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Bulldozers arrive in Hajja

International Solidarity Movement | December 10, 2012

Occupied Palestine – On Sunday 9th December at 4pm the bulldozers rolled into the small sleepy town of Hajja near Kufr Qaddoum, in the northern part of the West Bank. They rolled past the Illegal Israeli Settlements, where many Palestinians from the surrounding villages work, with less workers’ rights than the Israeli Settlers who work in the same factory.

Beneath the factories lies open farmland. Olive trees run up the sides of the hill, this is the land they’ve come to take. A confrontation happens between the Palestinians who own the land and the Palestinians from 1948 that drive the bulldozers that are already ripping up the land. The bulldozer has destroyed everything in its path already, ripping up chunks of soil, trees and shrubs along the way.

During the dispute soldiers appear, they’ve been sent to ‘protect’ the bulldozer drivers. They assure the Palestinians who rightfully own the land that they have received permission. When challenged the story changes, the soldiers have arrived without proof and it seems without permission.

Hajja has ten Illegal Settlements surrounding it to date; already they have lost so much.

We arrive at midday, the day after the first encounter. Today the soldiers come with a map, they have it all planned and regrettably it’s inevitable that the process will continue.

We arrive to the area around 2pm, a 65 year old women is clenching her fists into the sky, wailing and begging, demanding answers for what is about to happen. The soldiers tell the village that the land will be used to build an electricity post, which will also include a road which will be used to access the point. The land is shared between hundreds of people and as a result of this potentially the village would lose access to this land.

Fatima Bora Dean Marsalha tells me ‘Every time they come they destroy our land, Two years ago the settlers came and tried to build here. We just want to be able to live and work on the land that belongs to us.’

The soldiers leave and go, leaving the villagers from Hajja on the land that belongs to them, the soldiers holding their livelihoods in the palm of their hands. The soldiers I’m told are going to find more proof that they can access the land to build the Electricity Line, in the process destroying the land and preventing the Palestinians from accessing it. I am told by a Palestinian that this is how the settlements begin, first they come with a small proposal then they move on caravans, and then houses.

As we begin to walk away a Wild boar pounds down the hill towards us, the Palestinian guys throw stones to scare it away. Released by settlers to intimidate, destroy and damage the land. Wild boar are not native to Palestine, as I leave I realise that there are many manipulative tactics to this occupational game of land steal.

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December 10, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli authorities ‘to demolish West Bank road’

Ma’an – 10/12/2012

SALFIT – Israeli authorities on Monday notified Palestinian farmers in a northern West Bank village that a road connecting them to their fields will be demolished, locals told Ma’an.

Residents of Qarawat Bani Hassan, near Salfit, said Israeli planning officers told them the al-Hurriya (Freedom) road will be demolished in two weeks.

Farmers were told to avoid agricultural work in the area.

The same street was dug up by Israeli bulldozers on March 24, 2011. The local municipality, with support from the Palestinian prime minister and donor organizations, later rehabilitated the road.

Palestinian Authority premier Salam Fayyad joined the road’s original inauguration two years ago.

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December 10, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

200 teens detained by US forces in Afghanistan: Report

Press TV – December 8, 2012

The United States says that its military has detained more than 200 teenagers in war-torn Afghanistan since 2008.

The US Department of State revealed that the Afghan teenagers were held at a military prison next to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan and a few of them are still imprisoned at the Detention Facility in Parwan.

The figure was released in a report sent every four years to the United Nations regarding the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The US military held the teenagers to “prevent a combatant from returning to the battlefield,” the report claimed.

Jamil Dakwar, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s human rights program, said on Friday that if the average age is 16, “This means it is highly likely that some children were as young as 14 or 13 years old when they were detained by US forces.”

Dakwar also criticized the length of the detentions, which the State Department report said was one year on average.

“This is an extraordinarily unacceptably long period of time that exposes children in detention to greater risk of physical and mental abuse, especially if they are denied access to the protections guaranteed to them under international law.”

Tina M. Foster, the executive director of the International Justice Network which represents adult and juvenile Bagram detainees, said, “I’ve represented children as young as 11 or 12 who have been at Bagram.”

“I question the number of 200, because there are thousands of detainees at Parwan,” Foster stated on Friday.

“There are other children whose parents have said these children are under 18 at the time of their capture, and the US doesn’t allow the detainees or their families to contest their age.”

The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 on the pretext of combating terrorism. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but years into the invasion, insecurity remains in the country.

December 8, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

British soldiers in Afghanistan accused of killing four Afghan boys

Press TV – December 5, 2012

British forces in Afghanistan have been accused of killing four boys in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand in October.

According to a report published by the Guardian on Tuesday, a group of lawyers recently sent a letter to British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond, demanding that the UK government investigate the alleged killings.

The lawyers, acting on behalf of the relatives of two of the victims, said that during an operation in the village of Loi Bagh in the Nad Ali district of Helmand on October 18, the UK troops shot dead the Afghan boys while they were drinking tea.

The victims were identified as 18-year-old Fazel Mohammed, Naik Mohammed, 16, Mohammed Tayeb, 14, and 12-year-old Ahmed Shah.

The British troops were on a joint operation with Afghan forces.

“We submit that all of the victims were under the control and authority of the UK at the times of the deaths and ill-treatment,” the letter to Hammond read.

“The four boys killed all appear to have been deliberately targeted at close range by British forces. All were killed in a residential area, over which UK forces clearly had the requisite degree of control and authority.”

Major Adam Wojack, a spokesperson for the foreign forces in Afghanistan, has confirmed the operation. However, he has claimed that four “Taliban enemies in action” were killed.

The letter also includes a statement by the relatives of the victims, rejecting “any suggestion that any of the four teenagers killed were in any way connected” to the Taliban. “All four were innocent teenagers who posed no threat whatsoever to Afghan or British forces.”

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December 5, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

From Soweto 1976 to Gaza 2012: What we need is People’s Power!

PACBI | 3 December 2012

In 2008/2009 Gaza was bombed by Israeli Apache helicopters and F16 and V58 fighter planes for 22 days, ultimately causing the deaths of more than 1400 Palestinians, predominately civilians. Israel, with all the impunity it has enjoyed since its establishment on the ruins of Palestinian society, returned to Gaza two weeks ago and repeated some of the same crimes in 8 days, launching 1800 aerial strikes, killing more than 175 Palestinians — including 34 children, 11 women, 19 elderly — and injuring 1399 people, including 465 children, 254 women, and 91 elderly, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

Israel’s academic institutions have played a key role in the planning, development, implementation and justification of this and many other Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people. Tel Aviv University, for instance, takes pride in playing the central role in the development of the Israeli military doctrine of “disproportionate force” against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians.[1] Technion, Israel’s institute of technology, takes credit for developing many of the deadly weapon systems used against civilians in Gaza and elsewhere in the occupied Palestinian territory.[2] And the list goes on. This entrenched and fatal academic complicity in the commission of crimes against civilians has made PACBI and its partners around the world intensify their campaign for a comprehensive academic boycott of Israel in light of the latest massacre in Gaza.

Israel’s belligerent and entirely disproportionate air, land and sea bombardment of the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip always damages vital infrastructure and terrifies the civilian population and is therefore considered a form of collective punishment against the Palestinian people. Such war crimes are forbidden under international humanitarian law, especially the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prescribes the manner in which armies must treat civilians during times of conflict.

But Israel has been getting away with these war crimes and crimes against humanity. The “international community,” under U.S. hegemony, seems apathetic to the plight of the Palestinian people. In fact, from diplomatic support to intricate military, academic and economic relations, the US-European establishment has been deeply complicit in prolonging and strengthening Israel’s system of occupation, colonialism and apartheid, as well as in justifying and whitewashing it.

The U.S. president, followed by a chorus of European leaders, duly jumped to Israel’s defense, upholding its “right to defend itself,”[3] ignoring the fact that international law unequivocally stipulates that any injustice or unlawful act cannot give rise to a legal right or entitlement. Missing in such mantras is the right of the Palestinian people, the occupied, ethnically cleansed and oppressed, to self-determination and to defend itself against foreign occupation, a right that is granted by international law, within specific parameters. The British FM William Hague performed skillful acrobatics to spin the blame from the aggressor to the victim of aggression, claiming that “Hamas bears the greatest responsibility for the current crisis, as well as the ability to bring it most swiftly to an end!”[4]

It is crucial to contextualize Israel’s latest war of aggression as part of an ongoing strategy of depriving Palestinians, especially in Gaza, of means of sustenance in order to “sear into their conscience” Israel’s upper hand and the futility of resistance. The hermetic siege imposed on Gaza for more than 5 years, epitomized by Israel’s use of a ‘calorie count’ to limit the flow of food into Gaza, is the most deadly dimension of this patently criminal strategy [5].

This strategy, characterized by a former editor of Haaretz, a leading Israeli daily, as one of “expulsion” as well as “territorial seizure and apartheid”[6] has shaped Israel’s policy for a long time. As far back as 1992, the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin wished Gaza“would just sink into the sea” [7]. The overwhelming majority of Gaza is made up of refugees ethnically cleansed by Zionist militias and later the state of Israel during the 1948 Nakba. The fact that Gazans are not born to Jewish mothers – the criterion used by Israel to determine who is Jewish — is enough reason to deprive them of their UN-stipulated right to return to their homes and lands from which they were uprooted and exiled. The deeply colonial and racist Israeli logic views Palestinians, like the Afrikaner establishment viewed the Black natives of South Africa, as an inferior, hostile group of people that must be isolated in Bantustans, in accordance with the Oslo Accords’ terms, without calling them so; and if they show any resistance to this plan, they must get punished severely by transforming these Bantustans into “open-air prisons” or walled ghettos.

As a result of Israel’s blockade on most imports and exports and its other policies designed to punish Gazans, about 40% of Gaza’s workforce is now unemployed or without pay, and about 60% of its residents live in grinding poverty, according to various  United Nations agencies’ reports. About 1.2 million of them are now dependent for their day-to-day survival on food handouts from U.N. or international agencies; an increasing number of Palestinian families in Gaza are unable to offer their children more than one meager meal a day, often little more than rice and boiled lentils. Fresh fruit and vegetables are beyond the reach of many families. Meat and chicken are impossibly expensive. And fish is unavailable in its markets because the Israeli navy has curtailed the movements of Gaza’s fishermen.

The UN, EU and the “international community,” by and large, have remained silent in the face of atrocities committed by Israel. Hundreds of dead Palestinians have failed to convince them to act. We are, therefore, left with one option; an option that does not wait for the United Nations Security Council, namely: people’s power. This remains the only power capable of counteracting the massive imbalance between the oppressed Palestinians and their Israeli oppressors.

The horror of the racist apartheid regime in South Africa was challenged with a sustained campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions initiated in 1958 and given new urgency in the wake of the 1976 Soweto Uprising. This campaign led ultimately to the collapse of white rule in 1994 and the establishment of a multi-racial, democratic state.

Similarly, the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) has been gathering momentum since 2005. Gaza 2012, like Soweto 1976, cannot be ignored: it demands a response from all who believe in a common humanity. Now is the time to boycott the apartheid Israeli state, to divest and to impose sanctions against it. A crucial dimension of BDS that is more urgent than ever is an academic boycott of Israel’s universities, which have once again been shown to be full partners in crime.

[1] http://pacbi.org/pics/file/SOAS-Palestine-Society-Paper-TAU-Military-Complicity-Feb-2009.pdf

[2] http://alternativenews.org/images/stories/downloads/Economy_of_the_occupation_23-24.pdf

[3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/nov/18/barack-obama-support-israels-video

[4] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/william-hague-says-hamas-principally-responsible-for-gaza-crisis-but-urges-for-restraint-from-israel-8335657.html

[5] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/17/israeli-military-calorie-limit-gaza

[6] http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/the-necessary-elimination-of-israel-s-democracy-1.397625

[7] http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/pen-ultimate-tempestuous-thoughts-1.294075

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December 3, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Jewish settlers commit vehicular assaults with impunity at peaceful roadblock protests in the West Bank

International Solidarity Movement | December 3, 2012

West Bank – On two different occasions while Palestinians, accompanied by international activists, peacefully blocked roads leading to illegal settlements to demonstrate against the occupation and settlements, settlers purposefully injured activists in hit and run incidents.

On November 14 while a group of protesters blocked a road leading to an illegal settlement, a settler tried to drive through the crowd, then accelerated, deliberately hitting an international activist, as the activist was trying to get out of the way. The activist hit the front of the car, then bounced off the windshield and hit the ground. The settler then drove away, careless about what he had just done. An ambulance was called, and the activist was treated for injuries to his head and arm.

A similar incident occurred on November 19, as a roadblock protest was held on another settler road. As a settler car approached the crowd, he accelerated into Palestinian popular struggle coordinator Abdallah Abu Rahmah, hitting him with his car, before fleeing the scene. Abdallah was treated in hospital but was released later that day. Israeli army soldiers were present at the scene, but didn’t do anything to prevent the settlers from acting in violent ways, and allowed them to flee the scene.

The settlers seem to be above the law. They continually get away with violence, destruction of property, and constant harassment against the Palestinians, while the soldiers usually protect them, because they have Israeli citizenship. Incidents similar to these happen constantly all throughout the West Bank, while soldiers and authorities turn a blind eye.

December 3, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

EUROPEAN FOOTBALLERS DECLARE SUPPORT FOR PALESTINE

EUROPEAN FOOTBALLERS DECLARE SUPPORT FOR PALESTINE_550x550

Announcement – November 29, 2012

We, as European football players, express our solidarity with the people of Gaza who are living under siege and denied basic human dignity and freedom. The latest Israeli bombardment of Gaza, resulting in the death of over a hundred civilians, was yet another stain on the world’s conscience.

We are informed that on 10 November 2012 the Israeli army bombed a sports stadium in Gaza, resulting in the death of four young people playing football, Mohamed Harara and Ahmed Harara, 16 and 17 years old; Matar Rahman and Ahmed Al Dirdissawi, 18 years old.

We are also informed that since February 2012 two footballers with the club Al Amari, Omar Rowis, 23, and Mohammed Nemer, 22, have been detained in Israel without charge or trial.

It is unacceptable that children are killed while they play football. Israel hosting the UEFA Under-21 European Championship, in these circumstances, will be seen as a reward for actions that are contrary to sporting values.

Despite the recent ceasefire, Palestinians are still forced to endure a desperate existence under occupation, they must be protected by the international community. All people have the right to a life of dignity, freedom and security. We hope that a just settlement will finally emerge.

Signed by:

Gael Angoula, Bastia Sporting Club (France)
Karim Ait-Fana, Montpellier HSC (France)
André Ayew, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Jordan Ayew, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Demba Ba, Newcastle United (UK)
Abdoulaye Baldé, AC Lumezzane (Italia)
Chahir Belghazouani, AC Ajaccio (France)
Leon Best, Blackburn Rovers Football Club (UK)
Ryad Boudebouz, Football Club Sochaux Montbéliard (France)
Yacine Brahimi, Granada Football Club (Spain)
Jonathan Bru, Melbourne Victory (Australia)
Yohan Cabaye, Newcastle United (UK)
Aatif Chahechouche, Sivasspor Kulübü (Turkey)
Pascal Chimbonda, Doncaster Rovers Football Club (UK)
Papiss Cissé, Newcastle United (UK)
Omar Daf, Football Club Sochaux Montbéliard (France)
Issiar Dia, Lekhwiya (Qatar)
Abou Diaby, Arsenal Football Club (UK)
Alou Diarra, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Soulaymane Diawara, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Samba Diakité, Queens Park Rangers (UK)
Pape Diop, West Ham United (UK)
Abdoulaye Doucouré, Stade Rennais Football Club (France)
Didier Drogba, Shanghaï Shenhua (China)
Ibrahim Duplus, Football Club Sochaux Montbéliard (France)
Soudani El-Arabi Hilal, Vitoria Sport Club Guimares (Portugal)
Jires Kembo Ekoko, Al Ain Football Club (United Arab Emirates)
Nathan Ellington, Ipswich Town Football Club (UK)
Rod Fanni, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Doudou Jacques Faty, Sivassport Kulübü (Turkey)
Ricardo Faty, AC Ajaccio (France)
Chris Gadi, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Remi Gomis, FC Valenciennes (France)
Florent Hanin, SC Braga (Portugal)
Eden Hazard, Chelsea Football Club (UK)
Charles Kaboré, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Diomansy Kamara, Eskisehispor Kulübü (Turkey)
Frédéric Kanouté, Beijin Guoan (China)
Anthony Le Tallec, AJ Auxerre (France)
Djamal Mahamat, Sporting Braga (Portugal)
Steve Mandanda, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Kader Manganne, Al Hilal Riyad Football Club (Saudi Arabia)
Sylvain Marveaux, Newcastle United (UK)
Nicolas Maurice-Belay, FC Girondins de Bordeaux (France)
Cheikh M’bengué, Toulouse Football Club (France)
Jérémy Menez, Paris Saint-Germain Football Club (France)
Arnold Mvuemba, Olympique Lyonnais (France)
Laurent Nardol, Chartres Football Club (France)
Mahamadou N’diaye, Vitoria Sport Club Guimares (Portugal)
Mamadou Niang, Al-Sadd SC (Qatar)
Mbaye Niang, SM Caen (France)
Fabrice Numeric, FK Slovan Duslo Sala (Slovakia)
Billel Omrani, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Lamine Sané, FC Girondins de Bordeaux (France)
Mamady Sidibé, Stoke City Football Club (UK)
Momo Sissoko, Paris Saint-Germain Football Club (France)
Cheikh Tioté, Newcastle United (UK)
AdamaTraoré, Melbourne Victory (Australia)
Armand Traoré, Queen Park Rangers FC (UK)
Djimi Traore, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Moussa Sow, Fenerbahçe Spor Kulübü (Turkey)
Hassan Yebda, Granada Football Club (Spain)

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  • Israel assassinated 13yr old Hamid from Gaza, fan of @realmadrid while playing football. ~ Live Blog by occpal

December 2, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Stevie Wonder cancels performance for the Friends of the Israel “Defense” Forces following international outcry

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation | November 30, 2012

Washington, D.C. — Following a growing outcry from individuals, human rights organizations, and public figures from around the world, renowned musician and civil rights leader Stevie Wonder has cancelled a planned performance for the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) Annual Fundraiser Gala. In conjunction with letters and phone calls from Israelis, Palestinians, other artists and public figures, three international petitions had garnered more than 10,000 signatures, including an open letter by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation that garnered more than 4,000 signatures in less than 24 hours directly preceding the announcement.

A statement issued by Wonder read in part: “with a heart that has always cried out for world unity, I will not be performing at the FIDF Gala on December 6th… As a Messenger of Peace, I am and have always been against war, any war, anywhere.”

Wonder’s representatives said that the United Nations had also recommended cancellation in light of Wonder’s official designation as a UN “Messenger of Peace.” Symbolically, the announcement came on November 29, 2012, the annual UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, marking 65 years since the UN voted to partition Palestine, leading to the exile and dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, whose descendants number more than 7 million today. Stevie’s performance had been set to take place one week later in Los Angeles.

Wonder’s effective boycott of FIDF constitutes a major victory for the international campaign based on a 2004 Palestinian civil society call for cultural boycott against institutions complicit in Israel’s occupation and colonization of Palestinian land and discriminatory practices. It illustrates the mobilization power of the growing international movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, based on similar tactics used to help end apartheid in South Africa.

Bassem Nasir, a Palestinian writer who had reached out to Wonder, said: “As a longtime fan, I am delighted that the inspiration I have long received from Wonder has been reaffirmed. More importantly, as a Palestinian, I am grateful that he had the courage to stand against the injustices done to my people. I hope more artists do the same and boycott Israel.”

Cindy and Craig Corrie — the parents of American peace activist Rachel Corrie who was killed in 2003 by an Israeli soldier driving a U.S.-made Caterpillar bulldozer as she was protecting a Palestinian family’s home from demolition in Gaza — commended the decision. The Deputy National Director and Director of Development for FIDF, Pinhas Zoaretz, was the commanding officer of the Israeli military’s Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade when Rachel was killed. “We are heartened by reports that Stevie Wonder has decided not to perform for the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. The death, destruction, confiscation of land, and suppression of basic human rights executed by the Israeli military do not merit the support of those who yearn for justice, peace, and security for all in the region.”

For more information, contact Anna Baltzer; organizer@endtheoccupation.org; 202-332-0994.

December 1, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel detains leading MP near Nablus

Ma’an – 27/10/2012

Mahmoud al-Ramahi is secretary-general of the Palestinian parliament. (MaanImages/File)

NABLUS – Israeli forces detained the secretary-general of the Palestinian parliament Mahmoud al-Ramahi on Saturday afternoon as he passed through a northern West Bank checkpoint.

Al-Ramahi was driving south from Nablus when he was seized at the Huwwara checkpoint. His car was also confiscated.

The MP was last released from Israeli jail less than four months ago.

An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the detention and said he is “suspected of involvement in illegal activity,” without elaborating.

Months after al-Ramahi was appointed to the leadership the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006, he was seized by Israeli forces in his hometown of al-Bireh, near Ramallah, as part of a sweep of arrests after Hamas won elections.

Al-Ramahi, a medical doctor, was elected on the Hamas-affiliated Change and Reform list.

He was jailed from August 2006 until March 2009. The MP was again arrested in November 2010, and held in administrative detention until July 4 this year.

Al-Ramahi has brokered talks between Hamas and Fatah, and Hamas officials said his last detention was an Israeli attempt to disrupt reconciliation talks.

According to latest statistics, 13 Palestinian MPs are being held in Israeli jails.

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October 27, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US expands drone base in Djibouti to hit Somalia, Yemen

Press TV – October 27, 2012

The US government is expanding its drone base in the East African nation of Djibouti to escalate its assassination strikes in Somalia and Yemen.

The US military has been flying armed drones over both countries from a base in Djibouti and is planning to build a second base in Ethiopia, a report by the Washington Post says.

The report added that the drones on missions over Somalia and Yemen take off or land at the base an average of 16 times per day.

The Lemonnier base has also become home to a squadron of US F-15 fighter jets, which it reports are flying combat missions over Yemen.

The US is also known to operate drones from two other East African countries — Ethiopia and the Seychelles islands.

The base in the Seychelles that was previously used to fly surveillance drones will now host armed drones capable of flying their lethal payloads the more than 1,500 kms that separate the Indian Ocean island chain from Somalia and the African mainland and back.

However, drone operations from Ethiopia and Seychelles are nothing compared to the one at Camp Lemonnier. According to the report Lemonnier is the centerpiece of an expanding US network of drone and surveillance bases in Africa.

Washington has also been carrying out assassination attacks using the unmanned aircraft in other countries including Afghanistan, Libya and Pakistan.

The United States claims the CIA-run strikes are aimed at militants. But witness reports and figures offered by local authorities indicate the attacks have led to massive civilian deaths.

October 27, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Picking olives in a cage

International Solidarity Movement, West Bank | October 25, 2012

I spent Tuesday inside a cage. Not my usual way to spend a sunny Tuesday – but for the Palestinian farmers I was with, this is routine.

This is because their land happens to be near the illegal Israeli settlement of Ariel – in fact, it is in the Israeli imposed ‘buffer zone’ between the largest settlement in the West Bank and the surrounding Palestinian villages – of course, the buffer zone is created out of land outside of the settlement, effectively grabbing yet more land from the Palestinians.

Many olive trees are trapped in this ‘buffer zone’ between a fence on one side and Ariel on the other. So, during the Palestinian olive harvest, the villagers who own the land must ask for Israeli permission to access their own trees – as is typical across the West Bank. However, they have a second hurdle to cross, as their trees are behind this fence, the soldiers need to let them in and out every morning and evening.

The gate is meant to be opened at six every morning, during the 20 days that villagers have permission to pick olives inside the cage – some farmers have to set off from home before 5am to get there on time to be allowed in. Five soldiers deigned to grace us with their presence at around 6.15, zooming down their patrol road in a military jeep. They opened the first gate onto the road, then past the rolls and rolls of barbed wire separating this from the next gate, eventually coming down to permit access to the sixty Palestinians, who were waiting patiently outside, as the sun rose over the hill.

The soldiers took the ID card of every person who passed, impatiently gesturing at people to hurry up with their guns. When we had all crossed the patrol road and into the third gate into the cage-proper, the door slammed shut behind us. We were locked inside until 4pm, when the soldiers would come and release us.

This length of time has severe implications for the farmers picking inside the cage – if anyone is ill or gets injured over the course of the day, there is no guarantee that medical help would be able to reach them. Children can’t join their families picking olives after school. If families don’t pick their olives within the permission time, they will lose them. Multiple trips can’t be made during the day – any olives that need to be removed have to be taken in one go at the end of the day – and this can be a lot. More than anything, the loss of autonomy and control over your own life and livelihood is devastating.

The family that I was picking with didn’t actually own the land – they rented it from another family who live in a village very near to the land. However, because of the cage, it would take them around three hours to reach their trees. So although the majority of Palestinian families have a deep connection to their trees and their land, this family needed to sacrifice this for the practicality of allowing someone who lives closer to farm their land.

Actually picking the olives was trouble free. We saw one settler, jogging past on the other side of the fence – apparently there are sports fields there. At the end of the day, we walked the forty minutes back to the gate and waited for the soldiers to let us back out. This time, they called people one by one, handing them back their ID cards. This took rather a long time. At the end, there was one woman left – for several tense minutes, the soldiers couldn’t find her ID card and held her back. Her relief was tangible when it was found, and she was allowed to follow the rest of her family out of the cage. Palestinians need their ID cards for all aspects of their daily life, to have it go missing would be a big problem.

Israel aims to humiliate and control the Palestinian farmers – with great dignity, patience and steadfastness, the Palestinians gather their olives year after year, waiting until the moment when they will break free from the cages.

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October 26, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

A letter to David Cameron

A letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron, following his speech at the Annual dinner of United Jewish Israel Appeal

By Anne Candlin | Uprooted Palestinians | October 26, 2012

Dear Mr Cameron, How self-interested and partisan was your speech last week to the Jewish Israel Appeal. Carefully pre-scripted, it said everything the Jewish Zionists in your audience wished to hear. Your final quips about settlement- building and house- demolitions were moral soundbites for the Media, to give the appearance of being fair minded and caring about the Law. Your audience knew full well, as indeed you do, that the government has not the slightest intention of lifting a finger to help the displaced victims of settlement-building and house demolitions. I happened to be in E.Jerusalem when the Al Khurd family were dragged out of their home by Jewish settlers and thrown, with all their belongings and children, onto the streets. The father of the family, who was disabled and in a wheelchair, died soon after this event. The family were left to live in a tent on a patch of land in front of their former home, able to see the comings and goings of the two young Jewish families who now inhabited their home. I’m puzzled by your allusion to a Jewish philanthropic spirit when I see such things. I was shocked to see the Israeli soldiers, “the most moral army in the world,” beating up a young Palestinian Christian farmer in Al Khadre near Bethlehem, whose land had been illegally annexed for the building of a military terminal. Shocked to see them breaking his arm by stamping on it and then trying to prevent the ambulance from taking him to hospital. Shocked to see them beating up courageous Israeli Jewish activists who had come to support the farmer. Shocked to learn that Palestinian women gave birth at checkpoints and sometimes lost their babies because the Jewish soldiers would not let them go through to reach the Maternity Hospital. Your audience must be flattered and bemused by the rosy view you have of such people. We, each of us, must individually choose to embrace a humane way of living and stand or fall by our own actions. It is not enough to lazily shelter under the supposed morality of any given inherited tradition.

May I remind you that you have Muslim and Christian citizens in this country. There are Moslems, Christians, Jews and Secular people both here and in Palestine who do not necessarily share your rosy view of Israel or of it’s Jewish or non-Jewish supporters. Many of us remember that when the UK helped bring Iraq to it’s knees through sanctions, a million innocent little children died as a result. Was the celebrated Jewish sense of justice offended by that? clearly your own conscience was not moved. Sanctions produced nothing good for the Iraqi people and did not prevent war. Quite the contrary: sanctions were, and continue to be, a hypocritical and cruel devise used by western powers to conceal their already well-laid plans for the invasion, destruction and de-development of Muslim, oil-rich countries.

Not satisfied with so many deaths in Iraq, Israel and it’s economic cohorts eagerly await the death of thousands more innocent people in Iran, another oil-rich Muslim country. Sanctions first to soften the people through impoverishment and death, to alienate their leaders, then, on the eve of invasion you will wring your hands in front of the world’s media and say “look, we tried peaceful measures first, didn’t we…” But starving a population, reducing them to poverty, is as violent and genocidal as other acts of war. It is particularly deplorable that you reveled in the implementation of plans to starve thousands of others while you were feasting and dining to your heart’s content in London. One is reminded of the rich man who, while feasting at his own table, refused Lazarus a crumb of bread.

Who has been the prime aggressor in the Middle East, invading Lebanon, Syria, Sinai, Gaza? Who has defied more UN Resolutions than any other country in the world? Who threatens daily the existence of Palestinians? who assassinates Palestine’s spiritual and political leaders? Who has imprisoned the Palestinian population behind walls? Who illegally imprisons and frequently tortures 7,000 Palestinian children annually? Who has made a Palestinian state impossible through it’s theft of land and refusal to acknowledge the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their legal lands? Who has dozens of discriminatory laws against it’s minority Arab population? You know the answer yet you are proud to have such friends.

You threaten invasion against a country for even thinking about developing a nuclear weapon, but befriend Israel which has more nuclear weapons than France and the UK together. What possible rationale can you have for such uneven-handedness apart from self-interested economic and financial advantage? Will you ever publicly or privately ask the Jewish community to face Israel’s iniquities? So you believe that the interests of thieves, child-abductors, torturers, criminals, racists and warmongers are written into the DNA of the Conservative Party. What a disquieting boast. But please do not presume to confer on all the British people such a questionable genetic makeup. I am British, Caucasian, educated, middle class, a pensioner. Boringly, boringly mainstream. Hardly a candidate for Muslim extremist. I neither share Israel’s “cultural DNA” nor embrace such an unscientific and foolish notion.

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October 25, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

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