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The village of Awarta faces collective punishment from soldiers after attack on settlers

12 March 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

Today the village of Awarta, the Palestinian village located closest to the illegal settlement Itamar which witnessed the murder of an entire settler family this morning, was put under severe military restrictions. According to the village council, 19 people are still in custody after the Israeli military raided the village early this morning. Around 8 am the Israeli military cut off the roads to the village, preventing anyone from entering or leaving. Around 25 people were arrested in total, among them a 14-year-old boy.

When the soldiers entered the houses to arrest people they flipped over furniture, smashed windows, threw sound grenades and shot bullets in the air.

Around 3 pm the soldiers returned a second time to search houses of the families who’s sons had been arrested. They forced the families to stay outside under armed guards for an hour while about 20 soldiers with dogs entered their houses. As they had done in the morning, the soldiers turned the houses completely upside-down, destroying the electricity by cutting the cables to the fuse box, and polluting the drinking water by throwing mud in the water-tanks. Computers and phones were destroyed and money and property were stolen by the soldiers. Once again the soldiers threw sound grenades inside and outside the houses.

While the soldiers were searching the houses, the families, including women and small children, were forbidden to drink or eat.

It has been reported that an 80-year-old woman who suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure was beaten by the soldiers. She was taken to the Rafidia hospital in Nablus.

Around 6 pm the soldiers left the village, but residents of Awarta are scared that settlers will attack again during the night. No one knows if or when the army or the settlers will return to the village.

The families of the men and boys that were arrested do not know where their sons, fathers, and brothers are or when they will come home.

Even though this kind of systematic collective punishment is illegal according to International law, it is frequently used by the Israeli military all over the West Bank and in Gaza.

March 12, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Bahrain police open fire on protesters

Press TV – March 11, 2011
Bahraini police preventing anti-government protesters from marching towards the royal palace.

Bahraini police have opened fire on anti-government protesters marching towards the royal palace in the capital, injuring at least 150 people.

There are also reports suggesting that security forces and pro-government vigilantes armed with clubs, swords and metal pipes are beating protesters near the royal complex.

Witnesses say at least ten ambulances were rushed to the area.

The violence came as nearly 50,000 demonstrators tried to stage a protest rally near the royal palace in the Refaa area of Manama on Friday, demanding political reforms.

Thousands of women have also joined the protest rally demanding an end to King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa’s rule. Protesters are also calling for the ouster of the government and want a new constitution.

Bahraini authorities, however, claim that security forces fired tear gas on anti-government protesters to stop them from heading toward a square near the royal palace, where hundreds of armed pro-regime loyalists were waiting for them.

Bahraini security officials had earlier warned against demonstrations near the palace, saying they would deal with the issue as a national security threat.

“The march that some people are trying to hold today to the Reffa area threatens security and social peace,” an interior ministry statement said on Friday.

“The interior ministry holds the organizers and participants of this march responsible for the consequences and reiterates the need to avert any confrontation among the residents that could result in unnecessary loss of life,” the statement added.

“Under these conditions…the interior ministry confirms that forces to defend public order will be present to prevent any clash that may occur between the residents.”

All roads leading to the palace were blocked since early in the morning, forcing protesters to walk long distances to reach the area where members of the Sunni royal family live.

March 11, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Colombia Slips Into the Abyss

By DAN KOVALICK | CounterPunch | March 10, 2011

While little attention has been paid by the press, Colombia just reached an ignominious benchmark – it is now the country with the largest population of internally displaced persons in the world, surpassing The Sudan which had held this position for the past several years. Colombia, with a population of around 44 million, now has 5.2 million internally displaced persons, meaning that almost 12% of its population is displaced – most of them by violence, and a disproportionate number Afro-Colombians and indigenous.

As a report by the Colombian human rights group CODHES notes, half of the 5.2 internally displaced were displaced during the presidential term of Alvaro Uribe, and as a direct consequence of his “counterinsurgency program” – a program funded in large measure by the U.S. As CODHES noted, in a significant proportion of the municipalities impacted by this program, there has been large-scale mining and cultivation of oil palm and biofuel. CODHES is clear that this production is directly responsible for the violent displacement of persons from their land Indeed, it appears that the “counterinsurgency program,” as many of us has said for years, was in fact largely intended to make Colombia safe for multi-national exploitation of the land at the very expense of the people the program was claimed to be helping.

The proposed Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is also intended to do the very same – to protect the rights of multi-national corporations over the basic human rights of the Colombian people. For example, the Colombia FTA would privilege the very palm oil production which is leading to the mass displacement of people. Even more frightening, as The Nation Magazine explained in a detailed article, entitled, “The Dark Side of Plan Colombia,” around half of the palm oil companies are actually owned and controlled by paramilitary groups, meaning that the FTA will directly aid these groups by incentivizing their crops.

As the Washington Office on Latin America recently noted, the FTA’s agricultural provisions will also undermine the livelihood of Colombia’s rural inhabitants who will not be able to compete with the subsidized, cheap food stuffs which will be able to flood the Colombian markets duty-free under the FTA. Indeed, we have seen this before, in Mexico where NAFTA led to the impoverishment and displacement of 1.3 million small farmers, and in Haiti which lost its ability to feed its own people with its rice production after Clinton’s free trade policies with that country.

And indeed, Bill Clinton apologized to the Senate last year over these very free trade policies, saying: “It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake. . . . I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else.” And yet, the current administration, with Bill Clinton himself cheering it on, is pushing the same failed free trade policies for Colombia.

Meanwhile, the labor rights situation in Colombia remains dismal. Thus, according to the Escuela Nacional Sindical (ENS), fifty-one (51) trade unionists were killed in 2010, and 4 unionists (including 3 teachers) have already been killed this year. See, story. The 51 unionists killed in 2010 matches precisely the number of unionists killed in 2008 when President Obama vowed to oppose the Colombia FTA based upon his concern that unionists face unprecedented violence in that country. The same concerns should motivate President Obama to oppose the FTA now.

The continued violence against trade unionists in Colombia led the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) to inform leaders of the EU, who are considering a similar free trade agreement, that the Colombian administration’s attempts to sell the agreement on the claim that labor and human rights are improving in Colombia are in fact a sham. In the words of the ITUC, “intensive lobbying campaign at the European Parliament by the Colombian Government is an attempt to mislead the international community.” The ITUC urges the international community not to be fooled by the Colombian government’s campaign and to continue to reject a free trade agreement with that country. Hopefully, the Obama Administration will take heed of such warnings.

~

Dan Kovalik is Senior Associate General Counsel of the United Steelworkers.

March 10, 2011 Posted by | Economics, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Hundreds clash in Cairo’s Tahrir Square

Middle East Online | March 9, 2011

CAIRO – Attackers armed with knives and machetes on Wednesday waded into hundreds of pro-democracy activists in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, witnesses said, as insecurity raged in post-revolutionary Egypt.

Stone-throwing skirmishes were continuing as an AFP reporter arrived at the scene, and activists were gathering sticks and stockpiling rocks to defend themselves from the mob, supporters of ousted president Hosni Mubarak.

“A couple of hours ago the pro-Mubarak thugs attacked us and tried to come into Tahrir, but we were able to push them back, with sticks and stones. We fear they will return,” a young militant, Mouez Mohammed, said.

Tahrir Square was the symbolic heart of last month’s uprising that forced Mubarak from office, and hundreds of pro-democracy activists remain camped out there to maintain pressure on the military regime that replaced him.

“Hundreds of men carrying knives and swords entered Tahrir,” state television reported, as footage showed rocks being thrown and hundreds of activists scattering and diving for cover.

There were few signs of any security forces at the site, apart from two army tanks protecting the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities at the north end of the square, in the heart of the capital.

The clashes took place as the newly appointed cabinet met with the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to propose a law criminalising incitement to hatred, which could lead to the death penalty, state TV said.

The military rulers were struggling to bring calm on several fronts, as clashes between Coptic Christians and Muslims in the working class area of Moqattam left 10 dead and scores wounded, the health ministry said.

Insecurity has been rife after police disappeared from the streets during protests that toppled Mubarak, who had ruled Egypt for 30 years under emergency law.

Earlier the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest opposition group, blamed diehards of Mubarak’s regime for inciting violence — a view widely shared across the country.

March 9, 2011 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

13 injured when Israeli settlers and army attack the village of Qusra

International Solidarity Movement | March 8, 2011

In the afternoon of the 7th of March 2011, villagers from Qusra, south of Nablus, were attacked by settlers from the surrounding illegal outposts who shortly were accompanied by the Israeli army. Thirteen Palestinian men were injured and taken to Rafidia hospital in Nablus. Nurses reported that the ambulance staff were prevented from reaching the wounded people.

Several of the victims were seriously injured. Ibrahim Hassan, 15 years old, was shot by a live bullet which entered his back and went through his kidney before it exited. His condition is reported to be stable, but he might loose his kidney. Qaher Oude, 25 years old, was first shot in his left leg and then beaten. The settlers beat him on his upper body with stones and sticks and then used a big stone to completely crush his right leg. He will have his surgery tomorrow.

“I heard that people were injured, so I went there to help them and suddenly I got shot. The settlers came from nowhere.” Said Qaher Oude.

Three farmers were working their land outside the village of Qusra when they were attacked by settlers from the nearby illegal outposts. At 16.30 the village imam called for help for the farmers and the people of the village came to their aid. When villagers arrived four Palestinians were already injured and the Israeli army was there, protecting the settlers. In total, there were about 50 settlers accompanied by the Israeli army. The residents of Qusra reported that the Israeli soldiers did nothing to stop the settler violence, but instead actually took part in the beating and shooting of civilians. Some of the injured people reported they had been shot and beaten by soldiers and some by settlers. “They were shot by Israeli bullets, it’s no difference”. Said one of the villagers.

Among the injured in Qusra today were people shot by live ammunition and rubber coated steel bullets, people beaten by settlers and soldiers, and people who suffered the asphyxiating effects of gas inhalation.

Qusra with its 4,000 inhabitants is situated 22 km south of the city of Nablus, near the illegal Israeli settlement of Migalim. This is the second serious incident involving violent settlers in Qusra in the last two months.

March 8, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

The Names of the Innocent who are Killed

By Vera Macht / Dissident Voice / March 6th, 2011

This article is about Omar Maruf. What makes this one so important when every day dozens of innocent people die all over the world? Why an article about this one?

Omar Maruf was killed by a soldier who was heavily armed, and well equipped with everything the latest Western military industry has to offer. Omar was wearing old, dirty clothes, and collecting stones with his donkey. Omar was not even a so-called “collateral damage” who was unfortunately hit by a misguided bullet or bomb during a military attack. In our modern wars, where everything is precisely calculated, sometimes someone is just at the wrong time at the wrong place. But it wasn’t like that. No, a young soldier, heavily armed and well equipped, targeted Omar, who was standing there, with shabby clothes and stones in his hands, and decided to shoot him. A young soldier on a sunny winter morning felt the need to kill a man his same age who he probably considered as not so important. He knew that this act would never have any consequences, that he wouldn’t have to justify that deed to anyone. Because it was a Palestinian who has no rights, whose life doesn’t count.

This article is about Omar Maruf, because his life does count. Because his death deserves outrage and a demand for justice. Because I’ve looked into the silent faces of Omar’s grieving brothers, because I have listened to his cousins, who spoke all the more, out of anger and helplessness. How can you just murder a young man, they asked me. How is it possible that the Israeli soldier will not be sued, that there is no justice, that no one cares? Why can you just kill people like us, why can you just shoot Palestinians? Why does no one do anything? Why is no government in the world helping us, when the Israeli government believes that international law does not apply for them?

So here it is, the story of the death of Omar Maruf. He was twenty years old, and the father of a two years old son. “Don’t go too close to the border, it’s too dangerous,” his cousin Talal has previously warned him. He had no choice, Omar had responded. He had a son who needs food. So he went to the border to collect stones. It was 9:30 in the morning of the 28th February 2011,  Talal was about 700 meters away from the border, on his own land. Omar was at 400 meters, when the Israeli soldiers opened fire. He was outside the so-called buffer zone, the 300-meter-wide strip of land along the border with Israel, which the Israeli military has banned from entering under threat of death. It is debatable whether it is lawful to declare publicly to shoot any civilian of the neighbour state who is on his own farmland close to the border. But that is not important, Omar was over a hundred yards away from this area.

Talal couldn’t see Omar from where he was standing.  He didn’t know what had happened to him, whether the shots had hit him. The soldiers fired several volleys, and with the last volley, they shot the donkey, Talal could see how he died. Why the donkey, one wonders, such a pointless additional cruelty. But Talal didn’t know yet what had happened to Omar. Shortly after, two bulldozers and a tank broke into the land.  It was impossible for Talal to come closer. Even the ambulance from the Red Cross which he had called received no permission to approach the donkey cart, even after several attempts to coordinate with the Israeli side.

The bulldozers began to dig a ditch around the cart with the dead donkey, almost half a kilometer away from the territory of their own state. Why, one wonders. Why did they dig a ditch around the donkey cart? Shortly after, Talal watched from a safe distance how Omar’s lifeless body was brought into the tank. Why, one wonders. Why did they take Omar with them? Maybe they wanted to treat him, said his cousin. Treat? For two hours, the paramedics of the Red Cross were trying to find out what happened to Omar, where he was, whether he was still alive. In vain. Finally, the paramedics received a call from the hospital of Gaza City: A body had been brought in from the Israeli Erez crossing, Omar was dead

“What on earth was this soldier thinking when he shot him?” his cousin asks me. “Did he think he would pose any danger? He doesn’t even have money to buy milk for his child. Did he think he had money for a weapon? Did he think he would have a tank?” As if I would have the answer. So I follow the question of why the soldiers have taken Omar with them. They wanted to help him, the family is convinced.

I ask one of his brothers whether traces of medical treatment were visible on his body. He shakes his head. “No,” he says, “I have seen his body. There were no puncture marks of an infusion, no bandages. The bullet had entered at the left side of his body, and had come out again on the other side.” A dumdum bullet, which causes maximum damage. Bullets which explode on impact inside the body are prohibited according to Geneva Convention 1889, Declaration 3. I don’t mention that that hardly matches the version that soldiers wanted to help. Perhaps the idea is just too reassuring that one of them has actually seen Omar as a human being who needs help.

But something had changed on him. As Omar’s dead body reached the hospital, a notice was fixed to his chest. “Terrorist” it said.

Omar Maruf is the eighth civilian being shot dead in the buffer zone in the last two months. Since the beginning of last year, far more than a hundred workers and farmers have been shot by Israeli snipers in the buffer zone, 18 of them died.

~

Vera Macht lives and works in Gaza since April 2010. She is a peace activist and reports about people’s daily struggle in Gaza. She can be reached at Vera.Macht@uni-jena.de

March 6, 2011 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Israeli troops fire on women marking International Women’s Day, serious injuries reported

Stun grenade fired at woman’s face

Ma’an – March 6, 2011

RAMALLAH — Israeli forces violently shut down a demonstration led by women north of Jerusalem on Saturday, organizers said.

Border police fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets at the protesters marking International Women’s Day at the Qalandiya checkpoint.

The event was organized by minister of social affairs Majeda Al-Masri, a leader in the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and union officials from Hebron and Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

It was not clear how many people were hurt, but union official Nehad Al-Akhras said a Swedish activist was seriously injured by a stun grenade which struck her in the face. She was hospitalized in Ramallah.

~

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association

Join us in calling for the immediate release of all Palestinian women political prisoners.

Petition: We, the undersigned members of worldwide civil society, are marking International Women’s Day on 8 March 2011 by calling on the Israeli authorities to immediately release all Palestinian women political prisoners and detainees from Israeli jails, including women in administrative detention. We condemn the cruel and discriminatory treatment that Palestinian women prisoners and detainees are subjected to during their arrest and interrogation and in prison, including sexual harassment, psychological and physical punishment and humiliation, and deprivation of gender-sensitive healthcare. This is in contravention of international law and must stop immediately.

 

To sign the petition, please go here.

March 6, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Education in Ein Il Hilwe

The school in Ein Il Hilwe is a simple tent with plastic chairs

Ein Il Hilwe is a Bedouin community located in the north of the Jordan Valley and is one of many Palestinian communities doomed to suffer de-development under the strict policies of Area C. The village consists of around 130 people and is strategically located next to one of the few natural springs in the Jordan Valley that has not been confiscated by the Israeli government. The village itself is located off of the main highway in the Jordan Valley, at the foot of surrounding hills. Taken out of context of the Israeli occupation, Ein Il Hilwe seems to would be a picturesque manifestation of simplicity and tranquility. Unfortunately for the residents of the community, the occupation is omnipresent and unlikely to retreat soon; Ein Il Hilwe is surrounded by five illegal Israeli settlements that often come and harass the villagers. Like many other villages in Palestine, the effects of the occupation are perhaps most strongly felt my the children of the community.

Only 35 students from Ein Il Hilwe and the surrounding communities can use the school

Children from Ein Il Hilwe, as well as those from surrounding Bedouin communities, used to travel to school in the village in Tayasir, a trek of over 13km that required taking a bus and passing through an Israeli checkpoint. Too often, however, children would face harassment from the soldiers manning the checkpoint. Some were even forced by the soldiers to abandon the bus and walk the 13 km to and from school. Understandably, the brutal treatment from Israeli soldiers forced many of the children to drop out of school. To combat the falling retention rate and to support the existence of the Ein Il Hilwe community, the Save the Jordan Valley Campaign constructed a simple tent school last November. The school can hold 35 children, though many have classes outside, sitting on small plastic chairs where volunteer teachers instruct Arabic, English, Math, Chemistry and Religion, though classes include students of all ages and levels. Unfortunately, because the tent school in Ein Il Hilwe was illegally constructed (according to the draconian rules imposed by the defunct Oslo Accords), it is not recognized by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and therefore receives no funding from the state. The the tent and the play area, as well as the cost of transportation for teachers and all school supplies were all provided by developmental organizations. Indeed, the success of the school is entirely dependent on charity.

On Saturday, I attended a advocacy function in Ein Il Hilwe organized by the Save the Jordan Valley Campaign and Ma’an Development Center, during which volunteers helped extend the current play area for the children and met with the leaders of the community. Volunteers were meant to construct a second tent classroom for the community which would have allowed an additional 65 children to attend school, but on Friday, February 25, military jeeps arrived in the town and threatened to demolish both the tent and the existing play area.

Israeli soldiers threatened to demolish the school last week

Unfortunately, the situation in Ein Il Hilwe is not isolated. Communities throughout Palestine and particularly in the Jordan Valley are subject to the same horrifying circumstances. Area C – meaning full Israeli administrative and military control – extends to over 95% of the Jordan Valley. Most devastating about Area C is the inability of Palestinians to construct, leaving Palestinian communities in a constant state of, at best, stagnation and, at worst, de-development. Between 2000 and 2007, only 6% of Palestinian building permit requests were approved; 91 permits were granted to Palestinians while 18,472 Jewish units were built during the same period. For every building permit that Israel approves for Palestinians, it issues 55 demolition orders.

The students of Ein Il Hilwe are not alone in their suffering either. The Ka’abneh village is another Bedouin community that is surrounded by settlements. Like Ein Il Hilwe, a school was constructed for the community illegally, providing education to 66 students. Over the last three years, the Ka’abneh school has been issued six demolition orders, the most recent in October 2010 for a small bathroom. Likewise, the Jiftlik School faced a similar fate before 2005. Like their compatriots in Ein Il Hilwe, students from Jiftlik were forced to travel to nearby Beit Hassan to go to school. After the construction of the Hamra checkpoint, many from Jiftlik dropped out of school due to high transportation costs and harassment from Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint. The village decided to build a tent school, similar to the one in Ein Il Hilwe, but Israel demolished the school seven times between 2003 and 2008.

 

The entire community of Ein Il Hilwe is located in a firing zone

The Palestinians of the Jordan Valley are under constant attack. Not only does Israel use guns, but also bulldozers and lawyers to force Palestinians to leave their land. In 1967 320,000 Palestinians lived in the Jordan Valley. Today, that number has been reduced  82.5% to a mere 56,000. Poverty rates soar to 60%, worse than most areas in Gaza. Perhaps most tragic is that students in the Jordan Valley are actively refused their legal right to education by the Israeli occupation. Harassment by soldiers and settlers alike as well as the inhumanely routine practice of school demolition denies Palestinian children the right to learn.

 

Article 50 of the 4th Geneva Convention requires the occupying force – in this case Israel – to ‘facilitate the proper working’ of schools in the occupied territory. Harassing students, destroying schools and implementing policies undermining Palestinian education is a clear violation of this and any other international laws – including the Convention of the Rights of Children and the Convention against Discrimination in Education. More importantly, the damage done to schools and students today is greatly limiting and handicapping the future generations of Palestine.

Photos by Chris, 2010

* Chris is currently living in the West Bank and working at a community development NGO.

March 5, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Knee Capped for Driving While Arab

By Maysa Abu Ghazala – Palestine News Network –  March 5, 2011

On Thursday, February 24, 20-year-old Mohammad Gharib of al-Issawiya village near Jerusalem was driving home, bringing dinner from a restaurant in Jerusalem.

Mohammad Gharib - PNN
Mohammad Gharib – PNN

Mohammad took his youngest brother and his friend along for the ride. When they reached the intersection leading to the Ma’ale Adumim settlement, their car broke down.

“As I was trying to see what happened to the car, three settlers stopped and offered to help,” Mohammad recalled. “I thanked them and as I was speaking to them in Hebrew, they realized I was Arab. They started calling me names, then one of them pulled his gun and shot me in the knee.”

Mohammad was taken immediately to al-Maqasid hospital in Jerusalem, then moved to the Israeli hospital of Hadassah where doctors told him his knee was shattered and muscles torn.

“Doctors installed a device to make me walk,” he said, “but now I can’t leave my bed on my own”.

Mohammad said he filed a police report and told Israeli officers that he could identify the settler who shot him. He also demanded they work on his case quickly.

As of now, he is still lying in bed in pain and waiting for the police to arrest his attackers.

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March 5, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

The struggle for al-Araqib is the struggle for Palestine

Ameer Makhoul, The Electronic Intifada, 4 March 2011

Al-Araqib was the last village I visited before my arrest. Al-Araqib is not just a village, but the very heart of a nation and a people. On 5 May 2010, I was there under the tent of Sheikh Sayah, a local leader. There was a big crowd after the destruction and the reconstruction of the village. We met there until late at night, taking advantage of the desert darkness.

Al-Araqib is a small village in the southern part of historic Palestine known as al-Naqab but which Israel calls the “Negev.” Since mid-2010, Israel has bulldozed the village more than a dozen times.

We had come at the request of Sheikh Raed Salah but especially in answer to the call of our duty and our responsibility as a nation. Before the evening gathering of the activists in al-Araqib, we had visited the village of Houra where we met activist Nouri al-Uqbi, then Liqyeh and activist Alayan Sane. Our delegation from the Popular Committee for the Defense of Political Freedoms, in the framework of the High Follow up Committee for the Arab Citizens of Israel, included Abdel Hakim Moufid, Raja Aghbariyeh, Qadri Abu Wassel, lawyer Abd al-Raouf Mouassi and myself. Forgive me if I have left anyone out.

This was my last visit before police and security forces raided my home and arrested me one hour after I arrived back in Haifa after midnight. I can no longer follow the evolution of events except for the biased information available here in prison.

At that meeting in al-Araqib, we knew that the eyes of the Israeli forces of uprooting were upon us under the convenient cover of the desert, hiding their criminal face and hands in its darkness. Just as the saying goes, that the “people of Mecca know their territory better than anyone else,” so the people of al-Araqib know their territory and its night-time environment better than anyone. However, the uprooters have usurped the friendly obscurity of the desert. They invade the land and the night, bringing with them injustice, blackness, uprooting, expulsion and forced exile. The Zionist project has cast this darkness throughout its history.

The darkness of the plan has cast its dark shadow over al-Araqib, the Naqab, the Galilee, the coast, the Triangle, Jerusalem, Gaza, West Bank and has travelled across the ocean, preventing the light of liberty from reaching Gaza, besieging it. The darkness has stretched out over those in exile in a vain attempt to hide the homeland, cut it off from light and hope, hidden from the option of return.

But the people in our homeland know what they are doing and know who is watching them. They know their right to their homeland as well as the rights due to them inside it.

Neither the Israeli eyes watching us nor the bulldozers of destruction and ethnic cleansing can change our minds. They have been active every minute for six decades. But we, the masses of the people inside, have been growing in strength every day since the Nakba — the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine in 1947-48 — and during the ongoing Nakba. We have become stronger in our resistance to oppression and the system of ethnic cleansing, and our will has broken free.

At the meeting in al-Araqib, we prepared an emergency plan of action and confrontation to resist and hold our ground. We divided up the tasks and shared our concerns while planning how to face the imminent destruction with our bodies by mobilizing people backed by efficient local and international solidarity. We determined that every single house destroyed would be rebuilt and every single tent torn down set up again, no matter what the price. The reconstruction would take place immediately after such crimes of destruction. Our visit was not the beginning of our existential struggle. It was a planned additional step to gain momentum in the knowledge that it is a decisive battle, not a local problem, but a strategic stand. The battle for al-Araqib is a fundamental event in defense of the nation and what is left of the land in order to protect Arab existence in the Naqab and to recuperate as much stolen land as possible. This is a battle for our homeland, a test of our willpower and an expression of the direction our popular struggle has taken over several decades.

If we see this battle as just one more incident, we will deliver al-Araqib and all it represents into their hands. We cannot. Al-Araqib is an integral part of the nation at a key moment when national duty and the spirit of defiance and steadfastness call upon the people to resist, bearing in mind the initial battle for land and home, on 30 March 1976: Land Day.

On that day, Israeli forces killed six Palestinian citizens of Israel protesting against a government decision to confiscate thousands of dunams of their land in the Galilee. Palestinians everywhere annually commemorate Land Day as a protest against Israel’s discriminatory policies towards its 1.2 million Palestinian citizens and to underline their collective and individual rights.

Today, we face a plan for ethnic cleansing from the same system, of the same nature, but focusing on al-Araqib.

There is an intimate link between popular resistance in al-Araqib and in Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Nilin, Bilin, in the Triangle and in al-Rawha, the fight against house demolition and Judaization in the Galilee, the fight for Umm Sahali and all the struggles of The Association of the Forty of Ein Hod and the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages in the Naqab, Nuri al-Uqbi’s fight for the defense of his land and his right to live on it, the Palestinian and international movement against the blockade of Gaza, the fight to preserve the Arab character of Jerusalem and its holy sites and other popular resistance movements.

The energy of these struggles, born of grassroots and local solidarity movements and taken up by international supporters, is growing every minute. This solidarity constitutes a powerful force of dissuasion against those invading al-Araqib and elsewhere and acts as a protection for the people of this country and its landowners whether living here at the moment or refugees from here.

It is important to realize that Israel has now understood that the Arab peoples are a strategic force of which, at this stage, the Palestinians are the best organized. They are able to defend their rights, their existence and all the rights due to their people. They are as capable of recuperating rights they have been denied, such as their national inheritance and their land, as they are of waging legal battles, where our position is much stronger than Israel’s. The system intent on uprooting al-Araqib, like the entire process of uprooting and expulsion, must be ever vigilant to justify its legitimacy, while we in turn need to question its legitimacy every day in order to put a halt to all its illegal actions.

This system will stop at no crime unless we challenge its every move. The dynamics of this confrontation prove that neither al-Araqib nor its population needs any recognition from its oppressors and uprooters since the land and its history acknowledges their presence: the nation knows its own people and their legitimacy derives from this unbreakable tie.

All honor to the High Follow up Committee for the Arab Citizens of Israel for making the correct connection between the Jerusalem/al-Quds and al-Aqsa uprisings in 2000 and the fight for al-Araqib and the defense of the homeland by calling for major action in the Naqab and on the land of al-Araqib in the Naqab on the eve of Land Day. They send a message to us and to the world that our cause is indivisible, that our people stand united for our cause.

~

Ameer Makhoul is a Palestinian civil society leader in Israel and currently in Gilboa prison. This edited essay was translated from Arabic to French by Rim al-Khatib and from French to English by Carol Scheller.

March 4, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

U.S. Darkness in Chile

By Jacob G. Hornberger | March 3, 2011

When President Obama visits Chile next month, he is going to be hit with a request that is certain to make people in the Pentagon, the CIA, and the U.S. State Department uncomfortable. According to an article in today’s Washington Post, survivors of Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet’s reign of terror are going to request that Obama declassify hundreds of secret U.S. government documents relating to the 1973 military coup that led to the ouster of democratically elected socialist-communist President Salvador Allende and the subsequent U.S.-supported brutal military dictatorship of Pinochet.

Why does the U.S. government persist on keeping documents secret that relate to a foreign coup almost 40 years ago, one which the U.S. government has consistently maintained it had nothing to do with?

Several possible reasons arise:

1. U.S. officials, especially those in the Pentagon and the CIA, might still feel a sense of loyalty to Pinochet’s memory and his henchmen. Don’t forget that before the Pentagon and the CIA were partnering with and supporting the tyrannical dictators of the Middle East, they were celebrating Pinochet’s assumption to power. In fact, long before the CIA entered into its rendition-torture agreements with dictatorial regimes like Syria and Egypt and its war-on-terrorism assassination program, the CIA was participating with Pinochet’s anti-communist group known as DINA, whose agents assassinated former Chilean official Orlando Letelier and his young American assistant Ronni Moffitt on the streets of Washington, D.C., under the same basic “national security” rationale as the U.S. government’s torture and assassination programs.

2. There is always the possibility that the documents might reflect that the U.S. government’s denial of participation in Pinochet’s coup has been a lie from the get-go. Let’s not forget that for some 25 years U.S. officials, including those in the CIA, knowingly and intentionally lied about participating in the murder of a young American journalist named Charles Horman during the coup. Many years after the killing and the false denials, the State Department released a document that reflected that the CIA had in fact participated in the murder of that young American.

Were the CIA agents involved in the killing brought to justice? Nope. Do we know their names? Nope. Do we know why they helped to murder Horman? Nope. Did Congress ever issue subpoenas to the CIA and conduct hearings into the killing? Nope. Did the Justice Department ever seek grand jury indictments of the killers? Nope. Did the U.S. government ever ask the Chilean government to prosecute the killers? Nope. Hey, this is the CIA we’re talking about!

Question: How is it possible that the U.S. government, including the CIA, was not involved in the Chilean coup if it was involved in the murder of an American journalist during the coup?

3. The documents might reveal U.S. participation in the arbitrary arrests, torture, rapes, and killings by Pinochet’s goons. More than 3,000 people were killed by the Pinochet military-police-intelligence machine, many after being tortured and raped, all of which Pinochet justified under such popular rationales for government wrongdoing as “national security” and “the communist threat.”

4. The declassification of the documents and their possible use by Chilean investigators and prosecutors might cause the American people to begin asking why their own government doesn’t prosecute its own officials for such crimes as torture, indefinite detention, rape, abuse, and extra-judicial execution. According to the Post’s article, more than 600 military officials and civilian collaborators have been tried by Chilean officials. That’s a precedent that surely sends shivers up the spines of U.S. military officials, CIA officials, and civilian collaborators who have committed the same types of crimes under the rubric of the popular mantras “national security” and “the war on terrorism.”

The Chilean people deserve credit for confronting the darkness of their past. Some years ago, they came to the realization that their nation could not genuinely move forward by sweeping the horrible crimes of the Pinochet regime under the rug. Too bad Americans aren’t there yet, which is why Obama will likely get away with refusing to grant the Chilean people’s request to open up all the U.S. government’s files relating to the Chilean darkness.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

2. There is always the possibility that the documents might reflect that the U.S. government’s denial of participation in Pinochet’s coup has been a lie from the get-go. Let’s not forget that for some 25 years U.S. officials, including those in the CIA, knowingly and intentionally lied about participating in the murder of a young American journalist named Charles Horman during the coup. Many years after the killing and the false denials, the State Department released a document that reflected that the CIA had in fact participated in the murder of that young American.

March 3, 2011 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

February: Seven Palestinians Killed, 46 Injured By Army Fire In Gaza

By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – March 03, 2011

A report published by the Higher Committee for Medical Services in Gaza, revealed that Israeli soldiers killed, in February, 7 Palestinians, and wounded 46, including several children, during several attacks targeting the Gaza Strip in February.

Committee Spokesperson, Adham Abu Salmiyya, stated that the Israeli Air Force bombarded at least 15 targets in Gaza, including a storehouse for medicines that belong to the Ministry of Health, east of Gaza City.

He also stated that three fishermen were killed by Israeli Navy fire near Beit Lahia, and that one worker, collecting debris to be recycled and used in construction, was also killed and eighteen other workers were wounded.

The number of Palestinian workers who were killed by the army in Gaza since March 2010 now stands at six, while 132 were wounded.

Abu Salmiyya said that two of the slain residents and eleven of the wounded were targeted by Israeli artillery shells, and 18 were injured during aerial strikes carried out by the Israeli Air Force.

Two residents were wounded when an ordnance dropped by the army in previous invasions and attacks detonated near them.

In December of 2010, Israeli soldiers killed seven Palestinians, including two children, and wounded more than twenty resident.

March 3, 2011 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

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