Disinformation » Palestine

Human Rights Equated With National Suicide

Good German — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:52:44 +0000

Any nation that must abridge human rights to survive deserves to fall, and that includes Muslim and Christian nations. Via Al Jazeera English:

The Israeli government has repeatedly demanded that Palestinians recognise Israel as a “Jewish state”. Recent developments in the Knesset and High Court are exposing exactly what this means, and in doing so, throw the spotlight on the issue that the ‘peace process’ – and Western governments – refuse to tackle.

On Wednesday, Israel’s High Court rejected a legal challenge to the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, by a six to five vote. The law, first passed as a ‘temporary’ measure in 2003 and renewed ever since, prevents Palestinians from the Occupied Territories (and those from ‘enemy states’) from living with their spouses in Israel.

For thousands of Palestinian families, Israel’s law means a choice between moving abroad, living apart, or living in Israel illegally. No wonder that the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) condemned what it described as a “racist law” for the way it harms “the very texture of the lives of families whose only sin is the Palestinian blood that runs in their veins”…

Bethlehem Battle: Clergymen Clash At Birthplace Of Jesus

Liam McGonagle — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:58:20 +0000

For once the police are called to a Christmas brawl and none of my relatives are implicated. From Bernat Armangue at Huffington Post:

BETHLEHEM, West Bank — The annual cleaning of one of Christianity’s holiest churches deteriorated into a brawl between rival clergy Wednesday, as dozens of monks feuding over sacred space at the Church of the Nativity battled each other with brooms until police intervened.

The ancient church, built over the traditional site of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, is shared by three Christian denominations – Roman Catholics, Armenians and Greek Orthodox. Wednesday’s fight erupted between Greek and Armenian clergy, with both sides accusing each other of encroaching on parts of the church to which they lay claim.

The monks were tidying up the church ahead of Orthodox Christmas celebrations in early January, following celebrations by Western Christians on Dec. 25. The fight erupted between monks along the border of their respective areas. Some shouted and hurled brooms…

[continues at at Huffington Post]

Vast Majority Of Israelis Want To Recognize Palestinian State, Poll Reveals

JacobSloan — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:03:16 +0000

Regarding the question of Palestinian statehood, Barack Obama nows hold a position far to the right of the Israeli populace. Raw Story writes:

Nearly 70 percent of Israelis surveyed recently said that Israel should accept a Palestinian state if the United Nations chooses to recognize it, according to a report in Thursday’s edition of The Jerusalem Post.

The poll results fly in the face of American conservatives and even President Barack Obama, who have taken the lead in discouraging the U.N. from voting on the matter, claiming that it could threaten Israel’s security.

The study was carried out by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. A further 83 percent of Palestinians said that turning to the U.N. for statehood is the right thing to do.

The United States has vowed to veto any request for Palestinian statehood at the Security Council, potentially sparking a new Middle East crisis. Tens of thousands of Palestinians took part in rallies to back the Palestinian leader on Wednesday.

For Obama, the confrontation is an embarrassment as 12 months ago he stood before the same assembly and called for Palestinian membership in the United Nations within a year.

Palestinians Angry About Leaks Attack Al-Jazeera HQ

Good German — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 13:21:41 +0000

Is this the kind of thing Americans would like to do to WikiLeaks? Linda Gradstein reports from Jerusalem for AOL News

Palestinians supporting President Mahmoud Abbas smashed windows and sprayed graffiti outside the West Bank headquarters of Al-Jazeera today, angry that it published documents that apparently showed Palestinian officials had agreed to Israeli sovereignty over nearly all Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem.

About 250 protesters gathered outside the Pan-Arab TV channel office in Ramallah, and a few sprayed graffiti saying “Al-Jazeera are spies” and “Al-Jazeera equals Israel.” A few of the protesters then broke security cameras and windows.

The documents were published Sunday on Al-Jazeera’s website and by British newspaper The Guardian. They contradict the previously stated public positions of the Palestinians that all of East Jerusalem must be the future capital of the Palestinian Authority.

The cache of documents, which detail Israeli-Palestinian contacts over more than a decade, also show Abbas was warned in advance of Israel’s 2008 invasion of Gaza.

Abbas today insisted he did not offer secret concessions to Israel.

“What is intended is a mix-up. I saw them present things yesterday as Palestinian, but they were Israeli. … This is therefore intentional,” Abbas told reporters in Cairo after a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Hamas, which controls Gaza, quickly launched a sharp attack on Abbas, who heads the moderate Fatah movement.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the documents revealed “the ugly face of the Authority, and the level of its cooperation with the [Israeli] occupation.”

Al Jazeera Publishes Confidential ‘Palestine Papers’

Good German — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 16:30:59 +0000

From Al Jazeera’s own introduction:

Over the last several months, Al Jazeera has been given unhindered access to the largest-ever leak of confidential documents related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are nearly 1,700 files, thousands of pages of diplomatic correspondence detailing the inner workings of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. These documents – memos, e-mails, maps, minutes from private meetings, accounts of high level exchanges, strategy papers and even power point presentations – date from 1999 to 2010.

The material is voluminous and detailed; it provides an unprecedented look inside the continuing negotiations involving high-level American, Israeli, and Palestinian Authority officials.

Al Jazeera will release the documents between January 23-26th, 2011. They will reveal new details about:

the Palestinian Authority’s willingness to concede illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, and to be “creative” about the status of the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount;

the compromises the Palestinian Authority was prepared to make on refugees and the right of return;

details of the PA’s security cooperation with Israel;

and private exchanges between Palestinian and American negotiators in late 2009, when the Goldstone Report was being discussed at the United Nations.

Because of the sensitive nature of these documents, Al Jazeera will not reveal the source(s) or detail how they came into our possession. We have taken great care over an extended period of time to assure ourselves of their authenticity.

Read more, including links to full documents, here.

YouTube Removes Pro-Palestinian/Anti-Motorola Video

imkaan — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 06:43:19 +0000

Via River Front Times (YES, on YouTube while this post lasts…)

Two weeks ago, we told you about the local activists who busted out an anti-Motorola song-and-dance routine at the Best Buy and AT&T stores in suburban Brentwood — and we posted a video of the performance. That video quickly drew more than 35,000 hits:

Last week, however, YouTube unceremoniously removed the video in question, saying it was subject to a copyright challenge by WMG (apparently, the Warner Music Group).

The group of activists who assembled the Brentwood flash mobs, the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee, is now questioning the video’s removal.

As organizer Colleen Kelly points out, there are close to 1,000 YouTube videos showing flash mob-type performances or other recreations of Lady Gaga songs. Those haven’t been taken down — courts have long recognized that parodies are not copyright violations.

“They Are Our Government, Our Leaders—They Cannot Be Crazy”

Good German — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:16:35 +0000

Regions of the brain associated with stress and posttraumatic stress disorder.

Are the Israelis repeating Holocaust traumas upon the Palestinians? From the July 1992 issue of Washington Report on Middle East Affairs:

Dr. Jan Bastiaans, a Dutch psychiatrist, is an authority on the Holocaust syndrome, and has treated many survivors. In 1973 he wrote, “In recent years the Ka-tzet (concentration camp) syndrome has suddenly received general recognition…This concept is concerned with…pathological processes that occurred after the war in former concentration camp prisoners…The Ka-tzet syndrome is the expression of a permanent, chronic obstruction of sound human relationships. The victims are not free from the concentration camp…Behind their adaptation facade continues to live the child or adult of [that time] in all fear, in all misery, in all powerlessness.”

Dr. Haim Dasberg, an associate professor of psychiatry at the Hebrew University and medical director of the Ezrat Nashim Jerusalem Mental Health Center, has written extensively on PTSD and the Israeli army. Now living on the outskirts of West Jerusalem in an apartment pleasingly filled with books, paintings, and oriental rugs, he resisted conversion efforts by the Christian couple in Holland who adopted him after his father was put into a Nazi concentration camp and his mother went into hiding.

As a therapist for the Israeli military, he encourages battle-shocked soldiers to return to the front because he believes there is no cure for PTSD except the return to community and belonging. “If you leave your comrades in war, you are exiled and cannot function again,” he writes.

Dr. Dasberg and three colleagues have written thoughtfully on the psychological disintegration that can follow severe trauma, explaining: “The trauma forces the opening of boundaries (in the sufferer). This forced, open state and the inability to terminate it is accompanied by intense emotions, immense fears. The usual supports…have been drastically de-structured. The final realization is that the rules which define reality are not operational anymore and the individual loses the capacity to function and collapses.”

An American-born Israeli, Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom, heads Israel’s Clergy for Peace. A tall, slender, compassionate young man, he explains: “The Holocaust has left Jews so scarred we believe powerlessness is a sin. We feel the whole world is hostile to us. This is sick behavior. Our political agenda is irrational because of the Holocaust. Our Jewish state has been implemented at the expense of the Palestinians (partly) because spiritual Zionism changed to statehood after the Nazi persecution. Our agenda is corrupt because we’re not permitting the Palestinians to reunify. We Jews feel guilt toward the Palestinians and we’re unwilling to have a dialogue with them because it will be so unpleasant.”

Similar Symptoms

An Israeli psychiatrist, who wished to remain anonymous, warned me that “It is very dangerous to suggest that our people in government still suffer from the Holocaust. They are our government, our leaders—they cannot be crazy.” Pressed as to whether these leaders “suffer from PTSD,” he responded, “Holocaust survivors do not suffer from PTSD. But they have similar symptoms.”

“If I Blow Myself Up and Become a Martyr, I’ll Finally Be Loved” (Podcast)

Good German — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 19:07:18 +0000

Lloyd deMause: “If I Blow Myself Up and Become a Martyr, I’ll Finally Be Loved”

Direct Download • RSS • Website

Are Palestinians sexually abused as children more often than people of other nationalities? Lloyd deMause, director of the Institute for Psychohistory, on Freedomain Radio.

Why Won’t Israel and the U.S. Define Borders With Palestine?

majestic — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:27:29 +0000

Seems like a reasonable demand by the Palestinians – why the reluctance from Israel and big brother U.S.? From AFP:

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories — The Palestinians on Wednesday called on the US administration and Israel to define borders in response to Israel’s demand for recognition as the Jewish state.

“We officially demand that the US administration and the Israeli government provide a map of the borders of the state of Israel which they want us to recognise,” senior Palestinian official Yasser Abed Rabbo told AFP.

His remarks came after the US State Department asked the Palestinians to extend a counter-proposal to Israel’s call for recognition as a “Jewish state” in exchange for a possible extension of restrictions on settlement building.

The Palestinians rejected the offer, saying recognition of Israel’s Jewish identity had no relation to the peace process. They instead demanded that the US administration set the 1967 lines as the starting point for negotiations about final borders.

“We want to know whether this (Israeli) state includes our lands and houses in the West Bank and east Jerusalem,” Abed Rabbo said, referring to Palestinian lands occupied during the 1967 Six Day War.

“If this map is based on the 1967 borders and provides for the end of the Israeli occupation over all Palestinian lands… then we recognise Israel by whatever name it applies to itself in accordance with international law,” he said, without elaborating.

“We are awaiting a response from Tel Aviv and Washington,” he added…

[continues at AFP]

During War There Are No Civilians

Good German — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:27:00 +0000

Rachel Corrie in front of Israeli bulldozers

Was every human being on the face of the Earth just drafted?

According to Al Jazeera there’s been an unseemly instance of honesty:

“During war there are no civilians,” that’s what “Yossi,” an Israeli military (IDF) training unit leader simply stated during a round of questioning on day two of the Rachel Corrie trials, held in Haifa’s District Court earlier this week. “When you write a [protocol] manual, that manual is for war,” he added.

For the human rights activists and friends and family of Rachel Corrie sitting in the courtroom, this open admission of an Israeli policy of indiscrimination towards civilians — Palestinian or foreign — created an audible gasp.

Yet, put into context, this policy comes as no surprise. The Israeli military’s track record of insouciance towards the killings of Palestinians, from the 1948 massacre of Deir Yassin in Jerusalem to the 2008-2009 attacks on Gaza that killed upwards of 1400 men, women and children, has illustrated that not only is this an entrenched operational framework but rarely has it been challenged until recently.

Rachel Corrie, the young American peace activist from Olympia, Washington, was crushed to death by a Caterpillar D9-R bulldozer, as she and other members of the nonviolent International Solidarity Movement attempted to protect a Palestinian home from imminent demolition on March 16, 2003 in Rafah, Gaza Strip. Corrie has since become a symbol of Palestinian solidarity as her family continues to fight for justice in her name.

Her parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie, filed a civil lawsuit against the State of Israel for Rachel’s unlawful killing — what they allege was an intentional act — and this round of testimonies called by the State’s defense team follows the Corries’ witness testimonies last March. The Corries’ lawsuit charges the State with recklessness and a failure to take appropriate measures to protect human life, actions that violate both Israeli and international laws.

Witnesses insisted that the bulldozer driver couldn’t see Rachel Corrie from his perch. The State attorneys called three witnesses to the stand on Sunday and Monday to prove that the killing was unintentional and took place in an area designated as a “closed military zone.” Falling under the definition of an Act of War, their argument sought to absolve the soldiers of liability under Israeli law.

It’s obvious Al Qaeda feels it’s okay to murder “civilians,” and I understand Obama has claimed that same right. Are the New Dark Ages here yet? Have corporations replaced democracy with feudalism? Can we stop pretending our so-called “civilization” is anything more than a facade of big words and shiny machines now and get down to slaughtering the weak by the millions like Charles Manson says?

Idiot Soldier Ruins Planned Raid By Posting It On Facebook

majestic — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:29:53 +0000

Generally speaking it’s a truism that nations send their most disposable, least educated and, often, dumbest, citizens off to war. But apparently there are some who are just too dumb to fight. Story from Reuters:

The Israeli military called off a raid in Palestinian territory after a soldier posted details, including the time and place, on social networking website Facebook, Israel’s Army Radio reported Wednesday.

The soldier — since relieved of combat duty — described in a status update how his unit planned a “clean-up” arrest raid in a West Bank area, the radio station said. Facebook friends then reported him to military authorities.

The Israeli military spokesman’s office had no immediate comment…

Israel Is An Apartheid State And That Is Why They Are Losing Legitimacy

phunkychic666 — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:17:52 +0000

By Judy Rebick at Rabble.ca:

Before Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) even began members of the Ontario Legislature and the Canadian Parliament are falling all over each other to denounce it. I can’t remember another time when elected legislators formally denounced a student activity like this. Perhaps during the 1950’s when McCarthyism was rampant but that was before my time.

Last week the Ontario Legislature unanimously passed a resolution denouncing Israel Apartheid Week submitted by PC Peter Shure who said calling Israel an apartheid state was “close to hate speech.” While there were only 30 MPP’s in the Legislature at the time, NDP MPP Cheri di Novo was one of them and spoke in favour of the resolution. This week a Conservative MP is introducing a resolution calling IAW anti-Semitic.

Before I deal with why these unprecedented attacks are taking place, I’d like to share with you a great talk I heard last night at Ryerson from Na’eem Jeena: , a leading activist and academic from South Africa who works for Palestinian solidarity. He told us that South African apartheid had three pillars of apartheid and Israel shares all three.

1. Different rights for different races In the case of Israel, it is different rights for Jews and for non-Jews. For example the law of return of 1950 says Jews can return to Israel and be given citizenship even if they have no links to the country other than mythical biblical ones; whereas Palestinians cannot return even if their parents or grandparents lived there…

[continues at Rabble.ca]

New Birth Defects Seen In Gaza Due To Israeli Weapons

phunkychic666 — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:19:39 +0000

From the Palestine Telegraph:

An increase in birth defects among newborns in the Gaza Strip – first documented in the Palestine Telegraph – has become apparent, despite claims to the contrary by some doctors at Al-Shifa Hospital. Pregnant women say they are living in constant fear.

Noha Abu Laban, 37, a resident of Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip, is in her final month of pregnancy and says: “In the war, I inhaled the smoke of white phosphorus, which was fired on the roof of our house. I have been feeling sick since my pregnancy, and have had heavy bleeding.” Noha is currently being treated in the High-Risk Pregnancy Care Unit at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Alaa Al-Tunp, a 25-year-old resident in the Al-Tofah neighborhood, says: “When I heard the stories of deformed fetuses, I became so worried, especially since I miscarried once before, during the war, when I was in my third month of pregnancy. I had inhaled the smoke of the white phosphorus. There are many pregnant women here in the High=Risk Pregnancy Care Unit who had the same experience.” Alaa says she is very worried that she will miscarry once again, or that her baby will be deformed.

More than 20 pregnant women interviewed at the High-Risk Pregnancy Care Unit at Al-Shifa reported suffering intermittent bleeding…

[continues at the Palestine Telegraph]

Israel Sued For ‘Intentional’ Killing Of Rachel Corrie

phunkychic666 — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:19:41 +0000

An armored Caterpillar D9R Bulldozer used by the IDF. Photo: MathKnight

From Middle East Online:

The family of US activist Rachel Corrie, run over by an Israeli bulldozer during a demonstration in Gaza in 2003, will sue Tel Aviv over her death, their lawyer said on Wednesday.

The 23-year-old killed at the height of the 2000 Palestinian intifada, or uprising, became an symbol of foreign support for the Palestinian cause and the subject of a 2005 play based on her emails and diary.

“The state should take responsibility for the death of Rachel Corrie. We believe her killing was done intentionally or at least out of negligence and wrongdoing,” Hussein Abu Hussein, the family’s lawyer, said.

The family will be travelling to Israel for the trial, which will start March 10, Abu Hussein said.

Israel has allowed four activists who witnessed the incident to return to testify. The Palestinian doctor who pronounced Corrie dead has been summoned by the court but has not yet been given a permit to leave Gaza, he added.

Activists who witnessed Corrie’s death said she and others were acting as human shields to prevent a house demolition in the Gaza border town of Rafah for more than two hours and were clearly visible to the bulldozer driver.

“The whole time she was wearing a fluorescent jacket, as were her friends, and she had a megaphone,” Abu Hussein said.

The Israeli military closed its own investigation into the matter in 2003 without taking any disciplinary action, saying the bulldozer crew could not see Corrie because she was behind a mound of rubble…

[continues at Middle East Online]

Perverse Irony: “Tolerance” Museum To Be Built Atop Muslim Cemetary

phunkychic666 — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:45:36 +0000

From Political Theatrics:

A group of Palestinians descended from 15 of Jerusalem’s oldest Arab families lodged a protest with the UN today in a fresh effort to prevent the construction of a “Museum of Tolerance” on the site of an ancient Muslim cemetery.

The project, run by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles, has been dogged by controversy since its launch in 2004. Islamic groups and individual Palestinians complained that the site, in west Jerusalem, was the ancient cemetery of Ma’man Allah, also known as Mamilla, which housed thousands of graves dating back hundreds of years and where even today there are still many gravestones and tombs.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre argued the site was adjacent to the cemetery and that construction would be on what is today a municipal car park.

After legal battles, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in October 2008 that building could go ahead. But the Israel Antiquities Authority’s chief excavator for the site, Gideon Suleimani, found the site was a cemetery in use for the past 1,000 years that “abounded with graves” and should not be open to construction without a full excavation, which never happened. He said his assessment was ignored by the court. Then late last year Frank Gehry, the celebrity architect working on the project, withdrew.

Some 60 Palestinians have signed a petition…

[continues at Political Theatrics]

Albert Einstein On Palestine And Zionism

phunkychic666 — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:03:53 +0000

By Edward Corrigan at OpEedNnews.com:

There is some controversy over Einstein’s political views, especially on the issue of Palestine and the creation of a A Jewish State. Many Zionists claim Einstein as one of their own. Einstein, however, was a pacifist, a universalist and abhorred nationalism.

The recently published book, Einstein on Israel and Zionism: His Provocative Ideas About the Middle East, by Fred Jerome, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009) has brought Einstein’s political views on the Middle East back into the spotlight.

The evidence of Einstein’s position on Palestine and Zionism is best seen in his own words and actions on the subject. For example, Einstein made a presentation to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, which was examining the Palestine issue in January 1946 and argued against the creation of a “Jewish State.”

Here is a quote from Einstein’s testimony before Judge Hutcheson, the American Chairman of the Committee:

Judge Hutcheson: It has been told to our committee by the Zionists that the passionate heart of every Jew will never be satisfied until they have a Jewish state in Palestine. It is contended, I suppose, that they must have a majority over the Arabs. It has been told to us by the Arab representatives that the Arabs are not going to permit such condition as that, they they [sic] will not permit having themselves converted from a majority to a minority.

Dr. Einstein: Yes…

[continues at OpEedNnews.com]

Doctor Admits Israeli Pathologists Harvested Organs Without Consent

imkaan — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 06:37:53 +0000

Ian Black, The Guardian:

Israel has admitted pathologists harvested organs from dead Palestinians, and others, without the consent of their families – a practice it said ended in the 1990s – it emerged at the weekend.

The admission, by the former head of the country’s forensic institute, followed a furious row prompted by a Swedish newspaper reporting that Israel was killing Palestinians in order to use their organs — a charge that Israel denied and called “antisemitic”.

The revelation, in a television documentary, is likely to generate anger in the Arab and Muslim world and reinforce sinister stereotypes of Israel and its attitude to Palestinians. Iran’s state-run Press TV tonight reported the story, illustrated with photographs of dead or badly injured Palestinians.

Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli Arab MP, said the report incriminated the Israeli army.

The story emerged in an interview with Dr Yehuda Hiss, former head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic who released it because of the row between Israel and Sweden over a report in the Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet.

Palestinians Say Dozens of Trees Cut Down by Settlers

phunkychic666 — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:01:14 +0000

Ali Waked for ynetnews.com:

Burin resident discovers 97 of his olive trees destroyed overnight. ‘When I saw the massacre which took place on my land, I cried,’ he tells Ynet

Palestinian farmers from the West Bank village of Burin, located near the settlement of Yitzhar, discovered Thursday morning that dozens of their olive trees were cut down.

Akram Amram of Burin told Ynet that at around 5:30 am he had discovered 97 uprooted olive trees on his land.

“I am not embarrassed to admit that when I discovered the massacre which took place on my land, I cried,” he said. “These trees are more than 60 years old and I raised them just like I raised my kids.”

According to Amram, the trees were very valuable. “I make a living off these trees and don’t work in anything else. But my pain is not only over my livelihood which is gone, but also because the orchard I grew and nurtured was gone in seconds. It was a painful sight, a real massacre, and I’m not exaggerating.”

The Palestinian farmer added that he had informed the Palestinian Coordination and Liaison Authority of the damages and that Israeli representatives arrived at the area. According to Amram, settlers were responsible for the damage…