By Brenda Heard* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Anniversaries measure time. In one respect, they are an artificial concept. We decide, for instance, that twenty-five years of marriage should be celebrated, but we ignore the subsequent days as merely marking the path to twenty-six years. And reaching twenty-six years, though obviously a greater length of marriage, will not be celebrated with the same gusto as the twenty-fifth anniversary that boasts pre-printed greeting cards and foil balloons.

As the contrivance of marking anniversaries in many ways defies common sense, we might ask ourselves why we do it. Perhaps it is because the infinite, amorphous magnitude of time must be taken in bite-size pieces. It would otherwise be overwhelming. When we stop the passage of time-no matter how arbitrarily, no matter how superficially-then we are in effect looking for significance in what we accomplish with our lives.

On the 25^th of May 2010, we observe the ten-year anniversary of the Lebanese Resistance and Liberation Day. A full decade has passed since the victory that baffled the Western world. A twenty-two year military occupation was virtually uprooted and expelled. The balance of global power was unhinged.

This tilting of the scales took time. It cost many lives. But in the end, the so-called mighty army created by the Americans for their Jewish state, an army protected politically by the Western superpowers, was soundly defeated by the persistent determination of ordinary Lebanese. These ordinary Lebanese were bound by their commitment to protect their homes and their families, their faith and their dignity. They fought back and they stood firm.

While the Western-"Israeli" alliance wanted to believe that they could intimidate and tyrannise the Lebanese into submission, they discovered that the more they pushed, the more the Lebanese resisted. The Resistance of Hizbullah would not relent. This bold defiance of the Islamic Resistance inspired Lebanese of other religious credence to focus on the fundamental principle they all shared: intolerance for subjugation. Their coordinated efforts paid off.

Failing to coerce either a physical or a political concession from the Lebanese, the occupying "Israelis" were forced to retreat. Beginning on the 21^st of May 2000, as families returned to Southern Lebanon on the heels of the exiting "Israeli" troops, members of the Resistance ensured the peaceful nature of the transition. And herein lies the greater significance of this accomplishment. Herein lies the reason it is imperative to mark this anniversary in order to reflect on an achievement that far exceeds the laurels of military victory.

We should remind ourselves that the Lebanese had endured, day after day for twenty-two years, the harsh and bitter realities of life under military occupation. They had lost their homes, their farms and their businesses. They had suffered deprivation and betrayal. They had lived with the anguish of having their loved ones disappear-maybe learning they'd been imprisoned or murdered, or maybe never learning anything at all. They had faced fear and hopelessness, knowing that their very lives were subject to the whims of a merciless political power.

For twenty-two years the armies of the Western-"Israeli" alliance and their proxy Lebanese militia-enemy-collaborators known as the "South Lebanon Army" (SLA)-inflicted death and destruction in Lebanon. The statistics we casually list off are typically rounded, averaged and often disputed. There are so many deaths that the injured are seldom counted. The sole undeniable fact is that there were far too many.

How do we begin to count the dead? We could stack up the civilians on one side and the Resistance fighters on the other. But, then again, those of the Resistance were not a standing army when the Zionists invaded Lebanon; had it not been for this military offensive, they too would have lived civilian lives.

We could stack up the Palestinians on one side and the Lebanese on the other. But, then again, the Palestinians would not have been in Lebanon had the Zionists not forced them there. Should they be viewed separately, when they were targeted as one faceless enemy?

We could survey sources to discern bias one way or another. There are dozens of reasons to inflate or deflate the body counts. Or maybe the repeated scenes of massacre were simply too murky with blood to be clinically accurate. Perhaps the man with the clip board came across a head lying on the pavement and ticked off the remnant as a victim, and then hours later he came across a headless body on a kitchen floor and ticked it off as another victim-not realising through his nausea that the two had the day before been one.

A few specific scenes will here suffice to illustrate the murderous rage of the "Israeli" military machine. The numbers give an idea of the magnitude. But more than statistics, these numbers represent individual people whose lives were grievously impacted.

Just warming up, in March 1978 the Zionist forces launched an aerial assault on Southern Lebanon. With the proclaimed intent of eradicating the Palestinians whom they had already driven from their homes, the "Israeli" assault destroyed 2500 homes and killed over 2000 Lebanese and Palestinians. Many fled to the North. Many of those who stayed behind were seized by "Israeli" troops on suspicion of supporting the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Those who were seized were then tortured and often killed.

In June 1982 the Zionist forces launched a series of air raids on Lebanon, while their army tanks paved the way to Beirut, leaving behind 9500 dead and 16,000 wounded. The army blockaded the city so that there were no supplies coming in; they cut both water and electricity. Then, for 70 days, "Israel" blasted Beirut with bombs and mortars. On 12 August, Beirut suffered 11 hours of non-stop, saturation bombing. Over 500 people died. The city was virtually destroyed.

In September 1982 over 8000 PLO members and their leader were exiled from Beirut. But this eviction, which seemingly met "Israel's" stated goal of ridding itself of the PLO, was not enough to end its military operations in Lebanon. Together with their collaborating allies, "Israeli" forces implemented the systematic murder of around 1500 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, mostly women, children and elderly, at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Over a two-day period, the people were penned in and wantonly slaughtered.

Other highlights include the 1985 opening of Khiam Prison, a detention and interrogation centre where thousands of Lebanese were held without trial, routinely tortured and often killed. But it was not only the ordinary Lebanese civilian that was targeted. In February 1992 "Israel" assassinated Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Abbas Moussawi, together with his wife and son. In response, the Resistance for the first time fired rockets into "Israeli" settlements in northern occupied Palestine. Incensed, "Israel" launched the "Seven-Day War" in July 1993. In a week's time, "Israel" launched 1224 air raids, killed 140, wounded 500, and displaced well over 200,000 Lebanese.

Their appetite for violence unabated, for sixteen days in April 1996 "Israelis" executed air raids over the whole of Lebanon, leaving massive damage to infrastructure, hundreds of thousands displaced, scores injured, and 250 dead. The Zionist rampage spared no one. The "Israeli" military wilfully bombed a UN installation at Qana, where some 800 civilians had sought refuge. Over 100 people were killed, with over a hundred more, including four UN soldiers, seriously wounded. Those who survived Qana, just as those who survived blitz after hateful blitz, suffered untold anguish. These are the dangerous and bloody days of military aggression and occupation. These are the atrocities from which the Resistance fought to defend the Lebanese people.**

Under such circumstances, in the hours of regaining control, how easy it would have been to lash out against the enemy-collaborators who had suddenly found themselves left behind without the shield of their Zionist chiefs. Under such circumstances, how easy would vengeance have been? How tempting. How understandable.

But the goal of the Resistance had not been power; it had been liberation. And that goal had been achieved. They had not sought to gain political position. The Islamic Resistance understood and respected that the strength to liberate their land was derived ultimately from God. Thus to have flaunted their position as victors-to have succumbed to the temptation of vengeance-would have been to disparage the source of that victory. Such a move, though ever so common in the history of the battles of men, would have violated the fundamental principles of the Islamic Resistance. Consequently, the victors expressly prohibited any act of vengeance. Any enemy-collaborators who had not fled with the "Israelis" were simply turned over to the Lebanese Army for legal processing.

To be sure, the Resistance had earned the right to be proud, even jubilant, for having rid their land of enemy occupiers. But throughout the years of resistance, their conduct proved that the liberation was not simply about land. Liberation was essential to safeguard Lebanese lives, honour and dignity. And so it was with ease that the Resistance fostered coordination rather than competition amongst those who would resist subjugation, no matter their religious or familial affiliations. And it was only natural that, as they faced the vulnerable enemy-collaborators, the Resistance maintained their composure.

Had the Liberation been merely a jostling for military and political superiority, they might have celebrated, revelled in their newfound status, and rested on their laurels. But given the threat of renewed aggression from the Western-"Israeli" alliance, the Resistance recognised that Liberation was as much a process as it was an accomplishment. And so they maintained their vigilance. The sacrifices they had made would continue if they were to validate the victory of May 2000.

As we consider the tenth anniversary of Resistance and Liberation Day, we look for its significance. Why should we of the English-speaking world see this decade-old conflict as anything more than someone else's problem? Because in this turning point in Middle East history lies the hope of something noble.

On the one hand, we find a military occupation born out of greed and arrogance. If we are honest with ourselves, we will recognise in this aggression our own impulse toward self-preservation in this our society of the survival of the fittest. We do not want to be the weakest link who is cast away. This twenty-two year occupation represents the darker side of human nature: a dog-eat-dog mentality.

On the other hand, we find a Resistance born out of faith and a commitment to protect. Again if we are honest with ourselves, despite our part-time inclination to be self-serving, we have also admired those who abide by principles beyond themselves. We will, for example, cheer the good-guys in a film, and we will walk away from the experience with firm approval of the character who acts selflessly to achieve something greater for another character, or for a cause. Then more often than not, we shake off the notion of principle being rewarded. It's just scripted entertainment, we remind ourselves, it is not real life.

But the Resistance and Liberation was very, very real life. As real as it gets. Ordinary people embraced principle, defied the odds and chose Liberation. They could have run away. They could have shrugged their shoulders and resigned themselves to life on someone else's terms. But they chose instead to resist-and it worked. Above all, they continued to act with integrity. This was not because it was necessary in practical terms, for surely it would have been more expedient to eliminate enemy-collaborators on the spot. This was because to have set aside the integrity they had fought to defend would have as surely tainted the Liberation they had achieved.

In marking ten years of Liberation, we realise that by adopting a perspective beyond the here and now, the Resistance was able with its limited means to turn back the aggressor of seemingly unlimited means. We realise that this perspective enabled the Resistance to foresee and to overcome renewed challenges to the Liberation in July 2006. And we realise that an ordinary man can triumph with his principle intact. He will find the strength to do what must be done, and he will find the strength to acknowledge what must not be done. The Resistance and Liberation represents the brighter side of human nature: altruism.

* Brenda Heard, founder and director of Friends of Lebanon, London. Email mail@friendsoflebanon.org

**These are merely the highlights of a sustained campaign to devastate the people of Lebanon. More detailed descriptions can be found at Arab Media Watch here, Al Arabiya here and Mostakbaliat-Future here. Reports are also available from organisations such as Amnesty International here (Stopping the torture trade, February 2001), and Human Rights Watch here (Persona Non Grata: The Expulsion of Lebanese Civilians from Israeli-Occupied Lebanon, July 1999).

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

When will there be a Palestinian Gandhi? I'm often asked this question by people who sympathise with Palestinian suffering but are uncomfortable associating themselves with resistance movements that they see as violent or terrorist.

The reality of course is that Palestinian nonviolent resisters are not only active today but have a long and storied history in the Palestinian struggle. The real question is: why haven't we heard about them?

Like many resisting oppression, Palestinian Gandhis are likely to be found in prisons after being repressed by Israeli soldiers or police or in the hospital after being brutally beaten or worse.

In recent years, the Israeli repression of Palestinian nonviolent dissent has increased significantly and Israel is showing signs of transforming into a fully-fledged police state. Even Israeli citizens, both Palestinian such as Ameer Makhoul and Jewish, have faced intimidation in one form or another for being critical of Israel's policies. Surely, Israel has realised that its ongoing occupation, continued colonisation of Palestinian land, and its bombardment of civilian-packed Gaza have significantly and negatively impacted on its image abroad. The images of nonviolent Palestinian protests against the Israeli occupation aren't helping Israel's reputation either.

Perhaps that is why recently many nonviolent activists and initiatives have been shut down and repressed. Jamal Juma, Muhammad Othman and Abdallah Abu Rahman may not be household names like Gandhi or Mandela but they have been just as consistent in resisting Israel's illegal segregation wall in the West Bank by organising nonviolent demonstrations for years. And, like Gandhi and Mandela they have paid a price by being arrested on multiple occasions.

The Israeli repression efforts extend far beyond the arrests of nonviolent demonstrators against the wall. Last month, Palestinian and international activists sat in front of Israeli bulldozers about to confiscate more Palestinian land for the expansion of a settlement. Soldiers quickly dispersed the crowd and thoroughly pummelled and pepper-sprayed an organiser at point-blank range.

Most recently, several leaders of human rights organisations advocating Palestinian rights have been arrested and thrown into jail for allegedly posing security risks to the state. One of them, Izzet Shahin, is a Turkish national whose crime was organising boat shipments of humanitarian aid to the besieged people of Gaza. During past attempts to bring supplies to the blockaded strip, the boats were commandeered by the Israeli navy and the nonviolent activists were arrested before being deported even though they had never entered Israeli waters.

The list goes on, and despite the increase in Israeli repression, Palestinian nonviolent resistance is nothing new. While some have adopted an Israeli narrative that identifies nonviolent Palestinian dissent as something new, the reality is that Palestinians have consistently chosen nonviolent resistance before arms - from the general strikes of 1936, to the consistent appeals to international legal bodies, to the weekly demonstrations against the wall. It has been the continued dispossession at the hands of Israel, and the silence of the international community despite these nonviolent efforts, that has led some Palestinians to view violence as the only option.

Alas, it is often the major explosions that make headlines and not the nonviolent demonstrations or their violent repression by Israel's secret police or its military occupation. That's why some still wait for a Palestinian Gandhi despite the fact that they have taken many a beating and seen the inside of many a jail cell.

When an Iranian protester - Neda - was shot and killed last year, the world knew her name - so did President Obama. But most would be hard-pressed to name one of the many nonviolent protestors in Palestine who have been arrested, beaten, shot or even bulldozed to death.

The international community has an obligation to Palestinian nonviolent activists. Leaders cannot simply call on Palestinians to abandon violence in the face of Israeli occupation and remain silent when the nonviolent activists are politically repressed. This only reinforces the idea that the use of force reigns supreme and that Palestinians have no choice but to accept hardships at the hands of their Israeli lords.

Sadly, the same leaders who call on Palestinians to abandon violence have been silent in the face of Israeli repression. By condemning violent Palestinian resistance while remaining silent in the face of Israeli crackdowns and political arrests, they are simply endorsing violence against civilians by one side instead of the other.

The United States should take the lead in condemning Israeli repression of nonviolent dissent, just as they would in Iran, Burma or apartheid South Africa, because nonviolent dissent is not only a critical part of the Palestinian struggle but it is an American value as well.

* Yousef Munayyer is Executive Director of the Palestine Center.

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Message by Desmond Tutu on behalf of The Elders On the Occasion of the Fifth Annual Bil'in Conference on Popular Resistance.

Dear Friends,

God bless you.

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1983 attack on the US Embassy

By Franklin Lamb* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Is the US Embassy in Lebanon squandering its diplomatic immunity?

Tensions are rising in Lebanon between elected representatives in Parliament, 'Unity' Cabinet members and the American Embassy, as the 27^th anniversary of the attack 1983 attack on the US Embassy approaches and the Embassy issues another warning for Americans to leave Lebanon.

On March 29, 2010 the US Embassy instructed Americans not to travel to Lebanon citing 'safety and security concerns." Simultaneously it warned those who are in Lebanon to seriously consider leaving.

Advising that, Lebanon, placed on a US list of 14 countries "linked to Terrorism" following the Christmas Day attempted aircraft bombing near Detroit, has "the potential for a spontaneous upsurge in violence , US citizens living and working in Lebanon should understand that they accept risks in remaining and should carefully consider those risks, as Embassy personnel may not be able to aid them in case of conflict."

The "Warder Warning" to American citizens follows a series of recent efforts by the Embassy to pressure the National Lebanese Resistance led by Hezbollah, currently shaping the new Unity' government with its work in Parliament and the Cabinet. It comes following Opposition charges, emphasized by Hezbollah's Secretary Hassan Nasrallah the preceding week, that the US Embassy in Beirut engages in espionage activities for Israel and cautioning that the collaboration was very dangerous for Lebanon.

According to Nasrallah during an interview with Al Manar channel: "All the information which the US embassy gathers in Beirut reaches Israel. Here we are not speaking about a normal foreign embassy which is gathering information for its own government ... When it comes to the American embassy in Beirut, it is a different story...And so what is given to the US Embassy and what reaches the Israelis, the information, all of these leads to the destruction of Lebanon. This helps the Israeli enemy to understand what is going on in Lebanon, to use this information against Lebanon and to take revenge against our country...What is the difference between espionage networks, which give information directly, or giving information by mediation, meaning giving it to the US embassy who then gives it to the Israeli side?" Nasrallah ask his viewing audience, estimated at more than 100 million viewers around the region.

April 2010 and April 1983 parallels?

The Hezbollah Secretary-General is not the only one questioning whether the Us Embassy operates as "a normal foreign embassy" with acceptable " mild spying and information gathering" or operates as " an espionage network" for Israel and passing it intelligence reports from US assets throughout Lebanon who monitor all roads and paths from Syria as well as South Lebanon and South Beirut.

What increasingly concerns many in Lebanon is the US Embassy role in recent projects including a "security agreement between the US and the Lebanese Internal Security Force' (ISF) and the Embassy and their allies described as "an American donation" to train and equip the ISF and make Lebanon stronger.

The "donation" resulted from the January 25, 2007 Paris-3 International Conference on the support for Lebanon. As far as security is concerned, March 14 foes charge that the then pro-American-pro-Saudi Fuad Saniora government "gave away the store" to U.S. intelligence by placing data related to Lebanon's two mobile phone networks at the disposal of the United States, that it is believed would allow the Embassy and Israel to tap Lebanese phones. There is a widely held belief in Lebanon that all information the Embassy receives goes to Israel. Also protested was the adopting of the American interpretation of "terrorism" which as applied by the Embassy means that no ISF member who is a Hezbollah member could receive any training to due various US Terrorism lists issues.

According to the Lebanese Ministry of Communications, the US embassy in Beirut filed a request to install reception devices in two positions in Lebanon located in mountainous areas in Aley and overlooking most of the Lebanese regions. The first is 22 kilometers away from Beirut, 760 meters above sea level and stretching over 251 hectares, while the second is 29 kilometers away from Beirut, 540 meters above sea level and stretching over 643 hectares. The US Embassy position is that it tower demand falls under the headline of technical assistance stipulated in the "donation" agreement.

Suspicion were also raised that the commando units the US wanted to train might be intended for use against the National Lebanese Resistance during a future conflicts with Israel.

On March 16, 2010, the Syrian daily Al Watan asked Lebanese MP Nawaf Mousawi about the growing concern in Parliament. Mousawi, one of Hezbollah's most popular and sought after interlocutors with American and other foreign delegations visiting Lebanon, replied :

"If the reports we read in the Lebanese papers are true, this would be a horrid scandal since it would mean that the American embassy was violating Lebanon's sovereignty and that the American security apparatuses were trying to infiltrate personal and national security in Lebanon. This would constitute an Israeli security infiltration since there is a security agreement between Israel and America in regard to the exchange of information"... "Moreover, I say that today the American embassy in Lebanon has a private militia called the embassy's guard, arresting each suspected citizen in the massive area surrounding the embassy that has become an isolated geography within the Lebanese geography. It has become a state within a state with tapping devices violating the intimacy of the Lebanese people and intelligence officers monitoring all that goes on in the ministries and public administrations. We in Lebanon now need to liberate our land from the occupation of the American militia and to liberate part of our decisions from the American occupation by limiting the relations of the American embassy to the Foreign Ministry and preventing the American apparatuses from acquiring information in Lebanon."

Crossing the boundaries of Diplomatic protection?

The Embassy's intense and escalating campaign against the Opposition, a main pillar of Lebanon's government, is also raising questions among International lawyers and government officials whether the Embassy has squandered its diplomatic status under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. A study in underway in Lebanon to determine the extent of the US Embassy abuse of Diplomatic Immunity. Opinions among scholars and analysts range from a raft of challenges to allowing Israel to have an 'illegal outpost" in Lebanon to sanctioning the Embassy for violations of the Vienna Convention, specifically under Art. 41 which requires that foreign Embassies, " respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State and not interfere in the internal affairs of the receiving State."

Researchers point out that 27 years ago this month, on April 18, 1983 the American Embassy was attacked as a direct and foreseeable result of the Embassy's involvement as a command and control center on behalf of Israel against the majority population of Lebanon. According to former CIA agent Robert Baer, the CIA never did determine who was behind the bombing( there were a few dozen upstart resistance groups wanting to expel Israel in those days) but understood that it was the result of hostile US actions against Lebanon.

Food for thought

Legal experts at the State Department privately admit that despite years of public statements to the contrary, the April 18, 1983 attack cannot be accurately labeled 'terrorism' because by bringing in and housing the command center staffed by at least 8 CIA agents and various 'special ops' units who were running a network of pro-Israel assets and providing targeting information to the USS New Jersey offshore and Israel forces in the mountains and Chouf the Embassy lost its claim to diplomatic immunity. The Embassy actions enabled the shelling of Lebanon and the killing of hundreds of innocent Lebanese civilians, among many other activities. Consequently, the Embassy became a legitimate military target udder the international laws of armed conflict. Lebanese resistance forces, who opposed the Israeli occupation of their country and their American and French allies who had abandoned their claimed role as 'peacekeepers" and in fact had taken sides in the conflict were legally within their right and duty to neutralize the threat presented. The specific and legitimate military target of the April 18,1983 attack on the US Embassy is Beirut were the eight CIA agents and their teams who had been identified by Soviet sources and the information sent to allies in Lebanon.

While no reasonable person might suggest that the Embassy is currently subject to a third attack, despite regular salafist and al Qaeda wannabe threats, observers point out the irony that it has been Hezbollah, incessantly attacked by the Embassy and its allies in the Lebanese Forces and Phalange party, (Ed: the same groups who held power in 1983 and sponsored the giveaway May 17, 1983 Agreement with Israel), that has invisibly protected the Embassy several times over the past two decades, just as it quietly provided security in south Beirut during last spring's visit of President Carter with Lebanon's Senior Shia cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, still on a US Terrorism list for purely political reasons.

Lebanon's recourse

Lebanon currently has few practical or easy diplomatic options. The ultimate sanction and prevention measure available for Lebanon is the severance of diplomatic relations. That is unlikely unless Israel attacks Lebanon for the 6th time with the predictable American 'green light'. The doctrines of self defense and self preservation are also available to Lebanon in order to prevent a foreign Embassy from facilitating aggressor against it.

Additional activities viewed as arguably incompatible with its legitimate diplomatic functions is the drum beat of attacks on certain parties in Parliament (those allied with Hezbollah) including the current widely believed to be fake "Sryia gives Scuds to Hezbollah" charges. On April 15, 2010,Syria emphatically denied the charge and asked for evidence while claiming that Israel was paving the way for new military action in the region with its false allegation.

Zero evidence has been offered by Washington or the Embassy to support this rumor, which like so many these days, originated with Israel's President Shimon Peres and given credence in the US Congress and now the American Embassy. Inquiries of the American Ambassador at yesterday's talk by former US Senator Bob Graham (R-Fla.) at the American University of Beirut, as to why the Embassy offered no satellite photos for the large easily detected outdated missiles were meet mutely with a radiant and wide smile.

The US Embassy is further accused of feeding certain politicians including the Phalange and Lebanese Forces parties with disinformation to attack the Lebanese Resistance. For example, MP Samir Geagea regularly meets and communicates with Embassy personnel and the next day invariably launches another attack aimed at lowering the high 84% polling statistics showing the level of Lebanese support for the Resistance, led by Hezbollah, deterrence capability against Israel.

MP Mousawi again: " the U.S. embassy in Awkar is harming national reconciliation efforts through the policy of sabotage and fragmentation it is adopting in Lebanon and the region."

As of the morning of April 16, 2010 the US Embassy in Beirut, said that, "the United States is "increasingly concerned" about the transfer of more sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah." But it has now admitted that it has no proof of Scuds being transferred to anyone from Syria.

As of the morning of April 16, 2010 Hezbollah intends that the Lebanese government will review every bi-lateral agreement made with the US Embassy.

* Franklin Lamb is a researcher and volunteer with the PCRC in Lebanon. He can be reached at fplamb@palestinecivilrightscampaign.org

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By Richard Falk* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Ever since the Balfour Declaration in 1917 gave the formal approval of the British government to the establishment of 'a Jewish homeland' profound issues of legitimacy were present in the conflict recently known as the Israel/Palestine Conflict. This original colonialist endorsement of the Zionist project has produced a steady erosion of the position of the Palestinian people on historic Palestine, which dramatically worsened over the course of the past 43 years of occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. It has worsened due to an oppressive military occupation by Israel that involves fundamental denials of rights and pervasive violations of international humanitarian law, and because Israel has been allowed to establish 'facts on the ground,' which are more properly viewed as violations of Palestinian rights, especially the establishment of extensive settlements and a separation wall constructed on occupied Palestinian territories in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. These developments have been flagrantly unlawful, and made the whole treatment of the Palestinian people illegitimate, as well as the occasion of continuous intense and pervasive suffering. For decades, the Palestinian political forces have exercised their right of resistance in various ways, including the extraordinary nonviolent Intifada of 1987, but also engaging in armed resistance in defense of their territory. The Palestinians definitely enjoy a right of resistance, although subject to the limits of international humanitarian law, which rules out deliberate targeting of civilians and non-military targets. Such tactics of resistance challenge Israel at its point of maximum comparative advantage due both to its total military dominance, achieved in part by large subsidies from the United States, and to its ruthless disregard for civilian innocence.

In recent years, especially beginning with the brutal experience of the Lebanon War of 2006 and even more dramatically in the aftermath of the Israeli Invasion of Gaza in 2008-09 (Dec. 27, 2008-Jan. 18, 2009), there has been a notable change of emphasis in Palestinian strategy. The new strategy has been to initiate what might be described as a second war, 'a legitimacy war,' that is essentially based on the reliance on a variety of nonviolent tactics of resistance. Armed resistance has not been renounced by the Palestinians, but it has been displaced by this emphasis on nonviolent tactics. The essence of this legitimacy war is to cast doubt on several dimensions of Israeli legitimacy: its status as a moral and law abiding actor, as an occupying power in relation to the Palestinian people, and with respect to its willingness to respect the United Nations and abide by international law. Those that wage such a legitimacy war seek to seize the high moral ground in relation to the underlying conflict, and on this basis, gain support for a variety of coercive, but nonviolent, initiatives designed to put pressure on Israel, on governments throughout the world, and on the United Nations, to deny normal participatory rights to Israel as a member of international society. These tactics also aim to mobilize global civil society to exhibit solidarity with the Palestinian struggle to achieve legitimate rights, taking the principal form of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign (BDS) that operates throughout the entire world, which serves as a symbolic battlefield. But there are other forms of action, as well, including the Free Gaza Movement and Viva Palestina that aim specifically at symbolically breaking the blockade of food, medecine, and fuel imposed in mid-2007, a form of collective punishment that has caused great suffering for the entire 1.5 million population of the Gaza Strip, damaging the physical and mental health of all those living under occupation.

Although the UN has been a failure so far as offering protection (beyond its essential role in providing humanitarian relief in Gaza) to the Palestinians under occupations or even in relation to the implementation of Palestinian rights under international law, it is a vital site of struggle in the legitimacy war. The whole storm unleashed by the Goldstone Report involves challenging the UN to impose accountability on the Israeli political and military leadership for their alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity associated with the Gaza attacks at the end of 2008. Even if the United States shields Israelis from accountability pursuant to the procedures of the UN, including the International Criminal Court, the confirmation of allegations of criminality by the Goldstone Report is a major victory for the Palestinians in the legitimacy war, and lends credibility to calls for nonviolent initiatives throughout the world. The Goldstone Report also endorses 'Universal Jurisdiction' as a means to gain accountability, encouraging national criminal courts of any country to make use of their legal authority to hold Israeli political and military leaders criminally responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Tzipi Livni, the current Kadima opposition leader in Israel, who had been Foreign Minister during the Gaza attacks, canceled a visit to Britain after she received word that a warrant for her arrest upon arrival had been issued. Even if Israeli impunity is not overcome, the authoritativeness of the Goldstone Report lends weight to calls around the world to disrupt normal relations with Israel by boycotting cultural and academic activities, by disrupting trade relations through divestment moves or through refusals to load and unload ships and planes carrying cargo to or from Israel, and by pressuring governments to impose economic sanctions.

The historic inspiration for this legitimacy war is the anti-apartheid campaign waged with such success against the racist regime that ruled South Africa during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Undoubtedly the Palestinian political motivation to focus their energies on waging a legitimacy war came from a variety of sources: disillusionment with efforts by the UN and the United States to find a just solution for the conflict; realization that armed resistance could not produce a Palestinian victory and played into the hands of Israeli diversionary tactics by making 'terrorism' the issue; recognizing that the events in Lebanon and Gaza generated throughout the world widespread anger against Israel and sympathy for the Palestinians, which is gradually weakening earlier European and North American deference to Israel due to Jewish victimization in the Holocaust; and a growing sense that the worldwide Palestinian diaspora communities and their allies could be enlisted to join in the struggle if its essential nature was that of a legitimacy war.

Israeli official and unofficial support groups have recently recognized the threat posed to their expansionist settler colonial grand strategy by this recourse by Palestinians to a legitimacy war. Israeli think tanks have described 'the global justice movement' associated with these tactics as a greater threat to Israel than Palestinian violence, and have even castigated reliance on international law as a dangerous form of 'lawfare.' The Israeli Government and Zionist organizations around the world have joined in the battle through a massive investment in public relations activities that include propaganda efforts to discredit what is sometimes called 'the Durban approach.' As with other Israeli tactics, in their defensive approach to the legitimacy war, there is an absence of self-criticism involving an assessment of Palestinian substantive claims under international law. For Israel a legitimacy war is a public relations issue pure and simple, a matter of discrediting the adversary and proclaiming national innocence and virtue. Despite its huge advantage in resources devoted to this campaign, Israel is definitely losing the legitimacy war.

Even if the Palestinians win the legitimacy war there is no guaranty that this victory will produce the desired political results. It requires Palestinian patience, resolve, leadership, and vision, as well as sufficient pressure to force a change of heart in Israel, and probably in Washington as well. In this instance, it would seem to require an Israeli willingness to abandon the core Zionist project to establish a Jewish state, and that does not appear likely from the vantage point of the present. But always the goals of a legitimacy war appear to be beyond reach until mysteriously attained by the abrupt and totally unexpected surrender by the losing side. Until it collapses the losing side pretends to be unmovable and invincible, a claim that is usually reinforced by police and military dominance. This is what happened in the Soviet Union and South Africa, earlier to French colonial rule in Indochina and Algeria, and to the United States in Vietnam. It is up to all of us dedicated to peace and justice to do all we can to help the Palestinians prevail in the legitimacy war and bring their long ordeal to an end.

*Prof. Richard Falk - is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, writer (the author or co-author of 20 books),[1] speaker, activist on world affairs, and an appointee to two United Nations positions on the Palestinian territories.

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• On tape: Palestinians harassed by Jewish settler in Hebron ‘cage’ (Part 1)

By Stuart Littlewood* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Fr Manuel Musallam recently retired at the age of 71 after serving as the parish priest of the Holy Family Church in Gaza for 14 years. For most of that time the Israelis would not allow him to visit his family and friends in the West Bank. So, in spite of failing health, he soldiered on through the devastating siege and the murderous blitzkrieg.

I was privileged to meet a couple of years ago and I just love the way this man speaks out. He doesn't mince words. He tells it the way it is, with truth and style.

Retirement hasn't silenced him or dimmed his perceptions.

This Easter he's concerned, as always, about the Occupation and how it robs those in the Holy Land of Easter's message of hope and joy. "We Christians of Palestine have been under Occupation for many long years. We've been suffering with bitterness being kept away from the Holy Sites. We've been denied our right to worship in Jerusalem. Many Christian generations have never been able to reach Jerusalem to visit its holy places.

"The Occupation has been continuously imposing unlawful obstacles. This year, we are confronted by the Israeli Apartheid Separation Wall, checkpoints, and roadblocks guarded by Israeli soldiers denying us movement and access to Jerusalem.

"All these measures not only suffocate the Palestinian people, but also asphyxiate peace in Israel and Palestine."

Fr Manuel explains how Palestinians are denied the freedom to worship as and where they please, even at Easter. In particular they are prevented from going into Jerusalem. The Zionist claim that Palestine was 'a land without a people for a people without a land' has had a disastrous impact on the Palestinians. "It does not mean that Jerusalem is without a people, but rather it should be evacuated to be handed over to another people. David Ben Gurion himself articulated the plan in 1937 when he declared: 'We must expel Arabs and take their places.'

"Every stone built in the Apartheid Wall, every axe strike digging under the Al-Aqsa Mosque and every house destroyed by Israel will increase the intensity of resistance and resentfulness. However, cooperation with Palestinians will give Israel the hope for a future, dominated by serenity and peacefulness."

"We lament Jerusalem..."

He warns of the relentless Zionist programme to completely Judaise Jerusalem, alter its features, expel its people, destroy its houses, seize its land and build numerous settlements. "We lament Jerusalem, and miss its beautiful ceremonies. This year thousands of tourists will weep with us. They will not be able to march the 'Way of the Cross' with Palestinians. There will be no national Palestinian Folklore to discover or Arab religious crafts to take with them as gifts, and no local prayers, hymns and music to experience in the warm faith of believers in Palestine. They will be shocked entering the Holy Sepulchre to find Israeli police inside."

Easter symbolizes liberation from sin and slavery but hopes of national liberation are evaporating. The slavery and humiliation of occupation are felt more keenly than ever by Palestinian Christians. "We do not foresee any political settlement, or an end to occupation, or hope for the return of Palestinian refugees, or the forming of our state with Jerusalem as its capital, or the right to self-determination, or the liberation of thousands of prisoners, free access and movement, an end to Gaza siege, and the dismantling of the Apartheid Wall around Jerusalem.

"We are appalled by the continuous threats of more war. And we are distressed by the daily humiliation, hunger, thirst, unemployment and the absence of sustainable development in our country."

The world's silence is perplexing, he says, and the international community seems unable to implement the resolutions it used to create the State of Israel. Recent events only to lead closer to the abyss.

He reminds us that Palestinians have been building and enhancing Jerusalem for 5000 years and never stopped... except during the Occupation, which has practically destroyed everything they had accomplished. Unable to find any traces of their own heritage, he observes, the Occupiers have annexed some of the Palestinians' holy places.

"Jerusalem was the city of God, peace, and prayer but has been converted into a city of man, war and hatred. Instead of becoming the key to the doors of heaven, it has become a key to war and blood."

"Protect our holy sites"

Jerusalem, the holiest place on earth, is now the focus of sin and crime, he says, because one man is killing another, insulting him and trampling his dignity and his right to live. "Jerusalem is ours. It is not a disputed land. We are not soliciting to share the legacy and heritage of Jerusalem with Israel or with anyone else.

"We do not accept the speech of Israeli leaders that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and that building in it is no different from building in Tel Aviv. Occupation is a sin and a form of terrorism, and when relying on the texts of the Torah to kill people or expel and remove them from their land it rises to the level of a crime against humanity. All perpetrators should be judged by the International Criminal Court before being judged by the just court of God."

Supporters of Netanyahu's remarks, and those who fail to condemn them, simply give Israel more time and excuses to intensify its crimes against the Palestinian people. Hence they become accomplices in a "sin against the nations".

In his appeal to the world this Easter, what seems to worry Fr Manuel most is how the dwindling numbers that are now allowed to reach the Holy Sites might cause them to be turned into historic monuments or even destroyed. In the eyes of Israeli leaders, these places are 'pagan sites' and whoever destroys them is brought closer to God. "A long time ago," he says, "the Zionist Jewish leader Theodore Herzl said: 'If one day we recover Jerusalem and I am still able to do anything when we do so, my first action will be to cleanse it thoroughly. I will remove everything that is not holy and burn the monuments that are centuries old.'

"Israel has devastated and tortured us in their many wars. We ask you to see the wounds of innocent Palestinian people and to be compassionate towards the Palestinian holocaust that you witness with your own eyes and touch with your own hands, and to know those who perpetrated this crime against our children. Search with us for justice that is the mother of peace. Protect us and safeguard our Holy Sites."

I recall that in 2008 Fr Manuel was with his Christian community during their darkest hour when Israel, with a nod from America and the EU, unleashed a deadly onslaught intended to finally crush the half-starved Gazans.

At the height of the killing spree, Fr Manuel sent this message from the smoking ruins to anyone who would listen: "Our people in Gaza are treated like animals in a zoo. They eat but remain hungry, they cry, but no one wipes their tears. There is no water, no electricity, no food, only fear, terror and blockade... Our children are living in a state of trauma and fear. They are sick from it and for other reasons such as malnutrition, poverty and the cold... The hospitals did not have basic first aid before the war and now thousands of wounded and sick are pouring in and they are performing operations in the corridors. The situation is frightening and sad."

In exasperation he added: "May Christ's compassion revive our love for God even though it is currently in 'intensive care'."

Was anyone listening?

Wimpish churchmen and politicians in the West would wet their pants at the very thought of speaking plainly against Zionist lawlessness and cruelty the way Fr Manuel does, which is why the Holy Land is such an unholy mess. Their inaction ensures that nothing changes for the better. Indeed, the situation gets progressively worse. Some will no doubt be muttering, "Will nobody rid us of the turbulent priest?" as did King Henry II in 1170 referring to Thomas Becket who rebelled against his unjust reforms.

But we need many more good and turbulent priests. They inspire. They might even succeed in goading the cowardly international community to action. Meanwhile it seems God still has work for Fr Manuel, even in retirement.

* Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

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• My message to the Jews
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By Tariq Shadid* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Nablus - photo by ANSA

American loyalty or subservience?

On March 22, Netanyahu declared before his trip to Washington: "As far as we are concerned, building in Jerusalem is like building in Tel Aviv, and we have made this clear to the Americans." There has been much ado about the 'crisis' in US-Israeli relations, which the media tends to portray as one of the worst in decades, but it seems that most of the differences between the two have already been ironed out. There is obviously more truth in the repeated declarations of unflinching loyalty of US politicians to the Israeli agenda, such as Obama's infamous statement that Jerusalem 'will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided', which he made in his speech to AIPAC the very morning after he secured the Democratic nomination as a presidential candidate in 2008.

This statement was hastily watered down in the following days, when it was answered by the Palestinians and foreign policy commentators with sharp denunciations. International law, after all, has it that East Jerusalem is illegally occupied territory. Despite this, the fact of the matter remains that Israel has been given a free hand in the Judaization of Arab East Jerusalem through the forced eviction of Palestinian residents from their homes, the ongoing excavations underneath the neighborhood of Silwan, the continuing isolation of East Jerusalem from its surrounding Palestinian hinterland, and the announcement of plans for the extensive construction of illegal settler buildings in East Jerusalem.

As Joe Biden declared when he visited the Israelis on March 9th: "There is absolutely no space between the United States and Israel in terms of Israel's security. None." He might as well have said 'policy', instead of 'security', if we base our judgment on actions rather than on words.

There is no hard evidence about the alleged master-slave relationship between the United States and Israel. There is however widespread speculation about it, ranging from allegations of an overwhelming influence of the Jewish lobby, to absolute control of the Israeli regime over United States foreign policy. What remains clear is that Israel has always had a green light for its horrendously racist treatment of the Palestinian population, and for its role in forcing other regimes of the region into submission – backed up by the public secret of its huge arsenal of nuclear weapons.

From the horse's mouth

The publication by Harvard scholars Walt and Mearsheimer in 2007 titled 'The Israel Lobby', laid out the mechanisms of how Israel dominates American politics through campaign donations and media clout. Coming straight from the horse's mouth itself, however, American subservience seems to go much further than that. On October 3rd, 2001 Ariel Sharon rebuked Shimon Peres' criticism of his policies on the radio station Kol Yisrael by saying:

"Every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it."

Another example: Condoleezza Rice was ordered by George W. Bush to abstain from a vote for a ceasefire in the Gaza War in the UN Security Council on January 12th, 2009. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in a speech in Ashkelon in those days, explained why:

"I said 'get me President Bush on the phone'. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. 'I need to talk to him now'. He got off the podium and spoke to me. I told him the United States could not vote in favor. It cannot vote in favor of such a resolution. He immediately called the Secretary of State and told her not to vote in favor."

The United States has a long tradition of posing as an 'honest broker' in the conflict, despite the fact that it is very well-known that even during this decades-long posturing it has always staunchly and relentlessly served every single Israeli military, strategic and economic objective. With this in mind, one can hardly maintain that the so-called criticism of Israel that was recently uttered by Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton has any serious content or weight. Is it considered normal to have one of the two competing teams provide one of their players as a referee in a World Cup Final? In football, it clearly isn't, but for some reason having a partial referee seems to be an accepted fact in Middle East politics that everyone prefers to leave unmentioned, and accepts as if it is a law of nature.

The rule of weakness

That's why at least part of the blame for the fact that this unclean game has been allowed to continue for nearly two decades, should be sought on the Palestinian side. The acceptance of these policies has resulted in the acquisition of thousands of acres of Palestinian land by the Israelis, the building of a racist infrastructure of illegal walls, settlements and roads in the occupied territories, and the near tripling of the Jewish settler population in the West Bank and Jerusalem – all of this during the period known as the 'Oslo peace process'.

The best illustration of Palestinian co-responsibility may be that Mahmoud Abbas will most likely be remembered as the weakest Arab leader in modern history, proving again and again that whatever he seems to 'demand', he is in truth only 'asking politely'. At first, there would be 'no negotiations' unless there was a 'settlement freeze', but when the Israelis continued unabated and even upgraded their settlement construction efforts, he agreed to 'indirect talks', losing face again widely among the Palestinian and Arab masses – that is, if there was any face left to lose after his Goldstone debacle in October 2009.

If anyone would be asked to name one single achievement of the Palestinian Authority in the period after the assassination of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, he would be very hard pressed to come up with one feat that has even the slightest air of significance or credibility. It is as if the Palestinian Authority have been sent to pose as captains on a sinking ship who are expected to keep the passengers hoping that rescue is on the way, in order to prevent panic and mutiny – while the crew have already been informed by those they are in contact with through the radio, that the damage to the hull cannot be repaired. It makes you wonder if the deal also includes a few helicopters having been made available by the coast guard for the captain and his closest crew members, to bring them to safety right before the ship disappears under the waves – with all of its passengers still on board.

Which Palestinians to support?

The result of this political bargaining, and it having been dragged on year after year, until every Palestinian card was given away by those who were delegated to sit at the poker table in the name of the people, is that it has effectively paralyzed the international community into complete inaction. Since Hamas has unjustly been branded an 'Islamist terrorist organization' by the United States and Europe, and the Palestinian Authority has not displayed any credibility of action nor of principle, the international community is finding itself at a loss on which Palestinians to support.

While non-violent resistance, in the form of the BDS movement and anti-Wall activism, has been taking place on a daily basis in Palestine, it has been largely ignored by the media and completely dismissed by the politicians of Europe and the United States. It becomes more and more difficult to deny that the only things that have been able to put Palestine on the front pages of the world's newspapers have been militant acts of resistance, which are nowadays remembered as actions from a previous era. The mention of them continues to be used against the Palestinian people until today, as if they were acts of sheer cruelty instead of desperate responses to Israeli attempts at annihilation and oppression.

Still, no reward has been given on the political world stage for the daily unarmed protests by many brave Palestinians and internationals, despite the gruesome and lethal response from the Israeli occupation forces. When the Palestinians resisted with weapons against injustice, they were criticized. When they resist non-violently, they are ignored.

It seems that barely any government in the world feels comfortable expressing support for Hamas, based on how the organization has been labeled, despite having won the 2006 elections fairly and squarely. But there is also little hope for the 'other side', although the Palestinian Authority undoubtedly should be the ideal Palestinian partner to do business with from a Western point of view. The proof for this lies in the fact that it has demonstrated an almost complete lack of resistance to the Israeli occupation, and a full willingness to cooperate with anything that sounds even vaguely like a 'solution'. Isn't that exactly what the West wants?

However, the PA apparently has displayed such a lack of spine that even the Western regimes seem to have become increasingly uninterested to pay it any significant political attention, let alone moral support. After all, this Palestinian Authority will obviously only be supported financially for "institution-building", not politically, and only if it complies with Israeli demands.

The end result: the Palestinian people are being forced to go it alone, if they wish to oppose the Israeli occupation.

Jerusalem in danger

The world's mass media gave widespread attention to the approval by the Israeli government given to plans for building 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem, since this was the cause of the embarrassment of the Americans when Joe Biden visited the region. Still, little heed is paid to the bigger picture of Israeli expansion politics. On March 11, Ha'aretz reported that in fact, these housing units were only part of a plan comprising the planned building of some 50,000 new housing units in Occupied Jerusalem.

The fact that such knowledge is not answered by vehement protests from any of the segments of the so-called Quartet, makes it likely that Obama's words spoken during his presidential election campaign were solemn promises which had to be made to secure his candidacy, rather than an unfortunate slip of the tongue. "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided", said Obama. What about international law? Jerusalem isn't recognized internationally as Israel's capital, and it is not a question of division, but of illegal conquest – which is in flagrant violation of the international consensus, and cannot be accepted under any conditions.

This is why the current situation can be seen as a test case for international Middle East politics: if Israel can get away with approving these 1,600, it will have no problem whatsoever with getting the consent of the superpowers for building the remaining thousands of settler homes in East Jerusalem, further consolidating its Judaization of the city. This is cause for high alarm in the Arab and Muslim world, especially considering the excavations below the areas surrounding the Al Aqsa Mosque, and the continuing and increasing provocations such as the establishment of a synagogue and the laying of the first stone for the 'rebuilding of the temple' by orthodox Jewish zionists, which took place recently on March the 16th. These actions were sanctioned by the Israeli government. Rumors of a planned deliberate destruction of the Al Aqsa Mosque in order to build that temple seem to be confirmed by these actions – and a powerful response from the Palestinian Authority and the Arab and Muslim world is stunningly absent.

A Third Intifada?

Some people may choose to continue to blame the Palestinians: after all, not all of them advocate a 'political solution' to the problem. Is this strange, considering the options they have been given, and considering the fact that the Palestinian Authority has in all these years failed to give them even one single reason to expect any success from that? Can the people be blamed for wishing to take their fate into their own hands, when they are terrorized on a daily basis by a ruthless genocidal Israeli occupation force, while no convincing efforts against this are being made by those who are internationally accepted as representatives of the Palestinian voice? The recent murder of four Palestinian civilian youngsters within 24 hours in the Nablus region, Mohammad and Useid Qadus (both 16 years), Muhammad Faysal and Salah Muhammad Qawariq (both 19 years) by the Israeli army, which only led to some timid condemnations by representatives of the Palestinian Authority, may yet spell the beginning of a Third Intifada. If people do not see any meaningful action from their leadership, will they sit by idly and watch their sons being shot?

The captain of the ship mentioned before may be using the most gracious words of hope in order to keep his control and authority over the passengers. He may be making promises that hardly anyone could believe, even if they wanted to, except perhaps if their fear of being engulfed by the waves compels them to grasp any floating straw they can find. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether this is how the Palestinian people will respond. History has shown that they are capable of organizing tremendously powerful uprisings, based purely on people power, and on the strength of their social cohesion and dedication to their faith.

If no one else in the world will make any move to protect Al Aqsa, and put a halt to the inhumane aggression of Israeli occupation and expansion, the Palestinian people surely will not grasp at straws, but are bound to grab any stick they can find, and defend themselves against the demolition of their homes, the murder of their children, and the destruction of their holy sites and their national identity.

* Tariq Shadid is a Palestinian surgeon living in the Middle East, and has written numerous essays about the Palestinian issue over the years, and have been bundled in the book "Understanding Palestine". He also runs a website of internationally oriented music dedicated to the Palestinian cause, which can be found at http://www.docjazz.com .

Related posts:

• Third Intifada Or Final Solution?
• Jeff Gates – Time for an American Intifada?
• Israel occupation and the non-violent Intifada

Illustration by Carlos Latuff

"The suicide bomber wrote that he began to live the day he came to know he was to die. Where did he get this passion to kill?"
- Mahesh Bhatt

Here in the civilised West we hate suicide bombers with a passion.

We're taught that the proper way to blow fellow humans to smithereens is to do it from 40,000 feet.

Or failing that, send Apache helicopter gun-ships at street level firing their laser-guided missiles and 30mm cannon.

Or failing that, turn loose our main battle tanks to shred and vaporize the "enemy", reduce their homes to rubble with DU shells and spread birth defects for generations to come.

Nowadays we don't even have to leave home to do it. We can train our really brainy chaps to steer armed drones to the target from the comfort of an armchair.

B-52s, F-16s, Apaches, drones and tanks... that's the ticket. Awesome hardware gives any murky mission a moral superiority that gets nods of approval from the governing élite in the drawing rooms of London and Washington.

What is not acceptable is delivering the high explosive in person, all the way to the target, and looking your enemy in the eye as you push the detonator. That simply isn't cricket.

"There can be no justification, under any circumstances, for taking innocent lives through terrorism." Those were the very words used by Liberal Democrat Party leader Charles Kennedy in 2004, when he sacked British MP Jenny Tonge from her front-bench spokes job for suggesting she might consider becoming a suicide bomber herself if she had to live through the situation the Palestinians were in.

Statistics from Israel's B'Tselem make the Palestinians' situation clear. Between 2000 and the start of Israel's "Cast Lead" blitzkrieg on Gaza in December 2008, the Israelis' vast standing army, equipped with the most advanced weaponry American money can buy, killed 4,790 Palestinian civilians in their homeland. Of these, 952 were children.

Yes, 952 young Palestinian lives horribly snuffed out and their parents desolated...

In response Palestinians, with their garden-shed weapons, killed 490 Israeli civilians, including 84 children. In this vicious game of murder the Israelis were leading the Palestinians by 11 to 1.

Those were the "circumstances" in which Kennedy sacked Jenny Tonge.

Terrorism most foul

During the Cast Lead onslaught – the foulest act of state terrorism for decades - Israel slaughtered at least 350 more children, and Gaza has been under daily attack ever since. So the "most moral army in the world" must have blown to bits, shredded, incinerated or smashed with snipers' bullets at least 1,400 youngsters in the last nine and a half years. The numbers left maimed and crippled don't bear thinking about.

In their study Palestinian Suicide Bombers: A Statistical Analysis Sean Yom and Basel Saleh found that many Palestinian suicide attackers had been on the receiving end of violent encounters with the Israeli military resulting in injury to themselves, or arrest, or a close family member being killed.

From October 2000 through March 2004, over 2,800 Palestinian fatalities and 25,600 non-lethal injuries were inflicted by the IDF. Revenge, often fuelled by deteriorating economic prospects and the imposition of harsh policies, provided recruiters with a ready supply of volunteers. Persuading individuals not to support or participate in violence would necessarily involve "improving the structural health of Palestinian society".

Fat chance of that. Israeli policy is to grind the Palestinians into poverty and helplessness, to take away everything they own and let them rot in a Zionist-prepared hell. Far from allowing the health of Palestinian society to improve, they tighten the screw of oppression further. In the period covered in the study they deliberately destroyed some 4,700 Palestinian homes while continuing their normal programme of slaughter, dispossession, abduction and all the other atrocities they are famed for.

Since 1967, according to ICAHD (the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions), Israel has demolished in total 24,145 homes in the Occupied Territories including 4,247 (a UN figure) destroyed during Operation Cast Lead. Palestinians tend to have large families. Consider how many homeless have been created.

Professor Robert Pape's comprehensive analysis Dying to Win, based on his work for the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism, advances the idea that suicide terrorism exerts coercive power "to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland... The bottom line, then, is that suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation"

Occupation includes control of territory, as in Gaza, not necessarily military occupation.

And of course, when it comes to Israel, we're not talking about a democracy but a vile ethnocracy.

Religion has little to do with it. Pape dismisses the often-repeated view that Islam is the root of the problem. "Rather, the taproot is American military policy". And the notion that Islamic fundamentalism is bent on world domination is "pure fantasy"

Many suicide bombers are simply motivated by the desire for revenge. According to one researcher, harsh state repression "should not be perceived only as a reaction to suicide bombing" but "often precedes and is a major cause of suicide bombing."

One Saturday night in 2001 Saeed Hotari blew himself up at the entrance to a disco in Tel Aviv, killing 21 teenagers and injuring 132. Hotari was one of nine children from a poor Palestinian family living in Jordan and had been in the West Bank for two years hoping to find a better life. He left a message saying: "If we don't fight, we will suffer. If we do fight, we will suffer, but so will they."

The disco bombing was cited by the Israeli government as one of the reasons for building the Apartheid Wall.

In 2003 a female Palestinian lawyer, Hanadi Tayseer Jaradat, aged 29, killed 21 civilians at Maxim restaurant in Haifa. She acted to avenge the killing of her brother and a cousin (some sources say her fiancé) by Israeli security forces.

Surgeon Abdel Aziz Rantissi, co-founder of Hamas, warned: "Israelis will have no stability and no security until the occupation ends. Suicide bombers are Israel's future." Rantissi was assassinated in 2004 in a helicopter attack on his car. A mother and her five year-old daughter were killed in the attack and four other bystanders wounded.

How much can a person take before snapping?

Arrest, detention without due process, constant humiliation, homelessness, unemployment and other family suffering at the hands of the IDF are not the only spur. Yahya Ayyash, nicknamed "the Engineer" and regarded as the Father of Suicide Bombing, became Hamas's chief bomb maker and for several years topped Israel's most wanted list. From a relatively well-off family, he gained a BSc in electrical engineering at Birzeit University and planned to study for a Master's degree in Jordan but the Israeli authorities wouldn't allow him to.

Thwarted in his life's ambition Ayyash joined Hamas. "Don't get sore, get even" might have been his motto. He used household chemicals to manufacture an explosive brew called Mother of Satan. His devices were used in a number of "massacres" and he quickly achieved hero status, narrowly escaping capture many times. It is claimed he was responsible for the deaths of around 90 Israelis, a high price for the occupier to pay for robbing this youngster of his rights to travel and study – rights we in the West take for granted.

Eventually in 1996 Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, eliminated Ayyash by persuading a relative to give him a rigged mobile phone that exploded when he used it. 100,000 people are said to have turned up at the funeral. 40 more Israelis were then killed in retaliatory bombings.

Yet Israelis still revel in targeting Palestinian students. Five years ago they forcibly removed four Birzeit University students from their studies in the West Bank and unlawfully sent them back to the Gaza Strip. All four were due to graduate by the end of that academic year.

There was an outcry from around the world and the Israeli military agreed to let them return to Birzeit, but only on condition that they signed a guarantee to permanently move back to the Gaza Strip after completing their studies. This revealed for all to see Israel's plan to separate the West Bank from the Gaza Strip, even though the two areas are internationally recognized as one integral territory. Under international law everyone has the right to freely choose their place of residence within a single territory. Ten years ago around 350 Gaza students were studying at Birzeit, but today there are almost none and the racist regime blocks Gaza students from reaching the eight Palestinian universities in the West Bank.

It was no surprise to learn last Christmas that Berlanty Azzam, a fourth year Business Administration student from Gaza studying at Bethlehem University, was suddenly "deported" by the Israeli military back to Gaza. Berlanty, a Christian girl, had lived in the West Bank since 2005 and resisted all temptation to visit her family home in Gaza in case she was prevented from returning to Bethlehem.

The 21 year-old was only a few weeks from graduating when she was arrested after attending a job interview in Ramallah. In a deliberate attempt to rob her of her degree the most moral army in the world blindfolded and handcuffed her, loaded her into a jeep, drove her to Gaza and dumped her in the darkness late at night.

In the case of another university honours student in her final year, Israeli soldiers frequently rampaged through the Bethlehem refugee camp where she lived, ransacking homes and arbitrarily arresting residents. They took away her family one by one. First her 14-year-old cousin and best friend was shot dead by an Israeli sniper while she sat outside her family home during a curfew.

Next the Israelis arrested her eldest brother, a 22 year-old artist, and imprisoned him for 4 years. Then they came back for her 18-year-old brother. Then they came again to take her youngest brother – the 'baby' of the family - just 16. These were the heartbreaking circumstances (Mr Kennedy please note) under which this student was studying for her degree.

Luckily she had the guidance of caring university teaching staff to keep her on the straight and narrow. The most moral army in the world may have robbed her brothers of an education, but she was determined to complete hers.

Although Palestinians take their education seriously not all students cruelly obstructed by the Israelis react as Yahya Ayyash did. However, there must be a limit to how much injustice and frustration a young person can take before he/she snaps.

Modern suicide bombing appears to have started in 1980 in the Iran-Iraq war when an Iranian youngster exploded himself against an Iraqi tank, but it was Hezbollah's devastating attacks two years later in Lebanon which attracted world attention. US forces and the Israeli invader were soon expelled. The technique was then exported throughout the Middle East and beyond.

The threat of suicide bombing has receded in the Holy Land while Israeli military atrocities escalate. The regime's leaders, seeing the Israel brand image plummet, are now pulling every dirty trick imaginable – even to the point of trying to annex sacred Islamic heritage sites - in a frantic bid to provoke a third initifada (uprising) and cast themselves once again as the victims of terror. Something has to give. Many Palestinians will snap, and no-one will be surprised to see another Ayyash emerge.

Here in the West few of us can fully comprehend what turns a bright, intelligent person into a suicide bomber. But then, we don't have a jackboot on our throat. We don't have our front door battered down in the middle of the night by military thugs, our family abducted, our home bulldozed and our land confiscated.

The moral to the story is surely this. You mess with other people's rights and freedoms, and trample on their dreams, at your peril.

* Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

Related posts:

• “Saving Israel” or assisting it to commit suicide?
• Oren Ben-Dor – The Self-Defense of Suicide
• George Bisharat – The fallacy of Islamic ‘national suicide’

By Paul J. Balles* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The March to Freedom for Nought

Two things made those extremes almost bearable: the brutality always revealed – at least according to the media coverage – the viciousness of the enemy. It was therefore quite understandable when our "brave men and women" pulverized the enemy.

Films of Japanese torturing captive Americans somehow justified holding over 7,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II; and only a small percentage of Americans found the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki unreasonably vengeful at best, at worst, depraved.

The media giants in America portrayed the North Koreans as barbaric beasts with their captives, quite unlike their southern counterpoints – our allies during the Korean War. No one ever felt the need to explain how the South Koreans were a civilized breed while the North Koreans were absolute savages, at least according to the official line.

"... the most extremes – the real horrors – of this war come with the primitive killer mentality developed in our youth. I've now seen a half dozen documentary films and read eyewitness accounts that reveal troops or pilots gloating over the massacres of civilians who just happened to be available targets."

In Vietnam, our warriors justifiably (or so the media made us believe) dropped napalm on the North Vietnamese who had the gall to hide in villages and tunnels to ravage our invaders. At least it was accepted practice until some rogue photojournalist filmed a young girl screaming down a Vietnamese road in flames.

One of our lieutenants also got caught commanding his troops to open fire on an entire village of civilians – women and children. We had obviously – to some – gone too far. If those few torturous incidents hadn't been filmed, we might have carried on and won the war in Vietnam (or so the thinking goes) with our napalm and wanton village massacres.

Then, when the Iraqi troops ran (literally) fleeing Kuwait in 1991, our bloodthirsty aviators annihilated them on the road north, bombing their retreat to "melted glass" (as one Lockheed acquaintance put it). That feast for hungry slaughterers received little attention. The bombers and strafers felt no guilt after Saddam's troops had blown up Kuwait's oil wells.

The nagging memory of non-avenged defeat in Vietnam somehow allowed members of the clergy to ignore the devastating inhuman cost to children in Iraq during 10 years of sanctions. Only a few humanitarians among academics spoke out. Congress completely ignored it. The public didn't care. Why should they? Our leaders spoke of everything but the brutality of our enforcers.

We have now reached a stage where our extreme horrors of brutality and cruelty have exceeded our past records. We no longer have the rationale of moral righteousness of the earlier wars.

There were no excuses for Abu-Ghraib, but our interest in that inhuman travesty dried up and blew away. We have little concern about our violations of human rights in Guantanamo. We care less about ill-treatment of Arabs and Arab Americans in the USA.

But the most extremes – the real horrors – of this war come with the primitive killer mentality developed in our youth. I've now seen a half dozen documentary films and read eyewitness accounts that reveal troops or pilots gloating over the massacres of civilians who just happened to be available targets.

Without doubt, the US has not only become the world's major power, it has become the world's sickest warrior state. Neither conscience nor empathy for others defines the qualities of the sociopath.

It's past time for humanitarians to reject the double standards set by warmongers and supported by arms-makers and the mainstream media. The clergy needs to stop preaching sanctimonious sermons. Finally, educators should adopt and teach a zero tolerance policy for self-righteous warriors.

And yes, those who would dismiss my criticism as vitriolic should join a chorus with a conscience.

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. For more information, see http://www.pballes.com.

Related posts:

• Paul J. Balles – Zionism Unmasked: “Anti-Semitic” – the label that stops criticism
• The Worlds Worst Prison State
• Weekend read: Biased Media, War Crimes, One-State Solution and ‘Right to Exist’

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8a-IBwaWlE

Whenever there is injustice, there are people fighting it with every possible means. We have seen it so many times before: the oppressed rise up, the oppressor dehumanizes them calling them such names as "terrorists", "saboteurs", "death loving" extremists... It is only normal that the oppressor will always lie to justify his actions and its crimes.

What is different in the case of Palestine, is that the Israeli regime has built an effective media and communications networks and campaigns to distort the image of the Palestinian resistance, and that a large portion of the world has believed the Israeli line and hence adopted it.

It is our duty to remember and remind the world that the Palestinian freedom fighter is a man, a woman, like any other. He loves his family. She loves her country. They seek a better future. They are willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of justice and freedom. They waited for the world to lift the blatant injustice that has befallen them since 1948. They expected the world to understand when they took up arms to lift this injustice themselves.

Now, they don't care what anyone else calls them. They do not seek anyone's permission, just like any resistance movement. They believe that their cause will be triumphant because it is a cause for justice and humanity. They are merely fulfilling their duty to make the day of justice in Palestine come sooner. So should we.

(Most of the photos used in this video are by Mr. Ahmad Mesleh, Palestine)

Source: The Never Before Campaign for Palestine

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• Mary Rizzo – A Strategy Revolution: A Game Theory Approach to Palestinian Resistance
• Digital Resistance: Palestinian Youth Media
• YouTube WIPE “Gaza Massacre” video from records!

Prominent Jewish-American professor says Gaza rockets were 'symbolic resistance' to Israeli siege.

LONDON - Prominent Jewish-American Professor Norman Finkelstein accused Israel of perpetrating "war crimes" in Gaza through its ongoing siege of the Strip and its war at the turn of the year.

His accusation came within an international conference titled, "UNRWA and Future of Palestinian Refugees", organized in London Wednesday.

Prof. Finkelstein said the causes and effects of the war on Gaza are now coming to light, both in the Goldstone Report and in the recent arrest warrant issued by the UK for Tzipi Livni, who stated that she was "proud of everything she had done in Gaza".

Briefly assessing the history to the siege, Prof. Finkelstein noted that the ceasefire that was agreed between Israel and Hamas June 2008 was broken by Israel, not Hamas: whilst Hamas stopped its rocket attacks, Israel did not lift its illegal blockade on Gaza and launched a night raid on Gaza, whilst the eyes of the worlds were watching 4th November 2008 US elections.

Six Hamas resistance fighters were killed, provoking Hamas to respond, which it did by resuming rocket attacks. Prof. Finkelstein emphasised that this is not violence so much as "symbolic resistance".

He quoted one Palestinian who referred to the rocket attacks as "modest home made rockets are a cry of protest to the world".

Prof. Finkelstein commented that if we are going to condemn Hamas for these rocket attacks, we must suggest how else they should resist the pressure placed on them by persistent Israeli attacks, subjugation and persistent blockades that drain the small area of land.

If we cannot provide an alternative, we cannot criticise, he argued.

Prof. Finkelstein emphasised the disproportionate nature of the Israeli attacks.

The ratios of death and destruction are striking: 100 Palestinians were killed to 1 Israeli; 600 Palestinian civilians were killed to 1 Israeli; and 6000 Palestinian homes were destroyed to 1 Israeli home, he explained.

On this basis, Prof. Finkelstein said, it cannot be called a war as a minimum condition of war is that there are at least two sides firing at each other. Israeli soldiers themselves have stated that Israel used "insane amounts of firepower."

Israel's claims that the extent of devastation and death was due to Hamas using human shields and purposely positioning themselves in dense civilian areas has been undermined by reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Dugard Committee and the Goldstone Report which have found no evidence to support this claim.

The Goldstone Report stated that the siege was a "deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population".

Prof. Finkelstein notes that we can only assume that Goldstone, a self-confessed Zionist and a supporter of Israel, would have no interest in unfairly criticising Israel.

The world must assume therefore that what Goldstone has reported is an accurate reflection of abuse and apportionment of responsibility for what happened in Gaza, he added.

Prof. Finkelstein noted that Goldstone Report has, for the first time, put the assessment of human rights abuses first in this conflict, rather than the attention being persistently focussed on the "peace process".

The truth about the ongoing human rights abuses committed by Israel against Palestinians must be at the forefront of campaigning, stressed Prof. Finkelstein.

Related posts:

• Norman Finkelstein – The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza
• Racists press DePaul University to deny tenure to Dr. Finkelstein
• Israel accused of Gaza war crimes

When celebrating Christmas, it would be a good idea to think about the birthplace of Jesus. What is like in the Holy Land under the Israeli occupation, injustice and racism? How does Christmas feel when the Holy Land is under siege?

Help bring joy to the Holy Land.
Help break the siege.
Support the Freedom March to Gaza, Holy Land (Palestine).
http://www.gazafreedommarch.org/

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9esPiCxLDZk

Related posts:

• Stuart Littlewood – What festive cheer will the West bring to the Holy Land this Christmas?
• Tragedy in the Holy Land
• Will the Church act to save the children of Gaza this Christmas?

A Portrait of Nonviolent Resistance in One Palestinian Village

By Ellen Cantarow* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

At no time since its 1967 West Bank occupation have Israel's seizures of Palestinian land and water resources seemed as shocking as the ones attending its construction of "the wall," begun in 2002. Vast, complex, and shifting in form, the wall appears most dramatically as 25-foot-high concrete slabs punctuated by militarized watch towers, supplemented by electronically monitored electrified fences stretching over vast distances.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared the wall illegal, but Israel ignored the ruling. Now, it undulates through the West Bank for over 280 kilometers, clasping Israel's major colonies and some minor ones in its embrace. The completed wall will incorporate more than 85% of the West Bank's settler population, a de facto annexation by Israel of significant chunks of the territory it first occupied in 1967. This is the dream of Greater Israel rapidly turned into architecture. For the Palestinians, however, the wall means theft, separating many Palestinian cities and villages from their land and water.

Jayyous, with a population of 3,500, is one of those villages. It lies nestled in a mountainous northern West Bank landscape with the Palestinian city of Qalqilya just to its west. The scenery here remains one of the Mediterranean's loveliest, a cross, let's say, between Tuscany and parts of Yugoslavia. Greek and Roman ruins mark the village's great age. This was one of the West Bank's most fertile areas. Farming involving a lively variety of nut, citrus, and olive trees, as well as vegetables, flourished around Jayyous, drawing life from abundant underground wells. The aquifers beneath Jayyous and Qalqilya, in fact, constitute a West Bank treasure. Lands belonging to both the city and the village abut Israel's pre-1967 border -- the "Green Line."

Before the wall's advent, Qalqilya's merchants and Israelis did regular business on either side of the border, while Jayyous's farmers worked their land all the way up to the Green Line. Now, the monstrous, concrete version of the wall surrounds Qalqilya entirely, bringing to mind high-security prisons or ghettoes from other eras. Jayyous is segregated from most of its former land by the wall in what one could call its "barrier" form -- a system of steel fences, razor wire, and patrol roads manned by Israeli soldiers.

Four thousand of the village's olive and citrus trees were uprooted to make way for the wall. All the village's wells and over 75% percent of the land are now sequestered behind the wall, isolated on its west -- that is, "Israeli" -- side. A small Israeli settler colony called Zufim sits amid Jayyous's former wealth. Israeli plans are on the books to build up to 1,500 new housing units on the bounty confiscated from the village. The new units will destroy the only road over which Jayyous's farmers can now travel to and from their land: there used to be six of these roads. Israel has already blocked five of them.

Sixty-five year-old Sharif Omar Khalid, known more familiarly as Abu Azzam, has spent half his life struggling to preserve Jayyous's land. In 1980, with other farmers representing villages throughout the West Bank, he founded the Land Defense Committee, one of 18 organizations that now make up the Stop the Wall campaign. Gifted with stubborn optimism, he counts as victory an Israeli Supreme Court decision in April 2006, which pushed the path of the wall back from the south side of the village. The decision returned 11% of Jayyous's former land -- 750 dunams of the 8,600 blocked by the barrier. (A dunam is a little over a quarter of an acre.)

The wall remains, as does one of its most essential parts: the "agricultural gate." There are two of these on Jayyous's land -- one to the north; another to the south. Almost all of the village's farmers are forced to use the north gate. Opened by Israeli soldiers for two 45-minute intervals at dawn and dusk, the gate blocks a patrol road manned by the Israelis.

But to get beyond the gate, across the patrol road, and from there to their farmland, Jayyous's farmers need "visitors' permits." Since 2003, Israel has decreed that the villagers are only "visitors" on land they have worked for generations. Obtaining the permits is an excruciating obstacle course that only begins with proof of land ownership. Abu Azzam is one of the village's major landowners; his title goes back several generations to the time when Jordan occupied the West Bank. Being a known activist, he was periodically denied his permit until the Israeli Supreme Court finally granted him a permanent permit noting that its bearer is a "security problem." This produces extra problems for him in his daily odyssey to his fields and back.

The Gate from Hell

The first time I saw an "agricultural gate" was in 2004 outside the northern Palestinian village of Mas'ha. It was terrible to behold. Immense steel jaws painted a bright ochre-yellow creaked open, thanks to the Israeli Occupation Forces' finest, for about 30 minutes at dawn and again at dusk. Between those two moments, it remained locked, leaving the local farmers with no possibility of returning home for lunch or emergencies, nor even for crop-irrigation at the appropriate time (after sundown).

Each opening of the Mas'ha gate permitted a lone farmer, Hani Amer -- his home locked in on three sides by the wall and on the fourth by an Israeli settlement -- to make sporadic trips to his fields. At both sides of the gate lay coils of razor wire snarled in front of a barrier ditch which stretched into the distance as far as we could see. Beyond this ditch, more razor wire. Then a "military road" meant for Israeli soldiers patrolling the boundaries of an Arab world considered burdensome to the Greater Israel.

Across the military road lay yet more razor wire and another ditch before Hani Amer could finally reach his fields.

To grasp what the gate really means, though, you'd have to stay, as I did, at least a night with a farmer in Jayyous at harvest time. You'd awaken with his wife and him at 5:30 A.M., drink a cup of strong Arabic coffee, eat bread spread with jam made from fruit he grows on the land remaining to him, and then go jolting down the white, rutted, stony road on his tractor. Finally, of course, you would wait with him in a gathering line of farmers at the gate.

Now watch, in the dawn of another day in the forty-second year of occupation, in front of this steel raptor out of some mad film-maker's imagination, as they all arrive: one on his tractor, another on a donkey laden with sacks and harvest tools, until finally a long line stands waiting. Note those ubiquitous coils of razor wire, and the ditches, and that military road, just one form of the endless wall that imprisons Palestine's people. Watch as the soldiers turn languidly and unlock the gate, swinging its jaws wide to transform it, and the military road it bars, into a checkpoint for the brief morning opening.

As I waited and watched from Abu Azzam's tractor this past October, I imagined the hillside on the other side of the road as it must have been decades ago, when I still reported regularly from the West Bank. The region's steep hills were then punctuated by lines of dry-wall terracing that enclosed olive trees whose leaves billowed silver in the wind, and the darker greens of fruit trees and grapevines. The Greater Israel's new, California-style urban sprawl, its cities that now ooze through the West Bank, were still part of an expansionist dream, not a burgeoning reality, and of course there was no wall, nor a "military road," nor, of course, an agricultural gate.

Watch now, as each farmer with his donkey, his tractor, his work-tools, approaches the passage between the gaping steel jaws. Watch each as he moves into the military road, brings his donkey to a halt, dismounts, and offers his ID card to a stout, impassive Israeli soldier. Flanked by two other soldiers, he, in turn, calls a control tower rising in the distance and in Hebrew recites each bearer's name and ID numbers. Take in the stoicism, the resignation, the endurance of these farmers as they accept the indignity of all this because there is no other choice. Think that they are trying to do one simple thing: harvest their olives.

But first each must move into the road, stand with head bowed or eyes averted as his fate is determined for this day, and then, if he's approved, move forward. Beyond lie more ditches at the other side of the road, more razor wire and -- at last -- something that masquerades as freedom but isn't. The farmer is now permitted to climb the hill in his vehicle. Beyond its crest he may reach his fields, for whose sake he has endured this daily torment.

And now, consider the Israeli settlers and soldiers, whose absolute rule, running the gamut from control over this gate through vigilantism against villagers like those in Jayyous, make a nightmare of this simple thing, the olive harvest. Settlers from Zufim actually uprooted olive trees in Jayyous in 2004. (Some were carted away for sale in Israel); sewage from the colony has destroyed others.

A week after my stay, according to the Israeli paper Haaretz, Jewish settlers elsewhere in the northern West Bank "clashed with Palestinians picking olives." The settlers called the farmers trying to bring in their crops a "security" threat because they "could gather intelligence and launch attacks from the olive groves."

Elsewhere in the area that same week, Israeli security forces stood by as settlers entered a Palestinian village "to hold a brief rally" against the harvest. (Israel's army is now dominated from top to bottom by ultra-religious-expansionist settlers, which makes a mockery of the "settler-soldier" distinction.) Meanwhile, near an Israeli "outpost" settlement called Adi Ad, settlers "uprooted dozens of olive trees." As I write, similar alarums reach me by e-mail daily.

Several times since October the Israeli Army has imposed curfews on Jayyous -- collective punishment for the weekly anti-wall demonstrations staged by village youth here. Most of the time the curfews have been levied after the farmers were already in their fields and haven't interrupted the harvest. But they have punished the rest of Jayyous. Collective punishment -- reprisals against all for the actions of a few -- is illegal under the 1949 Fourth Geneva convention.

Keeping Going

"A state gone mad," observed Palestinian lawyer and writer Raja Shehadeh when, a day after visiting Jayyous, I described the scene at the gate. This particular barrier of steel, these particular patient farmers, those particular soldiers enforcing Israel's banality of evil -- they offer but a taste of the insane ingenuity that is the still-developing Greater Israel. A Dutch filmmaker who had interviewed some West Bank Jewish settlers, related this little exchange to Shehadeh: "What is your dream?" she asked one of the settlers. "My dream," he replied, "is that my grandchildren will say someday, 'Here, they say that once upon a time there were Arabs.'"

The evening before we all arose to go to the gate, Abu Azzam took a German visitor and me to see the local olive press where he and other farmers unload each day's harvest. The sight of Jayyous's olives moving up a conveyor belt and into the press, finally to emerge as a stream of oil bottled in large plastic containers, was joyous. Children ran and slid about on the slick floor, laughing; their parents dipped bread for them in the delicious, freshly-pressed oil. What human madness would inflict constant torment on such peaceful labor?

Later, Abu Azzam told me stories about his life as an activist, his marriage, and his children. Jailed by Jordan for belonging to the Communist Party and later by Israel for his attempts to preserve the village land, he says he can't imagine anything but keeping going. "I have no other choice" is the way he puts it, with a shrug and a smile.

He recalled the moment back in October 2003 as the wall was being built, when an Israeli official tried to buy off the Jayyous activists by offering them 650 permits which would have allowed that many farmers to access their land. But the Land Defense Committee made "a team decision" not to use them. Accepting the permits would have meant recognizing the validity of the wall and the whole system of dispossession that went with it. Israeli soldiers closed the gate; it was the height of the olive, guava, and clementine harvests. Abu Azzam and other farmers cut gaps in the barrier and crept through to work their fields "without a tractor, without horses, without carriages, without anything. Only our bodies."

More arrests followed. The farmers made a decision to stay on their land and not return to the village. "My wife was very angry," Abu Azzam recalls. "She called me on October 21 asking me, 'Are we divorced? Are we separated?' I said 'I'm resisting.' 'Resisting? Can you see one box of guavas, cucumbers, or tomatoes? 'Enough, to be on the land is resistance.' I said."

Since 2003 Abu Azzam and other Jayyous farmers have continued their obdurate odyssey to their lands. This determination to keep farming on the 3,250 dunams -- of an original 8,050 -- that the villagers still have, rather than live elsewhere in the West Bank or abroad is itself resistance. In Palestine, this "just staying" is called samid. It means "the steadfast," "the persevering," and eloquently expresses the oldest form of Palestinian nonviolent resistance.

"You have so many problems," I said to Abu Azzam. "Would you ever leave?" He smiled at me indulgently. "All our life is a problem. I don't want to be a new refugee. I am against the emigration that took place through the Israelis."

Since 2008, Jayyous's young people have staged weekly demonstrations against the wall. One of their leaders -- Mohammed Othman -- was arrested by Israeli authorities this past fall when he returned from a speaking tour in Norway. He is still in jail under indefinite administrative detention.

Jayyousi leaders have also written to high officials in Norway and Dubai imploring them to divest from companies owned by the Uzbekistan-born Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev. In doing so, Jayyous joins growing international revulsion at, and refusal to deal with, Leviev's companies. Their reach is vast and diverse, extending to Angola's diamond mines, New York real estate, and Israeli settlements in whose planning and building (including Zufim) they are heavily involved. Last March, Haaretz's Barak Ravid reported that the British Embassy in Tel Aviv "stopped negotiations to lease a floor in Africa-Israel's Kirya Tower because of the [Leviev-owned] company's involvement in settlement construction." Oxfam has severed ties with him for the same reason.

On September 9, 2009, a month before my arrival, the Israeli Supreme Court handed down a new ruling moving the route of the wall again and returning an additional 2,448 dunams to Jayyous. "Because of your efforts?" I asked Azzam.

"It is because of Jayyous," he replied. "It is a group struggle."

* Ellen Cantarow, a Boston-based journalist, first wrote from Israel and the West Bank in 1979. Her work has been published in the Village Voice, Grand Street, and Mother Jones, among other publications, and was anthologized by the South End Press. More recently, her writing has appeared at Counterpunch, ZNet, and Alternet. This essay is part of a series on Palestinian non-violent resistance, "Heroism in a Vanishing Landscape."

[Note: Another of Cantarow's Palestinian portraits can be read by clicking here. A comprehensive U.N. account of Israel's wall can be found by clicking here (PDF file).]

Related posts:

• Holy Land or Living Hell?
• Palestinian Villagers Destroy Wall at Jayyous; Five Internationals Detained
• Jayyous

By Mary Rizzo* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Anyone who has witnessed the events in Palestine/Israel has been able to notice a cycle that repeats itself continually between the two groups of people. It can be summed up in two words: action/reaction. Sometimes the action is carried out to elicit a reaction (which we can define then as a provocation). A provocation has as its goal to incite or irritate another, sometimes it can be the prelude to the "true action" and sometimes it is there just to demonstrate something.

We all have in our memories the famous sparks that set off the first and second Intifada. The first was Ariel Sharon "strolling" on the most important site for Palestinians, al-Haram al-Sharif as if he owned the place, and the second was provoked by Israeli soldiers running over two Palestinian workers at a checkpoint. In and of themselves, the events were bad enough, but they had a common aspect that certainly would have surprised Israelis and the West, and one that perhaps surprised even the Palestinians themselves. The fact that those relatively minor events could have such an impact: that a "stroll" and an "accident" could be the sparks that set off the most effective and widespread popular uprising in the history of the Palestinian struggle for liberation. The events that were "the breaking point" were far less damaging than a raid or bombardment, things that we seem to be convinced are the events that have the capacity of waking up the world to the situation, but actually don't.

This is certainly something to think about, and something that perhaps presents a new strategic approach that Palestinians should take into consideration. The unpredictability of the reaction to the provocation was something that actually worked in the favour of the Palestinian people. No, their living conditions certainly did not improve, and as a matter of fact, in a lot of cases they precipitated in a more rapid downward spiral. But, two very important things did indeed happen: Palestinians took an active role in staving off Israeli domination and the world took notice once and for all that Palestinians were ready to take to the streets and fight to shake off the oppressor's clutches. An important effect was that they were going to refuse to collaborate on many levels, which had caused some severe economic cracks in the Israeli economy, dependent as it was on "Cheap Arab Labour". It effectively put "the Palestinian Question" on the map and made it into an issue that could no longer be ignored. In a way, it further internationalised it, making it one that must be faced in practical terms by international diplomacy.

A job I recently had was making the transcription of a conference that a writer/professor/hedge fund specialist, Nassim Taleb, gave in Milan. I am not in any way knowledgeable about the economy or the market aside from general knowledge obtained from the mass media. Obviously, the issue has been in the news and even in analysis in the alternative media for many months, since the collapse of the investment banks and the USA bailout, so the discussion even for someone profane in the issue like me, was quite informative and relevant to daily life. Taleb is basically a specialist in statistics and prediction of risks, so his talk could apply not only to the economy, but to any aspect of life where there is risk and where "unexpected events" can happen. Since what goes on in Palestine has a course of action like other events, I thought, why not apply his ideas to this and see how that could be practically applied in favour of the Palestinians? What is a situation that remains within the reach of Palestinians? Popular resistance.

Whether the first Intifada was completely unexpected is a question that can be debated for years, because I have read and heard varying views on it. But what I believe we all can agree on was that the spark that set it off was a provocation in which the perpetrators never expected to get a result of that magnitude, indeed, they may have factored in a totally contrasting result. If they had been aware of the response to it, they would have set up preventive measures, and the mass media would have been prepared for an immediate censorship of the reaction. Years ago, I tried to discover just how much the Israelis (the people and the government) were surprised by the Intifada. I learned that for the most part, it was like lightning in a clear sky, it was something they did not contemplate, and this is entirely understandable. If you are able to carry out repression of every protest, and if you are able to control the movement and the lives of those you are reigning over, or even feel superior to, you believe that you can break down every resistance, should it happen to occur. You preventively label all reactions as terrorism and even make sure the world believes that these are not reactions at all, but instigating events requiring "Israeli retaliation". You probably prepare for reactions to major provocations you carry out, such as air raids that assassinate political and religious leaders, but you may not be ready with contingency plans for people striking, for people making makeshift roadblocks after intimidation or a killing of a civilian that in many ways is just ordinary daily bread for the Palestinians.

This fact of being unprepared for unexpected events bringing about the decline of a system that seemed unbeatable came to mind while listening to Taleb. In fact, I believe that by applying some of his theory (which includes aspects of game theory) to the Palestinian resistance strategy, there may be a means of achieving not only a Third Intifada (which vast segments of the Palestinians are calling for) but also an awareness that a climate of increasing instability of Israel is the way forward to forcing them into not only ceasing with provocation, but into radically altering their abusive policies.

Taleb spoke about a rule of expectations in market regulation. He gave an interesting example about how "fuzzy rules" actually can bring about more "virtuous behaviour": if there are two parties, and one is taking advantage of the other, or in more serious cases, one is exploiting the other, the wise thing for the party being exploited to do is to never fully reveal precisely the level in which an over-reaction takes place, as it eventually must do, to allow the survival or functioning of that party. If their exploiter is aware that the level that can be reached before the expected (over)reaction is located at "ten", then the party exploiting or taking advantage of them will always, on every occasion go so far as "nine", and feel entitled to do so as well, keeping the level of abuse, control or condition of using the other extremely high, pushing the limit, but not exceeding it. If the exploited party does not state where the limit to the (over)reaction is located, at times they will allow the exploiter to go to "fifteen" before there is a reaction, at times they will only let him go to "five", and this will influence the exploiting party into modifying or changing tactics. An immediate result is that the average level of pressure is going to be on the whole lower for repeated incidences, and more and more often, the exploiting party, unaware of the precise level at which something is objectively too much for the other party, will on their own start to reduce the levels, to avoid the risk of the reaction which would then hinder the very ends of the exploitation itself. In effect, given the unpredictability, a self-enforcement of virtuous behaviour becomes the strategy of the exploiting party, so that their "survival" in this role can continue.

If this model were transferred to the strategy of the Palestinian resistance, that (for instance) the killing of a child is always going to cause a reaction, but the blocking of a checkpoint on some occasions may not, and on others the set up of a temporary roadblock will set off a reaction, then the Israelis will lose the perception of what their limits are, since they are already arbitrary. They will not know when and how far they can push, and thus, will (theoretically) push less than before, while the Palestinians gain more consciousness that they can be the ones establishing the limits. This strategy could be adopted at very many levels, even in an organised way. It could be determined (by way of consensus if possible) that certain actions or provocations will always elicit a mass demonstration of resistance, even organised, and that others will provoke "wildcat" reactions, making it nearly impossible for the Israelis to predict what actions stimulate a response. There would be a process of transforming all provocatory or abusive actions into targets of reaction, not limiting them to a conditioned response that has been played out time and time again with very little progression in the situation of lifting some of the oppression off of the Palestinians. It would be essential for local leaders and charismatic figures to discuss a strategy of what actions shall have the "bar raised" and what actions can at some level be tolerated so as not to bring down an iron fist they cannot effectively handle or have no means to confront, so that a state of confusion and unpredictability can enter into the Israelis and as a consequence, they will be forced into reducing the oppression overall. This awareness of a variable popular reaction to being oppressed should then become a logical and understandable principle for the Palestinians to integrate into their mentality of resistance. A comparable study should be made to plot out typical Israeli reactions and establish a pattern that can add to a more effective strategic application of the principles of a game theory approach to the resistance.

Should it be tolerated that prisoners are transferred into different Israeli prisons? Should it be tolerated that schools are closed and that utilities are cut off? Should it be permitted that a soldier can occupy the home of a family, that orders are issued to demolish a home, that an important site for Palestinian people has a Hebrew sign stuck on it? Should trash being dumped on women walking the streets of Hebron be accepted, a wall being built, a tree being cut down? There are a million actions that bring oppression, humiliation and suffering to Palestinians, not only the most dramatic ones of war. The same can be said for the Palestinians living in refugee camps, or for Palestinians who live in Israel. They can identify hundreds and hundreds of offences, of acts done that offend and destroy the Palestinians individually and as a people. Any of these actions could serve as a spark that the Israelis are unable to manage to their own advantage.

A major mistake in my view is that the "movement" outside of Palestine focuses only on the macroscopic. And it indeed has been a shock to come to the conclusion that if the world did not wake up after the onslaught of Lebanon and Gaza that can only be described as bringing the maximum pain possible to civilians, well, maybe they will not wake up at all. We can bring it up all the time, but it's pointless. Never mind BDS and solidarity dinners bringing any awareness, if the Palestinians are counting on righteous indignation at atrocities that happen to them on behalf of ordinary people to bring about a paradigm shift, they are screwed. That means, the destiny of the Palestinians resides ONLY in their own hands. They have to feel not only able, but empowered and entitled to react, to resist, to respond, to all provocations and actions that they believe offend them in any way. They don't need to seek approval for their actions, because people just don't care. What matters is what they do, what Palestinians do.

The world might wake up once the Palestinians stop seeing that there is a possibility of in some way living with oppression, assimilating to it, or worse, collaborating with the oppressors, and we have to support their resistance and encourage it, be an eyewitness to it and spokesperson for it, because we know it is right, we know it can work. We have to remember that Rosa Parks refused to give her seat on the bus to a White man who demanded it as his "right", and this sparked the more effective phase of the civil rights movement, even in the eyes of those who lived far away from Montgomery and were convinced it was "just how things are down there". People tend to think "war between the Jews and the Arabs is just how thing are down there," but maybe popular resistance that is totally out of the scheme of how we see things might bring them to ask themselves why a Jew has a right to deny a Palestinian clean water, freedom of movement, education and food, why a Jew from New York can move into a home in Jerusalem that a Palestinian has been evicted from because... he is not a Jew. They might force their leaders into addressing this situation and adapting their policies to it. That may be a dream, but people were still sleeping off their New Year's hangover while Gazans were dying in the streets and in their homes. They apparently haven't slept it off yet.

Some say that the solution is just to let the "demographic bomb" that Israelis fear run its course, that it is just a matter of time and the Israeli Jews will be a minority. This passive way of seeing the resistance does nothing concrete to change lives or bring any Palestinian his or her rights. It is indeed an inevitability, but what will the short-term consequences of it be? That Israel cuts off more territory but still commands over it as they do in Gaza and engulfs as much as it can now of the West Bank. If that happens during the stages of "final status" discussions, which many believe are not that far out of sight, it doesn't seem to be a solution at all, and time is indeed running out for hope of Palestinians not only to return, but to have something to return to. An exiled Jerusalemite I am close to even told me, "at any moment, they can drop bombs on us and kill us off, so counting on our numbers is playing their game, they have the means and backing to change the numbers any time they feel like it, and they will go unpunished."

In addition, thinking that the growth rate is the key and telling people in Palestine and those in exile to just be patient does nothing to enhance feelings of unity with the Palestinians of Israeli citizenship, as they will continue to live in a regime of discrimination, further isolated from their brothers and sisters and living in a Jewish State that does not recognise them as a people. Establishing feelings of being in the same boat will make any resistance move in the occupied territories far more effective, and will empower the Palestinians of Israel as well. All of Palestine is occupied, but in some places, the bleeding is not only internal, it is there for all of us to see.

The Palestinians have to organise themselves on each and every level, the strategic one, and yes, the emotional one, to feel united and willing to resist and not surrender, since freedom is a cause worth fighting for. People know that living in their current conditions, even some that are relatively better than those many of their brothers and sisters are living in, is simply intolerable. They are not free, and to accept being a slave, being occupied and not being able to shape one's own future is intolerable. They have to reach an internal consensus that the Jewish Israelis must be made to feel insecure. Assuring them "security" is the way of the "international community". This should not and must not be a Palestinian priority, because the Israelis do not have Palestinian security as a priority. If this is the case, and it is, the Israelis should be made to feel completely unstable, because they do not allow others to establish stability. This means that Palestinians need to raise the bar at every level, even among those who are collaborating. There should be an effort made at correcting those who might be thinking the only solution is that Palestinians must settle for less than others would, and by collaborating, get the "best that they can get out of a bad situation". This defeatist attitude has never brought anything good to Palestinians. It is time to wake up. Together.

* Mary Rizzo is an art restorer, translator and writer living in Italy. Editor and co-founder of Palestine Think Tank, co-founder of Tlaxcala translations collective.

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Updating Resistance projects

By Franklin Lamb* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Dahiyeh, South Beirut - Like many liberation and resistant movement 'Manifestos' 'Charters' or 'Declarations' issued to the public early in its founding - the African National Congress, Palestine Liberation Organization , Hamas, Algerian FLN, and various "Sons of Liberty" groups during the American Revolution, come to mind-Hezbollah has been criticized by its detractors over the years for some language in its 1985 "Open Letter" manifesto. Some have urged Hezbollah to remove 'controversial language" such as the call for an Islamic Republic in Lebanon- even though the Party has made clear that establishing an Islamic Republic of Lebanon is no longer a priority and emphasizing that Lebanon's diversity is respected, valued and permanent. Others have called Hezbollah's 1985 manifesto 'too religious" and too dogmatic for a broad international appeal political document.

Background to Hezbollah's issuing yesterday's "rebirth" Manifesto

Ideas for Hezbollah's original 1985 Manifesto evolved over 30 months following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, during which the new resistance movement worked to establish itself in the turbulent period of military invasions, occupations and numerous internal and external conspiracies against it. Many secret discussions were held concerning all manner of subjects including what the new organization would be called. Many favored the name "The Islamic Movement of Lebanon" but before the matter came up for a vote, another of the more than 20 new local resistance groups preempted that name. Others thought the name "Nation (Umma) of Hezbollah" was more inclusive. Under time pressure to agree on a name before the "Open Letter" was to be issued, the name "Hezbollah", ("Party of God") found in the Quran was agreed upon.

The Open Letter, addressed to " The Downtrodden in Lebanon and in the World' was published on February 16 1985, a date purposely chosen because it was the first anniversary of the Israeli assassination, of the much loved pre-Hezbollah resistance organizer Sheik Ragheb Harb, from the south Lebanon village of Jibsheet.

Hezbollah first Manifesto was first read at the al-Ouzai Mosque, down the hill and near the Mediterranean seashore, from the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp, by one of the founders of Hezbollah, the official spokesman for the nascent group, Sayeed Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyed, who has served for 28 years on its Shura Council and today heads Hezbollah's political council. Perhaps by coincidence, on the same day that Hezbollah's public manifesto was issued; Israel began a 10 week withdrawal from 168 towns and villages, comprising 55 percent of South Lebanon.

(Comment: With respect to Shatila Camp and neighboring Burj al Barajneh camp-and later Rashidiyye Camp down south in Tyre -it was several weeks following Hezbollah 'going public' that the "War of the Camps" (May 1985-July 1988) would cause more death and destruction to Palestinians than the Sabra-Shatila Massacre. Despite pressure from their fellow Shia- the Amal militia- to join them in attacking the Camps to settle plenty of still festering pre-1982 scores from PLO abuses and crimes against the southern Shia, as well as to help Syria eliminate pro-Arafat partisans and gain sole control of the "Palestinian Card", the newly organized Hezbollah insisted that its only enemies were the Israeli occupiers, which it was busy attacking. At the same time it repeatedly admonished Amal and Syria to end their assaults on Palestinian refugee camps. Eventually Syria, under Soviet and Arab pressure, called a halt to the criminal attacks, but to this day few Palestinians have forgiven it for this slaughter which killed more than 4,000 and wounded close to 7,000. Like Amal, Syria does not like to discuss this black chapter and some of its officials express regret and shame.)

With its "Open Letter" declaration Hezbollah entered a new phase, shifting the Party from secret resistance activity free from political or media interactions into public political work.

As noted above, from the day it was promulgated, some have been advising the Party to amend and 'tone down' the 1985 language which reflects a different period of Lebanese history and international conflict. Others aver that we are still in the same period only more deeply. The original Hezbollah manifesto document reflects various views of the founders as well as the political thinking of senior Shia cleric Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. Some in Dahiyeh still call Fadlallah "the father of Hezbollah" not for his active Party involvement which has never existed Hezbollah sources attest (not withstanding his name on the US terrorism list) but for his public speeches and sermons that inspired a generation of Resistance fighters in Lebanon and the region and continue to do so.

Need for a clearer view of the Resistance

Some critics have used the Introduction to Hezbollah's 1985 "Open Letter" to smear the Party as religious fanatics and appearing too 'foreign' and too Iranian:

It reads: "We are often asked: Who are we, the Hezbollah, and what is our identity?
We are the sons of the umma (Muslim community) - the party of God (Hizb Allah) the vanguard of which was made victorious by God in Iran. There the vanguard succeeded to lay down the bases of a Muslim state which plays a central role in the world. We obey the orders of one leader, wise and just, that of our tutor and faqih (jurist) who fulfills all the necessary conditions: Ruhollah Musawi Khomeini. God save him!

By virtue of the above, we do not constitute an organized and closed party in Lebanon. Nor are we a tight political cadre. We are an umma linked to the Muslims of the whole World by the solid doctrinal and religious connection of Islam, whose message God wanted to be fulfilled by the Seal of the Prophets, i.e., Muhammad. This is why whatever touches or strikes the Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines and elsewhere reverberates throughout the whole Muslim umma of which we are an integral part. Our behavior is dictated to us by legal principles laid down by the light of an overall political conception defined by the leading jurist (wilayat al-faqih).
As for our culture, it is based on the Holy Koran, the Sunna and the legal rulings of the faqih who is our source of imitation (marja' al-taqlid). Our culture is crystal clear. It is not complicated and is accessible to all.

Some Party officials, as well as supporters, felt Hezbollah needed to issue a new document that would provide a clearer and wider vision on the resistance and its current political work and future social and ideological plan.

Against this backdrop, Hezbollah's 7th Party Conference drafted a more contemporary 32 page Manifesto reflecting 28 years of political maturity. Not to recant its 25 year old "Open Letter" but rather to define issues not addressed in the party's first manifesto and to set its future political path for "homeland of our fathers, ancestors, grandchildren, and the coming generations.

The detailed document, in Four Parts, provides many specifics on how Hezbollah plans to work with the new Unity Government to improve Lebanon and the lives of its entire population.

Misleading main stream media reports

For many who rely on MSM reports such as offered by US and European 'news outlets' a dramatically skewed view was presented the morning after yesterday's release of what Hezbollah's new political program as a large news conference in al Jinen Hall in Dahiyeh.

A typical MSM report on yesterday's event:

Beirut, Lebanon (CNN) – "Hezbollah's chief on Monday announced the group's new "manifesto," which calls on all countries to "liberate Jerusalem" and declares the United States a threat to the world.
American terrorism is the source of every terrorism in the world," Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech from an undisclosed location. Hezbollah, a political party in Lebanon, is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel.
Nasrallah does not appear in public amid concerns for his safety. "We invite and call on all Arabs and Muslims and all countries keen on peace and stability in the world to intensify efforts and resources to liberate Jerusalem from Zionist occupation and to maintain its true identity and its Islamic and Christian sanctities," Nasrallah said.
Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks. It has been linked to attacks against American, Israeli and other Western targets....He praised Iran and Syria, which are Hezbollah's chief backers".
Only then is the reader advised that Hassan Nasrallah "also touched on domestic issues." In fact Hassan Nasrallah spoke for 80 minutes about domestic issues, the subject of and reason for the new Hezbollah manifesto.

What the main stream media failed to report

Hezbollah's new political program calls for "The elimination of political sectarianism as the main pre-condition to establish a true democracy as the Taif Accord stipulated and the formation of a national council for this end." The Hezbollah manifesto blames sectarianism "for being a strong obstacle to achieving a true democracy, whereby the elected majority can rule and the opposition can exercise its role."

Despite Hezbollah's desire for a sectarian-free democracy, Nasrallah said that until achieving it, his party accepts "consensus democracy" pursuant to the Constitution and National Pact. "Consensus democracy is a suitable political formula that ensures the participation of all parties," he noted.

Focusing extensively on the domestic level, Hezbollah, acting as a fully fledged political party, urged the implementation of administrative decentralization in order to promote balanced developmental projects over all Lebanese territories.  It warned against the evolution of decentralization into any form of federalism as he expressed the party's opposition to any form of division, or masked federalism.

"We want a government that works for its citizens and provides the appropriate services in their education and medical care and housing to secure a decent life and to address the problem of poverty and provide employment opportunities," the document reads. "We want a government that works to strengthen the role of women in society and enhance their participation in all fields."

Nasrallah outlined his party's vision for the Lebanese state, saying it must "guarantee public liberties, ensure national unity and protect its sovereignty and independence with a strong and capable army." He stressed the importance of "modern" institutions, an economy built on agriculture and industry and a strong judiciary.

Hezbollah's new manifesto also calls for a modern electoral law with "accurate electoral representation" and added that the state needs to cater to its citizens' needs, empower the youth and women and prioritize education.

The new document maps out the party's policy on a national defense strategy, saying that Lebanon needs to confront Israeli threats with a popular resistance supported by the people and a national army that ensures the country's stability and security. "In the absence of strategic balance, the Israeli threat obliges Lebanon to endorse a defensive strategy that depends on a popular resistance participating in defending the country and an army that preserves the security of the country -- in an integrated manner," added Hezbollah's Secretary-General. "Adopting the choice of the Resistance allowed Lebanon to achieve real independence and safeguard its sovereignty," he added.

Hezbollah's new political manifesto emphatically declares that the Palestinians have the right to resist through all forms, primarily armed struggle. It pledges Hezbollah's work with all the Lebanese parties to grant Palestinian refugees in Lebanon "their civil and social rights," while rejecting naturalization. It also calls for "direct Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue." Nasrallah cited the 2000 Israeli withdrawal from the South, their 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, the 2006 July War, the first and second Intifadas as well as the Hamas takeover of Gaza, and the 2009 Gaza War as victories against Israel.

"We assure our constant and continuous support of the Palestinian people and cause against Israel," he added.
Hezbollah new manifesto also calls on "Arab leaders to review their agreements with Israel and give up the idea of compromising with it, especially those who gambled on US administration policies." Nasrallah added that "Israel has proved that is does not seek peace and uses negotiations to impose its conditions and to achieve its gains." Hezbollah hopes the Arab and Islamic countries would "unite and commit to the liberation of the land and reject the alternatives of naturalization of Palestinians."

We call on the Arabs to set plans to liberate Palestinians in Israeli prisons," Nasrallah added.

In its new political declaration, Hezbollah discusses Lebanon's foreign relations, and calls for the country to "maintain its special relations with Syria because it is a political, security and economic need dictated by the two countries' interests." It declares that any "negative atmosphere" clouding these relations must be removed".

According to Hezbollah, Lebanon's relations with Syria are part of the country's overall relations with the Arab world and its confrontation with Israel. "Lebanon is Arab in nature and belonging" and added that its interests "necessitate a commitment to just Arab causes." He called some Arab countries' disputes with Iran as a "stab to the back of Arab causes that only serves Israel and the US."

Hezbollah's new manifesto also stresses the importance of cooperation between Islamic countries and described Iran as an "important, central state in the Islamic world... which supports resistance movements in our area and supports Arab and Islamic causes." He added that the "fabrications of contradictions" between Iran and Arab countries is a "stab in the back to the Arab cause, which serves only Israel and the US."

As Hezbollah declares and initiates its outlined future work deep within the Lebanese polity, initial Lebanese and international reactions appear positive according to Hezbollah's media office. The party now plans to enlist support for its new manifesto, distributing copies north, east and west, while keeping many eyes peeled along the southern border with occupied Palestine.

This morning's Daily Star reports in an exclusive interview with David Miliband, the UK's Foreign Minister, that his country intends to increase contacts and dialogue with Hezbollah's politicians with European Union members considering the same. Meanwhile, this morning's Naharnet.com news bulletin reports that the U.S. Embassy "has denied media reports that U.S .Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman will visit Beirut this week." According to the same report, "The embassy also denied an al-Markaziya news agency's report that the Obama administration would most probably replace Michele Sison as U.S. ambassador to Beirut".

* Franklin Lamb is Director of the Washington DC-Beirut Lebanon based Sabra-Shatila Foundation. He can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com.

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