NOVANEWS
Was a bad day today. Khader Adnan’s life is apparently ebbing. On top of that a bus and truck hit head on, the bus turned over on its side, burst into flame, while trapped inside were Palestinian children 4-6 years old, who were on a school or kindergarten outing. Apparently 7 or 8 were killed outright, others so badly injured that their lives are/were hanging by a thread. This tragedy was in all the on-line newspapers (local and international) that I read. Item 6 has the BBC report on the event. So sad.
10 items below—too much, I know, especially since ‘Today in Palestine’ is the final one, with all of its news. But there are at least 10 more items that I did not include. Sometimes it’s like that—lots of information to pass on to you.
Item 1 is Richard Falk’s “Saving Khader Adnan’s life is saving our own soul.” This is also the first item in ‘Today in Palestine,’ which again devotes its initial section to Khader Adnan. I copied it here from Al Jazeera because I hope that by calling attention to it, to encourage you to read it. One thing that Falk is right about technically speaking , but which I feel is nevertheless inaccurate, is that he speaks of Palestinians as being under occupation for 45 years, whereas Palestinian land including in Israel has been under occupation since 1947-8.
Item 2 “Palestinian hunger-striker Khader Adman near death” can’t compete with Falk’s piece, which is commentary, whereas 2 reports, but is also worth reading.
In item 3’s very brief report, the IOF confirms arrest of a Palestinian woman freed in the Shalit deal. She is not the first. I wonder how many other of the prisoners released to get Shalit home will eventually find themselves back in jail, not necessarily because they did anything that threatens Israel or Israelis, but just to outsmart those who thought that by releasing Shalit they could also release Palestinians?
Yesterday one of the items that I sent commented on the harassment meted out to Palestinians by ‘security’ personnel at Israeli airports. Item 4 is a story of one such.
Item 5, “Palestinian villages might soon go dark once again,” refers to the villages in which electricity was brought in by means of solar panels and wind turbines. Now Israel wants to remove these. Why? It obviously wants to make life so unbearable that the Palestinians will leave. Nice leaders we have. Had another country treated Jews the way Israel treats Palestinians, would the world once again remain silent, much as is the case now with Palestinians?
Item 6 reports the bus accident.
In item 7 Gideon Levy argues that “Iran uses terror to target civilians, so does Israel. Good piece. Except that the word ‘terror’ is over-used, so that what it really means is lost. I prefer to talk about violence and non-violence. Terror is the result of using violence or of means for the purpose of harming or of frightening. Many people whom now are referred to as terrorists are in the eyes of their country men/women freedom fighters. What after all were the Partisans of WWII. Yet to the Nazis they were undoubtedly terrorists. I oppose the use of violence. It can produce terror, but seldom anything good.
Item 8 reports that the IOF tackles anti-tank missiles threat in the Gaza vicinity. Have added to this piece a link to a report informing us that Israel has purchased 30 military training jets. Israel’s leaders by adding structures or foliage to protect people, and by investing in more and more arms are not bringing Israelis security. The means to security is not by force and weapons but by ending the occupation and seeing to it that Palestinians have justice.
Item 9, “U.S. Jews battle apartheid charges made against Israel,” is interesting in that the battle apparently does not include the argument that Israel does not practice apartheid. Hmmmm
Item 10 is ‘Today in Palestine.’ One of the items requests that we write to Khader Adnan and to his family expressing our solidarity. Please do, if only a few words. I dread opening my inbox and on-line newspapers for fear of seeing that we’ve lost him. Hopefully that won’t happen. But I see no signs that it won’t.
That’s it for tonight (my time is 12:45 AM).
All the best,
Dorothy
1 Al Jazeera Thursday, February 16, 2012
Saving Khader Adnan’s life is saving our own soul
The Palestinian prisoner’s case is a microcosm of the unbearable cruelty of prolonged occupation.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/02/2012216105041250560.html
Richard Falk
Khader Adnan is entering his 61st day of a hunger strike in an Israeli prison [EPA]
The world watches as tragedy unfolds beneath its gaze. Khader Asnan is entering his 61st day as a hunger striker in an Israeli prison, being held under an administrative detention order without trial, charges, or any indication of the evidence against him.
From the outset of his brutal arrest in the middle of the night – in the presence of his wife and young daughters – he has been subject to the sort of inhumane and degrading treatment that is totally unlawful and morally inexcusable. Its only justification is to intimidate, if not terrify, Palestinians who have lived for 45 years under the yoke of an oppressive occupation. This occupation continuously whittles away at Palestinians’ rights under international humanitarian law – especially their right to self-determination, which is encroached upon every time a new housing unit is added to the colonising settlements that dot the hilltops surrounding Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Hundreds of Palestinians join hunger strike
The case of Khader Adnan is a revealing microcosm of the unbearable cruelty of prolonged occupation. It draws a contrast in the West between the dignity of an Israeli prisoner and the steadfast refusal to heed the abuse of thousands of Palestinians languishing in Israeli jails through court sentence or administrative order.
Mr Adnan’s father poignantly highlighted this contrast a few days ago by referring to Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held by Hamas in captivity for several years and recently released in good health: “Where are the mother and father of Gilad Shalit? Do they not feel for me in this humanitarian case? Where are they?” He went further in drawing this comparison: “My son was arrested from his house, from among his wife and children, was taken prisoner. He was not carrying any weapon. Whereas Shalit was fighting against the people of Gaza, and destroying their homes, and firing upon, and Shalit was released.”
It is true that foreign authority figures, from the UN Secretary General on down, showed their empathy for the agony experienced by Israelis concerned for the wellbeing of Shalit, but these same personalities are notably silent in the much more compelling ordeal being experienced before our eyes in the form of Mr Adnan’s captivity, seemingly unto death. It should not be surprising that surviving family members of IRA hunger strikers should step forward expressing solidarity with Mr Adnan and compare the Irish experience of resistance to that of the Palesinians.
And who is Khader Adnan? We do not know very much about him except that he is a member of the Islamic Jihad Party. There are no accusations against him that implicate him in violence against civilians. His fellow prisoner from an earlier period of confinement in Ashkelon Prison, Abu Maria, recalls his normalcy and humanity while sharing a cell, emphasising his interest in informing other Palestinians: “Prison was like a university in those times and he was one of the professors.” Commenting on his hunger strike that has brought him extreme pain, Abu Maria says he is convinced that Khader Asnan wants to live, but will not live in humiliation: “He is showing his commitment and resistance in the only way he can right now, with his body.”
Adameer, the respected Palestinian NGO concerned with prisoners, “holds Israel accountable for the life of Khader Adnan, whose health has entered an alarmingly critical stage that will now have irreversible consequences and could lead to his fatal collapse at any moment”. Physicians who have observed his current condition conclude that, at most, he could live a few more days, saying that such a hunger strike cannot be sustained beyond 70 days in any event. Any attempt at forced feeding to keep a prisoner from dying is widely viewed as an additional abuse, a form of torture.
Finally, the reliance by Israel on administrative detention in cases of this sort is totally unacceptable from the perspective of the Geneva Convention, especially so when no disclosure of the exceptional circumstances that might warrant for reasons of imminent security the use of such an extra-legal form of imprisonment. There are currently at least 300 Palestinians being held in a manner similar to that of Mr Adnan, and so it is no wonder that sympathy hunger strikes among Palestinians are underway as expressions of solidarity.
Have we not reached a stage in our appreciation of human rights that we should outlaw such state barbarism? Let us hope that the awful experience of Khader Adnan does not end with his death, and let us hope further that it sparks a worldwide protest against both administrative detention and prisoner abuse. The Palestinian people have suffered more than enough already.
Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades, most recently editing the volume International Law and the Third World: Reshaping Justice (Routledge, 2008).
He is currently serving his third year of a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.
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2 The Guardian
Thursday 16 February 2012
Palestinian hunger striker Khader Adnan ‘near death’ in Israeli detention
Medical report warns Israeli court Khader Adnan is in immediate danger after 61 days of protest at his ‘administrative detention’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/16/khader-adnan-palestinian-hunger-strike
Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
Khader Adnan’s face appears on posters during a protest in Gaza City. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images
A Palestinian prisoner on his 61st day of hunger strike while shackled to a bed in an Israeli hospital is in immediate danger of death, according to a medical report submitted to the supreme court in an effort to secure his release.
Khader Adnan, 33, a baker from a village near Jenin, is being held without charge by the Israeli authorities under a four-month term of “administrative detention”. He began his hunger strike on 18 December, the day after being arrested.
Adnan’s lawyers have submitted a petition for his release to Israel’s supreme court, but no date has been set for a hearing. The situation was urgent, lawyer Mahmoud Kassandra told the Guardian. “This is the last chance. The medical report says he could die at any minute. We hope this will succeed but I am not optimistic.”
Adnan’s hunger strike is in protest at his detention without charge or being told of any evidence against him, and over his claims of abuse and degrading treatment during arrest and interrogation. This is his ninth period of detention, according to reports. In the past he has acted as a spokesman for the militant group Islamic Jihad.
He was examined by a doctor from Physicians for Human Rights on Wednesday at the Rebecca Ziv hospital in Safed. Adnan was shackled by both legs and one arm, the doctor reported.
“He has lost 30kg and weighs 60kg. He suffers from stomach aches, vomiting, sometimes with blood, and headaches … His general condition is pale and very weak, his tongue is smooth, he has slight bleeding from the gums, dry skin, loss of hair, and significant muscular atrophy. His pulse is weak, blood pressure 100/75. He is permanently connected to a heart monitor.”
Adnan agreed to be treated with an infusion of liquids and salts, with the addition of glucose and vitamins, the doctor reported. “However, he maintains his refusal to end his hunger strike.” He was lucid and aware.
He was “in immediate danger of death,” the doctor concluded. “An absolute hunger strike in excess of 50 days causes the decomposition of muscles… and the creation of toxins in the body. Death may occur suddenly, due to heart failure or the result of infection following the collapse of the immune system. Bleeding in the digestive tracts and renal or hepatic failure are possible.
“A fast in excess of 70 days does not permit survival. Infusion of liquids, adjustment of salts, and the addition of glucose and vitamin cannot prevent certain death due to such a protracted hunger strike.”
Adnan’s wife, Randa, his two daughters and his father were permitted to visit him on Wednesday, although his mother, sister and brother were refused.
“Randa told me he was very thin and his health was worsening but his mental health is good,” his sister Maali said from the family home in Arrada. “But the whole family is worried, and Randa doesn’t know if she will see him again.”
Adnan’s elder daughter, also called Maali, who is nearly four, understood her father is very sick and was anxious about giving him a hug, the older Maali said. “She is telling her mother, please stop crying.” The younger daugher, Bissan, is 18 months and Randa is six months pregnant with the couple’s third child.
Following the visit, Adnan’s father addressed a demonstration outside the hospital in solidarity with Adnan, reporting that his son’s morale was high. “He does not undertake this hunger strike for its own sake, but he yearns for freedom for his people, for his countrymen, in order to live with heads held up high, without occupation,” Jihad Adnan told protesters.
Thousands of Palestinians and other supporters of Adnan have protested in the West Bank and Gaza, and outside Ofer military prison near Jerusalem. There have been clashes with police, who have fired tear gas and rubber bullets.
According to Addameer, a Palestinian prisoners’ support group, detainees in other prisons have also begun refusing food.
Many protesters say Adnan has become a symbol of Israel’s occupation and its treatment of prisoners. More than 300 Palestinians are held under “administrative detention” orders in Israeli prisons.
The Palestinian Authority has appealed for Adnan’s release. Physicians for Human Rights on Thursday urged to Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, to intervene in the case because of the prisoner’s dire medical condition.
Earlier this week, an Israeli military court rejected an appeal against Adnan’s continued detention. The Israeli prison service has said Adnan was being dealt with in accordance to his “definition as a security-administrative prisoner” and with humanitarian sensitivity.
Adnan’s hunger strike has attracted a big following on Twitter and Facebook. Many of his supporters complain his case is being ignored by the mainstream media. There has been little coverage in the Israeli and international press.
Bobby Sands, the Irish republican prisoner who died on hunger strike in a Northern Ireland prison in 1981, lasted 66 days without food. According to the British Medical Association, death generally occurs between 55 and 75 days of a hunger strike.
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3 Ynet
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Breaking News
IDF confirms arrest of Palestinian woman freed in Shalit deal
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4190932,00.html
An IDF official confirmed that earlier Thursday soldiers arrested an Islamic Jihad activist who was previously released as part of the Gilad Shalit swap deal in October 2011.
The Palestinian woman was arrested after intelligence information indicated she was involved in activities which may jeopardize Israel’s security. (Yoav Zitun)
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4 Haaretz
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Israeli Arab journalist switches airline after ‘humiliating’ El Al security check
Nazareth-based women’s magazine editor Yara Mashour tells Haaretz she felt as if she was ‘raped’ by airport security agents in Milan airport.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israeli-arab-journalist-switches-airline-after-humiliating-el-al-security-check-1.413176
By Jack Khoury
An Arab journalist says she was so profoundly insulted by El Al security staff at a Milan airport that she changed her itinerary and may sue the Israeli national carrier.
Yara Mashour is the editor of the Nazareth-based women’s magazine Lilac and the daughter of the late Lutfi Mashour, the editor and publisher of the Arabic weekly Al-Sinara. Yesterday she related what she said happened to her, her brother-in-law and another relative when they arrived at Milan’s Malpensa Airport on Monday for their return flight to Israel, and reached the El Al security checkpoint.
“As soon as they realized we were Arabs they immediately separated us from the other passengers. Three security people started asking us questions. At first we considered it to be routine, but it went on and on,” Mashour said.
She said that at some point security agents separated each member of her party “like criminals,” adding, “I began arguing and asking them why they were asking so many questions. One of the guards, apparently the one in charge, got mad and began yelling, ‘You won’t board the plane until I have asked you all the questions and you have passed the strictest security check,'” Mashour said. She was then asked to follow a number of security agents to another part of the airport, for a body search.
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“I said I refused to undergo this humiliation and that I had no intention of cooperating. I said I was even willing to give up my flight,” Mashour said.
“I felt like they were raping me in many senses, and I am not prepared to let this go. The issue has already been given to a lawyer to handle, to check whether a suit can be filed for damages, for the insult and humiliation we suffered,” Mashour said.
According to Mashour the man in charge of security said it would be better if she did not fly, and that her money would be refunded.
“I went to the airline ticket counter to check and they told us they wouldn’t refund our tickets because it was our decision not to board the plane,” Mashour said.
According to Mashour, her two traveling companions were also subjected to humiliating security checks, in which they were forced to remove the contents of their bags for examination.
“It looked like they were doing this on purpose, because we asked why we were being humiliated,” she said.
On Tuesday the group flew to Israel, via Istanbul, on a Turkish airline.
“In Turkey we went through the usual check and amazingly, the plane reached Israel safely and did not blow up,” Mashour commented.
In a response, El Al said it operates “in accordance with the instructions of Israeli security agencies,” adding, “We regret that the passengers were offended and chose not to fly with us.”
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5 Spiegel International
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Tilting at Windmills
Palestinian Villages May Soon Go Dark Once Again
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,815476,00.html
By Juliane von Mittelstaedt
AP Several small Palestinian villages in the West Bank had been without electricity for decades — before an Israeli foundation with funding from Europe recently installed solar panels and wind turbines. Now, though, Israel wants to remove the facilities because they are on land under its administration.
The best part is when the lights in the tents go on, one by one, says Elad Orian. Electricity here, in the hills south of Hebron, was long unreliable. Either it was not available or it was too expensive, produced for just a few hours each day by a noisy, diesel-guzzling generator. That changed when Elad Orian and Noam Dotan, two Israeli physicians who had tired of conflict, came along three years ago and installed solar panels and erected wind turbines. Since then, such facilities have been installed in 16 communities, providing 1,500 Palestinians with electricity.
The women here no longer have to make their butter by hand; they can refrigerate the sheep’s cheese, which is their livelihood; and their children can do their homework at night. Now they can sit together and watch TV — and connect to a world that seems far removed from their lives on the edge of the Judaean Desert. It is but a small revolution, achieved at little cost. But it is a good example of successful development aid.
The success, though, could soon be a thing of the past. Israel has threatened to tear them down with five municipalities in recent weeks having received “stop work” orders — the first step on the road to demolition. The problem is that the facilities are in the so-called Area C, which covers 60 percent of the West Bank and is administered by Israel. Permission from the Israelis is a requirement before construction projects can move ahead — and permits are almost never given to Palestinians.
‘A Clear Signal’
The result is that Area C residents face poor roads and a lack of electricity and water. Farming is impossible, and the construction of factories forbidden. As a result, only 150,000 Palestinians live in Area C — and 310,000 well-supplied Israeli settlers. The solar project helps make life a bit more bearable for Palestinians in Area C. That, though, would appear to be something that Israel does not want.
“The demolition orders are meant to send a clear signal to all European Union countries: Do not interfere, do not invest in Area C,” says project founder Noam Dotan.
Some of the facilities have already been there for two years, which makes it hard to believe that they have only just been noticed now. Above all, the decision sends a signal to Germany which has provided most funds for the project, or a total of roughly €600,000 ($791,300). The project was carried out by the aid organization Medico International in cooperation with Comet-ME, the organization founded by the two Israelis.
European diplomats in Ramallah and Tel Aviv suspect that the demolition orders are a reaction to a recently drafted, unusually critical EU report on the situation in Area C. It states: “The window for a two-state solution is closing rapidly with the continued expansion of Israeli settlements.” The conclusion: The EU needs to target investment in economic development and improved living conditions of Palestinians in Area C.
Political Talking Point
A few months ago, a similar project co-financed by the Spanish government was scheduled for demolition, something which has been prevented thus far through massive diplomatic pressure.
Projects funded by foreign aid organizations or the EU have often been destroyed in the past, the best known example being the Gaza airport, financed with $38 million from the EU only to be destroyed by Israeli bombs a short time after its construction. Generally, though, the demolitions have been the result of security concerns. The fact that harmless solar cells — installations which are funded by allied countries to provide basic humanitarian needs — are at risk of demolition is a new development.
As such, when German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle traveled to Israel two weeks ago, he not only spoke to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak about the peace process and Iran’s nuclear program, but also about wind turbines and solar panels in places like Shaab al-Buttum.
Hundreds of people live in the village, and they are the poorest of the poor. A community of shepherds, they moved freely through the area until Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967. Since then, they have settled, collecting rain water during the winter and buying expensive drinking water brought in by a truck along a gravel track in the summer. A well-maintained road to the settlement doesn’t exist, despite the fact that Shaab al-Buttum lies between two Israeli outposts. The settlements are illegal, but miraculously they have all the basics their Palestinian neighbors are missing: electricity, water and roads.
Social Changes
However, over the past four months, two wind turbines and 40 solar panels have supplied the villagers with energy: 40 to 60 kilowatt-hours each day. It is just enough to heat one square meter of a well-insulated house for a year — or enough to supply a whole village.
Since the arrival of electricity, Israeli anthropologist Shuli Hartman, 60, has been living in the village. She wanted to find out what electricity does to people. She observed that women have more time because their workload is reduced and they can earn more. She saw they became more independent, using mobile phones, which they couldn’t even charge until recently. And she saw how a village in which every family used to struggle to survive is now learning to become a community. An elderly villager told her: “Electricity for us is like water to a person walking through the desert.” Her life has become a bit easier as a result of the mini-power station.
Last but not least, the project has brought together Israelis and Palestinians. “The Palestinians here had previously only known Israelis as settlers and soldiers,” says Hartman.
“We did not want to just demonstrate and remain part of the conflict; we wanted to be part of the solution,” explains Noam Dotan. But a solution is apparently not wanted. In the absence of a small miracle, the tents in Shaab al-Buttum will soon be dark once again.
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6 BBC
Thursday, February 16, 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17057579
Palestinian pupils killed in West Bank school bus crash
BBC’s Jon Donnison: “A Palestinian police official said the children were as young as five and six years old”
At least eight Palestinian children and a teacher have been killed in a collision between a school bus and a lorry in the West Bank.
The bus was carrying children as young as four on their way to Ramallah, just north of Jerusalem.
The vehicle overturned on impact and burst into flames. More than 30 children were injured, and there are fears the death toll may rise.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has declared three days of mourning.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed his sorrow and offered assistance.
‘National disaster’
The bus is believed to have been carrying up to 50 children at the time of the crash, which happened on a busy road junction.
In a broadcast, Mr Abbas described the accident as a horrific national disaster and said all flags would fly at half-mast.
Continue reading the main story “Start QuoteWe assume that either the bus or the truck slipped and crashed into each other”
End Quote Shalom Galil Paramedic
He said many injured were still receiving treatment at medical facilities around the West Bank.
The lorry driver, an Israeli-Arab, was injured.
Dr Ahmad Bitawi, director of Ramallah Hospital, said five children and a teacher had been pronounced dead at the hospital, while a further 54 people injured in the crash were treated there, Reuters news agency reported.
Some of the survivors were also taken to Jerusalem’s Hadassah University Hospital.
“It is an ugly, unbelievable, terrible accident; it shakes the feelings of the whole world because it includes babies,” Adham Al-Hindin, uncle of two injured children, told Reuters.
Treacherous conditions
Palestinian police spokesman Yousif Osrael said the children had left Ramallah on a school trip but returned because of heavy rain and stormy weather, the Associated Press reported.
Mr Osrael said the dead children were aged between four and six.
The BBC’s Jon Donnison in Jerusalem says the roads in the area have been pretty treacherous following the rain.
It was one of the most serious road accidents involving Palestinians in a long time, our correspondent adds.
Shalom Galil – an Israeli medical worker at the scene – said the bad weather appeared to have been a factor.
He said the steep road where the crash happened had been affected by oil.
“We assume that either the bus or the truck slipped and crashed into each other,” he said.
Mr Galil said Israeli and Palestinian emergency services had worked closely together at the scene.
“Palestinian firefighters were involved. As far as I could see, there was full co-operation between the firefighters of Judea and Samaria [West Bank] and the Palestinian firefighters.”
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld has said there was no suspicion of foul play.
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7 Haaretz
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Iran uses terror to target civilians, and so does Israel
Who is against terror? We will all devotedly raise our hands. But people who are truly against terror must also say: against all terror, against any terror, be it Iranian, Palestinian or Israeli.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/iran-uses-terror-to-target-civilians-and-so-does-israel-1.413211
By Gideon Levy
Tags: Palestinians Iran Iran threat Hezbollah Intifada
A great miracle happened in Tbilisi, New Delhi and Bangkok, and alongside that miracle there was ineptitude that flies in the face of Iranian pretentions and ambitions. But the intentions were clear and grave: to take Israeli lives, especially diplomats and other official representatives of the state. That is terror.
The assassinations of the Iranian scientists were no less terrorist, let’s admit it. Terror is terror, against diplomats exactly like against scientists, even if the latter are developing nuclear weapons. There is no great difference between an attempt to kill a representative of Israel’s Defense Ministry and a strike on an Iranian nuclear physicist. There are nuclear physicists in Israel too and if, God forbid, someone tried to assassinate them, that would rightly be considered cruel terror.
And so anyone who uses these deplorable assassination methods cannot be critical when someone else tries to emulate them. And why should the world denounce Iran’s terrorist acts – as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday – and not denounce others? Are there special countries that are allowed to assassinate at will, and others who are not?
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Both kinds of countries should be denounced. The methods this time were even amazingly similar. Magnetized explosive devices were stuck on cars, like in underworld hits; not blind mass attacks, but the kind that are directed against the occupants of one car, whose fate is sealed unless miracles and operational incompetence prevail.
People who were impressed with the assassination of the Iranian scientists – and there are many such people in Israel – those who say with a typical Israeli wink that “they shouldn’t be mourned” ignore the fact that another harsh, unnecessary bloody cycle has been launched. What possible use can there be in killing one scientist, who is then replaced by three others?
What good was it at the time to kill a key Palestinian terrorist when his place was taken by 10 others? The killer of Dr. Thabet Thabet in cold blood in 2001, a Tul Karm dentist and peace activist who did not deserve to die, also laid the groundwork for the assassination attempt in New Delhi.
The killer of Hezbollah’s Imad Mughniyeh, an avowed terrorist who deserved to die, may have saved the lives of many Israelis, but put the lives of many others at risk.
That’s the way it is in the cruel cycle of assassination wars. But in Israel people who dwell in glass houses are keen to throw stones. Here people are impressed by and cheer Israeli assassinations and no one has questions or doubts, either about their morality or their efficacy. We are allowed.
Here people are shocked by attempted assassinations by Arabs or Iranians, but divorce them completely from the context of Israeli assassinations. How did a columnist in Israel Hayom put it this week? “Attacking Israel is in their DNA.” Theirs? And what about us? The writer forgot, and made us forget, our DNA. It, too, supports assassinations, including sometimes of the innocent.
Assassinations of Palestinians have scaled down in recent years and have been carried out mainly in Gaza, and so the hit lists of the Shin Bet security service and the Israel Defense Forces are now shorter. That’s a good thing.
But according to the data of the human rights group B’Tselem, Israel targeted and killed no less than 232 Palestinians in the territories between the beginning of the second intifada and Operation Cast Lead, a period of about eight years. During those attacks,approximately 150 innocent bystanders were killed, including women and children.
These assassinations, most of which did not target “ticking bombs,” were acts of terror. They are not much different from the criminal Iranian attempts in far-off Asia. The representative of the Defense Ministry in New Dehli does not deserve to die, but neither did Dr. Thabet Thabet. The Iranian scientists probably did not deserve to die either.
In February 1990, then-Commerce and Industry Minister Ariel Sharon asked the delegates to the Likud Central Committee convention: “Who’s for stopping terror?” A sea of hands flew up. Today the question should be: Who is against terror? We will all devotedly raise our hands. But people who are truly against terror must also say: against all terror, against any terror, be it Iranian, Palestinian or Israeli.
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8 Ynet
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Dangerous grounds Photo: Yoav Zitun
IDF tackles anti-tank missile threat in Gaza vicinity area
Some 200 warning signs posted around border fence in addition to trees planted for security purposes along risky roads
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4190642,00.html
Yoav Zitun
Gaza rocket fire is not the only danger threatening the surrounding Jewish communities. Ten months after an anti-tank missile fired from Gaza hit a school bus heading towards Nahal Oz, the IDF has finished placing 200 warning signs in the open areas around the Gaza Strip.
The signs were posted in the Eshkol, Hof Ashkelom and Shaar Hanegev regional councils, mainly in areas attracting travelers five km from the border fence. IDF elements fear that terrorist groups will try to repeat the April 2011 attack by firing anti-tank missiles at vehicles or groups of travelers.
The signs read: “This area is restricted at the sector commander’s orders in light of sniper and rocket fire.”
Blocked road near Gaza (Photo: Yoav Zitun)
Thousands of travelers visit the area this time of year to enjoy the blooming of flowers. The restricted areas are those closest to the fence.
Apart from posting signs the IDF is also planting eucalyptus and cypress trees around the communities and in various points along the routes, mainly in junctions and curves where cars tend to slow down making them more exposed to missile hits. The anti-tank missiles’ range is estimated to include the new train station being built in Sderot which has prompted the IDF to arrange fortification and camouflage measures.
Warning signs posted around border fence (Photo: Yoav Zitun)
The old road leading to Nahal Oz where 16-year-old Daniel Viflic was killed is being closed from time to time due to rocket alerts. The IDF is also hoping residents will start using the new and safer road installed shortly after the attack.
“We have mapped out all the sensitive points but there are still small sections exposed to anti-tank rocket fire,” a military source told Ynet. “We are doing our best not to restrict the movement of civilians and we estimate that terrorist groups will first attempt to target IDF forces before aiming at civilians.”
[see also about Israel purchasing 30 military training jets http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4190927,00.html ]
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9 Haaretz
Thursday, February 16, 2012
U.S. Jews battle apartheid charges made against Israel
Campus activists across America are staging Israel Peace Week in an effort to combat the annual festival of anti-Israel vitriol.
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/u-s-jews-battle-apartheid-charges-made-against-israel-1.413187
By Natasha Mozgovaya
Tags: AIPAC Jewish World J Street Barack Obama Newt Gingrich
This is a busy time in the calendar of an Israeli journalist in the United States. AIPAC and J Street are holding their annual conferences, Washington think tanks are discussing the Arab Spring, Iran and Syria. And then there is the 8th annual Israel Apartheid Week coming up (February 26 – March 3) with the usual discussions, films and photo exhibitions, flashmobs and an apartheid poster contest offering a $400 dollar prize. For the most part, the pro-Israeli community hasn’t yet figured out the best way to deal with this event, and so they opt to ignore it.
But there are a few exceptions. Among those who have chosen to confront the apartheid events are 75 universities across North America (up from 50 last year) that are holding “the Israel peace week,” where they will try to convey the message that “Israel wants peace and has demonstrated its willingness to make painful sacrifices for peace.”
“You refer to ‘pro-Palestinian activists’ but most of those aggressive people are anti-Israel, not pro-Palestinian,” says Natalie Menaged, education director of the independent NPO, the Hasbara Fellowships, which trained the Jewish student organizers of the “Israeli peace week.”
“I have yet to see them organize a national campaign to teach about Palestinian culture or plans for peace. They are only interested in propagating hatred of Israel. Our campaign, Peace Week, is more pro-Palestinian than anything the anti-Israel organizers are doing because we are actually discussing solutions.”
Menaged says the idea of “Israel peace week” – which will run from February 20 to March 9 – is “to engage the people in the middle, not the anti-Israel movement.” The campus organizers vary, and in many instances, are a combination of Jewish and non-Jewish students, who developed the concepts of the event on their own. The organization, however, provided them with print materials, films and speakers, if requested. This year’s materials include quotes of each Republican candidate, as well as President Obama, regarding their positions on Israel.
Menaged believes that this approach has proved successful. “At places like Berkeley or Rutgers University or Carleton University (Ottawa ), which have a history of anti-Israel activity, supporters of Israel have been able to change the conversation to one about what needs to be done for peace. And at the majority of schools, which don’t have a lot of anti-Israel activity – schools like Boston University, University of Illinois, Ohio State University, Johns Hopkins University – it is an excellent way to start the conversation”, she says.
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The J Street approach
J Street executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami has a different approach to Israeli Apartheid Week. When asked what the activists of J Street U, the leftist lobby’s campus network, are planning in response, he says: “I think there is more interest in it in media than on college campuses. We condemn it, but there is no purpose in organizing around something that is so marginal. A handful of students attend those Israel apartheid events.
“I think the majority of Jewish students want to support Israel in a way that allows them to ask questions or criticize Israeli or American policy when they feel it’s appropriate, but to do it in a context of loving Israel. They don’t relate to boycotts,” says Ben-Ami. “We have over 750 students this year in our national conference, up from 500 a year ago, and we now have chapters in over 40 college campuses, which is double what we had last year. So we are seeing the formula of pro-Israeli and pro-peace as far more attractive for the Jewish American students than either the hard-line Israel right, or the “Israel is always wrong” approach of folks who organize the Israel apartheid week.”
Ben-Ami says he regrets the near absence of talk about the peace process in the presidential campaign. “The U.S. presidential election year is not going to be a year for significant American leadership towards diplomacy and peace. It’s J Street’s hope that whether President Obama wins the reelection, or someone else wins the election, in 2013 we’ll return to a serious discussion of what is actually in the best interest of the U.S. and the Middle East. In the campaign year, this is not a serious discussion. It’s a deep shame for Israel and the U.S.
Who’s pro-Israel?
“There are certain Republican candidates”, Ben-Ami continues,”Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, some of the others who dropped out, who are using the term ‘pro-Israel,’ but promoting policies that are clearly not in Israel’s long-term interests. Most Israelis would agree that the annexation of the territories, the notion that the Palestinian people don’t exist – these are policies that to my mind are simply outside the frame of the debate in Israel,” he says. Ben-Ami draws a distinction between candidates like “Newt Gingrich who say the Palestinian people are an invented people” and President Obama who “talks about Israel’s survival and long-term security as being dependent on the two-state solution.
“The president is very clearly committed to a two-state solution, and some of the Republicans are essentially abandoning decades of bipartisan American foreign policy, and moving in a completely different direction. I don’t include Mitt Romney in that – I didn’t hear him saying anything policy-wise on that.”
Regarding the Arab Spring, Ben-Ami paraphrases a metaphor used by Ami Ayalon, a former MK, navy commander and Shin Bet security service chief.”When you are a captain of the ship, and you see really bad weather rolling in, there is nothing you can do to change the weather. But you are in charge of the course of your ship. So the weather in the Middle East – whether it’s the results of the elections in Egypt or Iran or the chaos generally – is not good. But decisions about what the Israeli policy should be, or the American policy should be, are in Israeli hands. And the wise thing for Israel and the U.S. would be to find a long-term peace and long-term acceptance into the region, by working towards diplomatic resolution of the conflict that results in two states. So the circumstances are not good, and the security situation is deteriorating, but this is the time to pursue serious diplomatic efforts with Iran. Military action is not necessarily going to be effective, and it only deepens the conflict.”
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10. Today in Palestine
February 16, 2012
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/f_shadi/message/3405
[Among much else in ‘Today in Palestine some brutal Israeli responses to the horrid accident this AM when some 8 or 9 Palestinian children 4-6 years of age were killed and many others were badly injured in an accident. Ugly people those who write such nasty dirt http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israelis-celebrate-death-palestinian-children-killed-accident?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AlAkhbarEnglish+%28Al+Akhbar+English%29 ]