Articles

Dorothy Online Newsletter
May 17, 2011
Middle East
NOVANEWS Dear Friends,   The reports about today’s events (many with killings and/or injuries) are many.  Links to some are below, ...Read more
MERNA ALAZZEH: 1948 - AL NAKBA: A FAMILY'S COLLECTIVE MEMORY*
May 16, 2011
Palestine Affairs
NOVANEWS GILAD ATZMON   "The old will die and the young will forget." This was the prediction of the first ...Read more
New report exposes scope of Israel’s economic exploitation of Jordan Valley
May 16, 2011
ZIO-NAZI
B'Tselem - NEW REPORTPRESS RELEASE: •ᾉ77.5 percent of area is closed to Palestinians •ᾉThe area’s 9,400 settlers enjoy water allocation ...Read more
Rebranding IsraHell: will Netanyahu get away with it?
May 16, 2011
ZIO-NAZI
NOVANEWS     By  Alan Hart   Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a master of Zionist double-speak and deception, is ...Read more
Egyptian convoy bound for Rafah banned
May 16, 2011
Egypt
NOVANEWS Salma Shukrallah   Egypt’s ruling military council has forbidden solidarity convoys aiming to reach Rafah ahead of the Palestinian ...Read more
NHS PETITION
May 16, 2011
Health
NOVANEWS Dear All ,  Over the past week we've all been forwarding the Save the NHS petition to our friends, ...Read more
Zio-Nazi tanks heading towards Lebanon
May 16, 2011
ZIO-NAZI
  Dozens of Zio-Nazi tanks are reportedly heading towards Lebanon’s border as thousands hold anti-Zionist protests across the country. The ...Read more
Palestinians killed by Gestapo's in ‘Nakba’ clashes
May 16, 2011
Palestine Affairs
NOVANEWS   Several killed and dozens wounded in West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights as Palestinians commemorate “Nakba Day” ...Read more
Palestinians paying for Nazi crimes’
May 16, 2011
Egypt
NOVANEWS   Muslim Brotherhood official tells Washington Post US, Europe ‘exported Hitler’s conflict to our land’ WASHINGTON- “My dream is ...Read more
Zio-Nazi Gestapo's kills 12 in Syria
May 16, 2011
Syria
  Zio-Nazi Gestapo have reportedly attacked anti-Zionist protesters in Zio-Nazi-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, killing at least 12 people and wounding ...Read more
Zio-Nazi Gestapo kills protesters on NAKBA 'catastrophe' day
May 16, 2011
ZIO-NAZI
NOVANEWS   Zio-Nazi troops during clashes with Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city on May 14, 2011 as Palestinians ...Read more
Palestinians, IsraHell troops clash over teen death
May 16, 2011
ZIO-NAZI
NOVANEWS   AP JERUSALEM – Masked Palestinians whirling slingshots clashed with Israeli riot police in two Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem ...Read more

Dorothy Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS
Dear Friends,

 

The reports about today’s events (many with killings and/or injuries) are many.  Links to some are below, as well as one full report (on el-Wallaje).  Stats on numbers killed and injured differ from one report to another, depending on the time each was written.  My hopes for a bloodless Nakba Day commemorations did not help keep it bloodless, much to my regret.

Following the links and ISM report on el Wallaje is an item not specifically about today’s events, but on the subject of the Nakba in general.  In the first of these, Gideon Levy insists that it is time for Israel to teach the Nakba.  In the 2nd, Zvi Barel  warns that Israel had better prepare,  “for a Palestinian state is on the way.”

For my taste, Gideon Levy’s article below is overly Zionist, and I really don’t understand his intention in his concluding statement “Only on the day that the pupils in Israel also learn about the Nakba, will we know that the earth is no longer burning under our feet and that the Zionist enterprise has been completed.”  What does he mean when he says that the “Zionist enterprise has been completed”? But the point of the op-ed that it is time to start teaching the Nakba in schools I fully agree with.

All the best,

Dorothy

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

Reports on March 15, 2011 Nakba Day

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13373006 (includes video)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/15/israeli-troops-kill-eight-nakba-protests

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/may/15/syria-libya-middle-east-unrest-live (video also)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/15-wounded-in-gaza-during-palestinian-march-2284529.html

http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-israel-border-clashes-20110516,0,2558128.story

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/2011515649440342.html

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/last-infiltrators-return-to-syria-after-day-of-bloody-clashes-on-northern-borders-1.361905

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/last-infiltrators-return-to-syria-after-day-of-bloody-clashes-on-northern-borders-1.361905

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4068829,00.html

http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=220647

May 15, 2011 From ISM

At 11 AM on al-Nakba remembrance day, 500 residents from the West Bank
village of al-Wallajeh and international supporters marched towards
the Israeli Apartheid Wall. The Wall was built to separate the
villagers from their original land from which they were expelled in
1948. The demonstration was violently attacked by the Israeli military
with rubber coated steal bullets, tear gas and protesters were beaten
with batons and rifles. One youth was hospitalized after being injured
by a rubber coated steal bullet .
Eight Palestinians including twins aged 11 and 6 internationals
(American, Dutch, German and Canadian nationals) were arrested. The
army proceeded to raid the village and invade each house, searching
for people who had participated in the demonstrations. The raids as
well as confrontations between the army and the village youth are
ongoing.
The Arrested Palestinians are:
Mazen Qumsiyah
Basel Al Araj
Ahmed Al Araj
Mohammad Al Araj
Allah And Mohammed Abu Tin 11 year old twins
Tarek Abu Tin
Adel Abu Tin
Al-Walaja is an agrarian village of about 2,000 people, located south
of Jerusalem and West of Bethlehem. Following the 1967 Occupation of
the West Bank and the redrawing of the Jerusalem municipal boundaries,
roughly half the village was annexed by Israel and included in the
Jerusalem municipal area. The village’s residents, however did not
receive Israeli residency or citizenship, and are considered illegal
in their own homes.
Once completed, the path of the Wall is designed to encircle the
village’s built-up area entirely, separating the residents from
Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and almost all their lands – roughly 5,000
dunams. Previously, Israeli authorities have already confiscated
approximately half of the village’s lands for the building of the Har
Gilo and Gilo settlements, and closed off areas to the south and west
of it. The town’s inhabitants have also experienced the cutting down
of fruit orchards and house demolition due to the absence of building
permits in Area C.
According to a military confiscation order handed to the villagers,
the path of the Wall will stretch over 4890 meters between Beit Jala
and alWallaja, affecting 35 families, whose homes may be slated for
demolition.
For more information call
Mahmud Zawahre 0599586004
—
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led  non-violent resistance movement committed to ending Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land.  We call for full compliance with all relevant UN resolutions and international law.
For specific media inquires such as interview requests, photo usage, etc. please email the ISM Media Office atmedia@palsolidarity.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to ism-media-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

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

2.  Haaretz ,

 

May 15, 2011


Israeli Jews should mark Nakba Day, too

It is possible and necessary to teach that this glory that is the establishment of Israel also has a dark side – so we can know our history, and understand the wishes of the Palestinians.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israeli-jews-should-mark-nakba-day-too-1.361741

By Gideon Levy

Were Israel a little more confident of the righteousness of its case, and were its government a little more open, then all schools in Israel, Jewish and Arab alike, would today mark Nakba Day. A few days after the celebrations of our own Independence Day, in which we lauded the bravery and the achievements that we are rightly proud of, we could offer a lesson in citizenship. It would be a different heritage lesson, the kind that includes the story of the other side, the one that is denied and repressed. Not a single hair from our head would be lost were we to do this today. Sixty three years later,with the country established and flourishing, we can now begin telling the entire truth, not only the heroic, convenient part of the story.

On that day it would be possible to tell our pupils that next to us lives a nation for whom our day of joy is their day of disaster, for which we and they are to blame. We could tell the pupils of Israel that in the 1948 war, like in every war, there are also some acts of evil and war crimes. We could tell them about the expulsions and the massacres. Yes, there were massacres: All you have to do is ask the veterans of the war to tell you about the towns that were “cleared” and the villages that were razed, and the thousands of residents who were promised that they would be allowed to return in a few days, a promise that was never kept, and about the poor “infiltrators” who tried to return to their homes and their properties in order to collect remnants of their lives, and were killed or expelled by the IDF.

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.

It is possible to justify everything Israel did during its War of Independence, and it is also possible to ask difficult questions, but it is, first of all, essential to know – everything.

It is necessary to know that there were 418 villages here that were wiped off the face of the earth, and it should be remembered that there were more than 600,000 natives of this land who fled or were expelled not to return to their homes, and that to this day most of them, they and their offspring, live in terrible conditions, carrying keys to their lost homes. It is possible and necessary to teach our pupils that this glory which is the establishment of Israel also has a dark side. This must be taught so that we can know our history, and so that we can understand the wishes of the Palestinians, even if there is no intention of realizing them. We can call this, “know your enemy,” but to know we must.

We must know that under nearly every patch of Jewish National Fund forest rest the ruins that Israel was keen to erase, to ensure that they not serve as evidence of a different heritage. We can know that under our flourishing Canada Park hide the ruins of three villages which Israel razed after the Six Day War, putting its residents on a bus and expelling them. We can now turn our sights to the ruins of the homes that remained on the sides of the roads, from which we turn away, and remember that once there was life there. We can even put up memorial sites, in the land full of memorials, to commemorate the villages that are no longer there. We can ask how is it that along the coast, between Jaffa and Gaza, there is not a single village.

We must also ask why the mosque in the heart of Moshav Zechariya is surrounded by a fence with the sign, “Danger, unsafe structure.” It is not this holy structure of theirs that is dangerous. We can also ask where do the residents of Zechariya live today, on whose ruins the moshav was built (the answer: the poor Deheisheh refugee camp ). This does not constitute a breach of faith. It is not treachery against the Zionist ideal: it is historical and intellectual honesty, perhaps courageous, but certainly something which the circumstances require.

On the day of this Nakba, it is possible to begin telling the entire truth. If we are so proud of it, why hide it? And if we are embarrassed by it, the time has come to expose it and deal with it. Only on the day that the pupils in Israel also learn about the Nakba, will we know that the earth is no longer burning under our feet and that the Zionist enterprise has been completed.

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

3.  Haaretz,

 

May 15, 2011


Israel better prepare, for a Palestinian state is on the way

Israel has always tried to convince that it is reaching out for peace into the void. But this policy is about to sustain a shock.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-better-prepare-for-a-palestinian-state-is-on-the-way-1.361739

By Zvi Bar’el

Yuval Diskin is right. September always was a lousy month. Take September 1993, the cursed month when the the Oslo Accords were signed. Or 15 years earlier, the signing of the Camp David agreement between Israel and Egypt. The Nazi invasion of Poland took place in September, as did the Al-Qaida bombings in New York and the Second Intifada. James Dean was killed on September 30, and in September 1995 Israel agreed to hand over control of considerable parts of the West Bank to the Palestinians.

Lousiness, it transpires, is a matter of perspective. Whatever happens in September 2011, if anything does happen, will also be a matter of perspective.

Diskin’s text, which adorned the Friends of Tel Aviv University conference, shouldn’t particularly move or astonish anybody. Leaders of the Shin Bet security service and the Mossad, and former generals are not tested by their rhetoric. They are in charge of fear, and fear doesn’t need that many words or poetic phrasing. Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, terrorism, rockets and, of course, an independent Palestinian state – that’s all the vocabulary you need to phrase Israel’s strategy of fear.

The head of the Shin Bet doesn’t have, and apparently did not have, a peace conception. That’s not his job. He doesn’t create policy, he merely takes care of its ramifications. But the “policy” as he understands it is crystal-clear.

“Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayyad and the entire Palestinian Authority,” he ruled, “represent only themselves, and certainly not Hamas in the Gaza Strip.”

In other words, there was no point in talking to them from the outset, most certainly not now after they have reconciled with Hamas. The reconciliation may have shaken Diskin, he may not have expected it – or maybe he did and didn’t say so – but it doesn’t change the general picture. “Hamas did not change its ideas, ideology or policy,” while the reconciliation will be “tested over time.”

As if “time” was an independent factor unaffected by processes, policies, statements. As if neither Palestinians nor Israelis influence the content of this time and the manner in which changes will occur. And how much time are we speaking of, by the way? Are we now doomed to tear pages from a calendar until some deadline? Does the time run out in lousy September? Or maybe a year after the reconciliation agreement, when elections for the Palestinian parliament and presidency are supposed to take place? And when does that time even begin?

Diskin, of course, is but a metaphor. Maybe something will happen to him “over time” as well, and we will yet see him sign petitions or join to one of the peace initiatives. Many senior “security sources” experience such sudden enlightenment. But for now, he is unhesitatingly presenting to the public the fundamental assumptions that have shaped the Israeli government’s policy.

There is no Palestinian partner and now there won’t be, until the end of “time.” The government doesn’t even need to prove it. Reconciliation is an illusion, the Palestinian state will be a mirage, and neither of them obliges the government to change its vision. The government is already hacking away at the reconciliation, assuming that if it fails it will take Abbas with it, and if it survives it doesn’t have room for an Israeli partner anyway.

But it is the debate over the identity of the partner that is illusory. It successfully substitutes the need to determine a policy, to decide the country’s borders, to determine just how far it can reach into the occupied territories. It’s empty babble, leaning on the theory of “confidence-building steps” since exposed as confidence-destroying steps, but still managed to make the question of the Palestinian partner – not the Israeli partner, God forbid – into the main issue in every political discussion.

Netanyahu’s upcoming speech to Congress will spare no words from that absent partner; for this is the heart of a tactic masquerading as a policy. Israel has always tried to convince that it is reaching out for peace into the void. But this policy is about to sustain a shock in September. You can cancel out Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh. But a Palestinian state? One to which presidents and kings will suddenly start to arrive?

 
 

MERNA ALAZZEH: 1948 – AL NAKBA: A FAMILY'S COLLECTIVE MEMORY*

NOVANEWS
GILAD ATZMON
 

“The old will die and the young will forget.” This was the prediction of the first Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. 63 years later, I still wonder what made him think so. Would the Jewish masses – or indeed any of the other groups of people – that suffered the Holocaust ever forget?

As far as I know, having lived in a refugee camp for most of my life, there has always been much space in the tiny alleys of the camp for the collective memory of Israeli massacres, systematic displacement and ethnic cleansing. These images have been printed in the minds of Palestinian refugees both young and old.

I never forget that 2003 Spring when my grandmother and I “went back” to our destroyed village Beit Jibrin.  We managed to get there despite the checkpoints and high level of security. It isn’t easy although the actual distance that separates my refugee camp from the village is less than an hour’s drive. I’d been there a few times before but never with her. This was the first time. I walked behind her climbing up a hill in the village. She seemed much stronger and able to walk faster than I remembered. She knew where exactly we were going as if she was there yesterday.
Under a fig tree we sat and my grandmother smiled and remembered when she used to play with her friends, decades ago. She said, “It’s the same tree, a little bit different now; it’s been more than 50 years after all. Nonetheless, it is the same tree.”

My head was saturated with thoughts; she must have whispered some of her childhood secrets to the old tree. She didn’t say much but the sadness in her eyes said it all. We smiled and kept seated, listening to birds singing and breathing as much of the village’s fresh air as possible as if we had never drawn breath before. This is, after all, the village I have been raised to understand is mine.

Her memories dated back to 1948. She was nearly 10 years old. Despite her young age, she remembered. She remembered her school, the lovely summer evenings she spent with her family in the village.  She remembered the harvest time and travelling to Haifa and Yafa with her dad to sell their produce. She also remembered the nights when the peaceful village was first attacked. “We never saw a fighter jet before”, she said. Maybe they had, I thought, but I’m sure it wasn’t the same sight as the one that was now spreading death and fear into people’s hearts in 1948. This was the same year that witnessed over 750,000 of the native Palestinian population expelled from their homes and villages.  So far, to this day, they have never been able to return.

63 years since, and in spite of the number of UN resolutions and world condemnations, Israel’s impunity still prevails. No justice has been achieved as Palestinian refugees are yet to see the implementation of the United Nation’s Resolution 242 that clearly affirms “a just settlement of the refugee problem” as well as Resolution 149 which states that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date”.

As much as these resolutions have been alive in my grandmother’s memory, they are also imprinted in refugees’ consciousness whether they are acquainted with international law or not. Every Palestinian refugee resolutely believes in the right to live in the town or village from where they originate, and indeed where they and their families have been uprooted from by force.

My grandmother passed away last March 2010 in the refugee camp. However, her dream of returning to Beit Jibrin is still alive and I deeply believe that she is in a place where borders do not exist. Her soul is finally free of the shackles of ethnic division, and she is able to hover over Palestine and our beloved village, our home, Beit Jibrin. She might be whispering secrets to the fig and olive trees there right now. Her dreams of return are still alive. As I will never forget her nor will I forget her passion when talking abut the village, I will always make sure I pass her dreams and aspirations to the coming generations. This, I believe is a promise that each refugee has taken unintentionally until the return and the full realisation of rights.

We will never forget my village and all the ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages as the memory remains in the heart and soul of all Palestinians. For us, the old may well die, but the young will never forget.

New report exposes scope of Israel’s economic exploitation of Jordan Valley

B’Tselem –

NEW REPORTPRESS RELEASE:


•ᾉ77.5 percent of area is closed to Palestinians

•ᾉThe area’s 9,400 settlers enjoy water allocation equal to almost 1/3 of the consumption of the entire West Bank Palestinian population
Israel has instituted a regime that massively exploits the resources of the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea, far more than elsewhere in the West Bank, demonstrating its intention: to de facto annex the area to the State of Israel. These are the findings of a report published today (12 May 2011) by Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem.

The combined area of the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea is the largest land reserve in the West Bank. The area spans 1.6 million dunams, constituting 28.8 percent of the West Bank. It is home to 65,000 Palestinians living in 29 communities, and another estimated 15,000 Palestinians living in dozens of small Bedouin communities. Some 9,400 Israelis live in 37 settlements (including seven outposts) established in the area.
The report reviews the various measures that Israel has used to gain control of 77.5% of lands in the area, closing them off to Palestinians. These include declaring large swaths of land as state land, military firing zones or nature reserves. In the last two years, the Civil Administration has repeatedly demolished structures in Bedouin communities located in the closed-off areas, even though some were established before 1967. Thousands of additional dunams were taken from Palestinian refugees. Municipal boundaries of settlements cordon off twelve percent of the area, including the entire northern shore of the Dead Sea.

The report details how Israel has taken over most of the water sources in the area, allocating almost all derived water to settlements: 9,400 settlers are allocated 45 million m3 water a year from drillings, from the Jordan River, from treated wastewater, and from artificial water reservoirs. This is almost one-third the quantity of water accessible to the 2.5 million Palestinians living throughout the West Bank. This generous water supply has enabled settlements to develop intensive-farming methods and to work the land all year round, with most of the produce being exported.
Israel’s control of the water sources in the area has reduced the quantity of water available to Palestinians. In 2008, Palestinians pumped 31 million m3 of water in the area – 44 percent less than the amount pumped prior to the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement of 1995. Due to the water shortage, Palestinians have been forced to neglect farmland that used to be cultivated and to switch to growing less profitable crops.
Israel’s control of most of the land also prevents equal distribution of water between Palestinian communities in the area, and transferal of water to Palestinian communities outside the area. Bedouin communities in the area have so little water that their consumption matches the UN standard of the minimal quantity needed to survive in humanitarian-disaster areas.

Israel has taken over most of the prominent tourist sites in the area – the northern shore of the Dead Sea, Wadi Qelt, the Qumran caves, the springs of the ‘Ein Fashkha reserve, and the Qasr Alyahud site. Additionally, the state allows private Israeli businesses to profit from mineral extraction and tourism along the Dead Sea shores. Israel has also built facilities in the Jordan Valley for treating wastewater and for burying waste from Israel and from settlements.

In light of the illegality of the settlements, and given the severe, ongoing harm that the settlements in the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea area have caused to Palestinians living there, B’Tselem calls on Israel to evacuate these settlements in an orderly manner that respects the settlers’ rights, including payment of compensation. In addition, in accordance with the prohibitions in international law against exploitation of the natural resources of occupied territory, Israel must enable Palestinians to access all areas currently closed to them, permit Palestinians to use the water sources there, cancel the restrictions on Palestinian movement in the area, and allow building and development in the Palestinian communities.
B’Tselem provided a copy of the report for response to the Ministry of Justice. According to an agreement with the MoJ, it coordinates relevant authorities’ responses to B’Tselem reports. In spite of this agreement, the Ministry indicated that, “since the report deals primarily with political questions, and not purely legal matters”, it does not consider it proper to respond.

For more info and to see report online: http://www.btselem.org/Campaigns/2011_Jordan_Valley/English/index.html

Rebranding IsraHell: will Netanyahu get away with it?

NOVANEWS
 


 
By  Alan Hart
 
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a master of Zionist double-speak and deception, is about to undertake the most important assignment of his life. Because of its continuing occupation and oppression of the Palestinians (not to mention on-going property and land grabs), Israel is becoming a pariah state so far as a growing number of the citizens of nations are concerned. The main purpose of Netanyahu’s forthcoming trip to America is to .launch a public relations campaign to rebrand Israel in the hope of stopping the rot of its growing isolation.
The highlights of this campaign launch will be a meeting with President Barack Obama on 20 May; an address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual convention the following day; and, the climax, a speech to a joint session of Congress on 24 May.
When he meets with Obama, I imagine Netanyahu will say something very like the following: “Mr President, you have demonstrated the strength of your commitment to fighting and winning the war against terrorism by bringing your policy into line with ours on the matter of targeted assassinations.” (I also imagine that Netanyahu has given Mossad the greenlight to liquidate Hamas leaders.)
“With most Republicans who run for election to Congress now as willing as most Democrats to speak from Zionism’s script … it can be taken for granted that the applause Netanyahu will receive in Congress for his propaganda nonsense will match that he’ll get at AIPAC’s convention.”
With most Republicans who run for election to Congress now as willing as most Democrats to speak from Zionism’s script in order to secure Zionist lobby-organized campaign funds and votes, it can be taken for granted that the applause Netanyahu will receive in Congress for his propaganda nonsense will match that he’ll get at AIPAC’s convention. The truth can be simply stated. On matters to do with Israel-Palestine, it is not the Congress of the United States of America. It’s the Congress of Zionism and its deluded Christian fundamentalist allies.
The line Netanyahu will take has been trailed by the Zionist lobby, which probably wrote more of the words he will deliver than his advisers in Israel. In its response to the resignation of George Mitchell, Obama’s Middle East envoy, the lobby said in a statement that it “deeply regrets Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas’s continued unwillingness to negotiate directly with his Israeli counterpart without preconditions”. Mitchell, the statement went on to say, had made it clear to both parties that the only way to “true peace” was via direct, bilateral negotiations. But instead of making peace with Israel, the statement added, Abbas opted for reconciling with Hamas, “a US-designated terrorist organization responsible for the death of countless civilians and unwilling to recognize the existence of the Jewish state”.
So the name of Netanyahu’s game will be, as ever, to blame the Palestinians for the failure to get a peace process going and to present Israel as the only party seriously interested in peace.
The timing of Mitchell’s resignation is not without interest. I thought the BBC’s Kim Ghattas reporting from Washington was probably about right in her analysis (my emphasis added).
Mr Mitchell is said to be resigning for personal reasons. He is 77 and the travelling has probably taken a toll. But if Mr Mitchell had sensed that success was within reach, it’s unlikely he would be quitting his job. The timing is also interesting: an indication the policy disagreement had reached an impasse. Mr Obama is expected to make a speech about his Middle East strategy next week. Mr Mitchell was in favour of a more hands-on approach, maybe even pushing to put a detailed US peace plan on the table.
Kim’s conclusion? “It looks like the administration may have decided to take a step back.”
From reading between the lines of recent reports in the New York Times, I think it is possible to identify the particular step back Obama has taken and which probably did cause Mitchell to resign.
For quite some time, urged on by Mitchell behind closed doors, Obama was seriously considering the idea of putting a US plan on the table as the only hope for getting a real peace process going, but that idea was killed by Israel’s predictable response to the agreement between the PA and Hamas. When Israel said it would not deal with the PA if it was doing business with Hamas, Obama’s advisers said that now was not the time for an American initiative. (They meant something like: “It will seriously damage your chances of re-election, Mr President.”)
A report in the New York Times by Mark Landler offered this insight. Interviews with several administration officials suggested that the tensions in Obama’s Middle East policy “are less the product of a debate among advisers than of a tug of war within the president himself”.
In my reading of Obama that makes a lot of sense. He knows that it’s not in America’s own best interests to go on supporting Israel right or wrong. He knows that he ought to be putting an American peace plan on the table and challenging Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress to reject it. But he also knows that would be political suicide for himself and many other Democrats who’ll be running for re-election next year.
On 24 April there was an editorial in the New York Times with the headline “President Obama and the Peace Process”. It’s opening paragraph was this.
President Obama began his presidency vowing to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian peace. He backed off in the face of both sides’ obstinacy and after a series of diplomatic missteps. Since then, the stalemate, and the mistrust, have only deepened, and it is clear that nothing good will happen until the United States fully engages. [My emphasis added].
The US is not going to fully engage. Only bad things can come out of Netanyahu’s visit to America. And I mean bad things for all of us, everywhere.

 

Egyptian convoy bound for Rafah banned

NOVANEWS

Salma Shukrallah
 

Egypt’s ruling military council has forbidden solidarity convoys aiming to reach Rafah ahead of the Palestinian Nakba Day on Sunday

May 14, 2011

As planned, hundreds gathered on Saturday in Tahrir Square with the aim of heading to the Egypt-Gaza border at Rafah. However, organisers say, the ruling military council ordered tourism offices not to send the buses rented as transport for the convoy as it set a ban on all journeys to the border.

Starting 9am, several hundred stood in Tahrir Square waving Palestinian and Egyptian flags, hoping to march towards Gaza to stage a sit-in on Sunday, 15 May, which marks the Palestinian Nakba Day, or day of catastrophe, in reference to the founding of Israel in May 1948. The convoy was not able to leave Cairo.

May Shahin, one of the organisers of the convoy, said “We have been preparing for this for the past month and a half now. We wanted to have a convoy in memory of the Palestinian Nakba. It was supposed to be a mass march towards Palestine. After realising that entering Gaza might be a risk for the Palestinians, we decided to head only to the Rafah border. We were surprised, then, to know that all tourism offices refused to rent buses to reach Rafah and canceled our contract. They told us that this was an order from the ruling military council. Under the Mubarak regime we were able to organise a convoy from Cairo to reach Rafah. Now, after the revolution, we are banned.”

The solidarity convoy set to leave Cairo was not the only one to be stopped. A group of 15 activists from the “Free Egyptian Group” and “We are the Bus People”, a group that tours Egypt staging artistic performances, left Cairo Friday and were also stopped.

Ragia Omran from the “Free Egyptian Group” recounts: “We were heading to Sheikh Zwaied village near Arish to stage an awareness show and we had all the musical equipment with us. We were stopped right after crossing Salam Bridge. We told them that we were only going to stage our show there, and showed them the musical instruments, but they did not let us pass.”

Still attempting to reach Rafah, individuals stopped in convoys tried to reach the border either on foot or via public transport. Estimates from people living in Arish are that hundreds of those who were trying to reach the border area in solidarity with the Palestinians were able to, despite strict restrictions from the military.

Egypt is expected to witness mass demonstrations on 15 May despite security alerts issued from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Shahin says: “On Friday, more than 5000 demonstrated in front of the Israeli embassy. That is the biggest demonstration ever staged in front of the embassy, which shows how much Egyptians are enthusiastic this year to participate in solidarity with Palestine.”

The Egyptian army fired shots Friday trying to disperse thousands of demonstrators in front of the Israeli embassy. Although protesters fled the scene upon hearing the shots, they quickly returned, chanting “We are going in!”

Egypt’s downtown area is flooded with posters reading “Palestine, we will return,” while Palestinian flags are sold on many street corners in the area surrounding Tahrir Square. The square itself was packed with tens of thousands on Friday chanting in solidarity with Palestine.

NHS PETITION

NOVANEWS

Dear All , 
Over the past week we’ve all been forwarding the Save the NHS petition to our friends, and sharing it on Facebook and Twitter. It’s working – between us we gathered 100,000 more signatures in the last seven days!
Meanwhile, 38 Degrees members have started handing in copies of the petition to their local MPs. This weekend, in Blackpool, East Kilbride, Truro, Filey and Sheffield, 38 Degrees members asked their MPs to oppose Andrew Lansley’s dangerous NHS plans.
Watch what happened on Friday evening when 38 Degrees members in Sheffield delivered a copy of our petition to Nick Clegg:

Image of video - click to watch

Nick Clegg was visibly taken aback at the size of the petition. Several of his aides had to help him carry it! 38 Degrees members made it clear to Clegg that he needs to stand up to Lansley and block the NHS plans if he wants to win back voters’ trust.  
Imagine the effect if we deliver a copy of our 380,000 strong petition to every single MP in the country. It will send a stir through Parliament, and should help tip the balance against Andrew Lansley’s plans. By working together we can make this happen.
It’s pretty easy to organise a petition hand-in to your MP. Find out more, and sign up to help, here:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/nhs-mp-visits
38 Degrees members who’ve already organised visits to their MPs have found it pretty simple. There’s info and advice on the 38 Degrees website. 38 Degrees volunteers in the office are on hand to help if you need it. It takes 2 or 3 hours in total, spread over about a month.
It works something like this:
– put your name down on the 38 Degrees website
– get in touch with your MP’s office to book an appointment
– choose a meeting place near to where you’re meeting your MP, where 38 Degrees members can gather half an hour earlier (e.g. a cafe, pub, community centre)
– post up the meeting time and place on the 38 Degrees website. We’ll be able to let every 38 Degrees member in your area know so they can come along
Please put your name down to get started:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/nhs-mp-visits
On Friday, confronted with our huge petition, Nick Clegg said some warm words. But, as you’ll see from the video, he didn’t fully address some of our big concerns. Other politicians seem to be further from where we’d like them to be –  the BBC is reporting today that David Cameron wants to “stand firm” on the NHS plans. [1] Our pressure has already pushed Clegg, but if we’re going to save the NHS we need to make sure that every MP feels the heat.
Here’s what Bob, a 38 Degrees member in Blackpool said after organising a petition delivery to his local MP:
“I’ve never done anything like this before and it was very easy to set up the meeting. It only took about three hours in total. We met up with other 38 Degrees members before the meeting and then went to see our MP. He was very pleased to see us and showed a keen interest in our comments. The local press came along with a reporter and photographer. Can’t wait to see the papers!”
Can you do the same with your local MP? Put your name down here:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/nhs-mp-visits
Thanks for getting involved,
Johnny, Hannah, Becky, David, Cian, Marie and the 38 Degrees team
PS: Thousands of 38 Degrees members emailed our MPs last week urging the government to keep their green promises. It looks like it’s working – the press is reporting that tomorrow David Cameron will step back from the brink. Find out more here: http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2011/05/16/cameron-to-back-climate-targets/
NOTES:
[1] BBC: Cameron set to stand firm on need for NHS changes http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13408021

Zio-Nazi tanks heading towards Lebanon

 

Dozens of Zio-Nazi tanks are reportedly heading towards Lebanon’s border as thousands hold anti-Zionist protests across the country.

The military deployed more troops and tanks to the border on Sunday — the anniversary of the establishment of the Nazi regime in 1948. 
The military attacked the Palestinian refugees, who were calling for the return of the Palestinians to their homelands.
Zio-Nazi Gestapo’s killed five protesters in south Lebanon, injuring another 30.
People also took to the streets of the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank to mourn the May 15, 1948 Nakba Day, when Zio-Nazi regime manufactured its existence on the back of large-scale military offensives.
The creation forced more than 800,000 out of 1.4 million Palestinians out of their homeland to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, neighboring Arab countries and the remaining countries of the world.

 

Palestinians killed by Gestapo's in ‘Nakba’ clashes

NOVANEWS
 

15kil580_20.jpg

Several killed and dozens wounded in West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights as Palestinians commemorate “Nakba Day”

AlJazeera.net

At least one Palestinian has been killed and up to 80 others wounded in northern Gaza as Israeli troops opened fire on a march of at least 1,000 people heading towards the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

A group of Palestinians, including children, marching to mark “Nakba Day” were shot by the Israeli army after crossing a Hamas checkpoint and entering what Israel calls a “buffer zone” – an empty area between checkpoints where Israeli soldiers generally shoot trespassers, Al Jazeera correspondent Nicole Johnston reported from Gaza City on Sunday.

“We are just hearing that one person has been killed and about 80 people have been injured,” Johnston said.

“There are about 500-600 Palestinian youth gathered at the Erez border crossing point. They don’t usually march as far as the border. There has been intermittent gunfire from the Israeli side for the last couple of hours.

“Hamas has asked us to leave; they are trying to move people away from the Israeli border. They say seeing so many people at the border indicates a shift in politics in the area.”

In south Tel Aviv, one Israeli man was killed and 17 were injured when a 22-year-old Arab Israeli driver drove his truck into a number of vehicles on one of the city’s main roads.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the driver, from an Arab village called Kfar Qasim in the West Bank, was arrested at the scene and is being questioned.

“Based on the destruction and the damage at the scene, we have reason to believe that it was carried out deliberately,” Rosenfeld said. He did not believe the motive was directly linked to the anniversary of the Nakba.

The Nakba, or “catastrophe”, is how Palestinians refer to the 1948 founding of the state of Israel.

West Bank clashes

One of the biggest demonstrations was held near Qalandiya refugee camp and checkpoint, the main secured entry point into the West Bank from Israel, where about 100 protesters marched, Al Jazeera correspondent Nisreen El Shmayleh reported from Ramallah.

Some injuries were reported from tear gas canisters fired at protesters there, El Shmayleh said.

Small clashes were reported throughout various neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem and cities in the West Bank, between stone-throwing Palestinians and Israeli security forces.

Israeli police said 20 arrests were made in the East Jerusalem area of Issawiyah for throwing stones and petrol bombs at Israeli border police officers.

About 70 arrests have been made in East Jerusalem throughout the Nakba protests that began on Friday, two days ahead of the May 15 anniversary, police spokesman Rosenfeld said.

Tensions had risen a day earlier after a 17-year-old Palestinian boy died of a gunshot wound suffered amid clashes on Friday in Silwan, another East Jerusalem neighbourhood.

Police said the source of the gunfire was unclear and that police were investigating, while local sources told Al Jazeera that Ayyash was shot in random firing of live ammunition by guards of Jewish settlers living in nearby Beit Yonatan.

‘Syrians killed’

Syrian state television reported that Israeli forces killed four Syrian citizens who had been taking part in an anti-Israeli rally on the Syrian side of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights border on Sunday.

Israeli army radio said dozens were wounded when Palestinian refugees from the Syrian side of the Golan Heights border were shot for trying to break through the frontier fence.

Israeli army spokepersons’ office said an Israeli army patrol shot in the air in an effort to desist “people trying to cross into Israel and trying to damage the fence.” There was no comment on reports of the injured.

About 20,000 people are expected to gather by the end of Sunday at Ras Maroun, a Lebanese border town.

Matthew Cassel, a journalist en route to Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, tweeted that dozens of buses were departing Nahr al-Bared and Baddawi refugee camps in northern Lebanon.

Some activists tweeted that the Lebanese and Jordanian authorities were prohibiting protesters from nearing the borders. The information could not be independently verified.

‘End to Zionist project’

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned Sunday’s demonstrations.

“I regret that there are extremists among Israeli Arabs and in neighbouring countries who have turned the day on which the State of Israel was established, the day on which the Israeli democracy was established, into a day of incitement, violence and rage”, Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting.

“There is no place for this, for denying the existence of the State of Israel. No to extremism and no to violence. The opposite is true”, he said.

Earlier Sunday Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Hamas-controlled Gaza, repeated the group’s call for the end of the state of Israel.

Addressing Muslim worshippers in Gaza City on Sunday, Haniyeh said Palestinians marked this year’s Nakba “with great hope of bringing to an end the Zionist project in Palestine”.

“To achieve our goals in the liberation of our occupied land, we should have one leadership,” Haniyeh
said, praising the recent unity deal with its rival, Fatah, the political organisation which controls the West Bank under Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’ leadership.

Meanwhile, a 63 second-long siren rang midday in commemoration of the Nakba’s 63rd anniversary.

Over 760,000 Palestinians – estimated today to number 4.7 million with their descendants – fled or were driven out of their homes in the conflict that followed Israel’s creation.

Many took refuge in neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere. Some continue to live in refugee camps.

About 160,000 Palestinians stayed behind in what is now Israeli territory and are known as Arab Israelis. They now total around 1.3 million, or some 20 percent of Israel’s population.

Palestinians paying for Nazi crimes’

NOVANEWS
 

Muslim Brotherhood official tells Washington Post US, Europe ‘exported Hitler’s conflict to our land’

WASHINGTON- “My dream is to live together as we did before the state of Israel. We lived in peace. We were never in conflict. Americans and Europeans exported the conflict created by Hitler to our land,” said Essam El-Erian, a senior member of the Muslim brotherhood’s Egypt branch.

In an interview with the Washington Post, El-Erian calimed his organization does not threaten Israel, and is not interested in annulling the peace accord with the Jewish State.

Commenting on the ongoing clashes between Israel and the Palestinians, El-Erian noted that Israel was punishing the Palestinians for the Jewish Holocaust during World War II.

“The Holocaust was a massacre against a race, against a religion—it is a really big crime, but we were never accused of it. Why do the Palestinians pay the price of Nazis?” he said.

El-Erian stressed that the Muslim Brotherhood has no intention of canceling the peace treaty with Israel.

“A new parliament would make that decision. The army says frankly, and we say it also: We cannot cancel a treaty by a verbal decision. Treaties have regulations and must be respected from both sides. When one side doesn’t respect the treaty, the international community must obligate it to do so.”

The Muslim Brotherhood official accused the American administration of being biased in favor of Israel and warned the Americans that if they don’t reevaluate their policy in the Middle East, they might “lose” the region.

“We are not threatening Israel. Israel is hurting itself by its policies. It is discriminating inside Israel against Arabs. Israel is not under threat from Arabs—it is under threat from inside Israel, from its leaders like (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and (Foreign Minister Avigdor) Lieberman. It is under threat from Israelis,” he said, adding, “I studied the society of Israel, I know everything about this fight and this state. My dream is that we are not going to destroy Israel. If it didn’t revise its policy and its policy against Arabs and Jews, it can destroy itself.”

Zio-Nazi Gestapo's kills 12 in Syria

 

Zio-Nazi Gestapo have reportedly attacked anti-Zionist protesters in Zio-Nazi-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, killing at least 12 people and wounding dozens of others.

On Sunday, Syrian and Lebanese demonstrators approached the mountainous region, marking the 63rd anniversary of the May 15, 1948 Holocaust in Palestine by Zio-Nazi, known as the Nakba Day or ‘day of the catastrophe.’
Zio-Nazi Gestapo also injured 30 others, a Press TV correspondent reported.
The war-propelled creation forced more than 800,000 of the 1.4 million Palestinians out of their homeland to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, neighboring Arab nations as well as many other countries in the world.
Also on Sunday, the troops gunned down several people elsewhere in the Middle East, where people were likewise voicing solidarity with the Palestinians.

 

Zio-Nazi Gestapo kills protesters on NAKBA 'catastrophe' day

NOVANEWS
 

Zio-Nazi troops during clashes with Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city on May 14, 2011 as Palestinians were preparing to mark the Nakba Day.

Zio-Nazi troops have launched attacks on many rallies held across the Middle East in protest at the establishment of the Zio-Nazi regime 63 years ago, killing dozens of people.


On Sunday, the demonstrators gathered in different cities across the Middle East to remember the May 15, 1948 occupation of Palestine, known as the Nakba Day or ‘day of the catastrophe.’ The manufactured existence, enabled by large-scale offensives, forced more than 800,000 of 1.4 million Palestinians out of their homeland to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, neighboring Arab nations as well as many other countries in the world. 
In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military killed two protesters, including a Palestinian teenager, and injuring at least 65 others, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Zio-Nazi Apache helicopters and F-16 fighter planes flew over the demonstrators, whereas troops fired tank shells near marching protesters.
Troops reportedly open fire on Gazans marching on Erez border crossing the coastal strip’s northern border with Palestine 1948.
A journalist suffered critical injury from Zio-Nazi fire in the northern city of Beit Hanoun.
Two Palestinians died and scores were wounded by Zio-Nazi fire in the occupied West Bank. The protesters there were calling for an end to the Nazi’s occupation and aggression as well as the release of all Palestinian prisoners — who number around 9,000.
A report said one person had been killed and 150 hurt in the Qalandiya village near the city of Ramallah in central West Bank. The military also mowed down five protesters in south Lebanon, injuring another 30.
The Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas’ Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh urged Palestinians to carry on with their resistance against the the Zio-Nazi regime. He also expressed hope that Palestinians would one day return to their homes and homeland.
“The Palestinian people know what their path is. They know the path to liberation and to resolving the conflict with the occupation, which can only be done under the banner of Islam. The struggle for freedom cannot happen unless this requirement mentioned in the [Holy] Qur’an is achieved,” he said.
In Syria’s Golan Heights, at least 12 protesters were killed and 30 wounded by Zio-Nazi Gestap fire. In Lebanon, Zio-Nazi troops killed at least 5 people, injuring another.

Palestinians, IsraHell troops clash over teen death

NOVANEWS
 

AP
JERUSALEM – Masked Palestinians whirling slingshots clashed with Israeli riot police in two Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem on Saturday after the shooting death of a teenage stone thrower. It was a sign of rising tensions on the eve of Palestinian commemorations of their uprooting during Israel’s 1948 creation.
The possibility of escalation comes at a critical time for U.S. Mideast policy. President Barack Obama’s envoy to the region, George Mitchell, resigned Friday, and the U.S. president may now have to retool the administration’s incremental approach to peacemaking. Obama is to deliver a Mideast policy speech in the coming week.
Mitchell held the job for more than two years, but had little to show for it. Israeli-Palestinian talks resumed in September, but were quickly derailed by Israel’s refusal to comply with an internationally mandated construction freeze in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, war-won territories Palestinians want for their state.
Israelis and Palestinians on Saturday praised Mitchell and blamed each other for the failure of his mission.
Palestinian officials argued that Mitchell was destined to fail because of what they said is a faulty U.S. premise — that Israelis and Palestinians are equals who can be nudged by a persistent mediator. As the occupier, Israel holds all the cards and only U.S. pressure on Israel will yield results, said Nabil Shaath, a veteran negotiator.
“Mitchell was good and skillful, but what could his personal skill have done as long as he didn’t get the required support from the administration, to exert the required pressure?” Shaath said Saturday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Mitchell by phone Saturday.
Netanyahu expressed sorrow over Mitchell’s decision to step down and “over the fact that the Palestinians refused to come to the talks that Mitchell worked to promote,” according to a statement by Netanyahu’s office. “They insisted on endless preconditions that hindered his work and, at the end of the process, joined Hamas.”
Despite the deadlock, dramatic changes in the region in recent months, including democratic uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and a Palestinian unity deal between rivals Hamas and Fatah, have been shaping the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Egyptian-brokered reconciliation deal restored President Mahmoud Abbas’ position as the leader of all Palestinians, including those in Hamas-ruled Gaza, and strengthened his bid to sidestep a negotiated agreement with Israel and instead seek U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood in September.
Abbas told the Rome daily La Repubblica in an interview published Saturday that if Israel doesn’t want to negotiate with a new Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, “we’ll go to the U.N. in September and ask if our people, which is again united, finally has the right to be a state.”
With much at stake, it appears unlikely that Abbas’ security forces will allow Sunday’s commemorations to get out of hand.
The day marks the anniversary of what the Palestinians call the “nakba,” Arabic for “catastrophe,” referring to their displacement during the Mideast war over Israel’s May 15, 1948, creation. At the time, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven out by Israeli troops, losing land and homes. The dispute over the fate of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, now numbering several million people, remains at the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Several Facebook groups have called for launching a third uprising against Israel, starting Sunday, and urged supporters to march from Palestinian towns to Israel military checkpoints in the West Bank and around Jerusalem.
However, a new round of violence could undermine Abbas’ diplomatic agenda, including his attempt to win U.N. recognition. Abbas’ Fatah group is calling only for marches within the confines of Palestinian cities.
On Saturday, the main flashpoint was east Jerusalem, annexed by Israel after the 1967 Mideast war and claimed by the Palestinians as their capital.
A 17-year-old Palestinian, Milad Ayyash, was shot and critically wounded Friday during a clash near a Jewish settler enclave in east Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhood of Silwan, according to a local activist, Fahri Abu Diab.
Abu Diab, citing witnesses, alleged that shots were fired from the rooftop of the Beit Yonathan settlement enclave toward the stone throwers. An official at Jerusalem’s Mukassed Hospital said Ayyash arrived with a bullet wound in the abdomen and bled profusely.
Ayyash died of his injuries early Saturday, said Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben Ruby. He said the circumstances of his death are under investigation, but that it remains unclear who fired the shot.
Ben Ruby said police first learned of the incident when they were told that a Palestinian with a bullet wound had arrived at a Jerusalem hospital.
During Ayyash’s funeral procession, Palestinians with scarves covering their faces broke away from hundreds of mourners, twirling slingshots to stone settler homes, passing cars and border police. Near the cemetery, dozens of Palestinians threw rocks and slabs of concrete at cars driver along the road below. Riot police fired tear gas, dispersing stone throwers who then would rejoin the procession, only to break away again later.
Clashes also erupted at the Qalandia crossing, a passage through the towering cement wall that rings most of Jerusalem as part of Israel’s separation barrier with the West Bank. Dozens of Palestinian teens hurled stones, while some 150 Israeli soldiers took up positions on the rooftops of nearby building, occasionally firing tear gas.
Ben Ruby said police were increasing their presence in the streets ahead of the nakba commemoration.
In Washington, meanwhile, the Obama administration is focusing increasingly on the Middle East in coming days. The president will deliver a Mideast policy speech, expected on Thursday, followed by a visit by Netanyahu. On Tuesday, Obama hosts Jordan’s King Abdullah II.