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Occupied Lives: I have no future

Palestine Center for Human Rights | August 8, 2012

Ahmad Dalloul in front of his destroyed factory in Tel-el-hawa

Mamoun Ahmad Dalloul (36) lives in Tel-el-hawa with his wife and 9 children.  Until recently, he owned a dairy-products factory that produced milk, cheese and yoghurt.  Since December 2008, Mamoun has re-built his factory 4 times after it was repeatedly targeted and destroyed by Israel’s forces.  On 04 June 2012, at around 1:00, his factory was targeted and destroyed by Israel’s forces for the 5th time.

On the evening of the most recent attack, Mamoun received a call from his brother, who lives adjacent to the factory, informing him that the factory had been destroyed by a missile from an F16: “I rushed to my factory and, when I arrived, there were firefighters and police.  The neighbors were panicking and standing in the streets.  I was told that a missile had hit the factory and then penetrated 6 or 7 meters into the ground.  There was something like an earthquake for 5 minutes, and then the missile exploded and pulled everything into the crater.  I do not know what kind of missile it was.”

After 5 attacks on his factory, Mamoun is devastated: “The first time my factory was destroyed was in December 2008 during Operation Cast Lead.  The factory was very big and on the ground floor of our residential apartment.  I received a call from Israel’s forces, who told me that the building would be targeted in the next 15 minutes. My family and I fled immediately.  3 missiles were fired from an F16 and the building was completely destroyed.  In just a few minutes, we lost everything.  We were suddenly homeless and I had lost my only source of a livelihood.”

Mamoun and his family were forced to shuffle from one household to another, looking for a place to stay: “We would stay at my parents’ house for a few days then move to my brother-in-law’s house and spend a few more at my brother’s house.  My son kept asking why we had no home.  Finally, as my wife is a refugee, UNRWA built us a single residential unit.  I then rebuilt my factory in Sabra, which is in central Gaza City.  It was very small and modest because there was barely any construction material in Gaza, as well as money constraints.  6 months later, it was destroyed by Israel’s forces.  I then partnered with someone else and tried to rebuild in a different location, but it was destroyed while we were still constructing.”


A crater made by the missile fired from an F16 on 04 June 2012

At this point, Mamoun had given up and decided to not rebuild his factory: “The first 2 times, I rebuilt because this is my only source of a livelihood.  There are hardly any employment opportunities in Gaza.  My factory provided work for 120 individuals, including my 3 brothers and my son.  I saw how they were all suffering without work and thought that the factory would at least provide them with the income to support themselves and their families.  I had enough after the 3rd attack, but a representative of the European Commission came to visit from Jerusalem and said they would mediate on my behalf.  They promised that the factory would not be targeted again.  Each time I bought new machines, they came and took pictures and reassured me all was well.  I was encouraged by this and started to develop the factory slowly.  Then, just like that, it was targeted and destroyed again.  They did not keep their promise.”

Each attack has resulted in severe economic hardship for Mamoun and his family: “I have had to borrow money and my savings are almost depleted.  I sold 2 pieces of my land to rebuild my factory.  I even sold the house that UNRWA gave us to set up the factory and have a source of income.  I can no longer sustain the expenses for my family.  For a while, people would not even let me rent an apartment in their buildings, because they thought it would be targeted.”

Mamoun feels that his story is one of many that illustrate the suffering of Gaza: “There are people who are displaced and dying.  I know what it feels like to be homeless.  My children have had to grow up seeing dead people, war and destruction.  They no longer even react to airstrikes, because this is what they are used to.  My factory was a civilian establishment and I did not plan any resistance activities there.  Why would I want to put my family in such danger?  I am tired of this destruction.  I have no future now.  Why can’t we be left to live in peace and stability like other people in the world?”

The direct targeting of a civilian object constitutes a war crime, as codified in Article 8(2)(b)(ii) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.  Similarly, under the Fourth Geneva Convention Article 53, the destruction of private property is prohibited unless rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.  The destruction of such factories infringes upon human rights principles, including the right to work and right to attain an adequate standard of living contained in Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

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August 10, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Doors to the Sea: Gaza’s Fishermen Under Siege

This film, produced by the Union of Agricultural Work Committees in Palestine, explores through interviews, film of fishers working, and commentary, the experience of Gaza’s fishers under siege, confronted by Israeli warships, sharp restrictions on their areas for fishing, and the political, military and economic siege on Gaza. Participants in the film include Vittorio Arrigoni, the martyred international solidarity activist murdered in Gaza in April 2011.

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August 7, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Sectarian Agenda And The Sectarian Rats Let Loose

By Daniel Mabsout  | Deliberation | August 6th, 2012

kenkeefe

The campaign against Ken O’Keefe is not directed at his own person, as the abduction of the Aloha Palestine mission was not directed against him. What the Palestinians and other Arabs failed to understand is that this campaign that involved Palestinians as well was in the first place directed against Palestine and Palestinians and was not an internal dispute or a quarrel between peace activists over some project or mission. It is important to find out who benefits from this whole action and who are the people behind it and what are their affiliations since the people who abducted the mission are the same people who launched the anti O’Keefe campaign.

Could real activism attempt at a peace mission? For sure not; what attempted at the mission is a certain policy and agenda and a certain conduct dictated by that policy and agenda. the people who attacked the mission and then launched their miserable campaign were implementing an agenda that is a sectarian agenda by which they aimed at monopolizing the peace movement for Gaza and handing it over to people who will operate via Turkey for Turkey to reap politically on the ground the fruits of such peaceful and supportive endeavor. It is secular Turkey now claiming to represent the Sunni sect that was to take the Gaza peace movement in charge, any personal initiative not operating through Turkey became therefore threatened and exposed. All this is but a NATO/ Turkish / Israeli agenda that wants to infiltrate the Palestinian movement in all its aspects in order to lead the Palestinian struggle away from the Hizbullah/ Iran arena where Israel has been shamefully defeated. That is how the Turkish/ Israeli/ Palestinian/ sectarian rats were let loose to dismantle the Aloha mission the same way the Libyan fanatic thugs were let loose by NATO and Israel to dismantle the Libyan regime.

It might be surprising to say that brother O’Keefe was victim of an anti Iranian campaign but that is the real label under which falls the whole situation in our area, starting from the Iranian nuclear issue, passing by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, not forgetting of course the Arab springs and, finally, the attack on Syria ; the abduction of the mission and the hatred campaign targeting brother Ken fall under the same label.

The sectarian agenda is a Turkish/Israeli agenda that has added many Palestinians to it to give it a Palestinian color and flavor and make it look true and genuine, but it is definitely an anti Palestinian agenda the same way the abduction of the mission is an anti Palestinian act. Unfortunately HAMAS was not able or not willing to hold back the sectarian rats who pirated the mission.

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August 6, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Analysts say Sinai attack attempt to strain Egypt-Gaza relations

Ma’an – August 6, 2012

GAZA CITY – The attack on a Sinai police station that killed 16 Egyptian officers on Sunday was an attempt to strain relations between Egypt and Gaza, political analysts said Monday.

“What happened in Egypt was a crime and organized terror meant to drive a wedge in Palestinian-Egyptian relations. It is possible that external hands are interfering with Egypt after Muhammad Mursi became president,” Gaza-based analyst Mustafa al-Sawwaf told Ma’an.

Palestinians have no interest in attacking Egyptian forces, but Israel has been unsettled by the improvement in relations between Gaza rulers Hamas and Egypt’s recently elected Muslim Brotherhood president, al-Sawwaf said.

Egypt’s former President Hosni Mubarak, who was overthrown by a citizen revolt in Jan. 2011, had played a key role in maintaining Israel’s siege on the Gaza Strip, but Mursi has pledged measures to ease the blockade and held several high-level meetings with Hamas.

Al-Sawwaf said some parties within Egypt and at an international level were uncomfortable with Hamas’ friendly relations with Mursi. Hamas has condemned the Sinai attack and vowed not to let anyone threaten Egypt’s security.

Faysal Abu Shalha, a Fatah MP in Gaza, said he hoped Mursi would still implement his pledges to aid Palestinians in the besieged enclave.

But Akram Atallah, a political analyst based in Bethlehem, said he feared residents of Gaza could pay a heavy price for the deaths of the Egyptian officers, particularly if militants in Gaza were involved in the attack.

Mursi had promised to extend the opening hours of the Rafah crossing but Egyptian security officials said the Egypt-Gaza border was indefinitely closed in the wake of the attack.

Attallah told Ma’an he suspected Israel was involved in the attack. He said Israel knew about the raid and noted that it had advised its citizens to leave Sinai days earlier.

He added that Israeli forces assassinated a man in Gaza earlier on Sunday claiming that he was involved in a plot “to execute a terror attack against Israeli civilians via the Israel-Egypt border.”

Hamza Abu Shanab, a Gaza-based analyst, said the Sinai attack was an opportunity for Mursi to cancel Egypt’s 1979 peace agreement with Israel.

The Camp David agreement limits the number of soldiers Egypt can deploy to Sinai, Abu Shanab noted, and so Mursi must ask Israel’s permission to enlarge its force in the peninsula.

An Israeli refusal would be embarrassing as Tel Aviv has called on Cairo to tighten its grip on Sinai, Abu Shanab added.

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August 6, 2012 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Does It Matter What Israelis Do?

Where’s the Netanyahu Scandal in the New York Times?

By SAUL LANDAU | CounterPunch | July 20, 2012

Western leaders met in Paris last week to discuss possible intervention in Syria where almost 10,000 people have died over the last year of internal conflict. The West has never even considered holding such a meeting on Israel’s murderous behavior, however, despite a July 5 UN report that claimed that over the last five years Israeli forces have killed nearly 2,300 Palestinians and injured 7,700 in Gaza (statement from UNOCHA, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.)

The UN agency said that 27 percent of the fatalities in Gaza were women and children in a report highlighting the effects of Israel’s blockade.

Six years ago Israel imposed its sea and air blockade of Gaza. Under the blockade, Gaza exports have dropped to less than 3 percent of 2006 levels.

UNOCHA said, “The continued ban on the transfer of goods from Gaza to its traditional markets in the West Bank and Israel, along with the severe restrictions on access to agricultural land and fishing waters, prevents sustainable growth and perpetuates the high levels of unemployment, food insecurity and aid dependency.”

Israel’s naval blockade has also undermined the livelihood of 35,000 fishermen, and Gaza farmers have lost around 75,000 tons of produce each year due to Israeli restrictions along Gaza’s land border, the UNOCHA report said.

Half of Gaza’s youth is unemployed and 44 percent of its people are food insecure.

Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Thursday that because Gaza’s ruling party Hamas is a “terrorist organization, the blockade was necessary.”

“All cargo going into Gaza must be checked because Gaza is controlled by Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization,” Regev told Reuters in response to a petition by 50 aid groups, including six UN agencies, calling on Israel to lift the blockade.

The West abhors the Syrian – disobedient – government, allied to Iran, and adores Israel, no matter what it does to the Palestinians. The media does little to dramatize the obvious double standard criteria used to measure the worthiness of the two neighboring governments. Iran, the West’s post Cold War bad guy, found a friend in Syria and that alone has condemned the Syrian government. The fact that Saudi Arabia has armed and financed rebels entering Syria in the name of “democracy” should cause at least some news absorbers to feel a bit skeptical over the anti-Syria campaign.

It doesn’t seem to matter what Israelis do. For example, Arutz Sheva, the nationalist Israeli press, reported that “declassified FBI documents from a 1985-2002 investigation implicate Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in an initiative to illegally purchase United States nuclear technology for Israel’s nuclear program.

“Netanyahu was allegedly helped by Arnon Milchan, a Hollywood producer with ties to Israeli prime ministers and U.S. presidents.”

Grant Smith had reported that “Netanyahu worked inside a nuclear smuggling ring.” Here’s an example of what is found in the report:

“On June 27, 2012, the FBI partially declassified and released seven additional pages from a 1985–2002 investigation into how a network of front companies connected to the Israeli Ministry of Defense illegally smuggled nuclear triggers out of the U.S. The newly released FBI files detail how Richard Kelly Smyth – who was convicted of running a U.S. front company – met with Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel during the smuggling operation. At that time, Netanyahu worked at the Israeli node of the smuggling network, Heli Trading Company. Netanyahu, who currently serves as Israel’s prime minister, recently issued a gag order that the smuggling network’s unindicted ringleader refrain from discussing ‘Project Pinto’.”

The Hebrew paper Ma’ariv continued the report on this incident.

“According to FBI documents released by the United States, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was involved in smuggling in the 70s from the U.S. components of Israeli nuclear program, and assisted by the businessman Arnon Milchan, who according to previous publications was a former Mossad agent.

“The documents describe the findings of the investigation… performed between the years 1985 to 2002 on about how a network of front companies a U.S. security firm illegally smuggled equipment used for weapons seeds out of the U.S.”

We live in the Golden Age of Empire Judaism, says Prof. Marc Ellis. “Greater Israel” means Jewish settler expansion in a denial of Palestinians and their rights. It also means perpetual conflict, maybe war, in the region. Is this why our Congress pledges eternal love to Israel? Is this why the Israeli lobby pays and threatens our Congress?

When will Western powers meet to decide what to do about Israel so as to lessen the damage she causes to Palestinians, her neighbors and the region? Israel has baffled the U.S. political apparatus. It gets away with imposing apartheid against Palestinians, stealing their land and stirring up wars against its neighbors. One negative word from a U.S. pol on Israel brings heavy pressure, intimidation and money for opposing candidates – along with charges of anti-Semitism.

How pathetic that a small group of right-wing Jews allied to right-wing Israeli parties, has buffaloed U.S. politicians and media. One former Congressman described the Israeli lobby as the equivalent of a pit bull that bites the Congressman’s leg in the morning and holds on during lunch and the afternoon. The Congressman sleeps with the bull’s teeth in his leg and wakes with it the next morning. No wonder Members don’t want to antagonize this angry dog!

I don’t suggest Palestinians form an equivalent lobby, but rather that the media develop a little courage and report accurately on events in Israel and Palestine. Just spread reviews of the new film “5 Broken Camera,” in which a Palestinian West Bank farmer documents the encroachment by army-backed settlers that bulldozed his village’s olive trees to  make room for Israeli apartment houses. Israel’s treatment of West Bank Palestinians is no better than its behavior toward residents of Gaza.

Saul Landau’s WILL THE REAL TERRORIST PLEASE STAND UP screens at Washington DC’s Avalon Theater, 5612 Connecticut Ave 8 pm, august 14 and at the San Jose Peace an Justice Center on Aug 3, 7 PM 48 South 7th St., San Jose CA.

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July 20, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

France’s Zionist Puppet Masters

By Vacy Vlazna | Palestine Chronicle | July 6, 2012

France, the nation whose 1789 Revolution gave the world the ideals of Equality, Fraternity and Liberty especially freedom of speech and of the press, jumps to attention (as a docile marionette does) when its Zionist manipulators such as the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism(BNCVA) the France Israel Chamber of Commerce, International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, get a whiff of criticism of Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In June, puppetmaster CRIF frantically pulled its incitement-to-hate-Israel-strings when Professor Christophe Oberlin had the temerity to light a spark of conscience and morality (important qualities for the medical profession) by setting an exam question for his students of humane medicine at Bichat Hospital Faculty of Medicine using the example of the massacre of 22 members of the Samouni family [by the Givati Brigade] during the 2008-2009 Israeli war on Gaza “To what extent does it constitute a perpetual crime (war crime, crime against humanity, genocide crime)?”

Oberlin’s boss, the Puppet, oops, President of Diderot University, Vincent Berger shamefully apologised (for the truth) to CRIF and said an internal investigation would be mounted. Ironically, Diderot University prides itself on Denis Diderot’s humanist values and his profound respect for freedom of knowledge and thought. Diderot himself did not shy from controversy when accused of ‘publishing dangerous ideas’ and Berger’s unworthy coerced apology is at odds with Diderot’s “Every man has his dignity. I’m willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.”

Professors Mads Gilbert and Eric Fosse, Norwegian surgeons, who attended the Samouni survivors and other innocent victims of Israel’s violent Cast Lead Operation in Gaza describe in their book, ‘Eyes in Gaza’, how in April 2009, Norwegian lawyers filed charges of ‘war crimes and gross violation of international humanitarian law’ against the war on Gaza’s key Israeli political and military leaders Ehad Olmert, Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Gabi Ashkenazi, Eliezer Marom, Avi Mizrahi, Ido Nehoshtan, Yoav Galant, Ilan Malka (Givati) and Avi Peled (Golani) and requesting their arrest if they go to Norway. Gilbert and Fosse’s ‘Eyes in Gaza’ details the medical challenges of treating injured civilians in the thick of the fierce Israeli bombardment and severe medical shortages and should be a mandatory text for medical students and Vincent Berger.

Another serious attack on academic independence and freedom of expression occurred in February at the Paris 8 university when a conference titled “Is Israel an apartheid state?” which included the keynote speaker, Omar Barghouti, coordinator of the Palestinian campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel was obsequiously banned by the University president Pascal Binczak who closed the university down for 2 days after a delirium of “discrimination against a nation”-and-“incitement to hatred and violence” string-pulling by CRIF and the Simon Weisenthal Centre which warned of the threat to public order and danger to the Jewish community. This is the same Wiesenthal Centre that intolerantly desecrated the Muslim Ma’man Allah cemetery, Jerusalem to build its Museum of Tolerance. Shimon Samuels is the director of both the European Wiesenthal Center and the BNCVA.

The conference was peacefully held off-campus.

In January 2011, CRIF president, Richard Prasquier contacted the Minister of the Universities, Valerie Pécresse convincing her to cancel a BDS conference at the prestigious “l’Ecole Normale Supérieure” (ENS) in an attempt to silence Stephane Hessel, diplomat, ambassador, writer, concentration camp survivor, former French resistance fighter, an editor of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and author of Indignez-vous! (Time for Outrage) in which he states, “Today, my main indignation concerns Palestine, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank…. This conflict is outrageous.”

Zionists also tried to string along the French justice system since 2010 during a series of trials against French BDS activists citing the 1972 amendments to Law of 1881 whereby racially defamatory comments and incitement to racial hatred were criminalised. CRIF has 80 cases pending trial. In 2011, the judgement from the Bobigny criminal court ruled that “incitement to discrimination could only be applied to a population or a population group, and not to a state or the products of that state.” On 17 June 2011, judges of the tribunal of the 17th magistrate’s court of the Paris law courts ruled on the right of citizens to call for a boycott of Israel and its products.

When Olivia Zemor, president of CAPJPO-EuroPalestine, was acquitted on 8 July, 2011 “the judge explained that the article of law cited by the plaintiffs (article 24, paragraph 8, Law of 1881) is designed to “fight any form of racism” and cannot be cited in order to forbid a call for boycott “suggesting a certain form of conscientious objection, which each of us is free to express or not to express” and “launched by non-governmental organisations without prerogative powers”.

Even so, the new French president Francois Hollande was quick to emulate his predecessor, the Zionist ventriloquist dummy Sarkozy, stating ” I am totally opposed to the boycott of Israeli goods, which is illegal and does not serve the cause of peace.”

Tracking Zionist interests and manipulation of the French government is a matter of following the money which ultimately leads to the Israeli arms industry and to Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

France is Israel’s largest European weapons supplier which as David Cronin points out is “at variance with the Union’s decade-old code of conduct on weapons exports. Formally declared legally binding by EU governments last year, the code forbids weapons sales in cases where they may exacerbate regional tensions or where there is a strong likelihood they will be used in violation of human rights.”

Charles Edelstenne, who by the way is also a director of Carrefour, is chairman and co-founder of Dassault Aviation, a major military supplier, which has a stake in Thales, a French multinational company that turns over more than $22 billion in revenue in Aerospace, Space, Defence and Security markets annually. Heron TP aircraft are built by Dassault Aviation and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) which was founded in 1953 by Shimon Peres and is owned by the government of Israel. Le Figaro, France’s second largest national newspaper is owned by Dassault. Lagardère, a French conglomerate with defence and aviation interests, owns the Paris-Match magazine and part owner of Le Monde, Xavier Neil, is a partner of Israeli company, Golan Telecom whose controlling shareholder, Michael Golan made ‘aliyah to Israel in 2007 ‘as part of his Zionist vision’.

Former President of France, Sarkosy (as well as Blair) is a personal [acquaintance of] Bernard Arnault, Europe’s 4th richest man, who controls the luxury goods empire of Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) which also owns the French cosmetics chain Sephora and has stakes in the Carrefour supermarkets and in De Beers Diamond Jewellers Limited.

Sephora operates 269 stores in France and more than 1,400 stores in 27 countries. It retails the AHAVA Dead Sea products that are produced in Israel’s illegal colonies. EI blogger, Adri Nieuwhof points out that “Ahava uses Palestinian natural resources without the permission of or compensation to the Palestinians. Meanwhile, Israel denies Palestinians access to the shores of the Dead Sea and its resources, although one-third of the western shore of the Dead Sea lies in the occupied West Bank.”

French BDS activists have been targeting Carrefour supermarkets deshelving “Israeli agricultural products imported in France by the Israeli company Mehadrin, which is an essential tool for the Israeli policy of colonization of the Palestinian territories. Most of the products come from Israeli settlements, including from settlements located in the Jordan valley where 7,000 settlers have taken over 95 % of the Palestinian farmer’s lands and have ensured the control of 98 % of the water. As per international law, and in particular as per the IVth Geneva Convention, the activities of Mehadrin are criminal.”

Israeli Textile giant, Delta Galil also supplies Carrefour. It’s boss, Dov Lautman is an associate of Ehud Barak and a staunch Zionist. He a member of the Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors since June 2002 and a member of the Jewish Agency Executive. The Jewish Agency was established by the World Zionist Organization (WZO) in 1929. “It acts as agent of the government in assigning land to Jewish colonists” in Occupied Palestine.

From 2009 until 2011, when it hit a financial slump, Israeli billionaire Nochi Dankner’s Koor Industries Ltd held a 3% share stake in Carrefour. Former president and CEO of Strauss Group Ltd (which actively supports the vicious Golani and Givati elite brigades), Erez Vigodman joined Makhteshim Agan Group in January 2010 which is 40% owned by Danker’s Koor Industries. Maketish Agan is a pesticide factory located in the Ramat Hovav industrial zone that pollutes its environs with hazardous waste including Wadi el-Na’am, a village of more than 5,000 Bedouins. “In a 2004 study commissioned by the Israeli Ministry of Health found a high rate of birth defects among children living in the vicinity. In August 2006, Ben Gurion University epidemiologist Batya Sarov, formerly a specialist at Chernobyl, compared the environmental monitoring and health risks to Chernobyl.”

Dankner is also a director of Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises, Israel’s sole cement producer, which supplies construction materials to Israeli companies building the illegal Annexation Wall and ‘products of Nesher were seen in construction sites in West Bank settlements and in the construction of the light rail project in Jerusalem, which connects the settlement neighbourhoods of the city with the city center.’

In 2007 Jonathan Kolber, Koor Industries chairman and former director of Makhteshim, who is also on the board of directors of Elbit (Israel’s largest defence firm specialising in drones ad surveillance), invested in Eyeblaster along with BRM Capital managing director Eli Barkat. Eli’s bother, Nir was a founder of BRM. Nir Barkat, as mayor of Jerusalem drives the judaisation of occupied Jerusalem through ethnic cleansing, home demolitions and illegal colony construction.

LVMH also has the jewellery lines of TAG Heuer, Chaumet, Christian Dior Montres, Zenith, Fred, Hublot, including the joint-venture De Beers Diamond Jewellers Limited. In 2012 Nicky Oppenheimer sold the family’s 40% stake in De Beers after its long and lucrative relationship with Israel’s diamond industry which still continues.

Patrick Galey, in his article “Israeli Blood Diamonds: The Global Coverup’ reveals the close connection between the Israeli diamond industry and the Israeli military. ” Israeli economist Shir Hever, in evidence given at 2010’s Russell Tribunal on Palestine, said that it was the Israeli Defense Forces, among other organizations, that most benefited from Israel’s lucrative diamond business.”

“Overall the Israeli diamond industry contributes about $1 billion annually to the Israeli military and security industries,” Hever told the Tribunal. “Every time somebody buys a diamond that was exported from Israel some of that money ends up in the Israeli military, so the financial connection is quite clear.”

“That is not counting the private diamond revenue that goes to the Israeli Army. Steinmetz, [a buyer of rough diamonds from De Beers] one of the world’s leading diamond producers, owns a charitable foundation that has “adopted” a unit in the Israeli Army. The diamond giant is funding the notorious Givati Brigade, responsible for one of the worst atrocities perpetrated on the people of Gaza during Operation Cast Lead” i.e.. the Samouni massacre.

Zionist puppeteers ensure that the French government protects its interests in Israel. For all the financial loss of billions of dollars, due in part to the successful BDS campaign against it, the massive debt of Veolia Environnement, a multinational French company which is heavily implicated in Israel’s apartheid framework, is being propped up by tax monies by the French government through Caisse des Dépôts (CDC), a public investment authority that manages public funds. Veolia built the Jews-only Light Rail Project in Jerusalem and provides Jews-only bus services along the Jews-only Highway 443 for illegal colonists to the illegal colonies built on stolen Palestinian land in Occupied Palestine.

Little wonder then, in April, that Zionist interests in France could pull strings to prevent 100 Flytilla activist from leaving France when Air France refused to embark passengers marked on Israel’s blacklists. A French woman was taken off an Air France plane when she failed to declare herself an Israeli or a Jew. The French government went as far as urging its citizens not to take part in the ‘Welcome to Palestine’ campaign which simply requested participants to openly state to Israel authorities their intention to travel to Occupied Palestine.

Despite French attitudes that show 20% are positive towards Israel and 65% are negative (BBC Poll), France manifests as a puppet regime of global Zionism surrendering the civil liberties of its citizens, the academic freedom and independence of its universities, and its binding responsibilities to uphold international law noteably the Geneva Conventions which protect Palestinian human rights. It is the determined and principled actions of French activists, withstanding Zionist antisemitism hysteria, who uphold the tattered motto of France- liberté, égalité, fraternité.

– Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters.

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July 7, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian toddler killed by Israeli tank

Al Akhbar – June 23, 2012

A four-year-old boy was killed while six other Palestinians were wounded as Israeli tanks carried out an assault on Gaza on Saturday, medical officials said.

The Jewish state also launched fresh airstrikes in the besieged area, injuring 20 people, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Four-year-old Muatazz al-Sawwaf was killed and three others injured, one seriously, by Israeli tank fire in the Abasan neighborhood east of Khan Younis, Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said.

Three people were wounded in a separate tank attack in Beit Lahiya, north Gaza, when Israeli forces opened fire at farmers tending their land, the Palestinian Ma’an news agency said.

Israel said the overnight airstrikes targeted two camps of the armed wing of Hamas in central and northern Gaza, but provided no evidence for the claims.

At least 20 people were injured in the bombings, which follow similar attacks on Friday that killed two Palestinians and left four wounded.

A first Israeli air strike on Friday afternoon targeted the east of Al-Bureij in the central part of the Gaza Strip, killing Basel Ahmad, 29, local medical sources said.

Two other Palestinians were wounded in the strike, one of them seriously, the sources added.

A second Israel air strike killed another Palestinian in the north of Gaza.

Hammam Abou Qadous, 20, died of his wounds after being hit as he traveled on his motorbike in the northern part of the Gaza Strip Friday evening, Palestinian medical sources said.

Two other Palestinians were slightly injured in the same attack, they added.

The attacks represent a flagrant violation of the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire that went into force on Friday.

Hamas, in a rare show of force, responded with rocket fire, but only inflicted minimal material damage on Israeli properties.

Hamas has previously refrained from responding to unprovoked Israeli attacks on Gaza in a bid to avoid being drawn into a new war with the Jewish state.

Israel has maintained a crippling siege on the Gaza Strip since 2007, effectively destroying the local economy and plunging the 1.5 million Palestinians into poverty.

 

(Al-Akhbar, Ma’an, AFP)

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June 23, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Veteran Israeli soldiers speak out about service

Ma’an – 22/06/2012

BETHLEHEM – A group of veteran Israeli soldiers who served in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have spoken out on camera about their experiences in the army.

The Israeli organization Breaking the Silence has collected testimonies from 800 veteran Israeli soldiers who served in the West Bank and Gaza. In a new campaign, it has released video testimonies of six former soldiers describing their experiences.

Amit served in Ramallah, Hebron and the northern West Bank during the second intifada. He describes an incident in which an Israeli commander swung his rifle at the jaw of a Palestinian during a tense situation at a roadblock near Jerusalem.

“Beyond the fact that the guy fell to the ground, bleeding and screaming in pain, and of course all of the other Palestinians only grew angrier, it took us a long time to gain control of the mess and, of course, we had to more aggressive, cocking our weapons and such.”

He says witnessing first hand what goes on the West Bank shattered his worldview.

“Going from a place where I was sure that we are the scapegoat, the miserable ones being killed, I saw a reality that, most of the time, was the opposite.

“I saw me running after people, I saw myself pointing a gun at a 3-year-old girl, I saw me and my friends cuffing people, checking people, detaining people, questioning people, arresting people. In most cases, it was for nothing.”

Yehuda Shaul, one of the founders of Breaking the Silence, says he did everything he was required to as a fighter — and later a commander — in the Israeli army.

“If the mission right now is to keep the kids out of school, then the kids won’t go to school. If the mission is to disperse a funeral because of the curfew, then the family … will not finish burying their dead relative. It will leave the corpse there and leave. And if they don’t do it, they’ll get stun grenades and gas.”

“Can you even imagine a situation of an Israeli family at a funeral and the police comes to disperse them?”

Yehuda says he talks about his service because “if we don’t talk … none of us will know what goes on there.”

He says the most memorable part of his service was watching Palestinians getting beaten up by settlers in Hebron, while under orders not to touch them.

Another soldier, Sagi, who also served in Hebron, recalls a procession of Israeli children burning an effigy of a member of the anti-settlement organization Peace Now.

“I understood that all of the things that I thought — that there are boundaries, that at the end of the day we’re on the same side — that, from my point of view, is no longer the case. And from their point of view I’m not legitimate, and if they knew my political opinions they could replace the doll with me.”

Sagi says he finds people prefer not to listen to his experiences of the army, and those that do listen think that his experience was isolated, and perhaps he was “a soldier who transgressed” and should be put on trial.

“Maybe I really should be put on trial – but if I need to be tried, as one of the humane soldiers who served in the territories, I guess we should try all Israeli soldiers,” he says.

‘We’re ruining people’s lives on a daily basis’

Yael served as a scout in Gaza, monitoring a live video feed of the Gaza border.

“We’re kneaded and molded to see something suspicious in everything we see. I look into the cameras and I don’t see a donkey, a dog or a cart. I see a vehicle that can get a charge across, a vehicle that can get weapons across … It’s always suspicious.”

She explained: “There’s no routine there, it’s not someone throwing his garbage out, it’s an explosive.”

She recalls seeing an elderly shepherd, “a grandpa, a really old man with his sheep,” too close to the fence. She reported him to the combat engineering force. “I was conditioned to see shepherds and sheep herds as intelligence scouts.”

Israeli forces fired in the air, startling the sheep, but the shepherd remained. Soldiers then shot the ground near the sheep “and they were startled again but the shepherd was determined to stay there. He didn’t want to leave, he wanted to stay there.”

The soldiers shot a sheep.

“(The shepherd) went to the sheep and tried to pick it up and it was full of blood and he tried to pick it up and take it back and they continued to shoot.”

“The sheep didn’t die but he had to leave it there and run away, they would’ve shot him and the rest of the sheep. He ran back and the sheep stayed there until it died.”

“Seeing it from the other side, it was like a video game, so detached from reality. So what if we shoot animals.

“(For the Palestinians) it’s the exact opposite … people just come and shoot your animals, your livelihood, you. And it’s fine. It’s like it’s fine.”

She added: “We’re ruining people’s lives on a daily basis.”

Yael said she was testifying because she thought “people should know what’s happening there.”

“It’s not the Israeli Defense Force defending us against horrible terrorists who want to destroy the Jewish people. They are people who live here and who have lived here when we weren’t here and they’re trying to live and we’re the stronger power. And we use that power full on, without any problem. I think people should know that.”

In other testimonies, a soldier describes an incident in which a company of soldiers, including the battalion commander, assaulted a detained Palestinian.

A soldier in an elite unit recalls an officer being ridiculed for not following an order to shoot an elderly, sick Palestinian who had gone back into his home to get his medication during an arrest raid.

The full testimonies can be viewed at www.discovertheterritories.com

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June 22, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas militants say targeting Israeli army sites

Ma’an – 21/06/2012

BETHLEHEM – Hamas’ armed wing said it fired a barrage of rockets, missiles and mortars at Israeli military targets on Wednesday in response to Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The Al-Qassam Brigades said it fired 24 rockets, 10 missiles and nine mortars at Israeli army bases since dawn Wednesday.

“These operations are part of the repelling operations against the (Israeli) occupation assaults on Gaza Strip and West Bank, and as a response for the ongoing aggression against Palestinian people,” the brigades said in a statement.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said at least 20 rockets were fired into southern Israel on Wednesday, without causing injuries.

A border policeman was wounded by a rocket on Tuesday night, she said. A rocket fired from Gaza had exploded inside a border police base in south Israel.

Israel has killed eight Palestinians in airstrikes and tank shelling on the Gaza Strip since Monday, including two Hamas militants.

Hamas joined in the hostilities on Tuesday, for the first time in over a year. The Al-Qassam Brigades usually holds its fire under an unofficial truce and Hamas in the past has discouraged smaller militant groups from firing at Israel.

Israel says it holds Hamas responsible for all attacks from the Gaza Strip.

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said Tuesday that Israel’s attacks prompted the group’s military wing “to take a firm stance” and launch rockets.

The Al-Mujahedin Brigades, the armed wing of the Al-Mujahedin movement, said in a statement that it fired 12 rockets at Israeli targets on Wednesday.

The Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades — the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — said it fired two rockets across the border in a joint operation with the Shuhada Al-Aqsa – Karama army.

The Popular Resistance Committees’ Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades said it launched seven rockets into Israel and the Abdul Qader Husseini Brigades said it fired a grad rocket toward Ashkelon.

The Al-Ansar brigades, the armed wing of the Al-Ahrar movement, said it fired 11 rockets into Israel on Wednesday afternoon in response to Israeli aggression.

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June 21, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

UK raps Palestinians for Israeli crimes

Press TV – June 21, 2012

The top British Foreign Office official on Middle East has turned a blind eye to the Israeli regimes’ killing and injuring of 15 Gazans while condemning Palestinians’ response in the form of rocket fire in yet another hypocritical defense of Israeli brutalities against Palestinians.

British Minister for the Middle East Alistair Burt said he is “deeply concerned” about and condemns the Palestinian rocket fire into the Occupied Territories, keeping silent on the Israeli warplanes’ pounding of the population-packed Gaza since Monday.

The Israeli airstrikes on Gaza have killed at least eight civilians, including a 14-year-old, and injured another seven, including children over the past days.

The Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, said on Tuesday that it has fired 10 Grad rockets at the Occupied Territories in response to Tel Aviv’s atrocities against Palestinian civilians.

“This is our answer to the Zionist crimes. It will continue if they carry out more strikes on Gaza,” a Hamas spokesman said.

However, Burt condemned the rocket fire without any reference to Israeli crimes and only called for restraint in the region.

“I am deeply concerned about this week’s escalation of violence in Gaza and southern Israel,” Burt said.

“I condemn this indiscriminate rocket fire into southern Israel, as I do all acts of terrorism. The UK urges all parties to exercise restraint and prevent civilian casualties and loss of life,” he added.

The Israeli regime’s military frequently bombs the Gaza Strip, claiming the actions are being conducted for defensive purposes.

However, disproportionate force is always used, in violation of international law, and civilians are often killed or injured.

The Israeli regime killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, many of them women and children, in a 22-day barrage of attacks on Gaza in late December 2007.

The strikes left thousands of others injured, homeless or traumatized while a great part of the infrastructure in the coastal strip was destroyed.

June 21, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian Nationalism, Alive Despite Israeli Instruments of Control


(Artwork: Sauda Camo)
By Hasan Afif El Hasan | Palestine Chronicle | June 18, 2012

From day one after the 1967 war, Israel’s actions in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem suggest the occupation was not temporary and underscore Israel’s desire to erase the concept of the Palestinian nation by undermining the connection between the people and their land or history. In an effort to incorporate as much as possible of the occupied lands, Israel governed the occupied lands by making distinction between the land and its Palestinian inhabitants and referred to the Palestinians only as ‘Arabs’. The Israelis wanted to weaken the Palestinians’ claim to their country and suggest they belong to other Arab countries. A politically powerful segment of Israelis, perhaps a majority, perceive the occupied lands as biblical territory and the indigenous Palestinians as ‘hostile aliens’ or as “part of nature’s hardship to be conquered and removed.”

The concept of cleansing and transferring the Palestinians has been deeply rooted in the colonial Zionists political and military planning. It was practiced on a large scale in 1948 when top-ranking officers of the future leaders of Israel prepared and executed ethnic cleansing of half Palestine’s native population, and  the cleansing is being practiced today especially in Jerusalem. Israeli plans to expropriate land were developed, and other tools and practices were created to manage the lives of the people without integrating them into Israel’s citizenry. Israel used its own legal system to annex East Jerusalem immediately after the 1967 war; and in the West Bank, it carried out piecemeal confiscation by issuing orders from military commanders and employing Ottoman and British Mandatory laws and regulations from the Jordanian legal system.

Shaping the daily life of the people under occupation is one of Israel’s means of control to manage the population. Besides sealing the borders of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to crush internal resistance, Israel imposes curfews, arrests, deports, restricts movement, demolishes homes, and shuts down businesses and schools. The controlling system has manifested itself in legal regulations, permits and bureaucratic rules dictating forms of correct conduct everywhere. Thousands of orders have been issued by the Israeli military that deal with anything and everything as controlling apparatuses.

Within a few weeks of Israel’s swift success in capturing the West Bank and Gaza, the West Bank Palestinians began using strikes and demonstrations, and in Gaza, the opposition to the occupation assumed a violent character. Israel responded with military orders categorizing all forms of resistance as insurgency, including peaceful protests, political meetings, waving flags, displaying national symbols, even singing or listening to national songs.

Israel removed all activist leaders who showed opposition to the occupation, used administrative detentions and deported thousands suspected of supporting acts of resistance. Among the deportees were Abdel-Hamid a-Sayegh, the chief Islamic judge (Kadi) of the West Bank, and Nadim Al-Zaro, the mayor of Ramallah. In March 1982, the mayors of nine West Bank cities and Gaza were dismissed and military officers replaced them. The mayors’ dismissal, detention and deportation of community leaders failed to contain the Palestinian drive for emancipation and national opposition had to go underground. The Israeli journalists and authors Ze’ev Schiff and Ehud Ya’ari described the relationship between the Palestinians and the Israelis in their book ‘Intifada’ as “the relationship between a horse and its rider.”

Israel tried power-sharing agreement with Jordan, the military government, the village leagues and the civil administration to control the Palestinians, but it recognized that the methods it had employed to normalize the occupation and suppress Palestinian nationalism were not working. If anything, Palestinian nationalism resurged. Then Israel came up with the ingenious idea of outsourcing the responsibility for the population while continuing the occupation and colonization. Self-rule for the residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip under a Palestinian authority (PA) without renouncing Israel’s sovereignty over the two regions was the answer. The PA was a product of the occupation to control the population and reduce its economic and political cost on Israel. Noam Chomsky pointed out that the PA was not intended as an instrument of decolonization but rather a framework that changed the means of Israel’s control in order to perpetuate the occupation. According to Chomsky, Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin noted in an interview that the PA would be able to control the population “without all the difficulties arising from Supreme Court appeals, human rights organizations like B’Tselem, and all kinds of leftist fathers and mothers.”

Since the establishment of the PA, especially after the second intifada, Israel has been operating primarily to downgrade the value of the Palestinians to people whose lives can be taken with impunity, enforcing laws that legalize the incarceration and torture of political prisoners, permitted deportations, house demolitions, and curfews. The executive and judicial branches of government coordinated to rationalize the inhumane Israeli policies.

After the establishment of the PA, the Palestinians have even less autonomy in the economic field than in security. Constraints and restrictions enforced by the Israeli military hinder the development of an independent Palestinian economy and have transformed it into a captive market for Israeli producers. The leaders of the PA promised economic growth based on the assumption that productive economy would slowly be established, there would be large investments in infrastructure and industry and that the Palestinians would enjoy freedom of movement for themselves and their goods. They promised that the Gaza Strip would be transformed into “the Middle East’s Singapore” and the Palestinians would enjoy the fruits of their agreements with the Israelis. Ironically, these agreements have been reasons the wishful promises did not materialize.

The 1994 “Paris Protocol on Economic Relations” that was signed by the PA leaders replicated Israel’s colonial economic management of the occupied lands that had existed since 1967. It guaranteed that Israel would preserve its control of the occupied land’s economy and prevented the Palestinians from choosing their own trade policies according to their own interests. It has prevented the creation of an internal economic base with its own productive capacity and increased the Palestinians’ dependency on laborers who commute to Israel despite Israel’s use of the entry-permits and internal closures as an effective form of control weapon. Israel uses its power over the flow of laborers to collectively punish the public for any form of resistance. It was used to pressure the PA to clamp down on Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP and other groups that resist the occupation. Professor Sara Roy wrote in her book ‘Gaza Strip’ that Israel was able to reorient a large percentage of the Palestinian labor force away from domestic agriculture and industry and integrate it in Israel’s labor force. The productive capacity of the Palestinians is diminished because Israel has restricted the development of a viable infrastructure capable of stimulating development in the West Bank. And in the Gaza Strip Israel has destroyed the infrastructure and the people’s means for survival.

The “Agreement on Preparatory Transfer of Powers and Responsibilities [to the PA]” of 1994 outlined the reorganization of PA power in many spheres including jurisdiction, secondary legislation, the judicial and security. The agreement states that the PA does not have jurisdiction over Jerusalem, the settlements and the military locations. It gave Israel a veto power over any regulation or legislation enacted by the PA that Israel considers exceeding the PA powers or inconsistent with other agreements. Israel must approve all employees authorized by the PA to inspect and monitor compliance with the laws and regulations. The PA agreed not to have authority over settlers or any non-Palestinian residing or travelling within the occupied territory.

In order to repress all forms of Palestinian nationalism, the Israeli occupation authority took over the educational system immediately after the 1967 war. Officers in charge of education became responsible for licensing private and public schools, hiring and firing teachers, the curricula and text books. They wanted the text books to adopt the Zionist historical narrative on Palestine and systematically erase any reference to Palestinian nationalism and identity. The word ‘Palestinians’ was replaced with ‘Arabs’ and the word ‘Nakbah’ was not allowed in any textbook. ‘Nakbah’ was the displacement of the vast majority of the indigenous Palestinians in 1948. “More than 1,700 titles were banned over the years including history, geography, political, literature and poetry books.” The occupation authority issued instructions for teachers not to teach their students extracurricular material for fear that they might adopt a historical narrative depicting a national Palestinian past. When the Israeli civil administration surrendered the management of the school system including the higher education institutions and vocation schools to the PA, it was on condition that they refrain from incitement against Israel.

Efforts by the Israelis to repress Palestinian nationalism failed because the Palestinian youth learn who they are and where they came from in their daily life as non-persons in the refugee camps, or in disconnected enclaves under the shadows of the Jewish only settlements, dehumanized and humiliated by the occupation soldiers at the blockaded roads, or in Jerusalem under the threat of home-demolition and deportation, or living in Israel as second class citizens or in besieged and impoverished Gaza.

– Hasan Afif El-Hasan is a political analyst. His latest book, Is The Two-State Solution Already Dead? (Algora Publishing, New York), now available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

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June 20, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Three Palestinians, One Israeli, Killed In Clashes Along Egyptian Border

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | June 18, 2012

Three Palestinians and one Israeli were killed during clashes that took place, Monday morning, along the Egyptian border with Israel. The army claims that a Palestinian armed group, on the Egyptian side of the border, fired an RPG at the army before engaging in an automatic fire attack.

The fighters, according to initial information, opened automatic fire at Israeli military vehicles driving in the area before firing a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) shell.

According to the Israeli Ynet News, the fighters intended to use roadside bombs to target two army contractor crews responsible for building the wall Israel is building along the border with Egypt; one Israeli was killed and two others were wounded.

Ynet reported that the attack took place close to the so-called Philadelphia Route, near what Israel calls the “dune sector”; The Philadelphi Route is a 14 kilometer road along the border between Gaza and Israel. The route was built at the expense of Palestinian lands, and led to the destruction of numerous homes.

Following the attack, the Israeli army ordered all residents in the area to remain home, as initial reports indicate that some of the gunmen might have managed to infiltrate into Israel.

More soldiers were deployed into the area; the Israeli military sealed roads number 12 and 10 along the border with Egypt.

Israeli security sources reported that it is highly unlikely that this attack is connected to the presidential elections in Egypt, adding that Israel had information about attacks planned across the border with Egypt, and that the attacked was likely carried out by a Palestinian armed group based in the Gaza Strip.

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June 18, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

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