Boycott israHell!

Boycott israHell!
Бойкот на израел и печелещите от окупацията! Boycott israHell and those who profit from occupation!

Saturday, April 27, 2013

With an empty stomach

by Adam Keller

One shouldn’t underestimate the Israeli government’s public relations headache caused by one young Palestinian who is tightly incarcerated behind bars and who confronts the entire might of the state, its government and army and security services, his only weapon being – an empty stomach.
Samer Issawi, had already spent many years in prison, with no one in Israel hearing of him. In fact, even among Palestinians he was not very famous, except perhaps at his native Isawiyya in East Jerusalem. When the prisoner swap took place at the end of 2011, he was no more than one of many Palestinian prisoners being set free and getting an enthusiastic welcome and then dropping off the headlines.
He would have probably remained in obscurity, if not for somebody in Israel’s security services deciding to return him to prison some six months after having been released. This was on the basis of his having “violated the terms of his parole” – i.e., he had left Isawiyya, which is part of East Jerusalem and has been  annexed to Israel in 1967, to have a car repaired at a garage in the town of A-Ram just outside the annexed territory. Therefore, he was to be returned to jail and serve a further 14 years. And yes, the security services told the media they were in possession of evidence that Issawi had "gone back to terrorist activity" and therefore must be imprisoned – such evidence being highly classified and therefore could not be presented in public and certainly not shown to Issawi himself.
It was at this point that Samer Issawi used his secret weapon and stopped eating and stated that he would not stop his hunger strike until the Israeli authorities agree to release him. And for two hundred and sixty five days  Samer Issawi was walking on the precipice, balancing on the fine line between life and death. Nothing went into his mouth but some liquids and vitamins which just barely kept him alive while he was growing ever thinner, losing dozens of pounds and becoming a living skeleton on his bed at Kaplan Hospital, to which the security services insisted upon shackling his  arms and legs, even when he was too weak to stand.
"An act of desperation" was how the well known Israeli writer A.B. Yehoshua put it. In a letter which he sent to the imprisoned Issawi, co-signed by several other prominent intellectuals, Yehoshua wrote: "We read with great pain of your hunger strike. The accounts of your ever deteriorating situation terrify and shock us, We feel that the act of suicide you are about to commit will add yet another dimension to the tragic and desperate conflict between the two peoples" .
But this was a mistaken appreciation. It was not a desperate and hopeless man who lay on that bed, and futile suicide was not his purpose. It was a fighter who put his life on the line in a very special kind of battlefield, struggling for his own personal freedom and that of all his people, but certainly with the hope of coming out victorious. There in the hospital bed he knew that his hunger strike was becoming the focus of growing attention by Palestinians wherever they are and increasing the unrest and agitation on the West Bank - just at the time when Israel’s PM Netanyahu was making a special effort to present to the world a situation of calm and tranquility and economic prosperity in the territories occupied by the State of Israel 46 years ago.
In a message taken out of the prison Issawi sent a message to the Palestinian masses: “I draw my strength from my people, from all the free people in the world, from friends and prisoners’ families of those who go on, day and night, crying out for freedom and an end to the occupation. I say to my people: I'm stronger than the army of occupation and its racist laws. My struggle is not only for my individual freedom. My struggle and that of my heroic fellows Tariq, Ayman and Ja’affar is everybody’s struggle, the struggle of the Palestinian people against the occupation and its prisons. Our goal is to be free and sovereign in our liberated state and our blessed Jerusalem. The weak and strained beats of my heart derive their steadfastness from you, the great people. My darkening eyes draw light from your solidarity and support . My weak voice takes its strength from your voice, which flies higher than the prison walls”.
There came to his bedside the representatives of the security services of the State of Israel and made him a generous offer - to be released immediately if he agrees to be deported to the Gaza Strip. But ever since 1948, exile from home and hometown has been engraved in Palestinian consciousness as the most painful and traumatic of experiences, and Samer Issawi rejected any idea of ​​a release which would not return him to his home at Issawiya in East Jerusalem.
And when representatives of the European Union expressed to their Israeli colleagues their growing concern for Issawi’s situation, someone in the government came up with the brilliant idea to offer that one of the Western democracies take Samer Issawi to its bosom and rid Israel of him – except that  Issawi himself of course rejected this idea out of hand. And he further escalated and exacerbated his hunger strike, causing his health damages which might prove irreversible, and made an even deeper dangerous bend towards the abyss, and the security experts came to Netanyahu with nightmare scenarios of the huge conflagration which might break out among the Palestinian masses should he die in prison .
Then he did what no other Palestinian prisoner had done before him, and sent out  another open letter. This time, it was not addressed to the Palestinians; he made a direct and painful appeal to Israelis everywhere.
“Israelis, I am Samer Al - Issawi, who is what  your soldiers call disparagingly an Arabush,  who is a Jerusalemite that you have put in prison for no more reason than that he went from Jerusalem to a suburb of Jerusalem. I have not heard one of you interfere to stop the loud wail of death, it’s as if each and every one of you has turned into a gravedigger, that everyone is wearing a  military uniform: the judge, the writer, the intellectual, the journalist, the merchant, the academic, and the poet. I cannot believe that a whole society watches uncaring my death and my life, that you have turned into guardians over the settlers who chase after my dreams and my trees.
Israelis, I do not accept to be deported out of my homeland.  Maybe now you will understand that the awareness of liberty is stronger than death. Do not listen to the generals and their dusty myths, for the defeated will not remain defeated, and the victor will not always be a victor. History is not measured only by battles, massacres and prisons, also by the extending of the hand of peace to the other - and to your own selves.

Israeli army breaks up Palestinian march


27-04-2013, mwcnews.net
Israeli soldiers have fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse about 500 Palestinian villagers marching towards an illegal settlement outpost in the occupied West Bank.
Friday's procession, the largest of its kind for years, followed charges by Palestinians that the Israeli settlers, whose caravans abut village land, had attacked them twice this week.
Around half a million settlers have moved to the West Bank and East Jerusalem since Israel captured the area, along with the Gaza Strip, in 1967.
Palestinians want the settlements removed from what they see as their future state.
Men from Deir Jareer, including Christian and Muslim clerics, gathered for prayers on a craggy outcrop between their village and a cluster of half a dozen makeshift settler homes surrounded by Israeli army jeeps and soldiers.
Their march, preceded by a group of stone-throwing youths, was repeatedly pushed back by salvoes of Israeli tear gas.
Young boys howled from the effects of the gas and old men hitched up their robes to flee, holding onion slices to their noses.
Medics treated several men for gas inhalation and rubber bullet wounds.
Political gatherings are rare around Deir Jareer, and began after villagers say settlers torched about ten of their cars on Monday night, after planting an Israeli flag on a derelict church on Friday and pelting village youths with stones.
"This was a peaceful area. We're gathered today to say we refuse to be attacked and driven off our own land," said Sami Issa, a resident. "We want their army to pull the settlers out."
The Israeli military has said it is investigating the events leading up to the march.
Asked about Friday's incidents, an army spokesman said: "Soldiers responded to a group of some 250 stone-throwing youths with riot dispersal means near Ofra."
Solution receding
Biblical and historical sources are cited by Israel as claims to the land, but the UN considers the settlements illegal and most world powers say they are an obstacle to peace.
Israel has sanctioned the building of 120 settlements, but about 100 unauthorised outposts, considered illegal even under Israeli law, dot the West Bank.
The US is trying to revive long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
US Secretary of State John Kerry told Congress this month that these efforts were urgent because the chance to create a viable Palestinian state was fast receding.
"I believe the window for a two-state solution is shutting," Kerry said. "I think we have some period of time, a year to a year and a half to two years or it's over."

Friday, April 26, 2013

Палестина, моя любима/ Palestine, ma bien-aimee, Asma Bourgi


Тук можете да прочетете за Асма Буржи и първата й книга с есета "Образи на една жена"

Ще стане дума за продължаването във времето на конфликта в Палестина и раната в сърцето на човека, съпреживяващ случващото се. И то не само защото авторката е омъжена за Палестинец, прогонен - тогава 4 годишно момченце, от родното село. А за жена, пълна с любов към хората, съпричастна към болката и страдането; жена, устремена към светлината и мира.

"Палестина, моя любима" е втората книга на Асма Буржи. Личното ми мнение е, че е прекрасна. Четейки я предизвика не само моите сълзи! Истинска, преживяна, стремеж и воля...

Препоръчавам я на всеки - тук не става дума за религия, етнос или политически пристрастия. Тук става дума са Хора и Мир - както казва самата Асма Буржи - "...мир, но мир справедлив и траен".

В книгата са включени интервюта на авторката с бежанци от Палестина, живеещи в България от дълги години - хора на преклонна вече възраст, но не забравили случилото се преди 65 години, унижението, но не изгубили надеждата, че някога ще се върнат по родните си места...Запазили ключовете от домовете си! 




Книгата е в продажба - цената е 11 лева. Ако желаете да я закупите, пишете на irshad@abv.bg




СТРАДАНИЕТО НА ЕДИН НАРОД
Нощта си отива и започва нов слънчев ден. Жителите на тази окупирана страна се събуждат, питайки се чии ред е днес. Вчера, а и в дните преди това мнозина заминаха: едните - убити от вражеските войници жестоко, без милост, други - арестувани, обиждани, малтретирани, измъчвани... докато смелите майки оплакват съдбата на децата си, неможещи нищо да сторят, за да спрат престъплението, без да знаят дали ще ги видят отново или са изчезнали завинаги. Жена гледа как задържат съпруга й, който, миг преди брутално да бъде изблъскан в камиона, отиващ в незнайна посока, погледна децата си, опитвайки се да им се усмихне – картина, която ще остане завинаги запечатана в паметта им. Майка му, със сълзи в очите, промълви: „Нека Бог бъде с теб”, срамежливо му помаха за сбогом, дарявайки му усмивка – тъжна и толкова лишена от надежда. А какво да кажа за стария мъж, седнал пред къщата си и неразбиращ нищо? Той е прекалено стар. Той отдавна не чува, само гледа и се моли. Приближиха се към него, задаваха му въпроси. Той не чуваше, не разбираше. Не можеше да отговори. Първият патрон достигна ръката му, после втори – крака му. Той плачеше. Страдаше! Не можеше да повярва, че има толкова жестокост в света. Тълпата, заобиколена от танкове и войници, въоръжени до зъби, крещеше от гняв и негодувание. А противникът – страхлив, толкова страхлив – се върна в камиона, за да продължи ежедневната си работа. Любимото им занимание – безмилостно да убиват, да унищожават... А вие, наблюдатели, седнали удобно в креслата си, гледайки тези картини, докато се наслаждавате на изкушенията на живота – по-добри ли сте?
Пиша, докато писалката ми плаче. Нямам повече думи, но сърцето ми е препълнено. Задавам си въпроси, без да получа отгвор. Това „защо” се завръща, за да измъчва душата ми. И няма кой да отговори и каже на висок глас: „Царува несправедливостта.“ 

Спомени и скърби
Роден си в Палестина. На колко години беше, когато бяхте принудени да напуснете родината си? Разкажи ми, подканвам го аз. Погледна ме за малко, с цигара в ръка, замислен, след това отново се загледа в земята. Връща се назад, много отдавна. "Бах на 5, а сестричката ми на 3, когато бяхме изгонени от земите си. Не си спомням много, но татко и майка ни разказваха често историята. Една сутрин моят баща се прибрал задъхан и казал на майка ми: "Побързай, йехудите са тук. Гонят хората от къщите им и убиват тези, които се съпротивляват. Но не се тревожи. Ще заминем само за няколко дни, арабската армия ще ни освободи, обещаха". Майка ми, която бе много вярваща, започна да се моли и да събира всичко, което се мернеше пред погледа й, включително и един матрак. Сложили всичко на гърба на едно магаре и треперейки, тези скромни и мирни хора поели в неизвестна посока, оставяйки зад себе си къщата си, земята си, маслиновите дръвчета, които отглеждали с любов. Отправили се към ливанската граница. По средата на пътя изгубили магарето. Било нощ. Децата плачели. Били гладни, жадни, измръзнали. Отнякъде майка ни дала парче хляб и сирене и ни сложила да спим. Баща ми настоял да се върне и да търси магарето. Тръгнал. Върнал се на сутринта, облян в сълзи. Казал на майка ми: "Вече нямаме нищо. Разрушиха къщата ни, откраднаха добитъка. Какво ще правим?" А аз, 4-5 годишно момче, слушах и разбирах всичко. Днес съм на 60. Баща ми почина с надеждата да се върне в Хатин. Бях най-големия. Преди да умре, ми завеща една кожена торбичка. Беше запазил всички документи, доказващи собствеността ни в Пелестина и два ключа - един от къщата и един от голямата порта. Заръча ми добре да ги пазя. "Не ги губи. Ще ги дадеш на децата си, а те - на внуците ти". Запазих ги. Толкова искам да се върна в Хатин. У дома". Докато завършваше своя разказ го погледнах. Не се разплаках. Семо му благодарих, понеже не ме виждаше вече, потънал в спомените и скърбите си.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Demand An End To The Abuse of Palestine's Children



Posted by Zahi Damuni (campaign founder of Palestinian Children's Rights Campaign)
Tell your friends about this
Demand An End To The Abuse of Palestine's Children
The Declaration of the Rights of the Child, adopted by the United Nations in 1959, states that every child (regardless of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, whether of himself or of his family) shall be protected against all forms of neglect, cruelty and exploitation (articles 1 and 9).
Furthermore, The International Convention on the Rights of the Child, which came into force in 1990, sets out to further protect the rights of children. The Zionist state has not only neglected the rights of the child, but has imprisoned and used Palestinian children as human shields, and targeted playgrounds and schools. Since its imposition in Palestine in 1948, Israel has killed thousands of Palestinian children, and wounded many more including with serious physical and psychological injuries. Since the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza more than 8000 Palestinian children have been detained and held as prisoners often without charge and subjected to institutionalized torture, mistreatment and abuse by the occupation without protection. As of this moment, there are 236 Palestinian children detained in Israel's prisons.
Please take a moment to write to President Obama and demand that the US administration put a stop, at all costs, to Israel's abuse, mistreatment and torture of Palestine's children. Use the form at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
Also please Call the President at 1-202-456-1111 and demand the administration use its considerable financial and military aid to Israel to end its abuse of the fundamental human rights of Palestine's children.

Friday, April 19, 2013

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

israel and Deir Yassin massacre


Source MWC News
http://mwcnews.net
The state of Israel was established and is sustained on the continuous perpetration of genocides, destruction of whole towns, land theft, home demolition, ethnic cleansing, and terror against Palestinians. The massacre of the Palestinian small town of Deir Yassin in 9th of April 1948; 65 years ago of this week, is just one typical massacre story that details Zionist Jewish Israeli savagery prescribed in their holy book, the Talmud.
Palestine at the time was under the British occupation (Mandate) that ended on 15th of May 1948. Until that time there was no Israeli government or Israeli army, rather Zionist Jewish militia groups financed and armed by World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency. The largest was the Haganah; a secret Jewish terrorist group armed and trained by officers from the British army. The Haganah, later, formed the backbone of the present Israeli army. Within the Haganah there was an elite striking force called the Palmach, who specialized in assassination, terror and demolition. There were also two other smaller underground terrorist groups; Itzel or Irgun founded by  Se’ev Jabotinsky the head of the Jewish Zionist Organization,  and Lehi or Stern founded by the Zionist terrorist Abraham Stern.
Before the end of the British Mandate the Zionist leaders launched on April 4th 1948 their general expansionist colonial plan dubbed as “Plan Dalet”; a Zionist master offensive military plan with many sub-operations such as Nachshon, Harel, and Maccabi, whose aim was the systematic ethnic cleansing of as many Palestinians as possible and the theft of as much Palestinian land as possible before the end of the British Mandate. The Haganah had committed many massacres against the Palestinian population and had totally razed as many as 400 Palestinian towns. The Haganah thus gained popularity among the Zionist Jews.
There developed a competition between the Haganah on one side and the Irgun and Lehi on the other for popularity among Jews and for political leadership in the perceived future Israeli state. Such gain was achieved by one side in uprooting and transferring Palestinians and in the destruction of their towns and villages more than the other side.
During the first week of April 1948 the Haganah launched Operation Nachshon to carve out and hold a highway passage for their forces from Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean coast in the west all the way to Jerusalem in the interior of the country committing on their way many massacres of Palestinian civilians and demolishing their towns. The Haganah, at the time, was held up still by Palestinian fighters at Al-Qastal; west of Jerusalem and a few miles away from the village of Deir Yassin.
On the other side Irgun and Lehi terrorist groups wanted to gain popularity over the held-up Haganah through a military victory. They chose an easy virtually unarmed defenseless village of Deir Yassin as their target. Deir Yassin was a small Palestinian village located west of Jerusalem with about 750 inhabitants, who lived peacefully with their neighboring Zionist Jewish colony of Giv’at Shaul despite all the political and military conflicts of that time. The two communities had signed a non-aggression agreement between them. Yet, typical of Zionist Jews, who throughout their long history had never honored any agreement they signed with non-Jews, Zionist Jewish terrorist groups of Irgun and Lehi came out of Giv’at Shaul, attacked the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin on Friday 9th of April 1948 and savagely murdered scores of them; men, women and children, blew up their homes and wiped the village off the map.
Irgun was headed by Menachim Begin, who became the 6th Israeli prime minister, while Lehi was headed by Yitzhak Shamir, who became the 7th Israeli prime minister. Israel is the only country where terrorist leaders such as Menachim Begin and Yitzhak Shamir (also Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon) are rewarded with the position of prime ministers.
In a joint operation coded “Operation Unity” the two Zionist Jewish terrorist groups attacked Deir Yassin in the morning of April 9th, 1948 with the aim of killing as many Palestinians as possible and of forcing the rest out of their homes and land. Driving through the only street leading to the village the attackers were held up by Palestinian snipers using old one-shot hunting rifles. When four attackers were killed the terrorist groups called the commander of the Haganah, David Shaltiel, for help. He sent some of his troops among them a Palmach unit commanded by Mordechai Weg. With an armored vehicle and a two-inch mortar they were able to silence the resistance and occupy the village in a matter of two hours.
A process of cleaning up the village was, then, conducted by the terrorist groups which included the rape of some women, the cold murder of many Palestinians, and the blowing up of homes. Men and women were lined up against the walls in the main street and executed in cold blood. Members of whole families were murdered in their homes even after surrendering. Girls and women were raped and then murdered. The Zionist terrorists had bayoneted the wombs ofPregnant women and crushed the heads and bodies of dozens of children and babies. This cleanup process continued through the next two days, Saturday and Sunday, and demonstrated the savagery of the Zionist Jewish terrorists.
Members of the Zionist terror groups, themselves, had reported such atrocities. Among the many of them was Yehoshua Gorodenchik, an Irgun physician, reported that they had to withdraw at one time and had decided to murder all prisoners. “We had prisoners and before the retreat we decided to liquidate them, we also liquidated the wounded… we eliminated every Arab we came across up to that point.”
Eliyahu Arbel, a Haganah operations officer, inspected the village and reported: “I have seen a great deal of war, but I never saw a sight like Deir Yassin … largely comprised of the bodies of women and children, who were murdered in cold blood.”
Israeli colonel Meir Pa’el admitted that “The Irgun and Lehi men came out of hiding and began to ‘clean’ the houses. They shot whoever they saw, women and children included, the commanders did not try to stop the massacre …”
Zvi Ankori, who commanded one of the terrorist units at Deir Yassin stated: “I went into 6 to 7 houses.  I saw cut off genitalia and women’s crushed stomachs.  According to the shooting signs on the bodies, it was direct murder.” (New York Jewish Newsletter in October 1960)
Alfred Engel, a Jewish physician, who was on site, saw that “It was clear that the attackers had gone from house to house and shot the people at close range.”
The most damning graphic description of the massacre of Deir Yassin came from Jacques de Reynier, the then representative of the International Red Cross, who was the first to reach the site. His statement indicated that “there were people rushing everywhere, in and out of houses, carrying Sten guns, rifles, pistols and long ornate knives. They seemed half mad. I saw a beautiful girl carrying a dagger still covered with blood. I heard screams … everything had been ripped apart. There were bodies strewn around… cleaning up was done with guns and grenades, the work finished with knives.” Reynier estimated seeing some 200 bodies, one of a woman, probably eight months pregnant, shot in the stomach. There were also butchered infants. Schoolgirls and elderly women have been raped and then murdered. Ears had been severed to remove ear rings, bracelets had been torn from arms and rings from fingers.
Journalists Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre had obtained a dossier of 1948 British Mandate criminal investigation into Deir Yassin. According to the dossier, one woman among others described being sexually assaulted while “other women around me were being raped, too.” (Statement of Safiyeh Attiyeh, dossier 179/110/17 GS, “Secret,” quoted in Collins and Lapierre, O Jerusalem! 275,276).  According to Collins and Lapierre, the British investigation was corroborated by physical evidence obtained through medical examination of the survivors.
On hearing of the atrocities committed at Deir Yassin the Haganah commander, David Shaltiel, insisted that Irgun and Lehi terrorists never leave the village before burying all the dead. The Zionist terrorist groups refused the order and left the village, so a burial crew was sent to do the job. They hauled about 70 bodies to a quarry, piled them in a heap, poured gasoline and set them ablaze. But when the fire did not do a thorough job, they used bulldozers to fill the quarry with dirt to bury the bodies. (Milstein, Out of Crisis Comes Decision, p. 273; Milstein, “Deir Yassin”)
In an attempt to boost their popularity the members of the Zionist Jewish terrorist groups of Irgun and Lehi loaded about twenty five Palestinian men, women and children into trucks, stripped them naked, and paraded them victoriously through the Jewish Zakhron Yosef quarter in Jerusalem, then they drov back into a stone quarry in Deir Yassin and executed them in cold blood. Harry Levin, a Haganah broadcaster and future Israeli diplomat, recorded seeing “three trucks driving slowly up and down King George V Avenue bearing men, women and children, their hands above their heads, guarded by Jews armed with sten-guns and rifles.” (Levin, Jerusalem Embattled, 57)
Fifty five children, who survived the massacre, were dumped at the Mendelbaum Gate in Jerusalem. Some of them knocked on the door of Palestinian Jerusalemite Hind Al-Husseini seeking shelter. After hearing about the massacre Al-Husseini rushed to find the rest of the children deciding to care for all of them. She turned her grandfather’s mansion into an orphanage and school calling it Dar Al-Tifl Al-Arabi (Home of the Arab Child). Al-Husseini dedicated her whole life to the orphans of Deir Yassin and to other Palestinian children.
The number of massacred Palestinians was disputed. Most sources, including The New York Times of April 13, put the number of the victims at 254, including 25 pregnant women and 52 children. Many sources had quoted Irgun’s commander, Raanan, who in a press conference, described the massacre as a successful battle and exaggerated the numbers of dead in order the boost the Jewish moral and to frighten other Palestinians into flight. He later explained “I told the reporters that 254 were killed so that a big figure would be published and so that Arabs would panic … across the country.” (Milstein). A 1987 study undertaken by Birzeit University’s Center for Research and Documentation of Palestinian Society (CRDPS) found the numbers of those murdered does not exceed 120.
The massacre of Deir Yassin has a significant importance in the history of the Arab/Israeli conflict although it was not the first or the last massacre the Israelis committed against Palestinians. Unlike previous massacres of Palestinians and the wiping off of their towns, the massacre of Deir Yassin was the first to be known by the outside world due to its vicinity to the capital of Jerusalem. This allowed the Red Cross to investigate and to report the massacre.
Also, the commanders of Irgun and Lehi had called for a press conference, during which they announced their victory in occupying the first Palestinian town in cooperation with the Haganah’s Palmach forces. Their exaggeration of the number of victims was echoed through press into the Arab and Western capitals resulting in strong international condemnations. Such condemnation embarrassed the Jewish Agency, prompting its leader at the time David Ben-Gurion, to send a telegram of apology to Jordanian King, Abdullah, condemning the “rogue” Zionist organizations of Irgun and Lehi.  
Although the Haganah had tried to distance itself from the Irgun and Lehi and to deny its role in the massacre, its full participation is very well known to everybody. The leader of Irgun, Menachim Begin, had admitted on December 28, 1950 in a press interview in New York that the Deir Yassin “incident” had been carried out in accordance with an agreement between the Irgun and the Jewish Agency and the Haganah. In October 1960 the New York Jewish Newsletter reported that Menachim Begin had bragged that “The massacre was not only justified, but there would not have been a state of Israel without the victory at Deir Yassin.”
Mordechai Nisan of the Truman Research Centre of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem wrote an article for “The American Zionist Journal” in which he expressed his concern about the failure to understand the major significance of terrorism in the struggle for Jewish sovereignty. He wrote: “Without terror it is unlikely that Jewish independence would have been achieved when it was.”
Nisan’s statement describes a fundamental fact throughout the three thousand years of Jewish history. Jewish independence and statehood could have never achieved except through terrorism and genocide as prescribed in their religion. Their Talmud commands them to perpetrate genocides against all non-Jews, including women, children and old, even their animals, and to destroy their towns. Check Isaih 13:16-18, Samuel I 15:2-3, Numbers 31:16-18, Deuteronomy 2:34, Deuteronomy 3:6-7, Ezekiel 9:5-6, and Joshua 6:21 for just very few examples of their genocidal religious teachings.
Unfortunately, western countries such as UK, France, Germany, Canada and particularly the US, who claim themselves to be the champions of democracy, freedom, protectors of human rights, and the fighters of terrorism, are providing blind and unconditional financial, military and political support to Israeli state terrorism. I can understand Zionist Israeli Jewish genocidal and terrorist tendencies in lieu of their religion, but I cannot understand western support to such terrorism. I wonder what religion are they, really, prescribed to?

Monday, April 15, 2013

A Childhood Denied



Posted by Zahi Damuni (campaign founder of Palestinian Children's Rights Campaign)
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"A Childhood Denied" highlights the phenomenon of Palestinian children working in Israeli agricultural settlements in the Jordan Valley.  These children work under harsh conditions and are paid about 50-75 NIS per day—approximately one third the Israeli minimum wage—even though they are entitled to the full minimum wage under an Israeli court order. Child laborers typically work from six in the morning until two in the afternoon, tending to agricultural fields with no health benefits, pensions, or sick days, and forced to endure temperatures reaching over 50 degrees Celsius in the summer.
Through intensive research, MA'AN Development Center has discovered that many hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinian children work in Jordan Valley agricultural settlements. MA'AN interviewed child laborers as young as 12 years old. These children, like the adults who also work in the settlements, are paid a pittance with no social safety nets if they are injured in these dangerous working conditions. Most of the children working in these settlements originate from communities in the Jordan Valley, but many come from elsewhere in the West Bank, such as the South Hebron Hills, and have experienced forced transfer carried out by the Israeli army in recent years. This along with the exposure of children to tough manual labor are clear violations of international law.
There are a number of factors driving Palestinian children to work in Israeli agricultural settlements. Some come from families that lack a primary breadwinner and so they view this as a duty to their families.  Others have siblings in university and their parents do not make enough money to sustain the family. In some cases, children see their fathers working in settlements and, given the neglected nature of their schools and lack of alternative options, resign themselves to a life working in a settlement.  Whatever the reason, urgent attention is required to stop this trend that denies young Palestinians their right to a childhood and to a future free of exploitation.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Interesting pics

Ottoman army from Anatolia supporting Palestine 1917.

High Ottoman officers and former Palestinian scholar converge here with the people of Palestine - al-Quds mosque