Articles

Zio-Nazi Racist Alderman
May 17, 2011
ZIO-NAZI
NOVANEWS   Jewish Chronicle Columnist Geoffrey Alderman expresses his 'pleasure' at the murder of Vittorio Arrigoni, Italian and ISM Peace ...Read more
LYING, LOUSY BASTARD'S
May 17, 2011
United Kingdom
Saddam successor George on bin Laden's death   May 2,2011 I never liked this man or trusted him.  I had ...Read more
UK Army Chief Presses for Escalation of Libya War
May 17, 2011
Libya
NOVANEWS   antiwar.com   While praising the last two months of bombing as a “significant success for NATO,” British army ...Read more
Libya PM Agrees to UN Truce if NATO Stops Bombings
May 17, 2011
Libya
NOVANEWS by Jason Ditz, The addition of NATO as a third set of combatants in the Libyan Civil War is ...Read more
Mercs, R2, Blackwater And The UAE
May 17, 2011
UAE | USA
NOVANEWS modernityblog This is an informative article on a successor to that terrible company, Blackwater. R2, a creation of Erik Prince, are ...Read more
Dorothy Online Newsletter
May 17, 2011
Politics
NOVANEWS Dear All, The international newspapers are full of yesterday’s events.  Most reports are similar in nature to the ones that ...Read more
Mondoweiss Online Newsletter
May 17, 2011
Middle East
NOVANEWS   Brooklyn-Jenin: Happy Birthday, Juliano Mer Khamis Stories from the continuing Nakba Voices that are resisting Our fundamentalists Israelis ...Read more
NATO attacks cannot kill me: Gaddafi
May 17, 2011
Libya
NOVANEWS   Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi has said air strikes carried out on his compound in the capital Tripoli by ...Read more
NATO jets drop more bombs on Libya
May 17, 2011
Libya
NOVANEWS   NATO warplanes have bombed southern Libyan capital of Tripoli as Britain calls for the destruction of the country’s ...Read more
Blackwater to form secret army in UAE
May 17, 2011
UAE | USA
NOVANEWS   The UAE has hired Blackwater mercenaries to quell possible uprisings (file Photo) The founder of the notorious security ...Read more
IMF chief charged with ‘attempted rape’
May 17, 2011
Politics
NOVANEWS     International Monetary Fund (IMF) Director General Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been formally charged with sexual assault after attacking ...Read more
Obama raid on Osama, election propaganda’
May 17, 2011
USA
NOVANEWS   Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the United States killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as part of its ...Read more

Zio-Nazi Racist Alderman

NOVANEWS

 

Jewish Chronicle Columnist Geoffrey Alderman expresses his ‘pleasure’ at the murder of Vittorio Arrigoni, Italian and ISM Peace Activist

Geoffrey Alderman?

Contrast the Hate-Filled Mind of Geoffrey Alderman with the Life of Vittorio Arrigoni Who Lived for Others
I must confess that when I read the hate filled words of Geoffrey Alderman, I was somewhat taken aback. It’s not often that you read a columnist of a paper like the Jewish Chronicle glorifying, indeed expressing positive ‘pleasure’ in the death of a young man, cruelly murdered by fanatic followers of the Al Quada brand of Islam. That his murderers belong to an organisation that was effectively the creation of the Saudi monarchy, the Pakistani ISI and the CIA is a fact that Alderman has no comprehension, still less understanding of.
He probably has even less comprehension of the fact that Hamas owes its existence to the machinations of Israel’s Shin Bet, which in the 1980’s sponsored Islamic fundamentalism as a counter-weight to secular Palestinian nationalism.We are all used to vicious personal attacks by Zionists. It is a sign that not only are we winning the war but that our opponents have nothing to say. I have often had comments along the lines of a pity the Nazis didn’t get you, but to read in – in what used to be an august publication – a columnist expressing his warped pleasure at the death of a peaceful activist demonstrates that despite its use of ‘Shalom’ Zionism is motivated primarily by hatred of the other.
There was a time when Alderman, on leaving the Board of Deputies of British Jews, heard the sounds of jeering all round. Never a popular man, he was described in the Jewish Chronicle as a ‘communal gadfly.’ That was the title of a collection of his columns (not the most sought after publication it must be said!).
But even for the Jewish Chronicle, whose unparalleled ability to ignore the oppression of the Palestinians, the racism and the barbarities, is unsurpassed, Alderman takes the biscuit. If Alderman were really concerned about ‘Jew haters’ or any other haters he might have a word to say in passing about the sayings of racist Rabbis who justify the deaths of non-Jews as sub-humans and talk about ‘Jewish blood’ in the same way as Hitler did. But of course Alderman has no such qualms, being as he is a prime example of a Jewish racist.
The attack of the Aldermans of this world, far from diminishing can only enhance the reputation and memory of fine young activists like Vittorio and Rachel Corrie. In the process Alderman has only diminished himself even further, though it is arguable that Alderman had already sunk to the bottom of the Zionist sewer.
For our tribute to a brave young man see.http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2011/04/memorial-picket-for-vittorio-arrigoni.html
I have penned a letter to the JC, but knowing its record for printing contrary opinions under its podgy failed tabloid editor Stephen Pollard, I am issuing this as an open letter instead.
The only other question is how long is the Guardian’s liberal Zionist leader-writer, Jonathan Freedland, going to continue to share space with the execrable Alderman.
Tony Greenstein

Letters Editor, The Jewish Chronicle, 25 Furnival Street,London EC4A 1JTDear Sir or Madam:
Even by his own standards, the statement of your columnist, Geoffrey Alderman, (This was no ‘peace activist) that nothing had caused him ‘greater pleasure in recent weeks than news of the death of the Italian so-called “peace activist” Vittorio Arrigoni.’ has plumbed a new low.
Vittorio Arrigoni, came out to Gaza to support the breaking of a starvation siege, the purpose of which is to punish the Palestinians of Gaza for having elected Hamas rather than Fateh. The suggestion that he or Ken Keefe, who desperately appealed to his murderers to spare his life, were ‘Jew haters’ is as obscene as it is a lie. Like Rachel Corrie and many other ISM members, Jewish and non-Jewish, the only thing that motivated Vittorio were Israel’s attacks on a defenceless refugee, population.
Alderman’s ‘proof’ of Vittorio’s anti-Semitism is a cartoon of Jesus being arrested by the Israeli military. Not only does Alderman not understand what anti-Semitism, is but it would seem he has had a sense of humour failure.Undoubtedly Jesus would have been subject to harassment by today’s occupiers of Palestine, just as he was by the Romans. Comparisons between the repression of the Palestinians, the life of Jesus and the living reality of Bethlehem today, surrounded by the ugliness of the Apartheid Wall, are only too apposite. If Alderman were a man of subtlety, rather than an academic past his sell-by-date, he would recognise the irony of Israel having rebuilt the ghetto walls in Israel/Palestine.
When people like Vittorio Arrigoni and Ken Keefe saved Jews during the holocaust they were recognised as ‘righteous gentiles’. When people refuse to turn a blind eye to the Palestinians they are, according to Alderman, ‘Jew haters’.
The hysterical and vitriolic attack of Alderman on what he terms ‘Hamas supporters’, continues the lie that to support the Palestinians of Gaza is to politically support Hamas.
There was a time when Geoffrey Alderman was a thorn in the side of the powers that be, not least in his criticisms of the Board of Deputies for its attacks on anti-fascists in the 1970’s. Today he is no more than a pale male reflection of Melanie Phillips, minus her journalistic talent.
In glorifying and expressing pleasure in the strangulation of an unarmed peace-activist, Geoffrey Alderman does no more than contrast what a hateful, mean-minded individual he is in comparison with Vittorio Arrigoni.
Yours faithfully
Tony Greenstein

 

LYING, LOUSY BASTARD'S

Saddam successor George on bin Laden’s death
 
May 2,2011
I never liked this man or trusted him.  I had predicted that under his leadership, the lousy Respect party would march on the lousy footsteps of the Blair.  His pronouncements never contribute to a picture of principledness: he seems to make secret deals with Arab tyrants.  Look at this recent official statement:


 
“I despise Osama Bin Laden, the mediaeval obscurantist savage. The difference is I have always despised him, even when Britain and America were giving him weapons money diplomatic and political support.”
 
But hi George your friend’s Zionist puppet  musharaf and C.I.A puppet  Saddam  were savage’s and were giving weapons by the American’s to kill their people?  Saddam was a C.I.A paid murderers dictator.
 
2 May 2011


Miss  Yakov  on the death of Osama bin Laden
 
Osama bin Laden was an evil man. He directed and encouraged the killing of thousands of innocent people from many faiths and backgrounds. He claimed to defend Muslims, but his actions simply brought devastation and misery to countless Muslims across the world. His death should not be mourned.

Yakov: Master of Propaganda

UK Army Chief Presses for Escalation of Libya War

NOVANEWS

 

antiwar.com
 

While praising the last two months of bombing as a “significant success for NATO,” British army chief General Sir David Richards called on the alliance to “up the ante” with attacks on the nation’s infrastructure.

Currently NATO’s official policy only allows them to attack military targets, and the alliance has insisted that it is sticking to that despite several bombings which destroyed, among other things, the residence of one of Moammar Gadhafi’s sons and a Brega guest house where 11 imams were staying.

Sir David argued that the war is in a stalemate and that there was a real risk of Gadhafi retaining power in western Libya without the attacks on infrastructure. He admitted that the escalation would be “controversial.”

The warnings of stalemate in the war have been made virtually since the war started, and repeated escalations of the campaign have done nothing to change the situation on the ground. Few cities are being contested anymore, and the regime has already conceded that it will not be able to retake East Libya militarily.

Libya PM Agrees to UN Truce if NATO Stops Bombings

NOVANEWS
by Jason Ditz,

The addition of NATO as a third set of combatants in the Libyan Civil War is making the prospect of a ceasefire agreement considerably more complex. Still, UN Special Envoy Abdul-Ilah al-Khatib’s efforts in Tripoli were not entirely a failure.

Rather, Khatib’s call for a ceasefire between the Gadhafi regime and the East Libyan rebels was met with conditional support from the country’s foreign minister and vice president.

Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmudi said the regime would agree to the immediate ceasefire provided NATO stopped its air strikes and agreed to international observers to confirm the ceasefire.

Regime officials have repeatedly agreed to past calls for a ceasefire, including a transition to UN-supervised elections. The East Libyan rebels have rejected such offers in the past, but might be increasingly open as it seems the war has fallen into a permanent stalemate.

NATO is the big sticking point, however, as a number of top officials have ruled out ever ending the bombing campaign. Indeed, NATO military brass are calling for the further escalation of the war, and don’t seem particularly concerned about the prospect of years of bloody stalemate.

Mercs, R2, Blackwater And The UAE

NOVANEWS

modernityblog

This is an informative article on a successor to that terrible company, Blackwater.

R2, a creation of Erik Prince, are essentially upmarket mercenaries, who will work for anyone with money and are finalising a deal with the UAE, according to the Nation:

“Erik Prince did leave the US, but he isn’t teaching high school and is certainly not out of the mercenary business. In fact, far from emerging as a neo-Indiana Jones, the antithesis of a mercenary, Prince is more like Belloq, offering his services to the highest bidder. Over the weekend, The New York Times revealed that Prince was leading an effort to build an army of mercenaries, 800 strong—including scores from Colombia—in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. They would be trained by US, European and South African Special Forces veterans. Prince’s new company, Reflex Responses, also known as R2, was bankrolled to the tune of $529 million from “the oil-soaked sheikdom,” according to the Times, adding that Prince was “hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi” Sheik Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. Erik Prince is not mentioned by name in corporate documents outlining the deal, but is instead referred to as “Kingfish.”

The contract between R2 and the UAE kicked in last June and is slated to run through May 2015. According to corporate documents on the private army Prince is building in the UAE, its potential roles include “crowd-control operations,” defending oil pipelines from potential terrorist attacks and special operations missions inside and outside the UAE “to destroy enemy personnel and equipment.” Other sources said the Emiratis wanted to potentially use the force to quell potential rebellions in the country’s massive labor camps that house the Filipinos, Pakistanis and other imported laborers that fuel the country’s work force. Prince also has plans to build a massive training base, modeled after the 7,000 acre private military base Blackwater built in Moyock, North Carolina.
…

When Prince moved to the UAE last summer, he said he chose Abu Dhabi because of its “great proximity to potential opportunities across the entire Middle East, and great logistics,” adding that it has “a friendly business climate, low to no taxes, free trade and no out of control trial lawyers or labor unions. It’s pro-business and opportunity.”

The timing of Prince’s move was auspicious to say the least. It came just month after five of Prince’s top deputies were hit with a fifteen-count indictment by a federal grand jury on conspiracy, weapons and obstruction of justice charges. Among those indicted were Prince’s longtime number-two man, former Blackwater president Gary Jackson, former vice presidents William Matthews and Ana Bundy, and Prince’s former legal counsel, Andrew Howell. The UAE does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. “If Prince were not living in the US, it would be far more complicated for US prosecutors to commence an action against him,” said Scott Horton, a Columbia University Law lecturer and international law expert who has long tracked Blackwater. “There is a long history of people thwarting prosecutors simply by living overseas.”

Dorothy Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

Dear All,

The international newspapers are full of yesterday’s events.  Most reports are similar in nature to the ones that I included yesterday, or rather, the links to them.  This evening instead of reiterating yesterday’s news, the first three items are perceptive commentaries.

The first of these, Ben White’s “Palestine Nakba: Forever a memory,” furnishes historical detail important to understanding why Palestinian feelings about the Nakba run high.  White points how wrong Ben Gurion was in believing that when the old generation died out, the Nakba would be forgotten.

In item 2 Matthew Cassel reminds us that ‘never is a refugee’s right to return brought into question==accept when the refugee is Palestinian.’

And in item 3 Richard Falk is critical of Israel and of the world for not forcing Israel to behave differently as regards the refugees.

In item 4 Joel Greenberg updates us on the events on May 15.

Item 5 reveals IOF conduct at the protest at Qalandia.

Item 6 furnishes a few links to videos on the events on the 15th.

The remaining items do not deal with yesterday’s events.

Item 7 contains 2 episodes in Amos Gvirtz’s ‘Don’t say we didn’t know’

Item 8 informs us that Israel, under pressure, has agreed to pay the PA what Israel owes it.

Finally, I leave you on a pleasant note.  Akiva Eldar tells us about how children in an Arab-Jewish school learn each other’s narrative.  Whether eventually there will be a single secular country with equal rights for all its citizens, regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity, or if we end up with 2 states—a first step to reconcilliation and understanding is knowing and feeling each other’s narratives,

All the best,

Dorothy

————————

1. Al Jazeera,

May 15, 2011

Palestinian Nakba: Forever a memory

On 63rd anniversary of Israel’s foundation, the Palestinians’ “catastrophe”, the occupying state dashes hope of justice.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/201151593642551148.html

Ben White

Many Palestinians fled their homes in 1948, taking only their door key with them. It has since become a powerful symbol of refugees’ right to return, even though most of the buildings have long since been destroyed – or had Israeli families move in [GALLO/GETTY]

Palestinians around the world are marking the anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophe that occurred when the state of Israel was established in 1948.

The scale of the devastation was overwhelming: four in five Palestinian villages inside the borders of the new state were ethnically cleansed, an act of mass dispossession accompanied by atrocities. Around 95 per cent of new Jewish communities built between 1948-1953 were established on the land of expelled, denationalised Palestinians.

Referring to these refugees, Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion famously said that “the old will die and the young will forget”. In fact, rather than “forgetting”, the Nakba has become one of the central foundations for activism by Palestinians – and their supporters – around the world.

Why is the Nakba such a strong framework of analysis and action? Because rather than being an isolated historical event, it is an ongoing process of dispossession and colonial settlement. Over 60 years ago, actions taken by Israel’s military and policies adopted by the legislature were designed to effect the transfer of land from Palestinian to Jewish ownership, removing as many of the former as possible.

Since then, right up to today, this is the same logic at work in Israel’s regime over Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Just recently it was revealed that Israel had denied residency rights to 140,000 Palestinians in the West Bank, in what Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz described as a “demographic policy” whose “sole purpose is to thin out the Palestinian population”.

One of the mechanisms Israel used to expropriate Palestinian land was the British Mandate-era “Land (Acquisition for Public Purposes) Ordinance”. In 2010, the Knesset passed an amendment to this law that “confirms state ownership of land confiscated under this law, even where it has not been used to serve the original confiscation purpose”. The Nakba is not finished.

The Nakba continues as Bedouin Palestinian citizens watch their homes demolished to make way for Jewish settlement and forests, and as Palestinians are kept off 77.5 per cent of the Jordan Valley, part of what Human Rights Watch has called a “a two-tier system for the two populations”. This continuation of policies informed by the “spirit” of 1948 (in the words of Gideon Levy) is how Palestinians understand what is happening to a fragmented population, from al-Arakib to the hills of the West Bank.

A Nakba-shaped analysis is a corrective to the discourse promoted through the official peace process, a framework of “negotiations” between “two parties” over a territorial “conflict”. Liberal Zionists too, ignore the Nakba – beyond patronising displays of “empathy”; they need the Green Line of 1967 “so as to render all that lies beyond it as temporary conquest”, exempting them from having to confront “the historic legacy” of the ethnic cleansing in 1948.

The centrality of 1948 is being embraced as part of a language and mode of resistance by Palestinians around the world. The fight of Palestinian citizens of Israel as a discriminated, segregated minority has evolved over the years – from emphasising “rights” to challenging the very legitimacy of a Jewish state. The BDS call, endorsed and driven by Palestinians under military occupation, aims to bring an end to the injustices that began with the Nakba.

This is what makes the Israeli government, and its apologists, so nervous: they know that 63 years on, contrary to Ben-Gurion’s prediction, not only have subsequent generations of Palestinians remembered the Nakba, but their ongoing struggle for justice and equality is now understood and supported by growing numbers around the world.

Ben White is a freelance journalist and writer, specialising in Palestine and Israel. His first book, Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide, was published by Pluto Press in 2009, receiving praise from the likes of Desmond Tutu, Nur Masalha and Ghada Karmi.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

=================================

2. The Guardian,

16 May 2011

Palestinians in Lebanon, at the lonely end of the Arab uprisings

Never is a refugee’s right to return brought into question – except when that refugee is a Palestinian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/16/palestinian-refugees-lebanon-right-to-return

Matthew Cassel guardian.co.uk, larger | smaller Article history

Lebanese soldiers patrol next to Palestinian refugees during demonstrations to mark the 63rd anniversary of Nakba Day at the Lebanese-Israeli border in Maroun al-Ras, 15 May 2011. Photograph: Hassan Bahsoun/EPA

Climbing up the mountain to reach the Palestinian right-of-return protest in Maroun al-Ras in south Lebanon on Sunday felt a bit like being back in Tahrir Square.

The thousands of mostly Palestinian refugees were smiling as they joked about the strenuous climb, and helped each other up the mountain to reach the site where they were going to stage their demonstration. Some knew it could even be dangerous, but that didn’t matter as much as the rare opportunity to join together and call for their rights.

The small elevated Lebanese village just overlooking the border with Israel became a massive parking lot as buses carrying Palestinian refugees and Lebanese from across Lebanon converged for a protest commemorating what Israeli historian Ilan Pappé calls the “ethnic cleansing” by Zionist militias of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their lands and homes in 1948 – what Palestinians refer to as the “Nakba”, or catastrophe. Large buses had difficulties reaching the top of the mountain, and rather than wait, protesters chose to make the half-mile climb by foot.

Men and women, young and old, secular and religious, were all present. This was the first time in 63 years that Palestinian refugees would go to the border in their tens of thousands and call for their right to return home. For most, it was their first time even seeing the land that they’ve grown up hearing described in precise detail through the popular stories of elders old enough to remember life in what is today considered Israel.

The Israeli regime not only keeps under occupation more than 4 million people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and limits the rights of more than a million Palestinian citizens of Israel, it also denies more than 5 million refugees the fundamental right of return to the place they were forced to flee.

While Palestinians have always protested against Israeli occupation, this year, inspired by the wave of uprisings across the Arab world, Palestinians called for their own protests on 15 May, the day they commemorate the Nakba.

In Lebanon, a rally didn’t go as planned. Soon after speakers began addressing the crowds in Maroun al-Ras, thousands of Palestinians broke off and headed down the opposite side of the mountain – through land littered with Israeli landmines – towards the fence on the border. There they called for their right to return, climbed and placed Palestinian flags on the fence, and many began throwing stones at soldiers they couldn’t even see.

Israel is showing itself to be no different to the infamous despotic Arab regimes in its willingness to use brutal force against people demanding their rights. This was clear yesterday when more than a dozen were killed and hundreds injured in Lebanon, Syria’s occupied Golan Heights, and in the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. In Lebanon, 10 were killed and more than 100 injured, including Lebanese soldiers, when Israel opened fire on protesters at the border fence.

The number of refugees at the fence would have been even greater had the Lebanese army not set up a blockade halfway down the mountain preventing thousands of others from joining the protesters below.

The role of the Lebanese army in preventing Palestinians from protesting against Israel represents what many refugees in Lebanon believe is a main hindrance in order for them to return. In Lebanon, refugees live with few civil rights, many in refugee camps enclosed by barbed-wire fencing and army checkpoints. Last year, thousands protested in Beirut calling for rights in order to return.

Sunday’s protest wasn’t ended by Israel’s force but by that of the Lebanese army. After hours at the fence, Lebanese soldiers moved in and began firing their M16s in the air non-stop, creating a stampede of frightened protesters who sprinted back up the incline. People fell on top of each other, some hurled themselves to the ground to seek cover. As the crowd continued rushing up the mountain, the army fired teargas until all were gone.

Taking a break near the top, I met two young men sitting side by side. They asked me to photograph them – one was Lebanese and the other a Palestinian refugee – to show that it wasn’t only Palestinians protesting for the right of return.

I asked Mahmoud, the refugee from the Ain al-Helweh camp, what he thought of the Lebanese army, which at that point was still shooting in the air. He told me: “They’re just like the Israelis. Both of them are stopping us from returning home.”

I pointed out that the Israelis were killing people at the fence and asked if he thought he could return by protesting. “Let [the Lebanese army] give us the chance, and let’s see what happens.”

The fight with the Lebanese army highlights the complicated journey Palestinian refugees must take to achieve their rights. Not only this, but yesterday there were only a handful of international journalists covering the important demonstrations, and many commentators don’t see the refugees’ struggle as legitimate. Never is a refugee’s right to return to the lands he/she was forced to flee brought into question, except when that refugee is a Palestinian. Often the fate of the Israeli regime is raised when considering the rights of Palestinian refugees. Yet when Egyptians, Libyans and others took to the streets in the Arab world, it wasn’t a concern for the justice-supporting international community what became of the regimes they battled against. In many cases, internationals have even joined in calls for their ousting.

Yesterday Palestinians climbed back down the mountain and into their buses to return to more than a dozen refugee camps, unrecognised “gatherings” and other areas around Lebanon. After 63 years in exile, it’s time that the same international solidarity offered to the various people in the Arab world be offered to Palestinian refugees in their battle for freedom.

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=============

3,  [Forwarded by Rupa]

Observing the 63rd Nakba

15 May 2011

http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/10733-63rd-nakba.html

By Richard Falk

One of the many signs of the growing worldwide movement in support of the Palestinian struggle for their rights under international law and elemental morality is the increased awareness of the Nakba. On this 63rd anniversary of the catastrophic Palestinian experience since 1948 when an escaping and expelled 760,000 Palestinians (now this dispossessed population has grown to 4.7 million; the 160,000 Palestinians who managed to stay behind in what became Israel now number 1.3 million) there is an encouraging sense that the destiny of the Palestinian people has entered a more hopeful phase: the Arab Spring, combined with earlier political developments in Turkey and Lebanon, have shifted the regional balance toward a greater identification with the Palestinian people and their just claims under international law and morality; the growing BDS worldwide campaign has extended the symbolic battlefield in the Legitimacy War against Israeli occupation, and related policies of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, barrier wall, blockade, settlements; the decision by the recently unified Palestinian leadership to seek acknowledgement of Palestinian statehood in the United Nations this September opening possibilities for further motivating the international community to live up to its responsibilities to address Palestinian grievances that have gone unanswered for these 63 years of UN endorsement of the valid establishment of Israel, despite it being a colonial settler state imposed on and carved out of  historic Palestine; new signs of activism among the Palestinians living under occupation and in exile; the manifest and deplorable double standards involved in supporting the violent imposition of a No Fly Zone on Libya, which is in reality an effort to achieve regime change on behalf of a rebel insurgency of unknown character, while refusing to protect the people of Gaza who have severely victimized by a total blockade that has lasted almost four years, a massive case of deliberate and criminal collective punishment outlawed by Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Against such a background the ongoing mobilization of public engagement on behalf of Palestinian rights should enlist all persons of conscience throughout the world, a populist dynamic that is happening and should intensify in the coming year. From this perspective it may soon be the case that the annual observance of the Nakba will be treated as the first truly global holiday the world has known.

Despite these developments there is no indication whatsoever that the Israeli leadership or public has any interest in achieving a sustainable peace or that it is prepared to desist from its expansionist and annexationist approach to the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. There are a few lonely Israeli voices calling for justice to the Palestinian people. For instance, Gideon Levy calling on Israel to teach ‘a different heritage lesson,’ that of the Nabka. Writing in Haaretz (15.5.2011) Levy writes, “Not only is it possible to permit the Israeli Palestinians to commemorate the day of their heritage and express their national and personal pain, something that should be self-evident, but also to teach us, the Jews, the other narrative..Only on the day that the pupils in Israel also learn about the Nabka, will we know that the earth is no longer burning under our feet..”

The Nakba is of course a day of grievance and resolve for all Palestinians including the several million living in refugee camps for decades in the countries surrounding Palestine and other millions in exile throughout the region and the world. A sustainable peace must realize the rights of all Palestinians, and must be broader and deeper than ending the occupation or establishing a Palestinian state. Palestinian representation to be legitimate and effective must keep faith with this wider Palestinian reality, and not confine its political program to a territorial imaginary. Just as the Palestinian solidarity movement is without boundaries so must be the campaign to achieve full realization of all of the rights of the dispossessed Palestinian people.

To live under Israeli occupation or as refugees for a day is difficult, for a week is unendurable, but to do so for decades is intolerable beyond words of outrage and empathy. We cannot grasp the enormity of this ordeal merely by underscoring the fact that Nakba occurred 63 years ago and that the added cruelty of the occupation started in 1967. Only the existential experience of being on the ground in occupied Palestine or visiting refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan, or Syria can begin in a modest way to impart an understanding of the suffering and insecurity that is a daily reality of all those so confined, and even this can give rise to a false consciousness of ‘knowing.’ Those that visit can leave, those subject to regimen cannot, and that makes all the difference!

Below is the text of a press release issued in my capacity as Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967, and released under the auspices of the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva.

=====

The UN human rights expert on the 63th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba

Geneva —  On May 15 2011 the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Mr. Richard Falk, marks the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophic beginning of the Palestinian tragedy of dispossession and occupation, with the following statement.

“Since the Nakba on 15 May 1948 Israel has continuously confiscated Palestinian land in order to build illegal settlements and populate them with Israeli citizens. It is astonishing that no one in the international community has stepped forward, after 63 years, to coerce Israel to comply with international law.  Israel’s legacy of ethnic cleansing continues and even accelerated.

“The construction of the Wall inside the West Bank results in an additional 12% of land confiscation and demolition of Palestinian homes, in flagrant defiance of the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice.

“This past week seven Palestinian families in the West Bank village of al-Walaja received demolition orders. This is a reminder that the Nakba continues. Israel’s pursuit of what it calls ‘facts on the ground’ consistently forces Palestinians to abandon their homes, lands, and lives, creating a reality better understood as virtual annexation.

“This is a particularly notable Nakba anniversary, as it coincides with the release of information confirming that Israel secretly revoked as many as 140,000 residency permits of Palestinians between 1967 and 1994. This is not only another violation of Israel’s obligations as the Occupying Power under the Fourth Geneva Convention.  It is also a glaring example of several sinister schemes that Israel has employed over the years to rid historic Palestine of its original inhabitants, in order to make space for Israeli citizens.

“The international community needs to take urgent action to compel Israel to end its confiscation and occupation of Palestinian land.”

=================================

4. Washington Post,

May 15, 2011

Israeli troops fire at Palestinian protesters on borders, killing at least 12

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/israeli-troops-fire-at-palestinian-protestors-on-borders-killing-at-least-12/2011/05/15/AF9lnF4G_story.html

By Joel Greenberg, Published: May 15

JERUSALEM — Thousands of Palestinians marched from Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank toward Israeli border positions on Sunday, hurling rocks and surging across one frontier before the Israeli army opened fire, killing at least 12 people and injuring scores.

The marches, which brought the protest culture of the Arab Spring to Israel’s doorstep, marked an unprecedented escalation of the annual demonstrations on the anniversary of the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the demonstrators were challenging “the very existence of Israel” and, in nationally broadcast remarks, pledged that the country was “determined to defend our borders and sovereignty.”

Palestinians commemorate Israel’s founding as al-Naqba, or the catastrophe, marking the displacement of hundreds of thousands in the war that followed Israel’s declaration of independence.

The coordinated protests on Sunday were organized using many of the social media tools that have propelled revolts in Arab countries in recent months, and the message they carried, of Palestinian demands for the right to return to their ancestral homes, struck a raw nerve among Israelis, who have been watching the popular uprisings with concern that they could strengthen groups hostile to Israel.

Some Israeli officials pointed a finger at Syria and its ally Iran, accusing them of instigating the protests to deflect attention from the deadly repression of the anti-government demonstrations in Syria.

The Israeli army’s chief spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, said Syrian and Lebanese troops had failed to hold back the demonstrators, who had arrived in busloads from Palestinian refugee camps.

The most serious incident was on the border between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights, where thousands of protesters gathered on the Syrian side and hundreds flooded into the Israeli-held territory after flattening the border fence. Scores entered the Druze village of Majdal Shams, gathering in the central square, where they raised Palestinian flags.

“We cannot put up with this anymore. We are demanding our right of return,” said Muhammad Umran, 35, from the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria’s capital, Damascus, who spoke by telephone from Majdal Shams. “We are not afraid,” he said, adding that his family was originally from a village near the city of Safed.

Another protester, Muhammad Suleiman, also from the Yarmouk camp, said by telephone that the crowds had passed through minefields and planted Syrian and Palestinian flags on an Israeli army jeep vacated by troops during the rock-throwing melee. The empty jeep was visible in television broadcasts from the scene.

Israeli troops opened fire to drive back the protesters, killing two, according to Israeli officials and Syrian television, which said that more than 100 were injured. The Syrian Foreign Ministry described the Israeli actions as “criminal acts.”

Soldiers later rebuilt the fence, and by nightfall nearly all the protesters were returned to Syria, an Israeli army spokeswoman said.

On the frontier with Lebanon, 10 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded, the Lebanese army said, when Israeli troops opened fire at a crowd of protesters that broke away from a larger demonstration and hurled rocks over the border fence near the village of Maroun al-Ras. The Israeli army said its forces fired warning shots when dozens of protesters tried to breach the fence and enter Israeli territory.

Hundreds of Lebanese troops, United Nations peacekeepers and riot police officers had been deployed in the border area, but there was also a presence of the guerrilla group Hezbollah, whose activists organized entry to Maroun al-Ras and handed out Palestinian flags, the Associated Press reported. Images from the scene broadcast on Hezbollah television showed mourners carrying the bodies of youths on stretchers through the crowds.

At the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, hundreds of protesters marched on a border crossing with Israel, and Israeli troops opened fire to drive them back.

Palestinians reported that the Israelis fired several artillery shells as a warning and then used gunfire to disperse the crowd. More than 100 people were wounded, according to local emergency services.

The army said soldiers had fired at the legs of rioters who hurled rocks at the troops and vandalized the border crossing.

In a separate incident along the Gaza border, Israeli troops fatally shot a Palestinian man who the army said was trying to plant explosives at the border fence.

At the Qalandia crossing between the West Bank and Jerusalem, stone-throwing youths battled soldiers for hours after a march by several hundred people was dispersed with tear gas. Palestinians reported that dozens were injured by rubber-coated bullets. A large rally was held in the central square in neighboring Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority. In Jordan, security forces used tear gas to disperse hundreds of demonstrators, preventing them from reaching the border with Israel, the Reuters news agency reported.

Inside Israel, where security forces were on high alert for possible violence, a truck driven by an Israeli Arab plowed through a crowded street in Tel Aviv, hitting several cars, crashing into a bus and killing a motorist. The police said that the driver claimed it was an accident, but that they were investigating whether the incident was a deliberate attack.

Special correspondent Samuel Sockol in the West Bank contributed to this report.

© The Washington Post Company

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5.     News In Depth Programmes Video Blogs Business Weather Sport Watch Live In Pictures  [a slide show]

Israeli troops clamp down on ‘Nakba’ protest at Qalandia

http://english.aljazeera.net/photo_galleries/middleeast/2011516151044472273.html

People rally to commemorate the Nakba at al-Manar Square in Ramallah, West Bank [Jon Elmer]

The Qalandia checkpoint and crossing is a massive security terminal built into Israel’s concrete separation wall dividing Ramallah from Jerusalem and the southern West Bank, and is a frequent flashpoint for protests.

On Sunday, as simultaneous demonstrations throughout the region commemorated the 1948 displacement of 700,000 Palestinians during the creation of Israel, Israeli forces crossed the barrier into the Palestinian refugee camp of Qalandia and fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at hundreds of demonstrators who responded with stones in a day-long battle.

Palestinian medics evacuated dozens of people who succumbed to the heavy use of tear gas, including many in the nearby refugee camp not involved in the demonstrations.

“I have not seen this many casualties in one day since the Second Intifada,” said Dr Sami Dar Nakhla, director of the field hospital. In total, more than eighty protesters received treatment, of which twenty were hospitalised – including three paramedics.

Dr Dar Nakhla said he found evidence of the army using new and brutal forms of crowd control.

“This teargas is toxic, it is the first time I have seen it. It is causing fits, seizures and unconsciousness,” he declared.

As many as 40 people were injured by rubber-coated steel bullets, according to reports, and there were numerous violent arrests.

In the late afternoon, undercover Israeli units dressed as Palestinian demonstrators – and at least one dressed as an elderly woman – turned on the crowd and made a series of dramatic arrests at gunpoint as Israeli troops advanced in an unsuccessful bid to end the protest.

Sunday’s Nakba Day commemoration included protests elsewhere in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as in Palestinian refugee communities in neighbouring Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt.

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6.  The Guardian,

May 16, 2011

Palestinians clash with Israeli troops at borders – video

Protests to commemorate Nakba, or the ‘day of the catastrophe’ 63 years ago, when Palestinians were displaced, turn violent as Israeli forces fire on protesters, killing at least 13

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/may/16/palestinians-israeli-borders-video

Qalandia (both the below)

The Washington Post Sunday, May 15, 2011

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/protests-turn-deadly-on-israeli-border/2011/05/15/AFKZeL4G_video.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buGYv35X1yE

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7.  Don’t say we did not know #263

On Wednesday, 11th May, 2011, Palestinian farmers from Fur’ata, co-ordinating with the army, went to plough their land, situated half a kilometre from the outpost Havat Gilad.  Settlers from Havat Gilad came and started throwing stones at the farmers.  Instead of repulsing the attackers, the soldiers arrested two Palestinians on the allegation that they had tried to run over one of the attackers with a vehicle.

One of those detained was released within an hour.  The other was released on bail two days later.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“`

On Wednesday, 11th May, 2011, government representatives under a police escort demolished homes in several Bedouin villages in the Negev: in Umm Ratam they demolished a shed, injured three people and arrested one.  In El-Ghara a home was demolished.  In El-Zarnuq two homes were demolished.  An animal shed was demolished in El-Bahir.  The forces continued on to El-’Araqib and demolished the village for the 24th time!

Questions and queries: amosg@shefayim.org.il

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8.  Haaretz ,

May 16, 2011

Israel to renew transfer of tax funds to Palestinian Authority

Earlier this month, Israel had blocked the routine handover of customs and other levies after PA president struck unity deal with Hamas.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-to-renew-transfer-of-tax-funds-to-palestinian-authority-1.361953

By Barak Ravid and Reuters

Tags: Palestinian Authority Hamas

Bowing to international pressure, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz confirmed a statement issued by a Palestinian official on Sunday that he would renew the transfer of millions of dollars in suspended tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority.

“For the last two weeks, we gave the PA a yellow card,” the finance minister said Sunday night, “but we decided to renew the revenue transfers after we got confirmation from the Palestinians that no money will be transferred to Hamas or to terrorist operations.”

Steinitz added that “Israel reserves the right to stop the transfer of revenues once again if in the next few months Hamas will become part of the Palestinian government.”

Earlier this month Israel had blocked the routine handover of about 300 million shekels ($88 million) in customs and other levies it collects on behalf of the Palestinians after Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas struck a unity deal with Hamas, his Islamist rivals.

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said at the time he would only allow the transfer after receiving guarantees the money would not reach Hamas, an Islamist militant group who runs the Gaza Strip and whose charter calls for Israel’s destruction.

Before Steinitz issued his statement, an official in Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s office said they had been informed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Middle East envoy Tony Blair that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had approved the transfer.

An aide to Steinitz, who as finance minister oversees the funds, said he had “received some clarifications” in recent days, but that the money had not been transferred.

Fayyad had sought international intervention to prevent the Israeli measure. The PA is also heavily dependent on aid from donors including the United States, which has said its future assistance will depend on the shape of a new Palestinian government, expected to be formed under the unity agreement.

Netanyahu said the Palestinian unity deal was a blow to peace efforts.

The tax transfers provide the PA, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, with $1 billion to $1.4 billion annually. Palestinian officials said they would not be able to meet their commitments, including paying salaries, without the funds.

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9.  [Whether eventually there will be a single secular country with equal rights for all its citizens, regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity, or if we end up with 2 states—a first step to reconcilliation and understanding is knowing and feeling each other’s narratives, Dorothy]

Haaretz Monday, May 16, 2011

Latest update 02:39 16.05.11

On remembrance and hope for peace and equality

How sad it is to watch irresponsible adults, Jews and Arabs, developing expertise in the building of walls of alienation, fear and prejudice while children at Bridge Over the Wadi bilingual school learn tolerance and hope.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/on-remembrance-and-hope-for-peace-and-equality-1.362006

By Akiva Eldar

When the siren sounded in the elementary school courtyard last week, Tamar and Lin, both nine years old, were holding hands. The pupils, all wearing white shirts, stood silently. Their teachers shed tears. The teacher, Sabrine, conducted the ceremony with great emotion. At one point, they sang “Tears of Angels,” and released kites. The principal quoted Mahatma Gandhi, who said that wherever people follow the principle of an eye for an eye, everyone is blind – and then added “we’ve decided not to be blind.”

Tamar is my oldest granddaughter; Lin is an Arab girl. The two of them study at the bilingual school, Bridge Over the Wadi, in Kafr Kara, in the Wadi Ara area. Sabrine is a Palestinian-Israeli. The school’s principal, Dr. Hasan Agbaria is an educator whose personality is a combination of serene cordiality, intellectual integrity and courage. This is his first year at Bridge Over the Wadi – and the first year that the school, located in the heart of an Arab village, conducted a memorial ceremony for those who fell in Israel’s war with the Arabs. Agbaria has dared to do what Jewish principals before him at the school did not do before. In the past, the pupils were sent home before the siren sounded. But together with his colleagues on the staff, and in consultation with parents, he came up with a detailed plan of activities for the national holidays of the two peoples.

In a letter sent to parents, the school’s administration wrote: “Last week we devoted time to exposing pupils to, and studying, the events that occurred in 1948. The pupils studied the two narratives, the Palestinian and the Israeli, while displaying respect for the other and listening even at moments of disagreement, and contradiction [between the narratives]. The learning was based on our belief in the importance of knowing the past, and becoming acquainted with the other side, so that we can live together in the present, and guarantee a better future.”

Yesterday, when media outlets incessantly reported about the security forces’ preparations for “disturbances” on Nakba Day, Jewish and Arab pupils at Bridge Over the Wadi united to honor Palestinian memories. Less than a week after they stood together to honor the fallen in Israel’s wars, Jewish and Arab teachers alike asked that everyone become acquainted with the people and places on the other side of the conflict, which has yet to end.

The activities were conducted under the shadow of the new legislation that threatens to cut government allocations to any institution that dares to refer to Israel’s Independence Day as a day of mourning. But Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz will not find even a trace of offense in this activity; it is utterly devoid of malice and lacks any reference, heaven forbid, to a day of mourning.

The pupils were exposed yesterday to the stories of villages that were abandoned in Wadi Ara. The information was conveyed via biographies of persons who lived in the region, and by memorializing their names both verbally and in drawings. The youngsters learned to express their feelings, criticism and longings also, in part, by reading poems by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. They studied works rendered by Palestinian caricaturist Naji al-Ali that have become iconic images in his people’s struggle for independence. The children also were asked to come up with their own protest, on any subject that came to mind, and to present it in songs and cartoons. They concluded the activities by stressing the longing for a better future, one of peace and truth.

Agbaria did not conceal his pride. “There is nothing more moving, during the current period, than seeing our children at Bridge Over the Wadi severing themselves from national and language-related differences, and connecting with a shared sense of humanity and with the ostensibly simple concepts of fraternity and solidarity.”

At this oasis of sanity at Kafr Kara, parents, teachers and pupils proved that our own narrative can be honored, without invalidating the other narrative. They taught and learned that the Palestinian memory can be cultivated, without repressing our own memory.

How sad it is to watch irresponsible adults, Jews and Arabs, developing expertise in the building of walls of alienation, fear and prejudice. In contrast, how inspiring it was to see Tamar and Lin, two girls who with their own small hands held the keys to equality, reconciliation and hope

Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

 

Brooklyn-Jenin: Happy Birthday, Juliano Mer Khamis

May 15, 2011

Udi Aloni

Juliano was born on Nakbah Day and murdered on the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Jul and Udi
Juliano Mer Khamis (left) and Udi Aloni (right).

Forty days have passed since the murder of Juliano Mer Khamis. Juliano –freedom fighter, cultural hero, actor, director, clown, teacher, husband, lover, tyrant, servant, father, (something of a mother), provocateur, gourmet, wild intellectual, and more than all that and encompassing all that – a soul-friend. Demons chased Juliano for years, until he taught them to bow to his will. He caught and tamed them like wild horses and harnessed them to the chariot of freedom, on which he galloped to far, inspired realms. He rode off in search of liberty and the meaning of its boundaries, and generously took us along on his fascinating journey.

Forty days have passed and I could not write a word. What language does one choose to say Kadish for a Shahid who came from a Christian family and was, himself, a Communist. So I was moved in the funeral when, in lieu of Kadish, a harmonica played the traditional tune of that song which seemingly was written for and about Jule: “What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?” So I wrote nothing for forty days, but I did function. I functioned like a man possessed, as though the spirit of Jule had come into me – and there was no one like Jule for functioning in a crisis. There is much to say about the days following the murder: about the loneliness, the melancholy, the tensions. About the family, bereft of a father, husband, and friend, that will have to have to shoulder the unbearable burden.

But I spent the days after the murder with Jule’s students, the students whom I had learned to know and love over the past year. I could tell stories about the students’ feelings of persecution, about their sense of being the disciples carrying forward his legacy, about the sense of helplessness before the faceless violence that took him from our small world. Two days after the murder we decided, the students and I, to go to Ramallah, to find a space where we could cry, mourn, remember, and become reenergized. We sought refuge far away from the place of the trauma, from the place where he, this man who turned a group of outcasts into a troupe of talented actors, was murdered. Now the students walk the streets of Ramallah and Jenin with their wounds exposed, for all to see. Sometimes they are fragile, sometimes powerful, seeking a healing balm or a holy rage to pacify their pain. My friend Adi Khalifa, a Palestinian stand-up artist from Haifa, gave a workshop on how to laugh at Jule. And so we sat there, a grieving troupe, and we could not stop laughing and crying for seven days and seven nights.

Truth be told, we became refugees from a refugee camp, and then were expelled from the hospice that had given us refuge in Ramallah. We were expelled by an administrator with a German accent, because I am an Israeli Jew. But there – faced with expulsion – twelve young Palestinians from the Jenin Refugee Camp stood angrily against the Christian-European administrator, shouting in unison that if she would not respect an Israeli Jew who came to support the struggle for equality and justice she was a racist… Hallelujah! What an amazing education Juliano gave them; he was truly ahead of his time. He brought the spirit of the Arab Spring and of Tahrir Square to his students. He kept challenging and re-challenging them, in a sort of ongoing pop-quiz about the spirit of freedom – beyond religion, beyond nationality, and beyond gender.

Hard work and unending talent turned Jule into an artist-leader, who began to create real change with revolutionary power in the whole space between the Jordan river and the sea. Unlike the project run by his mother, Arna, he was not only there to help the children in the camp. He chose to establish a professional theater in the most impossible place, the place that seemed most unprepared, to produce an atomic-dialectic explosion of uncompromising ideologies. In Jule’s world, universal values and particular tradition clash swords with fundamentalism and decadence. In the Freedom Theatre we thought that only a true ideological explosion would manage to ignite the engine of Palestinian culture. Only from this position could we expose the fact that Muslim fundamentalism and the decadence of Ramallah are both on the side of the failure of the revolution. In the same spirit, Jewish fundamentalism and the decadence of Tel Aviv are both on the side of the occupation.

I have great contempt for those journalists who were in such a hurry to rejoice about the fact that he was probably murdered by a Palestinian. Their mantra was “here is this wonderful man, come to help the natives, and they murdered him.” Strange, I do not remember those same journalists rejoicing when a Jew murdered Yitzchak Rabin in the name of the ideology which today rules our country. An ideology served by those same journalists.

Today it is Nakbah Day, and I mourn alone the never-again-to-be-celebrated birthday of Juliano. Jule came to the Nakbah refugees in Jenin to share their struggle and their fate. He tried to offer a nonviolent means of resistance. Zakaria Zubeidi had faith in him and lay down his arms to help develop the Freedom Theater. Zakaria knew that by taking this path he could lose his own life, but he did not imagine that he would lose the life of his beloved friend. After the murder I got a middle-of-the-night SMS from Zakaria: “It’s really hard without Jule” – and tears filled my eyes. People liked to say that Juliano was a Jew in Palestine and a Palestinian in Israel. But Jule was a Jewish-Palestinian everywhere and a human everywhere. He wanted to free the Palestinians from the Israelis, the women from the men, the poor from the rich, and people, in general, from their internal bonds.

Juliano, I am so lucky that you generously opened wide the doors to your home, made the theatre my home, and made its people my family. You taught me the practice of binationalism, step by measured step. We worked in the theatre night and day to create our cultural bomb, but we were not sufficiently careful, and it went off in our laps and took your life at the height of its bloom. Kafka wrote, and I quote from memory, “martyrdom and suicide do not exist at the same level of consciousness; martyrdom is more like a bridegroom approaching his wedding.” Happy birthday, habibi, Jule. It’s really hard without you.

P.S. A quote from Juliano’s vision document, sent a year ago to Freedom Theater supporters and friends:

“We aim to create a theater of the highest professional level, that will become the leading force in revival of Palestinian culture – not just a local theatre to benefit camp dwellers, but rather a theater that stretches boundaries beyond the very borders. We believe that we can create a joint force that will strengthen the links between advanced technology, women’s rights, and education in promoting nonviolent struggle for culture, justice, and liberty. As a troupe we will advance the theoretical and practical artistic vision of our pathfinders, philosopher Edward Said and creator Mahmud Darwish, to try and create a community that will attempt to free itself from the bonds of the Israeli occupier, simultaneously with the internal bonds of Palestinian Society.”

Translated by Dena Shunra. For more on from Udi Aloni’s Brooklyn-Jenin column about his experience living between New York City and the Jenin refugee camp, where he is teaching a film production class at the Jenin Freedom Theatre see here.

Stories from the continuing Nakba

May 15, 2011

Kate

Video: Al Walajeh: story of continuing Nakba
14 May –The village of al-Walajeh, located to south of Jerusalem, between the city and Bethlehem. Walls, settlements, land annexation, and home destruction, all is being done by Israel in the village of Walajeh. Indeed this village sums up the conflict.

And more news from Today in Palestine:

Campaign warns against legalizing banishment of Palestinian officials
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC) 14 May — The international campaign to Free PLC Members has sent messages to secretary-general of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and president of the European Parliament warning against decisions that could be made by the Israeli supreme court legalizing the banishment of Palestinian public officials. Palestinian Legislative Council members and a former minister from Jerusalem were ordered to appear in court on Tuesday to decide on the validity of the Israeli interior ministry’s decision to revoke their citizenship and banish them from their native city.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87
Villagers of Jaloud protest their electricity being cut
ISM 13 May — Today the village of Jaloud held a non-violent demonstration against the decision of Israel to cut off the electricity of seven families living on the outskirts of the village. The villagers and several international organisations marched from the village to the aforementioned houses carrying banners protesting the theft of their land and electricity. Jaloud, which is home to nearly 1,000 villagers is, according to the plan of the District Coordinating Office located in area B. However a small number of properties fall into area C outside of this plan, despite being inhabited for over 80 years and have recently been served with notices that they will have their electricity cut off. They have been given a court date of 19th May, where they will be able to object to this decision. Village Mayor Abdullah Haj Mohamd says that he doesn’t know what the families will do if their power is cut as they are reliant on electricity for their everyday life and farm work.
http://palsolidarity.org/2011/05/18265/
Israeli army burns Jordan Valley grazing fields
JERICHO, (PIC) 14 May — The Israeli army has burnt hundreds of dunums of rangeland in the Jordan Valley during military training exercises in the area. Military training in the Malih area in the northern Jordan Valley led to the burning of hundreds of dunums of pastoral land, locals reported, adding that the military used heavy equipment and fired several artillery shells. Separately, Palestinian farmers in the region have reported that local settlers let loose herds of wild pigs to get rid of the remaining pastoral and agricultural land in the area. The Israeli army has declared the vast Jordan valley a closed military zone. The valley is home to some 15,000 Bedouin Arabs.
In a separate incident on Friday morning, the Israeli army fired indiscriminately east of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, amid excavations and land leveling works. Five military vehicles infiltrated 300 meters east of Al-Qarara and began combing and excavating area amid heavy fire from automatic weapons without report of injury.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcO
Report: Army presents settlement security plan
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 13 May — The Israeli army has presented the Defense Ministry with a comprehensive security plan to fortify illegal settlements, Hebrew press reported Friday.  The plan is estimated to cost 1 billion shekels (around $285.6 million) and will prevent any infiltration into Jewish-only communities in the West Bank, according to a report in Hebrew-language daily Maariv.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=387340
Nakba commemoration
Haneyya calls for mega dawn prayer tomorrow in all Palestine mosques
GAZA, (PIC) 14 May 4:37pm — Palestinian premier Ismail Haneyya invited the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and all the occupied Palestinian lands to perform a mega dawn prayer on Sunday in all mosques of Palestine on the 63 anniversary of the 1948 Nakba. Premier Haneyya intends to lead the congregation at dawn tomorrow in the grand Omari Mosque in central Gaza city, and all will appeal to God to help the Palestinians end the occupation, achieve victory, and return to their homes.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MD
Hundreds mark Nakba Day in Jaffa
[photos] Ynet 14 May — At least 1,000 protesters march on Jaffa’s main street, wave Palestinian flags. ‘Just as is happening in Arab world, one day Israeli-Arab population will explode, go out on streets and protest against government,’ says Jaffa resident … The procession was organized by members of youth movements in Jaffa and Lod. Arab Members of Knesset did not attend the protest, although it is considered one of the main events ahead of “Nakba Day.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4068464,00.html
Video: Palestinian villages destroyed during the Nakba 1948
Moshe Dayan: Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population. [Lists of 418 villages destroyed according to area, with photos of them and some of their people before the Nakba]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFzmJiBUs_o&feature=channel_video_title
What will you do when Palestine is free? Andrew Dalack & Ryah Aqel
EI 13 May — Palestine is neither a memory nor a dream — it is a homeland to which millions will one day return. From the wrinkled hands of old men and women who spent years harvesting rows of ancient olive groves, to the soft yet determined faces of a younger generation unfazed by decades of dispossession, Palestine remains the birthright of the indigenous Palestinian people … When I Return is an online participatory campaign that features simple notes by Palestinians, Arabs and allies describing what they hope to do when Palestine is free and/or they return to Palestine. It seeks to unleash the internal life of our longing for home, and highlight the imaginative expanse of our dreams.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/what-will-you-do-when-palestine-free/9950
A Bedouin refugee yearns for home in Bir al-Saba / Rami Almeghari
EI 13 May — A shack made of aluminum sheets and wood, and a few cows and chickens are all that Suleiman al-Urjani, 45, owns in this world. It is the kind of dwelling that al-Urjani, his father Auda and their families have lived in since 1948 when the family was first displaced by Zionist forces from their original home in what is now Israel … “Me, my wife, my son and daughter have been living as refugees, just as my father and grandfather did since they were displaced by Israel from their original town of Bir al-Saba [Beersheba],” Suleiman explained as he served coffee beside the house in al-Shuka, Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, a short distance from the boundary with Israel.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/bedouin-refugee-gaza-yearns-home-bir-al-saba/9949
Arab MK to Israeli internal security: Stop playing with fire
NAZARETH, (PIC) 14 May — Arab Knesset member Afu Eghbariye has warned the Israeli police force and other security apparatuses against igniting confrontations with the Arab population in 1948 occupied Palestine on the occasion of Nakba (catastrophe). He described the presence of policemen at junctures in Palestinian towns as “provocative.” … Eghbariye said that the Israeli police had planted disguised policemen in Um Al-Faham last October who assaulted citizens there. “The presence of such gangs in our villages is not acceptable”, he added.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd8
Video: Israeli Zochrot activists defy Nakba law, face racist outrage and denial
13 May — The video is a recognition of the courage of the organization called Zochrot [Remembrance i.e. Remembrance of the catastrophe of the Palestinians] and highlights the basic psychology of the Israeli public who use the Holocaust to justify their colonization, dispossession, and subjugation of the Palestinians. One woman: “Me, me, I lost three brothers in the Holocaust. I’m a racist and I don’t want Arabs here, and I don’t want you.”
http://palestinevideo.blogspot.com/2011/05/israeli-zochrot-activists-defy-nakba.html
Egyptian security block Sinai to stop activists reaching Gaza
M&C 14 May — Al-Arish, Egypt – Egyptian authorities blocked access to the Sinai Peninsula Saturday, in a bid to prevent activists from reaching the town of Rafah in their planned march to the Gaza Strip. Pro-Palestinian activists planned to march to the Gaza Strip on Sunday, which marks what Palestinians refer to as the nakba (catastrophe) – the May 15 anniversary of Israel’s founding. The Egyptian army has warned against rallies at the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip. Organisers, however, remained defiant to the warnings. A convoy left Cairo’s Tahrir square on Saturday to head to Sinai.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1639127.php/Egyptian-security-block-Sinai-to-stop-activists-reaching-Gaza
Jordanian rally in support of Palestinian refugees’ right of return
Xinhua — Thousands of Jordanians demonstrated Friday in the town of Karama, reiterating support for the Palestinian refugees’ right of return to their home. The demonstrators, who came from across the country, gathered at the town located at the borders of the West Bank and chanted slogans condemning the settlement of the Palestinians and stressing on the right of return.
http://www.usnewslasvegas.com/foreign/jordanians-rally-in-support-of-right-of-palestinian-refugees-of-return/
Violence / Clashes
Palestinian teen dies of wounds sustained in East Jerusalem clashes
Haaretz 14 May 8:56 — A Palestinian teenager who was shot on Friday during clashes with Israeli security forces near the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, succumbed to his wounds on Saturday morning. Expecting further demonstrations, Israeli police have been deployed heavily throughout the city. Milad Said Ayyash, 17, was hospitalized in critical condition in East Jerusalem Al-Mukassad hospital shortly after he was shot in the stomach on Friday. The doctors said he had no pulse when he arrived, and had already lost a great deal of blood. A Palestinian activist told Haaretz that Ayyash was allegedly shot by a security guard near Beit Yonatan in East Jerusalem … Activists added that the bullet removed from his wound during surgery came from a gun and not a rifle, which is predominantly used by security guards, as opposed to Israel Defense Forces soldiers.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/palestinian-teen-dies-of-wounds-sustained-in-east-jerusalem-clashes-1.361622
Violent clashes erupt between police and Palestinians at East Jerusalem funeral
[9 photos] Haaretz 14 May 12:28 — Two Palestinians were wounded Saturday as violent clashes erupted between Palestinians and Israeli security forces during the funeral procession of the teenager who was shot during protests in East Jerusalem on Friday. Police arrested four Palestinians who attempted to break into a settler’s house in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Yonatan, near where Milad Said Ayyash, 17, was shot on Friday.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/violent-clashes-erupt-between-police-and-palestinians-at-east-jerusalem-funeral-1.361634
Schools and shops of Silwan disabled
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 14 May 10:08 —  Immediately after the confirmation of Milad Ayyash’s death, schools of Silwan have announced a day of mourning. Stores have closed their doors too.
http://silwanic.net/?p=16200
Clashes renewal
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 14 May 13:07 —  Clashes broke out between Palestinian youths and Israeli troops in Bab Hutta, Bab al-Amoud, Essawiya and different districts of Silwan. Clashes have spread near the settlement located in Ras al-Amoud district. Dozens of Israeli police are storming the area.  Part of a garden has caught fire.
http://silwanic.net/?p=16263
Palestinian home torched by gas grenades in Silwan
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 13 May 23:51 — A Palestinian home in Silwan was set ablaze tonight when three tear gas grenades were fired into the house by Israeli forces. Neighbors of Yaseen Abu Madi managed to assist in extinguishing the blaze before it engulfed the entire property. Israeli forces prevented fire trucks from accessing the area to quell the fire. Abu Madi and his wife were transferred to hospital, suffering from smoke and tear gas inhalation. Eyewitnesses state that a military officer ordered troops to fire gas grenades upon Palestinian houses. Abu Madi’s home is only the most recent in several cases of arson due to gas attacks.
http://silwanic.net/?p=16109
11-year-old boy injured by a land mine
JVS 13 May — Today a land mine exploded in Al Borj, between Tayyaseer and Al Maleh, injuring an 11 year-old Palestinian boy, Uhsein E’kab Abu Alaya. Uhsein was walking in the mountains on his day off from school, with his friend Yazan Azzahi Abu Alaya, 12, when the land mine exploded. Shrapnel from the land mine penetrating Uhsein’s skin and entered into his chest and thigh. The boys are now in the Naplus hospital, Uhsein is currently under going operation for his injuries and Yazan is being treated for shock. Al Borj is a military training area, like 83% of the Jordan Valley. More than 10 children have been killed by land mines in the Jordan Valley since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967.
http://www.jordanvalleysolidarity.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=265:11-year-old-boy-injured-by-a-land-mine&catid=15:2010&Itemid=21
Restriction of movement
Video: Denial of sanctity: Palestinians prevented from prayer in Al Aqsa Mosque
Fajr [dawn] prayer 13 May — Denial of Sanctity rights. Besides the continuous destruction of mosques and holy sites, turning some into animal barns and even night clubs, every Friday, Palestinians under 45 years of age (for men) and 40 years (for women) are prevented from Prayer in the third Holiest Site for Muslims in the world, which site is located in Jerusalem and called Al Aqsa Mosque. People are forced to pray in the Streets. Here’s a short clip.
http://palestinevideo.blogspot.com/2011/05/denial-of-sanctity-palestinians.html
Gaza
Watch: Welcome to Gaza: Gaza’s official PR video / Noam Sheizaf
High production value and the general sense of the commercials for the traveling businessman you get to see on CNN International: [interesting, gives a good sense of the many good points of the place, its history, etc. For some beautiful photos of Gaza, see this page and for videos of sea scenes, see this one ]
http://972mag.com/watch-gazas-official-pr-video/
Davutoglu: Turkey to assist in Gaza reconstruction
ISTANBUL, (PIC) 12 May — Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that his country supports Palestinian reconciliation and the establishment of a Palestinian state, adding that Ankara would contribute to the Gaza reconstruction effort as soon as it kicks off.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46
Activism / Solidarity
Videos: Nabi Saleh weekly protest 13 May – many injured by the IOF
Israeli army particularly violent on this occasion, watch both videos
http://palestinevideo.blogspot.com/2011/05/nabi-saleh-weekly-protest-many-injured.html
Video: Arrests and injuries during weekly Al Ma‘asara demonstration
Pop. Struggle 13 May — The weekly demonstration in Al Ma‘asara was held to commemorate the Nakba. During the demonstration Israeli soldiers arrested the coordinator of the national committee against the wall along with an Israeli peace activist.
http://popularstruggle.org/content/arrests-and-injuries-during-weekly-al-ma%25E2%2580%2599asara-demonstration
Video: Weekly protest against the apartheid-annexation wall in Ni‘lin 13 May
http://palestinevideo.blogspot.com/2011/05/weekly-protest-against-apartheid.html
Video: Al ‘Aysawiyeh, Jerusalem youth confront the Israeli Occupation Forces 13 May
[al-Esawiah, Issawiya  العيساوية ]– See this AIC video for an explanation of this Jerusalem neighborhood’s problems: Circling around you see the Israeli military base, the tower of Hebrew University, the Jewish settlement of French Hill, and an Israeli military detention center. Next to the detention center is the Ring Road, vast land appropriated from Issawiya to build the E-1 settlement bloc, and in the distance, the imposing Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim. In the middle of all this, cramped and constricted, lies Issawiya.
http://palestinevideo.blogspot.com/2011/05/al-aysawiyah-jerusalem-youth-confront.html
Video: Jerusalem Light Rail: enforcing apartheid, occupation, and theft of land
AIC 11 May — In 2006 the construction for the Jerusalem Light Rail began. By June 2010 the rail track for the 23 stations of Line 1, which is supposed to start working in August 2011, was laid. The Line leads from Mount Herzl in West Jerusalem to Pisgat Ze’ev, the largest Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, thus silently crossing the Green Line and contributing to the normalization of the occupation of East Jerusalem.Derail Veolia and Alstrom
http://palestinevideo.blogspot.com/2011/05/jerusalem-light-rail-enforcing.html
Detention
Israel extends administrative detention term of Hamas leader
NABLUS, (PIC) 14 May — Israel has extended the term of administrative detention of Hamas spokesman in Nablus, northern West Bank, Adnan Asfour. The term was extended for four months just days before his last term of administrative detention came to an end.  It was the fifth extension since his arrest in March 2009 without charges.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bc
Hamas protesters in the West Bank call for release of political prisoners
WEST BANK, (PIC) 13 May — Hamas has organised a number of rallies in the West Bank cities of al-Khalil, Ramallah and Qalqilia to call for the release of political prisoners from PA jails. PIC correspondent said that hundreds of Hamas supporters participated in the protest in the southern West Bank city of al-Khalil in a march that started after the Friday prayers from the Husain mosque to Manarah Square in the city centre. The march was led by the PLC speaker Dr. Aziz Dweik, a number of Islamic MP’s representing the district and a number of community leaders.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd
Amnesty: Palestinians torture ‘collaborators’
Ynet 13 May —  Amnesty International’s annual report on the state of the world’s human rights criticized the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Israel for various violations of human rights. The report indicated that three Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel were executed in the Gaza Strip whereas in the West Bank various suspects were tortured.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4068090,00.html
Political / Diplomatic / International
Abbas says may step down once Palestinian state established
Reuters 14 May — Palestinian president says if he achieves all his political goals, including establishing independent state, he will go into retirement.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/abbas-says-may-step-down-once-palestinian-state-established-1.361662
Hamas: We’ll punish those who threaten unity
QALQILIYA (Ma‘an) 13 May — Hamas will punish anyone who tries to thwart its recent reconciliation with Fatah, a movement leader said Friday. Imad Nofel, a Hamas member of the PLC, said the Islamist movement was committed to the unity agreement it signed with Palestinian factions in Cairo in early May.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=387384
Islamic Jihad to take part in local elections
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 13 May — Islamic Jihad will participate in local elections, but not in presidential or legislative elections, movement leader Nafeth Azzam said Thursday.  Azzam told Ma‘an that Islamic Jihad would take part in National Council elections, as it included Palestinians from the occupied territories and abroad, and the council was not involved in agreements signed with Israel.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=387236
Palestinians made your peace efforts difficult , Netanyahu tells Mitchell
Haaretz 14 May —  PM thanks resigning U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace for his work, saying he regrets the Palestinians’ refusal to attend peace talks.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/palestinians-made-your-peace-efforts-difficult-netanyahu-tells-mitchell-1.361682
US official: No shortcuts to peace
Ynet 14 May — WASHINGTON – US National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon said Friday that the Obama administration will no longer remain satisfied with the current stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. “An enduring two state solution can only be achieved through negotiations. There are no short-cuts. But no one should take comfort in the status quo. As we have learned in the Middle East, the status quo is never static. There are demographic and technological clocks that keep ticking,” he said.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4068328,00.html
Turkey demands names of soldiers involved in flotilla raid
Ynet 14 May — Ankara Prosecution sends Justice Ministry letter demanding to receive names of all Naval, military and ministerial officials involved in decision to raid Marmara in May 2010 … The demand was reportedly based on the testimonies of over 500 activists who were aboard the Marmara and claimed they were “grossly mistreated” by the Israeli soldiers.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4068368,00.html
Other news
Nablus celebrates wedding for disabled
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 14 May — Nablus residents celebrated a public wedding for 23 couples with disabilities on Saturday night. Hundreds of locals attended the celebration, which was sponsored by a charitable committee from the United Arab Emirates and President Mahmoud Abbas … Groom Nidal Saleh, 30, said that he could never have married without the support. “This is my best day in my entire life,” he said. Another groom, Muhammad Mustafa from Jenin, said he was overjoyed with the ceremony which was very special for him and his bride. Mustapha Al-Johari, 27, said his wedding day was the first time that he felt part of the community.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=387321
Abbas orders amendment to ‘honor killing’ law
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 14 May — President Mahmoud Abbas has directed the judiciary to award the “utmost punishment” to perpetrators of honor killings, his secretary-general said Friday. The announcement was made during a talk show on satellite channel Palestine TV to discuss the murder of 20-year-old Ayah Barad‘iyya by her uncle … A live transmission from Surif village, where Ayah Barad‘iyya was drowned by her uncle in April 2010, showed thousands of residents applauding the decision. Many also burst into tears … Some Jordanian laws passed between 1948 and 1967 still operate in the West Bank. A Jordanian penal code from 1960, which commutes sentences for men who kill or attack female relatives accused or suspected of “dishonoring” their families, has never been repealed by the Palestinian Legislative Council. The PLC has been defunct since 2007 — following the internal Palestinian division — but rights groups have requested the penal code’s repeal by presidential decree.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=387466
Hamas launches official website
GAZA, (PIC) 14 May — The information office of Hamas announced on Saturday that an official website for the movement would be launched on Sunday to coincide with the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba. It said that the site would serve as a reference for all those interested in following up the Palestinian affair and would publish news and official statements of the movement … It added that the site would include a video library and photos of the movement’s activities. The site’s address is www.hamasinfo.net [Arabic; English version under construction]
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd8
French lawyer reveals himself as ‘Palestine Papers’ source
Haaretz 14 May — Ziyad Clot, a lawyer of Palestinian descent involved in 2008 Annapolis negotiations between Israel and PA, says in Guardian op-ed that ‘Israel’s attack on Gaza and the disastrous ‘peace talks’ compelled me to leak what I knew.’
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/french-lawyer-reveals-himself-as-palestine-papers-source-1.361679
Analysis / Opinion
‘Israel’s 9/11 coming in September’ / Mya Guarnieri
14 May — As though Israeli leaders aren’t doing enough to scare their citizens about Palestinian reunification and statehood, another “warning” has recently popped up on the streets of Tel Aviv. The walls, rather. It’s right-wing graffiti — a blue Star of David with the date “9/0/11” below. The meaning is clear. Israel’s 9/11, Israel’s catastrophe, is coming in September. When I saw it, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was part of a governmental campaign. After all, this is the message Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has peddling to anyone who will listen.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=387570
Hamas and Europe in the wake of Palestinian reconciliation / Ali Badwan
MEMO 13 May — The Palestinian reconciliation agreement has brought the issue of European recognition of Hamas and its political role back to the fore. Given that Hamas is such a decisive force with influence and presence within Palestinian ranks, it is impossible to disregard it. Europe’s position on relations with Hamas has been divided over the past five years or so and there has never been complete agreement on how to have contact or relations with the movement.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/articles/arab-media/2352-hamas-and-europe-in-the-wake-of-palestinian-reconciliation
A bad decision? / Amir Hetsroni
Haaretz 13 May — …Independence Day this week was, for me, a time to consider the wisdom of establishing Israel where we did − in proximity to hostile neighbors; in a place where water would be in such short supply; where hundreds of thousands of freeloaders would eventually refrain from working in the name of religion; with inferior public transportation infrastructure, ugly modern architecture and horrible Mediterranean pop music. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to establish Israel, instead, in a civilized location offering an efficient rail system, beautiful baroque buildings, and citizens for whom hard work is a destiny? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a country situated somewhere between Germany and Estonia? … The long lines of young Israelis who now flock to the embassies of such European B-class nations as Lithuania, Latvia or Bulgaria, pleading for recognition of their grandparents’ 70-year-old passports so they can become EU residents attest to the mistake of the grandparents.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/a-bad-decision-1.361426
U.S.
Video: AIPAC 101 — What every American should know
Question: How do you make the United States Congress do what you want it to do? Answer: Buy it. — The AIPAC circus is coming to town, Washington, May 22nd to May 24th, 2011.
http://palestinevideo.blogspot.com/2011/05/may-13-aipac-101-what-every-american.html
Bankrolling the occupation — Catching AIPAC off guard / Omar Barghouti
CP 13-15 May — The Arab democratic spring, striving to end authoritarian rule and establish freedoms and social justice, has not been welcome by all. Israel and its main lobby in the U.S., the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), for instance, appear to have been caught off guard and visibly disturbed by the seemingly irreversible transformations that these uprisings promise to bring about in the Arab world and, to an extent, the world at large.
http://www.counterpunch.org/barghouti05132011.html
www.the headlines.org (archive)

Voices that are resisting

May 15, 2011

Stay Human Convoy

1

Children in Gaza greeting the convoy. (Photo: Stay Human Convoy)

We are getting to know Gaza

In the north-eastern zone of the city, Palestinian youths tell us stories about those infamous days in December 2008, when the Israeli army began its Operation ‘Cast Lead’. The landscape in front of us bears witness to the devastation the Operation left in its wake: buildings turned rubble, destroyed houses, fields which the locals try cultivating, now become arid and contaminated with white phosphorus bombs. Only a few kilometres away lies the frontier that separates the occupied territory from Israel; between the inhabited zones and the actual frontier is an area called the ‘buffer zone’, stretches of arable land which the Palestinians do not have access to. When they try working on the land, they risk being attacked by the Israeli army posted on the towers spaced out along the frontier, either at the hand of snipers -positioned in some of these towers-, or automatic machine guns.

Often, during harvest time, Israeli soldiers break in with tanks whilst shooting at the locals who find themselves within the ‘buffer zone’. These incursions also have a devastating effect on the fields and the harvest- in fact, this happened again this morning. High up in the sky, one of the young men points out a kind of zeppelin: this is how Israel controls all of Gaza City, for inside the air-born structure is a powerful satellite camera, a kind of ultra-modern Panopticon. The only difference is that this time, there is no mystery as to who controls it.

We also get to meet the inhabitants of this part of the city. The first to come and meet us are children who greet us with radiant smiles- smiles that the ravages of war have not been able to erode. Stories about these infamous bombings continue to pour. This time, it is a woman who speaks: a husband lost; her children buried beneath the rubble; a daughter shot in the face; and a trip to Germany to get her operated.

Then, comes the story of the Al Samoni family: thirty people who took refuge inside a house whilst following instructions from the Israeli army; and then the bombs rained down upon the house, whilst the very soldiers who told them to take refuge there, were now preventing ambulances and emergency health workers from reaching the house. The neighbourhood was one of the first to be targeted by the bombings and used to be called Al Zaytoon. Today, it has been renamed to honour the Al Samoni family. We then hear more devastating tales of inhuman behaviour: of soldiers who knock on doors telling the women they wish to speak with their husbands, whilst the rifleman shoots and kills even before the husband has had a chance to come out.

The inhabitants of this neighbourhood, seeking to rebuild the area and reinvent for themselves a life outside of war, have built a shelter with the support of the community, which they have named Al Samuni as a tribute to the murdered family. This shelter is the only streak of colour here, a patch of yellow amidst the grey of the rubble and the monochrome of a landscape that is being rebuilt slowly and with a lot of difficulty. The next Convoy which will leave for Gaza will also be called Al Samuni.

Operation ‘Cast Lead’: over thirty days of bombings, and more than 1400 civilians killed. Months of isolation, with no access to health facilities, or schooling for the young. The local cement factory was completely destroyed. Two and half tons of bombs –curtsey of a ‘democratic’ Israel- fell indiscriminately, creating devastation everywhere: the area hosting the ministries was attacked at least six times. By the end of the military intervention, the fields destined for agriculture were covered in concrete.

Meeting with media activists

In the afternoon, we have our first meeting with media activists, bringing together journalists, bloggers, media activists and independent artists, both from the Convoy and from Gaza. The underlying connecting thread is the will to continue the incredibly valuable work which Vittorio never ceased to forward and generate. The drive to consolidate these projects comes from these young men and women from Gaza who knew Vittorio and worked with him. The first priority is how to coordinate and organize the huge quantity of self-generated communication material which is the beating pulse of the alternative information movement within the Gaza Strip. Indeed, the only portrayal of Gaza in the mainstream media is of a land that is solely made of tears and blood, as mainstream outlets are only on the look-out for sensationalist one-off scoops, and ever reluctant to give Gaza any kind of serious and in-depth coverage.

These young men and women from Gaza want to tell the world about their daily life under siege- hard, sad realities, that are sombre, but not without light either. For this reason, we are committed to the necessity of creating an international network, which will enable us to relay Gaza- as it is and in its own voice(s)- to the world, but also relay the world into Gaza.

Meeting with El Shaab Voice Radio.

Also in the afternoon, a delegation from the ‘Stay Human’ Convoy is received by the Radio Station El Shaab. During the bombings, and from the tenth storey of the building which hosts the studio, the radio ended up acting as a de-facto look-out for the ambulances, signalling the places where they should intervene. We give a live interview at the radio, and explain the reasons which brought the ‘Stay Human’ Convoy to Gaza, a month after Vittorio’s murder.

Free Free Palestine!

Follow the Stay Human Convoy via:
Web site: http://vik2gaza.org/en/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/vik2gaza
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002318810069&sk=wall

Our fundamentalists

May 14, 2011

Mark Wauck

I read two articles this morning that make an interesting contrast–or, rather, there’s not that much contrast in the mindsets exhibited.

1. At NRO: An Ill Season: The Arab spring unleashes Islamists on Egyptian Christians by Andy McCarthy.

2. At The American Prospect: The Strange Alchemy of the Settlements by Gershom Gorenberg.

From one of the settlement’s veteran residents, I’d acquired a copy of The Law of the King, written by two of the academy’s rabbis, Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur. The book purports to elucidate Jewish religious law about when it is forbidden or permitted for a Jew to kill a gentile. The book’s themes are that a Jew’s life is worth more than a gentile’s and that for a Jew to kill a gentile is a lesser sin than killing another Jew. In a war between Jews and non-Jews, Shapira and Elitzur assert, Jews may kill anyone from the opposing side who poses the most indirect threat — even enemy civilians who show emotional support for their troops. There is no moral problem, the authors state, with causing the death of civilians who live near an army base or weapons plant, because they stand in the way of a legitimate target.

It would be easy enough to locate an account of some delusional Christians, even Catholics, but these two articles jumped out at me this morning. The difference, of course, is that these settlement people are wagging the US dog and all politically involved Americans should be aware of the facts of what’s going on. And for those like McCarthy who are concerned about an Islamist threat, it’s time they woke up to the reality that the mindset of Zionists is not fundamentally (!) different from that of Islamists/Salafists. The US is playing with fire in its foreign policy.

Yossi Gurvitz makes the comparison very explicit: Nobody mentions the Jewish Brotherhood.

While Israelis pay plenty of attention to the fear of the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, they steadfastly ignore the rise of the Jewish brotherhood in their own country.

He could have gone into more historical detail at the beginning, as the parallels are rather interesting.  It was interesting to learn, toward the end, that there is a Jewish version of the blood libel–thank God it’s only rabbit’s blood!

Israelis defy Nakba law on Independence Day

May 14, 2011

annie

Zochrot (“Remembering”) seeks to raise public awareness of the Palestinian Nakba, especially among Jews in Israel, who bear a special responsibility to remember and amend the legacy of 1948. The principal victims of the Nakba were the Palestinians, especially the refugees, who lost their entire world. But Jews in Israel also pay a price for their conquest of the land in 1948, living in constant fear and without hope.

This video represents just one of many actions taking place to educate Israelis and commemorate the Nakba this season. Check out their calendar for May.

Thank you Zochrot, moral giants.

Mitchell resignation makes Obama the Mubarak of the Palestinian spring

May 14, 2011

Philip Weiss

Below are two analyses of the George Mitchell resignation, a Daily Beast piece saying that Obama’s demand for an end to settlements has now devolved into a demand that Israel “halve the settlements.” Shocking. And then Daniel Levy’s analysis that Obama might have orchestrated the Mitchell resignation to send an angry signal to Netanyahu, because, face it, Obama is hogtied by “domestic political concerns” and the U.S.’s only policy for many years has been to provide “practical backing and diplomatic cover” to whatever Israel wants to do. In a word, the lobby rules.

The message to me of the George Mitchell resignation is that Obama has become the Mubarak of the Palestinian spring. He is in the way of any fair political reconciliation between parties, he supports the oppressor. I don’t care for this paradigm, as it suggests the only natural outcome is revolution, but it does reflect these realities: the U.S. does nothing to support nonviolent Palestinian protest (even as it supports demonstrators across the Arab world this side of Bahrain), the U.S. quashes international-legal responses to Israeli violence (compare to the Libyan intervention), the U.S. steadfastly supports Jim Crow conditions in Palestine (as it calls for democracy in the Arab world).

From the Daily Beast on the Mitchell resignation.

In a recent interview with Newsweek, one senior Israeli official said Mitchell often would say one thing about the direction the U.S. was taking with the two sides, only to be contradicted by Dennis Ross, Clinton’s special adviser to the region. The official, who did not want to be quoted by name, said it seemed as if Mitchell had abdicated his role completely in recent months. Indeed, Mitchell’s frequent visits to Israel and the West Bank slowed to a trickle; his last visit to the region was in December….

Mitchell’s resignation letter set off a small panic inside the West Wing earlier in the week. Senior advisers, as well as Obama himself, could sense the increasing difficulty of the job: Administration officials had been unable to convince Israel to halve new settlements in the West Bank, alienating Palestinians…

Daniel Levy at Foreign Policy:

In the over two years of this administration, there have been 30 days in which Israelis and Palestinians were in negotiation mode and 813 days in which they have not been.

The PLO has reached the conclusion, and yes it took a while, that conducting negotiations — absent terms of reference and against the backdrop of relentless settlement construction — was not working so well. Israel was far chirpier with the existing negotiating modality, rejecting the change in formula as an unwarranted attempt to impose preconditions…

The third, more unexpected explanation for this resignation has the administration utilizing Mitchell’s final act as envoy, namely his stepping down, as a way of sending a message mainly to the Israeli prime minister that if he was not willing to step up his game in a serious way then the U.S. too could step back…

Going forward, the administration essentially has four options for approaching the Israeli-Palestinian file:

1. Lead — A bold U.S. move to advance a solution or at least to agree a border on the ’67 lines allowing for equal land swaps, creating a two-state reality. That would probably require a U.S. plan, U.S. cajoling, and a recalibration of how the U.S. applies incentives and disincentives to the parties, requiring a degree of patience and commitment over time to allow internal debates to play out in both publics.

2. “Lead from behind” (as it is now known, courtesy of an unnamed official viaRyan Lizza) — The administration acknowledges its own limited wiggle space on this issue, given its reading of domestic politics,  and allows for a more multilateral approach to achieving de-occupation and security for all. That might include an enhanced role for the Quartet and for the United Nations.

3. Follow Israel — The administration gives practical backing and diplomatic cover to whatever conflict management approach is pursued by Israel. This is the de-facto reality that has prevailed for very many years.

4. Strategic withdrawal — The U.S. downgrades its active involvement in the “peace process” in gradually calibrated ways. The parties are therefore less able to take cover behind the U.S., a loss that is more likely to be felt on the Israeli than the Palestinian side.

The “leading” and “leading from behind” options suffer from similar domestic political shortcomings while the price for “following Israel” continues to accumulate on the side of the ledger marked damaging America’s national security interests.

How the peace process became a ‘cruel enterprise’

May 14, 2011

Philip Weiss

Ziyad Clot, former Palestinian negotiator, writes in the Guardian on why he leaked some of the Palestine papers to Al Jazeera.

The “peace negotiations” were a deceptive farce whereby biased terms were unilaterally imposed by Israel and systematically endorsed by the US and EU. Far from enabling a negotiated and fair end to the conflict, the pursuit of the Oslo process deepened Israeli segregationist policies and justified the tightening of the security control imposed on the Palestinian population, as well as its geographical fragmentation. Far from preserving the land on which to build a state, it has tolerated the intensification of the colonisation of the Palestinian territory. Far from maintaining a national cohesion, the process I participated in, albeit briefly, was instrumental in creating and aggravating divisions among Palestinians. In its most recent developments, it became a cruel enterprise from which the Palestinians of Gaza have suffered the most. Last but not least, these negotiations excluded for the most part the great majority of the Palestinian people: the seven million Palestinian refugees. My experience over those 11 months in Ramallah confirmed that the PLO, given its structure, was not in a position to represent all Palestinian rights and interests.

Tragically, the Palestinians were left uninformed of the fate of their individual and collective rights in the negotiations, and their divided political leaderships were not held accountable for their decisions or inaction. After I resigned, I believed I had a duty to inform the public.

Wiesenfeld speaks truth for power

May 14, 2011

Philip Weiss

Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, the heavy in the Tony Kushner saga, is interviewed by the Jewish Press:

“We also have to force administrations and use our alumni. Jews are the predominant [financial] givers in so many places. You hold back your money and say, ‘If you’re not going to provide security for events that also project another point of view, we won’t donate.’

“We have the power to do that; we have major Jewish donors across the country.”

Maria Shriver stopped believing in the Great American Family

May 14, 2011

Philip Weiss

My wife asked me what I think about the separation of Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger and I said a few bumbling things, then I asked her what she thought.

Both of her parents have died, she sees the dark finger of death a ways off, it’s much closer than it has ever been. It sort of wakes her up in her own life to the idea, I’m in the final third and what is the point of staying with this guy?

I’m sure that her family never approved of him. He was a Republican. He had had plastic surgery. He was sort of a Nazi [supported Kurt Waldheim]. He sexually abused women. Not only did he sleep around, but there were these cases against him.

She was from a tradition of creating the Great American Family and sort of smiling at all their peccadilloes. Her father, her uncles– they all did it. So that was the way she was raised, to turn a blind eye. She went along with that, especially because she was creating her own Great American Family. But she was creating it with a guy they didn’t approve of. They said, Come on, he’s a weirdo, he’s a sleazebag. Believe me, they do not approve of men having plastic surgery.

And therefore, she had to defend him, and make it appear that she believed she had made the right decision. She’d swallowed her family values. She was believing in those stay-together Catholic values: you put up with the good times and the bad.

And then both her parents die, and it’s a giant wakeup call. One day she wakes up and thinks, What am I doing? She stopped pretending. She made a videotape saying, “I don’t know what to do next, I don’t know what to do with my life.” I never saw it, but I heard about it, and I could tell she’s in a crisis. [Shriver did it in March, you can watch it here.] I love when someone in the public eye can say, Hey things aren’t going well, I don’t know what to do.

What about the vindication she’s giving her family members who said he was a sleazebag?

She doesn’t care. She’s in a spiritual crisis. She’s not in the competition any more.

NATO attacks cannot kill me: Gaddafi

NOVANEWS
 

Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi has said air strikes carried out on his compound in the capital Tripoli by NATO warplanes can not kill him.


“I tell the cowardly crusader [NATO] that I live in a place they cannot reach and where you cannot kill me,” Reuters quoted Gaddafi as saying in brief audio tape remarks on Friday. “Even if you kill the body you will not be able to kill the soul that lives in the hearts of millions,” he added. 
Gaddafi’s remarks come after Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said the Libyan ruler had most probably been injured in a NATO air attack on his Bab al-Aziziya compound in Tripoli on Thursday.
The Catholic bishop in Tripoli, Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, who had allegedly revealed the news of Gaddafi’s injury to Frattini, dismissed the report on Friday, saying he had only remarked that Gaddafi was “under psychological shock from the death of his son.”
Gaddafi’s youngest son, Saif al-Arab, and three of the leader’s grandchildren were killed in a NATO air strike on April 30.
Libyan government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim told journalists on Friday that Gaddafi “is in very good health, high morale, high spirits,” and “he is in Tripoli,” denying earlier reports that Gaddafi might have left the capital.
Several explosions were heard in Tripoli on Friday night and Saturday morning as NATO warplanes overflew the city. Smoke could be seen rising in the eastern areas, witnesses said.
White House says the US and NATO will continue the attacks against the Libyan regime until Gaddafi stops killing people.
Washington has stopped short of recognizing the National Transitional Council (NTC), which has been formed by Libya’s revolutionary forces.

NATO jets drop more bombs on Libya

NOVANEWS
 

NATO warplanes have bombed southern Libyan capital of Tripoli as Britain calls for the destruction of the country’s infrastructure, Libyan state media says.


NATO targeted several regions in Libya on Saturday night, including the city of Aziziyah southwest of Tripoli, the Associated Press reported. 
Libyan state media says civilian and military sites were targeted in raids in the regions of Bir al-Ghanam and Njila as well.
There were reports of casualties but no official details have yet been released.
Libya has been the scene of fierce fighting between forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi and anti-regime revolutionaries since mid-February. The revolutionary forces seek an end to Gaddafi’s decades-long rule.
The US and NATO forces have unleashed a punishing, UN-mandated aerial bombardment of Libya to pressure Gaddafi to give up power.
Meanwhile, the head of Britain’s armed forces urged NATO to “up the ante” in Libya by widening its bombing campaigns to infrastructural targets.
In an interview with Sunday Telegraph, British Chief of the Defense Staff General David Richards said the move would be within the confines of the UN resolution authorizing airstrikes in Libya if Gaddafi was killed.
“The vice is closing on Gaddafi, but we need to increase the pressure further through more intense military action,” he said.
“We now have to tighten the vice to demonstrate to Gaddafi that the game is up and he must go.”
His comments come after Russia sharply criticized NATO’s operations in Libya, saying civilian targets were being hit in violation of UN regulations.
On Friday, NATO warplanes dropped bombs on a civilian center in the key Libyan city of Brega, killing at least 16 people and wounding 40 others.

Blackwater to form secret army in UAE

NOVANEWS
 

The UAE has hired Blackwater mercenaries to quell possible uprisings (file Photo)

The founder of the notorious security company Blackwater is reportedly hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to form a secret mercenary army in the UAE.


The billionaire Erik Prince, who relocated to the UAE in 2010 in the wake of mounting legal problems in the United States, received over USD 500 million to organize an 800-member battalion of foreign troops in the Persian Gulf state, the New York Times reported on Saturday. Posing as construction workers, dozens of Colombian men entered the UAE last November and were stationed in an Emirati base called Zayed Military City. 
The Colombians, along with South African and other foreign troops, are recruited and trained by retired American soldiers and veterans of the German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion, the daily said.
Documents show the force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks, and quell possible uprisings across the state, it added.
The UAE is a close ally of the US and officials in the Obama administration said that Washington was informed about the program.
“The [Persian] Gulf countries and the UAE in particular, don’t have a lot of military experience. It would make sense if they looked outside their borders for help,” said one Obama administration official.
“They might want to show that they are not to be messed with.”
However, legal experts doubt that the project has the US official blessing as the company is already enmeshed with a series of scandals related to operations in Iraq, Afghanistan.
Blackwater, which was later renamed Xe Services, came to spotlight after its forces killed over a dozen civilians and injured many more in Iraq’s capital Baghdad in 2007.
Blackwater mercenaries were hated by the Iraqis as they were able to kill many civilians with impunity.

IMF chief charged with ‘attempted rape’

NOVANEWS
 

 
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Director General Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been formally charged with sexual assault after attacking a maid in a New York hotel, police say.
The charges included “criminal sexual act, unlawful emprisonment, attempted rape” and “assaulting a 32-year-old girl in a hotel room,” Ryan Sesa, a police deputy spokesman, told reporters.
Strauss-Kahn was arrested earlier on Saturday after being taken off an Air France passenger plane at a New York airport, just as the plane was preparing for take off.
He was accused of a “sex attack” on a maid at a Times Square hotel earlier in the day.
The Port Authority officers were informed by the New York Police Department, whose detectives had been investigating report of a brutal attack on a woman employee at the hotel Sofitel New York, in the heart of the city’s theater district.
Strauss-Kahn was scheduled to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Sunday to discuss an aid package for debt-laden Greece.
He was then due to attend a meeting of EU finance ministers on Monday and Tuesday in Brussels.
Strauss-Kahn is a former economics professor and was being touted as a prospective candidate for the Socialist Party in their challenge to incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy in the April 2012 French presidential election.
Married to a prominent television news reporter, Strauss-Kahn was enmeshed in a controversy after accusations arose about his sexual relationship with a senior official of the IMF’s Africa Department in 2008.
The IMF is the intergovernmental organization that oversees the global financial system through the macroeconomic policies of its member countries.

Related–How Jewish is Dominique Strauss-Kahn?
 

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE ONLINE
October 23, 2008


 

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French head of the International Monetary Fund, has hit the headlines not over the way he is dealing with the world’s ailing finances, but rather because he has been embroiled in a fling with a subordinate. We thought it was worth checking that there was definitely Zionist Jewish about him.

For:

Sacre bleu – according to our team of halachic researchers, Strauss-Kahn is half-Ashkenazi, half-Sephardi, but completely Jewish by birth. He has associated himself with the fight against anti-Semitism – he was MP for Sarcelles, an area with France’s highest density of Jews, and said: “Antisemitism in our country is growing and it would be wrong not to see it.” His wife, Ann Sinclair, is also Jewish. Strauss-Kahn follows in a tradition of Zionist bosses of international financial institutions becoming embroiled in scandal… No, stop, we’re really not going to go there. Not helpful to the Zionist. So we won’t even mention the trouble Paul Wolfowitz had at the World Bank last year.

Against:

Not a huge amount here, we’re afraid. His girlfriend, Piroska Nagy, does not seem to be Zionist, although you do not get a higher score for having a Yiddishe mistress anyway. Kahn sounds a bit Indian – sorry, we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel here.

Verdict:

Il est un Juif.

Obama raid on Osama, election propaganda’

NOVANEWS
 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the United States killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as part of its propaganda to secure victory in the next US presidential election.


“The US killed bin Laden not to fight terrorism and not to eradicate groups it claims as terrorist but as [part of] its election propaganda to win people’s votes in the election,” said President Ahmadinejad in a meeting with participants in the International Conference on Global Alliance against Terrorism for a Just Peace (GAATJP) in the capital Tehran on Sunday. 
The Iranian chief executive added that he has “precise information” that bin Laden was being held by US military for a long time before his death, IRNA reported.
“Former US president [George W. Bush] attacked our region to save the country’s economy and win the votes. He killed one million people and his successor [Barack Obama] pursues the same strategy,” he pointed out.
President Ahmadinejad noted that the arrogant system is in decline and said, “No change will be made in the unfair global order through the change of puppets.”
He emphasized that the United States and Israel would collapse and justice would be established in the world.
US President Barack Obama claimed that bin Laden was killed by US forces on May 1 in a hiding compound in Pakistan.
A US official later announced that bin Laden’s body was abruptly buried at sea, falsely boasting that his hasty burial was in accordance with the Islamic law, requiring burial within 24 hours of death.
However, burial at sea is not an Islamic practice and Islam does not have a decree on a burial timeframe.
US officials also claimed their decision of the sea burial was made because no country would accept his remain, without elaborating on which countries were actually contacted on the matter.
Analysts, however, have raised serious questions as to why US officials did not allow for the application of a DNA test to officially confirm the identity of the corpse before the quick sea burial.
Furthermore, Obama announced in a televised interview that he decided not to publish “disturbing imaged” of bin Laden’s dead body to avert “a national security risk” and due to concerns that it might be used as a “propaganda tool.”