DCI/Palestine "is a national section of the international non-government child rights organisation and movement (dedicated) to promoting and protecting the rights of Palestinian children," according to international law principles.

On December 28, it submitted a complaint [PDF] to several UN authorities titled, "The use of solitary confinement on Palestinian children held in Israeli detention." It's specifically for five children held at Al Jalame and Petah Tikva interrogation centers in Israel.

Their cases follow 29 others since February 2008. At both facilities, "solitary confinement is routinely used."

Though no universally agreed on definition exists, the Istanbul Statement on the Use and Effects of Solitary Confinement defines it as physically isolating prisoners in cells for 22 to 24 hours daily. Human contact is minimized, including quantitative and qualitative stimuli.

The harmful psychological and physical effects are well documented. They include:

• severe anxiety;
• panic attacks;
• lethargy;
• insomnia;
• nightmares;
• dizziness;
• irrational anger, at time uncontrollable;
• confusion;
• social withdrawal;
• memory loss;
• appetite loss;
• delusions and hallucinations;
• mutilations;
• profound despair and hopelessness;
• suicidal thoughts;
• paranoia; and
• for many, a totally dysfunctional state and inability ever to live normally outside of confinement.

As a result, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez called for totally banning it for children. Calling it "torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," he stopped short of demanding its prohibition against everyone.

In 2007, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child urged the practice be "strictly forbidden."

Israel Spurns All International Laws with Impunity

Israel frequently isolates adults and children, notably Palestinians. Facilities most commonly used include Al Mascobiyya interrogation center in Jerusalem, Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv, and Al Jalame near Haifa.

Israel's Prison Service (IPS), Israel Security Agency (ISA), and Israeli police administer these facilities.

From February 2008 through November 2011, DCI/Palestine documented 34 child abuse cases. They endured "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and in some cases, torture, in violation of the" Torture Convention, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Fourth Geneva.

Israel spurns all international laws with impunity, including those pertaining to war, occupation, and fundamental humanitarian and human rights.

At Al Jalame, children are held in 2 x 3 meter cells. In 2009, one child endured 65 days of punishment. All of them sleep on concrete beds, or on the floor on thin, dirty, foul-smelling mattresses. Meals pass through door flaps, depriving them of human contact.

Al Jalame's "Cell No. 36 (like all isolation ones) has "sharp protrusions preventing the children from leaning against them for support." It's windowless with artificial light only coming from dim internal lighting kept on 24 hours a day.

As a result, "(s)ome children report suffering pain behind their eyes and adverse psychological effects."

Harsh treatment, including prolonged isolation, painful shackling, physical violence and torture are used to extract confessions.

Children at Al Jalame and other interrogation facilities are generally denied access to lawyers and family visits in violation of Fourth Geneva and other international laws.

DCI/Palestine submitted complaints for five Palestinian children. They were identified only by initials, age, gender, ID No., and place of origin.

On October 15, 2011, Israeli soldiers arrested OA at 2AM from home. He was blindfolded, painfully shackled, placed in a military vehicle, taken to Huwwara interrogation center in Palestine, forced to sit on the ground until dawn, and refused permission to use a toilet.

Later that morning he was taken to Petah Tikva interrogation center in Israel in violation of Fourth Geneva. He was stripped searched, and denied legal counsel. With his hands tied to a chair, he was interrogated by a man called "Morris."

Accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli jeep, he denied it. After two hours of interrogation, he was placed in isolation he described as follows:

"It was a very small cell with a mattress on the floor, a toilet and two concrete seats. It did not have any windows, just a vent for air conditioning. It was very cold because of the air conditioning. I could not sleep because there was a yellow light on 24 hours a day. I was detained in the cell for two days, before being transferred to Al Jalame."

There, he was isolated for five days. His detention was extended. He wasn't in court and doesn't know if counsel represented him. He was then sent back to Petah Tikva, held another nine days under identical conditions, and interrogated twice before confessing, saying:

"I was in a very bad psychological state, so I decided to confess. I confessed to throwing Molotov cocktails and stones at army jeeps," even though he was innocent.

Isolated for 16 days, he's now at Megiddo prison in Israel.

Others DCI/Palestine represented told similar stories. They were falsely charged, arrested, interrogated, isolated and harshly treated overall. Israel treats children like adults, some young as 10.

International laws were grievously violated, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). It's Article 37(b) states:

"The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child...shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time."

In fact, Palestinian children are routinely arrested at checkpoints, on streets, going to or coming from school, tending olive groves, at play, and (most commonly) at home in the middle of the night.

Usually it's from midnight to 4AM. Family members are threatened not to intervene. If they try, they're assaulted and forced onto streets in their nightclothes, regardless of weather, and given no explanation.

Typically, arrests are lawless and violent. Homes are broken into unannounced. Property is damaged or stolen. Children are blindfolded, shackled, often beaten, then thrust into jeeps, sometimes face down.

In interrogation centers, inhumane treatment continues, including beatings, verbal abuse and intimidation. Most often, lawyers aren't present until questioning ends with a signed Hebrew confession children can't read or understand. Once gotten, they're used to convict even though torture extracted evidence is inadmissible under international law.

Article 15 of the UN Convention Against Torture states:

"Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made."

In custody, children endure:

• blindfolding and painful shackling;
• beatings;
• violent shaking;
• sleep deprivation;
• solitary confinement;
• other forms of sensory deprivation;
• no food and water for extended periods;
• poor quality or inedible food when gotten;
• no access to toilets, showers and clean clothes;
• exposure to extreme heat or cold;
• painful stress positions for extended periods;
• sexual abuse;
• threats, insults and cursing; and
• extremely loud noises.

Often parents and siblings are also arrested, beaten, detained, and their homes sometimes demolished.

Under Military Order 132, children aged 12 - 13 receive maximum six month sentences. Those aged 14 - 15 usually face 12 months, but can receive up to five years.

More serious offenders face no limits. Military Order 378 permits up to 20 years for stone-throwing (the most common offense charged). Moreover, children 16 or older are considered adults and treated no differently. Under international law, adulthood begins at age 18.

Under military occupation, Israel's system is rigged to convict and brutalize before and after incarceration, despite Fourth Geneva's Article 147 requiring fair trials, and holding those responsible for denying them criminally liable.

International law also forbids torture, other abuse and inhumane treatment at all times, under all conditions with no allowed exceptions. Israel ignores all international laws. It does what it please, including against children young as 10 no matter their innocence.

DCI/Palestine and other human rights organizations demand these crimes against humanity end and those responsible held accountable. So far it hasn't happened.

The use of solitary confinement on Palestinian children held in Israeli detention

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

[[Show as slideshow]]

By Stephen Lendman* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

On September 10, Israel's YnetNews.com headlined, "IDF sexually abused Palestinian children," headlining:

"Damning (September 9) CNN report cites uncorroborated sexual abuse charges of Palestinian children detained by IDF." Military officials refused to "respond to abuse charges as no details (were) provided," a spokesman saying "We cannot address general claims on the subject in the absence of a specific complaint."

CNN's report "featured an unidentified Palestinian boy claiming that IDF forces attempted to insert an object into his rectum," and that dozens of officers present stood around laughing while it happened. [watch report here]

The network cited Defence of Children International (DCI) as its source, an independent NGO involved in promoting and protecting children's rights globally for over 30 years, founded on the date the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) passed 10 years later.

In May 2010, it asked the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture to investigate 14 cases of sexual assault or threatened assault it uncovered - committed by Israeli soldiers, interrogators, and police from January 2009 - April 2010. The abused children were from 13 - 16 years old, detained for offenses like stone-throwing harming no one.

DCI-Palestine expressed alarm about sworn affidavits children provided, explaining instances of sexual assault or threatened assault to obtain confessions. In 2009 alone, DCI reviewed 100 sworn affidavits attesting to the following:

-- 97% of children said their hands were tied during interrogations;

-- 92% said they were blindfolded or hooded;

-- 81% said forced confessions were made;

-- 69% said they were beaten or kicked;

-- 65% said they were arrested from midnight to 4AM;

-- 50% said they were verbally abused;

-- 49% cited threats or inducements;

-- 32% were forced to sign confessions in Hebrew they didn't understand;

-- 26% cited painful position abuse;

-- 14% were in solitary confinement;

-- 12% were threatened with sexual assault; and

-- 4%, in fact, were sexually assaulted.

It included grabbing boys by the testicles until they confessed, and threatening others as young as 13 with rape unless they admitted to "throwing stones at Israeli settler vehicles in the occupied West Bank."

DCI suspects these figures "may understate the extent of the problem," a conclusion substantiated in an earlier article titled "Palestinian Children Under Occupation."

In its April 2008 report, the Palestinian Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs said over 7,000 children had been arrested since September 2000, the start of the second Intifada. About 360 were still held, some as young as 10, treated as harshly as adults, in violation of international law requiring special treatment for children.

Of these, 145 had been sentenced, 200 awaited trial, and 15 were being administratively held without charge for offenses as trivial as stone-throwing. The report also said about 500 youths arrested turned 18 in prison. About 75 were ill and not treated, and nearly all had been tortured or abused by beatings, hooding, painful shackling, and sleep deprivation for several days in the shabeh position.

It involves binding their hands and feet to a small chair, at times from behind to a pipe affixed to the wall, painfully slanted forward, hooded with a filthy sack, and played loud music nonstop through loudspeakers.

The article includes more on their treatment during detention and under occupation, clear evidence of state-sponsored brutality, flagrantly violating international law, Israel's specialty.

DCI-Palestine cited a 15 year old boy's experience after being arrested in September 2009 at 2AM at home:

"While sitting on the ground near the truck, a person speaking Arabic approached me and grabbed my hands and ordered me to stand up and accompany him. He grabbed me so violently and pulled me. He forced me to walk with him for about 20 meters, and I could see from under the blindfold that we stopped behind a military jeep. He slapped me hard twice and grabbed my testicles so hard and started pressing them. Then, he asked me whether I threw stones and Molotov cocktails and I said I did not."

"He started shouting and saying 'liar,' your mother's c..t.' He started beating me all over my body and once again grabbed my testicles and started pressing hard. 'I won't let go of your testicles unless you confess,' he said to me. I felt so much pain and kept shouting. I had no other choice but to confess" to stop the pain.

Every year, around 700 children are arrested, most for stone-throwing, then interrogated with no lawyer or family member present, prosecuted, and sentenced. Over 80% signed forced confessions, one-third written in Hebrew they don't understand. After conviction in military, not civil, court, most are imprisoned in violation of Fourth Geneva's Article 76. Its provisions include assuring "Proper regard....paid to the special treatment due to minors," one of many laws Israel violates, children abused like adults.

When confronted with hard evidence, Israel denies it, saying it respects and observes international law, when, in fact, it's abusively and consistently in violation.

On May 10, Haaretz writer Amira Hass covered the child abuse story, headlining "Over 100 Palestinian minors reported abuse in IDF, police custody in 2009," saying:

"69 minors complained of being beaten, four minors reported being sexually assaulted, and 12 said they were threatened with sexual assault."

She added that most were intimidated, abused, and maltreated in custody, before and during interrogations. In addition, they got no food or water for many hours and were forced to name others to stop being mistreated.

DCI-Palestine legal advisor Khaled Kuzmar said many parents don't complain to authorities, having no "confidence in the system that abuses them." It's true. Police and military officials rarely investigate, and when do it, absolve abusers, victims not Jewish afforded no justice.

Like always, an IDF Spokesman dismissed "claims of deliberate deviation from procedures for arresting and interrogating minors, (saying their) arrests are carried out in keeping with international law; the arrests of suspects under 16 years old in the West Bank requires a military lawyer's approval....Minors are brought before a judge within a relatively short period."

He lied, including about quick resolution before a judge. In fact, children and adults are often held for weeks or months before appearing for trial or accepting a plea bargain, Israel's corrupted injustice system for anyone not Jewish - even children as young as 9 or 10.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

By Lawrence Davidson* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

I. The Usual Suspects

Back on August 23, 2010 Israel's most prestigious human rights organization, B'Tselem released a short report on the condition of water supplies in the Gaza Strip. Referencing the United Nations Environment Program as well as the Palestine Water Authority, B'Tselem reported that the Strip's underground water system is in such bad repair that, even if rehabilitation was begun immediately, it would take twenty years for it to be restructured as a modern system. This is compounded by the dilapidated state of the Gaza wastewater-system which is also antiquated. As a result it is estimated that "40% of the incidence of disease in Gaza is related to polluted drinking water." B'Tselem blames this shocking situation on the Israeli government. "Since it began its siege on the Gaza Strip, in June 2007, Israel has forbidden the entry of equipment and materials needed to rehabilitate the water and wastewater-treatment systems there." The blockade of these materials remains in place to this day. Finally, during its "Operation Cast Lead" invasion of the Gaza Strip, Israel targeted the water networks, treatment plants, wells, and even home water tanks.

Israel's great power patron is the United States. This arrangement entails American protection of the Zionist state from the legal consequences that should result due to its purposeful harming of civilians. The United States, sitting as a permanent member of the UN Security Council has, in recent years, cast some forty vetoes so as to shield its ally from accusations of violations of international law. Actually this action by the United States is entirely logical. Why so? Because both the U.S. and Israel are practicing the exact same tactics against civilian populations.

Back in September 2001 George Washington University professor Thomas Nagy revealed the existence of Defense Intelligence Agency documents" proving beyond a doubt that, contrary to the Geneva Convention, the U.S. government intentionally used sanctions against Iraq to degrade the country's water supply after the Gulf War. The United States knew the cost that civilian Iraqis, mostly children, would pay, and it went ahead anyway." On May 12, 1996 some of the horrible consequences of this policy were revealed when the CBS news program 60 Minutes reported that roughly half million Iraqi children had died as a consequence of U.S. imposed sanctions. This led to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's infamous answer to the question, "is the price worth it?" Her reply was yes "we think the price is worth it." Albright later apologized, not for the murderous policy for which she was partially responsible, but rather for the fact that her answer to the above question had "aggravated our public relations problems" in the Middle East. As to domestic reaction, her comment "went unremarked in the U.S." Subsequently, in 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq using the strategy of "rapid dominance" (more popularly known as "shock and awe"). The object of this strategy was to "paralyze" the enemy's "will to carry on" through the disruption of "means of communication, transportation, food production, water supply, and other aspects of infrastructure." One of the targets of the bombing campaign that led off the invasion was Iraq's electrical grid. That directly impacted the country's ability to process clean water.

II. Resulting Criminal Status

Neither American nor Israeli behavior is legal under international law. It is all a violation of Article 54 of Protocol I, Part IV, of the Geneva Conventions (1977). The law reads, "It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as ...drinking water installations and supplies...whatever the motive whether in order to starve out the civilian population, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive." What this means is that the political leaders of the United States and Israel (among other countries) who have devised and implemented this, and similar strategies, are indictable as war criminals. Further, they almost certainly know this to be so. That is why they must dismiss international law as "obsolete" as did Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his minions in 2004.

As to "motives" for purposely destroying the civilian infrastructures of whole nations, it would seem that in both cases, that of the United States in Iraq and Israel in Gaza, the aggressors sought to induce the civilian population to either just give up out of exhaustion or turn against the regimes ruling over them. The assumption that such a strategy will achieve such results is remarkably naive. Historically, it has almost never happened. For instance, despite the massive conventional bombing of British, Japanese and German cities during World War II, the populations rallied around their flags! And so, one can conclude that our present leaders and strategists who pursue such an end through these means simply know no history. This is a good example of a case where ignorance, here leading to massive death and destruction, is a de facto criminal state of mind.

III. The Issue of Double Standards

This state of affairs raises the seminal question of what will be the fate of international law as it applies to the protection of civilian populations? Today, the most we can say is that enforcement is selective and, in a certain odd way, "class based." In other words if you are the leader of a small state lacking a great power patron you are indeed subject to this sort of international law. For example, if you are the leader of Serbia, Sudan, Chile, Rwanda, Congo, etc. and persecute civilian populations you have a rather good chance of being brought before a tribunal such as the International Criminal Court. If, however, you are an American, Israeli, Russian, Chinese or British leader, etc. you have almost zero risk. You know the statue of Justice standing blindfolded holding up a scale? Well, she is peeking.

However, there is an interesting loop hole that can lead us around the problem of double standards. Since the 1990s the concept of universal jurisdiction has gained popularity. This is the legal notion that ordinary people in one country can seek to bring to trial those who allegedly violated public international law in an altogether different country. It is under this law that General Ernesto Pinochet of Chile was detained in England in 1998. Of course, the aged general, who was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of his countrymen, was relatively "lower class." That is, he was the ex-dictator of a country that has no real influence in the international arena and no great power patron. So, he was vulnerable.

What happens when such a law is applied to Americans or Israelis? Well, in 2003 U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in what can only be described as an act of imperial blackmail, threatened to remove NATO's headquarters from the city of Brussels unless "Belgium revoked legislation giving its courts the power to prosecute foreigners for alleged war crimes committed anywhere in the world." Rumsfeld was reacting against a move by Belgian human rights lawyers seeking the indictment of General Tommy Franks, then commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, for the illegal use of cluster bombs against civilian populations. The Belgian government quickly amended their universal jurisdiction law to meet American demands. Then in May 2010 Israel's opposition leader Tzipi Livni found that it was inadvisable to visit England because there was an arrest warrant waiting for her. The charge was war crimes associated with the Israeli invasion of Gaza. This attack took place while she was Foreign Minister. Livni was not Pinochet. For one thing she had a great power patron in Washington, and secondly the U.K. itself has a powerful Zionist lobby. The British government quickly announced that it would seek to rewrite the country's law on universal jurisdiction.

IV. Conclusion

The rules produced by our legislatures, by the United Nations Charter and by our ratified treaties are not supra-human. We make them for our own benefit so that we may live in communities with congenial standards of behavior and thus pass our days productively and in relative security. And, since we make them we can unmake them. That is exactly what too many of our leaders are now trying to do in terms of public international law. They have contrived such double standards that the laws against the wanton slaughter of civilians simply do not apply if committed by the strong. It is only the weak who are to be held accountable for their crimes.

If those in civil society do not like this arrangement they will have to fight hard against it. And here in the West it is our own state institutions and their leaders that we must fight against, for it is they who are the most ardent hypocrites when it comes to international law. It is they who demand immunity for the slaying of the innocent (who they conveniently dehumanize as "collateral damage"). They refuse to go after their criminal predecessors lest they too be held responsible for similar crimes (as in the case of President Obama). Where necessary they bully others into turning a blind eye to their crimes (as with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld). And, if we in civil society, press them hard they will simply seek to change the law to suit their dehumanizing policies. We might here repeat a question once asked, some 94 years ago by a Russian legislator who stood appalled by the bloody slaughter brought on by his government's strategy during World War I. He asked, "is this stupidity or is it treason?" I will leave the reader to seek his own answer.

There are so many battles to be fought that one can easily get frustrated and discouraged. In truth, however, they are really all just parts of a larger struggle. They add up to the struggle for humane rules, their universal application, and no double standards. The law must cease to be "class based." Only then can one approach a less unjust society than our present one. It is really a battle for the type of world we want to live in - our world or theirs.

* Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

A human rights group is accusing Israel of mistreating Palestinian child detainees. CNN's Paula Hancocks reports.

For more reports on Israeli abuse of Palestinian kids:
Defence for Children International - Palestine Section
ADDAMEER Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association

By Amira Hass* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Nighttime raids, pointed guns, arrests often accompanied by beatings, kicks, curses and painful and extended handcuffing. The ordinary behavior of Israeli children in uniform.

Children in the West Bank throw stones at army vehicles and Israeli cars, mainly those belonging to settlers. That is the undeniable truth. Throwing stones is the classic way of telling the occupier, who is armed from head to toe, that he has forced himself on the occupied. Sometimes it's part of a sweeping resistance movement, sometimes it's a ceremonial remnant of such a movement, not devoid of braggadocio and adolescent boredom, while also a reminder to adults not to adapt.

The armed occupier bellows that this is violence, an offense just a step away from firearms. The violence of the occupier is the norm that no one questions, so much so that it becomes invisible. Only the response to that norm is presented and perceived as criminal, and the occupying nation wallows pleasurably in its eternal victimhood to justify its violent actions.

The army, especially the military justice system, has abundant means to deter young people from taking part in those ceremonies to ward off adjustment. Nighttime raids, pointed guns, arrests often accompanied by beatings, kicks, curses and painful and extended handcuffing. The ordinary behavior of Israeli children in uniform, completely normative. From the frightening conditions of such arrests, Palestinian children are taken straight to interrogation. This, too, involves intimidation, threats and sometimes a blow, sometimes temptation: Admit that you threw stones and we'll let you go. Because detention until the end of legal proceedings might be longer than the sentence itself, sometimes it's preferable to admit to something you did not do.

Eight 16-year-old students at the El-Arub agricultural school refused to be part of the statistic of confessions under pressure in the so-called military justice system. Three soldiers who arrested them in October 2008 testified to the police that their detainees had thrown stones on Route 60, and the soldiers caught them on the road after chasing them. The indictments were tailored to the soldiers' account of events.

But the truth was that the teens were pulled out of their classrooms by soldiers who drove into the school compound. The police did not bother to question the principal and his teachers, the prosecution did not append corroborating evidence to the "stone-throwing incident" (such as documentation of the incident by the police or an army war room ). And still, the military judge extended the remand of the eight teens until the end of the proceedings. A soldier's word against the word of a Palestinian boy.

The appeals judge was somewhat discomfitted by the vague testimony the soldiers gave the police and ordered the boys released on very high bail. The military prosecution tried, as usual, to get the defense attorney (from the Ad-Damir human rights group ), to sign a plea bargain (you confess, we'll ask for a suspended sentence and a fine ), to save everyone's time, especially the court's. The boys were adamant in their refusal. The three soldiers, therefore, had to testify in court after they were warned to tell the truth, and they were very unconvincing.

On July 12, after almost two years of "wasting the court's time," the prosecution asked that the indictments be dropped. According to the IDF Spokesman's Office, "there was no determination by a court of law that the soldiers lied in their testimony," which is true, and that "in agreeing to drop the indictment there is no implication regarding the credibility of the soldiers' testimony." Sure.

Indeed, the soldiers acted the way many had acted before them. What they did is not devoid of the adolescent braggadocio that their society accepts affectionately and leniently. In particular, they are obeying unwritten orders to deter potential activists against the occupation. Blows, twisting the truth and intimidation are all part of the system they did not invent.

* Amira Hass is a prominent Israeli journalist and author, mostly known for her columns in the daily newspaper Ha'aretz. She is particularly recognized for her reporting on Palestinian affairs in the West Bank and Gaza, where she has also lived for a number of years.
The daughter of two Holocaust survivors, and was educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. On Oct. 20, the International Women's Media Network reward Hass the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award. Hass was the recipient of the Press Freedom Hero award from the International Press Institute in 2000, the Bruno Kreisky Human Rights Award in 2002, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2003, the inaugural award from the Anna Lindh Memorial Fund in 2004 and Hrant Dink Memorial Award in 2009.

By Khalid Amayreh* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The cruel Israeli regime is organizing a fresh campaign to demand the release of one of its occupation soldiers, detained in a secret Gaza location.

The new campaign, publicized by the Jewish-controlled media in Europe and North America, is assuming many expressions, including protests led by the soldier’s family, a propaganda ship organized by the American Jewish followers of the Nazi-minded rabbi Meir Kahana, and a call by happy-go-lucky French President Nicolas Sarkozy for the unconditional release of the Israeli soldier.

This is the same Sarkozy who kept silent during the murderous Israeli onslaught against the defenseless people of Gaza eighteen months ago. He is now invoking humanitarianism and charity as if the thousands of Gaza children, men and women, annihilated or maimed by the Israeli army were non-humans.

It is true that Gilad Shalit is not being accorded a five-star treatment. But this is not due to any presumed sadistic urges on Hamas’s part to torment the young soldier who is likely to have the blood of many children on his hands.

In Israel, it is difficult to find an adult Israeli male whose hands have not been stained with Palestinian blood. After all, Israel is a society of murderers and child-killers. It is a society whose members Zionism has transformed into racists, cannibals and Nazi-minded murderers and child killers.

Indeed, were it not for the fact that Israel has been making constant and meticulous efforts to discover his whereabouts and liberate him by force, there is no doubt that Hamas would allow the International Commission of the Red Cross, even his family, to visit him.

But Israel, a country that murders peace activists on high seas and then calls the cold-blooded murder “armed confrontations with terrorists,” can’t be trusted.

Palestinians have had a long and bitter experience with Israeli treachery. This is why Hamas can’t allow itself to make the slightest risk in this regard. Yes, one might sympathize with Shalit at a certain human level. However, Shalit is only one person while the entire Palestinian people are held hostage by an evil regime that can only be compared with history’s worst.

There are, of course, other aspects to this sensitive issue. Israel detains thousands of Palestinian political and resistance prisoners in its dungeons. And as the recently-freed Palestinian Islamic leader Sheikh Nayef Rajoub revealed, many of these prisoners are being subjected to Medieval savagery at the hands of those claiming to be “a light upon the nations.”

For those who have forgotten, Shalit was taken prisoner in battlefield. Moreover, had Israel succeeded in carrying out a rescue operation, he would have most likely got killed.

This is probably the endgame that Israel wishes for its imprisoned soldier. A dead Shalit would be a Hasbara bonanza for the Zionist propaganda machine. On the one hand, it would allow Israel to torture and kill more Palestinian political prisoners (several Palestinian prisoners died recently due to torture, medical negligence and other causes). It would also absolve Israel from freeing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners as demanded by Hamas and insisted by the vast bulk of the Palestinian masses, irrespective of their political orientation.

To be sure, Hamas had been negotiating in good faith with Israel, hoping to reach a dignified breakthrough that would see the repatriation of Shalit to his family in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian detainees to their families. That would be a win-win formula for everyone.

However, the Israeli government consistently and arrogantly rejected this logical proposal, making racist arguments which even the leaders and ideologues of the Third Reich didn’t dare to make.

For example, Israeli leaders routinely invoke the mendacious canard that the Judeo-Nazi state cannot free prisoners who have Jewish blood on their hands. Well, what about the thousands or tens thousands of Israelis who have Palestinian, Lebanese and now Turkish blood on their hands? Is non-Jewish blood less red than Jewish blood?

Israel doesn’t dare indulge in a genuine argument in this regard. The reason is simple. Israel views the blood and lives of non-Jews as insignificant, at least in comparison to Jewish blood and Jewish lives. Just try to have a brief conversation with a rabbi and you will be more than shocked hearing what he will be saying in this regard.

In any case, Hamas must not show the slightest sign of fatigue vis-à-vis Israel because the lives and freedom of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are at stake. Hamas has been successfully managing this Shalit affair for over three years. Israel committed untold massacres and has been imposing a manifestly criminal siege on 1.7 million human beings, in the hope of creating a crack in Hamas’s wall of steadfastness. But neither Israeli pressure, nor western conspiracy, nor Arab collusion and Palestinian Authority treachery, have succeeded in pressurizing Hamas to give in or give up.

In the final analysis, Hamas has a huge moral responsibility toward thousands of Palestinian families whose children are languishing in Israeli concentration camps and dungeons.

Needless to say, these people have spent the prime of their lives in Israeli prisons so that their people will be able to live in dignity and in order to maintain the hope for freedom and liberation from evil Zionism.

Hence, we must not hesitate to proclaim and reassert the Palestinian position in this regard, namely that Shalit must stay behind bars as long as Israel insists on keeping our men, and women and children behind bars.

This position may not be popular in New York and Paris. But why show the slightest concern about what Paris and New York think in the first place. They have always been and continue to be our direct or indirect tormentors. Our responsibility is first and foremost toward these tortured Palestinian prisoners and their suffering families who have kept our national just cause alive.

In a nutshell, our prisoners are not children of a lesser God.

* Khalid Amayreh a journalist based in the Occupied Palestinian town of Dura. He obtained his MA in journalism from the University of Southern Illinois in 1983.

Let's FLOOD the emails and fax machines of Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu, Major-General Avi Mizrahi and Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit

Stop Maskiot settlers driving Palestinians off their land

Urgent call for support from internationals in Palestine and around the world

For the last three weeks Palestinians in the northern Jordan Valley been subject to a concerted campaign of harassment and intimidation. It is becoming quite clear that Israeli settlers from nearby Maskiot want to steal yet more land from Palestinian communities, and are being aided and abetted by the Israeli army and police.

On 11th April the water was turned off in Bardala to prevent farmers from irrigating their crops, then on 12th April the Israeli occupation authorities declared the area of Ain Al-Maleh a closed military zone and prevented farmers and herders from entering their lands. The intimidation continued on 15th April when the Israeli occupation authorities raided Kirbet Al Farisiya and seized four water pumps belonging to local farmers.

The situation became far more serious on 25th April when armed settlers from Maskiot settlement, supported by the Israeli army and police from the settlement, erected a tent just 10 metres away from the entrance to the Palestinian Bedouin community of El Maleh and ordered the Bedouin community off the land. For four days this community refused to leave their home, despite constant abuse, harassment and intimidation, including theft of their property. Then, in the early hours of Thursday 29th the Army rewarded the settlers for their violence and theft. They declared the area a Closed Military Zone and forced the Bedouin family to dismantle their home and leave.

The previous evening, in a nearby Palestinian community two young Palestinian children were run over and killed by and Israeli army jeep. Local people believe this is connected to the earlier events in Al Maleh – the jeep had been driving round the area, constantly passing and intimidating local communities, and had circled around the tractor that the children were riding on, before driving straight over them.

The situation in this area is now very serious, with the local community being very worried about what will happen next. They have made repeated appeals over the last two weeks for support, and they need to know that support is available and people are able to act very quickly if they are subjected to further attacks.

Therezia, from Brighton Tubas Friendship and Solidarity Group, who is in the area, has made this appeal:

"We desperately needed more internationals to come and support this community under threat. We are worried that the settlers will now try to use the same tactics in other areas, and it is really important that internationals in Palestine are able to respond quickly to support the communities in the Jordan Valley"

What can you do?

If you are in Palestine:

Contact Therezia or Fathy, ask them what support they need on the ground. They particularly need to hear from people who would be able to respond quickly in the event of further attacks.

Contact:
Therezia 00972 597215876
Fathy 0599352266 or 0507799232
brightontubas@gmail.com
www.jordanvalleysolidarity.org

If you are not in Palestine:

Please write/email to the following to protest at the illegal actions of the Maskiot settlers, and to demand that the Bedouin community should be allowed to stay free from violence and intimidation.

Ehud Barak
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence
Ministry of Defence
37 Kaplan Street
Hakirya
Tel Aviv 61909, Israel
Fax:
+972 3 691 6940
+972 3 696 2757
+972 3 691 7915

Emails:
minister@mod.gov.il and ehudb@knesset.gov.il and pniot@mod.gov.il

Website:
www.mod.gov.il

Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit
Judge Advocate General
6 David Elazar Street
Hakirya
Tel Aviv, Israel
Fax:
+972 3 569 4526
+972 3 608 0366

Emails:
avimn@.idf.gov.il and arbel@mail.idf.il

Major-General Avi Mizrahi
Commander, West Bank
GOC Central Command
Military Post 01149
Battalion 877, Israel Defense Forces
Israel
Fax:
+972 2 530 5741
+972 2 530 5724

Perhaps also the PM?

Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister
Office of the Prime Minister
3 Kaplan St.
PO Box 187
Kiryat Ben-Gurion
Hakirya, Jerusalem 91950
Israel

Fax: +972 2-6496659

Emails:
bnetanyahu@knesset.gov.il and PM_ENG2@pmo.gov.il and PMO.HEB@it.pmo.gov.il and pm_eng@pmo.gov.il and sOffice@it.pmo.gov.il

A moving, must-see video that first aired on Channel 4 (UK)’s Dispatches on 15 March. BAFTA-winning filmmaker Jezza Neumann follows the lives of three children for over a year. The children are amazing: well-spoken, reflective, resilient, understandably vengeful and fearful, but very endearing. The toll this inhumanity has taken is also clear.

How You Can Help
To donate to the children in this film, and for information on how to help them and others, please visit this website http://childrenofgazafund.org/

Source: Pulse via: PeoplesGeography

The rabbi creates a golem

By Anait Brutian* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Yitzhak Shapira, the fanatical Zionist rabbi, who heads the Old Yosef Chai Yeshiva in the illegal settlement of Yitzhar, near Nablus and rabbi Yossi Elitzur have penned a new book: Torah HaMelech (The King's Torah) that has become the subject of the news in Eretz Yisrael (Hebrew for Land of Israel) ⁽¹⁾. According to Roee Sharon, the book contains no less than "230 pages on the laws concerning the killing of non-Jews, a kind of guide for anyone who ponders the question of if and when it is permissible to take the life of a non-Jew" (see the original Hebrew article by Roee Sharon in Maariv, November 9, 2009 ⁽²⁾. A translation of the Maariv article can be read at Coteret News) ⁽³⁾.

The book follows the halachic laws (the collective body of Jewish religious law, including the 613 biblical laws) for the killing of the goyim (Hebrew for nations), who threaten Eretz Yisrael ⁽⁴⁾. "Jews have the right to kill non-Jews in just about any circumstance." "If we kill a gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments ... there is nothing wrong with the murder" ⁽⁵⁾. The permission to kill is given on the basis of the Sheva mitzvot B'nei Noach (the seven Noachian Laws), which, according to the Talmud, should be followed by all mankind ⁽⁶⁾; (see The Noachian Laws in Jewish Encyclopedia ⁽⁷⁾. "When we approach a non-Jew who has violated the seven Noachian laws and kill him out of concern for upholding these seven laws, no prohibition has been violated" ⁽⁸⁾. The Yeshiva World News official website justifies the book's permission to kill with the following statement: "The sefer [Hebrew for book] adds that killing a non-Jew who has violated the Seven Mitzvos [Hebrew for commandments] given to non-Jews because we care about torah and mitzvos, then this is acceptable. It stresses the importance of Eretz Yisrael, the halachic requirements of the land, and living within a torah framework" ⁽⁹⁾. Similarly, the book justifies the killing of "non-Jews who demand the land for themselves" ⁽¹⁰⁾.

Civilians are not immune from Shapira's and Elitzur's attacks: "Any case in which the life of the civilian endangers Israel – it is allowed to kill a gentile." This authorization applies to direct and indirect "endangering" of Israel. Thus civilians who aid fighters, support the war, or sympathise with the resistance should be killed ⁽¹¹⁾. The Rabbis also encourage the killing of non-Jews that bear Israeli citizenship but are suspected of assisting organizations that are considered a "threat to national security" by the present regime ⁽¹²⁾. According to Shapira and Elitzur babies and children can be killed too because they are "hindrances." "Hindrances – babies are found many times in this situation. They block the way to rescue by their presence and do so completely by force. Nevertheless, they may be killed because their presence aids murder. There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults." "The children of the leader may be harmed in order to apply pressure to him. If attacking the children of a wicked ruler will influence him not to behave wickedly, they may be harmed" ⁽¹³⁾.

The conclusion of the book contains the following statement: "In religious law, we have found that non-Jews are generally suspected of shedding Jewish blood, and in war, this suspicion becomes a great deal stronger. One must consider killing even babies, who have not violated the seven Noachian laws, because of the future danger that will be caused if they are allowed to grow up to be as wicked as their parents" ⁽¹⁴⁾. Encouraging retaliation, Rabbis Shapira and Elitzur support violence and give credence to the notion that "In order to defeat the enemy ... [they] must behave toward ... [the enemy] in a spirit of retaliation and measure for measure." "Retaliation is absolutely necessary in order to render such wickedness not worthwhile. Therefore, sometimes we do cruel deeds in order to create the proper balance of terror" ⁽¹⁵⁾.

The idea of using terror fits with Israel Koenig's recommendation in "The Koenig Memorandum" – "We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population" ⁽¹⁶⁾. It also fits with Rafael Eitan's prescription for the removal of Palestinians from Palestine: "We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimetre of Eretz Israel [the land of Israel] ... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours" ⁽¹⁷⁾. A similar sentiment was expressed by the co-signer of the document called The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel ⁽¹⁸⁾ and future Prime Minister of Israel David Ben Gurion: "We must expel Arabs and take their places" ⁽¹⁹⁾. Yoram Bar Porath supported these views: "It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonisation or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands" ⁽²⁰⁾. Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism, had expressed similar views long before the establishment of the State of Israel: "If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison for the land ... or else, give up your colonization, for without an armed force which will render physically impossible any attempt to destroy or prevent this colonization, colonization is impossible, not difficult, not dangerous, but IMPOSSIBLE! ... Zionism is a colonization adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force[s]" ⁽²¹⁾.

The statements by Israel Koenig, Rafael Eitan, David Ben Gurion, Yoram Bar Porath and Vladimir Jabotinsky bear all the trappings of a jihad against the Palestinians. Commonly translated as Holy War, the Arabic word literally means "striving," "struggling," "endeavouring" ⁽²²⁾. Webster's Encyclopaedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language defines it as 1) "a holy war undertaken as a sacred duty by Muslims" and 2) "any vigorous, often bitter crusade for an idea or principle" ⁽²³⁾. The online version of the same dictionary identifies it as a noun, provides a variant (Jehad), the etymology (Arabic jihād) but maintains the same definitions ⁽²⁴⁾. T. P. Hughes explains that there are two kinds of jihads – "the greater" against one's own lusts and "the lesser" against infidels ⁽²⁵⁾. According to Hughes, the description of the "lesser jihad" occurs in al-Madinah Surahs (an Islamic term denoting a chapter in the Qur'an), written after Muhammad established his supreme rule and was able to dictate his terms and conditions to his enemies ⁽²⁶⁾. Historically, this type of jihad can be viewed as a way of advancing Islam among the conquered unbelievers offering them three choices (1) "the reception of Islam, in which case the conquered became enfranchised citizens of the Muslim state; (2) "the payment of a poll-tax (Jizyah), by which unbelievers in Islam obtain protection, and become Zimmis ..." and (3) "death by sword, to those who will not pay the poll-tax" ⁽²⁷⁾.

Unlike its Islamic counterpart, the Zionist jihad does not differentiate between "greater" and "lesser" types and terror is not used as a last resort, as was the case with the last option in the al-Madinah Surahs of the Qur'an. Terror is part and parcel of all Zionist undertakings. The notion not only justifies the senseless killing of civilians, including women, children and the elderly, but also promotes it. Israel's former chief rabbi, Mordechai Elyahu encouraged the Israeli army to mass murder Palestinians in 2007: "If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill 1,000. And if they don't stop after 1,000, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000. Even a million." A similar feeling is expressed in June 2009, by US Hasidic Rabbi Manis Friedman, who encouraged Israelis to kill Palestinian "men, women and children." "I don't believe in Western morality, i.e., don't kill civilians or children, don't destroy holy sites, don't fight during the holiday seasons, don't bomb cemeteries, and don't shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral. The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle)" ⁽²⁸⁾.

According to Maariv, Shapira's and Elitzur's Torah HaMelech does not mention Palestinians or Arabs; the "killing of gentiles" is a "theoretical concept," supposedly unrelated to the politics of the region – "he [Shapira] was 'careful not to explicitly encourage private individuals to take the law into their own hands" ^{(29). The Yeshiva World News official website stresses the fact that while "the media is having a field day with the sefer, it is written that the sefer discusses theoretic halachic principles, and in no way calls for the murder of goyim, 'Arabs' or 'Palestinians' as the media seeks to imply" (30)}. This may be so, but Torah HaMelech, the new halachic guide for the Zionist jihad is popular among several prominent rabbis, who recommended it to their followers and students. The Yeshiva World News official website enlists approbation from Rabbi Dov Lior, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, and Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh ⁽³¹⁾.

In 2003, under pressure from left-wing groups, Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein charged Rabbi Yitzchak Ginzburgh, the former head of the Old Yosef Chai Yeshiva in Shechem, with incitement to racism. Rabbi Ginsburgh's June 19, 1989 statement clearly declares: "Jewish blood and a goy's (gentile's) blood are not the same." Thus, killing isn't murder if the victim is Gentile. ⁽³²⁾. According to Rabbi Ginsburgh "... every single cell in a Jewish body entails divinity, and is thus part of God." If this is so, "then every strand of DNA is a part of God. Therefore, something is special about Jewish DNA." Using similar logic, Rabbi Ginsburg declared that "the Arabs ... don't have the right to live in ... [Israel] and that "they want to take land that doesn't belong to them and therefore they are also robbers." "The concept of the third world, which is the most primitive on the scale of nations, refers to the Arabs who are on the lowest rung in the scale ... According to Kabbalah, the Jewish people are the most advanced people in mind and spirit, but Yishmael is a nation of slaves and the character of a slave is licentious and undisciplined" ⁽³³⁾. Approbation from a brilliant "haematologist" and "DNA specialist" Rabbi Ginsburgh speaks volumes, especially when considering the fact that Ginsburgh's own sentiments concerning the killing of non-Jews do not differ from those of Shapira and Elitzur – Ginsburgh justified the US-born Baruch Goldstein's 1994 killing of the Palestinian worshippers in the Machpela Cave mosque in Hebron during Ramadan on halachic grounds ⁽³⁴⁾.

Another religious leader, Rabbi Dov Lior, the chairman of the Yesha rabbinical council, chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba ⁽³⁵⁾ that has endorsed Shapira's and Elitzur's new halachic guide for the Zionist jihad is an "expert" on military matters: "There is no such thing as enemy civilians in war time. The law of our Torah is to have mercy on our soldiers and to save them ... A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew's fingernail" ⁽³⁶⁾. A student of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, the founder of the extremist Gush Emunim with the slogan "The Land of Israel, for the people of Israel, according to the Torah of Israel," Rabbi Dov Lior continues to sponsor the teachings of his mentor Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook and the latter's father, fundamentalist Rabbi Abraham Kook , the founder of the first Zionist Yeshiva in Jerusalem in 1924, during the British Mandate, who said: "The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews – all of them in all different levels – is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle" ⁽³⁷⁾. In late 1980s, following a public protest over his suggestions to use captured Arab terrorists "to conduct medical experiments," Rabbi Lior was barred from the election to the Supreme Rabbinical Council ⁽³⁸⁾. More recently, Rabbi Dov Lior issued a halachic decree, which states that "it is forbidden by Jewish law to employ Arabs or rent homes to them" ⁽³⁹⁾. In an interview published by "Eretz Israel Shelanu" (Our Land of Israel), Rabbi Lior said: "since this is a matter of endangering souls, it is clear that it is completely forbidden to employ them and rent houses to them in Israel. Their employment is forbidden not only at yeshivas, but at factories, hotels and everywhere" ⁽⁴⁰⁾.

Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, the head of the Hazon Yaakov Yeshiva in Jerusalem and the son of Shas' spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ⁽⁴¹⁾ is another supporter of Yitzhak Shapira's and Yossi Elitzur's new halachic guide for the Zionist jihad. He is a member of the national-religious community and has served as a Shas MK in the past ⁽⁴²⁾. The fact that Shapira and Elitzur began selling Torah HaMelech at the memorial for Rabbi Meir Kahane, the Israeli Knesset member who advocated "mass expulsion of Palestinians from Israel and the territories" ⁽⁴³⁾ is significant. It implies that even though it is not distributed by the leading book-sellers ⁽⁴⁴⁾, Shapira's and Elitzur's sefer is known among past and present members of the Israeli Knesset, suggesting that the halachic guide for the Zionist jihad is tacitly promoted at the highest level of the government.

The statement that Rabbi Shapira's and Rabbi Elitzur's halachic guide for the Zionist jihad does not target Palestinians or Arabs and approaches the "killing of gentiles" from a "theoretical" perspective is more worrisome than one might suspect. It can be interpreted as a license to kill all gentiles that fit into the authors' category of the "goyim who threaten Eretz Yisrael." But the category can be broadened to include all who oppose Israel's Zionist agenda in the occupied territories, conveniently branded as anti-Semites by the Zionist-controlled media (see What is Anti-Semitism? by the same author ⁽⁴⁵⁾. And finally, the category can be broadened to include all opposition to the Zionist programme of world domination: "We will have a world government whether you like it or not. The only question is whether that government will be achieved by conquest or consent." (Jewish Banker Paul Warburg's testimony before the U.S. Senate, February 17, 1950 ⁽⁴⁶⁾; Paul Warburg, the founder of the US Federal Reserve, was the brother of Max Warburg, the chief of German Intelligence and an associate of Adolf Hitler – both were executives of I.G. Farben).

Whether these categories were delineated or not is secondary to the fact that Shapira's and Elitzur's sefer was sold at Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, the flagship of Orthodox Zionism. According to Mathew Wagner of The Jerusalem Post, there was a small sign at the entrance advertising the sale of Torah HaMelech at NIS 30 and "those interested in buying the book were asked to place money in a small cup and take ... [a copy]" ⁽⁴⁷⁾. A young man called Lior, whose name and phone number had appeared on the advertisement, was surprised to realize how fast the copies were sold. The authors and promoters of the halachic guide for the Zionist jihad could not have chosen a better location for the sale – Torah HaMelech is especially useful for the students of the yeshiva "who have served, are presently serving or plan on serving in the IDF" ⁽⁴⁸⁾. Mathew Wagner further explains that since "a large portion of Torat Hamelech is dedicated to exploring Jewish "rules of engagement" according to the authors' interpretation of Jewish law," the book is relevant "for many young men at Mercaz Harav or other Orthodox Zionist yeshivot where IDF service is combined with intense Torah learning" ⁽⁴⁹⁾. The fact that "the book could have practical implications for how religious soldiers do battle" ⁽⁵⁰⁾ is of no consequence to Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg, who is "a highly respected halachic authority in both haredi and religious Zionist circles" – his endorsement appeared in the book.

As Rabbi Shapira's and Rabbi Elitzur's halachic guide will undeniably incite more violence against non-Jews, it will also contribute to the rift between Jews and Gentiles. The Zionist intellectual Maurice Samuel, in his You Gentiles of 1924 polarized the gentile and the Jewish worlds: "There are two life-forces in the world I know: Jewish and gentile, ours and yours ... Your outlook on life, your dominant reactions, are the same to-day as they were two thousand years ago. All that has changed is the instrument of expression. You live the same life under different faiths, but something clings to you here and there resembling the original form of the faith we gave you " ⁽⁵¹⁾. Samuel admits that the "surface credo of a Jewish faith" imposed on a gentile way of life did not make a fundamental difference: "But in the end your true nature works itself into the pattern of the borrowed faith, and expresses itself undeniably" ⁽⁵²⁾. Samuel suggests that there is a "clear and fateful division of life – Jewish and gentile," with an "unsounded abyss between" them. Gentiles have a "way of living and thinking" that is distinctly different from Jews: "I do not believe that this primal difference between gentile and Jew is reconcilable. You and we may come to an understanding, never to a reconciliation. There will be irritation between us as long as we are in intimate contact. For nature and constitution and vision divide us from all of you forever..." ⁽⁵³⁾. Similar to other Zionists, Samuel's "solution" is based on the destruction of the existing world order: "A century of partial tolerance gave us Jews access to your world. In that period the great attempt was made, by advance guards of reconciliation, to bring our two worlds together. It was a century of failure. ... We Jews, we, the destroyers, will remain the destroyers forever. Nothing that you will do will meet our needs and demands. We will forever destroy because we need a world of our own, a God-world, which it is not in your nature to build" ⁽⁵⁴⁾.

The separation between Jews and non-Jews lies at the heart of the teachings of Zionist intellectuals and religious leaders. This teaching is encouraged even outside of Israel. Elliot Abrams, a neo-conservative in charge of President Bush's "global democracy strategy," wrote in 1997 that "[Jewish law] does indeed separate Jews from their fellow citizens" and that "Jews are in a permanent covenant with God and with the land of Israel and its people" ⁽⁵⁵⁾. The sentiment of irreconcilable differences is enforced in the following statement, this time with overt shades of racial superiority: "We Jews regard our race as superior to all humanity, and look forward not to its ultimate union with other races, but to its triumph over them." Rabbi Saadya Grama's 2003 book Romemut Yisrael Ufarashat Hagalut (The Majesty of Israel and the Question of the Diaspora) provides a race-based theory of Jewish supremacy arguing that non-Jews are "completely evil," while Jews are genetically superior: "The difference between the people of Israel and the nations of the world is an essential one. The Jew by his source and in his very essence is entirely good. The goy, by his source and in his very essence is completely evil. This is not simply a matter of religious distinction, but rather of two completely different species" ⁽⁵⁶⁾. This attitude towards the goyim is reinforced by the statement of Golda Maier on March 8, 1969. Her declaration: "How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to" ⁽⁵⁷⁾ is a clever pun suggesting that the original inhabitants of Palestine are "nobody" i.e., not people. Apart from its inherent falsehood (see the statements by Israel Koenig, Rafael Eitan, David Ben Gurion, Yoram Bar Porath, Vladimir Jabotinsky above), Golda Maier's derogatory remark downplays the danger posed to Israel by the original inhabitants: a "nobody" surely does not threaten the security of Eretz Yisrael. If there is no real danger to threaten Eretz Yisrael, then Rabbi Shapira's and Rabbi Elitzur's halachic guide for the killing of the goyim is founded on the principle of HATRED – a sentiment shared by Israel Koenig, Rafael Eitan, David Ben Gurion, Yoram Bar Porath, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Maurice Samuel, Paul Warburg , Rabbi Abraham Kook, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, Rabbi Meir Kahane, Rabbi Saadya Grama, Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, Rabbi Dov Lior, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, Rabbi Mordechai Elyahu, Rabbi Manis Friedman, Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg, whose statements demonstrate similar hatred for the goyim.

According to Roee Sharon, Shapira's and Elitzur's halachic guide for the Zionist jihad
includes "hundreds of sources from the Bible and religious law" ⁽⁵⁸⁾. Indeed, the Bible demands separation, segregation and discrimination. After restating his "abhorrence" (Lev 20:23) towards the previous inhabitants of the land and his reasons for driving them out, God promises their land "flowing with milk and honey" – a clear reference to Exodus 33:3 – to his people declaring: "I am the Lord your God; I have separated you from the peoples" (Lev 20:24). Ezra marks this separation with his famous term "the holy seed" (Ezra 9:2), "zera hakodesh" in Hebrew ⁽⁵⁹⁾, which compels the entire community to dissolve all inter-marriages, getting rid of foreign wives and their children (Ezra 10:3). The ideology of separation, segregation and discrimination combined with the toxic rhetoric of the fundamentalists yields a dangerous brew made up of insanity and criminality. Mathew Wagner discusses the critical response of a "leading religious Zionist media figure" ⁽⁶⁰⁾. One may take a sigh of relief in thinking that the criticism is based on a sound evaluation of the dangers associated with endorsing radical jihadist ideology. Alas, this is not the case – the anonymous "leading religious Zionist media figure" is NOT concerned with the moral imperative of such indoctrination, in fact he agrees with the conclusions of Shapira's and Elitzur's halachic guide: "I do not doubt the halachic conclusions of the book" ⁽⁶¹⁾. He is concerned with the negative publicity the book generated: "I grabbed my head when I saw the headline in Ma'ariv ... I said to myself we have just managed to contain the media damage done to us by Teitel, by showing he is an isolated element, and now this happens" ⁽⁶²⁾. Thus, while the civilized world is screaming about Shapira's and Elitzur's sefer Torah HaMelech, the reaction towards the new Halachic Guide is positive in Israel. No one seems to worry about the fact that it will definitely lead to more violence. The "leading religious Zionist media figure" epitomizes the Zionist mentality: the life of the goyim is less important than the media damage caused by the publication of Shapira's and Elitzur's halachic guide for the Zionist jihad.

References:
(1), (30), (31) Rav Yitzchak Shapira's Sefer Makes Headlines in Eretz Yisrael
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=41807
(2), (4), (9) ספר שמופץ בימין מסביר מתי מותר להרוג "גויים"
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/964/186.html?hp=1&loc=1&tmp=3416
(3), (6), (8), (13), (14), (15), (44), (58) Settler Rabbi publishes "The complete guide to killing non-Jews"
http://coteret.com/2009/11/09/settler-rabbi-publishes-the-complete-guide-to-killing-non-jews/
(5), (10), (11), (29), (43) Settler rabbi authors guidelines on killing gentiles
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=238444
(7) The Noachian Laws
http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=582&letter=J&search=jubilees#1948
(12) Zionist Rabbi Calls for Killing of Even Non-Jewish Children and Infants if They Pose a 'Threat' to Israel
http://www.aljazeerah.info/News/2009/November/9%20n/Zionist%20Rabbi%20Calls%20for%20Killing%20of%20Even%20Non-Jewish%20Children%20and%20Infants%20if%20They%20Pose%20a%20'Threat'%20to%20Israel.htm
(16) Israel Koenig, the Koenig Memorandum
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/
(17) Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, 1983
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/
(18) Declaration of Establishment of State of Israel
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/Declaration+of+Establishment+of+State+of+Israel.htm
(19), (21), (32), (57) Al- Awda PRRC
http://www.al-awda.org/quotes.html
(20) Yoram Bar Porath, Yediot Aharonot, July 14, 1972,
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/
(22) Massive Online Encyclopedia of Islam Hyper-linked to the Qur'an, Hadiths, Taurat, Injil and other sources
http://www.bible.ca/islam/dictionary/index.html
(23) Webster's Encyclopaedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, p. 767.
(24) Merriam-Webster's Online dictionary
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jihad
(25), (26), (27) A Dictionary of Islam by Thomas Patrick Hughes, London, 1895, pp. 243-248
http://www.bible.ca/islam/dictionary/Hughes/jihad.htm
(28), (36), (37), (56) Religious fundamentalism in Israel
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/961/focus.htm
(33) Jewish Forum and Discussions – Chabad Talk
http://www.chabadtalk.com/forum/showthread.php3?t=2402
(34) 1994: Jewish settler kills 30 at holy site
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/25/newsid_4167000/4167929.stm
(35), (39), (40) Top Yesha rabbi says Jewish law forbids renting houses to Arabs
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/966208.html
(38) Dov Lior
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dov_Lior#cite_note-0
(41) Rabbi: Older bachelors must leave Jerusalem
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3709700,00.html
(42) Shas rabbi's son: No afterlife for Federman farm destroyers
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3617393,00.html
(45) What is Anti-Semitism?
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/01/11/what-is-anti-semitism-part-of-the-first-word-war/
(46) Jewish Banker Paul Warburg's testimony before the U.S. Senate, February 17, 1950
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/
(47), (48), (49), (50), (60), (61), (62) Book advocating killing gentiles who endanger Jews is hard to come by
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1257770034282&pagename=JPArticle/ShowFull
(51) Maurice Samuel, You Gentiles, pp. 19-20
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/yougentiles.pdf
(52) Samuel, p. 22
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/yougentiles.pdf
(53) Samuel, pp. 22, 23
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/yougentiles.pdf
(54) Samuel, p. 155
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/yougentiles.pdf
(55) Jeff Gates, Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War. Santa Barbara: State Street Publications, 2008, p. 139.
(59) Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, ed. A. Schenker. Stuttgart: C. H. Beck, Nördingen, 1997 p. 1426.

* Anait Brutian (B. Mus. with Honours in Theory, McGill University; M. A. in Music Theory, McGill University) is a student in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill. Her previous research includes a self-published book entitled: Reconciling Geometry, Rhetoric and Harmony: A Fresh Look at C. P. E. Bach. She is currently working on another book on mathematical paradigms in literature (Old and New Testaments), art, architecture, and music.

By Pam Rasmussen* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Saber Az-Za'aneen, coordinator of the Local Initiative Committee in Beit Hanoun, speaks at a protest in Gaza's buffer zone. Photos: Pam Rasmussen

The Israelis call it the "buffer zone." Gazan NGOs often call it the "hot zone." But to the Palestinians who live near this wide swath of land alongside the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel, it is fertile land where their children played and they made a decent living by raising wheat and olives. That is, until Israel declared the land off limits to Palestinians.

The so-called "buffer zone" is a military no-go area that extends along the entire northern and eastern Gazan border with Israel, as well as its southern border with Egypt (known as the Philadelphi Corridor). The creation of a 50-meter-wide buffer zone was agreed to as part of the security arrangements included in an interim Palestinian-Israeli agreement signed in 1995. Following the start of the second Intifada in September 2000, the area of the buffer zone was increased to 150 meters wide. In May 2009, the Israeli military scattered thousands of leaflets warning residents to maintain a distance of at least 300 meters from the border or risk being fired upon. In reality, however, the buffer zone can extend up to two kilometers (1.2 miles) at its widest point in North Gaza.

As a result, the area once known as the most bountiful in the Gaza Strip in terms of the families it supported or fed has become a no-man's land - a killing field where Palestinians have been targeted for venturing past the invisible, amorphous demarcation line - or sometimes, for simply being too close and rousing the Israelis' suspicions. Since the end of the Israeli military offensive in January 2009, the UN estimates that five civilians have been killed and 20 injured in incidents involving Israeli gun and tank fire in areas near the buffer zone. Three of the fatalities and at least four of the injured were children.

For Saber Az-Za'aneen, a former field worker for a human rights agency and now the full time coordinator of the Local Initiative Committee in Beit Hanoun (in the northern Gaza Strip), it was the deaths of children that drove him to finally fight back.

Saber Az-Za'aneen

He ticks off the incidents that he says finally made him realize that Palestinians had to overcome their fear and fight back. There were four children walking near the agricultural college (the only one in Gaza and now in ruins) ... another three children tending their sheep ... another three playing in the shadow of their home ... a mother and her four children eating breakfast at their kitchen table. (In the latter case, an Israeli drone killed a suspected resistance fighter, then bombed a nearby house for good measure). Last September, a 14-year-old boy was killed while walking with his father.

The Israeli military has said it needs the buffer zone to make it more difficult for resistance fighters to fire rockets and mortars into the Jewish state and set off explosives near the border wall. "What determines our actions are the threats. It's not right to place the blame on Israel; the [Palestinian] farmers should blame the militants and the terror organizations," an Army spokeswoman said.

Once a plush scene of rolling olive, citrus and pomegranate groves, much of the border region (accounting for 30-40 percent of Gaza's arable farmland and a significant number of water wells) is now just a barren landscape. According to a recent Save the Children UK study, up to 70 percent of households living near the buffer zone have been either temporarily or permanently displaced at least once since 2000, primarily as a result of house demolitions and fear for the families' personal safety. In addition, 50 percent of the families have lost their source of income or livelihood during the same period. As a result, 42 percent of those families have changed their residence.

"To protect 45 families in Sderot (the Israeli town closest to the Israel's southern border with Gaza), it has destroyed every aspect of life for 45,000 people here," said Az-Za'aneen. "They have driven us from the land we have farmed for decades, and made our children frightened of something as simple as playing in their back yard."

Only 9 percent of respondents in the Save the Children UK survey said they felt secure in their neighborhood, compared with 55 percent of respondents among the general population in Gaza.

In September 2008, Az-Za'aneen began organizing weekly marches of local farmers and their families into the no-go zone - protests that continued, despite the Israeli Army's use of live ammunition in retaliation, until the 22-day invasion in December 2008-January 2009. Az-Za'aneen launched them once again a month ago. "Our goal is to reinforce the farmers' steadfastness, to give them the courage to keep planting and harvesting their olives despite the Israelis' threats," he said.

Farmers march in the buffer zone.

Az-Za'aneen's model was the weekly marches in protest of the Apartheid Wall being built in the West Bank, which have attracted extensive publicity due to the participation of international activists. However, due to the almost complete prohibition of travel in and out of the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt, international participation in Beit Hanoun is limited to the few volunteers (primarily with the International Solidarity Movement) who manage to enter Gaza with aid convoys. During the most recent protest, the group of about 50 protesters managed to plant a Palestinian flag about 50 meters from the barrier wall near the Erez Crossing into Israel (the closest residents have managed to get in ten years) before shots from the guard tower rang out, forcing them back.

Eva Bartlett asks the Israeli guards not to shoot, explaining that the marchers are unarmed and peaceful.

"It is important for internationals to show both Palestinians and Israel that despite the fact that our governments indirectly support the ongoing blockade, the Palestinians are not alone, " said Eva Bartlett, a Canadian human rights advocate and freelance writer who arrived in Gaza with the third Free Gaza boat in November 2008. "The Israelis continually make and break their own rules, and they must be exposed."

And so it goes ... every week, trying to push a little farther. The Israelis may shoot, but the Palestinian's connection to the land and their history, is stronger.

* Pam Rasmussen is a peace activist and communications professional from Maryland who will make her third trip to the Gaza Strip this year, with the Gaza Freedom March. She will be working in Gaza for the first half of 2010, helping various NGO's better communicate their stories to the Western world. She can be contacted at peacenut57@yahoo.com.

Source: Truthout

By Yousef Munayyer* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

'TO CUT down on gang-related crimes, policies could be put in place to curb the African-American population growth in places like Harlem and Compton. The government could consider cutting off welfare benefits for families in these urban areas to discourage births of blacks and cut down the supply of 'superfluous young men' who have nothing else to do in their lives but be preyed on by criminal gang leaders who give them a sense of belonging. Ultimately these policies are an effective way to limit gang related crimes.''

The absurdity and lack of logic in the above fictitious paragraph is overshadowed only by its offensive nature. Few would welcome such a view in 2010, but this kind of argument was made recently to an audience that received it with applause instead of disgust.

Martin Kramer, a fellow at Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, made this argument at a conference in Israel last month. The only difference was that the population he sought to limit was Palestinians in Gaza to prevent "economically superfluous young men'' from joining radical groups. He said that "if society cannot offer dignified pursuits for the fourth and fifth and sixth sons, then someone else will.''

He also supported lowering the fertility rate for Palestinians in Gaza and argued that this "will happen faster if the West stops providing pro-natal subsidies for Palestinians with refugee status.''

Society? In Kramer's version of reality, it is Palestinian society that cannot offer dignified pursuits for their children. He seems to think Gaza exists in a vacuum. He seems to be ignorant of the events and actors that have created the current situation.

The children of Gaza are not "economically superfluous'' because they were born into large families. Their inability to be productive members of society is not the fault of society itself, but the fault of the occupying and devastating force of the state of Israel. The occupation of Gaza and the subsequent siege and attacks by Israel have destroyed lives, industry and infrastructure. With the percentage of the population relying directly on food aid increasing from 60 percent to 80 percent in the past three years and unemployment at an all-time high, it is obvious that the children of Gaza are "superfluous'' not simply because they are born, but because of what they are born into: a hell in a prison controlled from the outside by Israel.

Yet Kramer knows full well that Israel is laying siege to Gaza. In fact, he goes on to support it. The siege, he argued in his speech, can "break Gaza's runaway population growth - and there is some evidence that they have - that may begin to crack the culture of martyrdom which demands a constant supply of superfluous young men.''

The fact that Kramer fails to make the connection between Israeli policies and the conditions that lead to economic "superfluousness'' undergirds his logical and analytical ineptitude. This, coupled with the racist and offensive nature of his comments, should push decision makers at Harvard University to reconsider whether it should be affiliated with such individuals.

Had Kramer's comments been about any other group, as described in the opening paragraph, Harvard might have already terminated his fellowship.

* Yousef Munayyer is Executive Director of the Palestine Center.

By Amira Hass* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Something about 12-year-old Bassam caused two Israelis to smile. Two Palestinians noticed, but did not remember their smiles as being disparaging or arrogant. On the contrary. The Palestinians regarded the smiles as a rare moment in which two Israelis - and not just any Israelis, but military judges - realized how ridiculous the situation was.

There were three other Israelis present, who held back their cries as they watched the boy enter, faltering - the chains around his legs clanging against each other, the prisons service coat he wore much too big for him. These three women, of their own accord, go regularly to the caravans that house the Ofer military tribunal and take notes. Were it not for these three women, who eventually shared his story, Bassam would have become yet another hidden detail of a non-event. A non-event of the sort that takes place countless times, all the time. Without those non-events, it is impossible to comprehend what life is like under hostile rule.

This particular non-event began with Bassam (not his real name), who lives in a village west of Ramallah, deciding to visit his aunt who lives in another village 14 kilometers away. It took place in the afternoon hours of Monday, December 21, 2009. Bassam's home is some 10 kilometers north of Route 443 and his aunt's home to the south. A narrow, winding path links the villages located along the way. Bassam took two taxis, then began walking the rest of the way. At the suggestion of another boy he met on the path, he took a shortcut through a valley and headed for the little tunnel that runs below the road which is closed off to Palestinians, but built on their land.

Several hundred meters from the elevated road, some Israel Defense Forces soldiers popped out from in between the olive trees. According to the boy, they called him over, saying "Come, come." "I was afraid and fled," Bassam says. But the soldiers grabbed him. He noticed there were two jeeps nearby.

"They boxed me a little on my ears, covered my eyes and put plastic handcuffs on my wrists. Then they lifted me and threw me into a jeep," he says. An Arabic speaker, he says, told him: "If they ask you, say that you threw stones." "I was so afraid that I did not think about anything," Bassam says two weeks later, at home.

With his eyes covered and hands cuffed, Bassam was taken from place to place. At the first stop, he was kept about two hours. They offered him water, but he said he did not want any. Then they drove to another place where a police interrogator asked him if he "had ever thrown stones on 443," Bassam relates. "I said yes - because that's what the soldier in the jeep told me - but I didn't know what 443 was. He asked me whether I had ever thrown stones with a sling. I asked him what a sling was. He explained to me and I said no."

At the third stop, Bassam was seen by a doctor who spoke some Arabic. "He asked me if I had had any operations and I said no. Then they covered my eyes again, handcuffed me and we went off," he says. By then it was already dark; they next arrived at the Ofer Prison. In the Prison Service records, Bassam is registered as prisoner number 1336183.

The inmates in the cell he was taken to immediately calmed him down, gave him something to eat, and explained that he would appear in court the next day. "I knew about Shabak [the Shin Bet security service] but I didn't know what the court was," he says.

'But I am standing'

At around 3 P.M. on December 22, in the caravan which houses the court, Iyad Misk, an attorney with DCI (Defence for Children International), spotted Bassam, whom he did not know, huddled among the other prisoners. When the judge, Major Shimon Leibo, entered, Misk thought Bassam didn't realize he had to stand. "Get up, get up," he said in a stage whisper from the attorney's stand. Bassam stared at him in amazement. "But I am standing," he said. Judge Leibo heard, looked and began to smile.

Misk immediately volunteered to represent the kid. The prosecutor, police officer Asher Silver, said: "We ask that the suspect be released on condition of a NIS 1,500 deposit and that he be called to a hearing, as we intend to submit an indictment against him."

Misk explained that the suspect did not have NIS 1,500 (approximately one and a half times a Palestinian worker's monthly wage), and that his family members were not present and apparently did not even know where he was. In what sounded like a suppressed reprimand, the judge said that not enough had been done to inform the boy's family about the arrest, and ordered that Bassam be released after NIS 500 was deposited. Misk _ who believed the police should have immediately released the boy the previous day, when the soldiers brought him to the police interrogator - was prepared to pay out of his own pocket, but the offices where the payment was to be made were already shut.

Meanwhile, Bassam's parents were beside themselves with worry. When he did not return home in the morning from his aunt's home, they started searching for him throughout the surrounding areas _ in the orchards, at the checkpoints, on the roads, at army posts. "I walked through the mountains looking for him and crying," his father, who is a welder, recalls. In the evening, one of Misk's friends found the father and informed him that Bassam would be spending a second night in detention. The following day, December 23, the father appeared at the military tribunal.

He held back his tears as he watched his son enter the caravan. The jacket reached his knees and his hands were buried inside the long sleeves. "Take a look at him," the father told the judge, Major Sharon Rivlin-Ahai, in fluent Hebrew. "Is this what the great Israel Defense Forces are needed for - to arrest this boy?"

And then it was time for the second smile - hers this time. The father remembers her saying, "Right." But then she added: "That's the law." She reduced the amount of the deposit to NIS 200, along with a guarantee that his son would appear in court if and when a charge sheet is brought against him. As long as there is no indictment, no one will know what the soldiers who took in Bassam are claiming. It is their word against the word of a Palestinian boy.

* Amira Hass is a prominent Israeli journalist and author, mostly known for her columns in the daily newspaper Ha'aretz. She is particularly recognized for her reporting on Palestinian affairs in the West Bank and Gaza, where she has also lived for a number of years.
The daughter of two Holocaust survivors, and was educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. On Oct. 20, the International Women's Media Network reward Hass the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award. Hass was the recipient of the Press Freedom Hero award from the International Press Institute in 2000, the Bruno Kreisky Human Rights Award in 2002, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2003, the inaugural award from the Anna Lindh Memorial Fund in 2004 and Hrant Dink Memorial Award in 2009.

Between 2009-2018, the United States is scheduled to give Israel--the largest recipient of U.S. aid--$30 billion in military aid. Through its illegal 42-year military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, Israel misuses U.S. weapons in violation of U.S. law to kill and injure Palestinian civilians, destroy Palestinian civilian infrastructure, blockade the Gaza Strip, and build illegal settlements in West Bank and East Jerusalem.

How much of this total will your community provide? Is this a good use of your tax dollars? What else could your taxes be used for in your community? Find out on the interactive map below.

(Click on any state to check the figures)

Source: http://www.aidtoisrael.org/
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Masafer Yatta/South Hebron Hills - On Sunday, 20 December 2009, the Israeli army disrupted transportation of children and teachers from Al-Fakheit school to their homes. The Palestinian driver, accompanied by one CPTer, was on his way to pick up children and teachers after school when, at about 1:00 p.m. soldiers in a Humvee stopped the pickup truck used as a school bus. The soldiers confiscated the driver's ID, searched the truck and personal belongings in it, and ordered that the driver follow them to a field south of Jinba village.

Students and Teachers of Al-Fakheit

Because the soldiers refused to allow the truck to take the children to Jinba, teachers and students had to walk an hour through the hills in the midday sun to get there. The headmaster reported later that two children became ill from the heat and required medical attention.

The Palestinian driver and CPTer spent over an hour in the field with the soldiers, who demanded the truck's registration and ignition key, examined the engine for serial numbers, took photos of the truck and made various phone calls. According to the soldiers, the truck's registration was invalid and they were calling the police to confiscate it. "In Israel we have rules," one soldier told the CPTer.

More soldiers arrived, along with gear and a small water tank, but no police. At 2:45 p.m. the soldiers finally returned the driver's ID, allowing him and the CPTer to leave by foot.

Al-Fakheit school opened this year to accommodate students living in Maghayir Al-Abeed, Markaz, Halawe, Fakheit, Majaaz, and Jinba. Previously, children from these hamlets attended school in Yatta, which required that they live in the city Sunday through Thursday. Now the teachers at Al-Fakheit school travel from Yatta each day and pick up schoolchildren along the route.

The school bus

Children and teachers in the South Hebron Hills face ongoing obstacles when traveling to school. The Israeli military heavily patrols the road and surrounding area, randomly preventing Palestinians from accessing their education and work. Teachers and school children traveling to Al-Fakheit are sometimes stopped and searched by the Israeli military. In August 2009 the Israeli military attempted to dismantle the road with heavy machinery, worsening the road's already poor condition after years of Israeli authorities prohibiting Palestinians from making repairs or improvements.

As a result of these tactics, Palestinians spend extended periods traveling to their destination, and they are often late for school or work. In addition, the Israeli military is threatening to permanently close the road, which would completely deny Palestinians' access to education, work and their lands. The army's presence and interference with residents' movements in this area undermines the basic human rights of Palestinians by hindering their ability to live in their villages and cultivate their lands.

For pictures of the Al-Fakheit school: http://cpt.org/gallery/School-in-Al-Fakheit

For pictures of the army dismantling the road: http://cpt.org/gallery/roadblock-on-road-to-Jinba

For background information about the communities of Msafer Yatta, download report of the Israeli human rights group B'tselem: http://www.btselem.org/Download/200507_South_Mount_Hebron_Eng.pdf

Source: Christian Peacemaker Teams

Hundreds of children were killed in Israel's war on Gaza earlier this year.

By Khalid Amayreh* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Hundreds of children were killed in Israel's war on Gaza earlier this year.

He argues that Goyem (a derogatory epithet for non-Jews) may be killed if they threaten Israel.

"If we kill a Gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments - because we care about the commandments - there is nothing wrong with the murder."

Shapiro, who heads a small Talmudic school at the settlement of Yitzhar near Nablus, claims his edict "is fully justified by the Torah and the Talmud."

The anti-goyem edict seems to come in response to the arrest by Israeli police of a Jewish terrorist who has confessed to having murdered two Palestinian shepherds in the West Bank.

The terrorist, an American-born immigrant named Yaakov Teitel, also confessed to have tried to assassinate leftist Jewish figures.

Police considered the arrest an important achievement in combating Jewish terrorism, which experts contend thrives on religious edicts issued by rabbis affiliated with the religious-Zionist camp.

Nearly 16 years ago, a Jewish terrorist named Yigal Amir assassinated then Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin.

Moreover, numerous innocent Palestinians have also been murdered in cold blood by Jewish terrorists.

In 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a notorious Jewish terrorist, murdered 29 Muslim worshipers inside Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank town of al-Khalil.

Non-Humans

The controversial edict is backed by numerous rabbis affiliated with the so-called national-religious camp as well as the Talmudic seminary in West Jerusalem, known as Merkaz Ha'rav.

Among the rabbis who have publicly supported the edict are Yitzhak Ginsburg and Ya'akov Yosef.

Ginsburg had written a leaflet glorifying murderer Goldstein and called him a "saintly figure."

Shapiro's views on how Palestinians and non-Jews in general ought to be treated according to Jewish religious law (halacha) are widely looked at as representing the mainstream not the exception in Israel.

During the Israeli onslaught against Gaza earlier this year, Mordecahi Elyahu, one of the leading rabbinic figures in Israel, urged the army not to refrain from killing enemy children in order to save the lives of Israeli soldiers.

He had even petitioned the Israeli government to carry out a series of carpet bombing of Palestinian population centers in Gaza.

"If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand. And if they do not stop after we kill a thousand, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop, we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to stop them."

According to Israel Shahak, author of "Jewish History, Jewish Religion: the Weight of Three Thousand years," the term "human beings" in Jewish law refers solely to Jews.

Many Jewish orthodox rabbis, especially within the national-religious sector, view international conventions incriminating the deliberate killing of civilians and destruction of civilian homes and property as representing "Christian morals" not binding on Jews.

In 2006, the Rabbinic Council of Jewish Settlements in the West Bank urged the army to ignore Christian morals and exterminate the enemy in the north (Lebanon) and the south (Gaza Strip).

Such manifestly racist and hateful edicts don't raise many eyebrows in Israel, neither among the intelligentsia nor in the society at large.

* Khalid Amayreh a journalist based in the Occupied Palestinian town of Dura.