Saturday, October 06, 2007

(UNWRA) United Nations celebrates the World's Teachers Day

http://157.150.195.10/unrwa/news/statements/2007/WorldTeacherDay_Oct07.html

Commissioner-General’s Statement on the Occasion of World's Teachers Day

4 October 2007

Dear UNRWA Teachers.

Today the United Nations celebrates the World's Teachers Day, in which the whole international community turns to each and every educator to simply thank them for weaving the future of children and strengthening further the pillars of good governance, fair practices and humane societies. Each one of you, our 21,000 teachers, are trust funds entrusted with the future of some half a million Palestinian refugee students. I cannot think of a loftier mission than yours.

Today, and on behalf of your other colleagues, on behalf of the parents of the students in UNRWA schools and on behalf of the students themselves, I would like to extend a simple thank you. A thank you for our teachers in Syria delivering first rate education to there students and to our teachers in Jordan for achieving remarkable results by dedicated teachers and support staff. A thank you for our teachers in Lebanon, especially during these trying times. And I take this opportunity to call on all of you to remember our colleague, Adel Khalil Khalil, a teacher at UNRWA Manara elementary school, who was killed by a sniper bullet in Nahr el-bared refugee camp on 21 May 2007. A special thank you as well to our teachers working in our Gaza and West Bank fields of operations for their dedication to deliver education despite the long delays at checkpoints, worsening safety and security conditions and rising levels of threats and intimidation. Away from their homes, you, our teachers, were the ones who protected the students, gave them a sense of safety and instilled in them the love for education. You were their counselors, educators and friends and for that I thank you.

I am fully aware as to your specific needs and I will continue my efforts, along with that of the Director of Education and other colleagues, to meet these needs to the best of UNRWA's financial abilities. I also stress again to you my commitment to ensure your safety and personal security and that you work in a safe and secure environment.

On this important day I renew my admiration and respect to the principled work of each and everyone of you.

Sincerely,

Karen AbuZayd
Commissioner-General

posted by annie at 9:09 PM 0 comments

Israeli forces overrun Al Bureij refugee camp in Gaza

Israeli forces overrun Al Bureij refugee camp in Gaza

Saturday October 06, 2007 10:28author by Nisreen Qumsieh - IMEMC News
Israeli military forces overran Al Bureij refugee camp in the central part of Gaza Strip in the early hours of Saturday morning.

story_photo.jpg

Eyewitnesses reported that Special Israeli forces broke into the eastern part of the camp under the cover of Israeli aircraft, and opened fire randomly at homes, causing terror for the people living there. Up to the time this report was filed no injuries have been reported.

Eyewitnesses also reported that a group of Palestinian resistance fighters clashed with the Israeli force before their withdrawal from the area.

Earlier on Friday Israeli forces assassinated a young Palestinian man near the Kisuffim border crossing; he was later identified as Tarek abu Jray, 21, from An Nusserat refugee camp in the central part of Gaza Strip.

posted by annie at 6:19 PM 0 comments

letters

Sixth Al-Awda Convention - 60th Year of Al-Nakba


RE: Abbas should listen to his refugees By Rami G. Khouri
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=85807

Dear Editor,

"Abbas should listen to his refugees"... what a powerful headline! Right to the point, and true- so very very true. Thank you for exploring this issue.

In fact Abbas is not the only one who should be listening to the persecuted and impoverished, long suffering Palestinian refugees- for all the world should know and understand the vital importance of respecting basic human rights- including but not limited to the right to leave, as well as the right to return.

Abbas, and all the world, should also be tuned into ALL Palestinians in exile worldwide, as yet another generation of Palestinians is rising up to define for themselves the ongoing struggle to save Palestine.

The mistakes our pundits, politicians, religious leaders and various other power brokers make today can have dire consequences on tomorrow. Pray that these upcoming "comprehensive peace negotiations" go well... or better yet, speak up now in order to be heard, for this really is important. This is an opportunity to make right a terrible wrong by educating the world and ourselves- whoever we might be: All ideas and facts should be up and in full view, the full spectrum of ideas including the secular notion that maybe the generously funded, heavily armed, angst filled nation state currently called "Israel" really is not such a good idea after all.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

********************************

RE: Save the Gnostics
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/opinion/06deutsch.html?ref=opinion

Dear Editor,

ALL of Iraq's many refugees, regardless of religion, seriously need aid - but more importantly they need peace so that they can chose to return to rebuild a better Iraq. And much as I find the story of the Iraqi Mandeans fascinating, and I sincerely want this group to be saved- Do we really want to craft official immigration policy and privileges using a person's religion to determine rights, freedom and opportunities?!

Furthermore, in finally noticing the escalating refugee crisis in Iraq, we seriously need to start noticing the Palestinian refugees. "More than 1,750 Palestinians remain stranded in Al Waleed and Al Tanf border camps and the situation remains dire for them. UNHCR continues to appeal for urgent humanitarian solutions for these refugees." http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/UNHCR/52379a789b75db5484678a9ff5ac5799.htm

We need to send a clear message that we do not believe in bigotry. Racist laws, walls and war are wrong: Start the process of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East by insisting on full respect for the Palestinian refugees' sacred and secular right to return to original homes and lands. Not more forced transfer into more increasingly precarious situations but true return for everyone's sake.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

*********************************

RE: Iran's leader denounces Israeli policies
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran6oct06,1,1790511.story?coll=la-headlines-world

Dear Editor,

The message really is much more important than the messenger: "Quds Day, the annual event marking Muslim opposition to the Jewish state's control of Jerusalem..... President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used the occasion to criticize Israel's policies and Western laws that bar questioning the Holocaust.

Why is it America's mainstream media feels so compelled to use Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to present these important issues (and FYI they are two very separate issues), foolishly framing these issues as if only Muslims oppose the Jewish state's control of Jerusalem (and as if only Muslims question laws that stop free speech on certain topics). These are universal issues !

Fact is the very real horrors of the Nazi Holocaust have been well documented. No one "questioning" it can erase the compelling evidence proving what was. Nor can any one erase mountains of evidence concerning the very real plight of the Palestinians... we should be universally concerned:

Israel today as the (misnamed) Jewish state is only possible because of Zionist violence, institutionalized bigotry and ongoing Apartheid- basic genocide really : Armed resistance to this blatant injustice called "Israel" is irrelevant- Fact is every day and night a Palestinian anywhere doing anything (or even nothing at all except simply being) is firm resistance to the idea of Jewish control over all the Holy Land. Multiply that by every Palestinian on earth (past and present), plus all who care about Palestine and the momentum to free Palestine grows exponentially.

The well documented Palestinian refugee crisis (the largest and longest running refugee crisis in the world today) is rock solid proof that Jewish control over the Holy Land is mainly an extremely dangerous, heavily armed delusion with dire consequences for the besieged and/or displaced men, women and children of historic Palestine.

Reasonable people everywhere ( regardless of religion or lack thereof) really should be clearly saying ( for everyone's sake) FREE FREE PALESTINE!

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

 NOTES 10-6-2007:


FACTSHEET The Right To Return, a Basic Right Still Denied

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html
Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
"The humanitarian aid and assistance that UNRWA provides to the Palestine refugees can never be enough. But it will be required as long as the issues of statelessness, prolonged military occupation, economic marginalization and vulnerability characteristic of the Palestinian refugee crisis are not addressed." http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/publ/opendoc.htm?tbl=PUBL&id=4444d3c92f


Al Nakba 1948

The largest planned
ethnic cleansing operation
in modern history
  • 530 depopulated towns and villages
  • 85% of the Palestinians in the land that became Israel are refugees today
  • Their land is 92% of Israel’s area

Anakba Poster

Palestine, 60 years of Dispossession and Displacement


http://www.resistanceart.com/Posters.htm
The State of the World's Refugees 2006 - Chapter 5 Protracted refugee situations: Box 5.1 Palestinian refugees .....

By far the most protracted and largest of all refugee problems in the world today is that of the Palestine refugees, whose plight dates back 57 years.
http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/publ/opendoc.htm?tbl=PUBL&id=4444d3c92f

& Forced Migration Review's (FMR) recent edition on Palestinian refugees
http://www.forcedmigration.org/

& more on the Palestinian Refugees....

The Spring That Was ... by Ismail Shammout


http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/israel/return/
http://www.badil.org/index.html
http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/index.html
http://imeu.net/news/background-briefings.shtml
http://www.rorcongress.com/
http://www.al-awda.org/facts.html
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Right-Of-Return/
http://www.p4pd.org/refugees.html
http://www.plomission.us/links.php
http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/reliefresources/115746336017.htm
http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/refugees.shtml
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_mamboezine&Itemid=182
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=10241&CategoryId=4
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/israel-palestine/returnindex.htm
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/israel-palestine/return/2004/0927necessary.htm
http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/MEPP/PRRN/papers/abusitta.html
http://www.world-crisis.com/analysis_comments/A147_0_15_0_C
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/687/region_ror.htm
http://www.al-awda.org/abusitta.html
http://www.afsc.org/pwork/0102/010220a.htm
http://www.fmreview.org/palestine.htm
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
Palestine's Districts Before Nakba-1948 (for the satellite version or the Google Earth version)

Hopes for home?

The issue of right of return for Palestinian refugees is a constant stumbling block in attempts to forge a lasting Middle East peace.

But, while adults' stories are often heard, rarely do we discover the feelings of Palestinian children.

BBCMundo.com's Karim Hauser took pictures of these drawings by Palestinan children in Lebanese refugee camps.

"We are returning"

By Isra Suweidan, 10-years-old in the Beit Dawi refugee camp.

A group of Palestinian refugees show a banner saying: "We are returning."

In the foreground Isra has drawn the different agreements or summits about the Palestinian issue: Geneva, Oslo, Madrid, Sharm al Sheikh, Aqaba and the roadmap. BBCNews - Symbolic key


http://www.palestineremembered.com/index.html


The Golden Rule

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you...


".....it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine "
The Balfour Declaration of 1917

Naji al-Ali cartoon

Ali said his character would always stay a shoeless urchin. "Only when Handhala returns to Palestine will he grow up and exceed the age of 10," he said.....

It is 20 years since the fatal shooting of the Arab world's foremost political cartoonist, Naji al-Ali, creator of the character Handhala, child of the Palestinian refugee camps.... Born in Palestine in 1938, he became a refugee at the age of 10 when Israel came into being. Images of Palestinian struggle and suffering dominated his work: He has been remembered for the haunting images of his own community, the exiled and despairing Palestinians... BBC News: In pictures: The work of Naji al-Ali


A Palestinian boy walks over a bridge destroyed by an Israeli missile in the Gaza Strip. Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters
A Palestinian boy walks over a bridge destroyed by an Israeli missile in the Gaza Strip. Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

The image “http://www.badil.org/images/posters/00040/0093.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

PALESTINE:
PEACE NOT APARTHEID
"...Does he understand now that “recognizing Israel’s Jewish identity” amounts to recognizing that Israel has the right to effect ethnic cleansing of its Palestinian citizens? That it has the right to be racist and discriminatory against non-Jews in general and Palestinian who are Israeli citizens in particular?" Abbas: Don't Cross the Red Lines by Khalid Amayreh in occupied East Jerusalem

"... To the exiled and the occupied, we say: You shall return and you shall remain and we will prevail, for our cause is just. We will put on our embroidered robes and kafiyyas and, in the sight of the world, celebrate together on the day of liberation." Dr. Haidar Abdul Shafi, The Madrid Conference Opening SpeechesOctober 30-31, 1991

In 1948 85% of the Palestinians were displaced, 675 towns and villages were depopulated while their lands and properties were confiscated. Palestinians refer to this experience as the Nakba (‘catastrophe’). Today some two-thirds of the Palestinian people are refugees, displaced and dispossessed. Book Review on ‘‘The Return Journey:A Guide to the Depopulated and Present Palestinian Towns and Villages and Holy Sites, in English, Arabic and Hebrew" by Salman H. Abu Sitta

"...The people who were butchered - twenty seven hundred or more - were butchered because of who they were, because they were Palestinians. They were refugees. They were denied their fundamental inalienable right to return to their homes in Palestine. A right that is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in international law, a fundamental, inalienable, and natural right..." Dr. Zahi Damuni, Co-founder of Al-Awda The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, speaking at the massive ANSWER antiwar rally in Washington DC on the 25th anniversary of Sabra and Shatila Massacre, September 15, 2007 (on cspan 11.44 minutes into the tape)

"One day when the world wakes up to the fact that a rights based solution is the only solution for Middle East peace, the Palestinian refugees will go home to live in peace and dignity on their own land and will no longer be subject to massacres." umkahlil No More Massacres: Peace and Dignity in their Own Land for Palestine's Refugees



posted by annie at 11:27 AM 0 comments

Additional Notes

Today in Palestine
Saturday, 6 October 2007


The advancing ethnic cleansing – by Victoria Buch
The stage for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians has been set in the Occupied Territories, and ethnic cleansing is in progress. At present, this is the major project of the State of Israel. For an impartial person of medium intelligence, a tour of the Occupied Territories may be sufficient to understand this fact. The prime ethnic cleansing tool is, forever, Palestinian land grab in conjunction with settlement expansion. . . Will the ethnic cleansing succeed? The authors of these policies obviously count on it. . . But in the long run, disaster looms for Israel. This is since we are a small nation, and Palestinians are a similarly sized nation which is moreover a part of the vast Moslem world. The experience of South Africa suggests that the apartheid-type system imposed on Palestinians is not viable in the long run, even if it seems invincible at the beginning.
http://www.hagada.org.il/eng/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=196


ICAHD (Israeli Committee against Home Demolitions)
[Graphics, photos, video, banner to add to your site] 18,000 homes destroyed by Israel since 1967; 101 homes rebuilt by ICAHD over the past ten years. Imagine paramilitary personnel breaking your door down at 4am. Imagine your wife and children screaming as anonymous workers drag your belongings out to the street. Imagine your neighbors coming to help and being beaten by men with guns and batons who tell you they are "only doing their job. Imagine the despair as your life's work, your home, is destroyed in minutes amid shouting and screaming and beating.
http://www.18000homes.org/


Hard times fall on storied West Bank city
NABLUS, West Bank (AFP) - A walk through the ancient streets of the West Bank City of Nablus offers a rare glimpse into the Asiatic opulence that once adorned cities across the caravan routes of the Middle East. But what was once a major Palestinian tourist and commercial centre has since the outbreak of the intifada in 2000 wilted in the face of checkpoints and near-daily Israeli military incursions. . . "Nablus is the oldest city in the world. When it was founded in 2,500 B.C. they called it Shechem, which means two shoulders," he says.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=22516


Nablus' online link to the world
The internet is a vital source of contact for businesses, families and lovers living with the daily difficulties of Israeli occupation in the West Bank city – virtual Nablus is a city of monitors, keyboards and cables where the residents of Nablus can experience a freedom they do not enjoy in real life. "Without the internet I would die," says 29-year-old Mahmoud, a journalism student at Nablus's An-Najah National University. Last year he tried to visit the United States , but the Israeli authorities would not let him leave the West Bank. "I had a visa for the US but when I got to the bridge the Israelis said I couldn't go out." It's not just young people who use the internet to keep in touch: Huda, 60, is another regular user of the internet. A native of Jerusalem, she moved to Nablus with her husband in 1967. "You know the Gethsemane garden on the Mount of Olives?" she says, "Well, my family lives just behind there. But I can't go to see them. We email each other."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/oct/04/guardianweeklytechnologysection.internet


Three Palestinians seized and Israeli soldier injured in latest invasion of Nablus
Israeli forces on Saturday morning seized three brothers; Amjad, Anas and Ahmad Shahada from Nablus, in the northern West Bank . Ahmad is an employee of the Palestinian security services. A spokesperson of Fatah's Al-Aqsa Brigades said that an Israeli soldier was injured by an explosive device which was thrown at an invading Israeli military vehicle in Balata refugee camp, in Nablus.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25713


'The right to exist': impossible ransom – by Sonja Karkar
For the outside world, Israel's demand for the "right to exist" seems a natural enough request and easy enough words to say. However, most people have no idea of the real import of those words for the Palestinians. For them to accept the "right to exist", effectively means that they accept their own dispossession. That dispossession is still going on after 60 years and there are now some 6 million Palestinian refugees who are refused their right to return home or even a modicum of compensation. And, that is not counting the 4 million Palestinians under Israel's occupation who daily see more of their land taken from them while they are squeezed and contained in what remains, or the 1.5 million Palestinian citizens in Israel whose rights are being increasingly compromised and denied.
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-100407154814.htm


Israeli forces overrun Al Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip
in the early hours of Saturday morning. Eyewitnesses reported that Special Israeli forces broke into the eastern part of the camp under the cover of Israeli aircraft, and opened fire randomly at homes, causing terror for the people living there. Up to the time this report was filed no injuries have been reported. Earlier on Friday Israeli forces assassinated a young Palestinian man near the Kisuffim border crossing; he was later identified as Tarek abu Jray, 21, from An Nusserat refugee camp in the central part of Gaza Strip.
http://www.imemc.org/article/50738


Palestinian ambulance staff recover body of man killed by Israeli forces
Director of ambulance and emergencies in the Palestinian ministry of health, Dr. Muawiya Hassanein, said that the body of 23-year-old Tariq Abu Jari was riddled with bullets. Hassanein also said that "the Israeli forces misled the ambulance staff at the scene about the location of the corpse." As a result there was an exhaustive search in eastern Deir al Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, before the Israeli forces revealed that the corpse was in the Abu Mandil area of eastern Al Maghazi refugee camp.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25709


Armed Palestinian groups claim attacks on Israeli forces in Gaza Strip
Hamas' military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for firing 15 mortar shells toward Israeli forces near Kesofeem [or Kisuffim] crossing point in the Gaza Strip. In a separate incident, the National Resistance Brigades of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) announced that they targeted an Israeli military jeep with a bomb in the nearby town of Al-Qarara, also in the Gaza Strip
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25720


Israeli military forced to retreat from Gaza incursion
Israeli military tanks on Saturday penetrated the eastern neighbourhood of Shujaiyya in Gaza City . Eyewitnesses said that an undercover Israeli force entered the eastern Al Bureij and Al Maghazi refugee camps, in the central Gaza Strip. The incursion took place under the cover of Israeli fighter jets which flew low over the area. The eyewitnesses added that Palestinian fighters countered the invading Israeli forces and launched mortar shells, forcing the troops to retreat.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25716


Israeli military close farm roads in Deir al Ghosoon near Tulkarem in West Bank
Palestinian civilians reported that Israeli military forces shut [with large mounds of earth] agricultural roads leading to their farms on Friday night. The Deir Al Ghosoon municipality has presented a petition to all human rights and international organizations to put pressure on the Israeli government to reopen roads as it will soon be the olive harvest. Olives provide the main source of income for the residents of the village.
http://www.imemc.org/article/50740


Two Palestinians injured by gunfire from an Israeli checkpoint
Israeli soldiers opened fire towards them near Deir Ballut checkpoint, west of Salfit, in the northern West Bank. The Israeli soldiers manning the checkpoint fired at a vehicle containing Palestinian workers as it stopped for inspection. Forty-five-year-old Sati Asus was injured in his feet and left hand. The taxi driver, who is a Palestinian living inside Israel, was also injured.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25717


Detainees in Al Jalama Israeli prison carry out a one-day hunger strike
In a letter that was sneaked from the facility, the detainees stated that the prison administration is barring them from their rights and is still confining 30 detainees in solitary cells since more than two months despite that they finished their interrogation period. The detainees who are in solitary confinement are barred from any visitations even from visitations of the Red Cross and their lawyers.
http://www.imemc.org/article/50732


Palestinian group urges resumed Egypt mediation on Shalit
A Palestinian research centre for prisoners' issues on Saturday called on Egypt to renew mediation between Israel and the Palestinian factions that are holding an Israeli soldier in Gaza. The Palestinian factions holding Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit are demanding Israel to release older prisoners, women, children and the infirm from its jails in exchange for the soldier. Israel is holding about 11,000 Palestinians. Egypt suspended mediation in June.
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1362997.php/Palestinian_group_urges_resumed_Egypt_mediation_on_Shalit__Extra_


Saudi security arrests former commander of Palestinian police
A high-ranking Palestinian official told Agence France Presse on Friday evening that the Saudi security arrested former commander of the Palestinian police Major-General Ghazi Al-Jabali. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Al-Jabali arrived in Saudi Arabia on Thursday with Head of the Hamas Politburo Khaled Mashal. Al-Jabali was wanted by the Palestinian Authority, which requested he was arrested by Interpol on charges of financial corruption.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25711


Telephone poll: Palestinians support peace conference, but do not expect results
The survey, conducted by Near East Consulting, showed that 76% of Palestinians living in the occupied territories support participation in the international meeting. Among Fatah supporters, 92% want the Palestinian Authority to attend the conference, whereas only 39% of Hamas supporters want Palestinian participation. 60% of respondents said they do not expect the conference to result in progress toward a final settlement of the conflict. 55% said they did not believe the time and atmosphere are right for a peace conference. [remember this is a telephone poll, with all the bias against the poor that implies]
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25718


Hamas denies preconditions for talks with Abbas
Hamas on Saturday denied recent news reports that the movement's leadership in the West Bank had made official demands as a precondition for talks with President Abbas. The movement said in a statement that President Abbas is not qualified for dialogue at this stage because he is preoccupied with the US-sponsored autumn conference expectations. The statement also revealed that some independent figures close to Hamas, including PLC members, have unofficial meetings with Fatah aimed to follow-up with the situation of Hamas loyalists in PA prisons in the West Bank. However, said Hamas, no one is authorised to conduct political dialogue.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25715


3.5 million shekels [ about US $872,167 ] ,donated to West Bank and Gaza during Ramadan
reported Al Sheikh Ahmad Massarwa, Director of the Humanitarian relief Committee in Nazareth. Among those benefiting from the aid were orphans, the blind, and the hungry. The campaign called on all Arabs inside the green line to work towards aiding those in the Occupied Territories, especially those in Gaza who are living under severe restrictions and terrible hardship.
http://www.imemc.org/article/50743


Hope flowers for West Bank school
Hope Flowers was the first school in the Palestinian territories to hold inter-faith lessons, instead of splitting its Christian and Muslim pupils into separate classes, and has invited rabbis from Israel to teach the pupils about Judaism. The vision of the school was born out of the grinding poverty and harsh conditions of the Deheishe refugee camp, just south of Bethlehem,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7027794.stm


300 Palestinian workers arrested within the Green Line (i.e., in Israel) last month
Among the arrested workers were 25 females. An Israeli military spokesperson reported that soldiers and policemen carried a large scale arrest campaign which included breaking into construction locations, centers and other facilities in Haifa, Jaffa and Nazareth, Um Al Fahim and other areas. Most of the arrested workers were forced to pay high fines, and others were imprisoned for different periods.
http://www.imemc.org/article/50733


PCHR weekly report through Oct 3: Four killed, 10 injured, and 25 taken prisoner
During the past week, Israeli occupation forces killed four Palestinians, including one Palestinian who was assassinated, and shot and injured twelve residents, including two children and one journalist. . . The link to the PCHR full report includes an extensive report on the Israeli violations during the seven years of the ongoing Intifada in the occupied Palestinian territories.
http://www.imemc.org/article/50731


Abbas: We want peace, but not at any price
Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, stated on Friday evening that the Palestinians want peace but not for any price, and elaborated that ay peace should include the implementation of international resolutions, and should include establishing a viable independent Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital.
http://www.imemc.org/article/50734


Abbas should listen to his refugees – by Rami G. Khouri
There is one way that Abbas can overcome these constraints, which recalls a major weakness that contributed to the collapse of the Camp David talks in 2000: He should consult widely, deeply and sincerely with ordinary and politically active Palestinians throughout the world, in order to be able to attend the Annapolis talks as a credible representative of the Palestinians. The hardest issue to resolve is the status and rights of Palestinian refugees, of whom there are now some 4.5 million living outside Palestine (they were 750,000 when they first became refugees in 1948).
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=85807


From 2003: Refugee poll confusion – by Casey Patrick Reilly
To begin with, 95 percent of those polled believed that the right of return was a "sacred" right that must be recognized by Israel. Many commentators have seized on the figure of 10% who said they would return to their homes in what is now Israel, but have deliberately ignored the fact that almost every single refugee polled demanded the recognition of the right of return. As outlined in UN General Assembly resolution 194, the right of return does not require the refugees to return, it only demands that they be allowed to. To summarize the results of this poll by saying "only 10 percent of Palestinian refugees would exercise their right of return" is deliberately deceptive.
http://www.mediamonitors.net/caseypatrickreilly1.html


Tokyo: Law to grant Japanese-born Palestinians Palestinian citizenship
Japanese-born Palestinians will be granted Palestinian citizenship under the Nationality Law beginning Oct. 15, Justice Ministry officials said. The Palestinian Authority is not considered an independent state. Under the current law, children born in Japan to Palestinian couples are Japanese nationals. However, the Justice Ministry reviewed the law on grounds that Palestine "has taken on a form close to a state." The 14 children born in Japan to Palestinian couples who have obtained Japanese citizenship will be granted Palestinian citizenship as well.(IHT/Asahi: October 6,2007) [quite odd: in the first place only the Israelis decide who is and who isn't officially a Palestinian, and in the second, do these people now lose their Japanese citizenship?]
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200710060080.html


Truth is sometimes caught in crossfire
Mohammed al-Dura was the first child to die in the present intifada and the harrowing images of his final minutes led to global condemnation of the Israeli soldiers who, France Two reported, fired the fatal bullets. Supporters of the media conspiracy theory insist that ballistic and image analysis prove that Israeli troops could not possibly have shot the child or his father, who survived with serious injuries. The central thrust of the conspiracy theory is drawn from a semi-official Israeli Defence Force investigation which was seen as so dubious seven years ago that even the army and the government declined to adopt its findings.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/truth-is-sometimes-caught-in-crossfire/2007/10/05/1191091362085.html


Boycott threat has been lifted, but occupation continues
Uri Ram - Ynet - There is no room here for the joy expressed by the education minister and top education officials. What are they so happy with? The fact that universities in the territories are unable to function? Or maybe it is the fact that, on the other hand, we are seeing an Israeli academic institute being increasingly established in the central occupation town [settlement] of Ariel.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=22684


Lieberman attacks Gush Shalom and Yesh Gvul
Gush Shalom, the Israeli Peace Bloc, is considering lodging a libel suit against Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who in an interview to the First Channel TV attacked the movement's members (as well as those of "Yesh Gvul" [organization of refuseniks]) and called them "Nazi Capos".
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/press_releases/1191626868/


Video: The easiest targets
Five women – Palestinian, American, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish – tell stories of humiliation and harassment by Israeli border guards and airport security officials.
http://ifamericansknew.org/about_us/easiesttargets.html


Druze student in Germany tests notions of Zionism, Jewishness
"The first question people ask someone who's studying Judaism is if you're Jewish. The second question then, is, what's your connection to the subject? When I would reveal that I was Druze, people would stammer - But you're studying Judaism? What's your connection? You can see how they think. As long as they thought I was Jewish, it was natural. But if I'm not, then why? I'm not Jewish, not Christian, not Muslim."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/909911.html


A shameful silence
The organisation we look to for the protection of free speech has shut down debate on Palestine. On the basis of last week's legal opinion (the details of which remain shrouded in mystery), the union's leadership has summarily cancelled public debates to have been attended by "legitimate representatives of organisations from both Israel and Palestine".
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/comment/story/0,,2184357,00.html


U.S. supports Palestinian democracy, Bush says
Speaking at the White House's annual iftar-dinner, Mr Bush told around 90 guests that the US had supported the Muslims seeking liberty in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon and stood with the Muslims across the world facing hardship. "And we support the establishment of a Palestinian democracy to live side by side with Israel in peace," he declared. Mr Bush said that violent extremists did not represent Islam. Mr Bush said the Americans had a 'proud history' of standing with the Muslims facing suffering and hardship.
http://www.dawn.com/2007/10/06/top18.htm


So who's afraid of the Israel lobby? – by Ray McGovern
Who's afraid of the Israel Lobby? Virtually everyone: Republican, Democrat – Conservative, Liberal. The fear factor is non-partisan, you might say, and palpable. Seldom has the Lobby's power been as clearly demonstrated as in its ability to suppress the awful truth that on June 8, 1967, during the Six Day War: * Israel deliberately attacked the intelligence collection ship USS Liberty, in full awareness it was a U.S. Navy ship, and did its best to sink it and leave no survivors. . . Scores of intelligence analysts and senior officials have known this for years. That virtually all of them have kept a forty-year frightened silence is testament to the widespread fear of touching this live wire.
http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=11719


Feds seek life sentence for contempt in Hamas case
Federal prosecutors are urging that a Palestinian Arab activist spend the rest of his life in prison for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Hamas links in America. Despite the jury's decision to acquit Ashqar on the most serious charge [a racketeering conspiracy to support Hamas], prosecutors filed a legal brief Wednesday arguing that a probation officer's recommendation of a life sentence for contempt was "correctly calculated."There is no statutory limit to Ashqar's sentence because he was convicted of criminal contempt, a crime for which Congress has set no maximum punishment. Other alleged Hamas activists who lied to or defied courts have received sentences of a year or two in prison. "It's really a very scary application of justice and the sentencing law," Mr. Deutsch [a defense lawyer] said. "They don't give any credit in their pleading to the acquittal. It's just as if it didn't happen."
http://www.masnet.org/news.asp?id=4429

posted by annie at 11:25 AM 0 comments

UNHCR advocating for increased bilateral aid and 'humanitarian visas' 

Syria: UNHCR advocating for increased bilateral aid and 'humanitarian visas'
for Iraqi refugees
05 Oct 2007 09:52:16 GMT
Source: UNHCR

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/UNHCR/52379a789b75db5484678a9ff5ac5799.htm

Our field staff in Damascus confirm that the new visa restrictions for Iraqis wishing to enter Syria are being strictly observed. Since the visa restrictions were imposed on Monday, the only Iraqis who have succeeded in crossing the border are those who have been issued visas for commercial, transport, scientific and education purposes.

In order to apply for a visa, Iraqis are obliged to visit the Syrian Embassy in the Al Mansour district of Baghdad. Refugees have highlighted their concern that Al Mansour district is the scene of frequent violence, and not an area that large groups of people should gather. UNHCR has received reports that the visas take two weeks to process. At present visas are only granted to people who are applying for commercial, scientific, educational and transport purposes. In many cases, a sponsoring organization in Syria (for example the Syrian Chamber of Commerce), is needed to issue an invitation to Syria. UNHCR is advocating for a 'humanitarian  visa' for Iraqis fleeing persecution in Iraq.

Since Monday, UNHCR in Damascus has counselled hundreds of Iraqi refugees living in Syria who have either visited our office or phoned the UNHCR hotline with concerns about their residency status. The number of calls to the UNHCR hotline has doubled in one week.

>From discussions with government officials, UNHCR understands that Iraqi refugees currently living in Syria will not be forcibly returned to Iraq. The most pressing concern for Iraqi refugees at present is what they should do when their visa expires. In the past, they would visit the Syrian border to renew their visa for three months. UNHCR hopes Syria could establish centres within the country where refugees could renew their visas.

The Syrian government has made it clear that the visa restrictions have been imposed due to the massive pressure it faces hosting more than 1.4 million Iraqi refugees. UNHCR continues to appeal for increased bilateral support to Syria so it can continue to support the Iraqi refugees living in the country - and hopefully offer refuge for those Iraqis that need to flee Iraq in the future.

In a separate development on Thursday, the second group of Palestinians from Ruwayshed camp in Jordan left to be resettled in their new homes in Brazil. Thirty-six Palestinian refugees left the desert camp in Jordan, leaving one last group of 37 refugees to follow later this month. The Palestinians, who have been stuck in extremely harsh conditions in the camp for four and a half years, were relieved as they said goodbye to the remaining Palestinians in the camp who had also fled spiraling violence in Iraq.

All 108 Palestinians being resettled from Ruwayshed will be living in São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul regions, where they will receive rented accommodation, furniture and material assistance. Employment profiles are being analyzed to ensure job opportunities for all, while Portuguese classes will be given. UNHCR is very appreciative of Brazil's offer of humanitarian resettlement.

More than 1,750 Palestinians remain stranded in Al Waleed and Al Tanf border camps and the situation remains dire for them. UNHCR continues to appeal for urgent humanitarian solutions for these refugees.

posted by annie at 11:23 AM 0 comments

Seven years on: As Palestinians mark a sad anniversary, their plight continues to worsen, laments Khaled Amayreh

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/865/re3.htm

Seven years on

As Palestinians mark a sad anniversary, their plight continues to worsen, laments Khaled Amayreh

"We didn't just start the Intifada for the sake of it," said Sami, the young Islamic student activist from Hebron, in the southern West Bank. He and a group of young college students were discussing the pluses and minuses of the Al-Aqsa uprising which this week entered its eighth year.

"We were pushed and forced to rise up against our oppressors and tormentors because the alternative was and continues to be national annihilation," Sami added, accentuating his words, as if he wanted to persuade colleagues of the rightness of his convictions.

"But the Intifada has been a human, political and economic disaster for our people," retorted Anwar, his colleague and classmate, nearly of the same age.

"Yes, but Israel is not going to give us freedom on a silver platter. The Algerians lost more than a million shaheed [martyrs] for independence," Sami responded.

"Ok, but the Algerians had many allies and the whole world stood with them, but we are alone facing Israel which also controls America and Europe and can mobilise the entire world against us," Anwar rebutted.

This brief conversation at Hebron Engineering College more or less caricatures the way most Palestinians relate to the officially finished but still continuing Al-Aqsa Intifada.

The two students, coming from the same cultural and socio-economic background, were 12 years old when the uprising broke out on 28 September, 2000, after the then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon, accompanied by hundreds of heavily-armed security guards, invaded the Aqsa Mosque esplanade in East Jerusalem in order to demonstrate Jewish- Zionist determination to wrest the holy place from Muslim hands.

Undoubtedly, Sharon's provocative incursion sparked off the Intifada. After all, nearly every Palestinian is all too familiar with the man's bloody history as a murderer whose hands are stained with the blood of thousands of Palestinians, Lebanese and other Arabs, most of them innocent civilians and children. Indeed, his role in the massacres of Sabra and Shatila was and remains too horrifying to be forgotten.

Nonetheless, it is important to remember that Israel's systematic persecution of the Palestinians and adamant refusal to allow the creation of a viable Palestinian state made the uprising inevitable, with or without Sharon's incursion into the Haram-Al-Sharif [Noble Sanctuary] of Jerusalem.

In retrospect, the Intifada has been a hair-raising tale of Israeli brutality comparable to the Nazi persecution of Jews during WWII. During the past seven years, the Israeli army committed every conceivable crime and atrocity against an essentially defenceless people.

Children were gunned down while on their way to school, pregnant women shot on their way to hospitals or forced to give birth at Israeli roadblocks because soldiers wouldn't allow them to go to a hospital just down the road.

Children were lured by soldiers to come out to be killed in cold blood. Crowded streets were bombed by helicopter gunships and one-tonne bombs dropped on apartment buildings packed with sleeping civilians.

According to the Palestinian Centre of Statistics, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers and paramilitary Jewish settlers reached 5,300 from 29 September 2000 to 29 September 2007.

The death toll includes 978 children, 363 women, 506 assassinations, and 149 Palestinians murdered while passing through Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints.

Some 60,000 people were injured, many suffering life-long disabilities, and 11,000 were imprisoned with no hope of release.

During the same period, the Israeli occupation army destroyed 7,512 homes and seriously damaged more than 663,000 homes both in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In the course of the Intifada, Israeli leaders sought to convince themselves that the Palestinians were targeting Israel's very existence. A collective psychosis engulfed Israeli military leaders such as former chief of staff Moshe Yaalon who went as far as calling the Palestinian people a "cancer" which he said would have to be eradicated, either through chemotherapy or amputation.

Yaalon said he was using chemotherapy for the time being but wouldn't hesitate to resort to amputation if need be.

Such a sick and sickening mentality, combined with the most callous death machine in the world, convinced many Palestinians that Israel was hell-bent on liquidating them as a people. Indeed, the wanton slaughter of Palestinians in every street, every neighbourhood, every refugee camp and every city made it inevitable that young Palestinians embark on so- called martyrdom operations, otherwise known as suicide bombings against Israeli military and civilian targets.

In the words of Hamas's founder and leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, whom Israel tried to assassinated in 2003, Palestinians had either to choose between being slaughtered quietly at the "Zionist slaughterhouse" or die as men in the streets of Tel Aviv and other Israeli towns.

The human bombings were in fact a desperate tactic aimed at creating a semblance of deterrence to make Israel reconsider its macabre repression of Palestinians. However, eventually the bombings boomeranged on the Palestinians as Israel succeeded in utilising the often shocking bombing scenes to vilify the Palestinians.

Moreover, Israel used the bombings as a pretext to inflict more deadly massacres of Palestinian civilians, which explains the huge disproportionateness of the Palestinian death toll compared to Israeli casualties. It also used the suicide bombings as a pretext to build the so-called separation wall, which is actually a gigantic concrete wall in the West Bank, on occupied Palestinian territories.

Rather than building the wall along the former armistice line between the West Bank and Israel proper, the Israeli government built the wall deep inside the West Bank, incorporating large swaths of Arab land into Israel and reducing Palestinian population centres into de facto ghettos.

The man who masterminded the campaign of slaughter, Ariel Sharon, is now lying motionless in a hospital for the second consecutive year after he had a massive stroke in the beginning of 2006.

The Nazi analogy is finally penetrating Western discourse. For example, Gerald Kaufman, a Jewish British MP, argued a few years ago that Ariel Sharon had made the Star of David look like the Swastika. Similarly, Portuguese Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago remarked, "I didn't know why, to protect a few people, farmland had to be confiscated and crops had to be destroyed, hundreds have to be kept waiting at checkpoints and roadblocks before being allowed to return home exhausted, that is if they are not killed."

Today, seven years later, the Palestinians may be at the doorstep of another Intifada. Israel, backed by a post-9/11 US that often looks and acts more Israeli than Israel and more Zionist than Zionism, is adamantly refusing to end its 40-year occupation of Palestinian territory.

And, taking advantage of internal Palestinian divisions, Israel is trying to impose a "peace settlement" on the Palestinian Authority that many ordinary Palestinians say is worse than a surrender.

"The Palestinians are dreaming if they think Israel will give them their rights without a serious struggle," says Professor Abdul-Sattar Qassem of Najah National University.

It certainly has looked that way since Israel refused to allow the creation of a Palestinian state following the Oslo Accords in 1993. Qassem's words will no doubt be vindicated once again following the expected failure of the upcoming November peace conference in the US.

The Palestinians today face worse conditions than ever before. However, Palestinians have always seen mounting repression and misery as an incentive for a revolt against their tormentors rather than cause for submission. So the Intifada continues.


© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

posted by annie at 7:05 AM 0 comments

Four injured at demonstration against Israeli separation barrier in Bil'in

Four injured at demonstration against Israeli separation barrier in Bil'in
Date: 05 / 10 / 2007 Time: 15:57
تكبير الخط تصغير الخط