeli security forces cordoned off East Jerusalem by deploying soldiers at all entrances to the city. They turned back visitors, including several delegations from Arabian Gulf states, including Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

Frustrated by the draconian Israeli measures the Palestinian Authority, the main organiser of the festivities, decided to transfer the main event to Bethlehem, a few kilometres south of Jerusalem. Hundreds of PA officials, foreign dignitaries, religious leaders and diplomats arrived on 21 March to listen to a speech by PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas reasserted his commitment to establishing a viable Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital, on all Palestinian land Israel occupied in 1967.

"We will continue to reject the Israeli policy of Judaising Al-Quds Al-Sharif [Jerusalem]. And we will not hold peace talks with any Israeli government that rejects the two-state solution," said Abbas, alluding to Israeli designate-Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.

The Palestinian leader, who recited a few verses of the Quran pertaining to the status of Jerusalem in Islam, pointed out that Jerusalem was the key to peace in the region and the world, saying that peace will not prevail unless and until the Israeli occupation ends completely.

Addressing the Arab-Muslim world, Abbas said: "I urge our Arab and Muslim brothers to come to the rescue of Jerusalem, protect Jerusalem from the act of rape to which the city is being subjected… Jerusalem is being Judaised by force, its Arab identity is being obliterated, its history is being falsified, its people are being oppressed and tormented. Its homes are being demolished. Jerusalem is the beginning and the end, it is the ultimate address of peace. Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine."

Addressing Israel, Abbas said: "Peace can't be made through the building and expansion of settlements, brute force and military insolence. What happened in Gaza recently reflects the Israeli mindset, and with such a mindset, it is clear there can be no peace."

Abbas's desperate but defiant words epitomised the situation across the occupied Palestinian territories but especially in Jerusalem, where Israel is planning to destroy hundreds of Palestinian homes.

The planned destruction of the Silwan neighbourhood in the heart of the city has been described by PA officials as "demographic decapitation".

"They are indulging in ethnic cleansing in broad daylight. They are chasing Palestinians out of their homes. They are trying to decapitate Arab existence in East Jerusalem, step by step, home by home, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, while they continue to lie about their desire for peace," said Rafiq Al-Husseini, a senior aide to Abbas.

Asked by Al-Ahram Weekly what the PA was going to do to prevent Israel from carrying out the wholesale destruction of the Silwan neighbourhood [the goal is to build a park and recreational facilities for Jewish settlers in the surrounding areas], Al-Husseini said the PA would try to mobilise the international community to stop Israeli crimes.

During her recent visit to the occupied territories US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the planned demolitions as "unhelpful" and "incompatible with Israeli commitments under the roadmap".

Israeli officials were unimpressed by Clinton's warnings. Jerusalem's Jewish mayor, Nir Barkat, described her words as "a lot of air", claiming she had been misled by the Palestinians.

Barkat, an extreme right-winger, vowed to destroy Arab homes en masse, saying that "what we do in our capital is none of America's business".

Israeli efforts to obliterate the Arab-Islamic-Christian identity of Jerusalem began immediately after 1967. Four days after seizing the city Israeli army bulldozers razed the Maghariba and Sharaf neighbourhoods. The Palestinian inhabitants of the two neighbourhoods were expelled at gunpoint. Two mosques, two religious schools or Zawiyas and 135 houses were destroyed.

Several months later Israel seized the Harat Al-Maghariba for "public use" and built a large plaza in front of the Buraq — the Wailing or Western — Wall. The heart of Al-Maghariba and the adjacent, smaller Harat Al-Sharaf were both Islamic Waqf (religious endowment) properties dating back to the time of Salaheddin Al-Ayoubi (Saladin).

According to Palestinian sources Israel has demolished as many as 700 homes in the old town alone, forcing many inhabitants to seek shelter outside the boundaries of the city, e.g. in the West Bank.

Since 1967 Israel has confiscated 34 per cent of East Jerusalem for "public benefit" and designated 44 per cent of the occupied Arab town as "green space". Nine per cent of the city was confiscated for the purpose of building settlements, leaving only 13 per cent of the original, built up Arab area, for the Palestinians.

In addition Israel has adopted a number of aggressive measures aimed at forcing the town's Arab inhabitants to leave. These include imposing excessive taxes on real estate, including homes, withholding vital municipal services from Jerusalem's Arabs in order to force them to relocate and denying residency rights to as many as 20,000 Arabs living in the city.

The Israeli authorities have continued to deny Arabs building licences, exacerbating a housing crisis in the Old Town and surrounding Arab neighbourhoods.

The systematic destruction by Israeli municipal authority of "illegally-built" homes pushed thousands of Jerusalemites to the brink of despair.

Adnan Al-Husseini, the nominal Palestinian governor of Jerusalem, described Israeli measures in Jerusalem as a "full fledged demographic war".

"The Israeli goal is very clear. It is to force as many Palestinians as possible to leave the city and sell their property to Jewish interests."

Al-Husseini said Israel was following a variety of tactics to achieve its strategy, including psychological and economic pressure, heavy taxation, physical coercion and harassment and financial incentives to force Arabs to sell their properties. Jerusalemite Arabs were clinging to their city, he said, despite Israeli efforts to curtail Arab demographic growth.

The Palestinian population of Jerusalem has grown extensively since the beginning of the occupation in 1967. Today, the total population of Jerusalem (East and West) is estimated at 720,000, including 475,000 Jews (66 per cent) and 245,000 Arabs (34 per cent).

As many as 260,000 of the Jewish population of the city (54.7 per cent) are living in 34 colonies established in and around East Jerusalem since 1967.

Maali Adomim, Pisgat Zeev, Har Homa and Gush Itzion are among the largest of these settlements.

Israeli demographic experts predict the Palestinian population will make up 40 per cent of the town's total population by the 2020. It is to forestall this possibility that Israel has been making frantic efforts to confiscate more Arab land in order to build Jewish settler units.

According Israeli sources tenders for building more than 25,000 settler units have been issued since the Annapolis conference in 2007.

Earlier this month the Israeli group Peace Now revealed that the Israeli government was planning to build more than 73,000 units in the occupied West Bank, most of them in existing settlements surrounding East Jerusalem.

The group, which monitors settlement expansion in the West Bank, said the new plans would lead to the doubling of the Israeli settler population and scuttle any prospects for the creation of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state.

Among the most dangerous and explosive aspects of Israel's efforts to Judaise East Jerusalem is the ongoing excavation and digging beneath the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine.

According to Waqf officials, digging beneath the Al-Aqsa Mosque is seriously undermining the foundations of Islamic shrine and the nearby Dome of the Rock.

Sheikh Mohamed Hussein, head of the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem, warned that it was only a matter of time before a "major disaster" occurred as a result of Israeli diggings in the vicinity of the Haram Al-Sharif (Al-Aqsa Mosque) esplanade. He accused the Israeli authorities of constructing subterranean tunnels beneath Islamic holy places without any consideration for the safety of Islamic shrines. "I can say without the slightest exaggeration that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is facing the danger of collapse as a result of these excavations."

Islamic Palestinian leader Raed Salah was even more dramatic in voicing his concerns. "The Al-Aqsa Mosque is facing urgent danger. A medium earthquake could cause the collapse of the mosque."

Salah was arrested by Israeli police on Monday, 23 March, charged with "disturbing the peace" and "inciting against Israel".

In recent years the Israeli security authorities have allowed extremist Jews to enter the Haram esplanade and perform Jewish prayers and other rituals.

In 1967 the Israeli army chief rabbi, General Shlomo Goren, tried to convince a commander of the conquering forces, Uzi Narkis, to blow up the mosque "once and for all".

The story was told by Narkis shortly before his death in 1997 and quoted by Avi Shlaim, an Israeli historian, in The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World.

"There was an atmosphere of spiritual elation. Paratroopers were milling around in a daze. Narkis was standing for a moment on his own, deep in thought, when Goren went up to him and said 'Uzi, this is the time to put a hundred kilograms of explosives in the Mosque of Omar and that's it, we'll get rid of it once and for all.' Narkis said 'Rabbi, stop it." Goren then said to him, 'Uzi, you'll enter the history books by virtue of this deed.' Narkis replied, 'I have already recorded my name in the pages of the history of Jerusalem.' Goren walked away without saying another word."

Two weeks later the Israeli occupation army seized the key to one of the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque (the Moroccan Gate).

Numerous efforts by Jewish extremists to destroy the Islamic shrine have been reported over the years.