Islamic Jihad may halt rocket attacks on Israel: The Independent
By Catrina Stewart, Tuesday, 6 April 2010
A spokesman for Islamic Jihad in Gaza has said that the militant group has agreed to stop firing rockets against Israel amid fears of a brewing conflict in the enclave.
In an interview with Islamic Jihad radio, Daoud Shihab said the group “stopped the rocket fire into Israel for internal Palestinian purposes – first and foremost to help end the siege on the Gaza Strip.” Mr Shihab is a senior figure within Islamic Jihad. But suggesting a possible division within the group, Islamic Jihad’s offer of a ceasefire was later denied by Nafez Azzam, one of the group’s leaders, on its website.
Ismail Radwan, a Hamas official, said yesterday that Islamist groups had agreed to co-ordinate their resistance efforts, but he refused to be drawn on whether they had agreed a ceasefire. Tensions are high in Gaza after Israel mounted missile attacks last week and an official threatened a second offensive if rocket attacks do not cease.
EDITOR: Lies again!
The IOF has of course never stopped lying, and by right, this should not be news any more; however, this case is just too much… first the soldiers shoot live ammunition at peaceful demonstrators and murder two of them, then the IOF denies any such deeds, and in the end, of course, they blame the soldiers. Those who killed, and those who lied, should all be prosecuted for murder!
Israeli military criticises troops who killed youths: BBC
The Israeli military has criticised its own soldiers for killing four young Palestinian demonstrators in the West Bank in March.
The Palestinians, one of whom was 15 years old, were shot in the space of 24 hours in two incidents near Nablus.
Israeli Defence Force commander Maj Gen Avi Mizrahi said the incidents were “an unnecessary operational occurrence with dire consequences”.
The IDF will now decide whether to take disciplinary action against soldiers.
X-ray
Mohammed Qadus, 15, and Osayed Qadus, 20, were killed during protests on 20 March in which stones were thrown at soldiers near an Israeli settlement.
Palestinian and human rights groups said the young men were killed with live ammunition.
They produced an X-ray image that appeared to show a bullet lodged in the skull of one of the victims.
The IDF initially denied the allegation, saying troops had been given clearance to use rubber coated anti-riot ammunition.
Tuesday’s report says the IDF were “unable to verify the autopsy”.
Later two men were killed near a military checkpoint.
The IDF investigation said the soldiers opened fire on one man who had attacked them with a broken bottle.
They shot a second man when he raised a sharp object after the first man was shot, the investigation said.
Maj Gen Mizrahi said commanders on the ground should have managed the situation differently and the second man was far away enough for them not to have had to open fire.
Palestinians say the account is false and the men were killed in an unprovoked attack.
The BBC’s Tim Franks in Jerusalem says it is unusual for the Israeli army to criticise its soldiers this quickly and this openly.
EDITOR: Dan David Prize 2010
This year, this prize was awarded to Maragret Atwood and Amitav Ghosh. This is a sure way of getting international authors to visit and praise Israel profusely. There is deep shock that those two important autors have agreed to recieve this prize, in the wake of the Gaza masacre, and from the brutal regime in Jerusalem. The first two letters to Atwood are quoted Below:
Greyson letter to Atwood[1]
April 5, 2010
Margaret Atwood
c/o McClelland & Stewart
75 Sherbourne St., 5th Floor
Toronto, ON
M5A 2P9
Dear Margaret:
Back in 1981, I remember vividly that when the Toronto police raided several
bathhouses and arrested 300 men, you agreed to speak out at a hastily arranged benefit —
the first public figure to do so. Your courage meant a great deal to our gay community
then, and your words were typically memorable: “Why on earth would the police object
to cleanliness?”
I understand you’re going to Israel in May, to accept the Dan David Prize at Tel
Aviv University. Will you find words for the Gaza students who wrote to you yesterday,
44 miles down the coast, asking you to refuse the prize? Will you mention the ongoing
seige of Gaza, and the larger occupation, whose check points and security wall have
reduced the region to an apartheid state? Will you mention the two unarmed teenagers
Mohammed Qadas, 16, and Asaud Qadus, 19, who were shot by Israeli army snipers last
week? His aunt says that Mohammed had gone out to buy ice-cream. Why on earth
would the army object to ice-cream?
I write today as a fan, someone who’s life was changed on reading A Handmaid’s
Tale, someone who still treasures my rare edition of The Journals of Susanna Moodie.
For decades, you’ve been an extraordinary role model for so many of us, embracing the
role of artist as a figure of conscience. You’ve consistently spoken out against a host of
injustices, even as you engaged with the complexities of each issue. In May, will you
decline this prize, in recognition of the growing boycott movement which is trying to
contribute to peace in the region? Will you at least speak out against the war crimes
committed a year ago? Will you perhaps donate a portion to a writers group in Gaza?
Will you at the very least acknowledge the complexities that this award, and this conflict,
represent? Or will you remain silent, making us wonder: why on earth would Margaret
Atwood of all people object to complexity?
Sincerely,
John Greyson
Associate Professor, filmmaker
York University, Toronto
Bresheeth letter to Margaret Atwood
April 5, 2010
Margaret Atwood
c/o McClelland & Stewart
75 Sherbourne St., 5th Floor
Toronto, ON
M5A 2P9
Canada
Dear Margaret,
I have recently learnt that you are to travel to Israel in May, to be awarded the prestigious Dan David prize. In any other circumstances, I would be both enormously pleased and proud for you and for us all. Like so many others (probably many millions) I was moved and influenced greatly by your writing. Your writing appeared at the historical juncture it was most needed, and was welcomed by us all for its courage, the challenges it offered, and the committed feminism which has never become ossified, never turned into a dogma but remained live and real.
The wide recognition your work has received worldwide has affected the life of many, not just women, but of feminist men such as myself. As you have become more than a mere teller of stories, and always were the master (sic) of social narratives, what you do and say carries an enormous weight, something you must be aware of more than anybody.
I am writing to beg you, as an Israeli Jew who is totally committed to Palestine and the human and political rights of the Palestinians, to give all of us your courageous support we have grown to expect and respect, and to take the unlikely stance of refusing this prize. I fully realize how difficult such a request must be for you; the recognition and international fame, not to mention the funds, surely means a lot to a writer who lives by her pen alone, and I do not for a moment wish to overlook this. So what right have I, or for that matter, anyone else, to ask you to deny yourself this mark of appreciation and honour, which I myself am sure you more than richly deserve?
I am asking personally for this great sacrifice on your part, as one of many Jews, and increasingly also Israelis, who recognize a historical duty to stand up and be counted, to stand with the Palestinians against their brutal oppressors, after many decades of an iniquitous and inhuman military occupation, with no end in sight. I am asking you also as a fellow artist, as an independent filmmaker, and as someone whose family was wiped out in Poland by the Nazis. As such, I am bound to disagree with what Israel, and Israeli society, has done in my name for so many years, to no avail but with much suffering caused. Israel is not a tyranny – it is a democracy, for Jews only, of course, and it calls itself a Jewish democracy, which I am sure you will agree is a difficult concept; I would argue it is an oxymoron. I am making this point because by receiving this prize, you will by definition tying your name to this militarized, brutalized and brutalizing society, denting any rights to the Palestinians, exiling them from their land, and killing numerous civilians through a combination of racism, nationalism and Orientalism for the crime of their identity.
This society depends on all of us for its continued violence – it depends on our silence, on our being co-opted, on our international acceptance of the ‘deeds done’; we should never agree to support it, I believe, until it radically changes all its practices and beliefs, and agrees to treat Palestinians as human beings with full rights. The change needed is deeper than that required by the South African society. Would you have travelled to South Africa during apartheid? I cannot believe so, and yet you may travel to a state which uses all the modern technology of warfare against helpless, impoverished and terrorized civilians, like the almost two millions trapped in Gaza? Of course, while Israel keeps doing that, no Israeli will be free; A people oppressing another people cannot itself be free.
By going there now, you would add your immense moral authority to a state of military thugs, a state founded on inequality and plunder, a state which continuously unsettles and terrorizes the Middle East, yet presents itself as a victim! Your support is crucial for Israel – it needs liberals from all over the world to cleanse its image, to help it argue its case, to present it as a normal society – all of which is behind its relentless efforts and expense in luring internationally-renown authors, artists and intellectuals to its halls of culture, to receive prizes for their work which supports humane values…
I would put it to you that you would not have travelled to Chile under Pinochet to receive a literary prize; why would you do so now in Israel?
By refusing this prize, you would be giving moral support for the struggle for just peace in the Middle East, and for the human and political rights of the Palestinians. I put it to you that the courage required for such a deed is the courage your own work have displayed and exemplified over the decades for us all! The refusal of this prize would indeed cement your humane record in a unique way, giving hope to a people whose hope was brutally murdered.
Dear Margaret – please do not forsake us!
Sincerely yours,
Prof. Haim Bresheeth
University of East London
UK
Jonathan Ben-Artzi: Peace for Israelis and Palestinians? Not without America’s tough love: IOA
By Jonathan Ben-Artzi, The Christian Science Monitor – 1 April 2010
Providence, R.I. — More than 20 years ago, many Americans decided they could no longer watch as racial segregation divided South Africa. Compelled by an injustice thousands of miles away, they demanded that their communities, their colleges, their municipalities, and their government take a stand.
As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Today, a similar discussion is taking place on campuses across the United States. Increasingly, students are questioning the morality of the ties US institutions have with the unjust practices being carried out in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories. Students are seeing that these practices are often more than merely “unjust.” They are racist. Humiliating. Inhumane. Savage.
Sometimes it takes a good friend to tell you when enough is enough. As they did with South Africa two decades ago, concerned citizens across the US can make a difference by encouraging Washington to get the message to Israel that this cannot continue.
A legitimate question is, Why should I care? Americans are heavily involved in the conflict: from funding (the US provides Israel with roughly $3 billion annually in military aid) to corporate investments (Microsoft has one of its major facilities in Israel) to diplomatic support (the US has vetoed 32 United Nations Security Council resolutions unsavory to Israel between 1982 and 2006).
Why do I care? I am an Israeli. Both my parents were born in Israel. Both my grandmothers were born in Palestine (when there was no “Israel” yet). In fact, I am a ninth-generation native of Palestine. My ancestors were among the founders of today’s modern Jerusalem.
Both my grandfathers fled the Nazis and came to Palestine. Both were subsequently injured in the 1948 Arab-Israli War. My mother’s only brother was a paratrooper killed in combat in 1968. All of my relatives served in the Israeli military for extensive periods of time, some of them in units most people don’t even know exist.
In Israel, military service for both men and women is compulsory. When my time to serve came, I refused, because I realized I was obliged to do something about these acts of segregation. I was denied conscientious objector status, like the majority of 18-year-old males who seek this status. Because I refused to serve, I spent a year and a half in military prison.
Some of the acts of segregation that I saw while growing up in Israel include towns for Jews only, immigration laws that allow Jews from around the world to immigrate but deny displaced indigenous Palestinians that same right, and national healthcare and school systems that receive significantly more funding in Jewish towns than in Arab towns.
As former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in 2008: “We have not yet overcome the barrier of discrimination, which is a deliberate discrimination and the gap is insufferable…. Governments have denied [Arab Israelis] their rights to improve their quality of life.”
The situation in the occupied territories is even worse. Nearly 4 million Palestinians have been living under Israeli occupation for over 40 years without the most basic human and civil rights.
One example is segregation on roads in the West Bank, where settlers travel on roads that are for Jews only, while Palestinians are stopped at checkpoints, and a 10-mile commute might take seven hours.
Another example is discrimination in water supply: Israel pumps drinking water from occupied territory (in violation of international law). Israelis use as much as four times more water than Palestinians, while Palestinians are not allowed to dig their own wells and must rely on Israeli supply.
Civil freedom is no better: In an effort to break the spirit of Palestinians, Israel conducts sporadic arrests and detentions with no judicial supervision. According to one prisoner support and human rights association, roughly 4 in 10 Palestinian males have spent some time in Israeli prisons. That’s 40 percent of all Palestinian males!
And finally, perhaps one of the greatest injustices takes place in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is collectively punishing more than 1.5 million Palestinians by sealing them off in the largest open-air prison on earth.
Because of the US’s relationship with Israel, it is important for all Americans to educate themselves about the realities of the conflict. When they do, they will realize that just as much as support for South Africa decades ago was mostly damaging for South Africa itself, contemporary blind support for Israel hurts us Israelis.
We must lift the ruthless siege of Gaza, which only breeds more anger and frustration among Gazans, who respond by hurling primitive, homemade rockets at Israeli towns.
We must remove travel restrictions from West Bank Palestinians. How can we live in peace with a population where most children cannot visit their grandparents living in the neighboring village, without being stopped and harassed at military checkpoints for hours?
Finally, we must give equal rights to all. Regardless of what the final resolution will be – the so-called “one state solution,” the “two state solution,” or any other form of governance.
Israel governs the lives of 5.5 million Israeli Jews, 1.5 million Israeli Palestinians, and 4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. As long as Israel is responsible for all of these people, it must ensure that all have equal rights, the same access to resources, and the same opportunities in education and healthcare. Only through such a platform of basic human rights for all humans can a resolution come to the region.
If Americans truly are our friends, they should shake us up and take away the keys, because right now we are driving drunk, and without this wake-up call, we will soon find ourselves in the ditch of an undemocratic, doomed state.
Jonathan Ben-Artzi was one of the spokespeople for the Hadash party in the Israeli general elections in 2006. His parents are professors in Israel, and his extended family includes uncle Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Ben-Artzi is a PhD student at Brown University in Providence, R.I.
We’re all right: Haaretz
By Amira Hass
Israelis really love to hear how good things are in Ramallah. This is the conclusion from talks with the kind of Israelis who don’t demonstrate with Palestinians and face teargas, rubber-coated bullets and beatings by Israeli soldiers, and who don’t spend hours closely watching what goes on at military courts and checkpoints.
It’s amazing what Israelis who live 12 minutes from the checkpoints of Qalandiyah and al-Za’im know, even though they have never set foot there and have never seen the wall blocking the sunsets, the watchtowers and the barbed wire fences. They know about the cafes, restaurants, fancy houses and traffic circles. It’s very similar to their intimate knowledge of the underground tunnels below Rafah.
Advertisement
The thought process here is obvious: The Palestinians have money, even in the Gaza Strip. They shouldn’t complain about a humanitarian crisis. We can go on living normally 12 or 21 minutes away from them, teach at the university, go to concerts and exhibitions, travel abroad and have fun in malls. We’re all right.
In a sense, the two Palestinian governments – the one in Gaza and the other in Ramallah – are also interested in relaying the message that they’re all right. Ismail Haniyeh’s government in Gaza is all right because it’s meeting the public’s needs thanks to the tunnel economy (from greasy french fries to fuel, from sheep for the feasts to cars). If only the Rafah crossing would open, you would see that we can have a better administration than Fatah’s. This propaganda, by the way, is well received by mainstream people in the West Bank who don’t have a 2010 model car or a good salary in a prestigious nongovernmental organization.
And Salam Fayyad’s government in the West Bank is all right because it’s finally proving that there is an administration that knows how to build institutions on the way to statehood. Of course, it should be said in favor of this government that it does not stress the improvement of superficial consumer issues (of the kind Israelis are keen to point out), and that it takes the trouble to relay messages that undermine Israel’s claims. No, most of the checkpoints have not been removed; the improvement is because of the Palestinians and despite the occupation. All the settlements, including those in East Jerusalem, are illegal. Area C? This letter is nowhere to be found in our alphabet. And that unarmed popular struggle is the other aspect of building institutions.
But there are traps in this “all right.” Just as Paris’ 16th arrondissement and Ramat Aviv Gimel (not to mention the Akirov Towers) are not representative, neither is Ramallah. This city attracts people with generous incomes, who are not the majority, as well as the money of the building contractors and merchants. Its prosperity does not yet reflect an overall productive recovery: The Palestinians have far from met their potential, first and foremost because of the occupation. Some 60 percent of their territory (C) is banned to Palestinians – so what can we expect? Every month tens of thousands of civil servants fear that their modest wages will not be paid on time. In villages and smaller towns, not to mention the refugee camps, unemployment is even more evident.
The biggest trap is the growing gap between the general population and the layer of society that represents that population to the outside (in politics, in the NGOs, the media and culture). It is impossible to blame only the occupation for this. You don’t have to directly embezzle funds to live exceptionally well. The Palestinians have a great deal to learn from the Israelis about the direct link between political and military status and well-padded salaries.
But for the Palestinians, the unacceptable gaps and the atmosphere of detachment and indulgence in Ramallah are impeding the popular struggle for independence. For more and more people to adopt the courage and persistence of the protesters in the villages, they must trust their representatives. They must trust that the individual is not being sent as cannon fodder, while their leadership pays them lip service and gives handouts to the popular struggle. They must trust that their leaders are not taking advantage of their sacrifice and that they are building institutions that will ensure quality medical treatment and education – also for people who can’t go to private clinics and schools.
This is the Fayyad government’s pressing mission before setting up a state in 2011. Its duty is to divide the national income in a just way and narrow the stark inequality that the prosperity in Ramallah reflects. This is not an anachronistic slogan but a necessary precondition for the existence of a popular struggle.
Palestinian official: U.S. bid to revive Mideast talks at dead-end: Haaretz
The United States has reached a dead end in its attempts to revive Middle East peace talks, a senior Palestinian official said on Tuesday.
The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority has demanded a full halt to Israeli settlement building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank before any resumption of negotiations suspended since December 2008.
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the Palestinians wanted U.S. guarantees that Israel would not issue more tenders to build on land where the Palestinians aim to establish a state, including East Jerusalem.
Advertisement
Israel must also cancel plans announced last month for more building in parts of Jerusalem it captured, along with the West Bank in a 1967 war, Erekat added.
“This is what we expect,” Erekat told Voice of Palestine radio.
“But it appears that all the consultations that have happened with the Israeli government and the American administration and other states have reached a dead end with Israeli positions insisting on a continuation of settlement.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had met U.S. Consul General Daniel Rubinstein on Monday, Erekat added.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who met U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington last month, has yet to respond formally to a U.S. demand for confidence-building steps to try to persuade Palestinians to return to peace talks.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned the Palestinian Authority this week against plans to declare independence unilaterally next year, saying such a move could prompt Israel to annex parts of the West Bank and annul past peace agreements.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, whose Western-backed government has a limited governing role in the Israeli-controlled West Bank, has announced plans to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state, possibly as early as the summer of 2011 – even without a peace deal.
Toward that aim, Fayyad has begun ambitious reforms of the government and
security forces, building up Palestinian institutions and developing the
economy in preparation for independence.
The international community has welcomed Fayyad’s reform efforts, raising
fears in Israel that a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood could win international recognition.
Lieberman warned that Israel would not tolerate such a step, and could revoke a series of agreements made under the so-called Oslo interim peace accords of the 1990s or even annex parts of the West Bank.
“Any unilateral decision will release us from all of our commitments and will allow us also to make unilateral decisions,” Lieberman was quoted as saying by Israeli media.
“For example, imposing Israeli sovereignty on certain areas, cutting off all kinds of ties and transfers of money and a string of benefits and agreements put into place since the Oslo accords,” he said.
The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank and East Jerusalem – areas
captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War – as part of their future state.
Peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians have been on hold since late 2008, with a new round of indirect talks being held up by a spat over Israeli construction in East Jerusalem
Israel destroys Gaza dairy for second time: Electronic Intifada
Rami Almeghari writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 5 April 2010
It was not a chemical plant, nor a nuclear facility, nor a manufacturer of weapons of mass destruction. But almost all the rubble of the entirely destroyed factory was covered in white, with white chunks everywhere. These were pieces of cheese, butter and yoghurt — some of the products made by the Dalloul dairy factory in southern Gaza City.
Israeli warplanes bombed the factory shortly after midnight last Thursday through Friday night, 1-2 April, leaving the building, all its equipment and the distribution van completely destroyed.
“At 12:30am we heard a very loud explosion nearby,” said owner Mutassim Dalloul as he inspected the wreckage on Friday morning. “I got downstairs to find my factory completely destroyed. Everything inside, including the machines, the power generator and all our products, [was destroyed].”
This was not the first Israeli attack on the factory.
“During the January 2009 war on Gaza, Israeli warplanes hit my factory, inflicting an estimated loss of half a million dollars. However, my brothers and I decided to rebuild it, so we now have a newly-destroyed dairy,” Dalloul said. He estimated the losses from the latest attack to be at least $100,000.
The Dalloul dairy is located in southern Gaza City, far away from the Gaza-Israel boundary. The factory distributed its products all over the city.
“At least 60 family members used to be supported from the work at this diary. I myself have a family of nine, including myself and my wife. My two brothers along with a number of other workers used to work at this factory, trying to get by under these harsh circumstances,” Dalloul patiently explained, despite his loss.
The attack on the Dalloul factory was part of about a dozen air raids carried out across the Gaza Strip in what Israel said was a response to rockets fired from Gaza into nearby Israeli towns (Palestinian resistance factions for their part say their rocket fire is a response to constant Israeli attacks on Gaza). Israeli leaders have publicly threatened harsh attacks on the territory after Palestinian resistance fighters killed two Israeli soldiers when an Israeli patrol made an incursion into the Gaza Strip last week.
International officials have warned in recent days against an escalation in violence, and the Palestinian prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, called for international intervention to prevent further deterioration. Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper reported on 5 April that representatives of all Palestinian factions in Gaza, except for Fatah which declined to attend, had met to discuss a moratorium on rocket fire into Israel, while reserving the right to self-defense.
“I cannot imagine what my factory has to do with the ongoing situation,” Dalloul said. “Can you see a homemade rocket? Can you see a single bullet? Can you see a gun? Why did they attack my dairy?”
Since June 2007 — when Israel tightened its blockade of Gaza — the economy has sunk into a deep depression as unemployment has hit as high as 70 percent. Poverty among the 1.5 million residents has reached unprecedented levels with more than 80 percent of the population dependent on food aid provided by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees. The dire situation is the result of Israel’s closure, according to numerous international assessments. Although Israel erratically opens border crossings for the import of food and other basic necessities to Gaza, only a fraction of the people’s requirements get in.
Dalloul’s was one of the few dairies meeting Gaza’s needs. In one corner of the factory, Haroun Dalloul, who worked at the factory, was picking up pieces of cheese. “I didn’t imagine I would get up this sad morning to throw the cheese into trash cans, instead of helping distribute it,” he said.
Mustafa al-Qayed, a local resident, expressed resentment at the attack: “The destroyed factory used to provide our neighborhood with milk and cheese daily.” He noted that the prices of the locally-made products were much lower than the Israeli products that were occasionally imported into Gaza.
According to economic assessments in Gaza, approximately 95 percent of Gaza’s local industrial facilities have been forced to shut down because of the closure of Gaza’s commercial crossings. The closing of the these facilities has rendered more than 70,000 Gaza laborers jobless. Dalloul’s dairy, along with several metal workshops Israel also destroyed in the latest attacks, were vital to Gaza’s economy.
During its December 2008-January 2009 attack on Gaza, Israel destroyed a number of other facilities central to Gaza’s food supply, including the al-Badr flour mill — the only functioning one in in the territory — and the Sawafiry chicken farm which supplied the vast majority of the territory’s eggs. The UN-commissioned Goldstone report found that these attacks, as well as others on Gaza’s water, food and agricultural infrastructure, appeared to be part of a deliberate pattern and constituted violations of the right to food, as well as possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.
However, manufacturers like Dalloul are determined to get their businesses back up and running.
“The same way we rebuilt our factory that was bombarded during the war, we are determined to rebuild this one,” Mutassim Dalloul said. “We are determined with a great deal of hope to resume our production, to say to our enemy that whatever you do will never make us succumb.”
Meanwhile, Dalloul greeted well-wishers arriving to the factory offering sympathy and support.
Rami Almeghari is a journalist and university lecturer based in the Gaza Strip.