NOVANEWS
Dear Friends,
The first two are about Palestinian youth imprisoned by Israel, or more explicitly, by the occupation forces and military court. The first relates the lack of medical treatment in a case of serious need, the 2nd reports that the military court approved illegal interrogation of a minor.
Item 3 is a 2 minute video of a Palestinian lecturing Israeli soldiers on human rights.
Items 4 and 5 are about the same issue, but with a big difference. In item 4 a Haaretz editorial is infuriating. It criticizes the newly passed law forbidding family unification, more commonly referred to as the Citizenship law. But it says that with this law Israel is on the way to apartheid—what in the world is the editor talking about? On the way to? Israel has been an apartheid state from its inception. Also the editorial does not make a big issue over the security aspect, which was a main reason for passing the law, whose purpose is to forbid Palestinian citizens of Israel from living in Israel with Palestinian spouses who are from the OPT.
Item 5 does a far better job of explaining and censoring the law. But then this piece was written by Ben White, whose work is generally illuminating.
In item 6 OCHA reports on ‘the humanitarian impact of Israeli settlement policies.’
Item 7 is a collection from Mondoweiss for January 13. I recommend reading at the least “Silenced in Seattle, SeaMAC presses on with ads against settlements, child imprisonment and collective punishment.” It’s very informative and might give you ideas of how to help spread information in your community.
Item 8 is ‘Today in Palestine’ for January 12.
Would like to say ‘enjoy,’ but it’s not that kind of stuff. But it is informative.
All the best,
Dorothy
1 The Electronic Intifada
Thursday, January 5, 2012
“Sometimes I feel my stomach will explode”: Israel subjects teen prisoner to medical negligence
http://electronicintifada.net/content/sometimes-i-feel-my-stomach-will-explode-israel-subjects-teen-prisoner-medical-negligence
Emily Lawrence The Electronic Intifada Beit Ommar 5 January 2012
Palestinian youth in Beit Ommar face regular repression, arrest and detention by Israeli soldiers during demonstrations against encroaching settlements and land confiscation.
(Mamoun Wazwaz / MaanImages )The streets of Beit Ommar are lined with posters of Palestinian boys and men, martyrs and prisoners of the Israeli occupation. One house is plastered with more posters than the others: the house of the Awad family, whose two sons were, until recently, being held in Ofer prison on the charge of throwing stones.
Mohammad Awad, 16, and his brother Ahmad, 19, were released from Ofer prison near Ramallah in the second phase of the prisoner swap deal in December. For Mohammad Awad, it is a particular relief to be free — his time in prison had an almost fatal effect on his health.
Awad has Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF), a rare genetic disease which causes severe abdominal pain and chest and joint inflammation. “Sometimes I feel like my stomach is about to explode,” he told The Electronic Intifada. During his time in prison his condition was largely ignored, and the prison doctors seemed unable to deal effectively with his health problems.
Awad was sentenced to six months in Ofer prison after throwing a stone during a demonstration against Israeli settlements, but was released a month early as part of the prisoner swap deal.
According to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, 835 minors were prosecuted for throwing stones between 2005 and 2010. The act of throwing stones is punished harshly under Israeli military law and usually results in a penalty of three components: imprisonment, a conditional prison sentence, and a fine.
Mohammad’s father, Ali, and other family members said that Awad was severely beaten by the Israeli soldiers who arrested him, and his health deteriorated further after being medically neglected during his time in prison.
Medical negligence
“They gave me five types of drugs and medicine,” Awad explained. “The prison doctor gave them to me. They weren’t drugs for my illness, they were just painkillers to ease the pain. Some children have cancer and all that they give them is painkillers. I felt that they neglected me, and I was ignored as a patient.”
According to the United Nations’ Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, “[t]he medical officer shall have the care of the physical and mental health of the prisoners and should daily see all sick prisoners, all who complain of illness, and any prisoner to whom his attention is specially directed.” This international rule, however, was not applied to Awad.
Ahmad was in the same prison cell as his brother, and says the doctors were not attentive to Mohammad Awad’s needs. “Sometimes we would wake up and see him and he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t walk, he looked like he was dead,” Ahmad said.
“All the prisoners called for the officers, and asked them to save his life, give him some painkillers, anything. After many tries and many knocks on the door they came to take him to the doctor, and gave him some painkillers. That’s all they did.” Awad was eventually taken to Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, where he was treated for his illness. “I believe if they had taken him to the hospital the first day he was ill, he wouldn’t get this worse condition,” said Awad’s father.
“He wouldn’t go [to hospital] unless he was dying. That’s the only reason they would send him. He was handcuffed and his legs were cuffed. He wasn’t taken as a patient, he was treated as a prisoner. They neglected him and ignored his condition, and that’s why he got so ill.”
Lack of proper care
Mohammed Awad (far left) and his family in Beit Ommar.
(Emily Lawrence / The Electronic Intifada )The lack of proper medical care for Palestinian child prisoners in Israeli jails is a cause for concern for numerous human rights organizations. According to Addameer, a prisoner support and human rights group, medical negligence is a deliberate policy within the Israeli Prison Service (IPS).
“Part of the punishment is to ignore their medical needs,” said Mourad Jadallah, a former child prisoner who is now a legal researcher at Addameer. “The doctors don’t care. They just treat them as enemies. In Israeli prisons, they are not serious when they deal with health programs for Palestinian prisoners.”
“To date, approximately 51 Palestinian and Arab prisoners have died in Israeli prisons as a result of the IPS’s policy of deliberate medical negligence,” Addameer stated during 2011 (“Annual Report 2010,” Addameer [PDF]).
“Combined with harsh detention conditions that are conducive to different contagious, chronic and life-threatening diseases, the impact of this medical negligence can amount to physical and psychological torture.”
No sunlight
Ahmad and Mohammad Awad contend that the prison environment itself was detrimental to the health of the prisoners. “It’s not healthy at all,” Ahmad said. “There is no sun, we don’t see the sunlight. There is humidity and it is not clean, it’s very bad for patients, even for a normal person.”
According to their mother, Amina, the prison doctors had received Mohammed’s medical reports stating he has FMF. “We are assured that medical reports were received within the prison, but they neglected the reports and did not care about them, or about the medical condition of Mohammad,” she said.
“The problem with the detention of children is that treatment is always delayed,” said Amany Dayif of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. “Doctors get the medical reports but don’t have the relevant medical reports in hand, and they don’t always know the accurate names of the illnesses.” The medical report issued upon Awad’s release, signed by Dr. Tsekhman of the Israel Prison Service, incorrectly states that he has thallasemia minor, a genetic blood disorder, rather than FMF.
One of the problems is that the standard for prison doctors is very low, therefore they are unable to provide a sufficient level of medical care. “The doctors in prison are not trained at all,” added Dayif. “They are not specialists of any kind. Sometimes they don’t even read English.
“If they weren’t employed by the prisons, they wouldn’t be employed by anyone else in Israel. They don’t know about many illnesses.”
Mohammad Awad’s family believes that he was misdiagnosed on purpose and given the wrong drugs deliberately as a form of punishment. “There was an Arab physician in prison with [Mohammad and Ahmad], and he saw the drugs. He advised them not to take them because they are very dangerous,” Awad’s father Ali said. “I accused the Israeli authorities that they were targeting him to make his health much worse.”
“It is possible that this is the case,” said Jadallah of Addameer. “Some of the doctors participate in the ill-treatment of prisoners.”
According to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, however, the prison doctors are complicit in the ill-treatment of child prisoners through negligence rather than deliberate misdiagnosis. “I don’t believe they deliberately gave him the wrong medicine, they wouldn’t have the knowledge or the tools to do this,” said Dayif. “It’s more a case of neglect, which is a form of mistreatment, rather than deliberate mistreatment.”
“Doctors look aside when prisoners are being tortured or ill-treated,” Dayif explained. “They don’t hurt the prisoners, but they don’t report the ill-treatment. So they are part of it in some way.”
Mohammad and Ahmad Awad were also subjected to torture while in Ofer. Torture is defined by the UN as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as … punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed.”
Torture as tool of occupation
The Awad brothers told The Electronic Intifada that they experienced and witnessed mistreatment — including sleep deprivation, vocal intimidation and taunts, beatings, being made to stand for long periods of time, as well as being attacked with dogs and tear gas. Addameer confirmed these are known practices within Israeli prisons.
“At Addameer, we believe that to arrest Palestinians is an Israeli tool of the occupation to destroy Palestinian society,” said Jadallah. “We don’t believe that arresting children is for the security of the area … but it’s a very good way for the Israelis to destroy Palestinian society, to destroy the Palestinian as a human being. The idea of prison is to turn Palestinians into passive people who accept the torture and accept the occupation.”
The maltreatment of Palestinian child prisoners becomes especially stark when contrasted with the treatment of Israelis, and particularly settlers, in the Israeli justice system. While Palestinians can be arrested by the army and are tried in military court, Israeli settlers from the same area are subject to civil law.
“There is no equality, no justice,” Nasri Sabarna, mayor of Beit Ommar, told The Electronic Intifada. “The settlers attack the houses, they attack the farmers in their fields. Sometimes they cut down the trees and burn the land. This is daily behavior … and they never get sent to jail.”
According to Addameer, every year approximately 700 Palestinian children under the age of 18 are prosecuted in the Israeli military courts after being arrested, detained and interrogated by the Israeli military.
According to the Palestinian Ministry for Detainee Affairs, more than 6,500 children have been arrested since 2000. The most common charge against these children is throwing stones, which is punishable in the military system by up to twenty years in prison.
The IPS, which is in charge of all prisons in Israel and the West Bank, claims to treat all prisoners with respect. The value statement on the IPS website claims that “IPS shall take all appropriate actions to protect the body and mind of every individual, guard, prisoner and citizen, out of recognition of their supreme importance.”
In reality, life for a child in prison tells a different story; one not of bodies and minds appropriately protected, but of bodies and minds deliberately neglected and mistreated.
Now back in Beit Ommar with his family, having regained his freedom, Mohammad Awad is starting to regain his health. “I feel so happy that all the family is together again,” he said.
“I feel like I am recovering and getting better. I feel much better now [that] I have seen my doctor.”
Emily Lawrence is a recent graduate and independent writer currently based in Bethlehem, West Bank. She can be reached at emilywarda AT gmail DOT com.
Tags: Beit Ommar child prisoners prisoner swap Ofer prison Israeli settlements B’Tselem Addameer Israeli Prison Service torture Physicians for Human Rights-Israel Amany Dayif Mourad Jadallah Nasri Sabarna Mohammed Awad Palestinian Ministry for Detainee Affairs children
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2. Press Release
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Military Court Approves Illegal Interrogation of a Minor
Major Sharon Rivlin, a judge at the Ofer Military Court, accepted as admissible the testimony of a 14 year-old Palestinian boy who was unlawfully arrested in the dead of night, questioned without being allowed sleep, denied his right to legal counsel and not told of his right to remain silent.
A motion to rule inadmissible the confession of 14 year-old Islam Dar Ayyoub from the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh was denied by a military judge yesterday. The motion was part of a trial-within-a-trial procedure at the Ofer Military Court, where the boy is being charged with throwing stones. During the trial, it was proven that the boy’s interrogation was fundamentally flawed and violated the rights set forth in the Israeli Youth Law in the following ways:
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The boy was arrested at gunpoint in the dead of night, during a violent military raid on his house.
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Despite being a minor, he was denied sleep in the period between his arrest and questioning, which began the following morning and lasted over 5 hours.
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Despite being told he would be allowed to see a lawyer, he was denied legal counsel, although his lawyer appeared at the police station requesting to see him.
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He was denied his right to have a parent present during his questioning. The testimony of one of his interrogators before the court suggests that he believes Palestinian minors do not enjoy this right.
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He was not informed of his right to remain silent, and was even told by his interrogators that he “must tell of everything that happened.”
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Only one of four interrogators who participated in the questioning was a qualified youth interrogator.
The abovementioned Israeli Youth Law and the protection it is meant to ensure for minors during their interrogations is not officially part of the Israeli military code for trying Palestinians in Israeli military courts. However, the Military Court of Appeals repeatedly ruled that it should be applied when interrogating Palestinian minors in the Occupied Territories nonetheless.
Media Contact: Jonathan Pollak +972-54-632-7736
Nevertheless, the military judge determined that the boy’s confession should not be ruled inadmissible, saying that “In my opinion, the infringement on the defendant’s rights in this concrete case, did not amount to a violation of his right in a way that will sufficiently endanger his right to a fair trial […].” The decision was made despite a psychiatric expert opinion handed to the court which determined that a boy of 14 undergoing such an interrogation could not be considered to have given a statement of his own free will.
Adv Gaby Lasky, the boy’s lawyer, said, “A reality in which the military court decides to accept the confession of a 14 year-old as admissible evidence despite severe and undisputed violation of his rights during both his arrest and interrogation, is unacceptable. It is an incomprehensible decision, unveiling the fact that legislation allegedly intended to protect minors’ rights is no more than lip service when Palestinians are concerned. This ruling sends a clear message that illegal arrest and interrogation of Palestinian minors can continue unhindered.”
See here for the defense’s closing arguments (in Hebrew).
See here for the judge’s decision (in Hebrew).
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For real time updates on the popular struggle, see the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee’s Twitter account
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3. Hi Dorothy, just in case you havent seen this i thought you might enjoy it, take care, Smadar.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 2:23 PM
From: “Jase Tanner”
Hi Smadar
A remarkable man whose clarity of vision makes him fearless. Or gives him courage to act, despite his fear. Either way…
http://www.gazmac2.com/category_all/igaza_category_all/mobile/
If the first link dosen’t work, here’s another one for it.
http://gazasolidarity.blogspot.com/2012/01/video-palestinians-give-lesson-in.html
By the way, I got this initially from iGaza, a free app for the iPhone. A great source for daily updates.
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4. Haaretz Editorial
Friday, January 13, 2012
Supreme Court thrusts Israel down the slope of apartheid
The High Court of Justice’s ruling touches on the balance between security needs and individual rights, but the public will understand it as a demographic ruling that protects Jews while harming Arab citizens.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/supreme-court-thrusts-israel-down-the-slope-of-apartheid-1.407056
Haaretz Editorial
Tags: Palestinians Gaza West Bank
The High Court of Justice’s ruling Wednesday on the legality of the Citizenship Law proves the erosion of this institution’s role as Israel’s guardian of civil rights. Let’s look at how the justices voted at the moment of truth on the law, which bans Palestinians from living in Israel with spouses who are Israeli citizens.
In a 2006 ruling, 6 out of 11 justices said the law was unconstitutional, and in the current ruling, 6 out of 11 justices said the law, which was made more strict after the first ruling, was constitutional. That’s a disappointing outcome, in part because the first ruling was made not long after the terror attacks of the second intifada, while the current ruling was made during a period of calm, due in part to coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The title that Justice Asher Grunis gave his opinion – “Human rights are not a prescription for national suicide” – is also disappointing. No one disagrees with this, but Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, who arrived at the same judicial conclusion, recognizes that “a small group – those men and women in Israel’s Arab minority who want to marry residents of the region – must pay a heavy price for greater security for all Israelis, including their own.”
Justice Grunis apparently would not agree to this wording; as he put it, he’s not someone who gives the “constitutional rights that are mentioned in the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty the most expanded and comprehensive interpretation.”
Justice Miriam Naor’s opinion is disappointing – that the constitutional right to family life means everything, but establishing a family with a foreign spouse in Israel should not receive constitutional protection. It’s hard to accept this contradiction, which imposes on other countries a burden that Israel is unwilling to bear and hurts Israeli citizens’ right to family life.
The dissenting opinion properly balances the security needs of all citizens and the rights of individuals; the law should be annulled and replaced with security checks of any candidate for residence in Israel when family unification is involved.
The ruling touches on the balance between security needs and individual rights, but the public will understand it as a demographic ruling – one that protects the Jewish majority while harming the rights of Arab citizens. And thus the ruling pushes Israel down the slope of apartheid.
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5. Al Jazeera
Friday, January 13, 2012
Human rights equated with national suicide
Israel’s high court upholds a law preventing Palestinians from living with their spouses in Israel.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/01/20121121785669583.html
Ben White Last Modified: 12 Jan 2012 17:29
The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law aims to keep Palestinians and Israelis apart [EPA]
The Israeli government has repeatedly demanded that Palestinians recognise Israel as a “Jewish state”. Recent developments in the Knesset and High Court are exposing exactly what this means, and in doing so, throw the spotlight on the issue that the ‘peace process’ – and Western governments – refuse to tackle.
On Wednesday, Israel’s High Court rejected a legal challenge to the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, by a six to five vote. The law, first passed as a ‘temporary’ measure in 2003 and renewed ever since, prevents Palestinians from the Occupied Territories (and those from ‘enemy states’) from living with their spouses in Israel.
For thousands of Palestinian families, Israel’s law means a choice between moving abroad, living apart, or living in Israel illegally. No wonder that the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) condemned what it described as a “racist law” for the way it harms “the very texture of the lives of families whose only sin is the Palestinian blood that runs in their veins”.
Legal rights centre Adalah, who have been deeply involved with challenges to the law, said that the High Court had “approved a law the likes of which do not exist in any democratic state in the world, depriving citizens from maintaining a family life in Israel only on the basis of the ethnicity or national belonging of their spouse”.
‘Baseless’ concerns
The Israeli government has argued that the law is on the grounds of ‘security’. But human rights groups like B’Tselem describe this as “baseless”. The “real reason” is that “Israel is seeking to prevent the further increase of the Arab population in Israel in order to preserve the Jewish character of the state”.
This motivation has never been completely hidden; in 2005, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon confessed that “there is no need to hide behind security arguments. There is a need for the existence of a Jewish state”. But with this ruling, the racist rationale for the legislation has been made more explicit.
In the majority opinion, Justice Asher Grunis wrote that “human rights are not a prescription for national suicide”, a term often invoked by those worrying about what realising Palestinian rights would mean for Israel’s Jewish majority. This same phrase was invoked by the Interior Minister Eli Yishai, while coalition chair and Likud MK Ze’ev Elkin applauded the High Court judges for understanding, as he put it, that “human rights cannot jeopardize the State”.
A particularly instructive reaction came from Kadima MK Otniel Schneller, who said that the decision “articulates the rationale of separation between the (two) peoples and the need to maintain a Jewish majority and the (Jewish) character of the state”.
MK Schneller used the logic of racial separation to advocate for “two states for two peoples”, showing just how much overlap on fundamentals exists between ‘centrists’, and the likes of extreme rightist group Im Tirtzu, who said the ruling will “prevent hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from flooding Israel”.
Demographic ‘threats’
This ruling also comes just two days after the Knesset passed an amendment to the Prevention of Infiltration Law which targets asylum seekers with “draconian arrest measures”. Under the new law, adopted by a strong majority of MKs, refugees can be held in detention for three years without trial (including children), with those coming from “enemy states” (like Sudan), eligible for indefinite detention. Groups like Amnesty International have slammed the new law as “an affront to international law”, and human rights activists in Israel have vehemently opposed the bill as it developed.
The background to this law is, once again, racist rhetoric about the ‘demographic threat’ to the Jewish state. In August 2010, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that the issue of deporting migrant children was influenced by “Zionist considerations”. Last December, Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai promised to ensure that “the last of the infiltrators return to their countries”, calling their presence “an existential threat”. Defending “the Jewish majority” was a sentiment echoed by Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, who described “blocking off the southern border to infiltrators” as “a Zionist act”.
A recent piece in The Jewish Daily Forward on the relationship between European right-wing extremists and “sections of the Israeli right” suggested that this “mutual cooperation between the Israeli and European fringes can perhaps best be attributed to a shared obsession with blood, soil and demography”.
But in Israel, demography is by no means a ‘fringe’ concern, as this week’s news shows. Indeed, it has shaped government policy on immigration, land, and planning since 1948, for the brutal fact that the ‘Jewish majority’ was only realised in the first place by the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and their exclusion by both violent and ‘legal’ means. Still lauded as a progressive beacon by some, Israel continues to lay increasingly bare the hollow meaning of its ‘democracy’.
Ben White is a freelance writer, specialising in Palestine and Israel.
Follow Ben on Twitter @benabyad
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6 The Humanitarian Impact of Israeli Settlement Policies Fact Sheet | January 2012
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Published: 2012-01-10 |
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The Humanitarian Impact of Israeli Settlement Policies Fact Sheet | January 2012
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English | Hebrew |
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http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_settlements_FactSheet_January_2012_english.pdf [link to the English]
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7 Here are the headlines from Mondoweiss for 01/13/2012:
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Video surfaces of American forces urinating on dead corpses in Afghanistan (and Pamela Geller loves it)
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WINEP official says U.S. strategy is aimed at provoking ‘Pearl Harbor’ that justifies war with Iran
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Ron Paul on Israel
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13 year old Palestinian girl in wheelchair victim of hit and run by Israeli settlers
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Europe gets it: Israel ‘forcibly transfers’ Palestinians
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Silenced in Seattle, SeaMAC presses on with ads against settlements, child imprisonment and collective punishment
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Soap, sweets and Fatah
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Benny Morris dreams of a ‘less Arab’ Israel
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Dore Gold loses NY debate (but his cheering section wants you to read ‘Muslim mafia’ before they restore the caliphate!)
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Incitement: Washington Institute for Near East Policy applauds covert war on Iran
Video surfaces of American forces urinating on dead corpses in Afghanistan (and Pamela Geller loves it)
Jan 12, 2012
Annie Robbins
A video of American Marines urinating on corpses exploded on the internet yesterday. Multiple sources positing this could have the impact of another Abu Gharib. Reportedly one soldiers says ‘Scout sniper team 4 with the 3rd Battalian 2nd Marines out of Camp Lejeune’ (based out of North Carolina) and CNN is reporting two of the four marines have already been identified.
Reuters
A video appearing to show U.S. Marines urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters promises to become an enduring memory of the Afghan war and is already drawing sharp reaction from across the world as it goes viral on the Internet.
Like in the 2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, in which U.S. troops photographed themselves humiliating and intimidating detainees, the Americans shown in the Marine video appeared to have wanted a record of themselves desecrating the corpses of the men they had just killed.
Videos with full sound track are available on youtube.
“Have a great day, buddy.”
“You got it on the video?”
“Yeah.”
“I see you zoomed in on our…”
“Golden, like a shower.”
CNN
Two of the four Marines shown in a video urinating on dead bodies sprawled out on the ground have been identified by the Marine Corps, a Marine Corps official told CNN Thursday. The names are not being made public, said the official, who did not want to be identified because the investigation is ongoing.
“I have seen the footage, and I find the behavior depicted in it utterly deplorable,” U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement. “I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed “total dismay …..deplorable…It is absolutely inconsistent with American values, with the standards of behavior that we expect from our military personnel and the vast, vast majority of our military personnel, particularly our Marines, hold themselves to,” she said. “Anyone found to have participated or known about it, having engaged in this kind of conduct, must be held fully accountable.”
Afghan President Hamid Karzai called on the U.S. government to investigate the video and hand down the harshest punishment possible.
“The government of Afghanistan is deeply disturbed by a video that shows American soldiers desecrating dead bodies of three Afghans,” according to a statement released by the presidential palace on behalf of Karzai.
This is barbaric. When are we going to leave Afghanistan?
This is right up Pamela Geller’s alley. She’s in seventh heaven, lovin’ it.

pamella geller 01 12 2012
CAIR:
Tea Party Speaker Says She ‘Loves’ Marines Who Desecrated Corpses
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 1/12/12) — The Council on American-Islamic Relations(CAIR) today condemned remarks by Pamela Geller, the leader of an anti-Muslim hate group and a frequent speaker at Tea Party events, applauding the alleged desecration of Afghan corpses by U.S. Marines.
On her hate blog, Geller wrote in response to CAIR’s condemnation of the desecration: “I love these Marines. Perhaps this is the infidel interpretation of the Islamic ritual of washing and preparing the body for burial.”
While Geller praised the desecration video, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called it “utterly deplorable.” CAIR yesterday expressed concern that enemies of the United States will use the video to further their anti-American goals.
Hate-filled comments on Geller’s post included:
“I’ve never been prouder to be an American!”
“My heroes!! Best video I’ve seen in awhile :)”
“Nicest movie I’ve seen in years.”
“These sick mutts need to be urinated on. Defecated on too.”
“Have you burned a Koran today. All around the campfire. Burn, baby, burn.”
“The marines should have dumped the bodies in PIG BLOOD; soaked those bodies, in PIG BLOOD.
“Looked to me as though the marines were showing respect. They had their heads bowed and observed silence while rinsing off the corpses.”
WINEP official says U.S. strategy is aimed at provoking ‘Pearl Harbor’ that justifies war with Iran
Jan 12, 2012
Philip Weiss

Patrick Clawson
Earlier today, we did a post on neocons inciting war with Iran that featured quotes from Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, formerly a branch of the Israel lobby group AIPAC. Well Clawson had better put a sock in it, and quick, because now he’s given away the neocons’ game plan. From Laura Rozen’s piece on the negotiations:
Patrick Clawson, deputy director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in an interview with Yahoo News Tuesday… said he didn’t think prospects for a deal look promising.
“I think it’s heading towards confrontation,” Clawson said. “The whole point from the beginning is if we put pressure on the regime, the Iranians will crack at some point.”
So far, at least, there’s little sign the strategy is yielding the desired result. The Iranians to date have responded to the prospect of the tightened financial sanctions on the country’s oil sector with an announcement of the launching of operations at the fortified, underground Fordo nuclear enrichment facility–together with sporadic threats to close the Strait of Hormuz. So why isn’t that a sign that the U.S. strategy is failing?
“It’s a lot better to have a fight” that Iran provokes, Clawson replied, before adding: “Better to enter World War II after Pearl Harbor, and World War I after the sinking of the Lusitania.”
Ron Paul on Israel
Jan 12, 2012
Adam Horowitz
Paul discusses his policy towards Israel beginning at 2:00.
From a Haaretz interview with Paul at the end of December:
I believe that Israel is one of our most important friends in the world. And the views that I hold have many adherents in Israel today. Two of the tenets of a true Zionist are “self-determination” and “self-reliance.” I do not believe we should be Israel’s master but, rather, her friend. We should not be dictating her policies and announcing her negotiating positions before talks with her neighbors have even begun. . .
I am the one candidate who would respect Israel’s sovereignty and not try to dictate to her about how she should deal with her neighbors. I supported Israel’s right to attack the Iraqi nuclear reactor in the 1980s, and I opposed President Obama’s attempt to dictate Israel’s borders this year.
Guess non-interventionism cuts both ways. Here’s a longer excerpt:
Q. What was your reaction to your exclusion from the function held by the Republican Jewish Coalition, to which all the rest of the candidates were invited?
Paul: Well, it was a bit surprising and disappointing. I believe that Israel is one of our most important friends in the world. And the views that I hold have many adherents in Israel today. Two of the tenets of a true Zionist are “self-determination” and “self-reliance.” I do not believe we should be Israel’s master but, rather, her friend. We should not be dictating her policies and announcing her negotiating positions before talks with her neighbors have even begun.
Q. Were you disappointed with the lack of collegiality of the other candidates, who did not insist that you be invited as well?
Paul: No. I did not ask or expect them to boycott the event or insist to the organizers that I be invited.
Q. The RJC characterized your views on Israel as “misguided and extreme”. Why do you think they view your views in that way?
Paul: I do not know, as I am the one candidate who would respect Israel’s sovereignty and not try to dictate to her about how she should deal with her neighbors. I supported Israel’s right to attack the Iraqi nuclear reactor in the 1980s, and I opposed President Obama’s attempt to dictate Israel’s borders this year.
Q. Do you think that the American debate on Israel is stifled?
Paul: There is no question that the problems of the Middle East have been intractable and may take new solutions and ideas. These ideas should all be openly discussed. I believe that my opinions have been distorted by those who want to continue America’s current role as world policeman, which we don’t have the money or manpower to sustain.
My philosophy, like that of the Founding Fathers, is that we should use our resources to protect our nation. Our policies of intervention and manipulation in Iran and Iraq and other places have led to unintended consequences and have not made Israel safer. Many in the Jewish community share my opinion, and it’s vital for both nations that we continue to have an open dialogue.
Phil had referred this interview earlier when Paul says, regarding Iran:
I believe I’m the only candidate who would allow Israel to take immediate action to defend herself without having to get our approval. Israel should be free to take whatever steps she deems necessary to protect her national security and sovereignty.
13 year old Palestinian girl in wheelchair victim of hit and run by Israeli settlers
Jan 12, 2012
Today in Palestine
Disabled girl in a wheelchair hit by settler car in Hebron on her way to school
HEBRON (Ma’an) — A disabled child was hit by a settler car on Thursday near the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron, medics said. Head of the Red Crescent emergency ward in Hebron told Ma’an that Hiba Abdul Ghaffar, 13, was heading to school when she was hit by the car. Ghaffar, who is in a wheelchair, suffered light injuries in the collision and was taken to hospital for treatment.
link to www.maannews.net
Land, Property Theft & Destruction / Ethnic Cleansing / Apartheid
IOA confiscates cultivated land lot in Bethlehem
The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) confiscated a cultivated land lot in Khader village south of Bethlehem at the pretext of constructing a road to serve a nearby settlement.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Palestinian leaders outraged over West Bank construction data
A report released by Israel’s Peace Now group also says building last year on East Jerusalem land seized during the 1967 Middle East War was at the highest level in a decade. Palestinian leaders voiced outrage Tuesday over a new report that Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank rose 20% last year. The report released by the Peace Now group also says that building on East Jerusalem land seized during the 1967 Middle East War was at the highest level in a decade.
link to feeds.latimes.com
IOA to expand West Bank settlement
The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) has announced tenders for the construction of 213 settler houses in Efrat settlement to the south of Bethlehem.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Israel tightens grip on West Bank Bedouin
On Monday, January 9, Israeli authorities shut down “the only road leading to Khan al Ahmar elementary school,” the Palestinian news agency WAFA reports. The move came a day after Israeli authorities issued a number of stop work orders in Umm al Kheir. Both Khan al Ahmar and Umm al Kheir are Bedouin villages located in the West Bank’s Israeli-controlled Area C.
link to www.alternativenews.org
Rivlin: Gov’t must find solution for Migron
Knesset speaker visits illegal West Bank outpost, says relocating it ‘makes no sense’
link to www.ynetnews.com