Missouri mosque razed in arson attack
Press TV – August 6, 2012
A mosque in the Midwestern US state of Missouri has been completely destroyed in a suspected arson attack, the second attack to hit the place of worship in a little more than a month.
The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office said the fire at the Islamic Society of Joplin was reported around 3:40 a.m. (0840 GMT), AFP reported on Monday.
“The building was completely destroyed,” said Sharon Rhine, a spokeswoman for the office, noting that no injuries were reported and no charges have been filed.
“No-one was apprehended. They don’t want to call it a hate crime without information or knowledge of having someone to charge,” Rhine added.
The Islamic Society’s religious leader, Imam Lahmuddin, said he was “sad and shocked” about the fire.
“We just take this as a test from God. God is testing us. This is the month of Ramadan. We are fasting. We are not supposed to get angry, we are not supposed to say anything bad,” Lahmuddin said. “But that’s not only for this month, but for every day of our lives. In Ramadan we are more careful in guarding our tongues, not to say anything inappropriate.”
On July 4, the same building became the target of a failed arson attack. No arrests were made and the FBI offered a USD15,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the suspected arsonist.
“If it (Monday fire) is determined to be deliberately set, then we will look to see if there’s a connection between this fire and the one set on July 4,” said Bridget Patton, spokesperson for the FBI in Kansas City, Missouri.
Local community members say it is one of a series of attacks on their mosque since it was founded in 2007.
“Since the establishment of the mosque, we’ve been constantly under attack,” said former mosque board member Navid Zaidi, adding that “Our sign has been burnt … Our mailbox was smashed multiple times. We had bullets shot at our sign.”
The Monday incident came a day after a deadly shooting at a Sikh temple in the Milwaukee suburb of Oak Creek in Wisconsin, which took the lives of six people.
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The Sectarian Agenda And The Sectarian Rats Let Loose
By Daniel Mabsout | Deliberation | August 6th, 2012
The campaign against Ken O’Keefe is not directed at his own person, as the abduction of the Aloha Palestine mission was not directed against him. What the Palestinians and other Arabs failed to understand is that this campaign that involved Palestinians as well was in the first place directed against Palestine and Palestinians and was not an internal dispute or a quarrel between peace activists over some project or mission. It is important to find out who benefits from this whole action and who are the people behind it and what are their affiliations since the people who abducted the mission are the same people who launched the anti O’Keefe campaign.
Could real activism attempt at a peace mission? For sure not; what attempted at the mission is a certain policy and agenda and a certain conduct dictated by that policy and agenda. the people who attacked the mission and then launched their miserable campaign were implementing an agenda that is a sectarian agenda by which they aimed at monopolizing the peace movement for Gaza and handing it over to people who will operate via Turkey for Turkey to reap politically on the ground the fruits of such peaceful and supportive endeavor. It is secular Turkey now claiming to represent the Sunni sect that was to take the Gaza peace movement in charge, any personal initiative not operating through Turkey became therefore threatened and exposed. All this is but a NATO/ Turkish / Israeli agenda that wants to infiltrate the Palestinian movement in all its aspects in order to lead the Palestinian struggle away from the Hizbullah/ Iran arena where Israel has been shamefully defeated. That is how the Turkish/ Israeli/ Palestinian/ sectarian rats were let loose to dismantle the Aloha mission the same way the Libyan fanatic thugs were let loose by NATO and Israel to dismantle the Libyan regime.
It might be surprising to say that brother O’Keefe was victim of an anti Iranian campaign but that is the real label under which falls the whole situation in our area, starting from the Iranian nuclear issue, passing by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, not forgetting of course the Arab springs and, finally, the attack on Syria ; the abduction of the mission and the hatred campaign targeting brother Ken fall under the same label.
The sectarian agenda is a Turkish/Israeli agenda that has added many Palestinians to it to give it a Palestinian color and flavor and make it look true and genuine, but it is definitely an anti Palestinian agenda the same way the abduction of the mission is an anti Palestinian act. Unfortunately HAMAS was not able or not willing to hold back the sectarian rats who pirated the mission.
Related articles
- Kenneth O’Keefe on BBC’s Hard Talk (Aletho News)
- Kenneth O’Keefe Under Assault: In Defense Of A Hero (Aletho News)
Three Iranians abducted by armed gangs in Syria killed
Press TV – August 6, 2012
Three of the Iranian pilgrims, who were kidnapped by armed insurgents near the Syrian capital of Damascus, have been killed, Reuters reports.
The so-called Free Syrian army has threatened to kill the rest of the pilgrims if the Syrian military does not stop attacking them.
Forty-eight Iranian pilgrims, who were traveling on a bus from Damascus International Airport to the shrine of Hazrat Zainab (AS) on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, were abducted by insurgents on August 4.
The insurgents who have abducted the Iranian pilgrims had claimed that the hostages are members of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) by simply referring to their military discharge cards.
An informed official at Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday vehemently dismissed the reports by certain Arabic-language news networks that the Iranian pilgrims were military members.
On Saturday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi called his Turkish and Qatari counterparts Ahmet Davutoglu and Hamad bin Jasim bin Jabir Al Thani and asked for their assistance in securing the release of the hostages.
The Qatari and Turkish foreign ministers promised to do their best to bring about the liberation of the Iranian pilgrims.
According to a Qatari source, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are sending weapons and communications equipment to the insurgents in Syria via a base that is located in the southern Turkish city of Adana, about one hundred kilometers from Syria’s border, to fight against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The Iranians were kidnapped in Syria days after seven Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) members were abducted in Libya.
On July 31, The Libyan Red Crescent (LRC) said in a statement that unidentified gunmen kidnapped a seven-member IRCS delegation after they left the headquarters of the LRC in Benghazi.
The Iranian delegation went to Libya at the invitation of the Libyan Red Crescent to discuss various prospects for cooperation in the field of humanitarian assistance.
Take Action: Free Palestinian farmers and agricultural workers targeted for imprisonment
Samidoun | August 2012
As they organize to defend their land and Palestinian farming against the onslaught of settlements and siege, Palestinian agricultural workers and organizers have been subject to an intensified arrest campaign in the occupied West Bank of Palestine.
A number of staff of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (Facebook), a Palestinian grassroots organization that organizes Palestinian farmers to defend their land and develop their products, have been targeted in recent days for arrest by Israeli occupation forces.
Dr. Moayad Bisharat
On July 31, Dr. Moayad Ahmad Bisharat, the coordinator of UAWC’s Jericho office was abducted at dawn from his home. The UAWC office in Jericho was then ransacked by Israeli forces, who confiscated the computers, laptops, and files of the organization.
This is the most recent in a series of arrests of UAWC activists in recent weeks, including the Director of Development and Operations, the engineer Fuad Abu Saif on July 26 in an early morning raid on his home in Hebron, in which his computer, mobile phone and other communication devices were seized. The director of the UAWC Jericho office, Mohammad Nujoom was abducted on July 16 as he re-entered Palestine from abroad. Both were taken to the Moskobiya compound for interrogation.
Engineer Fuad Abu Saif
In addition, UAWC Board Member Ahmad Soufan, held in administrative detention for one year, was recently ordered into a third term of six months in arbitrary administrative detention without charge or trial. Two other UAWC leaders, Abdel Razzak Farraj, administrative and financial director, and Board member Dr. Yousef Abdul Haq, were both finally released from administrative detention after multiple renewals of their imprisonment.
As the UAWC noted in its statement on the arrests, these arrests are part and parcel of the ongoing attacks on Palestinians’ right to the land, including massive settlement building, land confiscation, home demolitions, and the construction of the apartheid wall, as well as the siege and firing on farmers and agricultural workers in Gaza. The UAWC called on international organizers to defend Palestinian national rights and demand the freedom of the UAWC detainees and all Palestinian prisoners.
UAWC, which recently marked its 25th anniversity, has been struggling with Palestinian farmers and agricultural workers to defend and develop their land, support Palestinian agricultural projects, and support farmers’ steadfastness on the land in the face of Israeli occupation and aggression.
The attack on the UAWC is part of the overall attack on Palestinian farmers and agricultural workers, from olive farmers whose trees are set ablaze by settlers, tthose whose land was stolen for settlements, “military use,” or “buffer zones”, to the fishers of Gaza, who daily brave military attack for seeking to fish in their sea. It reflects the over 64 years of occupation, land theft, displacement and dispossession of the occupation of Palestine. Farmers and agricultural workers are on the front lines of resistance as they struggle to remain on their land – and are thus being targeted for arrest and imprisonment in an attempt to undermine the steadfastness of the farmers.
Western governments, including those of the United States and Canada, are not only silent in the face of these attacks, they are directly complicit, as they pledge expanded military support and allegiance to Israel as its occupation, apartheid and human rights violations continue and escalate. It is urgent that people make their own voices heard to challenge and break this complicity.
TAKE ACTION!
1. Click here to sign our petition at change.org, or sign on below! This petition will be presented to Israeli embassies in the US, Canada and other countries on Wednesday, August 15, demanding the release of these prisoners, justice for all prisoners, and an end to the attack on Palestinian farmers and agricultural workers. Individual and organizational signatories are welcome – we particularly urge groups and organizations to sign on to and distribute the petition. If you experience any difficulty signing on, please send your endorsement to samidoun@samidoun.ca.
2. Boycott Israeli goods and agricultural products! The Palestinian movement has called for boycott, divestment and sanctions targeting Israeli goods and institutions until it ends its violations of Palestinian rights. Israeli oranges, organic peppers, dates, and other agricultural products are the fruits of stolen land. Boycott those products and help to raise awareness in your community!
3. Support Palestinian agricultural products, including olive oil, spices, and maftoul, farmed by Palestinian farmers and not occupation settlements.
4. Join a protest or demonstration outside an Israeli consulate for Palestinian prisoners. Many groups and organizations are holding events – join one or announce your own. Organizing an event, action or forum on Palestinian prisoners on your city or campus? Use this form to contact us and we will post the event widely. If you need suggestions, materials or speakers for your event, please contact us at samidoun@samidoun.ca.
5. Help to support UAWC – here is information on how you can donate to support UAWC’s much needed work among Palestinian farmers and fishers.
Sign On: End the Persecution of Palestinian Agricultural Workers!
Endorse the petition, to be submitted August 15, 2012, to call for freedom for Palestinian agricultural workers targeted for defending their land.
- This is an organizational endorsement
- This is an individual endorsement
Petition Text
As they organize to defend their land and Palestinian farming against the onslaught of settlements and siege, Palestinian agricultural workers and organizers have been subject to an intensified arrest campaign in the occupied West Bank of Palestine. We write to demand an immediate end to the targeting of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees and all Palestinian farmers and agricultural workers, and the freedom of the Palestinian organizers imprisoned for defending their rights.
A number of staff of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, a Palestinian grassroots organization that organizes Palestinian farmers to defend their land and develop their products, have been targeted in recent days for arrest by Israeli occupation forces.
On July 31, Dr. Moayad Ahmad Bisharat, the coordinator of UAWC’s Jericho office was abducted at dawn from his home. The UAWC office in Jericho was then ransacked by Israeli forces, who confiscated the computers, laptops, and files of the organization. This is the most recent in a series of arrests of UAWC activists in recent weeks, including the Director of Development and Operations, the engineer Fouad Abu Saif on July 26 in an early morning raid on his home in Hebron, in which his computer, mobile phone and other communication devices were seized. The director of the UAWC Jericho office, Mohammad Nujoom was abducted on July 16 as he re-entered Palestine from abroad. Both were taken to the Moskobiya compound for interrogation.
In addition, UAWC Board Member Ahmad Soufan, held in administrative detention for one year, was recently ordered into a third term of six months in arbitrary administrative detention without charge or trial. Two other UAWC leaders, Abdel Razzak Farraj, administrative and financial director, and Board member Dr. Yousef Abdul Haq, were both finally released from administrative detention after multiple renewals of their imprisonment.
As the UAWC noted in its statement on the arrests, these arrests are part and parcel of the ongoing attacks on Palestinians’ right to the land, including massive settlement building, land confiscation, home demolitions, and the construction of the apartheid wall, as well as the siege and firing on farmers and agricultural workers in Gaza. The UAWC called on international organizers to defend Palestinian national rights and demand the freedom of the UAWC detainees and all Palestinian prisoners.
UAWC, which recently marked its 25th anniversary, has been struggling with Palestinian farmers and agricultural workers to defend and develop their land, support Palestinian agricultural projects, and support farmers’ steadfastness on the land in the face of Israeli occupation and aggression.
The attack on the UAWC is part of the overall attack on Palestinian farmers and agricultural workers, from olive farmers whose trees are set ablaze by settlers, those whose land was stolen for settlements, “military use,” or “buffer zones”, to the fishers of Gaza, who daily brave military attack for seeking to fish in their sea. It reflects the over 64 years of occupation, land theft, displacement and dispossession of the occupation of Palestine. Farmers and agricultural workers are on the front lines of resistance as they struggle to remain on their land – and are thes being targeted for arrest and imprisonment in an attempt to undermine the steadfastness of the farmers.
We demand that the Israeli government immediately free Bisharat, Abu Seif, Nujoom and Seifan and end this targeted attack on Palestinian agricultural workers.
Furthermore, we demand an end to the policy of settlement construction, land confiscation and home demolitions targeting Palestinian farmers and villages in the West Bank, and an end to the targeting of Palestinian farmers in Gaza in the “buffer zones” and fishers at sea.
Finally, we demand an end to the mass imprisonment of Palestinians and freedom for all Palestinian political prisoners.
Related articles
- Israeli occupation forces seize two farm tractors used to supply Bedouins with water (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Talking Palestine to Power (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (altahrir.wordpress.com)
- Israeli occupation forces kidnap five Palestinians including children in J’lem and Al-Khalil (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
- 8 injured as settlers stone bus carrying worshipers (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Good old Israel?
By Georgina Reeves | Palestine: a journal of everyday occupation | August 5, 2012
In his latest piece written for the New York Times, Avraham Burg asks: “Where is the good old Israel?” Assuming he is not being tongue-in-cheek, and there is no suggestion in the rest of the article that he is, he continues to peddle the same old clichés that liberal Zionists are so fond of. Propaganda is a powerful tool, but so is the truth.
He talks of the early days of Israel’s foundation: “It was an age of dreamers and builders who sought to create a new world, one without prejudice, racism or discrimination.” He neglects to mention, though, the Palestinians who remained in what became Israel, and how the new state treated them.
From 1948 until 1966, Palestinians lived under martial law. They required permits issued by the military governor to leave their villages or towns. Palestinians were subject to curfews, administrative detention – detention without charge or trial – and expulsions were common. As Palestinians were concentrated mainly in the Galilee, the Negev and the Triangle, subjecting them to such strict measures of control was simple for the authorities.
Alongside the physical restrictions on Palestinians, the newly-created state of Israel also enacted laws designed to dispossess Palestinians of their land and their rights to their land. The Absentees Property Law aimed to take ownership of property and land belonging to Palestinians. The term “absentee” was carefully applied and targeted Palestinians who had been expelled from their homes during the war of 1948.
This law applied to Palestinians who had been made refugees and were now outside Israel, and also to those who were now in Israel but living as internally displaced persons. Israel calls these Palestinians “present absentees”, an Orwellian state of being which denies them access to their homes, even though many live in the same area and their homes are still standing (unlike the 500-plus towns and villages razed to remove the evidence of Palestinians’ existence on the land for many hundreds of years before).
Burg goes on to say “But something went wrong in the operating system of Jewish democracy. We never gave much thought to the Palestinian Israeli citizens within the Jewish-democratic equation.” But that is just not true. A lot of thought went in to how to treat the non-Jewish citizens of Israel. Even before 1948 the Zionists were planning how to gain as much land with as few Palestinians as possible: for the Zionist plan of the Jewish state to become reality, Arabs had to be removed.
Yossef Weitz, director of the Jewish National Fund played a major role in acquiring land for the Yishuv (pre-1948 Jewish community). He stated: “Transfer does not serve only one aim—to reduce the Arab population—it also serves a second purpose by no means less important, which is to evict land now cultivated by Arabs and to free it for Jewish settlement. The only solution is to transfer the Arabs to neighbouring countries. Not a single village or a single tribe must be let off.”
The Dalet plan was devised during February 1948 by the Haganah – the Jewish paramilitary organisation succeeded by the Israeli Defence Forces upon Israel’s establishment. The plan was simple: the systematic expulsion of the Arab communities. The expulsions were conducted by the Palmach (elite Haganah fighters), the Irgun and the Stern (Lehi) gang. Villages and towns were attacked, depopulated and destroyed.
The men who designed and fought the war of 1948 were the same men who designed and created Israel after that war. Prejudice, racism and discrimination characterise the Israel they built and the Israel that exists today. The truth is there never was a “good old Israel”.
Related articles
- Palestinian voice from Susiya, a Palestinian village that existed before the establishment of the State of Israel (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Samah Sabawi responds to Liberal Zionists (alethonews.wordpress.com)
New Regulation Bars Palestinians and Immigrants from Using Israeli Courts
By Kelly Joiner | IMEMC & Agencies | August 06, 2012
Israeli Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman has enacted a new regulation that effectively limits the ability of Palestinians and immigrants to file lawsuits in Israeli courts.
According to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, the new regulation would require anyone filing a claim in Israeli courts to provide their Israeli ID number or foreign passport number. Palestinians from the occupied territories or stateless individuals without passports would effectively be banned from filing grievances with the courts when this order goes into effect on September 1.
Ha’aretz stated that people without a passport would have their cases referred to a judge, but in practice, warned Oded Feller, a lawyer for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, individuals without a passport would be barred from filing as court clerks refused to accept documents that are incomplete and forms missing passport numbers could be deemed as such.
Palestinians often file lawsuits in Israeli courts against Israeli Occupation Soldiers for misconduct and damages, which would be affected by this regulation. It would also hamper the ability of Palestinians from the occupied territories or migrants from other countries without passports from filing suit in labor courts against unscrupulous employers, from recovering damages if injured in a car accident, or even from filing appeals against the Israeli Interior Ministry if it decided to deport them.
Related articles
- Light Sentences for Brutal Killing of Palestinian in Jerusalem (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Analysts say Sinai attack attempt to strain Egypt-Gaza relations
Ma’an – August 6, 2012
GAZA CITY – The attack on a Sinai police station that killed 16 Egyptian officers on Sunday was an attempt to strain relations between Egypt and Gaza, political analysts said Monday.
“What happened in Egypt was a crime and organized terror meant to drive a wedge in Palestinian-Egyptian relations. It is possible that external hands are interfering with Egypt after Muhammad Mursi became president,” Gaza-based analyst Mustafa al-Sawwaf told Ma’an.
Palestinians have no interest in attacking Egyptian forces, but Israel has been unsettled by the improvement in relations between Gaza rulers Hamas and Egypt’s recently elected Muslim Brotherhood president, al-Sawwaf said.
Egypt’s former President Hosni Mubarak, who was overthrown by a citizen revolt in Jan. 2011, had played a key role in maintaining Israel’s siege on the Gaza Strip, but Mursi has pledged measures to ease the blockade and held several high-level meetings with Hamas.
Al-Sawwaf said some parties within Egypt and at an international level were uncomfortable with Hamas’ friendly relations with Mursi. Hamas has condemned the Sinai attack and vowed not to let anyone threaten Egypt’s security.
Faysal Abu Shalha, a Fatah MP in Gaza, said he hoped Mursi would still implement his pledges to aid Palestinians in the besieged enclave.
But Akram Atallah, a political analyst based in Bethlehem, said he feared residents of Gaza could pay a heavy price for the deaths of the Egyptian officers, particularly if militants in Gaza were involved in the attack.
Mursi had promised to extend the opening hours of the Rafah crossing but Egyptian security officials said the Egypt-Gaza border was indefinitely closed in the wake of the attack.
Attallah told Ma’an he suspected Israel was involved in the attack. He said Israel knew about the raid and noted that it had advised its citizens to leave Sinai days earlier.
He added that Israeli forces assassinated a man in Gaza earlier on Sunday claiming that he was involved in a plot “to execute a terror attack against Israeli civilians via the Israel-Egypt border.”
Hamza Abu Shanab, a Gaza-based analyst, said the Sinai attack was an opportunity for Mursi to cancel Egypt’s 1979 peace agreement with Israel.
The Camp David agreement limits the number of soldiers Egypt can deploy to Sinai, Abu Shanab noted, and so Mursi must ask Israel’s permission to enlarge its force in the peninsula.
An Israeli refusal would be embarrassing as Tel Aviv has called on Cairo to tighten its grip on Sinai, Abu Shanab added.
Related articles
- Israel evacuated military outpost near Rafah hours before Sinai attack (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- August 5 Sinai Attack Bears All the Hallmarks of an Israeli False Flag (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Former Fatah strongman Dahlan accused of taking part in Sinai attack (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Bomb blast rocks Syrian TV station, three people reported injured
RT | August 6, 2012
A bomb has detonated at a state-run television and radio building in the capital of Damascus, Syrian TV reported.
The explosion occurred on the third floor of the building, which houses administrative offices including the station director’s, RT Damascus correspondent Oksana Boiko said.
The station’s studios were frequently used by foreign journalists for live broadcasts from the city, she said. Three people were injured in the blast.
“It is clear that the blast was caused by an explosive device,” Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoabi said. “Several of our colleagues were injured, but there were no serious injuries, and no dead.”
“Nothing can silence the voice of Syria or the voice of the Syrian people,” al-Zoubi added while inspecting the damage at the TV building. “We have a thousand locations to broadcast from.”
The station continued to broadcast in the wake of the bombing.
The pro-government private Syrian TV station Al-Ikhbariya broadcast pictures of employees inspecting damage in the building and tending to a wounded colleague, the AP reported. [Photos]
Opposition forces mounted an assault on Aleppo’s main television and radio station on Saturday, August 4. The rebel gunmen failed to capture the building.
Seven journalists and workers were killed in June when an armed group attacked the headquarters of Syria’s al-Ikhbaryia TV.
Related articles
- Casualties reported after Syrian TV center blast (english.ruvr.ru)