[Via: Wake Up From Your Slumber]

Satire: Harvard law school expels star student for 'holocaust denial'

CAMBRIDGE, Mass (AP) What began as a minor citation in a scholarly work ended up causing Noor Aljiem to be expelled from Harvard Law School. Aljiem, a third-year student majoring in criminal law, submitted a paper that examined Nazi travesties of criminal law, and received an ‘A' grade. She was set to graduate Summa Cum Laude at the end of this semester, but the university law school was forced to reconsider her status when criminal law professor Alan Dershowitz criticized Njiem's scholarship.

"She could have used any number of sources for her paper," Dershowitz' explained, "but for some reason, one of her citations mentioned the book Did Six Million Really Die? by imprisoned Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel."

"I admit there were misunderstandings," Njiem says. "But I did not actually quote the book. I quoted a German legal reference that happened to be cited in the book. Also, the citation was only one of three hundred miscellaneous citations in my paper, and I was commended for the thoroughness of my research. Furthermore the author of Did Six Million Really Die? was not Ernst Zundel, but Richard Verrall, whose pen name was Richard Harwood. Zundel merely helped Harwood to get Harwood's book published."

Saul Rubin, Dean of Harvard Law School, submitted the matter to an academic review board. "The German legal reference was obscure, and Ms. Njiem could have citied it directly, or through some other work," Rubin says. "That fact that her paper's bibliography mentioned Zundel's Did Six Million Really Die? is indicative of carelessness or maliciousness. Either way, we were forced to take Ms. Aljiem's status under advisement."

A series of further misunderstandings ensued, at the end of which the review board ruled against Najiem. Harvard Law School was forced to revoke her academic status, which had the effect of expelling her.

"Zundel's book has been outlawed in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and most of mainland Europe," Dershowitz explains. "To take a hate-filled reference that has been outlawed in so many nations, and cite it in a scholarly work, strikes me as more than a coincidence."

Alhiem, who is a Muslim, asked the law school if it would expel a student for citing Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, which has been outlawed in most Muslim nations.

"They told me they would not, because Rushdie's book does not deny the Holocaust. They also objected to my use of a book that has been banned in several countries. My position is that many banned books turn out later to be literary classics. The Soviet Union banned Orwell's novel 1984. England banned Orwell's Animal Farm, plus Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. America banned Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery book Uncle Tom's Cabin. Iran banned Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita. Is America the same as the Islamofascists?"

"That's a clever argument," Dershowitz says, "but none of those books killed six million people. Moreover, a book like Rushdies' Satanic Verses merely questions theology and belief, while Zundel's book is a hate-filled assault on well-documented truth."

Njiem submitted a formal apology, and offered to rewrite the paper without the citation, but dean Saul Rubin said the review board's decision was final, and was out of his hands.

"I can see the board's point," Rubin explains. "When a person commits a robbery, do we excuse her merely because she says he's sorry? As an aspiring criminal attorney, Ms. Njiem surely realizes that all of us must take personal responsibility for our actions."

After her expulsion, Njiem applied to other law schools in the hope of finishing her education, but she says they all rejected her because of the incident at Harvard.

"Now I have no way to pay back my school loans. Harvard wants to make an example of me. They also want to separate Muslims from the rest of American society by creating the illusion that only Muslims deserve to be attacked. In reality, many people are attacked; not just Muslims."

"That's a typical blame-the-victim response," Dershowitz says. "Whenever hate is exposed, its perpetrators claim that their people are singled out as a group for unfair treatment. This is only my opinion, but it seems to me that all Muslims over-generalize, especially about Jews. Also, it is absurd for Ms. Njiem to claim that only Muslims are held accountable. Is Zundel, the book's author, a Muslim? We see this kind of illogic and selective memory all the time. Frankly, I find it hypocritical."

Aljiem plans to sue the university law school to reinstate her academic status. Representing the law school will be a team led Alan Dershowitz, who was not part of the review board.

Related posts:

• Why should denial of the Holocaust be a crime?
• Holocaust Denial and The Amazing Warnings of Benjamin Freedman
• Dan Halutz WANTED for war crimes by Harvard University community

By Régis Debray, Le Monde Diplomatique

Foreword from the journal: Last year President Jacques Chirac asked Régis Debray to study the situation in the Middle East. On 15 January 2007 Debray sent the French authorities the following document on Palestine. It is an important key to understanding a long policy drift whose results are now obvious.

How the world backed itself into a corner

Dennis Ross, formerly the United States envoy to the Middle East, admitted back in 2000 that mistakes had been made in the 1978 Camp David accords: the diplomatic process had not taken enough account of developments on the ground, especially the settlements. The number of Jewish settlers in the Palestinian territories doubled from 1994 to 2000. As many Israelis have settled in the West Bank since the Oslo accords of 1993 as in the previous 25 years. With an international conference again being discussed, it would be a mistake to continue to ignore the real state of affairs. There is no need for a committee of inquiry. The report has already been drawn up, many times over. No conflict in the world is as well documented, mapped and recorded.

The OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), a United Nations agency, keeps up-to-date, detailed maps of the disputed territories, with photographs, population counts and graphs. It takes an hour to look at them, but doing so might forestall some of the never-ending statements of good intentions.

The maps show that the physical, economic and human basis for a viable Palestinian state is disappearing. The two-state solution and Israeli writer Amos Oz's "fair divorce" (a territory shared between two national homes, one smaller than the other and demilitarised but sovereign, viable and continuous) are now empty phrases belonging to the realm of might-have-been. Some might argue that we have not yet reached the point of no return and that the Israelis may have won the territorial battle (with only 22% of British mandate Palestine now outside their control) but the Palestinians are sure to win the demographic battle. They invoke the resilience of the local population in the face of the steam roller that is slowly but surely implementing the 1968 Allon Plan and the 1984 "Road Plan 50".

It is clear from developments on the ground that:

• the purpose of the security wall is not, as is believed, to trace a border that, however illegal (since it encloses over 10% of the West Bank), will at least serve as the dotted line for a future international frontier;

• it is true (as Ehud Omert said on Israeli army radio on 20 March 2006) that Israel's strategic border lies on the Jordan: the whole valley has been declared a forbidden area and the intervening area has been nibbled away (cross-river transit is only possible at certain points);

• the new east-west bypass roads built at the expense of the old north-south axis clearly chart a territory in the process of annexation, with space for three or four Arab bantustans (Jenin, Ramallah and Jericho). The exhaustion of natural resources in these overcrowded enclaves will eventually lead to massive emigration (much of the elite, especially Christian, has already left); and

• with the construction of the separation wall, the ongoing judaisation of East Jerusalem and reconfiguration of the Jerusalem municipality, the UN's repeated but purely formal condemnations have no effect on Israel's grip on the whole city (1).

Away from the cameras

There is a huge gap between what is said because we want to hear it (local withdrawals, easing of travel restrictions, removal of one checkpoint out of 20, a change of tone) and what is being done on the ground, which we don't want to see (interlinking of settlements, construction of bridges and tunnels, encirclement of Palestinian towns, expropriation of land, destruction of houses). Some would describe that gap as duplicity, others as ambiguity. The gradual encroachment happens out of sight of the cameras, without causing a stir and without an explicit colonial diktat. Nobody makes a formal complaint, even supposing they can find out what's going on – difficult if you haven't grown up locally. Israeli maps and school textbooks refer to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria and, following the Knesset's recent rejection of a proposal from a Labour education minister, obliteration of the 1967 green line is now a legal fait accompli.

This is not just a gap between the de facto and de jure situations. It reflects a method and tradition going back to the earliest days of the Yishuv (2): the strategy of fait accompli. That strategy has always paid off: the Jewish state was there before it was declared and recognised in 1948, as was the army. What we have is a theatre with two stages: on the international stage we hear repeated vague and encouraging speeches concerning withdrawal, coexistence and a Palestinian state, but the things that count (settlements, roads, tunnels, water tables) happen on the operational stage next door, where the outcome is decided out of public view.

Understanding how public opinion works in a democracy, successive Israeli governments of the left and right take care to administer regular painkillers, plans for unilateral withdrawal or the partial dismantlement of settlements and encouraging announcements that are always conditional and come to nothing. The media live from day to day, with no attempt to remember. Who now recalls that the road map (3) was supposed to be "a final and comprehensive settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005"?

The Oslo process did not just remain a dead letter: with the military reoccupation of Zones A and B (4) in April 2002, it went into reverse.

Territorial fragmentation cuts off local authorities from any possible central Palestinian administration and from each other, while the systematic physical destruction of national institutions, Palestinian infrastructure and political leaders by the Israeli army ensures internal anarchy and the spread of clans and gang violence: bottomless chaos. Clearly the path that has been taken is not that of nation building but the deconstruction of all possible governance beyond the separation wall. It is the logical counterpart of a 30-year annexation process that will be endorsed, when the time comes, "in view of the new reality on the ground".

Autosuggestion

In these circumstances, constant invocation of the road map by all parties has more to do with autosuggestion than a sober look at the consistent transformation of reality. That reality may not be visible from Geneva, Paris or New York, but it is immediately apparent to anyone travelling throughout the country after a few years' absence. It is a land carved up by military force, where the Israeli settlements are no longer shapes on a Palestinian background – instead the Palestinian areas appear as shapes on a solidly-infrastructured Israeli background: a land where water reserves are confiscated and a temporary travel restriction is very close to a permanent ban.

Some may take comfort in these ideas:

• since it was possible to withdraw settlements from Gaza, it should be possible in the near future in the West Bank. That is to ignore the fact that the withdrawal of 8,000 settlers from one place in Gaza was soon followed by the unpublicised installation of 20,000 settlers in another (the West Bank/Jerusalem). Gaza is not part of the promised land, whereas Judea and Samaria are its backbone. Sharon did not make any secret of the fact that withdrawal on the margins would be compensated by strengthening the Israeli presence elsewhere (438,000 settlers to date, including 192,910 in East Jerusalem);

• the dismantling of four small settlements in the north (1,000 settlers) and the proposed concentration of 60,000 settlers in the most populous blocs, Maale Adumim, Ariel and Gush Etzion, will create a free space. But with the settlements linked in a continuous string under cover of the security wall, the West Bank has been effectively cut in two. The wall separates Palestinians from each other even more than it separates them from the Israelis.

What is taking shape is not the Palestinian state announced and desired by all: it is an as yet unperceived Israeli territory enclosing three self-governing Palestinian enclaves.

All parties have a vested interest in preserving the international pretence (5). For the Israelis, history is being created under the cover of the pretence. The Palestinians cannot be told the truth – they are under occupation yet hoping for a better life and not self-destruction; wishful thinking provides notables, elected representatives and officials with a living, status, dignity and a raison d'?tre. The Europeans chose to salve their consciences by providing financial and humanitarian aid to apologise for their political passivity and voluntary blindness. The thinking of the Americans owes more to the Old Testament than the New; their link with Israel is a parent-child relationship beyond criticism. This shared illusion of self-protection results from the coincidence of opposing interests.

Is this situation tenable to the end of the century? It seems doubtful, given Israel's obsession with security, which makes it less secure, and its disregard for the demographic and religious trends in the region (6). Could not at least one European government convey to our Israeli friends that we are not all taken in by the deception, and that those who deceive may not be be its first victims – but will certainly be its last?

Related posts:

• John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt: pro-Israel Lobby influence over U.S. foreign policy on the recent Israel-Lebanon war
• A Zionist Politician Looses Faith In The Future
• Why Palestine Matters By Roger H. Lieberman

UN: Peacekeeper killed in south Lebanon cluster bomb explosion

And Hillary Clinton voted to continue selling Israel these bombs... maybe she should write a condolence letter?

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From the New Yorker's David Remnick: The Apostate

Excerpts:

Short of being Prime Minister, Burg could not be higher in the Zionist establishment. His father was a Cabinet minister for nearly four decades, serving under Prime Ministers from David Ben-Gurion to Shimon Peres. In addition to a decade-long career in the Knesset, including four years as Speaker, Burg had also been leader of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel. And yet he did not obey the commands of pedigree. “Defeating Hitler” and an earlier book, “God Is Back,” are, in combination, a despairing look at the Israeli condition. Burg warns that an increasingly large and ardent sector of Israeli society disdains political democracy. He describes the country in its current state as Holocaust-obsessed, militaristic, xenophobic, and, like Germany in the nineteen-thirties, vulnerable to an extremist minority...

...After Burg described Israel as a perpetually “frightened society,” the discussion quickly grew tense: SHAVIT: You are patronizing and supercilious, Avrum. You have no empathy for Israelis. You treat the Israeli Jew as a paranoid. But, as the cliché goes, some paranoids really are persecuted. On the day we are speaking, Ahmadinejad is saying that our days are numbered. He promises to eradicate us. No, he is not Hitler. But he is also not a mirage. He is a true threat. He is the real world—a world you ignore.
BURG: I say that as of this moment Israel is a state of trauma in nearly every one of its dimensions. And it’s not just a theoretical question. Would our ability to cope with Iran not be much better if we renewed in Israel the ability to trust the world? Would it not be more right if we didn’t deal with the problem on our own but, rather, as part of a world alignment beginning with the Christian churches, going on to the governments and finally the armies? Instead, we say we do not trust the world, they will abandon us, and here’s Chamberlain returning from Munich with the black umbrella and we will bomb them alone...

...Burg told Shavit that Israel should give up its nuclear weaponry in exchange for an unspecified “deal” with its Arab neighbors. Israel’s “law of return,” which allows any Jew around the world to immigrate and become a citizen, was “dynamite” in the Arab world, he said, and needed to be reëvaluated. One subject that especially infuriated Shavit, and provoked countless letters to the editor, e-mail screeds, and editorial-page rebuttals, was Burg’s depiction of the European Union as an almost irresistibly attractive “biblical utopia” and his flouting of the fact that he holds a French passport, because his wife is French-born, and voted in the recent French elections. When Shavit asked Burg if he recommended that all Israelis acquire a second passport, Burg replied, “Whoever can”—a moment of determined cosmopolitanism. Shavit sarcastically called Burg “the prophet of Brussels.” He went on:

SHAVIT: There really is a deep anti-Zionist pattern in you. Emotionally, you are with German Jewry and American Jewry. They excite you, thrill you, and by comparison you find the Zionist option crude and spiritually meagre. It broadens neither the heart nor the soul.
BURG: Yes, yes. The Israeli reality is not exciting. People are not willing to admit it, but Israel has reached the wall. Ask your friends if they are certain their children will live here. How many will say yes? At most fifty per cent. In other words, the Israeli élite has already parted with this place. And without an élite there is no nation.
SHAVIT: You are saying that we are suffocating here for lack of spirit.
BURG: Totally. We are already dead. We haven’t received the news yet, but we are dead. It doesn’t work anymore. It doesn’t work. . . . There is no one to talk to here. The religious community of which I was a part—I feel no sense of belonging to it...

...Burg comes from a conservative Zionist family; his father helped found Mafdal, the National Religious Party. But when he started out in politics he joined the Labor Party; he was deeply influenced by Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a scientist and philosophy professor at Hebrew University who had contempt for the Greater Israel movement’s conflation of religion and politics and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Leibowitz referred to abusive Israeli soldiers as “Judeo-Nazis” and was so upset by the sight of the festivities around the Western Wall after the Six-Day War that he referred to it as a “disco wall.” In the pursuit of increasingly higher offices, Burg avoided such language. He held back, he self-censored. “You’re into the system,” he said. “You’re in the tunnel. I was a devoted politician and so I talked the talk.” But then, he said, “after some fifteen, twenty years in political life I had a feeling all of a sudden that, to use the Biblical term, Israel was the kingdom without prophesy. I realized that the three founding narratives of the national idea of Israeliness were over: the mass immigration to the land, aliyah; the security of the land; and the settling of the land. All three had served their purpose and were no longer the core of the nation’s narratives. I asked myself what was the alternative. This was a long process of thought. I didn’t feel that the political system in Israel was trying to renew its thinking.”

Read the whole article...

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...but Revolutionary Islam is not the Third Reich.

Embracing the empire
By Ian Buruma

"But the term "Islamofascism" was not coined for nothing. It invites us to see a big part of the Islamic world as a natural extension of Nazism. Saddam Hussein, who was hardly an Islamist, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is, are often described as natural successors to Adolf Hitler. And European weakness, not to mention the "treason" of its liberal scribes, paving the way to an Islamist conquest of Europe ("Eurabia") is seen as a ghastly echo of the appeasement of the Nazi threat." (read more!)

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First of all, please meet Handala:

Handala (or Hanzala) is the most famous of the Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali's cartoon characters. From approximately 1975 through 1987 Naji Al-Ali created cartoons that depict the complexities of the plight of Palestinian refugees. These cartoons are still relevant today and Handala, the refugee child who is present in every cartoon, remains a potent symbol of the struggle of the Palestinian people for justice and self-determination.

Naji Al-Ali wrote:

"His name is Handala and he has promised the people that he will remain true to himself. I drew him as a child who is not beautiful; his hair is like the hair of a hedgehog who uses his thorns as a weapon. Handala is not a fat, happy, relaxed, or pampered child. He is barefooted like the refugee camp children, and he is an icon that protects me from making mistakes. Even though he is rough, he smells of amber. His hands are clasped behind his back as a sign of rejection at a time when solutions are presented to us the American way.

Handala was born ten years old, and he will always be ten years old. At that age, I left my homeland, and when he returns, Handala will still be ten, and then he will start growing up. The laws of nature do not apply to him. He is unique. Things will become normal again when the homeland returns.

I presented him to the poor and named him Handala as a symbol of bitterness. At first, he was a Palestinian child, but his consciousness developed to have a national and then a global and human horizon. He is a simple yet tough child, and this is why people adopted him and felt that he represents their consciousness."

Handala became the signature of Naji al-Ali's cartoons and remains an iconic symbol of Palestinian identity and defiance; the artist remarked that "this being that I have invented will certainly not cease to exist after me, and perhaps it is no exaggeration to say that I will live on with him after my death".

Unfortunately, the Palestinian refugees are still refugees.

The plight of Palestinians in the occupied territories has worsened dramatically, with 2.4-million now living in poverty, according to a report published on Monday by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Meanwhile "Donations to Palestinians start to flow after US nod" and Fayyad was expected to receive enough money through the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) account to pay government workers, including members of the security forces, at least half of their normal monthly wages later this week. But the misery does not end there because "The Israeli Army invades a village near Bethlehem and kidnaps three civilians", more "Palestinian civilian kidnapped as army search homes in Hebron", the occupation "Army injures two Palestinians and kidnaps them after surrounding a hospital in Jericho" and despite the Jewish country's threats to expand the 11-day-old crackdown on Gaza "militant groups fire more rockets into Israel" as no guarantee that Israel will ever stop its aggression on Palestinians in West Bank as well Gaza. In fact Israel is not only targeting Palestinian militant but they "strike on Jabalya camp damages civilian property; human rights offices". The "Israeli forces invade Nablus, attack women's center". Meanwhile, some "Guantanamo prisoner urges release of BBC journalist," a television cameraman held prisoner for years at the US Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has issued an impassioned plea for the release of a fellow journalist kidnapped in Gaza.

In the ONLY democracy in the M.E., "Settler fires rounds of live ammunition at Arabic houses in the Negev" and the "Alleged killer of Arab cabbie is indicted" while the prosecutors who requested that Sofir be remanded until his trial said the murder was committed due to "racial motives and his hatred towards Arabs." Of course if you ask any Zionist, s/he will deny that this is racist motive despite the fact that they feed their children with hate towards Arab like feeding a "Poison Apple". Look at it, if using the innocence of a cartoon mouse to teach violent resistance to Israeli occupation creates hate (although it was proved that MEMRI report is a lie and intentionally mistranslated), it pales in comparison to the hatred that is being created when Jewish children are taught that God gave the land of Palestine to the Jews.

Speaking of the only "democracy" and racism, all what you need to look at is the Knesset discussions about the "Amendment to Right of Entry Law" which can be described in two words as a "racist law". Some speakers at a meeting in Tel Aviv on Sunday night were unanimous in declaring the amendment as racist and directed primarily at non-Jews of Russian, Ethiopian and Palestinian background, so as to safeguard Israel's demographic balance and ensure that there will always be a Jewish majority... Other than forcing Palestinians and non-Jewish Russian and Ethiopian immigrants out of the country, the amendment would also affect several hundred non-citizens who were stateless Bedouin.

Moving Internationally, "Livni meets with British ambassador over U.K. boycotts" because it is worries her (them, the Zionists) that the number of British organizations calling for the boycott of Israel, their public campaigns, and their constant comparisons between Israel and the apartheid regime of South Africa have made the battle for British public opinion particularly significant.

She and her alike always ignores the fact that "Palestinians Support Truce with Israel", however, they are not allowed to demonstrate peacefully. The BBC asked: "Where is the Palestinian peace camp?", the answer was simple: "a series of non-violent demonstrations have cropped up to protest against the building of the West Bank barrier. These protests, however, are small "because we can't gather like the Israelis do in Tel Aviv," says Dr Salameh. "We would get shot if we tried."

And while they call it "DEMOCRACY", our Prime Minister "Haneya follows up weekly cabinet meeting from secret location" because of the Israel threat to assassinate Palestinian leaders. Israel policy is very clear, "kill them or put them behind bars" until there is no one left to resist their crimes and fight for Palestinian right. Mona Mounsour, "a Palestinian MP called for international justice against Israel" and said that Palestinian government could file a case in the International Court of Justice against Israel for kidnapping at least 35 Palestinian officials last week.

As the conditions worsen, "S. Africa condemns Middle East violence" and rumors that "Arab powers seen taking over P.A." is spreading, as if that was not tested before and failed. But as usual, whenever there is a 0.0001% chance of peace negotiations, Israeli rhetoric surface such as "Ya'alon: No peace until Arabs recognize Israel." With this and many of such statements, the Israelis take it as de facto and limit their horizon to reach peace. Taking for example "A condominium solution for a divided Jerusalem", there is a widespread misconception among Israelis that, under the status quo, Israel possesses sovereignty over expanded East Jerusalem. It does not. It possesses administrative control. A country can acquire administrative control by force of arms. It can acquire sovereignty only with the consent of the international community. Israel has possessed and exercised administrative control over expanded East Jerusalem for four decades. To this day, none of the world's other 194 sovereign states has recognized its claim to sovereignty. Furthermore, Israel's purported annexation of expanded East Jerusalem has been declared void, and Jerusalem has been explicitly included among the occupied territories in a long series of unanimous or near-unanimous UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions.

Before we leave Arab/Israel relations, "Israel won't budget cellular frequencies to Al-Wataniya," as Israel refuses to allocate cellular frequencies to the new Palestinian cellular services company recently set up in the occupied territories. Note that Al-Wataniya is a Kuwaiti owned company, and they are working (or supposed to work after winning the second cellular license) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, not Israel, yet Ya'alon demand Arab recognition of Israel!?

Anyway, another ironic news in the media; you should 'Tune Out', "B'nai Brith Shuts Down Peace Activists in Canada" What, according to the complaint, is anti-Semitic? "The idea that Israel has no right to exist or that Israel is an apartheid state," says Mr. Abrams. Also, any comparison of Zionists to Nazis. The definition of anti-Semitism is changed at will by those that simply cannot tolerate any criticism of the Jewish State. The editor of Peace, Earth & Justice was forced to resign for the "bad judgment" of publishing an article after the complaint was received, because the article is "slanderous to all Jews," uses the word Zionist as a "slander" like Nazi, and may be a "hate crime" under Canadian law.

A semantic question: Is it also a slander to refer to Nazis as "Nazis"?

But this is nothing new. A "Professor who attended the widely labelled a Holocaust-denial conference in Tehran, blasts critics as Islamophobes". He retaliated with a blistering published attack on his university president and his colleagues for being illiterate Islamophobes. His interest has been in what use of the Holocaust has been made to promote Zionism - the right of Jews to a national homeland - and to support the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.

On Lebanon "front", reports say that "Firefights erupt at besieged Lebanon camp" and "Lebanon army 'hit by militants'" after the Lebanese troops have reportedly come under attack from "Islamist" militants barricaded inside a Palestinian refugee camp in the north of the country. The "Lebanese army and Islamists clash violently", reports said, but hardly anyone one is mentioning the suffering of the ten's of thousands Palestinian refugee hostages in the camp. The "Militants accuse US of sending nerve gas to the Lebanese army", the army didn't deny or confirm this, but I expect that next move will be asking the Palestinian refugees to "HOLD THEIR BREATH" when they use the nerve gas. If refugees don't, it's only Palestinians to blame because they didn't listen to the advice. Despite the fact that Palestinians are not part of this conflict, "Palestinians seek end to Lebanon standoff", meanwhile, UN team is BUSY "to report on alleged arms smuggling to Lebanon" (not the one that is coming through Beirut Int'l Airport).

Last but not least, "Peretz loses Israeli party vote", guess why? Because he lost the War on Lebanon last summer and didn't kill enough civilians. Had he killed enough, he would be now running for Presidency or Prime Minister office, but his hands are not bloody enough for that so the two men who defeated him, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and a former head of Shin Bet, Ami Ayalon will now face a run-off vote to continue what he failed to do. Note that they both are VERY experienced in "security" (bloodshed) issues (one coming from defense ministry and the other from Shen Bet). This is where the Israeli votes go for.

So it's another year, another day, June this years it will be "40 years since 1967 - and B'tselem announce a day of public events." How many more "events" day are we going to witness? How many more years are we going to CELEBRATE the occupation?

Finally, it is also noteworthy to remind our American friends that "American Treachery in the Attack on the USS Liberty Much Deeper Than Previously Thought". It was June 8, 1967, American navy were viciously attacked 40 years ago and the perpetrators got away with it. It's time to learn from history and work for better future, for all.

Israeli Attack on USS Liberty:

Until next collage...

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False! Well, not everywhere, but at Daily Kos it sure is.

It has been nearly a month since I decided to start cross-posting most of what I write in my blog to my diary at Daily Kos. The diaries at Daily Kos are more or less make for a personal blog, where members can publish their essays and engage in comments and dialogue with other members, if they wish to comment. Daily Kos is advertised to be the liberal-progressive front of the Left Wing in the Democratic Party of the United States. In other words, they claim to be the voice of Progressive Democrats, and that's what I thought, until few days ago.

It is worth to mention that I'm one of many blog owners (Sabbah's Blog) to cross-post at Daily Kos [see Daily Kos FAQs: . . . "11. Cross-posting from your own blog is welcome. Remember, though, that you can only write one diary a day at Daily Kos."], activists, authors, etc... coming from different backgrounds and religions, we are Americans and non-Americans, Jews, Christians, Muslims, non-believers alike. What we have in common is being pro-Palestine, pro-Peace, and anti-Occupation. Among the group from this side, there are many ideas and opinions about what is best to resolve the Israel/Palestinian conflict. We might not agree all the time, but we all agree that Israel's Occupation should end.

For an unknown period of time, there was a very active member on Daily Kos who went by the name, Shergald. He was one of the most active Kossacks members who never missed a day without publishing a pro-Palestine diary. Actually, the majority of his diaries were about the peace movement in Israel, Palestine, the US, and the around the world. Obviously, life is not that easy, and what everyone thought to be a 'freedom of speech' forum turned to be an occupied Zionist zone. Shergald was attacked and attacked thousands of times by this Zionist gang until, when they could not stop him by countering the truth and the facts he presented in his diaries, they started to overwhelm the administration at Daily Kos with complaints about him supporting the worst lies that you can imagine, such as his being anti-Semitic, etc. What Daily Kos administration did was surprising. The progressive left wing voice of the Democrats decided to silence Shergald, to ban him from writing diaries or having any functionality on Daily Kos. He was frustrated and disappointed by the unjust and biased decision to ban him (twice), so he decided to come back, but under different ID's. To cut long story short, his new IDs were hunted one after another until it reached a stage that anyone who knew or knows Shergald, or had any association with him (no matter what association means, you will see examples later), was kicked out of Daily Kos on behalf of the Zionist gang.

Unfortunately, after Shergald was silenced and banned from appearing on Daily Kos, the frequency of I/P diaries went down in volume to the level that it was hardly noticed to the pleasure of the Zionists. That meant that American readers of Daily Kos (nearly 0.5 million a day) were not going to read the facts behind the news or hear the hidden stories or history of the Palestinian catastrophe or the daily injustices that they go under by the Israeli occupation, or about the many peace organizations that have evolved to stop the injustices. Nor would they hear about the influence of AIPAC on American foreign policy at a times when Democrats are preparing from the next presidential election, a topic progressive Democrats are highly interested in.

What happened next was not very surprising. Several pro-Palestine/pro-Peace bloggers, authors, writers, activists, etc... started appearing at Daily Kos and bridged the gap that Shergald left. The number of new pro-Palestine Kossacks increased during the last 60 days or so to a level where the balance of true facts compared to propaganda/lies turned toward the pro-Palestine side. To name some of those new members, Steve Amsel (a.k.a. DesertPeace), Ben Heine (his blog here), Umkahlil (her blog here), Anna (her website here), Eileen Fleming (her website here), Jon the Anti Zionist Jew (I was told that Jon was posting for long period), and many more. I, Sabbah, was there too. I don't think that anyone mentioned above expected that their time on Daily Kos would fly smoothly, but at least it was a more even match than anyone thought.

The Zionist gang reopened their propaganda operating manual and started shooting accusations left and right that this one is anti-Semitic, that that one is pro-terrorist, and so on and so forth. They first managed to ban Ben Heine in no time at all for the following drawing:

Defenders of Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's most racist government official, who advocates the transfer of Israeli Arabs into Bantustans, were incensed. A couple of days ago, Steve Amsel was banned because someone from the Zionist group complained to the administration that Steve might be Shergald in disguise. The complainer later admitted that he was wrong, but the Daily Kos administration decided to shoot the messenger (Steve) anyway and let the venom of the Zionist gang spread more lies around Daily Kos. So many tried to justify the banning of Steve Amsel, thinking it was the result of his being associated with Shergald. Of course, the biggest evidence they have to blot this association were a comment or two of Shergald's on Steve's blog, where Shergald was not saying any more than "well done" or "great post" following one of the master pieces that Steve writes.

Once the war started, it didn't stop. Other pro-Palestine authors such as Umkahlil, Anna Baltzer, and me were included. In fact, it started only seconds after any of us posted his/her first diary there. One can only wonder how many agents the Zionist gang and AIPAC recruited to act as watchdogs 24/7, sifting through every single word published on Daily Kos, observing every single move of Daily Kos members. It is evident that the Zionists on Daily Kos are very organized and I would not be surprised if they are supported by their biggest allies from the Bush administration Department of State. I'm sure that you all remember my own story about the State Department official who attempted to interfere in my blog (more here).

Yesterday, which marked the celebration of the Nakba, Daily Kos blew the last bridge it had with the Palestinian voices. Midday GMT, the news started coming. They first banned Umkahlil, later on they banned me, and last but not least, they banned Anna Baltzer. Why? Nobody knows. No reason is given. No warning or any notice from the 'busy' Kos administrators to let any of us know the circumstances under which the decision was taken and what valid reasons they gave for throwing these poisoned donuts at us. All that we heard from unofficial sources: we are associates of Shergald, again!

It is sad to believe that Daily Kos administration based its decision on such meaningless illusions. It would not have taken them more than a minute to check the history of each of us and see that we all are established pro Palestine peace activists, just by looking at our blogs and websites. We don't have to have any association with anyone, not even with other banned Kos members or other groups that might also talk about the plight of Palestinians. Our blogs and our work, online and offline, have their own merits and stands on its own. I do not deny knowing Shergald, in fact I'm proud to know a tough fighter like him, but he is not the reason why I started posting on Daily Kos. The main reason is the same reason I write here in my blog, which all of you know is about presenting the truth about Palestine historically and about the daily catastrophes that result from the criminal occupation of the Zionists of my homeland. I never hid my objectives, which are to bring justice to everyone in this conflict, including Israelis.

Today I'm left with no access to publish anything more on Daily Kos. That's bad. Not only for me, but for my American friends who know nothing more but the false Zionist narratives of the occupation. It is sad to confirm now that Daily Kos is the latest "Zionist Occupied Zone." It is unfortunate that they still advertise being a "Progressive Voice" for the Democratic Left Wing. It is also bad to believe that the Left Wing will let it go as is, but I hope not. But imagine the credibility of the Left Wing if this remains the case at Daily Kos, especially as they are preparing themselves for next year's elections. No one denies that the Israel/Palestine conflict is a central topic of the US foreign policy. If it remains as such, I will not be surprised to see AIPAC ads on Daily Kos soon. And need I say so, there will be another five or more years of support for Israel's illegal occupation by the new US "Democratic" administration?

Having said all the above, I'm not really interested in going back to cross-post diaries on Daily Kos, even though there is an open invitation to do so in the FAQs. It is not because it is not important. To the contrary, when 0.5 million people read what is published there, it is very important to keep the pro-Palestine view live. But to know that the Zionist gang have taken over the blog, it is next to impossible to make any move without expecting to get hijacked by the venomous Zionists of the site. Venom only seen elsewhere at Little Green Footballs. In other words, until and unless Daily Kos administration corrects its policies, and the mess its created because of its fear of Zionist members and their propagandists, it will be waste of time fighting the winds of colonial Zionism, while they have the control keys of Daily Kos in their hands.

Last but not least, I really feel sorrow for leaving because I will miss the peaceful voices of the silent pro-Palestine majority at Daily Kos. However, I'm glad that I made more friends than enemies while there, no matter what happens. Just keep in mind that if you want to be seen as a peacemaker, stop applauding the war criminals and supporting the IOF terrorists. On the other hand, watch your back if you quote any Palestinian. You will be tagged as a terrorist.

Good bye "Zionist Occupied" Daily Kos!

(Drawings by: Ben Heine)

Update: This diary is a must read - Restoring The Palestinian Voice To Daily Kos

You will be shocked to know that the reason we (Nancy and I) got banned for is nothing to do with Shergald "association" thingy, but even more silly than that. It is because Nancy and I recommended another pro-Palestine diary there (Anna'a), and the administrators think that that diary promote "terrorist" views.

The DKos claims were defeated and the banning now has no merits. It was a racist action.

There is too much to read in this post and comments, but out of the +700 comments (and counting), this is the most important part to read.

Related posts:

• Beit Hanoun Massacre Update
• Forced labor for Palestinian children in Israeli prison
• Israel has spoken…the saga drags on…my visa update…

The US is holding a nine year old Canadian citizen without charges in a ‘Detention Center’ in a legal limbo.

Call it international limbo. Detained by U.S. Customs officials after their flight to Toronto made an unscheduled stop on American soil nearly four weeks ago, Kevin and his Iranian parents, Majid and Masomeh, feel they are being held hostage not only by the physical parameters of Hutto, but by the politics of nationality.

“We can’t go home because I am Canadian but my parents are not,” Kevin said in a telephone interview with The Globe and Mail.

Here is a DemocracyNow interview and here is a CBC interview with Kevin and his dad (MP3 File).

[Hat tip: Kimmy]

Related posts:

• Syrian-Canadian arrested
• Canadian Bigfoot
• Cell Phones No Luxury to Palestinians

Did you know that the Israeli farmer who shot Arab “intruder” 3 times in back, freed to “home arrest”?

Did you know that Netanyahu uses the words that push US war buttons: “Iran and Holocaust.” Netanyahu knows which strategists and PR people to use to give him the right words (with a little help and $ from his Neocon pals), the right strategy, to push America’s congressional and emotional buttons. Once ousted for corruption, he is coming back. There hasn’t been an Israeli Prime Minister in years who was NOT ousted for corruption. No big deal. (And who could possibly be behind the corruption investigations of Olmert?)

Did you know that Yad Vashem head says “Settler Abuse of Palestinians Recalls pre WWII Anti Semitism!”

Did you know that Israeli army admits that the 44 barriers it said it removed, did not actually exist!!!

Did you know that there is a large rise in number of rapes, date rape drugs in Israeli Terrorist Army? If it’s good enough for the President of the country, it’s good enough for the troops.

Courageous Israeli settlers confront dangerous Palestinian terrorist.

Did you know that Israeli army shoots 17 year old in leg and lets him bleed to death?

Did you know that a multi-party committee of MPs is pressing for sanctions over Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians? Time to get serious about Israel…

Did you know the “list of prohibitions” in Palestinian Life? Forbidden in Palestine under a whole, long list of Israeli prohibitions:

Standing prohibitions
* Palestinians from the Gaza Strip are forbidden to stay in the West Bank.
* Palestinians are forbidden to enter East Jerusalem.
* West Bank Palestinians are forbidden to enter the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing.
* Palestinians are forbidden to enter the Jordan Valley.
* Palestinians are forbidden to enter villages, lands, towns and neighborhoods along the “seam line” between the separation fence and the Green Line (some 10 percent of the West Bank).
* Palestinians who are not residents of the villages Beit Furik and Beit Dajan in the Nablus area, and Ramadin, south of Hebron, are forbidden entry.
* Palestinians are forbidden to enter the settlements’ area (even if their lands are inside the settlements’ built area).
* Palestinians are forbidden to enter Nablus in a vehicle.
* Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are forbidden to enter area A (Palestinian towns in the West Bank).
* Gaza Strip residents are forbidden to enter the West Bank via the Allenby crossing.
* Palestinians are forbidden to travel abroad via Ben-Gurion Airport.
* Children under age 16 are forbidden to leave Nablus without an original birth certificate and parental escort.
* Palestinians with permits to enter Israel are forbidden to enter through the crossings used by Israelis and tourists.
* Gaza residents are forbidden to establish residency in the West Bank.
* West Bank residents are forbidden to establish residency in the Jordan valley, seam line communities or the villages of Beit Furik and Beit Dajan.
* Palestinians are forbidden to transfer merchandise and cargo through internal West Bank checkpoints.

Periodic prohibitions
* Residents of certain parts of the West Bank are forbidden to travel to the rest of the West Bank.
* People of a certain age group - mainly men from the age of 16 to 30, 35 or 40 - are forbidden to leave the areas where they reside (usually Nablus and other cities in the northern West Bank).
* Private cars may not pass the Swahara-Abu Dis checkpoint (which separates the northern and southern West Bank). This was cancelled for the first time two weeks ago under the easing of restrictions.

Read the complete list here.

Here is a leaked Israeli document gives frightening glimpse of apartheid!

Oh. My. GOD! “Worldwide… Jews have decreasing interest in Israel“.

Truth time: Sanctions on Hamas have backfired on Israel & no “Palestinian State”!

“The accomplishments of this policy resemble those of the international sanctions policy imposed on Iraq: It has not deposed the Hamas government, Qassam rockets continued to land in Israel and it did not serve as an alternative for the need for IDF action. Even worse, the Palestinians’ effort to extricate themselves from the sanctions has given new power brokers - Syria and Iran - a basis of support in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

“….But unlike other sanction regimes, Israel is setting conditions but not promising anything in return. Thus, even if Haniyeh starts wearing a skullcap and Khaled Meshal begins humming Hatikva, and even if Abbas makes it mandatory to teach the heroic story of Masada in Palestinian schools, Israel does not want and is unable to propose a diplomatic alternative that would lead to the establishment of an independent and democratic Palestinian state. It does not want to - because any such proposal would mean a withdrawal from most of the territories and the dismantling of most of the settlements.

Did you hear of Israelis shameful treatment of Holocaust survivors? It will be a crime to deny Holocaust, but not to lie to begin a war, or occupy another land Hypocrites! On the way to more killing of innocent people, to pushing the world into a war against Iran, which it cannot be denied DOES NOT HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS!!! Israel pushed the world through a resolution that make it a worldwide crime to deny the Holocaust, that’s fine. However, Israel EXPLOITS the Holocaust and all who died in it in a shameful and disgraceful way, and while it is easy to respect the dead, it KEEPS LIVING HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS IN POVERTY!!! - Zionist are selfish, self centered people with no morals, no ethics, no compunction about the shooting of children in the head, leaving a million cluster bombs in Lebanon, or exploiting the death of millions. FIRST, ISRAEL SHOULD LEARN TO RESPECT THE HOLOCAUST; THEN IT CAN ASK OTHERS TO DO SO!!!

Did you know that Israel will move the apartheid fence to include 1,500 settlers, leaving 20,000 Palestinians in between? They moved the Wall five kilometers eastward from the “Green Line” (which is supposed to be the borders between Palestine and Israel) in the area of Modi’in Ilit, in order to take in the settlements of Nili and Na’aleh. The new route will create two Palestinian enclaves containing about 20,000 people. Nili and Na’aleh together have some 1,500 residents.

Israel and Reality: Did you know that Olmert thinks Israel was “victorious” in Lebanon?

Did you know that Egypt has charged 3 Israelis, Egyptian with spying for Israel? (is spying a part of the peace treaty?) Badawi said the Israelis had recruited Attar while he was living in Turkey in August 2001, and had assisted him in obtaining a residency permit in Canada under a fake name and found him work in a bank.

Did you know that six Israeli defense ministry officials confess to taking bribes from contractors?

What Israel’s “Right to Exist” Means to Palestinians? “What Israel, within what borders, is involved? Is it the 55 percent of historical Palestine recommended for a Jewish state by the UN General Assembly in 1947? The 78 percent of historical Palestine occupied by the Zionist movement in 1948 and now viewed by most of the world as “Israel” or “Israel proper”? The 100 percent of historical Palestine occupied by Israel since June 1967 and shown as “Israel” (without any “Green Line”) on maps in Israeli schoolbooks? I would like to hear what Condi, Merkel or Solana, Hillary, some of the others have to say about this. How about you Mr. Blaschke? Or is the answer only, whatever Israel wants, we don’t want to go into details???

Did you know that under the cover of the sound of explosions in Gaza and Olmert’s nice words to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the Kadima-Labor government is proceeding with a settlement strategy that explains why the minister of strategic affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, is so quiet. (For the freedom Israel has to build new settlements, new Jewish only roads, work on destroying the Al Aqsa Mosque - which Israel would like to collapse, so it can build a third Temple on the site - we can give great thanks the paid for Democratic Congressional men and women like Debbie Stabenow, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, and an endless number of others, who talk peace but vote occupation, war, and anything Israel wants.)

Shhh! Israel quietly razes 6 houses in Negev, leaving 70 of Bedouins homeless.

Did you know that Germany presses EU partners to impose a radical law and order package (& leaked docs)? The EU faces a damaging split over moves led by Germany to impose a radical law and order package. If enacted into European legislation, it would allow armed police to operate with impunity outside their home countries, privatised armed ’sky marshals’ on civilian flights and a wide range of joint operations against alleged illegal migrants. The Observer has obtained confidential documents showing that Germany also wants to permit undercover officers working with criminal gangs to roam unrestricted across European borders.

Did you know that Kurnaz made new allegations of torture and human-rights abuses in the US coalition’s jail in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he was held. Members of the German parliament who heard his testimony said they were shaken by the Turkish citizen’s claims. The German-born Turkish citizen was held at Guantánamo for almost five years.

The German Foreign Minister is under pressure now in terror inquiry. US wanted to release innocent Kurnaz in 2002, Germans said keep him there, tried to create false evidence in 2005. Kurnaz served 3 more years in Gitmo, all knew he was innocent!

These pictures say more than all the blah blah about what the war on terror is accomplishing. Photo: AP (Kurnaz BEFORE Gitmo, left. After Gitmo, right)

Did you know that Germany has issued 13 arrest warrents, including US operatives, in el Masri Rendition Case?

Did you know that a Canadian Human Rights Group is opposing freedom of speech when it comes to debate Israel? decision approving a request by two Toronto high school teachers to have a union debate on whether to condemn Israel’s treatment of Palestinians has come under fire by human rights groups. The motion was brought by English teacher and Jewish activist Jason Kuninr. It was approved by the Toronto district of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, and is being opposed by B’nai Brith and the Jewish Defence League. Another successful choking off of free speech.

Did you know that Barack Obama, the rookie Senator from Illinois is going to run for president while assuring us that he supports the troops in Iraq? He’s made it quite clear he won’t bring them home. He favor surgical missile strikes on Iran and Pakistan. He knows that pissing off the (pro-Israel) lobby is not the way to the top and last but not least, he even embraced Israel’s brutal bombings of Lebanon last summer.

Did you know that Bill Clinton lied to get Barak elected? Tells Jewish voters why they need his wife!

Did you know that Clinton voted FOR, continuing sales, but Israel probably misused US cluster bombs? In a country run by the Israel lobby, MAY is as far as anyone dares to go: “The New York Times reported on its Internet site Saturday evening that the report will say Israel may have violated agreements with the United States by its use of American-supplied cluster munitions during last year’s war in Lebanon.”

Did you know that Hillary Clinton: “Iran Is a Threat to Israel!” (so we know how SHE will vote!! War, war ,war!)

Did you know that Shell defies US pressure and signed £5 billion Iranian gas deal?

Did you know that Iran clock is ticking? Bush preparing war with Iran!

Did you know that Mossad killed Iran nuclear physicist couple of weeks ago? Professor Ardashir Hosseinpour, a world authority on electromagnetism, was until recently working on uranium enrichment at the facility in Isfahan, one of the central processing sites in Iran’s nuclear program.

Investigators: Millions in Iraq Aid Wasted (by THIS efficient Administration?) Only millions??? Come on, these people deal in BIG money…. could it have been billions?

Wait… Did you know that U.S. sent $12 billion in cash to Iraq and watched it vanish? In the year after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 nearly 281 million notes, weighing 363 tons, were sent from New York to Baghdad for disbursement to Iraqi ministries and US contractors. Using C-130 planes, the deliveries took place once or twice a month with the biggest of $2,401,600,000 on June 22 2004, six days before the handover. Cash payments were made from the back of a pickup truck, and cash was stored in unguarded sacks in Iraqi ministry offices. One official was given $6.75 million in cash, and was ordered to spend it in one week before the interim Iraqi government took control of Iraqi funds.”The minutes from a May 2004 CPA meeting reveal “a single disbursement of $500m in security funding labelled merely ‘TBD’, meaning ‘to be determined’.

Did you know that Exxon earned $39,5 billion in 2006 (BEFORE new Iraq contract…)?

Did you know that 1,990 Iraqi civilians were killed in January 2007, 3 times as many as January 2006? Health Ministry official said. Counts kept by other groups, including the U.N., have listed far higher numbers.

Did you know that the “First US officer since Vietnam” goes on trial for speaking out against war in Iraq? (Robin has a lot of details about this case in her blog). Lieutenant Ehren Watada, 28, argues that to serve in Iraq would betray his conscience and his duties as an officer. “It would be a violation of my oath because this war to me is illegal in the sense that it was waged in deception, and it was also in violation of international law. Officers and leaders have that responsibility to speak out for the enlisted and certainly when we do so it comes with more consequences, which is what a leader should do. A leader can’t just go with the crowd.”

Did you know that British military viewed cockpit tape in 2003. Said it didn’t exist. Oooops. The American gov’t lied to the people, the British government lied to the people, the German government lied to the people… This is government BY the people???

“The news of official British involvement in the US inquiry conflicts with earlier Ministry of Defence claims that a cockpit recording of the attack did not exist. It also raises questions over why British officials involved in the US military inquiry acquiesced in the official conclusion that the pilots were not to blame. After the Sun published the transcript of the cockpit recording yesterday, the US agreed for the video to be used in the Oxfordshire coroner’s inquest being conducted into L/Cpl Hull’s death.”

Hat tip to my friend, Editerette, for most of the links above!

Missed previous “Did you know?’s” You can find them here!

Related posts:

• Did you know?
• Did you know?
• Did you know?

Sorry, but these guys seems to be living on a different planet. Less than a week ago, they spilled their poison on Jordan. Jordanian government spokesman Nasser Judeh replied:

On Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, Judeh was surprised to hear the HRW asks Jordan to consider thousands of Iraqis as refugees, noting the Agency that concerns with refugees is Higher Commission for Refugees, which can classify the refugee. He indicated that HRW claimed that Jordan puts restriction on visas for Iraqis, the Iraqis, Judeh remarked, basically don’t need visa to enter Jordan but rather they need residence. He elucidated that the information HRW has got is inaccurate and its report is false.

Now, it is the turn of Palestinian people under occupation. The almighty HRW are saying that Palestinian Human Shields are illegal and "Civilians Must Not Be Used to Shield Homes Against Military Attacks." Who said they should? HRW missed the point that Palestinians voluntary went out in the middle of the night to protect their brothers, sisters, neighbors and loved ones, because people like HRW are sitting in their cozy chairs watching Palestinians massacred by the Zionist; doing nothing but writing reports to collect dust!

Here is what International Solidarity Movement replied:

Nonviolent Resistance is not Illegal: HRW Should Retract Statement

On Sunday, Nov. 19, hundreds of Palestinian civilians crowded into the building where the family of Mohammed Baroud and a number of other families live in Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Israeli military forces had warned that the building would be attacked. The planned Israeli attack was deterred by this action. Two hours later, the scene was replicated at the family home of Mohammed Nawajeh, with the same results.

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) applauds the people of Jabalya for their courageous and effective use of nonviolent resistance, and we express our full solidarity with their actions, which are positive initiatives in the struggle to defend Palestinian rights. We encourage international volunteers to participate in these actions, as did Father Peter Dougherty and Sister Mary Ellen Gundeck of the Michigan Peace Team.

We note with disappointment that Human Rights Watch (HRW) chose to condemn these actions, suggesting that they could constitute a "war crime." In a November 22, 2006 press release entitled, "OPT: Civilians Must Not Be Used to Shield Homes Against Military Attacks" HRW Middle East Director Sarah Leah Whitson said, "There is no excuse for calling civilians to the scene of a planned attack. Whether or not the home is a legitimate military target, knowingly asking civilians to stand in harm's way is unlawful."

HRW's press release is factually, legally, and morally flawed.

HRW based its statement on contested factual information. HRW claimed that "Palestinian armed groups" and Mohammed Baroud encouraged civilians to gather around the homes. However, while some press accounts mention Baroud's role, numerous other press and participant accounts from Gaza suggest that the mobilizations resulted from calls by civilian leaders and a groundswell of popular anger against Israeli home demolitions.

As just one example, Eyad Bayary, a head nurse at Jabalya Hospital who went to Baroud's home with another twenty of his neighbors, told ISM that he did not hear a call from Baroud asking people to protect his home. He and his neighbors went to support Baroud and his family and to protest the shelling out of their own volition. "I live next to Mr. Baroud's family home. If his home is shelled at best my home would be damaged. My wife is in the six month of her pregnancy. God forbid, a shelling of the house next door could endanger her and the child she is carrying. All our children would be affected. We went to the Baroud family house because we were scared and angry. No one asked us to come."

In addition to this factual weakness, we believe that HRW's position reflects serious errors in the interpretation and application of international humanitarian law (IHL), in two fundamental respects: (1) HRW's position explicitly rejects considering the legitimacy of the target as relevant to the legal analysis; and (2) HRW's position erroneously places the burden of protecting civilian lives on the population being attacked instead of on the belligerents carrying out the attack.

Continue...

According to HRW, "In the case where the object of attack is not a legitimate military target, calling civilians to the scene would still contravene the international humanitarian law imperative for parties to the conflict to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians from the effects of attack." IHL clearly makes target legitimacy central to the determination of lawful vs. unlawful conduct. Protocol I of the Geneva Convention, Article 51(7) provides that "Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations." Article 52 of the same Protocol makes clear that a civilian home is a civilian object and not a military objective. Even if Mohammed Baroud and Mohammed Nawajeh are military commanders, their families, their family homes and the homes of other families in the same buildings are not military objectives.

Therefore, the Geneva Convention's prohibition on the use of civilians to shield military objectives does not apply to the voluntary gathering of Palestinian civilians to protect civilian objects like the homes of Baroud and Nawajeh from a pending Israeli attack. Rather, Israel's targeting of these homes constitutes a violation of numerous provisions of IHL that proscribe attacks on civilian property, and of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, strictly prohibiting the destruction of property for the purpose of collective punishment.

While IHL places obligations on all parties to a conflict to take "all feasible precautions" to protect civilians from the effects of attack, HRW does not cite support for its claim that encouraging civilians to defend their homes from military strikes constitutes a violation of this imperative. In fact, Protocol I, Article 57 relating to precautions in attack, specifically places the obligation to protect civilians on "those who plan or decide upon an attack." (Protocol I, Art. 57(2)(a)). Furthermore, providing warning does not absolve Israel of its responsibility not to attack civilian objects, nor does it make the civilian objects legitimate military targets.

The error of HRW's interpretation of IHL is even more obvious when we consider that HRW statements like "Civilians Must Not Be Used to Shield Homes Against Military Attacks" and "knowingly asking civilians to stand in harm's way is unlawful" would proscribe many completely legitimate forms of nonviolent resistance in occupied peoples' struggles. The Fourth Geneva Convention and its Additional Protocols were never intended to permit an aggressor to choose his targets at will, while putting the onus on the civilian victims to get out of the way. Nor were these laws created to prevent civilians from exercising their right to defend their property.

The condemnation of nonviolent efforts by civilians to prevent the destruction of civilian homes also represents a failure of moral judgment on the part of HRW. To condemn nonviolent actions in this way is to confuse civil resistance with the forcible use of "human shields" by military combatants, such as those documented by the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem in its November, 2002 report "Human Shield". The report describes Israeli military seizures of Palestinian civilians, forcing them to walk in front of soldiers and sometimes placing them on the hoods of their vehicles to deter attacks against their military personnel. These Israeli military actions are clearly war crimes (though HRW failed to label them as such in its April, 2002 report, "In a Dark Hour: The Use of Civilians during IDF Arrest Operations"). It is a mistake to extend this principle to the courageous voluntary participation of unarmed individuals in mass nonviolent actions in defense of their human rights.

By condemning nonviolent civilian resistance in this way, HRW endangers those practicing it, and undermines the work of other human rights groups and the credibility of HRW itself. ISM calls upon HRW to retract its November 22 press release and to recognize the courage and the legitimacy of the actions of the Palestinian community in Jabalya.

Related posts:

• Israeli defense minister wants ‘human shields’ ban overturned
• Inaccurate ‘human rights’ teaching in Jordan schools
• Promote Human Rights of Palestinian Arab Citizens of Israel

Who said that traveling around is fun? Think again!

So, you told me that you a living in the land of honey, freedom and democracy? Well, I don't envy you if this is what your country endorse:

Starting with the light story; six Muslim academics (Imams) were taken off a plane in the US and evidently placed on the no fly list. Why? A passenger raised concerns about the imams - three of whom said their normal evening prayers in the airport terminal before boarding the Phoenix-bound plane! [Hat tip: Robin]

On the other side of the world, Israel has a new racist law that does not allow Palestinians to travel in Israeli cars (yellow Israeli license plates). Israelis who want to transport Palestinians in cars have to get a special permit.

The law is not as simple as it looks, it is not direct towards Palestinians only, this is another effort to discourage Israeli activists, after the wall and lots of obstructions at check points didn't discourage ALL of them.

Following this news, an Israeli activist sent this email:

Dear All,
I was shocked at midnight to hear on the radio news the information in the first item (of 3). It's not the first time that Israelis have been notified that they will not be allowed to transport Palestinians in the OPTs. But on the previous occasion, none of us who tried (including lawyers) was able to find a written order. Ultimately, it was rescinded. But now it's being publicly announced some 6 weeks before it goes into effect. I presume that this time we will be able to see the order in writing. We'll have to fight it. The newscaster said that Israelis would be allowed to drive Palestinians with permits to enter Israel. But it won't surprise me if that will end, too. Every effort will be made in the future to separate Israeli activists from Palestinians, and to separate Palestinians and settlers by walls. We'll fight this, but without help from Europe, Asia, and Africa there's little hope that we'll turn the tide. The US is a hopeless case for the time being, although that could some day change...
Dorothy

(Ben Heine © Cartoons)

Following this small bit of information carrying a big wallop is a link to the American plans for airport travel, to begin roughly about the same time as the edict against transporting Palestinians. It is about the difficulty US activists are finding regarding air travel, very similar to what is going on Israel.

The Department of Homeland Security proposed new rules(PDF File) back in July that would fundamentally undermine the right of American citizens to travel abroad. Public carriers--airlines, cruise lines, even fishing boats--will be required to submit the names of all passengers to Homeland Security prior to departure and to obtain permission from Homeland Security to board those passengers. These new rules will take effect January 14, 2007.
[...]
The "no-fly list" was reported to have contained around 1,000 names by the end of 2001. In December, 2005, a Swedish airline leaked that the list had grown from 1,000 to over 80,000.

Who will be on the list? That's a secret. What criteria will determine who is on and who is off the list? That's a secret. How many people will be approved and how many will not? That's a secret. If you're not on the approved list, how can you petition the government to change your status? You can't. [ICH]

Long live democracy!

The fourth item is also about transportation and airports: it's about the horrific experience that one would-be traveler had at the hands of the Israeli General Security Service (shabak) at Ben Gurion airport. We really need to publicize these incidents far and wide! Will help tourists to think twice before spending hard-earned money on going to Israel. [Hat tip: Editerette]

Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 08:56:34 +0200
From: Ruth Hiller
Subject: More abuse at the airport

Dear Friends,

Below is another incident that came over the Israeli Feminist Forum and while this is not the complete email with all the responses, I thought that you might be interested in reading about one more incident.

It is clear to me that this could have been any of us as activists.

Yom Rov,
Ruti

---------------------------
Dear friends,

It is time that victims start to speak up about their humiliations and abuse.... every non-Jew who has lived in Israel has gone through one form of humiliation or another in many contexts by the leading Israeli power. This is not an e-mail against Jews or the Israeli people, it's an e-mail against an abusive authority, it's an e-mail to voice out the stories of victims, of the unheard.... in hopes of changing the way things are now.

Yesterday, my mother who is a Hebrew University professor of Criminology in Israel, an Israeli citizen no less, went to the airport to fly to Tunisia to attend a conference on women's rights. What happened to her in the airport is a humiliating experience that many of us non-Jews have gone through in the Israeli airport, but always kept quiet about it and did not let them pay for their abuse towards us. It's time to say ENOUGH! It's time for the voices of the muted to be heard.... abuse is not only physical, there is also mental and emotional abuse that can be more painful in the long run... please read the letter that my mother has sent to her friends that were waiting for her in Tunisia....

Dear friends,

I am so sad to inform you that the Israeli security forces in the airport prevented me from participating in the conference on: "Women and Sexual Reproductive Rights" held in Tunis.

The process of humiliation by the Israeli security forces started when we reached the airport at the gate. As you all know I live in the Old City of Jerusalem, and I use transportation from my area. The moment they learned that both the driver and myself live in East Jerusalem, they asked us to park the car on the side, take all our/my luggage and follow them for body and luggage search. A young soldier in a small room in the airport gate searched me, asked me to take off my shoes, took mine and the driver's mobile phones and asked us to wait for almost 40 minutes until they finished checking the car's body and engine. After all this process, I managed to get inside the airport, and there continued the process of humiliation. I was the only one to wait for a long time. I knew that they were doing a security check on my name, address, and other information. A young female soldier tried to help out and started convincing her superior to allow me to pass. It took her a while then she came, asked me to put my luggage in the x-ray machines and pass. Afterward another security agent asked me to bring all my belongings and follow him up for an additional search. Here, something like 3-4 security personnel were checking my one small bag, my computer bag and my carry-on purse.

They, started taking off the clothes from the luggage, my shoes, underwear, make up, medicine, and placed them in such a messy manner on a long counter. I was the only one that was searched. I did not know what to look at or follow up. My reading material was all over the counter, mixed with my clothes and shoes. Young men were emptying my make up kit and spreading my medication, when one took a picture of my girls, and the other security guy pulled my shoes out of the laggage and put them on the picture... My visit cards, my papers, everything was scattered with all my belongings in such a disrespectful manner... I stood there not knowing what to do, I was about to cry when I saw my reading materials falling on the floor, and the pages scattered... I asked the female security personnel that was checking my printed material not to mix between the various articles, she replied (with so much valgarity) that I could find the pages and organize them later on. While I was trying to explain to her that my reading and printing material should be kept intact, I saw another security man fetching my wallet while pulling off all the credit cards and putting them on the counter, and emptying my purse in such a humiliating manner. His friend on the other side was picking up my underwear one after the other and joking about my bras to his friends in Hebrew thinking that I don't speak the language. They also took my cell phones and I was unable to call anyone for help. At one point, the phone was ringing and I asked one of them to give it to me, and he did but I missed the call; and he took it back.

The whole seen of people mixing all my things together, while I am standing mesmerized captivated by their inhumanity, failing to follow up who is doing what, where and how, was horrible and painful. I could not hold my tears, wondering how much one could accept humiliation, dishonor and degradation in the name of _Security reasoning_; and went to get me a tissue to wipe my tears from my purse, when a security officer screamed at me that I can't touch the purse. While I am in this state, and while my belongings were so dispersed and scattered all over the long counter, the security officer in charge came and told me that I can't take my reading material to the plane. I started explaining -with tears and so much anger- to him that I need to read on my way, and it is a 5 hour flight, and my reading material is crucial to me. It took me a while arguing with him and another security officer until I managed to get the approval to take all the pages that they scattered and messed up with me to the plane. The time was flying and I was about to miss my flight, when a very polite young security officer told me that she will book me a seat, so as to be ready. She actually did book me a window seat. In a short time, the head of the security officers came and told me that I can't take my laptop with me to the plane. Again, and while being so hurt, while seeing them joking when looking at my clothes, ridiculing me while dropping my tooth brush on the floor, my money scattered on the counter and much much more I started explaining to them that I can't leave without the laptop. In trying to calm myself down, and decrease my feeling of hurt, I asked the head of the security to call his superior. His superior, in the name of Tal Vardi # 14544 came (he gave me this name following my request). He was so disrespectful, so rude and abrasive. I was explaining to him how important my laptop is to me, I told him that I need to prepare my lecture, and that a laptop from Israel will never reach Tunisia (there is a high probability that it will be lost or stolen). He kept on telling me that I can't take the laptop with me. Then I told him that if that is a rule, they should inform people that laptops are not allowed on the planes and that security forces can't do it without prior notice. Tal Vardi with such a humiliating and sarcastic manner replied (while having all his staff around him): "So next time I need to call you and talk to you before you fly ??? Do you think that we have time for you??"

At that moment I decided that I should call for additional help, for Tal Vardi refused to talk to me totally, and left me alone. At that time, three security people were packing my stuff in such a mess, pulling the computer's battery, wrapping the laptop without even getting my approval. I called Bilha Cohen the secretary at the institute of Criminology, she then gave me the phone number of the Dean's office. I called Aliza, the Dean's secretary, she gave me his home number, and I called, his wife gave him to me, and he said that he can't do anything and that I should call his deputy, she is the one that could help me out. By that time I was 20 minutes from my flight. I called his deputy, and there was no one in the office, and my computer was wrapped out about to be sent to Tunisia- as they planned. I then started yelling while trying to explain _ but this time with so much anger _ and told them that their way of [treating people is not human, that I allowed them to check everything in my luggage, that I cooperated, but they treated me with such a rude and inhumane manner. Their refusal to allow me to take my laptop with me, even when I was willing it to them if they give it to me in the airplane; and following their refusal to even talk to me or calm me down- they all left me sitting on that long counter alone, 15 minutes from my flight, trying to find a way out. Their talks, their methods of poking fun at me, and their disrespect made me tell them _I am not flying_. I pulled my luggage, unwrapped the laptop, and left the place.

This whole process of humiliation took between 1:40- 4:30 pm. I ended up with bad chest pains, dizziness and illness which led to vomiting and the feeling of such humiliattion. I called some friends to help me out, such as Einas from Mada Organization, and Mr. Jaafar Farah and Adella from Musawa Organization. They both called me over 7-10 times trying to calm me down, asking some activists from the office and the airport to help out. I also called my friend Dorit Roer-Streir, but no one was able to change the situation. I left the airport, unable to breath, walk or function.

I am sorry again to miss you, miss learning from the conference and miss sharing with you my work, but must state that there is a limit to the amount of humiliation that one could take, and I felt that the whole process of turning me as a Palestinian woman into a naked entity, with no value, no voice, no respect and no power to fight this demonization back, made me refuse to fly. How could I fly as a human, when all they wanted to do is to strip me from my humanity, using all the power they have, while stealing from me even my ability to protect my girls' picture, my writings, my reading material, my laptop and my other personal belongings? It was indeed horrible; the way a system of oppression tries to turn us from humans to metamorphosis homo scares... Please accept my apologies, and please write back to my university and to the Israeli state and ask them to stop depriving us from our ability to participate in conferences, to aquire knowledge, to get each others' support, and stop using our bodies/lives and their _security reasoning_ to marginalize, ostracize, and humiliate us.
Love to all,
N ( November, 16,2006)

Need I say more?

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Some of these children are as young as 4 years old, they take a number of buses, sometimes traveling up to 20 hours, with checkpoints, searches, etc. for a 45 minute visit with dad. [Hat tip: Editerette]

Israel does not allow most wives or other relatives this privilege for the over 9,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails... and even most children can only go until their 16th birthday... after that, you ask? "They don't need their dad, Israel said!"

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Excellent reporting by Keith tonight on Habeas corpus, the Military Commissions and Tribunals Act of 2006 and how it will affect you in the future.

US the free? [Hat tip: Kimmy]

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Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. President Bush had said he didn't want to swat at flies.

Officials now agree that on July 10, 2001, Mr. Tenet and his counter-terrorism deputy, J. Cofer Black, were so alarmed about an impending Al Qaeda attack that they demanded an emergency meeting at the White House with Ms. Rice and her National Security Council staff.

Hmmm... but Rice "can't remember needing to do anything about al Quaida!?"

Rice may have committed perjury in her testimony before the 9/11 Commission in May of 2004. At a minimum, her testimony was a convenient mishmash of half-truths and omissions which served to paint the White House as innocent bystanders as the attacks of 9/11 unfolded. Certainly, her testimony omitted the fact that the two most senior intelligence officials in the nation delivered a stern warning regarding an impending terror attack two full months before 9/11.

Now, Bush Admin may enjoy the party: 9/11 widows blast Bush Administration over Rice, Tenet meeting.

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He who has U.S. support... Can say:
Don't touch our atomic arsenal...
No to the agreement to limit W.M.D...
No to stability...
No to control on "Israel"...

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