Aletho News

Murdered Jerusalem man subjected to racism even in death

Jillian Kestler-D’Amours, The Electronic Intifada, 25 February 2011

Hussain Rwidy speaking at a demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah two weeks after the murder of his son, Hussam. (Jillian Kestler-D’Amours)

All Hussain Hassan Rwidy wanted was to bury his son.

“They took me to see the investigator who worked on the case. He called me inside [his office], alone, and asked me, ‘Are you strong?'” I said to him, ‘I want my son,'” Rwidy told The Electronic Intifada.

“He said directly to me, ‘Your son died …'” Rwidy paused, then continued. “‘Your son died, and there are two people arrested.'”

Twenty-four-year-old Hussam Rwidy was killed in the early morning hours of Friday, 11 February, on Hillel Street in West Jerusalem as he and a friend, Murad Khader Joulani, were walking to their car to drive home from work.

According to the Rwidy family, who live in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Kufr Akab, everything began when a group of extremist Israeli Jews heard Hussam and Murad speaking Arabic to each other, and shouted “Death to the Arabs.”

“My son started to walk [away],” said Hussam’s father, from a mourning tent set up to remember Hussam in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, where the family is originally from, last Saturday.

“They came from behind with a knife and jumped on him. After they cut his throat, four more people came and started to beat them with punches and kicks,” he explained.

While Hussam died of his injuries when he reached the hospital, Joulani survived the attack with a deep knife wound visible on the back of his neck. According to an account Joulani gave to the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, a resident-run information and media center in Silwan, Joulani managed to pull Rwidy to a nearby restaurant where he called for help.

“None of the Israeli customers assisted the two men, except for one who handed Joulani a paper napkin to remove the blood from Rwidy’s face. Joulani was then himself able to call the police, who then commenced investigation into the incident,” the Wadi Hilweh Information Center article states (“The final moments of the martyred Husam Rwidy,” 20 February 2011).

The Israeli police originally arrested two suspects for the crime, but placed a gag order on the details of the criminal case. The Israeli media, however, quickly presented the attack as a drunken brawl between the two groups, an account the Rwidy family vehemently denies.

“If the government or police lie and say that [Hussam] started this, I will never believe that. He was handsome, a gentleman,” Hussam’s uncle, Bassam Maswadi, told The Electronic Intifada.

The gag order on Rwidy’s case was lifted earlier this week, and the Israeli media reported that four Israeli teenagers — two from Jerusalem and two from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank — were arrested for his murder. The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported that “police suspect that the stabbing had nationalistic motives and the prosecution decided to put them on trial for manslaughter” (“Four teens suspected of stabbing Arab youth to death in Jerusalem,” 23 February 2011).

“After praying in the mosque on Friday [11 February], I was on the bus and my wife called me to tell me [what happened]. I was shocked,” Maswadi said. “I started crying, like he was my son.”

Family’s suffering prolonged by “security threat”

The Rwidy family’s turmoil didn’t end with Hussam’s death, however, as they were forced to wait five days before the Israeli authorities would release Hussam’s body for burial.

The family wanted to hold his funeral in a graveyard adjacent to the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, which is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and is the third holiest site in Islam.

“They said to me that Sunday at 11am, everything is okay and [I] can come and take [my] son. When I went on Sunday, they said to me the security situation didn’t allow that,” Hussain Rwidy said.

The Israeli authorities argued that they had secret evidence proving that if Hussam’s funeral was to be held in the vicinity of the Temple Mount, a riot would break out, similar to what happened when an Israeli settler security guard shot and killed Silwan resident Samer Sarhan in September 2010.

Therefore, the Israeli police forced a set of rules upon the Rwidy family, which needed to be agreed upon before his body was released. Israel said only forty persons could be present at the burial, that it could only take place after 8pm and that the family couldn’t hold the ceremony near the al-Aqsa mosque.

“But at 1pm on Sunday, the police called me and said that everything [in the agreement] is cancelled,” Rwidy said. He explained that the Israeli authorities told the family that they would only be allowed to pick up Hussam’s body at the Qalandiya checkpoint — which separates East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank — and that he could only be buried in the West Bank, not Jerusalem.

This outrageous condition, Rwidy explained, forced the family to submit a petition to the Israeli high court to get Hussam’s body back. They finally reached an agreement, and at 12:30am on Wednesday, 16 February, were able to prepare Hussam for burial.

That night, Hussam’s body was taken to a mosque in Ras al-Amud, a neighborhood of East Jerusalem near Silwan, and was buried in a cemetery there.

Only twenty men and fifteen women were allowed to be present while the body was being prepared for burial, and no more than fifty men could be at the funeral ceremony itself. The family was not allowed to visit al-Aqsa, either, which is a customary practice for Jerusalem-area Muslim families.

Attack reflects rising tide of Israeli racism

Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of East Jerusalem have been the target of increasingly discriminatory and hostile rhetoric in recent months on the part of Israeli politicians, religious leaders and members of settler-related organizations.

In Jerusalem, this inciting rhetoric has translated into more than a dozen separate incidents since the summer of 2010 in which Palestinians have been attacked, beaten or killed by groups of Jewish Israelis.

Last November, it was reported that groups of Israelis were stalking Independence Park in central West Jerusalem, looking for Palestinians to attack. The rising wave of violence received international attention when a middle-aged Chilean tourist was mistaken for a Palestinian and was sent to a hospital after he was jumped and beaten near the park (“Fundamentalists Attack Chilean Tourist After ‘Suspecting’ He Is Arab,” International Middle East Media Center, 8 November 2010).

In another incident reported in late December by the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, a 28-year-old resident of Jerusalem’s Old City was severely beaten in a bar on Jaffa Street in West Jerusalem after a group of Jewish youth shouted racist, anti-Arab remarks at him (“Racist attacks on Palestinians,” 23 December 2010).

“These attacks in the last two years I would say are not just one person or two persons, [but] it’s actually quite organized. You can see an organization going on in especially the suburbs of Jerusalem, in the settlement suburbs like Pisgat Zeev, Givat Zeev,” explained Yossi Bartal, a long-time Israeli activist and community organizer based in Jerusalem.

“Young kids that come from these neighborhoods that are very much influenced by right-wing politicians, by rabbis, go to the city center and try to use violence and show their right-wing ideology by attacking Arabs or anyone else they don’t like,” he said.

The Jerusalem Post reported in December 2010 that a group of nine Jewish Israeli youth from the Jerusalem area had been taken in for questioning on the suspicion that they were involved in a string of attacks on Palestinians in the city (“Nine member J’lem gang arrested for attacks on Arabs,” 21 December 2010).

“The youths, most of whom are aged 14 to 19 and are residents of Jerusalem or the surrounding suburbs, are accused of gathering on Thursday nights, identifying Arabs and attacking them with stones, glass bottles and pepper spray,” the article reports.

According to Bartal, while the Israeli police have made some arrests, they aren’t taking these racist attacks seriously enough and most importantly, have failed to define much of the violence as being racially-motivated.

“The way the police tries to define these things as just normal fights is very political,” Bartal said. “They are actually stating the obvious: that they don’t want to fight racism by not defining these attacks as racist attacks.”

The pressure on the Israeli police and government, therefore, needs to come from Israeli society itself if individuals and groups are to be held accountable for their role in the wave of violence, Bartal said.

“There is a law in Israel against racist incitement. This law that actually defines, in a very problematic way, what is racist incitement should be used against these rabbis and against these politicians who call very clearly to use violence against minorities inside Israel.”

Hussam Rwidy remembered

More than a hundred persons gathered in Silwan last Saturday to mourn the loss of Hussam Rwidy and condemn the vicious attack that ended his life.

“People need to open their eyes and see what’s going on. All of us are human beings. We can live together. We need to respect each other,” said Bassam Maswadi, Hussam’s uncle.

Maswadi explained that Hussam worked two jobs — as a Coca-Cola salesman during the day, and making deliveries from the Mahane Yehuda market in West Jerusalem at night — in an effort to save money and start a family. The eldest of three children, Hussam planned on getting engaged next summer.

“Anyone who needed help, he would help. Lots of people respected him. He was just great. He was like one of my sons,” Maswadi added.

According to Hani Baidoun, a Silwan resident and friend of the Rwidy family, the Israeli government and police and security forces play a large role in perpetrating the violence toward Palestinians in Jerusalem.

“Previously we used to hear them saying that a good Arab is a dead one. Today, neither a live or dead Arab is good for Israel. They want to evacuate Jerusalem from Arabs as much and as quickly as possible. They are pushing them to think openly about leaving Jerusalem for the West Bank and even abroad,” Baidoun said.

“The Israeli policy and government encourages such beliefs and such acts against Arabs, Palestinian youth and the Jerusalemites in particular,” he added.

Maswadi agreed.

“[The Israeli authorities] have a responsibility,” Maswadi said. “We will be afraid to go in the streets at night now. We live together. This is not a life.”

~

Originally from Montreal, Jillian Kestler-D’Amours is a reporter and documentary filmmaker based in occupied East Jerusalem. More of her work can be found at http://jilldamours.wordpress.com.

February 25, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Intifada Beyond Palestine

By ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH | CounterPunch | February 25, 2011

Remember the neoconservatives’ plan of “domino effect” following the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq? It was supposed to be followed by the toppling of other “unfriendly” heads of “rogue states” such as those ruling Iran and Syria who do not cater to the US-Israeli interests in the Middle East. It was not meant to threaten the “friendly” regimes that rule Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain and their cohorts that have been firmly aligned with the United States. Indeed, it was supposed to replace the former type of “noncompliant” regimes with the latter type of “client states” that would go along with the US-Israeli geopolitical designs in the region.

Barely a decade later, however, the political winds in the Middle East are shifting in the opposite direction: it is not the US-designated “rogue states” that are falling but the “moderate American friends” who are crumbling. How do we explain this truly historical twist of fortunes?

A number of important factors that are clearly contributing to the breathtaking social upheavals in the Arab/Muslim world are economic hardship, dictatorial rule and rampant corruption. While these relatively obvious factors are frequently cited as driving forces behind the upheaval, a number of equally important but less evident forces are often left out of this list of contributory influences. These rarely mentioned factors include: aspirations to national sovereignty, frustration with the brutal treatment of the Palestinian people, and outrage by the malicious smear campaign against the Arab/Muslim people’s religious and cultural values. In other words, the Arab/Muslim people are not just angry with government repression, corruption, and economic hardship; they are also angry with their rulers’ subordination to or collusion with imperialism, both US imperialism and the (mini) Israeli imperialism, as well as with the insidious offenses against their religious and cultural heritage.

The overwhelming majority of the Arab/Muslim people who are up in arms against the status quo harbor a strong sense of humiliation by the fact that they are ruled by tyrannical heads of state who subordinate their interests to the economic and geopolitical imperatives of foreign powers. Equally demeaning to this people is the brutal treatment of the Palestinian people. The creation of the colonial settler state of Israel through terrorization, ethnic cleansing and eviction of at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, and the continued violence perpetrated daily against this people is viewed by the Arab/Muslim people as a degrading violence against them all.

Corporate media and mainstream political pundits in the United States tend to deny or downgrade the galvanizing role that anti-imperialism/anti-Zionism plays in the uprising. For example, the New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman recently opined (in a February 16, 2011, column): “Egypt has now been awakened by its youth in a unique way – not to fight Israel, or America, but in a quest for personal empowerment, dignity and freedom.” Obviously, Mr. Friedman must have a very narrow and unusual definition of dignity and freedom—as if such universally-cherished values are unrelated to foreign domination of one’s government or country.

The fact remains, however, that aspirations to national sovereignty and sentiments of anti-imperialism play important roles in the uprising. They explain why the unrest cuts across a wide swath of society. Not only the economically hard-pressed poor and working classes but also the relatively well-off middle classes are joining the youth in the streets. Professional strata such as lawyers, doctors and teachers, as well as people from the arts and intellectual life are joining too.

Just as the thrust of the Palestinian Intifada (uprising) is to end the Zionist occupation of their land, so does the more widespread unrest in the Arab/Muslim world represent a broader intifada designed to end the imperialist domination of their governments. Indications of such sentiments were reflected in many views and slogans in Cairo’s Liberation Square, which were directed not only at Mubarak’s regime but also at the United States and Israel:

“We are not with America or any other government. We are able to help ourselves. . . . We are against the US interfering in Egypt’s establishment of a democratic government. We are against any foreign interference. . . . We are Egyptians and we can decide our fate on our own. . . . “I don’t think that Israel is a state. I don’t believe in it. Israel is just an occupation. I personally, as an Egyptian, do not acknowledge the existence of Israel. Any Arab government that deals with Israel or works under Israel I do not acknowledge it either” (source).

Such keen aspirations to independence from foreign influences led Graeme Bannerman, the former Middle East analyst on the US State Department Policy Planning Staff, to acknowledge (on National Public Radio, January 27, 2011) that “Popular opinion in the Middle East runs so against American policies that any change in any government in the Middle East that becomes more popular will have an anti-American and certainly less friendly direction towards the US which will be a serious political problem for us.”

An indication of how passionately the Arab street detests their leader’s catering to the US-Israeli interests, or how they resent the brutal treatment of Palestinians, is reflected in the fact that, according to a number of opinion polls, they have consistently expressed more respect for the Iranian leaders, who are neither Arab nor Sunni, than their Arab leaders—because, contrary to most Arab leaders, the Iranian leaders have (since the 1979 revolution) firmly stood their ground vis-à-vis the egotistical imperialist policies in the region.

Egyptian regimes of Hosni Mubarak and Anwar Sadat (before him) were especially despised for their subservience to the United States and Israel. From the time of its creation in 1948 until 1979 no Arab country recognized Israel as a legitimate state. In 1979, however, Egypt (under President Sadat) broke ranks with the rest of the Arab/Muslim world when he signed a “peace agreement” with Israel, which came to be known as the Camp David accord.

Although the accord was officially between Egypt and Israel, the United States was a key broker and the main partner. The US agreed to supply Egypt with substantial financial and military aid, amounting to nearly $2 billion a year, in return for its recognition of Israel and its compliance with the US-Israeli geopolitical and economic imperatives in the region. As Alison Weir, writer/reporter and the executive director of “If Americans Knew,” recently put it, by thus recognizing and normalizing its relation with Israel, “Egypt led the way for other nations to ‘normalize’ relations with the abnormal situation in Palestine.”

Since then Egypt has been a de facto ally of Israel, as well as bedrock of economic and geopolitical interests of the United States in the Middle East. It has opened its air, water and ground spaces to US armed forces. It has worked to coax or coerce governments and political forces in the region to comply with the US-Israeli interests. And it has served as a counter-balancing force against countries like Iran that defy the imperialist plans of the United States and Israeli in the region. As a “peace partner” with Israel, Egypt has also been complicit in Israel’s colonial policies of vicious oppression of the Palestinian people.

Although under the US-Israeli influence, Anwar Sadat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (along with Prime Minister Begin of Israel), for the Camp David “peace” accord, proponents of Egypt’s national sovereignty and defenders of the rights of the Palestinian people considered the accord as treason and capitulation to Zionist expansionism and US imperialism.

The outrage that the Camp David betrayal generated in Egypt and the broader Arab/Muslim world was epitomized by the tragic assassination of Anwar Sadat, presumably for having signed the giveaway “peace” accord with Israel. The following is one of many accounts that attribute Sadat’s assassination to the “peace” agreement:

“In the months leading up to his assassination, he was hugely unpopular in the Middle East for making peace with Israel, which was considered a ‘traitorous’ move against the Palestinians. There were several criticisms and death threats made against him and his family.

“It was no surprise to many that he was assassinated, but the circumstances under which he was assassinated are still peculiar. Many reports have claimed that Egyptian Security forces knew well in advance that an attempt on Sadat’s life would be made, but did little to stop it. Some even claimed that Egyptian Security forces helped train the would-be assassins. Some see this as a plausible scenario, since the assassins were able to bypass several layers of checks and inspections prior to the military parade in Cairo” (source).

While President Reagan lamented Sadat’s death when he bemoaned: “America has lost a great friend, the world has lost a great statesman, and mankind has lost a champion of peace,” Nabil Ramlawi, a Palestinian official at the time, stated: “We were expecting this end of President Sadat because we are sure he was against the interests of his people, the Arab nations and the Palestinian people” (source).

An often latent goal of the current uprising in the Middle East/North Africa is to end the suffering of the Palestinian people by restoring their geopolitical rights within the internationally agreed upon borders. In subtle or submerged ways, the atrocious injustice perpetrated against Palestinians seems to be the “mother” of all the Arab/Muslim grievances. Viewed in this light, the uprising in the Arab/Muslim world represents an expanded intifada beyond Palestine. Without a fair and just resolution of the plight of the Palestinian people, the political turbulence in the region is bound to continue, with potentially cataclysmic consequences.

Once source of hope in the face of this gloomy picture is that more of the Jewish people would come to the realization that the expansionist project of radical Zionism is untenable and, therefore, join many other Jewish individuals and organizations (such as Jews for Justice for Palestinians) that have already come to such an understanding, and are working toward a just and peaceful coexistence with their historical cousins in the region.

Radical Zionism pins its hope for the success of its project on the support from imperialist powers. As has been pointed out by the critics of Zionism, many of whom Jewish, this is a very dangerous expectation, or hope, since the support from imperial powers, which is ultimately based on their own nefarious geopolitical calculations and economic interests, can precipitously come to an end, or drastically withdrawn, as the geopolitical equations in the region change. As the renowned Jewish thinker Uri Avnery recently put it:

“Our future is not with Europe or America. Our future is in this region. . . . It’s not just our policies that must change, but our basic outlook, our geographical orientation. We must understand that we are not a bridgehead from somewhere distant, but a part of a region that is now – at long last – joining the human march toward freedom.”

To sum up, the long pent-up grievances of the Arab/Muslim world are exploding not just in the faces of local dictators such as Mubarak of Egypt or Ben Ali of Tunisia but, perhaps more importantly, against their neocolonial/imperial patrons abroad. As the astute foreign policy analyst Jason Ditz recently pointed out, “the resentment is spreading beyond Mubarak and his immediate underlings, and toward the United States and Israel.” This means that the uprising represents something bigger than the buzzwords of abstract, decontextualized personal freedoms, or the money-driven, carefully-scripted bogus elections – called democracy. It represents a growing culture of resistance to neocolonialism that started with the great Iranian revolution of 1979.

~

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh, author of The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (Palgrave-Macmillan 2007), teaches economics at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa.

February 25, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Egyptians to march on Liberation Square

Press TV – February 24, 2011

Millions of Egyptians are planning to continue their protests by flooding Cairo’s Liberation square for a demonstration dubbed as ‘cleansing Friday.’

Protesters have planned the rally for this Friday, as they say their demands have not been met, The Associated Press reported.

They want the military council to hand over power to a civilian government, and Prime Minister Ahmad Shafiq’s cabinet to resign.

“We will march in protest to demand the resignation of Shafiq’s government and abolishing emergency law and the trial of Mubarak and his family,” Mohamed Fahmy of the People’s National Movement for Change said.

They are also calling for the immediate release of all political prisoners.

Fear is spreading that Vice President Omar Suleiman — who was the right-hand-man of toppled President Hosni Mubarak — is making the post-revolution decisions for the government. Reports indicate that he is dictating decisions to the military council.

After holding talks last week, activists accused Suleiman of being divisive and have refused to hold further negotiations. The Muslim Brotherhood has also cut contacts.

Suleiman disappeared from the public eye after former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted last month. He was Egypt’s intelligence chief for two decades before being appointed vice-president, maintaining a close relationship with the US and Israel all the while.

February 24, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Jerusalem Municipality to Further Annexation of Entire City with Green Parks Initiative

By Circarre Parrhesia – IMEMC & Agencies – February 21, 2011

The Wadi Hilweh Information Center, based in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem, has published an article raising their concerns over a scheduled project to encircle East Jerusalem with parks to complete the annexation of the entire city and much of the surrounding area in the West Bank.

The Center states that the Israeli ran Jerusalem Municipality has approved the project that will install nine new parks around the East side of the city over the next eight years, with an annual budget of NIS 60 million (over US$ 16.5 million).

In the process, large amounts of Palestinian owned lands in Wadi Hilweh, Wadi Rababa, and al-Bustan neighborhoods of Silwan, Sawwanah, near the Mount of Olives and the Old City will have have to be razed, leading to mass displacement of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem are considered protected persons, due to Israel’s occupation of the city in 1967 and, as such, the transfer of the population, in part or whole, is illegal under international law.

February 21, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

In Gaza, Hamas says no word on unity

With unrest rocking the Middle East Fayyad rethinks unity government

Ma’an – 21/02/2011

GAZA CITY — There has been no “official initiative” to contact Hamas officials in Gaza following reports that PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad was seeking participation from the party in a new cabinet, a spokesman said.

Hamas leader Salah Al-Bardawil told Ma’an on Monday that there had been no contact with Gaza officials from either the PLO or Fatah, but added that the ruling Gaza party was keen to continue reconciliation founded on “full partnership, based on national constants and upholding the right to resist.”

In the West Bank, Fatah officials indicated that reports Fayyad had contacted Hamas to participate in a new unity government were true. Fatah leader Nabil Shaath told Ma’an on Sunday that it was “possible that we could shortly form a unity government which includes Hamas. This is essential if we are seeking to reach national conciliation.”

Hamas leader in the West Bank Ayman Daraghma, when asked about Hamas participation in a unity cabinet, said only that the party had suggested the option many times, but had been refused by the PA.

“Salam Fayyad does not represent the Palestinian leadership,” Al-Bardawil said, explaining that the government was illegally given to Fayyad and he was “not authorized to speak about public affairs.”

“The problem is not the government,” he added, calling for a “comprehensive solution which begins with the PLO and ends in forming a government through fair elections.”

Any solution, Al-Bardawil added, must begin with a release of political detainees and an end to the suppression of rights and freedoms.

February 21, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Erekat Criticises PA, Calls For Re-examination of Peace Process

By Circarre Parrhesia – IMEMC & Agencies – February 20, 2011

Following his resignation as Chief Negotiator for the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Saeb Erekat has, on Sunday, called for a re-examination of the Palestinian Authority.

Erekat, speaking to the military run Israel Radio, stated that the PA had become inefficient, and should re-examine all issues regarding the peace process with Israel, including the possibility of land transfer.

Erekat’s statement comes a little over one week after his resignation as Chief Negotiator for the PLO. Erekat resigned on February 12, 2011, following the release of the Palestine Papers by Doha’s al-Jazeera Network and the British daily, the Guardian.

Erekat initially claimed that the papers were a fabrication, but later acquiesced and tendered his resignation, as the source of the leak was attributed to his office. Although Erekat changed his stance, and admitted the legitimacy of the leaked documents, he maintains that the context of the releases was distorted.

February 20, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

14 Palestinians released from Egyptian custody

Ma’an – 19/02/2011

GAZA CITY — Egyptian authorities released 14 Palestinian prisoners who were arrested on the Gaza-Egypt border, a detainees affairs official said Saturday morning.

Imad Al-Sayyed told Ma’an that the prisoners were released Friday night from the Al-Aqrab and Burj Al-Arab prisons in Cairo.

Their release has been confirmed and they are en route to the Gaza Strip, Al-Sayyed said adding that there were 19 others Palestinians who remained behind bars in Egypt.

Egyptian authorities said Saturday that they would briefly open the Rafah border crossing into Gaza.

The border will open to allow Palestinians stranded in Egypt to return to their homes for the first time since Egypt’s uprising began.

Hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza are in Egypt – either at the airport or nearby. Many were turned back because their transfer documents to enter Gaza did not contain appropriate permits to remain in Egypt.

Ghazi Hamad, head of the Gaza crossings authority, said Friday that the Rafah terminal would initially open in one direction. He added that efforts were underway to open it permanently.

The Palestinian ambassador in Cairo, Barakat Al-Farra said the embassy demanded that the crossing open in both directions for medical cases.

The crossing was to open Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Rafah, the only entrance into Gaza that bypasses Israel, has been closed since anti-government protests erupted in Egypt and led to the overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak.

February 19, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Army demolishes mosque in the Jordan valley

By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – February 18, 2011

Israeli soldiers demolished a mosque located in Khirbit Yirza, near the West Bank city of Tubas on Thursday, and also removed 10 tents used by farmers and shepherds in the area.

Local sources reported that several Israeli military jeeps invaded the village and demolished the mosque for the second time in six months.

After demolishing the mosque and the tents, soldiers also handed orders for the demolition of three homes and animal sheds.

Also, army bulldozers demolished ten tin-houses in Bardala area, near Tubas. This is the second attack of its nature against the village.

The ten tin-houses were initially demolished by the army several weeks ago, and the residents rebuilt them.

The area in question is in the Jordan valley, a main target to the construction of Jewish settlements due to the fertile nature of the lands and the sensitive geographic location.

February 18, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Prairie Fire in Madison

Flames of Resistance

By CHRISTOPHER FONS | CounterPunch | February 17, 2011

From grudging complacency to thousands on the streets, Wisconsin’s protests are spreading like a prairie fire.  With notable work over the years done by small numbers of committed activists aside, widespread political activism has been dormant in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin is the state where Fighting Bob La Follette led the progressive movement a century back and was the first state where public employees secured the right to collectively bargain in 1959. Wisconsites have enjoyed the equity of this past activism for decades, yet 30 years after Ronald Reagan launched his class war against workers, labor is finally taking a stand.

After a series of cascading factory closings, longer work weeks, shortened leisure, lowered expectations and heightened insecurity Wisconsin labor is saying “enough.”

Enter Governor Scott Walker to drop a match to the parched prairie and start the flames of resistance.

Early this week labor unions called for the usual lobbying, protests, rallies, and vigils against Walker’s aggressive move to eliminate collective bargaining rights and cut benefits in order to pay for his larding up the budget with tax breaks for the rich. Except this time it was different.  Walker’s attack was not the usual administration of slow bleeding, but a move to go in for the final kill.  This time, workers across the state realized it was time to fight or see themselves sacrificed on the altar of Scott Walker’s political ambitions.

This week, with each passing hour, demonstrations grew and communication among workers left the incubator of organized labor tops and went into a high energy transformation iinto a mass movement.  On the ground, the Republican strategy to railroad the bill through in special session was confounded by protestors, abetted by progressive legislators, which halted its rapid passage in small hearing rooms and moved it into the halls of the capitol rotunda. An all night peoples’ discussion of the bill ensued.  This brought out students and trade unionists to sleep overnight at the state capitol building.

The following day saw the crowd swell to near 15,000, with a walkout by Madison area students, which was followed by the Madison teachers’ union call for a walkout on Wednesday, which continues.  The upbeat mood was further elevated by the firefighters, whom Walker tried to split off from labor by exempting them the cuts. Instead, the firefighters came in support of the people and entered the crowd as heroes. Meanwhile, Governor Walker remained rigid, but with some Republican State Senators beginning to bend and urge compromise. At this point, the largest union in the state, the teachers union (WEAC) had enough. With the vote pending on Thursday, they implored all Wisconsinites to come to Madison and get as close to the capitol rotunda as possible and sit. This call spread across with state, with 35 school districts either canceling or delaying classes today.

More to come!

~

Christopher Fons is a Social Studies teacher in Milwaukee and a member of the Milwaukee Teacher’s Education Association (MTEA). He can be reached at fonsca@gmail.com

February 17, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Obama allocates $44 billion for Homeland Security to purchase more naked body scanners

By Ethan A. Huff | NaturalNews | February 16, 2011

The Obama administration recently announced its $3.73 trillion dollar budget plan for the 2012 fiscal year beginning on October 1. The new budget includes a more than $44 billion allocation for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to purchase 275 more naked body scanners to be installed at U.S. airports, despite continued outcry from health experts and the public about the machines’ safety hazards, threats to personal privacy, and complete ineffectiveness.

Up three percent from last year’s budget, the DHS allocation is just the start of the Obama administration’s efforts to have 1,275 naked body scanners installed in airports by the end of 2012. The plan disregards the numerous testimonies from security experts who have dubbed the machines “useless,” and say they fail to detect explosive materials any better than conventional scanners.

“I don’t know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines,” said Rafi Sela, former chief of security at the Israel Airport Authority and expert in airport security. “I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747. That’s why we haven’t put them in our airport.”

The machines are also a huge health threat, as they bombard travelers with low intensity radiation in a way that spreads it across the skin of the entire body. This full-body radioactive blast has not been fully investigated and nobody knows for sure what the long-term consequences of exposure will be.

“It concerns me a great deal,” said University of California – San Francisco (UCSF) professor Robert Stroud in an interview with CBS 5 San Francisco, concerning the machines. “We simply don’t know enough about low intensity radiation. Skin is where a lot of this particular radiation probably will be the most damaging.”

February 16, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment