MONDOWEISS ONLINE NEWSLETTER

NOVANEWS

11/06/2010

* The reunification of my parents

The reunification of my parents

Nov 05, 2010

Linah Alsaafin

Linah’s parents together in March, 2009

Yesterday my mother crossed the Allenby bridge, from the West Bank to Jordan, to see my father in Amman. What makes this banal act unusual is that she had to wait almost a year to be finally granted permission to cross the border.

Last year my brother wrote about my family’s series of unfortunate events which began in August 2009 – how we went from being British citizens living in our homeland on my dad’s one year work renewable visas, to plain old brown Palestinians forced to accept our Israeli-issued identity cards in order to be classified as ‘legal’ residents, which resulted our own mini diaspora. My brother and father, both born in the Gaza strip, have Gaza identity cards which of course bans them from entering the West Bank, where we were living.

My mother, despite being from the city of Albireh in the West Bank, was also inexplicably issued a Gaza ID, despite her owning her original West Bank ID. My younger brother and sister and I have West Bank ID’s, as we were registered under my mother’s original ID, further contributing to the confusion and idiotic regulations manned by the Israeli military. Subsequently, my father spent his time between Lebanon and Jordan, and my brother began new chapters of his life in Qatar and Virginia. They couldn’t come to us, and while my siblings and I could cross over to Amman (which served as our meeting point) my mother could not do the same.

The new astonishingly racist Israeli military order 1650 which was first used in April of this year only made matters worse. My mother was now regarded as an ‘infiltrator’. If caught in the West Bank, she could have faced up to seven years in prison or be deported back to Gaza. As her children, we would obviously follow her footsteps, because Zionism does not like the presumptuous notion of Palestinian families choosing where they want to live and raise their kids in their homeland. This past year has been terribly nerve-racking. Our emotions were taken on a non-stop rollercoaster ride-highs and lows and periods of blank insecurity.

My mother knew beforehand that her West Bank ID changed into a Gaza one and was already in contact with Gisha, the Israeli non-profit organization whose goal is to protect the rights of free movement of Palestinians, before calamity fell upon us in the shape of my father’s arrest at Erez checkpoint, where he had crossed many times before. Gisha then wanted to focus more on my father’s case and bring him back to the West Bank. That amounted to absolutely nothing, so in January, a month after my father was finally allowed to leave Gaza to work in Lebanon, my mother resumed contact. She wanted a piece of paper that would grant her access to the border crossing. After 11 months, her coordination paper finally came.

Waiting wasn’t easy. I had to deal with my parents’ unwanted and forced separation, and watched as my mother lost weight and woke up every day with puffy eyes. We’ve had skyping sessions with my father, which was such a bittersweet experience. My father had to go through his life without his wife or children with him, and sometimes this despairing emotion overwhelmed him. Of course we all kept in regular touch with each other-technology is beautiful in that way. I’ll never forget how we both broke down one time over the phone after I confessed that the only reason I was going through with university was because I knew how much joy and pride it would bring to him when I’d graduate, and how now it wouldn’t even matter because he wouldn’t be at my graduation.

I felt like a kid with divorced parents, “Ok are you going to spend Eid with Baba or here?” It wasn’t fair to leave my mother all alone on holidays, and it wasn’t fair for my father to be all alone either. I hated it. I hated the law enforcers of Israel so much. I hated the collaborative PA regime, I hated the Zionists, I hated being torn apart in my mind, I hated how after living in England and the UAE and the USA, coming back to our homeland eventually was what resulted in our bleak estrangement.

My mother signed up for consecutive months in a gym and in a way, that was her catharsis. Every week she’d call Gisha to see where their progress was heading, and every single time she received the same answer: In a couple more weeks we’ll know for sure, next month, give it one more week, and another. Summer arrived, and with it more arising uncertainties.

My father was having a really tough time coping by himself, and wanted us with him, permanently. My frustration grew. Transferring to another university that would post pone my graduation by up to two semesters? Pulling my sister out of her high school in her senior year to a different one? All of this, in our least favorite city in the world, Amman? It was too much. Selfishness wasn’t what I was going through, I managed to convince myself. I just couldn’t live in Amman. It’s another thing I hate.

Then one day, we got into contact with a lawyer. This lawyer said that in exactly a month, give or take a week, he’ll have my mother’s correct West Bank ID with him. We were tentative. But a given timeline was better than a forever extended one. My mother chose to go with the lawyer, and suspended talks with Gisha. Unfortunately, this particular lawyer was the definitive kind with upholding standards.

He called one Thursday in June, and told my mother that by Sunday the latest, she will finally have her West Bank ID. I had my friends over for a barbeque that day, and I had never felt so relieved, so happy when I heard the news. Sunday came and went. The next day, after calling him multiple times, he finally had the virtue of picking up and informing us that sorry, but there was nothing he could do. We were back to square one.

Talks were resumed with Gisha. Why was it taking so long? The coordination paper only takes a month to be issued! However, it took two months before the proper clerk in the PA told my mother that her coordination paper was rejected. She immediately got in touch with Gisha, who throughout this whole time were dealing with her ID problem, and they agreed to take over the coordination matter. They spoke in such a manner that led my mother to pack her suitcase. This was in August. The green suitcase was smack dab in the middle of her bedroom, and it was almost fully packed. She was hopeful that a breakthrough would come at last. She called my dad and asked him what he wanted from here, and she bought three kilos worth of roasted nuts.

I watched as those bags went into the suitcase, then out again a few weeks later. Then some hack from the PA’s Ministry of Interior called to say that there was nothing they could do from their side to change the Gaza ID into a West Bank one. I couldn’t understand where my mother’s optimism was coming from.

Two weeks later, we finally received the long awaited news. The coordination paper was out, and the Israeli military finally, belatedly admitted that they made a mistake in her address in her ID. They issued a permit that would now make it ‘legal’ for her to live in the West Bank, for six months. During that time, her correct ID should hopefully be given to her.They would correct, and this is important-correct not change-the address from Gaza to the West Bank. Now we could all see my father and brother (when he manages to get a few days off from work) in Amman, back and forth, on holidays, occasions, whenever we want. The green suitcase now included fresh roasted nuts and my father’s books for his research work. My mother busied herself at a salon, and came back with a new hairstyle, eye liner, and a smile that was beautiful and young in nature. A year and 3 months apart, reunited again tonight.

Yesterday, I received a call from my parents. Hearing both of their voices, talking excitedly at the same time, in the same room was music to my ears. My sister and I wanted to know the full details-did you both cry? I bet you did! What was it like, seeing other? What did you first think of? Are you holding hands now? Does Mama look any different to you? What did she say about your bald spot? Yes, we’re doing ok, we have enough food for three days. Can’t wait until next week (Eid al-Adha break) where we can be together again!

Our case in general is not a unique one. Who could forget the student studying at Bethlehem University, with only three credits to graduate, being arrested at a checkpoint and deported to Gaza because of her insidious crime of not owning the proper ID card? Or the many husbands and wives torn apart from each other and their children? Israel is running amok with its proud Apartheid stance, and I strongly believe that BDS is the sure path to toe Israel’s line.

Israel’s wretched controlling of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories is of course illegal and not an action fitting for its ‘democratic’ nature. With awareness there comes boycott, and with boycott there comes international pressure, and with international pressure, there comes the breakdown and elimination of the Apartheid and occupying laws that have ruled us with an iron fist for too long now. My family’s story is still not complete, as my older brother and father still cannot be granted access to the West Bank. It is especially difficult to be uprooted from your homeland once, imagine how it feels like to go through the process twice.

Justice for Palestine.

Linah Alsaafin is a third-year student at Birzeit University in the West Bank, where she is studying English Literature. She’s been living in Ramallah, West Bank since 2004, and despite being only 50 miles away from her grandparents and uncles in the Gaza Strip, she hasn’t seen them since 2005. Alsaafin was born in Cardiff, Wales, and was raised in England, the United States, and Palestine.

Brooklyn-Jenin: Wars of the Jews

Nov 05, 2010

Udi Aloni

America, America

How odd are the leaders Jewish right-wing in the United States. On the one hand, they raise six million dollars to finance a PR war over Jews like me, members of Jewish Voice for Peace. This is an organization which acts, or so they claim, to delegitimize Israel for anti-Semitic reasons (and not because Israel is, heaven forbid, racist). On the other hand, they have the great temerity to call the greatest of rabbis, Sephardic rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a racist, and demand that the Ashkenazi Zionists denounce him thoroughly.

Truth be told, I never thought the Anti-Defamation League, headed by Abraham Foxman, would join our well-timed campaign to delegitimize Israel. But there you go, miracles happen even nowadays, and here he is, bad-mouthing the leader of Shas, the third or fourth largest political party in Israel and a partner in Israeli governments for generations. He calls it a racist party, and if it is racist then the government is racist and that means that the state is racist. That’s how it happens that Foxman and his organizations start understanding the depth of unimaginable racism which has seeped into Israel on the one hand, and on the other hand they denounce the humanist Jewish Voice For Peace organization, which has been fighting against that self-same racism for years, which Foxman, now suddenly can see.

What was it that the Honorable Rabbi Ovadia said, which so horrified the Jews of America? He said that in Messianic times, the role of the goyim (gentiles) will be to serve the Jews. I imagine that if the Honorable Rabbi would have said Muslims rather than Goyim Mr. Foxman would have overlooked it. But – with all due respect to Foxman if the Messiah decides otherwise, I assume that the Honorable Rabbi would accept his decision. In contrast with the elderly rabbi, three men in the prime of their life are currently at the helm of Israel – three hooligans, entirely secular ones, a holy fascist trinity: Lieberman, Netanyahu, and Barak. These men are not waiting for the Messiah.

As far as they’re concerned, the only role gentiles have is to serve the Jewish state. They continue plundering lands in broad daylight and making a mockery of every nation in the world. On the one hand they collect huge amounts of money for upkeep of the state, as reparations for the Holocaust, and on the other hand they complain when nations ask them oh-so-gingerly to stop being a glorious apartheid state.

While secular, bleeding heart Israelis struggle against the deportation of the 300 children of undocumented foreigners (a struggle which is undoubtedly just), they ignore the millions of resident Palestinian children, who have been living for sixty-three years as deportees in refugee camps and in exile, now being made to require them to pledge allegiance to the new lords of the land. And thus it happens that as part of the complex hasbara system of this racist entity, demagogues with flawless English are sent abroad, to persuade the Western world that our crazies are only the religious people and the settlers, thus covering up the real crime: that the State of Israel is being turned into a Judeo-Fascist state by its secular elites, of all people.

On the day that the government of Israel declared that the state was a Jewish and Fascist state, several filmmakers were interviewed, including the maker of Lebanon. They all declared very proudly on the Ynet news portal that they are the best ambassadors for the State of Israel. Well, I’ve got to tell you: if that is the purpose of Israeli creativity, the people who argue for a cultural boycott of Israel are right.

And to Mr. Foxman and the people who call up six million dollars for a PR campaign against us, alluding to the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust by the very number of dollars that they have raised, I have a suggestion: let us donate the money to the poor people of our country, and we will show up in the United States for any verbal debate. You can bring your swords and your spears, Alan Dershowitz, Bernard-Henri Levy, Gadi Taub, Shmulik Maoz. We will come in the name of human brotherhood and in the name of the living God.

Cultural Intifada

Jenin in New York

When faced with a reality where almost everyone collaborates in the construction of a racist state, where the Palestinian citizens of Israel cannot feel safe and are threatened daily with one form or the other of ethnic cleansing, I have nothing left to say beyond this: I have not found a better way to save my art and my Judaism than joining simultaneously the Jewish Voice for Peace in the United States and the Freedom Theater established by Juliano in the Jenin refugee camp.

I believe that only a Jewish-Palestinian coalition against racism, occupation, and apartheid can perhaps prevent the rise of a Jewish fascist state in Israel. The Zionist Left must understand that dialectically, a real and planned rip in the fabric of the Jewish society itself is a necessary perquisite for creating the space and conditions where the wounds of the ongoing trauma can be healed, and an equitable, dynamic democracy can be created.

Udi Aloni, Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou discuss “What if Antigone were a refugee?”

We ended our last blog with Mustafa’s desperate trip to Amman, to get to the American consulate, as his way to the one in Jerusalem had been blocked. As we said already, miracles do happen, and Mustafa received a visa to the U.S. and joined Mariam to take part in the main event for the theater, where I took part in a symposium along with philosophers Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou discussing “What If Antigone Were A Refugee?”.

As part of our focal work in finding ways of promoting particular struggles into a universal one, we tried to examine how two particular struggles – the struggle for the liberation of Palestine and the struggle for women’s liberation – could go hand in hand. We should state that we intend to shoot a feature film in Jenin, and that Palestinian author Ala Hlehel is working on the script at this very moment.

The discussion can be summarized, without encompassing all of its many facets and layers, by saying that there are those who claim that for women to struggle for her equitable place, national emancipation must first be achieved. In other words, Sophocles’ Antigone cannot make heard her independent, feminine, and political voice of the sovereign, King Creon, is not the king who has established the sovereignty of his nation. In contrast with this linear-revolutionary way of thinking, Antigone can be interpreted as a feminine force of justice, which could have neutralized the inevitable element of a revolution that feeds upon its own children had she appeared in the course of reconstructing sovereignty and not after it. In other words, one can hope that the excess of violence of the revolution will not turned upon itself, after its victory.

Mariam at the demonstration against Ahava cosmetics. The protest was sponsored by Brooklyn For Peace on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights on October 26, 2010. (Photo: Bud Korotzer)

Miriam and Mustafa went from university to university and from stand-up comedy performance to participation in a demonstration against the Ahava Dead Sea products, which are actually beauty stolen from the natural treasures that belong to the Palestinians.

And that is how Mustafa, Miriam, and I engaged in all three modes of non-violent resistance, to promote full equality during our visit to New York. We demonstrated with our bodies, shoulder-to-shoulder, Palestinians, Jews and others in New York, we called for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against apartheid products, and we made art, which is a means of struggle but primarily, an aim for its own.

We may always fail. Colonialist powers may always be stronger than we are. But on that day, at St. Paul’s Cathedral in New York, one thousand of us gathered together – Jews, Muslims, and Christian, straights and queers, and Pastor Gilbert, who hosted us, told us that when he was young he was a black Mexican Indian laborer, who supported the legendary Cesar Chavez, who used a boycott of grapes to bring the vine-workers from slavery into liberty. And we said, in silent prayer: “Free-Free Palestine! No more killing! No more crimes!” and everyone knew that this prayer unites a growing group of people, all around the world, who believe in justice, quality, and brotherhood, wherever there is injustice.

This article is from Udi Aloni’s Brooklyn-Jenin column he is writing for the Israeli website Ynet about his experience living between New York City and the Jenin refugee camp, where he is teaching a film production class. You can read the entire Brooklyn-Jenin series here. This article was translated by Dena Shunra.

Today in Bil’in

Nov 05, 2010

Adam Horowitz

A protester protects his face from tear gas during the weekly march against the Wall in the West Bank village of Bil’in. The hot tear gas canisters set fire to Bil’in’s olive fields several places. (Photo: Hamde Abu Rahmah).

13-year-old Palestinian put under 5-month house arrest for maybe throwing some stones

Nov 05, 2010

Seham

and other news from Today in Palestine:

Settlers/ Land, Property, Resource Theft & Destruction/Ethnic Cleansing

State transferred East Jerusalem lands to rightist groups without tenders
Investigation reveals Israel Lands Administration gave properties in Silwan and in Old City to Elad and Ateret Cohanim for low prices.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/state-transferred-east-jerusalem-lands-to-rightist-groups-without-tenders-1.322988?localLinksEnabled=false
Abbas: Israel building ferociously in Jerusalem
Palestinian president tells CNN, ‘To ask us to continue peace talks while settlement activities continue is unacceptable because eventually we will have nothing to negotiate for.’ Adds: Iran pressuring Hamas not to be part of any agreement.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3980054,00.html
‘Netanyahu’s refusal to extend settlement freeze is hurting Israel’
Opposition leader Tzipi Livni says PM rejected a proposed Likud-Kadima government that would ‘do the right thing, in both domestic and foreign matters.’
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-s-refusal-to-extend-settlement-freeze-is-hurting-israel-1.323159?localLinksEnabled=false
Barghouthi tracking settlement expansion
NABLUS (Ma’an) — In the wake of the end of a partial Israeli settlement construction freeze, officials say the number of buildings going up on Palestinian lands has reached new highs. Palestinian National Initiative chief Mustafa Al-Barghouti said Thursday that new areas of land had been confiscated by Israel in the northern Salfit district, adjacent to the Barkan settlement. He said 62 new units were planned.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=330749
(UNRWA) Summer camp supports Bedouin communities facing demolition threat
“It’s not easy living here. You never know what will happen tomorrow,” says N. Abu Dahuk, a community play worker at the Jahalin School in the Bedouin community of Khan al Ahmar, in the West Bank. The school is under imminent threat of demolition.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/EGUA-8AVSZN?OpenDocument&RSS20=02-P
Israeli Settlers Threaten Sheikh Jarrah, Steve Lendman
Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, including Fourth Geneva’s Article 49 stating: “Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of the motive.” In addition, various UN resolutions (including 446, 452 and 465) condemned Israel’s settlement building, declaring they have “no legal validity” to exist. However, they do and regularly expand, endangering all Palestinian communities, Sheikh Jarrah one of many and their longstanding residents.
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/11/israeli-settlers-threaten-sheikh-jarrah.html
PLO: Settler violence on rise
JERICHO (Ma’an) — A PLO report on settler violence said Friday that a sharp increase in assaults on Palestinians and vandalism of property ws recorded for October. According to the report, Palestinians in the West Bank reported a total of 277 cases of settler violence from August through October 2010, with a sharp increase in incidents in the last weeks of October.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=330969

Hilltop Youth presents: Cursing lexicon
Settler youth leaders publish ‘pocket dictionary’ with sophisticated, up-to-date swear words to be used against cops on different occasions. ‘Trash’, ‘scumbag’ – out; ‘wine vinegar’, ‘Indian’ – in. Officers who don’t keep their promise should be called ‘Bibi’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3980144,00.html
Israelis mull leaving settlers in Palestine (AP)
AP – It has become an article of faith in the Israeli-Palestinian equation: Israel’s withdrawal from occupied lands must be accompanied by a removal of Jewish settlers.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101105/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_jews_of_palestine

Activism/Solidarity/Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions

An-Nabi Salih: Army enters home of protest leaders
AN-NABI SALAH, Ramallah (Ma’an) — The homes of two brothers were raided by Israeli soldiers overnight, with officers warning the men against participation in the village’s weekly protest against land confiscation. An-Nabi Salih, a village north of Ramallah bordered by an Israeli guard post in the north and the settlement of Hallamish to the south, is one of four population centers that participates in a regular demonstration against land confiscations, held every Friday afternoon following the prayer.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=330989
Three Injured By Israeli Gunfire at al-Nabi Saleh Anti-wall Protest
Ramallah – PNN – Three civilians were injured and many others treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation on Friday after Israeli troops violently suppressed the weekly anti-wall protest at the village of al-Nabi Saleh in the central West Bank. Israeli and international supporters joined the villagers and marched towards the lands taken to build the wall. This week, the march was to mark the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9094
Israeli Troops Use Tear Gas To Suppress Anti-wall Protest Near Bethlehem
Bethlehem – PNN – A number of civilians were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation during the weekly anti-wall protest on Friday in the village of Al Ma’sara, near Bethlehem in the southern West Bank. Villagers along with international and Israeli supporters marched from the village mosque towards the village lands, where Israel has planned to built the wall. Soldiers stopped protesters at the village entrance near Settlers Road 60. Later, they fired tear gas at the unarmed protesters to force them back into the village. A number of civilians were treated at the local clinic for tear gas inhalation.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9093&Itemid=59
Israeli Troops Fire Tear Gas At Bil’in Protestors
Ramallah – PNN – A number of civilians were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation when Israeli troops attacked the weekly anti wall protest at the central West Bank village of Bil’in on Friday. International and Israeli supporters joined the villages shortly after the midday prayers at the local mosque and marched to farmers’ lands behind the Israeli wall built on land owned by Bil’in villagers. As people reached the gate of the wall, holding flags and banners demanding the wall’s removal, stationed troops fired tear gas and sound bombs at them. Many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation. The weekly action ended with clashes between local youth and the Israeli soldiers. Bil’in has been organizing weekly anti-wall protests for the past six years. Earlier this year the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled in favor of the villagers and ordered the army to remove the wall built on their lands. Due to the court order, Bil’in farmers got back 750 dunums of the originally taken 1500 dunums. The Israeli military still refuses to adhere to the court ruling.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9091&Itemid=56

Five Injured by Army Fire During Weekly Ni’lin Anti-wall Protest
Ramallah – PNN – Five civilians were treated for tear gas inhalation on Friday after the weekly anti-wall protest organized in the village of Ni’lin in the central West Bank. Israeli and international supporters joined villagers after they held midday prayers. They marched to the gate of the wall separating villagers from their lands, where stationed Israeli troops fired rubber-coated steel bullets and sound bombs at them. Soldiers then chased the protesters back to the villages firing tear gas at them. The inhalation victims were treated at the local clinic.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9092&Itemid=59

Justice Dept. Renews Enforcement of Subpoenas for Anti-War Activists Targeted in FBI Raids
We get an update on the fallout from the FBI raids in late September that targeted antiwar activists in Minneapolis and Chicago. Subpoenas to appear before a grand jury were served on 13 people, but later withdrawn when the activists asserted their right to remain silent. But this week the Department of Justice said it intends to enforce the subpoenas for some of them and require them to appear before a grand jury.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/5/justice_dept_renews_enforcement_of_subpoenas

Boycott victory: Africa Israel suspends settlement construction
Africa Israel, the flagship company of Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, announced this week that it is no longer involved in Israeli settlement projects and that it has no plans for future settlement activities.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11609.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+electronicIntifadaPalestine+%28Electronic+Intifada+%3A+Palestine+News%29
Interview: Budrus “built a model of civil resistance”
This Sunday, 7 November, will mark exactly seven years since Ayed Morrar first saw Israeli bulldozers arrive to destroy the land of his village, Budrus, in the occupied West Bank. Ayed al-Morrar, founder of the first popular committee to resist Israel’s wall, discusses with The Electronic Intifada contributor Jody McIntyre.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11608.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+electronicIntifadaPalestine+%28Electronic+Intifada+%3A+Palestine+News%29

Cinema Politica: Artists Against Apartheid
Ezra Winton founder Cinema Politica @ Quebec BDS conference Montreal Oct 2010 Photo Ariel view on Israeli apartheid wall cutting though Palestinian lands. As someone working in the media arts sector, I signed the 500 artist BDS letter along with Cinema Politica’s Executive Director Svetla Turnin. We signed because it was a tangible action that connected art […]
http://www.tadamon.ca/post/8256
Action Alert: Tell your MP that war criminals should be prosecuted not welcomed!
Yesterday, the Foreign Secretary William Hague reiterated the government’s commitment to urgently resolve the “unacceptable situation” with regard to universal jurisdiction during his visit to Israel. The coalition government want to change the current legislation to give the Director of Public Prosecutions power over issuing arrest warrants against alleged international criminals who visit the UK
http://palsolidarity.org/2010/11/15402/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+palsolidarity+%28International+Solidarity+Movement%29
Canada’s largest drugstore chain censors criticism of Israel, Ibn Tufayl
Muslims are called primitive and pre-Enlightenment for not understanding the need for free and open debate – except, when it comes to the Holy Idol state. This censorship is insidious and takes place daily in local settings across North America.
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/11/canadas-largest-drugstore-chain-censors-criticism-of-israel.html
My Hummus Tastes Like Apartheid, Abbas Naqvi
The recent attacks by Israel on the humanitarian Flotilla is yet another signal for us, as citizens of the United States, to hold the Israeli regime accountable for its reckless and illegal behavior. Israel has consistently prevented aid from entering the Gaza Strip, including medical supplies, cement and food. Consequently, the three-year old blockade has turned Gaza into the world’s largest open-air prison, with an entire population starved and deprived of basic necessities. The simple but tragic truth is that Israel acts with such audacity because the international community fails to hold it responsible for the ongoing occupation and apartheid system against the Palestinian people. However, this is slowly changing as people around the globe have begun to question Israel’s policies, with an increasing number and visibility.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16385
Israeli Abuse of Palestinian Children

Palestinian Teenage Boy Put Under House Arrest
A 13-year-old Palestinian boy has been placed under five-month house arrest on suspicion of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.
http://www.imemc.org/article/59835
Racism and Discrimination

Safed ads: Raed Salah plots to take over our city
Dozens of street ads in northern city inciting against mayor following his decision to build medical school. Ads claim: Evil plot destined to establish Arab refugee camp.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3979968,00.html
Hebrew U.: Harassment by El Al security could harm Israeli science
Neuroscientist Heather Bradshaw says she was interrogated, searched with no explanation by El Al security en route to Hebrew Univerity conference.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/hebrew-u-harassment-by-el-al-security-could-harm-israeli-science-1.322943?localLinksEnabled=false

Israel has turned ‘Jew’ into a hollow, separatist title / Avirama Golan
The small communities are the visible tip of an iceberg of systematic, ongoing ostracism that affects a great many Israelis — What is so terrible, G. asked me, about people in small communities wanting to choose their neighbors? … what’s so terrible about the fact that we don’t want Arabs? They are genuinely unsuited to a community with a Jewish-Zionist character. G. is a young computer programmer from central Israel. His wife is pregnant. The dream of a hilltop community in the Galilee beckons him, and he thinks he and his wife, both hard-working college graduates, will join one. Let’s start with the fact, I replied, that you haven’t a chance of being accepted. G. was shocked. You’re Mizrahi, a Jew of Middle Eastern origin, I explained, and your wife is the daughter of recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-has-turned-jew-into-a-hollow-separatist-title-1.322587
Restriction of Movement/Siege/Other Rights Violations/Humanitarian Issues

Gaza borders closed
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Crossing terminals between Israel and the Gaza Strip were closed on Friday, a day ahead of the scheduled weekend shut-down on Saturday, officials said. Set to open again on Sunday, Palestinian liaison officer Raed Fattouh said, the cessation of Friday operations comes in line with decisions announced each Friday since the summer 2009.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=330974
Eroding Conditions for Israeli Arabs: Part II, Steve Lendman
An earlier article reviewed the April Mossawa Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel report titled, “One Year for Israel’s New Government and the Arab Minority in Israel,” accessed through the following link: http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/07/deteriorating-conditions-for-israeli.html. This article discusses a new Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) report titled, “Project Democracy – Fighting for the Ground Rules” for Israeli Arabs.
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/11/eroding-conditions-for-israeli-arabs.html
Report: West Bank checkpoints convert to Hebrew
TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma’an) — Israel’s Military Police and Crossings Administration will begin a new campaign to upgrade and replace checkpoint signs to their Hebrew monikers, the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv reported Friday. The report also noted that some of the checkpoints, which never had Hebrew names and instead borrowed the names of the Palestinian towns and villages they abutted, would be changed in favor of more traditional Hebrew.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=331038
German FM to visit Gaza Strip
BERLIN, Germany (DPA) – German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle will visit the Gaza Strip on Monday, a government spokesman announced on Friday, in what would be the first such visit by a German government member since 2006. Westerwelle will assess “concrete possibilities for improving the situation” in Gaza, a foreign ministry spokesman said. Earlier in the year, Israeli authorities denied German Development Minister Dirk Niebel entry to the Palestinian-controlled territory, ruled by Hamas.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=331045
‘Gaza almost defies words’
As a journalist living in the West Bank, Jon Elmer doesn’t see peace on the Middle East’s horizon. Elmer, a Torontonian who has spent the last eight years working as a freelance journal-ist in Bethlehem, spoke yester-day at Laurentian University about his experiences living and reporting in the region. The talk, organized by the university’s Palestinian Soli-darity Working Group, was part of a lecture series focused on the day-to-day difficulties of Palestinians in the Middle East and Canada’s role in the area.
http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2833090
Gaza surfer girls find freedom on the waves
SHEIKH IJLEEN, Gaza Strip, Nov 5 (Reuters) – Away from Gaza’s troubled reality and beyond its polluted shore, Shorouq and Sabah Abu Ghanem surf in a world of their own. The two girls, 13 and 12, learnt how to swim at the age of three at the hand of their lifeguard father. They can swim up to 10 km (6 miles), dive to seven meters (25 feet) and surf on plastic boards that they hope one day to trade in for competition-grade models. “In the sea I find my freedom. I feel free of everything I leave behind on land,” said 13-year-old Shorouq.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE6A40MU.htm
Gaza’s ‘Tuk Tuks’ override donkey taxis
Donkey carts have been a traditional form of transportation in the Gaza Strip for years – due in part to an Israeli embargo that makes petrol hard to find. But a new innovative motorbike cart dubbed the “Tuk Tuk” is emerging as a more popular way to get around due to its greater speed and comfort. Al Jazeera’s Nadim Baba reports on how a familiar sight from roads in the Far East is threatening to override the donkey taxi industry in Gaza.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy7OkXpBG_g&feature=youtube_gdata
War Criminals and their Enablers

Arrest fears prompt Israel to relocate strategic forum with U.K.
U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague says Britain will soon change a law that has threatened Israeli officials with arrest for war crimes if they visit Britain.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/arrest-fears-prompt-israel-to-relocate-strategic-forum-with-u-k-1.322946?localLinksEnabled=false
UK: Israeli officials shouldn’t fear arrest (AP)
AP – Israeli officials should not fear arrest warrants initiated by pro-Palestinian activists when they travel to Britain on official business, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Thursday.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101104/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_britain

Violence/Aggression and Detainees

Military Operations in Jerusalem Near Al-Aqsa, Silwan
Jerusalem – PNN – Wafa reported that Israeli authorities commenced “major military procedures” in Jerusalem neighborhoods near the walls of the Old City, and in particular al-Aqsa Mosque. According to a Wafa reporter, a large force of Israeli soldiers surrounded Silwan, ostensibly to prevent the outbreak of violence after Friday prayers. Clashes on Thursday night lasted until nearly midnight. The reporter added that Israel justified the incursion with information about a developing “security situation” involving an al-Aqsa congregation demonstrating in the Old City near the Western Wall.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9090&Itemid=64

Jerusalemite beaten, hospitalized
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — The family of a Jerusalem resident said undercover Israeli officers beat Haitham Samih Darwish while he was working near the Austrian Hospice in the Old City on Thursday night. When Haitham’s brother Abed As-Salam intervened, he was detained, they added, along with at least four others on the same job site.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=330997
Israeli army denies hinting at US clearance over Gaza assassination
TEL AVIV, Israel (DPA) — The Israeli military denied Thursday that it had hinted it had received clearance from the United States, before it used a bomb to assassinate a suspected Palestinian militant in Gaza City the previous day. Lieutenant-Colonel Avital Leibovich, who briefed reporters on the assassination Wednesday night, said her remarks were not meant as a hint that Israel had given Washington advance notice of the hit.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=330887

Lawyer calls for end to cell raids in Negev prison
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) – Ramallah’s Mandela Institute called on the administration at Israel’s Nafha prison in the southern Negev to stop what prisoners have called a campaign of cell raids. Lawyer with the institute Buthaina Duqmaq said that during her Thursday visit to the facility, she witnessed a cell raid and was forced to evacuate the room of several detainees ten minutes after she arrived to conduct interviews. Following the procedure, Duqmaq said detainees related that the raids had been ongoing on an almost daily basis, up to three times a day, with prison guards reportedly looking for mobile phones.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?hl=en&shva=1#drafts/12c1c69fff3fe13b
Israel’s Arab Helpers

Egypt finds 13 Gaza tunnels used by smugglers (AFP)
AFP – Thirteen tunnels used to smuggle goods under the border between Egypt and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip have been found in the past two days, an Egyptian security official told AFP on Thursday.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101104/wl_mideast_afp/egyptgazasmugglingtunnels

Palestinians complain of widespread torture in PA Lockups
“It is a slaughter house,” “even the Gestapo didn’t do this;” I spent many years in Israeli jails, and never experienced some thing like that.” These are some of the comments and observations made by people who have just been released from Palestinian Authority (PA) lockups and detention centers. The PA said it formally and completely stopped physical torture in its numerous detention centers as of October 2000, especially following protests by the donor countries which complained that their tax-payers’ money was being used to torture suspected political opponents in the West Bank.
http://ramallahonline.com/2010/11/palestinians-complain-of-widespread-torture-in-pa-lockups/

Clinton: Abbas ‘made clear’ he would accept peace terms
Former US president offers new insights at NY ceremony marking Rabin anniversary, recalls trust inspired by slain prime minister.
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=194091&R=R3
Political “Developments”

Hamas: Peace talks with Israel are dividing the Palestinian people
Senior Hamas politburo member says that reconcilliation with Fatah is not imminent; calls peace talks with Israel ‘futile’.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/hamas-peace-talks-with-israel-are-dividing-the-palestinian-people-1.322966?localLinksEnabled=false
Fatah official: Resistance will continue under unity pact
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Members of armed Palestinian groups will be protected under security arrangements that are a part of a planned unity agreement, a senior Fatah official in Gaza said Thursday. “We are protecting resistance which is committed to the political decision,” Faisal Abu Shahla said in an interview. He was referring to security arrangements planned under an Egyptian-backed plan to reunite Fatah and Hamas.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=330933
In Gaza, rise of Hamas military wing complicates reconciliation with Fatah
The rising clout of Al Qassam in Gaza dims prospects for mending the Hamas-Fatah rift. Reconciliation talks are slated to start Nov. 9.
http://rss.csmonitor.com/%7Er/feeds/world/%7E3/KvAEZm-sihc/In-Gaza-rise-of-Hamas-military-wing-complicates-reconciliation-with-Fatah
Unity hinges on security forces deal
Officials commenting on the latest unity rumors say the issue of a re-hauled security service amalgamating the West Bank and Gaza units remains the final stumbling block to inter-party reconciliation., Representative of independent officials seeking unity Yaser Al-Wadieyah said he expected Hamas and Fatah officials in Damascus to discuss the final arrangements of the security issue, saying all other files were all but resolved.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=331001
New US talks with Palestinians held in Washington (AFP)
AFP – US Middle East envoy George Mitchell and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat met Thursday in Washington on efforts to salvage peace talks with Israel, the State Department said,
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101104/wl_mideast_afp/israelpalestinianspeaceus

Palestinians to give US peace effort more time
WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – The Palestinians will give the United States several more weeks to try to relaunch direct peace talks with Israel, but will not buckle on their key demand for a halt to Israeli settlement activity, a top Palestinian official said on Thursday. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that an Arab League decision on Oct. 9 giving the United States one month to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop settlements could slip — but that the core demand would remain unchanged.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N04185074.htm
Israel PM to meet Egyptian intelligence chief
JERUSALEM — Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu was on Thursday to meet Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman in Tel Aviv for talks expected to focus on the deadlocked peace talks, a government source said. “He will meet Omar Suleiman in Tel Aviv during the afternoon,” the source told AFP on condition of anonymity, without giving further details.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hgEpLDjm4ahPyxwxnuewsW7MR8qA?docId=CNG.827251c8451748f06ec8f6c79b2a2b8f.711
Egypt intelligence chief to Peres: Mubarak is worried about region
Omar Suleiman visits Israel to help jump start Middle East peace talks; Peres: Egypt is always attentive to needs of all sides.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/egypt-intelligence-chief-to-peres-mubarak-is-worried-about-region-1.322951?localLinksEnabled=false
Saudi prince rules out engagement with Israel until Arab land is returned
Saudi Arabia will refuse to “directly or indirectly engage Israel” until it leaves all land captured during the 1967 Six-Day War, a leading member of the Saudi royal family said Thursday, dashing any hopes the Obama administration might have had for rapprochement before a final peace deal.
http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=48e64510310f56fa4e8713e6846e2c66

Window of opportunity for two-state solution is closing, William Hague warns Israel
British foreign secretary ends two-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories with call for Netanyahu to renew freeze on settlement construction to allow talks to resume. William Hague warned today that the window of opportunity for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was closing and failure by the two parties to reach agreement would be a “serious setback”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/04/william-hague-two-state-solution-israel
Other News

Child abuse is underreported throughout country
Percentage of sexual abuse cases reported are higher in Jerusalem; the 33,751 child abuse cases reported in 2009 “only the tip of the iceberg.”
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=193931&R=R2
A West Bank dairy farm churns out gourmet cheese
With funding from international organizations, a dairy farm in Tubas in the West Bank produces gourmet Italian cheeses with a little Palestinian spice.
http://rss.csmonitor.com/%7Er/feeds/world/%7E3/ORhAZURESQw/A-West-Bank-dairy-farm-churns-out-gourmet-cheese

Culture

Gaza on Canvas With Mohammed Al-Hawajri, Palestine Monitor
The devastated Gaza strip, still reeling from Operation Cast Lead and scarred by chronic rates of poverty and malnutrition, would be few artists’ idea of a creative paradise. For Mohammed Al-Hawajri, recently honoured with Birzeit University’s artist of the month award, the “life rich in details and contradictions” is one he would not swap for Manhattan or Barcelona.
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1601
Analysis/Opinion/Human Interest

Witness – Encounter Point: Ali’s story
Ali, a Palestinian intifada veteran, is struggling with how to go forward peacefully after the death of his younger brother by the Israeli army. It is a film about hope, courage, and Palestinian and Israeli grassroots peace efforts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lozUtT1EY4&feature=player_embedded
Queen Noor Brings Palestinian Struggle to MSNBC; Scarborough Repeats Israeli Talking Points, Alex Kane by Alex Kane
It’s not often that the story of Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation gets told in a fair way to American consumers of media, but today on MSNBC‘s “Morning Joe” that’s exactly what happened. Queen Noor of Jordan was a guest on the show, promoting the powerful documentary “Budrus,” which tells the story of how the West Bank village of Budrus successfully beat back Israeli attempts to confiscate Palestinian land as part of the Israeli effort to build a “separation barrier,” which was ruled to be illegal by the International Court of Justice in a 2004 advisory opinion.
http://alexbkane.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/queen-noor-brings-palestinian-struggle-to-msnbc-scarborough-repeats-israeli-talking-points/

The Real Yitzhak Rabin, Alex Kane
Today marks the fifteenth anniversary of when former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli extremist for Rabin’s signing of the Oslo Accords with Yasir Arafat. With the anniversary comes the obligatory mourning of Rabin as a “man of peace,” as the Israeli leader who, had he survived, might have been the one who brought lasting peace to Israel and Palestine.
http://alexbkane.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/the-real-yitzhak-rabin/
Did Rabin assassination mark decline of Israel’s peace camp?
At the time of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, his Labor party controlled more than one-third of parliament. Today, it’s barely 10 percent – and slipping.
http://rss.csmonitor.com/%7Er/feeds/world/%7E3/WNKDZCHcUfc/Did-Rabin-assassination-mark-decline-of-Israel-s-peace-camp

Thoughtcrimes, Neve Gordon – Israel
Would Meryl Streep, Spike Lee, Tim Robbins or Susan Sarandon be willing to swear an oath of loyalty to the United States and its policies in order to receive public funding for feature films that they star in, direct or produce? In Israel, the far-right Knesset member Michael Ben Ari has proposed a bill that would require entire film crews to pledge allegiance to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, and to declare loyalty to its laws and symbols, as a condition for receiving public funding. It’s just one of more than ten bills to be discussed during the Knesset’s winter session that several commentators in Ha’aretz have characterised as proto-fascist.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16384
A tale of two ghettos, Adam Horowitz
The images above are raising some hackles, especially the comparison between the Warsaw ghetto and Gaza today. They are from the current issue of Adbusters magazine, which had 3,500 copies taken off the racks of Shoppers Drug Mart, Canada’s largest drugstore chain, after the CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Bernie M. Farber, called them anti-Semitic in the National Post.
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/11/a-tale-of-two-ghettos.html

The reunification of my parents, Linah Alsaafin
Yesterday my mother crossed the Allenby bridge, from the West Bank to Jordan, to see my father in Amman. What makes this banal act unusual is that she had to wait almost a year to be finally granted permission to cross the border.
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/11/the-reunification-of-my-parents.html
Israel slams Arab incitement, ignores clarion Jewish racism
Is a state like Israel, whose entire existence has been based on ethnic cleansing, land theft, and mendacity, qualified to preach to the world about incitement?
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k
Tablet calling Israel “A Liberal’s Paradise” (!)
Even as a joke, this is taking it a bit far. Recent Hasbara efforts to portray Tel Aviv as a sort of fun & arts capitol have apparently got Mr. Tracy a bit confused. Or it’s the medical pot.
http://www.promisedlandblog.com/?p=3557

Palestinian Writer Shehadeh Straddles “A Rift in Time”
Jerusalem – PNN/Exclusive – Palestinian author Raja Shehadeh’s new book “A Rift in Time” is aptly titled to straddle past and present. Yet it also spans genres, crosses rivers, and connects two men from two very different eras—Shehadeh himself and his great uncle Najib Nassar, a proud subject of the Ottoman Empire, conscientious objector, and exile. Shehadeh read selections from the book at the Swedish Christian Study Center, near Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate, on Thursday night. The book is his fourth; his third, “Palestinian Walks,” won Britain’s prestigious Orwell Prize for political writing. A writer, lawyer, and founder of the human rights organization Al-Haq, Shehadeh has spent most of his life in Ramallah.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9086&Itemid=1
Conned by Democracy: The Middle East’s Stagnant ‘Change’, Ramzy Baroud
Democracy in the Middle East continues to be a hugely popular topic of discussion. Its virtues are tirelessly praised by rulers and oppositions alike, by intellectuals and ordinary people, by political prisoners and their prison guards. Yet, in actuality, it also remains an illusion, if not a front to ensure the demise of any real possibility of public participation in decision-making.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16386
The Battle of Nahr al-Barid: Iraq Comes to Lebanon – an excerpt from Nir Rosen’s new book Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America’s Wars in the Muslim World, Adam Horowitz

A sense of foreboding united people in Lebanon and throughout the region in response to the destabilizing occupation of Iraq. It also made Sunnis feel vulnerable. North of Tripoli, by the village of Qubat Shamra, where a boy was selling watermelons off the side of the road the day I visited, there was a stretch of broken wall with two lines of grafﬁti. “We tell you, o rulers, of treachery and tyranny, the blood of the martyr Hariri is not to be forgotten,” said one.

The other listed the successors of the Prophet Muhammad whom Sunnis revere and warned that “the blood of Sunnis is boiling.” It was signed by an unknown group called the Mujahideen Battalions of Tel Hayat, in reference to a nearby village. Further up the road toward the Syrian border, past tall pine and eucalyptus trees, one side of an apartment building was covered with a large painting of Raﬁq al-Hariri. “They feared you so they killed you,” it said. “Truly they are pigs.” It quoted from the Koran as well, an example of the strange juxtaposition of Islamism and the Hariri cult.

I stopped at Kusha and met a twenty-three-year-old third-year law student called Muhamad, who had learned English from listening to rap music. Muhamad had joined the Interior Ministry’s new Information Branch earlier that year as a volunteer “because of the Shiite campaign against this government,” he said. “You have to do something.” His responsibility was to “keep an eye open for anything strange in town.”

http://mondoweiss.net/2010/11/the-battle-of-nahr-al-barid-iraq-comes-to-lebanon-an-excerpt-from-nir-rosens-new-book-aftermath-following-the-bloodshed-of-americas-wars-in-the-muslim-world.html
If al-Qa’ida Really Want to Hit the West, They Can, PATRICK COCKBURN
The ability of al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula, now based in Yemen, to smuggle sophisticated bombs concealed in ink cartridges for printers on board planes is even more ominous than it sounds. This is because Western governments have so often exaggerated the threat from the most amateur and ineffective conspirators since 9/11 that they do not have any rhetoric left to describe the development of new and more serious threats.
http://www.counterpunch.com/patrick11052010.html
The Phantom Left, Chris Hedges
The American left is a phantom. It is conjured up by the right wing to tag Barack Obama as a socialist and used by the liberal class to justify its complacency and lethargy. It diverts attention from corporate power. It perpetuates the myth of a democratic system that is influenced by the votes of citizens, political platforms and the work of legislators. It keeps the world neatly divided into a left and a right. The phantom left functions as a convenient scapegoat. The right wing blames it for moral degeneration and fiscal chaos. The liberal class uses it to call for “moderation.” And while we waste our time talking nonsense, the engines of corporate power—masked, ruthless and unexamined—happily devour the state.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_phantom_left_20101031/
Murdoch’s Imaginary War, Stuart Littlewood
In his recent pep-talk to the Anti-Defamation League, media magnate Rupert Murdoch complains about “an ongoing war against the Jews.” He seems desperate to divert attention from the mounting resentment around the world towards Israel. But his threadbare argument collapses straightaway because no distinction is made between criminal Israelis and Jews generally. The one remains carefully hidden behind the other.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16383
“The Truth Is There Is No Al Qaeda”, MONA EL-NAGGAR and ROBERT F. WORTH
The Yemeni government has used jihadists as proxy soldiers in the past, and sometimes conflates the Qaeda threat and the unrelated political insurgencies it has fought in northern and southern Yemen in recent years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/world/middleeast/04yemen.html?_r=2&emc=eta1
Lebanon

Authorities charge 19 terror suspects, issue indictment against spy for Israel
BEIRUT: Judicial authorities filed a lawsuit against 19 terrorism suspects Thursday and issued an indictment against an Israeli spy. Government Commissioner to the Military Tribunal Judge Saqr Saqr filed a lawsuit against 19 suspects who were arrested by the Lebanese Army in October.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=121189
MP: Public must know about Israel’s telecom violations
BEIRUT: Parliament’s Media and Telecommunications Committee said Thursday the Lebanese public ought to be made aware of Israel’s violations of their country’s telecommunications sector.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=121186

Communist Party says indictments will cause strife
BEIRUT: Secretary General of the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) Khaled Hadadeh said Thursday the indictment to be issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) would instigate an internal strife, the state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=121197
Higher Shiite Council: Tribunal threatening security
BEIRUT: The Higher Shiite Council said Thursday the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) was threatening Lebanon’s security and blocking the chances of uncovering the truth in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=121193
Hezbollah boycotts Lebanese talks over UN tribunal (AP)
AP – Hezbollah and its allies boycotted the latest round of Lebanon’s national dialogue on Thursday because of tensions surrounding a U.N. tribunal’s investigation of the 2005 assassination of a former prime minister.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101104/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_hariri_tribunal

Britain: Hizbullah’s arms threaten peace process
LONDON: Hizbullah’s continued possession of non-state weapons risks torpedoing the stuttering peace process, the British government has said. Foreign Office spokesperson Barry Marston warned this week continued tension in south Lebanon, derived largely from the existence of contraband arms, was “potentially damaging” to lasting regional stability.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=121184
Iraq

Thursday: 9 Iraqis Killed, 28 Wounded
At least nine Iraqis were killed and 28 more were wounded in a small surge of violence today. Meanwhile, Iraqis are demonstrating against the deadly attacks that rattled Baghdad earlier this week.
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2010/11/04/thursday-9-iraqis-killed-28-wounded/
Three Iraqi police die trying to defuse bomb
Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) — More than 150 Iraqis have been killed since Friday, including three police officers who died north of Baghdad on Thursday when the bomb they were trying to defuse exploded, police said. The roadside bomb was in the town of Shirqat, according to police officials in Salaheddin province. Six people were wounded. Shirqat is about 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of Baghdad.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/11/04/iraq.violence/
Islamic State of Iraq claims responsibility for Baghdad bombings
After it claimed responsibility for Our Lady of Salvation Church massacre in Karrada District, Baghdad, Al Qaeda group Islamic State of Iraq claimed as well responsibility for the series of bombings that hit the capital on Tuesday.
http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Iraq-News/1-56067-Islamic-State-of-Iraq-claims-responsibility-for-Baghdad-bombings.html
Iraqi Qaeda claims bombs against Shiite ‘insults’ (AFP)
AFP – Al-Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate said on Friday it was behind car bombings against Shiites in Baghdad this week that killed 64 people, saying they were revenge for “insults” and threatening more attacks.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101105/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestqaeda

Extra security at Iraq churches
There is extra security around churches and other Christian institutions in Iraq, in response to threats from a militant Islamist group linked to Al-Qaeda.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-11690823

Baghdadis Despair Over Security
In aftermath of recent attacks, residents say years of frustration about security situation now turning to hopelessness. Baghdad has been stunned by two days of bombings that have left security officials searching for answers and residents bracing for more violence.
http://iwpr.net/report-news/baghdadis-despair-over-security
Iraqi eyewitness: Mistreatment by UK troops
The High Court in London will is hearing allegations that 142 Iraqis were mistreated by British forces in Iraq between 2003 and 2008.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11696329
Video: Secret British military video of interrogation techniques in Iraq
Clip submitted during high court proceedings shows a prisoner threatened, intimidated, subjected to sensory deprivation and complaining of starvation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2010/nov/04/secret-british-military-video-interrogation-iraq
Baghdad Carnage: Could It End Iraq’s Political Impasse? (Time.com)
Time.com – Seven months have passed since Iraq elected a new parliament but no new government has been formed. Will two horrific days scare the powerbrokers into action?
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20101104/wl_time/08599202950100

Iraq’s idle MPs urged to return $40 mln in pay (AFP)
AFP – Civil society groups said on Friday they are to launch a legal battle for Iraqi MPs left idle since a March 7 poll to return 40 million dollars received in salaries and allowances over the past eight months.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101105/wl_mideast_afp/iraqpoliticscourtparliament

One ton of gold for the dome of Samarra Mosque in Iraq
An Iraqi restoration team is about to complete the reconstruction of the damage Golden Mosque in the city of Samarra north of Baghdad, the head of Samarra antiquities office said. Omer Abdulzahra, who is also a member of the supervising committee charged with the restoration, said one ton of gold has been earmarked for the dome. The mosque’s two minarets, its golden dome and much of its magnificent interior were blown up in 2007 in an attack which the authorities then attributed to al-Qaeda. The attack sparked a deadly and ruinous cycle of Sunni-Shiite reprisals that left thousands dead and displaced hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news\2010-11-04\kurd.htm
Americans Still Turn Blind Eye to the Savagery We Unleashed in Iraq
Bush & BushIt was bad enough when, before the fourth game of the World Series at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Texas, George Bush drove his father and himself out to the pitching mound in a golf cart to toss out the traditional first ball. (One could be forgiven for wondering if it was part of his book tour.) But it was galling when he threw a near-perfect pitch. Worst of all, though, as opposed to when he performed the same function on baseball’s 2008 opening day at Nationals Park in Washington and was jeered, this time only cheers could be heard on T.V. by the naked ear. No doubt many in the crowd weren’t happy to see him and held their applause. Still, even though it was Bush’s home state, couldn’t anybody see his or her way clear to expressing contempt for his poor excuse for a presidency?

http://www.fpif.org/blog/americans_still_turn_blind_eye_to_the_savagery_we_unleashed_in_iraq?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FPIF+%28Foreign+Policy+In+Focus+%28All+News%29%29
U.S. and Other World News

Jewish Settler Leaders Praise Republican Gains
The U.S. midterm elections heartened some right-leaning Israelis, including settler leaders, who have seen President Barack Obama’s Mideast policy as antagonist and now view his repudiation in the polls as a sign he may be less able to pressure Israel into concessions in stalled peace talks.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/11/03/jewish-settler-leaders-praise-republican-gains/

CIA lawyer: U.S. law does not forbid rendition
Daniel Pines, an assistant general counsel at the CIA, has asserted in a law journal that the abduction of terrorism suspects abroad is legal under U.S. law, even when the suspect is turned over to countries notorious for torture.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/11/cia_lawyer_says_no_law_against.html?referrer=emaillink

War criminal: Bush makes clear he approved use of waterboarding
In a memoir due out Tuesday, Bush makes clear that he personally approved the use of that coercive technique against alleged Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed, an admission the human rights experts say could one day have legal consequences for him.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/03/AR2010110308082.html
229 Afghan civilians killed in October
Official: 15 percent increase in compare with the previous month,” Bashari told a press briefing here, Xinhua reported.
http://en.trend.az/regions/world/afghanistan/1777118.html
Chomsky: US-led Afghan War, Criminal
Noam Chomsky says US invasion of Afghanistan was illegal since to date there is no evidence that al-Qaeda has carried out the 9/11 attacks.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26756.htm
US embassy accused of spying in Norway, Oslo demands answers
OSLO — Norway has demanded an explanation from the United States after a television documentary said its embassy had conducted illegal surveillance of hundreds of Norwegian residents over the past decade. According to the TV2 News channel, the US embassy in Oslo employed between 15 and 20 people, including former high-ranking police officers, to monitor local residents in a bid to ward off attacks on US interests in the country.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/embassy-accused-spying-norway/

Iran detains ‘UK-linked fighters’
State TV says four people are arrested on suspicion of belonging to a Kurdish rebel cell funded by a UK-based commander.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/11/20101148308255326.html
Iranian lawyer on hunger strike
Jailed Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh is in a serious condition after going on hunger strike, a New York-based Iranian rights group says.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-middle-east-11699603
Syria: Jailed Rights Defender Assaulted, Punished in Prison
(London) – Eight leading human rights organizations today called on the Syrian government to guarantee the safety of Muhannad al-Hassani, a human rights defender serving a three-year prison term, after he was assaulted last week in â€˜Adra prison, Damascus. The eight organizations – Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists, the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) and Front Line – urged the Syrian government to investigate the assault and protect al-Hassani from further brutality or ill-treatment.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HRW/b8e7698f74e8d23504f7d293bb733a74.htm
Arabs make development strides, challenges remain: UN (AFP)
AFP – Some Arab states have made significant strides in human development over the past 40 years, but challenges such as public empowerment and official accountability remain, a new UN report said.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101104/wl_mideast_afp/mideastarabsdevelopmentrightsun
Saudi prince: Iran is on ‘explosive’ path in Middle East
Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former ambassador to the U.S., says Washington shouldn’t take military steps against Iran to reassure Israel.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/saudi-prince-iran-is-on-explosive-path-in-middle-east-1.322982?localLinksEnabled=false

Islam in the West

Justice Stevens voices support for NYC mosque
Justice Stevens says Americans should accept mosque near Ground Zero in spirit of tolerance Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said Thursday that Americans should be tolerant of plans to build an Islamic center and mosque near the site of the World Trade Center in New York.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/justice-stevens-voices-support-nyc-mosque/

www.TheHeadlines.org

The Battle of Nahr al-Barid: Iraq Comes to Lebanon – an excerpt from Nir Rosen’s new book Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America’s Wars in the Muslim World

Nov 05, 2010

Adam Horowitz

We are very excited to have an exclusive excerpt from Nir Rosen’s new book Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America’s Wars in the Muslim World. One thing we try to do on Mondoweiss is to bring you firsthand perspectives from the ground that give you an idea of what life looks like behind the headlines.

No one does this better than Nir Rosen.

Aftermath offers Rosen’s vivid, and often shocking, reporting from some of the places the US “war on terror” is being fought – Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Afghanistan. The following excerpt takes us to northern Lebanon during the May 2007 assault on the Nahr al-Barid Palestinian refugee camp, as the war in Iraq continues to spread across the region and its influence tears at the seams of Lebanese society.

A sense of foreboding united people in Lebanon and throughout the region in response to the destabilizing occupation of Iraq. It also made Sunnis feel vulnerable. North of Tripoli, by the village of Qubat Shamra, where a boy was selling watermelons off the side of the road the day I visited, there was a stretch of broken wall with two lines of grafﬁti.

“We tell you, o rulers, of treachery and tyranny, the blood of the martyr Hariri is not to be forgotten,” said one. The other listed the successors of the Prophet Muhammad whom Sunnis revere and warned that “the blood of Sunnis is boiling.” It was signed by an unknown group called the Mujahideen Battalions of Tel Hayat, in reference to a nearby village.

Further up the road toward the Syrian border, past tall pine and eucalyptus trees, one side of an apartment building was covered with a large painting of Raﬁq al-Hariri. “They feared you so they killed you,” it said. “Truly they are pigs.” It quoted from the Koran as well, an example of the strange juxtaposition of Islamism and the Hariri cult. I stopped at Kusha and met a twenty-three-year-old third-year law student called Muhamad, who had learned English from listening to rap music. Muhamad had joined the Interior Ministry’s new Information Branch earlier that year as a volunteer “because of the Shiite campaign against this government,” he said. “You have to do something.” His responsibility was to “keep an eye open for anything strange in town.”

According to Muhamad, Lebanon’s Sunnis had ﬁnally come to believe that Lebanon was their country. “After they killed Hariri we woke up,” he said. “Shiites hate us. After Hariri’s death I started feeling hatred of Shiites. I hate Shiites after they thanked Syria in the demonstration.” He also hated Shiites for reacting positively to Saddam Hussein’s execution. “At the end Saddam was a Sunni,” he said. “I love Saddam. He subjugated Shiites. He was a leader in every sense of the word.” Muhamad believed he was helping to defend Lebanon from the “Shiite crescent.” “They’re trying to extend their principles through all of Lebanon. The biggest danger is coming from Shiites, not Israel. The priority is Shiites, to confront their project. I would take a gun and face Shiites, not only me but many people here.”

In the village of Masha I drove by the main mosque, which had a large picture of Hariri on one wall. Above the mosque a large blue sign said, “Palestine and Iraq are calling you, boycott American products.” Elsewhere in town a small shop had the obligatory picture of Saddam with his two sons at his side. A local sheikh had praised Fatah al-Islam as mujahideen.

Throughout Sunni towns in the north and Sunni neighborhoods in Tripoli and Beirut one ﬁnds images of Saddam and grafﬁti praising the executed former Iraqi leader. “The nation that gave birth to Saddam Hussein will not bow,” said one in the Beqaa. In Beirut’s Sunni stronghold of Tariq al-Jadida I found posters of “the martyred leader” Saddam with the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem behind him. On the road to Mishmish, a small mountain town in Akkar, I passed a wall where someone had written “Long live the hero Saddam Hussein.” Entering the town I drove under many banners honoring the army. “Only your pure blood draws the red line,” said one, in reference to Nasrallah’s recent speech. When I visited in late July 2007, the all-Sunni town had already lost three of its men to Fatah al-Islam; eight other soldiers from Mishmish were wounded. “People are very angry at the Palestinians,” mayor

Hanzar Amr Din told me. He did not believe the anger would subside after the ﬁghting. “If they think of coming back to the camp, people will destroy it,” he said. “People here were very upset at Nasrallah’s words about red lines,” he said. “Last summer people were happy with Nasrallah for ﬁghting Israel, but saying that the camp is a red line means he is backing Palestinians against the army.”

That summer I found similar sentiments in the Sunni town of Bibnine. A laborer in a sandwich shop compared the situation to the 1970 Black September ﬁghting, when the Jordanians had gotten rid of Palestinians. “I swear on the Koran,” he told me, “if I see a Palestinian I would slaughter him and drink his blood.” I asked him what he thought of Hizballah. “I hope they get rid of them too,” he said. The walls of Bibnine were plastered with pictures of the ten soldiers killed in the ﬁghting, and I was reminded of the similar pictures festooning Shiite towns a year before in honor of the Hizballah soldiers who had died. On a wall near children playing on a road, someone had written with chalk, “Saddam Hussein is the martyr of the nation.” Khuzaimi, a twelve-year-old boy, told me that “we all want to grow up to join the army to destroy this inﬁdel al-Absi.” But since Fatah al-Islam would be destroyed by then, he said, “then we will all go ﬁght Israel.”

Most of the townsmen had taken their weapons to Nahr al-Barid in the ﬁrst days of the ﬁghting to “help the army,” I was told by Qais, a member of the Internal Security Forces from the town. “Anybody above sixteen went down,” he said—122 soldiers in all. “There is no family in Bibnine without somebody down there,” he said, adding that his family had ﬁfteen men there. “There is a big anger at the Palestinians,” he said. “We consider them responsible for this.” When I visited Bibnine on July 31 the shelling of Nahr al-Barid echoed up to the town. Many of the townsmen worked as ﬁshermen off the coast of Tripoli, but since the ﬁghting had begun they had been forced to stay at home.

“They should be put on the border in the south so they can smell Palestine soil and remember it,” said Abu Muhamad, whose son Osama, a twenty-six-year-old soldier, had died in Nahr al-Barid. He blamed Syria for sending Fatah al-Islam to Lebanon. “My son the martyr, from childhood he wanted to be in the army. He grew up in a military house. I am a retired soldier. I am proud of him. He was brave, not a coward.” Abu Muhamad had two other sons in the army, one of whom was wounded in the battle. “Our ﬁrst martyr was Raﬁq al-Hariri,” he told me. “He was a martyr to the nation, and we all want to be martyrs to the nation.”

From his balcony Abu Muhamad could view the camp smoldering down on the coast. His face was lined and weathered. He looked tired but tried to smile. “The people won’t allow the camp to be rebuilt,” he said. “As soon as the ﬁghting stops, people will go down to prevent it from being rebuilt.” Another guest, the father of a soldier still ﬁghting in the camp, repeated an oft-heard slander that the Palestinians had sold Palestine to the Jews in 1948 and now had sold Nahr al-Barid to the jihadists. “That gang bought their camp,” the man said. He had been among the ﬁrst armed men to descend on the camp, he told me.

“All towns around the camp went down and took the arms of soldiers who were killed,” he said. “Now there is a blood feud between Lebanese and Palestinians,” said Abu Muhamad. “The big problem is not with the Palestinians.” The real problem was not the Nahr al-Barid camp but the one in downtown Beirut, he said, meaning the Shiite protesters. Like most Sunnis in the north, he had been angered by Nasrallah’s “red lines” speech in May. “Call it red lines or green lines or whatever you want,” he said. “Your lines won’t stop us.”

The forty thousand homeless Palestinians of Nahr al-Barid were housed in local schools in the nearby Bedawi camp and in Tripoli, watching from afar as their homes were obliterated. Nahr al-Barid was a thoroughly urban camp, with many low apartment buildings. It was located right off the Mediterranean beach, and the view would have afforded its residents some respite from their fate. At least forty-two Palestinian civilians had been killed by September 2, when the army and media declared a great victory—some even called it a victory over Nahr al-Barid rather than Fatah al-Islam. It was only on October 10 that the army ﬁnally began to allow a trickle of Palestinians back to their homes, and only in the so-called “new camp,” a small area that had housed two thousand families on the outskirts of the original camp. The army had been in control of the new camp, and ﬁghting had not taken place there.

About one thousand families obtained the permits from the army and passed through the checkpoints, where soldiers and Lebanese demonstrators heckled them. They found only destruction. It was as if a giant plague of locusts had ravaged the camp. Every single home, building, apartment, and shop was destroyed. Most were also burned from the inside, and signs of the ﬂammable liquids the soldiers had used abounded on the walls. The empty fuel canisters were left behind on the ﬂoors.

Ceilings and walls were riddled with bullets shot from inside for sport. Lebanese soldiers had defecated in kitchens, on plates, bowls, and pots, as well as on mattresses. They had urinated into jars of olive oil. Most homes had been emptied of all their belongings. Furniture, appliances, sinks, toilets, televisions, refrigerators, gold jewelry, cash—all were stolen. Even the charred walls the Palestinians had been left with were not spared: insulting grafﬁti had been written on them, along with threats, signed by various army units. The media were not permitted in, and with few exceptions they were ignoring the plight of the Palestinians, if not reveling in it.

The army’s behavior confused observers. While it seemed to ignore Fatah al-Islam targets, it systematically destroyed other parts of the camp. Following the battle the army continued to treat the camp as a military zone and imposed an army engineer onto the committee planning the reconstruction, informing other members of what the army wanted done.

The army, which had never been used to defend Lebanon from external threats such as Israel, only to suppress internal dissent, and which had struggled to defeat a small band of extremists, had systematically gone through every bit of the camp and ravaged the infrastructure, destroying six decades of life to render it impossible for the Palestinians to return. All the windows were broken, electrical wiring was pulled out, copper wires stolen for resale or reuse, water pumps removed or destroyed, generators stolen or shot up. The columns typical in the camp, which supported homes, had been shot up so that the concrete was turned to rubble and the rebar exposed.

Those few computers that were not stolen had been picked apart, and the RAM and hard drives were all missing. Photo albums had been torn to shreds. Every car in the camp was burned, shot up, or crushed by tanks or bulldozers. Much of the looting and destruction had taken place after the ﬁghting ceased, or in areas where ﬁghting never occurred. The many businesses and shops that had served much of northern Lebanon had been looted of their wares, as had pharmacies and health clinics.

Palestinians reported seeing their belongings on sale in the main outdoor market in Tripoli. The camp had once been imbricated into the local economy and culture. Now the Palestinians were unwanted and rejected. For some it was not just the second time they were refugees. Apart from 1948, in 1976 many arrived from Tel al-Zaatar, a camp near Beirut that had housed twenty thousand refugees until Lebanese Christian militias besieged it, massacred many of its inhabitants, and then leveled the camp to prevent the Palestinians’ return. “It is our destiny,” one man said without emotion in his blackened home in Nahr al-Barid, standing by excrement the Lebanese soldiers had left behind on the kitchen ﬂoor. The total loss of life from Nahr al-Barid was ﬁfty civilians, 179 soldiers, and 226 suspected Fatah al-Islam militants. About six thousand families lost their homes.

Palestinian children’s art from this period depicts the Lebanese soldiers and Lebanese tanks destroying the camp as Israelis. Videos ﬁlmed by Lebanese soldiers circulated on the Internet, showing medical staff from the Civil Defense brigade abusing corpses and beating prisoners. Hundreds of Palestinians had been abused or tortured in Lebanese detention, and some had died from medical neglect of treatable wounds. Although still facing harassment and the occasional beating by Lebanese soldiers, hundreds of Palestinians were at work emptying their homes of rubble. One woman stood on her balcony throwing rubble from inside her home onto the broken street, where it was piled up on the sides.

The majority of the Palestinians were still unable to access their homes, and could only wonder what was stolen, broken, and excreted upon. On the roof of a taller building in the new camp, I found Farhan Said Mansur, a sanitation ofﬁcer standing with his wife and gazing silently across to their distant home, whose broken roof they could just make out—as if looking at Palestine, where he was born. “It is a calamity to all Palestinians,” he said.

Many Salaﬁ jihadists had escaped to the Bedawi camp. Other cells had remained in Bedawi during the ﬁghting. The camp’s security committee still had them under surveillance. Outside Bedawi I stopped with my photographer as he shot a bony horse grazing on a hill. Palestinian mechanics in the area surrounded him, holding his hand and warning him not to take pictures, because it was a Palestinian military position. We noticed concrete bunkers on the top of hills belonging to the pro-Syrian PFLP-GC. Just beyond was the army.

In November the inﬂuential American-allied Lebanese leader Walid Jumblatt threatened that the Burj al-Barajneh camp in Beirut would be the next Nahr al-Barid, and the Palestinian community felt even more vulnerable. That month the Lebanese cabinet warned that Islamist militants were inﬁltrating other Palestinian camps. The phenomenon would be dealt with as it had in Nahr al-Barid, said the minister of information, Ghazi al-Aridi. Nobody thought to address the actual condition of Palestinians in the camps.

As the Lebanese Army celebrated its “victory” over Fatah al-Islam, its commander, Michel Suleiman, seemed poised to become the next president. He would not be the ﬁrst president to have punished the Palestinians. Between 1958 and 1964, President Fouad Shehab created an elaborate, ruthless secret-service network to monitor the Palestinian camps. During his 1970–76 reign, President Suleiman Franjieh clashed with Palestinian factions, even using the air force to bomb a neighborhood thought to be pro-Palestinian.

I’ve heard followers of assassinated president-elect Bashir Gemayel, whose Maronite Christian militia massacred Palestinians in 1976, brag that he was stopped at a checkpoint in the early years of the country’s 1975–90 civil war with a trunk full of the skulls of dead Palestinians. Even today, the Lebanese opposition’s preferred candidate for president is Michel Aoun, a Christian retired general who participated in the 1976 killings.

“Social conﬁnement is leading the youth to religious radicalism,” says Bernard Rougier. “Youngsters are socialized by religious clerics who tell them how to understand the world and the “true reasons” of their social exclusion. To end that situation, refugees should be allowed to work in the Lebanese society, in order for them to live under new and different inﬂuences (with a restriction: nothing should be done to naturalize them, because it could upset the Lebanese balance of power, and Palestinian refugees would be, once again, caught in the Lebanese inner contradictions; in addition to that, such naturalization would dissolve the negotiations about the right of return). So what needs to be done is to distinguish between the issues, between what is social (the right to work), what is political (and should be discussed at the regional level), and what is linked to the legal situation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. In order to do that, Lebanese parties would have to stop frightening the Lebanese society about the risk of tawtin (a condition almost impossible to meet in Lebanon).”

As Iraq became a less hospitable place for jihadists and foreign ﬁghters, or as there were less American targets to go after, these veterans, experienced at ﬁghting the most advanced army in the world, were looking for new battles. Andrew Exum is a former U.S. Army ofﬁcer who led a platoon of light infantry in Afghanistan in 2002 and then led a platoon of Army Rangers in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004. He lived in Beirut from 2004 until 2006, and now researches insurgencies and militant Islamist groups at the Center for New American Security in Washington, D.C. “The ﬁghting in Nahr al-Bared is, unfortunately, just the ﬁrst round in what I fear will be a series of battles fought in the aftermath of the Iraq War,” he says. “On Internet chat rooms, we’re seeing militants turn away volunteers to go ﬁght in Iraq and promising the next ﬁght will be in Lebanon and the Gulf. Lebanon, especially, is a magnet for Sunni extremists.

You not only have a haven for these groups in the Palestinian camps—with security services from rival Arab states competing for their loyalty and attention—you also have two tempting targets: both the pro-Western ruling coalition in Beirut as well as the opposition, led by a powerful bloc of Shiite parties. How can we not expect these Sunni militants, who have spent the past four years waging war on the Shiites of Iraq, to try and carry that ﬁght onto the large, politically active Shiite population in Lebanon? Or onto the pro-Western regime that precariously hangs onto power?”

Following the civil war Iraq became a less prominent topic on the jihadi web forums. In part the novelty factor wore off. But Iraq was a loss for the jihadists, and as it grew bloodier, with more civilians being targeted, it was less inspiring for aspiring jihadists than merely ﬁghting against the crusader and occupier. But there was very little soul-searching on the forums; jihadis seemed to have moved on without a lot of serious public discussion of what went wrong. This was partly because ﬁghting picked up in other places after 2005, especially in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Somalia.

And while America’s militaristic ambitions will likely engender violent resistance movements regardless of the ideological environment, a major reason for the growth of Al Qaeda is now something beyond anti-Americanism. It is the internal war between Sunnis and Shiites in places like Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan, and even Yemen. Al Qaeda can no longer be seen as just a force against U.S. encroachments; it is now part of these local phenomena. In this internal war in the Muslim world, Al Qaeda has become a major driving force of Sunni-Shiite hatred. Al Qaeda in this case means something more general than the actual organization. Even in moderate Lebanon, you get sectarian Sunnis who have been Salaﬁzed.

They may not have been religious beforehand, but they view Al Qaeda as an effective way to combat perceived Shiite expansion and a potent symbol for them to reclaim their masculinity. One of the many ramiﬁcations of that is that the United States is yet again involving itself in forms of spiraling violence whose outcomes are unpredictable and whose unintended consequences will be keeping it busy for decades to come.

Second ‘Jewish Perspective on BDS’ event taking place next week

Nov 05, 2010

Adam Horowitz

Last June, Phil posted on an event that took place here in New York that tried to get a conversation started in the Jewish community about BDS. It was such a success the organizers are doing it again. I’m excited to say that I’ll be moderating, and I’m sure it will be a thought-provoking evening. If you’re anywhere near Brooklyn, please come. Here’s the announcement:

JEWISH PERSPECTIVES ON THE BOYCOTT/DIVESTMENT/SANCTIONS (BDS) CAMPAIGN

Thursday, November 11, 2010

1012 Eighth Avenue (between 10th St. & 11th St.), Park Slope,
Church of Gethsemane (F or G train to 7th Avenue)

Seating is limited.

Many Jews wish to see Israel end the occupation; abide by international humanitarian law, human rights laws and precepts; and meet its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.

Some believe that an effective way to do so is to adopt and to maintain nonviolent and punitive measures through participating in a campaign to boycott, divest from, and sanction (BDS) Israel. The movement has grown rapidly since 2005, when a broad coalition of Palestinian civil society groups called on people around the world to join a campaign that involves academic, cultural, consumer, and sports boycotts; encouragement of and pressure on individuals, financial institutions and companies to shed their investments in Israel; and sanctions—ending preferential trade, joint research, and other agreements, local and regional governments ties between municipalities or regional councils and Israel, and military links and support to Israel.

Others, whose goal is a two-state solution–where Israel and Palestine live side by side in peace and security—believe that this goal is ill- or ineffectively served by the Global BDS Movement and many of its allies because they deploy BDS tools in ways that are more blunt than smart, the movement diverts resources from more effective advocacy and action, and BDS tends to alienate stakeholders from each other rather than encouraging their engagement and collaboration to achieve the goal.

We invite you to a respectful dialogue on BDS—whether you already have a position on it or you want to clarify for yourself the complex issues it raises. This event will provide an opportunity to hear from people who disagree about whether BDS is an appropriate and effective strategy.

We are fortunate to have speakers who have thought deeply about–and been involved–in issues of peace and justice, who have spent a lot of time in Israel/Palestine, and who disagree with each other about BDS. We also have a moderator/respondent who will encourage the speakers and audience to probe more deeply into these issues. We hope you will join us.

Panelists:

Gil Kulick—co-chair of the J Street-NYC Communications/Media Committee; a founder of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom; former Communications Director of the New Israel Fund and deputy political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Israel and—will speak in opposition to the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

Hannah Mermelstein—active member, Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel; co-founder, Birthright Unplugged; co-founder, Students Boycott Apartheid—will speak in support of the Global BDS movement.

Kathleen Peratis—board member of J Street, The Forward, Human Rights Watch; former vice president New Israel Fund; former president NYCLU; occasional columnist for The Forward; partner New York law firm Outten & Golden LLP—will speak in opposition to the Global BDS movement.

Rebecca Vilkomerson—National Director of Jewish Voice for Peace; lived in Israel, 2006-2009; worked for a Palestinian-Israeli public policy center and a Bedouin-Jewish environmental rights organization—will speak in support of the Global BDS movement.

Defending Jean-Luc Godard

Nov 05, 2010

Philip Weiss

I’m finally getting on this. On November 1, the NYT did a big piece on French film director Jean-Luc Godard, who is up for an honorary Oscar, that credited attacks by him from Jewish establishment orgs saying that he is an anti-Semite, based on a number of glancing statements about Jews in Hollywood, and his strong opposition to Zionism. Richard Cohen has chimed in by saying that it’s an “outrage” that Hollywood means to honor a man of raw “Jew-hatred.”

Now the pushback. Critic David Ehrenstein has since taken on Richard Cohen’s slam: “Godard has become the designated Leni Riefenstahl… He must be defended against this vicious utterly mendacious attack.”

And here is a letter written to the Times by Bill Riordan, a college professor in Colorado. Riordan specifically addresses a film by Godard called “Here and Elsewhere.” He allowed us to publish the letter because the Times doesn’t appear likely to do so.

To the Editor:

Re “Hollywood Production: An Honorary Oscar Revives a Controversy”
The charge that the filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard is an anti-Semite—reported in the Michael Cieply article in the November 2nd edition of the Times—is as absurd as it is obscene. Quoting the author of the not-very-good book, “Everything Is Cinema” does not make it any less ridiculous and creepy. The film at the center of the controversy, “Here and There,” was a masterpiece made in the mid-70s and most likely never seen by a single member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In the film, Godard submits his own political practice and that of the European left (the film’s intended audience) to a searing self-criticism.

The film’s principal thesis is that the developed world’s left, unable to make a revolution in Europe and in the “first world,” projected its own desires on “third world” revolutionaries and, specifically, the left Palestinian resistance. Inert and wallowing in their political impotence, Godard blames the European left and himself for responsibility in the massacres and repression that the Palestinian resistance suffered at the hands of the Israeli military. The film, which has (like all of Godard’s work) a rich diachronic depth, views the plight of Palestinians at the hands of Zionist nationalism as the historical product of Europe’s own anti-Semitic past.

Thus Godard brilliantly represents a history defined by a quasi-Hegelian unity-of-opposites (Golda Meir and Hitler) in which former victims become victimizers and what Jean-Paul Sartre would have called history’s “counter finality” where the ultimate product of Europe’s racist past is an emerging quasi-fascist and racist state constructed as a “Jewish” homeland. Many contemporary Israeli intellectuals and artists are making the same charges against the current State of Israel.

The film, if anything, seems not so much anti-Semitic as prophetic. Our contemporary situation in which a stifling ideological conformity is demanded of us, as well as the continual and ongoing attempts of censorship against any possible narratives that might counter Zionism’s self-representation, demonstrates the prescience and profundity of one of the finest film artists in our world. I (as well as Godard, I imagine) find this suffocating ideological climate chilling. The current charges against Godard continue to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of his work.
Bill Riordan
Denver, Colorado.

My mixed loyalties

Nov 05, 2010

Yonah Fredman

I have two parents. My father is America and my mother is Israel.

In 1973 I was in Israel for the Yom Kippur war and the experience convinced me to toss in my lot with Israel: join the army and suffer the slings and arrows of “tzava” [army life]. In America people were dodging the draft or adjusting to the withdrawal of American troops or celebrating the change to a volunteer army, which meant other people fighting but not me or people who thought like me (RFK supporter).

But my path into Israelihood and army-hood was through the yeshiva where I was studying, not in some “foreign” mass showing up at the draft board, and for the yeshiva I needed my father and mother’s approval (literal rather than metaphorical this time) and instead they issued a veto and I returned to America.

America is a super power sometimes extending, sometimes retracting her reach in the world. Israel is a small country in crisis. Which parent needs my help and which parent asks for the ultimate sacrifice?

When I moved to Israel in 2006 I took Israeli citizenship.

If dual citizenship did not exist I would not have given up my American citizenship in order to take up residence in Israel. The loyalties of an 18 or 19 year old have a different dynamic than those of a 51 year old. Why I moved to Israel is for another conversation. For right now let’s say I moved there not for the public sculpture but for the cuisine: to combine the tastes of kishke and chumus at its purest essence.

My opinion regarding US middle east policy is prejudiced, because of my mixed loyalties. I don’t know what would be best for America. (The most objective opinion I have regarding American policy is towards stability: which would include neither an attack on Iran nor a 180 degree turn around on Israel versus Palestine. Also: the role of money and lobbyists in Washington is anti democratic, but it seems almost inevitable.)

I don’t know if America is up to the “light unto the nations” role. (I’m sure Israel is not.) I would be hard pressed to name another country that attracts the eyes of the world as much as America. America sadly falls short in this role. Others would say that America is cast in this role only in the mind of America, because of its bull-in-a-China shop ways both regarding foreign policy and standard of living. But it has the eyes of the world.

American law allows for dual citizenship. Some Americans hate this idea. I didn’t write the law and have done no research regarding the evolution of the law. Some Americans hate anyone who has anything but singular single minded loyalty. Others merely hate those who are dishonest about their loyalty. I have tried to eliminate most of my dishonesty.

NOVANEWS

* The reunification of my parents

The reunification of my parents

Nov 05, 2010

Linah Alsaafin

Linah’s parents together in March, 2009

Yesterday my mother crossed the Allenby bridge, from the West Bank to Jordan, to see my father in Amman. What makes this banal act unusual is that she had to wait almost a year to be finally granted permission to cross the border.

Justice for Palestine.

Brooklyn-Jenin: Wars of the Jews

Nov 05, 2010

Udi Aloni

America, America

Cultural Intifada

Jenin in New York

Udi Aloni, Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou discuss “What if Antigone were a refugee?”

Mariam at the demonstration against Ahava cosmetics. The protest was sponsored by Brooklyn For Peace on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights on October 26, 2010. (Photo: Bud Korotzer)

Miriam and Mustafa went from university to university and from stand-up comedy performance to participation in a demonstration against the Ahava Dead Sea products, which are actually beauty stolen from the natural treasures that belong to the Palestinians.

Today in Bil’in

Nov 05, 2010

Adam Horowitz

A protester protects his face from tear gas during the weekly march against the Wall in the West Bank village of Bil’in. The hot tear gas canisters set fire to Bil’in’s olive fields several places. (Photo: Hamde Abu Rahmah).

13-year-old Palestinian put under 5-month house arrest for maybe throwing some stones

Nov 05, 2010

Seham

and other news from Today in Palestine:

Settlers/ Land, Property, Resource Theft & Destruction/Ethnic Cleansing

Palestinian Teenage Boy Put Under House Arrest A 13-year-old Palestinian boy has been placed under five-month house arrest on suspicion of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. http://www.imemc.org/article/59835 Racism and Discrimination

http://www.fpif.org/blog/americans_still_turn_blind_eye_to_the_savagery_we_unleashed_in_iraq?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FPIF+%28Foreign+Policy+In+Focus+%28All+News%29%29 U.S. and Other World News

The Battle of Nahr al-Barid: Iraq Comes to Lebanon – an excerpt from Nir Rosen’s new book Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America’s Wars in the Muslim World

Nov 05, 2010

Adam Horowitz

No one does this better than Nir Rosen.

From the book Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America’s Wars in the Muslim World, by Nir Rosen. Excerpted by arrangement with Nation Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2010.

Second ‘Jewish Perspective on BDS’ event taking place next week

Nov 05, 2010

Adam Horowitz

JEWISH PERSPECTIVES ON THE BOYCOTT/DIVESTMENT/SANCTIONS (BDS) CAMPAIGN

Thursday, November 11, 2010

1012 Eighth Avenue (between 10th St. & 11th St.), Park Slope, Church of Gethsemane (F or G train to 7th Avenue)

Seating is limited.

Many Jews wish to see Israel end the occupation; abide by international humanitarian law, human rights laws and precepts; and meet its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.

We invite you to a respectful dialogue on BDS—whether you already have a position on it or you want to clarify for yourself the complex issues it raises. This event will provide an opportunity to hear from people who disagree about whether BDS is an appropriate and effective strategy.

Panelists:

Hannah Mermelstein—active member, Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel; co-founder, Birthright Unplugged; co-founder, Students Boycott Apartheid—will speak in support of the Global BDS movement.

Kathleen Peratis—board member of J Street, The Forward, Human Rights Watch; former vice president New Israel Fund; former president NYCLU; occasional columnist for The Forward; partner New York law firm Outten & Golden LLP—will speak in opposition to the Global BDS movement.

Rebecca Vilkomerson—National Director of Jewish Voice for Peace; lived in Israel, 2006-2009; worked for a Palestinian-Israeli public policy center and a Bedouin-Jewish environmental rights organization—will speak in support of the Global BDS movement.

Defending Jean-Luc Godard

Nov 05, 2010

Palestinian Teenage Boy Put Under House Arrest
A 13-year-old Palestinian boy has been placed under five-month house arrest on suspicion of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.
http://www.imemc.org/article/59835
Racism and Discrimination

http://www.fpif.org/blog/americans_still_turn_blind_eye_to_the_savagery_we_unleashed_in_iraq?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FPIF+%28Foreign+Policy+In+Focus+%28All+News%29%29
U.S. and Other World News

1012 Eighth Avenue (between 10th St. & 11th St.), Park Slope,
Church of Gethsemane (F or G train to 7th Avenue)