Two years after Gaza massacre

The ambulance which Arafa Abd al-Dayem was loading when he was fatally struck by an Israeli-fired dart bomb.



















Ahmed Abu Foul in the destroyed Palestine Red Crescent Society station, Ezbet Abed Rabbo.

The Gaza massacre and the struggle for justice
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 27 December 2010

The Gaza massacre, which Israel launched two years ago today, did not end on 18 January 2009, but continues. It was not only a massacre of human bodies, but of the truth and of justice. Only our actions can help bring it to an end.

The UN-commissioned Goldstone Report documented evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in an attack aimed at the very "foundations of civilian life in Gaza" -- schools, industrial infrastructure, water, sanitation, flour mills, mosques, universities, police stations, government ministries, agriculture and thousands of homes. Yet like so many other inquiries documenting Israeli crimes, the Goldstone Report sits gathering dust as the United States, the European Union, Palestinian Authority and certain Arab governments colluded to ensure it would not translate into action.

Israel launched the attack, after breaking the ceasefire it had negotiated with Hamas the previous June, under the bogus pretext of stopping rocket firing from Gaza.

During those horrifying weeks from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, Israel's merciless bombardment killed 1,417 people according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza.

They were infants like Farah Ammar al-Helu, one-year-old, killed in al-Zaytoun. They were schoolgirls or schoolboys, like Islam Khalil Abu Amsha, 12, of Shajaiyeh and Mahmoud Khaled al-Mashharawi, 13, of al-Daraj. They were elders like Kamla Ali al-Attar, 82 of Beit Lahiya and Madallah Ahmed Abu Rukba, 81, of Jabaliya; They were fathers and husbands like Dr. Ehab Jasir al-Shaer. They were police officers like Younis Muhammad al-Ghandour, aged 24. They were ambulance drivers and civil defense workers. They were homemakers, school teachers, farmers, sanitation workers and builders. And yes, some of them were fighters, battling as any other people would to defend their communities with light and primitive weapons against Israel's onslaught using the most advanced weaponry the United States and European Union could provide.

The names of the dead fill 100 pages, but nothing can fill the void they left in their families and communities ("The Dead in the course of the Israeli recent military offensive on the Gaza strip between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009," PDF Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 18 March 2009).

These were not the first to die in Israeli massacres and they have not been the last. Dozens of people have been killed since the end of Israel's "Operation Cast Lead," the latest Salameh Abu Hashish last week, a 20-year old shepherd shot by Israeli occupation forces as he tended his animals in northern Gaza.

But the tragedy does not end with those who were killed. Along with thousands permanently injured, there is the incalculable psychological cost of children growing up without parents, of parents burying their children, and the mental trauma that Israel's offensive and the ongoing siege has done to almost everyone in Gaza. There are the as yet unknown consequences of subjecting Gaza's 700,000 children to toxic water supply for years on end.

The siege robs 1.5 million people not just of basic goods, reconstruction supplies virtually nothing has been rebuilt in Gaza), and access to medical care but of their basic rights and freedoms to travel, to study, to be part of the world. It robs promising young people of their ambitions and futures. It deprives the planet of all that they would have been able to create and offer. By cutting Gaza off from the outside world, Israel hopes to make us forget that the those inside are human.

Two years after the crime, Gaza remains a giant prison for a population whose unforgivable sin in the eyes of Israel and its allies is to be refugees from lands that Israel took by ethnic cleansing.

Israel's violence against Gaza, like its violence against Palestinians everywhere, is the logical outcome of the racism that forms the inseparable core of Zionist ideology and practice: Palestinians are merely a nuisance, like brush or rocks to be cleared away in Zionism's relentless conquest of the land. This is what all Palestinians are struggling against, as an open letter today from dozens of civil society organizations in Gaza reminds us:

"We Palestinians of Gaza want to live at liberty to meet Palestinian friends or family from Tulkarem, Jerusalem or Nazareth; we want to have the right to travel and move freely. We want to live without fear of another bombing campaign that leaves hundreds of our children dead and many more injured or with cancers from the contamination of Israel's white phosphorous and chemical warfare. We want to live without the humiliations at Israeli checkpoints or the indignity of not providing for our families because of the unemployment brought about by the economic control and the illegal siege. We are calling for an end to the racism that underpins all this oppression."

Those of us who live outside Gaza can look to the people there for inspiration and strength; even after all this deliberate cruelty, they have not surrendered. But we cannot expect them to bear this burden alone or ignore the appalling cost Israel's unrelenting persecution has on the minds and bodies of people in Gaza or on society itself. We must also heed their calls to action.

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One year ago, I joined more than a thousand people from dozens of countries on the Gaza Freedom March in an attempt to reach Gaza to commemorate the first anniversary of the massacre. We found our way blocked by the Egyptian government which remains complicit, with US backing, in the Israeli siege. And although we did not reach Gaza, other convoys before, and after, such as Viva Palestina did, only after severe obstruction and limitations by Egypt.

Yesterday, the Mavi Marmara returned to Istanbul where it was met dockside by thousands of people. In May the ship was part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla which set out to break the siege by sea, only to be attacked and hijacked in international waters by Israeli commandos who killed nine people and injured dozens. Even that massacre has not deterred more people from seeking to break the siege; the Asian Convoy to Gaza is on its way, and several other efforts are being planned.

We may look at all these initiatives and say that despite their enormous cost -- including in human lives -- the siege remains unbroken, as world governments -- the so-called "international community" -- continue to ensure Israeli impunity. Two years later, Gaza remains in rubble, and Israel keeps the population always on the edge of a deliberately-induced humanitarian catastrophe while allowing just enough supplies to appease international opinion. It would be easy to be discouraged.

However, we must remember that the Palestinian people in Gaza are not objects of an isolated humanitarian cause, but partners in the struggle for justice and freedom throughout Palestine. Breaking the siege of Gaza would be a milestone on that march.

Haneen Zoabi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament and a passenger on the Mavi Marmara explained last October in an http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11599.shtml with The Electronic Intifada that Israeli society and government do not view their conflict with the Palestinians as one that must be resolved by providing justice and equality to victims, but merely as a "security" problem. Zoabi observed that the vast majority of Israelis believe Israel has largely "solved" the security problem: in the West Bank with the apartheid wall and "security coordination" between Israeli occupation forces and the collaborationist Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, and in Gaza with the siege.

Israeli society, Zoabi concluded, "doesn't feel the need for peace. They don't perceive occupation as a problem. They don't perceive the siege as a problem. They don't perceive oppressing the Palestinians as a problem, and they don't pay the price of occupation or the price of [the] siege [of Gaza]."

Thus the convoys and flotillas are an essential part of a larger effort to make Israel understand that it does have a problem and it can never be treated as a normal state until it ends its oppression and occupation of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and fully respects the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian refugees. And even if governments continue to stand by and do nothing, global civil society is showing the way with these efforts to break the siege, and with the broader Palestinian-led campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).

Amid all the suffering, Palestinians have not celebrated many victories in the two years since the Gaza massacre. But there are signs that things are moving in the right direction. Israel begs for US-endorsed "peace negotiations precisely because it knows that while the "peace process" provides cover for its ongoing crimes, it will never be required to give up anything or grant any rights to Palestinians in such a "process."

Yet Israel is mobilizing all its resources to fight the global movement for justice, especially BDS, that has gained so much momentum since the Gaza massacre. There can be no greater confirmation that this movement brings justice within our grasp. Our memorial to all the victims must not be just an annual commemoration, but the work we do every day to make the ranks of this movement grow.

Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse and is a contributor to The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict (Nation Books).

Palestinian property destroyed as Israeli settlements grow

Report, The Electronic Intifada, 2 December 2010



In the Khirbet Yerza village in the Jordan Valley, members of the Anabousy family stand in front of their home one day after it was destroyed by Israeli forces, 25 November. (Anne Paq/ActiveStills)





Israeli bulldozers and armed soldiers implemented a swath of demolitions of Palestinian homes and structures for more than a week in multiple areas across the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley.

On 24 November, two bulldozers and approximately 200 soldiers swarmed the farming village of Abu al-Ajaj in the Jordan Valley, destroying livestock pens and sheds. Ma'an News Agency reported that the demolition came two weeks after the state confiscated village land in preparation for the expansion of a nearby illegal Israeli settlement colony ("More Bedouin structures demolished in Jordan Valley," 24 November 2010).

The Jordan Valley Solidarity (JVS) group, a network of Palestinian grassroots community organizations from all over the Jordan Valley, stated that several baby goats were killed and Israeli settlers accompanied the soldiers as the bulldozers razed the land. "Both [the soldiers and the settlers] laughed and cheered as the destruction took place," the group reported in a news release ("The occupation forces demolished 4 barracks in the Jordan Valley," 24 November 2010).

JVS added that an Israeli court declared a settlement expansion freeze for the nearby settlement of Massua, but the destruction happened nevertheless, and the settlers are intent on building despite the freeze. "Five years ago the settlement started to expand onto a small piece of land that belongs to the Bedouin community," JVS reported. "Since then, settlers haven't stopped grabbing land from the Palestinian shepherds."

Most of the Jordan Valley is located in Area C, an area which comprises 60 percent of the West Bank. Under the Oslo accords signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the mid-1990s, the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip were carved up into areas A, B and C, the latter of which indicates full Israeli control. Under the Oslo regulations, Area C, which includes East Jerusalem, is administered and controlled by the Israeli government and its military. Approximately 40,000 Palestinians live in Area C.

Also on 24 November, dozens of villagers in Bani Hassan attempted to fight back against Israeli troops as bulldozers razed the village, which is near the Palestinian town of Salfit and the illegal Ariel settlement bloc. Agricultural land and land reclamation equipment was demolished, according to a report published by Ma'an ("Israel bulldozes PA-backed projects," 24 November 2010). At the same time, near Bani Hassan in the Wadi Qana area, Ma'an reported that crews from the Israeli Civil Administration and the Society for Protecting Nature in Israel "arrived with bulldozers which demolished the Wadi Qana rehabilitation project, [costing] the Palestinian finance ministry $120,000 US." A water canal was destroyed, as were parts of a reservoir and agricultural irrigation systems.

On the same day, in East Jerusalem, dozens of Israeli police flanked a bulldozer in the at-Tur neighborhood near the Mount of Olives as it destroyed the home of Abed Zablah. A father of five, Zablah had obtained a court order to halt the demolition of his home earlier in the day, according to a report by Agence France Presse. But by the time he had returned home from the court, Israeli forces had already leveled his house ("Israel razes Palestinian home in E. Jerusalem," 24 November, 2010).

Al-Araqib destroyed for seventh time

Days earlier, Israeli forces once again demolished the Palestinian Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Naqab (Negev) desert on 22 November, the seventh time since July 2010. In a press release, human rights group Amnesty International stated that "at least 50 of the 250 residents of al-Araqib village are again living in the ruins of their homes, attempting to rebuild them. Others are camping in tents in the village cemetery ("Israel condemned over Bedouin village demolition," 25 November 2010).

Amnesty International added, "[a]s in previous demolitions, no eviction or demolition order was presented to the inhabitants. Israeli authorities have previously detained residents and their supporters when they demanded to see a demolition order ... Israeli media reported in early 2010 that the government had decided to triple the demolition rate of Bedouin constructions in the Negev. As the government does not recognize the villagers' land tenure, it maintains that their settlements are illegal."

The village of al-Araqib was razed to the ground on 27 July 2010, when approximately 1,000 Israeli riot police raided the area as dozens of homes were destroyed. Villagers who returned to their land constructed shelters after the July demolition, but those were destroyed again on 4 August, 10 August, 17 August, 13 September, 13 October, and last week. Amnesty International admonished the Israeli government in its press statement. Philip Luther, Amnesty's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: "We condemn these repeated demolitions that aim to forcibly evict the residents of al-Araqib from the land they have on lived for generations ... The fact that the village has been demolished seven times in four months shows that this is not some administrative mistake but a conscious Israeli government policy of dispossession."


A home in al-Isawiyye after it was destroyed by Israeli forces on 30 November. (Anne Paq/ActiveStills)









East Jerusalem

Meanwhile, in East Jerusalem on 22 November, bulldozers destroyed buildings in al-Isawiyye and Hizma. According to the same report by Amnesty International, livestock pens and small homes used by farmers were demolished.

The next morning in the Jabal Mukkaber neighborhood, also in Jerusalem, Israeli police evicted a Palestinian family from their home, following a court ruling that declared the home to be owned by Jewish settlers.

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) stated that immediately after evicting the Qarain family, Israeli police handed the building over to settlers affiliated with the Elad settlement financing organization.

"The settler group is currently undertaking work on the premises to fortify the building," stated ICAHD in its report ("Palestinian family forcibly evicted in Jabal Mukkaber," 24 November 2010). "Elad's activities focus on moving extremist national-religious settlers into the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods in areas encircling the Old City, and particularly those neighborhoods which form the last contiguous Palestinian fabric of Jerusalem, connecting the West Bank with the Old City. This area has been eyed as a future Palestinian capital since peace negotiations in the mid-'90s, and includes the neighborhoods of Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Ras al-Amud and Jabal Mukkaber."

ICAHD stated that the grounds for eviction of the Qarain family "remain unclear."

"Regardless of the Israeli court order, any transfer of Israeli civilians into occupied East Jerusalem remains a clear breach of international law which absolutely prohibits the transfer of civilians into occupied territory, regardless of the method used to gain the property," the ICAHD report added.

A week later, on 30 November, Israeli forces demolished yet another home in al-Isawiyye. Jerusalem municipal bulldozers, escorted by border guards and police, destroyed a home and a printing shop, according to Ma'an News Agency. Protesters were attacked by police, who shot tear gas ("Bulldozers demolish home, workshop in Jerusalem," 30 November 2010).

Southern West Bank and northern Jordan Valley

On 25 November, the wave of demolitions continued in the southern West Bank and the northern Jordan Valley area. The Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (PSCC) released a report stating that Israeli forces raided the village of al-Rifayaia, east of Yatta in the south Hebron hills, where they demolished a 250-meter house. PSCC said the house was home to two families of twenty persons, 16 of them minors ("Israeli forces demolish mosque as West Bank demolitions wave continues for the second day in a row," 25 November 2010).

PSCC reported that hours before the al-Rifayaia demolitions, Israeli bulldozers destroyed four homes, three animal shelters and a recently-renovated mosque in Khirbet Yerza, home to more than 120 individuals. The Jordan Valley Solidarity group added that the area is "highly militarized with three military camps including Samrah, Almaleh and Kopra camp. In the past, the community has faced constant military harassment. As a result, most of the homes in the area had received demolition orders ("New demolitions in the Jordan Valley," 25 November 2010).

And on 29 November, Israeli forces handed out demolition orders to a mosque and the owners of two homes in the al-Masara village near Bethlehem. Ma'an News Agency reported that six military jeeps raided the village and took photographs of the mosque and the homes ("Israel hands demolition orders to village mosque, homes," 29 November 2010).

While Israel continued its policies of frequent demolition of Palestinian property, a settlement colony in East Jerusalem announced new construction of Jewish-only housing units.

According to a report by the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem, Israel approved a plan to expand the settlement of Gilo, near Bethlehem, which will add 130 housing units on land in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Safafa ("130 new housing units approved in East Jerusalem settlement of Gilo," 30 November 2010).

In an address to the United Nations marking the 33rd annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon declared on 29 November that Israel's resumption of settlement expansion was a "serious blow to the credibility of the political process," and that the state was obligated to cease settlement activity under international law ("Secretary-General's message on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People," 29 November 2010).

Gaza: The Killing Zone

life in Gaza is a constant gauntlet of Israeli sniper fire, military rockets and army bulldozers. No one is safe. In light of the escalating tensions, we're bringing back one our most moving documentaries, a hard-hitting expose of life in the Occupied territories. We speak to the children caught in the crossfire and find out the true cost of Israel's targeted assassinations policy.


NO words can describe the barbaric terrorist activities done in palestine

Gaza: The Killing Zone

life in Gaza is a constant gauntlet of Israeli sniper fire, military rockets and army bulldozers. No one is safe. In light of the escalating tensions, we're bringing back one our most moving documentaries, a hard-hitting expose of life in the Occupied territories. We speak to the children caught in the crossfire and find out the true cost of Israel's targeted assassinations policy.

Slingshot hiphop - Palestine RAP

As Israel fires on activists, BDS movement claims victories

Report, The Electronic Intifada, 25 October 2010

A home in Nabi Saleh village is occupied by Israeli soldiers, 22 October 2010.

At least fifteen Palestinians were injured in the occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh on Friday, 22 October, when Israeli forces opened fire at a demonstration against the wall and ongoing land confiscation.

Villagers "marched alongside Israeli and international supporters towards the village lands, where Israel is building the wall," the Palestinian News Network (PNN) reported. "Soldiers fired rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas at them, injuring 15 civilians, one critically. Troops also fired tear gas into homes, burning three houses. Soldiers took a fourth house and told the owner they would use it as a military post for 45 days" ("Fifteen injured, Three Homes Burned In Nabi Saleh Village," 22 October 2010).

That same day, in the village of al-Masara near Bethlehem, one international activist was wounded and two others were arrested by Israeli soldiers during a similar weekly protest against the planned construction of the wall. "Israeli soldiers stopped the protesters near the local school and used tear gas and sound bombs to force them back. A French activist sustained head injuries from a tear gas bomb and soldiers arrested two other internationals," according to PNN. ("One Injured, Two Arrested, During Wall Protest Near Bethlehem," 22 October 2010).

Elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, PNN reported that three Palestinian youths were injured that same day by Israeli-fired tear gas canisters during a protest in the village of Bilin. Villagers have waged regular, nonviolent demonstrations for several years against the encroaching Israeli wall and the nearby settlement colonies. Eight-year-old Lamma Abu Rahma, 17-year-old Muhammad al-Khatib and 17-year-old Ahmad Burnat were hit in the legs and feet by the tear gas grenades. ("Three Civilians Injured During Weekly Bil'in Anti Wall Protest," 22 October 2010).

In related news, EU representatives and consuls general in Jerusalem released a statement on 20 October condemning the imprisonment of Abdallah Abu Rahme, a leader of the nonviolent resistance movement in Bilin who was recently sentenced by a military court to one year in Israeli prison. "The EU considers Abdallah Abu Rahme a human rights defender who has protested in a peaceful manner against the route of the Israeli separation barrier through his village of Bilin," said the statement. "The EU considers the route of the barrier where it is built on Palestinian land to be illegal. The EU supports the key role of human rights defenders in promoting and furthering of human rights" ("EU Representatives Regret Israeli Military Court Sentence," 20 October 2010).

Meanwhile, around the globe, solidarity activists accelerated efforts to hold Israel accountable for its repressive policies, as well as corporations that profit from Israel's human rights abuses.

Ireland

The Irish government has officially refused to grant weapons manufacturer Israel Military Industries a contract to supply 10 million bullets to the Irish Defense Forces, the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) confirmed. Organizers had waged a seven-month campaign of lobbying, letter-writing and protesting outside the constituency offices of Ireland's defense minister Tony Killeen.

In an 11 October press release, the IPSC National Chairperson Freda Hughes stated "We commend the Irish government's actions in this instance. For the Irish government to have bought bullets from Israel -- the same bullets that have been used to murder thousands of Palestinians over the past decade -- would have given succor to that rogue state, and given the impression that it can do what it likes to the Palestinian people and not suffer any consequences. The IPSC is proud of our campaign around this issue, and have no doubt that it played a role, albeit unacknowledged, in bringing about this decision" ("Victory as Palestine campaigners welcome Government scrapping of 'Israeli bullets' deal, warn against future deals," 11 October 2010).

Scotland

On 6 October, student activists in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh were able to shut down a career fair at Edinburgh University in protest of the inclusion of a major weapons manufacturer, BAE Systems, which produces and sells arms and equipment to the Israeli military. According to a press release issued by Edinburgh University Students for Justice In Palestine, a dozen students entered the career fair, holding the Palestinian flag and banners that read "BAE - Blatant Absence of Ethics" and "BAE sells - Israel kills" ("Students Shut Down Careers Fair in Protest," 7 October 2010).

"Upon being asked to leave by security, the students held a 'die-in' in front of the stall, to symbolize all the people killed by BAE's weapons," the press release stated.

"BAE Systems is the world's second-largest arms producer," the the students' statement added. "It makes fighter aircraft, armored vehicles, artillery systems, missiles, munitions and much more. In 2008, company sales exceeded £18.5 (USD $29) billion, with about 95 percent of these being for military use. BAE has been under investigation for corruption and was, as a result, forced earlier this year to pay a £30 (USD $40) million fine in the UK and one of $400 million in the US. BAE's arms are sold indiscriminately around the world, with military customers in over 100 countries. These countries include Israel."

Norway

In Norway, a petition calling for a widespread institutional cultural and academic boycott of Israel has quickly gathered a hundred signatories, following major divestment actions by the Norwegian government ("Call for an academic and cultural boycott of the state of Israel"). Norway's state sovereign wealth fund -- which is the third-largest in the world, holding more than $300 billion -- recently moved to divest from both Elbit Systems and Africa Israel. The two Israeli corporations are deeply involved with the construction of Israel's wall and the ongoing settlement industry in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in violation of international law.

The Norwegian petition, drafted by academics and activists in support of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, has been signed by academics, writers, musicians, cultural workers and sports figures, including Egil "Drillo" Olsen, the coach of the Norwegian national soccer team. Following the Israeli commando raid and deadly attack on the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla in May, a national public opinion poll found that approximately 40 percent of all Norwegians had already begun to boycott Israeli products or were in favor of doing so.

Spain

After a broad-based grassroots campaign in the town of Cigales, a town in Spain's Valladolid province, the city council voted to remove bottled water produced by the Israeli company Eden Springs Ltd. from all municipal buildings.

In a press release, activists with the Platform for Solidarity with Palestine-Valladolid stated that with this decision, "the City Council joins the international movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel. The City Council of Cigales has taken this decision after a strong mobilization of its [residents], including demonstrations, signature event and public awareness campaigns" ("El Ayuntamiento de Cigales retira la marca israelí de agua embotellada Eden de sus dependencias," 21 October 2010).

Activists say that this is the third successful boycott campaign against Eden products this year in the Valladolid province. In June, teachers and workers at a nursing school at the University of Valladolid pressured the administration to remove Eden water from vending machines; and the City Council of Villanueva de Duero, a nearby town, removed Eden from its municipal buildings as well.

Asia

The Asia to Gaza Caravan, a group of approximately five hundred activists from seventeen different Asian countries, plans to gather in New Delhi, India, on 1 December. Activists intend to march through 18 cities in Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt in an effort to pressure Israel to lift the siege and blockade on Gaza.

Organized by Asian People's Solidarity for Palestine, activists will be carrying humanitarian supplies intended for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, with the march culminating at the Rafah crossing into southern Gaza.

According to the campaign's website (www.asiatogaza.net), organizers say that the caravan will coordinate with existing and new solidarity groups during the march. "The aim of this campaign is to build a diverse and inclusive Asian solidarity for the Palestinians and against the blockade that denies the Palestinians their rights," state the organizers on the website.

Egypt

In Egypt, more than three hundred activists affiliated with the "Viva Palestina" organization arrived in the port town of al-Arish with humanitarian aid -- including more than $5 million worth of medical equipment and food supplies, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz ("Viva Palestina Activists Deliver Tons of Aid to Gaza Strip," 21 October 2010).

United States

At Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the university's undergraduate council, representing 6,700 undergraduate students, voted on 18 October to approve a bill calling on Harvard President Drew Faust "to establish a commission of concerned faculty, students and administrators to investigate" their decision to honor Martin Peretz. The council also "fully condemned" Harvard's decision to accept a $650,000 fund for undergraduate social studies research named after Peretz.

Martin Peretz, a former Harvard professor, is the editor-in-chief of the Washington DC-based New Republic magazine, and recently wrote in an op-ed that "Muslim life is cheap," and that Muslims should not be afforded free speech rights under the US Constitution. Peretz has also opined that Palestinians are "unfit" to govern their own country, and that Arabs in general are "genetically" predisposed to violence.

Peretz also wrote that many African-Americans "are afflicted by cultural deficiencies" and that "in the ghetto a lot of mothers don't appreciate the importance of schooling." He also claimed that "Latin societ[ies]" exhibit "characteristic deficiencies" such as "congenital corruption" and "near-tropical work habits."

Protesting Peretz' honoring by the university, more than four hundred students and faculty signed a letter written by student organizations including the Harvard Islamic Society, the Black Students Association, Latinas Unidas, the Society of Arab Students and the Progressive Jewish Alliance. "Such an invitation lends legitimacy and respectability to views that can only be described as abhorrent and racist in their implication that the rights guaranteed by the US Constitution should be withheld from certain citizens based on their religious affiliation," the organizations stated ("Student Letter Criticizes Marty Peretz," The Harvard Crimson, 20 September 2010).

The bill gained the support of both the university student president and vice president, and passed two council committees before reaching the student union floor and passing by a wide margin: 26-7, with four abstentions.

Canada

And finally, Palestine solidarity activists and groups convened last weekend in Montreal, Canada, for the BDS Conferénce Montréal. The conference, organizers state on the website bdsquebec.org, "aim[ed] to regain the momentum of the international BDS campaign in Quebec, and bring together organizations that stand in solidarity with the plight of Palestinians. Through a collaborative approach, organizations can work together to start building a popular BDS movement in order to educate and inform the Canadian public." Community and international activists, such as Omar Barghouti, coordinator of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and the Palestinian Boycott National Committee, and members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions presented panel discussions and workshops over the weekend to hundreds of attendants.


The fifth Viva Palestina convoy arrives in Gaza, 22 October 2010.

Israel finds allies in Europe's Christian fundamentalists

David Cronin , The Electronic Intifada, 28 April 2010
David Cronins book Europe's Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation will be published in November 2010 by Pluto Press.




Anti-Muslim firebrand Geert Wilders is among Israel's right-wing friends in Europe. (Koen Van Weel/ANP)








Flip through any issue of a major newspaper from the past decade and it is a safe bet you will be confronted with a warning about the dangers of religious extremism. So how could the mainstream media have failed to notice the growing influence of fundamentalists on the European Union's relations with one of its nearest neighbors: Israel? The explanation might lie in how the zealots in question are not Islamic but Christian.

Since September last year, the European Parliament's official delegation to the Knesset has been headed by veteran Dutch politician Bastiaan Belder. This has meant that the chief interlocutor with Israel for the EU's only directly-elected institution has been a man who makes Dick Cheney look moderate.

Belder belongs to the Political Reformed Party (known by its Dutch acronym SGP). Within the Netherlands, this Calvinist grouping has long been controversial because of its opposition to women's suffrage. Even though it has been forced to reverse its male-only membership rule by a 2003 court ruling, it has not yet fielded a female candidate in an election.

The party's literal interpretation of scriptures is especially pronounced in its policy on the Middle East. Adhering strictly to a Christian Zionist ideology, it views the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948 as the fulfillment of a Biblical prophecy. "For the SGP solidarity with the Jewish people is not negotiable," one of its key documents on foreign affairs states. "Therefore, we are committed to a secure existence for Israel in the territory that God has assigned to the Jewish people. The Jews are the 'beloved of the father's will,' to which the Lord assigned their country, as is written in the Old Testament."

Intriguingly, the same document displays a profound anti-Semitic bias. It identifies Judaism as a heresy and argues that Jews must convert to Christianity if they are to evade damnation. Islam, meanwhile, is described as a threat that needs to be "countered" because it "keeps people away from salvation."

In his 11 years as a member of the European Parliament (MEP), Belder has consistently defended Israel's oppression of the Palestinians. Frequently, his rhetoric is indistinguishable from the propaganda peddled by the Israeli diplomats with whom he is in regular contact. During a visit to Jerusalem in February, he contended that Israel would have nothing to fear if it set up an "independent" investigation into the conduct of its attacks on Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009. "When you are convinced that you did everything to prevent civilian casualties, when you have the moral high ground, show it and no one can blame you," he said.

Under Belder's chairmanship, meetings of the Parliament's delegation to Israel have generally been one-sided affairs. Last December, the main guest speaker at one such meeting was Emanuele Ottolenghi, then the Brussels representative of the American Jewish Committee, one of the most powerful pro-Israel lobby groups in Washington. Ottolenghi has penned a book (Under a Mushroom Cloud, published in 2009) and several pamphlets that make the case for waging war against Iran over its alleged efforts to develop nuclear weapons. By contrast, Ottolenghi has portrayed Israel's nuclear capability as necessary for stability in the Middle East, claiming that Arab leaders sleep soundly under the shadow of Israels nuclear umbrella.

Fortunately, Belder has not had everything his own way. Last year the Parliament's delegation to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) sought a discussion with him on how its work could be coordinated with that of his delegation. Initially, Belder turned down this request but when pressured by other MEPs, he agreed in the past few months that joint meetings between the two delegations could be held. Proinsias de Rossa, an Irish MEP who chairs the delegation to the PLC, said he had made "various overtures" to Belder and was "brushed aside for a long time." However, Belder eventually accepted the principle that each delegation should be kept informed of the other's activities and "we are now cooperating very well," de Rossa added. Belder did not respond to my requests for a comment.

While only a handful of Dutch politicians espouse the same religious views as Belder, his unwavering support for Israel has been echoed by larger parties in the Netherlands. Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen, a center-right Christian Democrat, will be garlanded as a "friend of Israel" in June when the American Jewish Committee presents him with an award. Verhagen has claimed that Israel "has no desire to see people in Gaza suffer." His comments were made when he travelled to the southern Israeli city of Sderot last year; Verhagen refused to venture across the nearby border crossing into Gaza to see for himself if Israel was making its 1.5 million inhabitants suffer.

Without doubt, the Netherlands' blood-splattered history helps explain some of the enduring attitudes towards Israel -- 70 percent of the Dutch Jewry were wiped out in the Holocaust. "After World War II, there was quite a lot of enthusiasm [in the Netherlands] about the small State of Israel," said Henri Veldhuis, a Calvinist theologian and a Palestine solidarity campaigner. "These new heroes fueled our faith. Some years later, there was guilt about the Holocaust and how most Jews in Holland were killed or deported. These deep feelings about faith and guilt are still quite strong in our churches."

Veldhuis, whose work for Palestinian rights has led one of his co-religionists to dub him a "follower of Hitler," says that the essential problem with the SGP and the like-minded ChristenUnie (the two parties contested last year's European Parliament election as a combined force) is that they view their reading of the Bible as more important than international law. "For me, this is quite shocking," he said.

A general election is scheduled to take place in the Netherlands in June after the Labor Party recently walked out of the government in protest at efforts to prolong the Dutch involvement in the war in Afghanistan. Many pundits expect the flamboyant anti-Muslim firebrand Geert Wilders to perform strongly in this summer's poll. The electoral list that he leads includes several candidates who have previously worked for the pro-Israel lobby in the Netherlands. Among them are a former Dutch representative for Likud, the party of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Nonetheless, the increasingly brutal nature of the occupation of Palestine has caused some Dutch politicians to reconsider their support for Israel, according to Ghada Zeidan from United Civilians for Peace, a Utrecht-based human rights group. "People are outraged here," she said. "Even some of the more conservative political parties like the VVD [one of the main opposition parties], who are seen in Holland as 'friends of Israel' are asking questions. I can see some movement at the moment but I also should say that the Israel lobby in general remains rather strong."

It would be comforting if Belder could be dismissed as unrepresentative of mainstream Dutch or European society. Yet he has proven to be an astute networker at a time when Israel's political establishment is eagerly courting allies in the Brussels institutions with a view to deepening its diplomatic and economic ties with the EU. His close links with Israeli officialdom indicates that he is appreciated as someone who slavishly defends Israel's agenda in an assembly it frequently regards as hostile. However extreme he may be, it would be foolish to ignore him.

Protection by any means necessary

Matthew Cassel, The Electronic Intifada, 29 September 2010



Matthew Cassel is based in Beirut, Lebanon and is Assistant Editor of The Electronic Intifada. His website is justimage.org. A version of this essay was originally published by the Guardian's Comment is Free and is republished with permission.


This month, Palestinians in Lebanon commemorated the 28th anniversary of a crime whose perpetrators remain unpunished and whose victims still wait for justice. In September 1982, the Israeli army surrounded the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut. For nearly three days, Israeli forces allowed their allies in the right-wing Lebanese Christian Phalange militia to enter the camps and massacre more than a thousand Palestinian refugees and Lebanese citizens. All of the victims -- men, women and children -- were unarmed civilians.

The massacre was the culmination of Israel's invasion of Lebanon and more than two months of siege of West Beirut which eventually forced the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to withdraw from the country. PLO fighters relinquished their heavy weapons to the Lebanese army and in a symbolic act of resistance, left Beirut with their small arms still at their sides. However, the majority of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, exiled since 1948 when Israel was established on top of their homes, remained behind. Dispersed throughout the country's dozen or so refugee camps, Palestinians were left virtually unprotected.

The PLO withdrew from Beirut only after agreeing to a US-mediated ceasefire with Israel. They were given reassurances by Washington that Israel would not harm Palestinian civilians remaining in the camps. However, these reassurances proved to be shallow, and after waging an invasion of Lebanon that killed nearly 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinians and devastated much of the country, Israel invaded and occupied the practically defenseless Lebanese capital.

Prior to this somber anniversary, a writer argued in the Guardian's Comment is Free site that Palestinian weapons were the key issue preventing Palestinian refugees from obtaining basic civil rights in Lebanon, which the state has denied them for 62 years. He described the camps as "heavily armed" and the refugees living there as gripped by an "illusion of martial security" ("Disarming Lebanon's Palestinians," Ahmed Moor, 8 September 2010).

As someone who has lived in Lebanon for several years, I was struck by these assertions. Anyone familiar with Lebanese politics recognizes them as the typical refrain of the right-wing, whose adherents object not only to providing Palestinian refugees with basic rights but their very presence on Lebanese soil. Nor do these characterizations come close to accurately describing the camps or the Palestinians in Lebanon I know. The camps today are far from being heavily armed, especially when compared to the various Lebanese militias or the Lebanese army.

I thought I would visit the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, which today are essentially one camp resembling a slum, and speak with Palestinian refugees about the issue of trading in their weapons for rights.

Inside a small call center in the camp, frequented by mostly Palestinians without credit on their mobile phones and foreign workers calling home, I spoke to a young man named Osama. He told me: "The issue of our arms and our civil rights are unrelated. Lebanese should give us rights as Arabs, as human beings living among them like Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Syria."

"Our weapons don't necessarily make me feel safer," he added, "especially with the internal problems that we have in the camps here like in Palestine. But if we were to give them up, we'd have no protection. At least with our weapons if we die, we die standing and not like in Sabra and Shatila when we were massacred without even one weapon to resist. If the Lebanese army was able to protect us from Israel, then there would be no need for Palestinians to have weapons."

At the headquarters of the Najdeh Association just outside the camp, I spoke with executive director Laila al-Ali. Founded in the 1970s, Najdeh is an nongovernmental organization that runs social programs in Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps and is the leading organization behind the "Right to Work Campaign" for Palestinian refugees. Al-Ali, a Palestinian refugee who grew up in Shatila, explained, "It's not the Lebanese who are looking for assurances or guarantees from the Palestinians, it's the Palestinians who need this guarantee from the Lebanese. Palestinians don't feel safe."

Al-Ali said that only a few groups and individuals have weapons in the camps. She added that the argument claiming these small arms are a prerequisite to granting Palestinians rights is merely "Lebanese [rhetoric] trying to deny Palestinians their human and civil rights."

I asked her about a recent law passed by the Lebanese parliament that made minor changes to the restrictions on the ability of Palestinian refugees to work in the country. Al-Ali stated bluntly: "It gives them nothing. The Lebanese mentality needs to be changed, they cannot continue dealing with Palestinians from the security perspective [alone]."

Back in Shatila, others shared her sentiments. I walked into a barbershop owned by Ahmed, who explained while snipping away at a man's hair that "We keep weapons for protection. Even between the Lebanese there is no stability. Today they are together and tomorrow they're not. In the past we only had our weapons to protect ourselves. Like during the [1985-88] war of the camps, our weapons protected us from the [Lebanese Shia] Amal movement."

I turned to a young man named Omar who was finishing a deep pore cleansing. Bearing a pistol on his hip, Omar is a member of one of the camp's security branches. "The weapons are not the reason for denying us rights, this is a pretext for the Lebanese to take our weapons," he said. "If we lose our weapons, we lose the right to go back to Palestine. I carry my weapon because it's not worth throwing away. The weapons are the peoples' property."

Unprompted, a taxi driver named Mahmoud with a freshly trimmed mustache jumped in. "Once we lose the weapons we'll be slapped from all directions," he said. "I will never accept to give up our weapons. The Lebanese will never be able to protect our cause. It's not their cause, and nobody can protect it but ourselves."

After speaking with dozens of individuals in the camp, all of whom refused to give up their right to bear arms, I asked a friend to take me to someone in the camp who he thought would disagree. He brought me to his 66-year-old grandmother, Miyasar, a refugee who has been forced to flee her home at least five times since 1948 and now lives in Shatila.

Before I could even finish asking her the first question about trading rights for arms, Miyasar closed her eyes, shook her head and said: "The Lebanese cannot give us rights, they can't even give themselves rights. Each group is by itself with its own weapons -- Hizballah has guns, Amal has guns, the Future [movement] has guns. The Lebanese are the ones who need help, not the Palestinians."

She added, "When the Israelis came they said, give up our guns. We did and look what happened! Even a donkey that falls in one spot learns not to fall in that same spot again. We have no faith in Lebanese to give us rights. We will keep our weapons until we go back to Palestine."

May Allah Help The People Of Palestine

S O A 1924 Soldiers of Allah History

The truth about the state
It wasn't always like this
Let us look back in time
History reminds us
One army
One land
One central authority
Crushing the romans
Persians put in fear
The Ummah like a Lion
No need to shed a tear

When the village was attacked by the kufar
The Khalife heard
The sister cry &
Prepared for war
Attacking the city

Destroying it
from existence
Lesson # 1
Don't ever
Mess with Muslims

The Imam of the Ummah is a shield where he protects the Ummah and where the Ummah fights behind him
Where is this shield today to protect the Ummah?? What happen to this shield to honor and dignify the Ummah???
In 1917 Prime Minister of Britain after entering Jerusalem stated the crusade war has ended
In the same year the French general, goro went to the grave of Salahudeen-Ayubi
Salahudeen-Ayubi, the one who 730 years prier crushed the crusades and liberated Palestine & Syria
he went to his grave in Damascus and kicked it and said wake up oh Salahudeen we hare here

How did they do this
to you and me
We turn on the TV
and all we see
is a world full of casualties
a generation in agony
our Ummah is in misery
let us go back
to beginning of the century
and review our history

from one side
to the other side of the globe
the system of Islam
Ruled over the world
They went to the Muslims
for the all their solutions
from mathematics to biology
to the advancements in technology

the kafir women
use to imitate our women
they wanted the same respect
that the Muslims sisters were given while the enemies of Islam
were trying to twist the Quran
trying to write a Surah like Allah s they all failed miserably
& many of them responded with

Ashhadu -an la Ilaha Ilallah wa Ashhadu- anna Muhammadun rasullullah

Allah has challenged the humanity until the day of judgment to produce a Sura or an Aya like the Quran
And Allah assures that they will never be able to make an Aya like it
The kufar plan and work to destroy this Deen and Allah affirms that we too are planning
and if all the people of the world got together they still could not and will never be able to put even a scratch a side of a muster seeds on the throne of almighty Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala

Life of Prophet Mohammad SAW YUSUF ISLAM

Life of Prophet part 1



Life of Prophet part 2



Life of Prophet part 3

After the Flotilla, will Turkey emerge as a force for Palestinian rights?

Murat Dagli, The Electronic Intifada, 9 June 2010
Murat Dagli is a PhD candidate in Middle East History at the University of California, Berkeley.



Turkish flags can be seen at protests around the world against the Israeli attack on the Flotilla. (Matthew Cassel)



After the bodies of the nine Turkish activists killed by Israeli forces on the Mavi Marmara on 31 May returned home, tens of thousands participated in the funerals and burials in two of Istanbul's major mosques the following day and during Friday prayers. The anger toward Israel only intensified after surviving passengers began recounting the extent of the atrocities during Israel's attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and the abuse they suffered during detention.

Israel, with the usual support from Washington, continues to deny any wrong-doing and claims that the interception was fully legitimate and the loss of lives was the unfortunate result of acts of self-defense by its commandos who were "attacked."

Meanwhile, Turkish flags and the posters of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are prominent in demonstrations around the world. Erdoğan's profile and popularity was already high in the Arab world due to his televised confrontation with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in 2009 over Israel's attack on Gaza earlier that year.

After years of disappointment with successive Arab regimes, Turkey appears to be taking a regional leadership role. While better and closer relations between Turkey and the Arab world are welcome developments, and there is hope for a momentum building up for the Palestinian cause, the ambiguities of the Turkish stance are apparent and raise important questions.

Should the current crisis with Israel be interpreted as a singular event in which Turkey gave a strong response or as the inevitable culmination of a completely new foreign policy orientation?

In the midst of the heightened pace of activism, diplomatic activity and political maneuvering, it is important to analyze the dilemmas of the Turkish political scene, and distinguish rhetoric from political realities.

Within days of the flotilla crisis starting, influential Turkish newspapers such as Hürriyet, Vatan and Milliyet expressed reservations about escalating the tension with Israel.

Underlying these reservations are a variety of concerns from the economic repercussions of a prolonged political crisis to turning this tension into a permanent "blood-feud." More importantly, the foundations of these cautionary remarks are based on the deep-seated convictions about Turkey's foreign policy model.

Even though "peace at home, peace in the world" is said to be the guiding principle of Turkish foreign policy since the foundation of the republic in 1923, Turkey's foreign policy has in fact consistently been Western oriented. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, seen as the most Westernized institution in Turkey and a leading force in Western-oriented aspirations of the Turkish Republic, has also continuously sought a significant degree of autonomy from domestic political changes.

In this context, the appointment of Ahmet Davutoğlu, a professor of International Relations and an intellectual figure close to the Justice and Development Party (AKP), initially created a good deal of tension and resistance within the ministry. Therefore, Ankara's further involvement, let alone explicit claim for leadership in the Middle East, can be expected to be a cause of great concern for a considerable portion of the Turkish establishment.

Further aggravating this sense of urgency are long-established popular Turkish misconceptions about the Middle East, as backward, underdeveloped and uncivilized. Hence, the sense that Turkey's turn to the East away from the West, will be seen as a step backward by some of Turkey's elites.

Even though an undeniable shift in Turkish foreign policy has occurred over the past decade, it is still unclear whether these changes are truly substantial or if the anxieties of a complete reversal in foreign policy are the result of a world view which fears that Turkey can only be oriented in one direction or another.

A key element of Turkey's new foreign policy is the search for more autonomy. As a result of the new power configurations in the region after the end of the Cold War (including wars in Iraq and the Caucasus), Turkey, especially under Davutoğlu's tenure as Foreign Minister, has sought to assert its position as the major power broker in the region.

In this respect, neither Erdoğan's confrontation with Peres at Davos in 2009, nor the recent nuclear brokerage between Iran and Brazil are singular events. Rather, they should be seen as expressions of a new-found self-confidence and willingness to act autonomously.

The fact that Israel found itself as the main "target" in these instances reveals more about Israel's uncompromising desire to dictate its political and military will rather than a complete sea-change in Turkish foreign policy.

An ever more isolated Israel is prone to view any deviation from the norms that have been established in the region in the last 50 years as a major threat to its "security." Given the context of the changing power dynamics, Israel's brutal interception of the Flotilla could be seen as a planned strategy to teach a lesson to a new opponent, rather than a quarrel between old friends.

At the same time one of the most important questions is the extent to which these new foreign policy initiatives are merely political maneuverings for a domestic audience. Despite the harsh condemnations of Israel by the prime minister, the parliament as well as President of the Republic Abdullah Gül, Ankara has so far followed a careful diplomatic strategy.

Turkey's ambassador to Israel has been recalled, and plans to transport water and natural gas to Israel have been put on halt and a couple of military maneuvers have been cancelled. Yet no major military deals have been revoked so far.

Even more than these discrepancies between rhetoric and reality, the AKP's political discourse and practices reveal the structural dilemmas in Turkish politics and their impact on how the Palestinian cause is perceived and represented.

While the loss of lives understandably turned the attention to Turkey, it should be remembered that the Flotilla was not an active state policy, but was a civil and international initiative. Moreover, relations between the AKP and the human rights and relief group Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH) which participated in the Flotilla have not always been cordial.

However, the AKP appears to be attempting to seize and ride the tide of sympathy and concern for the passengers. Although visiting the wounded activists in their hospital bed can be seen as an act of concern and support, the fact that senior party officials welcomed the returning activists at Istanbul airport can also be seen as an attempt to co-opt the movement.

Turkey, with its well-established state tradition, has masterfully followed the traditional diplomatic route of attempting to protect and defend its citizens from breaches of international law by working within the appropriate international institutions.

Yet this same state tradition weighs heavily on state-civil society relations, as the state almost reflexively seeks to dominate any autonomous civil initiative. In this sense, the AKP's political maneuvers are not to be seen merely as party strategy, but are also manifestations of deeply internalized state discourses and practices of Turkish political culture.

In this respect, the widespread arguments in Turkish media and of political parties across the board that Israel has made its biggest mistake so far, and that relations have reached a point of no return, owe more to a nationalist discourse.

This nationalist discourse emphasizes (and exaggerates) the prominence of the Turkish state in place of offering a long-term analysis of Israeli policies in the region. It appropriates the popularity of movements initiated by nongovernmental organizations while at the same distrusting their independence. Thus it risks diverting attention away from generating tangible solidarity and understanding for the Palestinian cause and reducing the issue to a crisis between Turkey and Israel.

Thus, rather than taking part in the world-wide support for Palestinian rights, and supporting civil society initiatives, the AKP's statist reflexes may actually serve to weaken the international dimension of the support and make it more vulnerable to propaganda attempts that portray Israel's illegal acts as a righteous struggle against a radical Islamist threat.

In addition to these deep-seated features of Turkish political culture, there may also be more immediate reasons why the AKP government may want to use this crisis for its own political purposes. Despite the rhetoric of making changes and taking some reluctant steps, the AKP government has to date hardly delivered on its promises. Two major factors stand out: the perennial Kurdish problem and the recent change of leadership in the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).

The resumption of attacks by the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) has left more than 30 soldiers dead in the last two months. As a result, the AKP has come under increasing criticism both from the Kurdish parties and groups as well as opposition political parties.

As the AKP tries to play the leadership card in the Middle East, those who are critical of the party argue that there are more pressing and immediate domestic problems and accuse the AKP of using foreign policy adventures to mask its failure at home. While this isolationist discourse is partly motivated by the above-mentioned prejudices about "backwardness" of Middle Eastern politics, and suspicions of a possible alliance between Israel and the PKK, it remains true that the Kurdish problem is the Achilles' heel not only for the AKP, but also for the Turkish polity.

However, in spite of the AKP's highly-dubious record, there is no reason why the two objectives, that is, further democratization at home, and a more active foreign policy in the Middle East, should be seen as mutually exclusive rather than compatible and reinforcing political objectives.

As for the most recent developments in the main opposition party, a sex scandal involving the former leader of the CHP, Deniz Baykal, led to a significant change in the party's leadership. Although there was a wave of enthusiasm among the supporters of the CHP, it remains to be seen if the emergence of a new leadership also corresponds to a substantial change in party ideology.

The new CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu hinted at broadening the party's base from the mostly urban middle, and upper middle classes to the underprivileged groups of the suburbs. Yet an initial rise in popularity has been short-lived in the face of the recent crisis. Instead, the AKP has tried to make the most of Erdoğan's charismatic leadership and wrest the momentum away from the CHP, at least for now.

It is only natural to expect the AKP to turn the recent crisis to their advantage. It is also an opportunity to test the leadership qualities of those in power. However, it is worth noting that the charismatic leadership easily turns into a cult of personality, and as such, can become an impediment for a more democratic and participatory political culture as can be learned from examples such as Russia's Vladimir Putin or Italy's Silvio Berlusconi. Erdoğan is also quick to assume the role of undisputed chief and personalize politics rather than act as the leader collective decision-making. The personalization of politics and the cult of personality have rarely been helpful in establishing the foundations of a solid and viable political structure.

As an Islamist political party and movement, the AKP also faces a dilemma in its contradictory attitudes towards Egypt and Sudan, to give only two relevant examples. While Israel's policies towards Gaza are harshly condemned both by the state and civil initiatives, there is silence over Egypt's blockade. While the rhetoric of solidarity and humanitarian aid against Israel's oppressive policies in Palestine fly high, no major statement has been made or protest held against Egypt's own contradictory policies toward Israel.

Furthermore, while the Sudanese government has been accused of genocide by the International Criminal Court, the AKP's policies towards Sudan have been accommodating to say the least. In this respect, critics are quick point out that conservative and Islamist movements in Turkey have not displayed the same degree of sensitivity when it came to a variety of human right violations either at home or in other countries in the Middle East. In this regard, many warnings have already been voiced in order not to turn an important occasion to mobilize mass support against Israeli state policies into an anti-Semitic discourse, which, taking into consideration past practices toward minorities in contemporary Turkey and widespread ignorance about the historical background of the Palestinian plight, is always a present danger.

Finally, another tendency prevalent in both the Turkish media and the political discourse of the AKP is the reduction of the Palestinian problem to the predicament of Gaza by exclusively concentrating on conditions in the besieged territory. Since the specific purpose of the Freedom Flotilla was to draw attention to the Israeli blockade in Gaza, it is only natural that Gaza has been the center of attention in the last week. However, the exclusive emphasis on Gaza is not confined to the latest developments, but is the culmination of a longer process that was only intensified by the latest events.

In this sense, it should be recognized that unless the question of "who speaks for the Palestinians" is always kept in mind and discussed unfailingly, the broader dimensions of the Palestine issue -- in all its aspects from the right of return, the realities on the ground in the West Bank, to the crisis of Palestinian leadership -- can be replaced with reductionist views and expectations.

Many people hope that loss of lives on the Flotilla was not in vain, that they mark an new phase in a worldwide mobilization to put more pressure on Israel to end its occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.

What is at stake is to preserve this hope, building on the momentum gained through painful sacrifices, and turn them into concrete policies. While nurturing hope it is even more important not to fall for false promises, and to be alert against the excesses of political rhetoric.

It is true that Turkey's involvement can prove to be highly valuable to further the Palestinian cause. But Turkey's involvement and potential are preconditioned on recognizing its own internal dilemmas. Apart from taking the necessary steps for further democratization and creating the conditions for a more participatory public sphere at home, this means refraining from appropriating civil initiatives for narrow party interests, moderating statist reflexes, strictly nationalist discourses and resisting the cult of the leader.

Turkish involvement must be constructed in terms of cooperation and solidarity, and must be seen as a learning process rather than one-dimensional help of a regional power seeking to play a leadership role. Instead of reviving the anachronistic and useless rhetoric of an Ottoman golden age, which can easily give way to the condescending attitude of those who see themselves as the heirs of a great empire, it would be more promising to demonstrate genuine willingness to learn from Palestine and the Palestinians. The Palestinian mirror is, after all, a litmus test for those who really want to engage in a struggle for justice, peace and equality.

Israel’s excuses

…israeli authorities have the liberty to ban, allow and confiscate any aid that is sent to Gaza at will, and announce that they are providing Gaza citizens with all the aid and supplies they need and therefore the freedom flotilla flight was an unnecessary stunt?!

40 Different nationalities aboard the ships, from Turkey, Greece and Ireland headed to Gaza, to the Gaza port (which israel says is under palestinian authority control) to provide these citizens with toys for their children, wheel chairs for the thousands cripples by israel’s continuous raids, medicine for those few survivors, flour, and other Survival needs!

Out of these 40 nationalities are a parade of countries: Irish, Australian, French, South African, Greek, American, German, Turkish, besides arab nationals, and many more. Are all these brave souls mistaken in their aid call?! if they had solid facts that the aid needed was reaching Gaza they wouldn’t have worked night and day for months to collect the necessary aid, put their lives at risk to do what seems like a true moral call?

Solidarity with the Freedom Flotilla

In the wake of the Israeli attack on an unarmed aid flotilla headed towards Gaza, a large crowd of protesters converged in Vancouver in a show of solidarity for the Palestinian People.

The protest was called by a coalition of groups as response to the brutal assault by the Israeli Defense Forces on the humanitarian aid ships.

MASSACRE AT SEA

International solidarity and the Freedom Flotilla massacre

Editorial, The Electronic Intifada, 31 May 2010


Israeli naval ships flanking the Mavi Marmara










Early this morning under the cover of darkness Israeli soldiers stormed the lead ship of the six-vessel Freedom Flotilla aid convoy in international waters and killed and injured dozens of civilians aboard. All the ships were violently seized by Israeli forces, but hours after the attack fate of the passengers aboard the other ships remained unknown.

The Mavi Marmara was carrying around 600 activists when Israeli warships flanked it from all sides as soldiers descended from helicopters onto the ship's deck. Reports from people on board the ship backed up by live video feeds broadcast on Turkish TV show that Israeli forces used live ammunition against the civilian passengers, some of whom resisted the attack with sticks and other items.

The Freedom Flotilla was organized by a coalition of groups that sought to break the Israeli-led siege on the Gaza Strip that began in 2007. Together, the flotilla carried 700 civilian activists from around 50 countries and over 10,000 tons of aid including food, medicines, medical equipment, reconstruction materials and equipment, as well as various other necessities arbitrarily banned by Israel.

As of 6:00pm Jerusalem time most media were still reporting that up to 20 people had been killed, and many more injured. However, Israel was still withholding the exact numbers and names of the dead and injured. Passengers aboard the ships who had been posting Twitter updates on the Flotilla's progress had not been heard from since before the attack and efforts to contact passengers by satellite phone were unsuccessful. The Arabic- and English-language networks of Al-Jazeera lost contact with their half dozen staff traveling with the flotilla.

News of the massacre on board the Freedom Flotilla began to emerge around dawn in the eastern Mediterranean first on the live feed from the ship, social media, Turkish television, and Al-Jazeera. Israeli media were placed under strict military censorship, and reported primarily from foreign sources. However, by the morning the Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli soldiers who boarded the flotilla in international waters were fired upon by passengers. Quoting anonymous military sources, the Jerusalem Post claimed that the flotilla passengers had set-up a "well planned lynch." ("IDF: Soldiers were met by well-planned lynch in boat raid")

The Israeli daily Haaretz also reported that the Israeli soldiers were "attacked" when trying to board the flotilla. ("At least 10 activists killed in Israel Navy clashes onboard Gaza aid flotilla")

This narrative of passengers "attacking" the Israeli soldiers was quickly adopted by the Associated Press and carried across mainstream media sources in the United States, including the Washington Post. ("Israeli army: More than 10 killed on Gaza flotilla")

Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon stated in a Monday morning press conference that the Israeli military was acting in "self-defense." He claimed that "At least two guns were found" and that the "incident" was still ongoing. Ayalon also claimed that the Flotilla organizers were "well-known" and were supported by and had connections to "international terrorist organizations."

It is unclear how anyone could credibly adopt an Israeli narrative of "self-defense" when Israel had carried out an unprovoked armed assault on civilian ships in international waters. Surely any right of self-defense would belong to the passengers on the ship. Nevertheless, the Freedom Flotilla organizers had clearly and loudly proclaimed their ships to be unarmed civilian vessels on a humanitarian mission.

The Israeli media strategy appeared to be to maintain censorship of the facts such as the number of dead and injured, the names of the victims and on which ships the injuries occurred, while aggressively putting out its version of events which is based on a dual strategy of implausibly claiming "self-defense" while demonizing the Freedom Flotilla passengers and intimating that they deserved what they got.

As news spread around the world, foreign governments began to react. Greece and Turkey, which had many citizens aboard the Flotilla, immediately recalled their ambassadors from Tel Aviv. Spain strongly condemned the attack. France's foreign minister Bernard Kouchner expressed "profound shock." The European Union's foreign minister Catherine Ashton called for an "enquiry."

What should be clear is this: no one can claim to be surprised by what the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights correctly termed a "hideous crime." Israel had been openly threatening a violent attack on the Flotilla for days, but complacency, complicity and inaction, specifically from Western and Arab governments once more sent the message that Israel could act with total impunity.

There is no doubt that Israel's massacre of 1,400 people, mostly civilians, in Gaza in December 2008/January 2009 was a wake up call for international civil society to begin to adopt boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel similar to those applied to apartheid-era South Africa.

Yet governments largely have remained complacent and complicit in Israel's ongoing violence and oppression against Palestinians and increasingly international humanitarian workers and solidarity activists, not only in Gaza, but throughout historic Palestine. We can only imagine that had former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni indeed been arrested for war crimes in Gaza when a judge in London issued a warrant for her arrest, had the international community begun to implement the recommendations of the UN-commissioned Goldstone Report, had there been a much firmer response to Israel's assassination of a Hamas official in Dubai, it would not have dared to act with such brazenness.

As protest and solidarity actions begin in Palestine and across the world, this is the message they must carry: enough impunity, enough complicity, enough Israeli massacres and apartheid. Justice now.

Israeli settlers attack Palestinian mosques

Mel Frykberg, The Electronic Intifada, 11 May 2010



A Palestinian man reacts to the scene in Lubban al-Sharqiya's local mosque after settlers carried out an arson attack. (Rami Swidan/MaanImages)






LUBBAN AL-SHARQIYA, occupied West Bank (IPS) - "There is immense anger as well as a feeling of vulnerability and fear when a place of sanctuary and holiness is subject to indiscriminate violence," says Issa Hussein.

"Despite living under a brutal military occupation and being subjected to regular attacks by Israeli settlers for decades, normally places of worship were spared," Hussein, a spokesman from this Palestinian village, near Nablus, in the northern West Bank, told IPS.

"People could forget about the economic hardship, the political oppression and their personal problems for a few hours a week as they retreated to pray in the mosque."

All this changed dramatically for the agricultural village of 3,000 residents a few weeks ago.

Israeli settlers from one of the three surrounding illegal settlements, which have been built on land belonging to Lubban al-Shariqiya and other Palestinian villages, carried out an arson attack on the local mosque.

The Israeli Civil Administration, which administers the occupied West Bank, originally denied that Israeli settlers had been involved, and instead blamed an electrical short-circuit.

However, Israeli fire-fighters who later came to investigate the gutted mosque said arson was the likely cause and ruled out the possibility of an electrical fire.

"The part of the mosque where the fire broke out was undergoing renovations and the electricity had been turned off," explained Hussein.

"Furthermore, some villagers heard cars drawing up at about 3am in the morning of the attack and saw settlers getting out of the vehicles and going into the mosque," said Hussein as he took IPS on a tour of the charred and gutted mosque.

Curtains from windows had been torn down to help the fire burn. Qurans, which are usually piled up at one end of the mosque, had been moved to the other end and placed in piles next to the bathroom.

On top of, and adjacent to, the pile of Qurans were shoes which had all been arranged into a Star of David sign, Judaism's chief emblem.

The vandalism of deliberately attacking a holy place in a deeply religious society, combined with the use of provocative and offensive symbolism, was not lost on the villagers.

"We would never store the Qurans near a toilet or put shoes anywhere near our holy books. Everybody is forced to take their shoes off at the door before they even enter the mosque," Hussein told IPS.

This attack is just the latest in a string of attacks on Palestinians and their property, including mosques, as Israeli settlers up their "price-tag policy."

The settlers have warned that for every illegal settlement outpost dismantled, restraining order issued or settler arrested in the West Bank, they will carry out retaliatory attacks against Palestinians, their homes, places of business, motor cars, agricultural fields, livestock and mosques.

Not a weekend goes by without Palestinians being assaulted, olive trees cut down or uprooted, fields set alight and cars stoned or burnt.

In December, a mosque in the nearby village of Yasuf was gutted and burnt. In April, Star of David and racist anti-Arab slogans were spray painted on a mosque in the village of Huwarra. Several cars were also set alight.

In turn settlers driving near Palestinian villages have also been subjected to stone-throwing and periodic attacks with Molotov cocktails by Palestinians, damaging vehicles and in some instances causing injuries.

However, Israeli military investigators believe the attacks on mosques are part of a deliberate policy by settlers and have uncovered information about future settler plans to attack mosques.

A number of settlers were arrested by Israel's domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet's Jewish department, but these arrests preceded more attacks on Palestinians. As of now it is not certain whether any charges will be pressed against those arrested.

The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry, condemned the settler attacks.

"I condemn these attacks. It is vital that the Israeli government impose the rule of law and that those responsible for such crimes are brought to justice," said Serry.

The special coordinator's statement also expressed concern over "a number of attacks upon mosques in recent months, as well as violence against Palestinian property and individuals by extremist settlers."

"This is not the first time we have been subjected to settler attacks. They have burnt our crops on a regular basis. They also machine-gunned to death an elderly man and woman in 1990 near out village after Meir Kahane was assassinated in New York," Hussein told IPS.

Meir Kahane was the founder of the Jewish Defense League as well as the ultra right-wing and fascist Kach party which espouses the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

It was outlawed by the Israeli Knesset or parliament for being racist but it continues to attract supporters in Israel.

Members of the Palestinian Authority (PA) visited Lubban al-Sharqiya the same day that IPS was there and promised that the mosque would be rebuilt as soon as possible.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas, whose term expired last January and has been in power under contested emergency powers, has personally ordered its reconstruction.

Will Obama adopt a dangerously simplistic peace plan?

Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 3 May 2010



A peace plan brought to the Obama Administration is hardly a "bold gesture." (Pete Souza/White House)






A new conventional wisdom is rapidly taking shape that the United States can resolve the 130-year-old conflict in Palestine by advancing its own peace plan. Former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and former US Congressman Stephen Solarz outlined such a plan in The Washington Post recently, and argued that President Obama could boost its prospects with a "bold gesture" -- a trip, to Jerusalem and Ramallah in the company of Arab and other leaders to unveil it ("To achieve Mideast peace, Obama must make a bold Mideast trip," 11 April 2010).

Strong supporters of Israel have pushed back that "imposing peace" would not work, but few Palestinian voices have been heard. Indeed, from a Palestinian perspective, this idea is dangerously simplistic, and more likely to deepen festering injustices and fuel, rather than resolve conflict.

The "comprehensive solution" Brzezinski and Solarz propose is nothing of the kind because the conflict cannot be reduced to a mere border dispute between Israel and a putative Palestinian state. They propose for example "a territorial settlement based on the 1967 borders, with mutual and equal adjustments to allow the incorporation of the largest West Bank settlements into Israel."

This is deceptive; the West Bank and Gaza Strip constitute just 22 percent of historic Palestine between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, in which Palestinians formed the overwhelming majority prior to their expulsion and flight as Israel was created in 1948. Official Palestinian acceptance of the two-state solution was a concession unprecedented in the history of any nation because it involved surrendering the 78 percent of the country on which Israel was established. To demand that Palestinians further divide the remainder represents no compromise by Israel. It merely ratifies Israel's systematic colonization of West Bank land since 1967 in flagrant defiance of international law.

The proposed "land swap" to compensate Palestinians for annexed Israeli settlements is illusory. The majority of the half million Israeli settlers are concentrated in and around Jerusalem -- the heart of the would-be Palestinian state. Yet the lands that Israel might consider handing over in compensation are small barren tracts far away from population centers. If there are such lands that could compensate the French for Paris, the British for London or Americans for New York City, then there might be lands that Palestinians could accept instead of Jerusalem.

Even more devastating to Palestinian rights, Brzezinski and Solarz float "a solution to the refugee problem involving compensation and resettlement in the Palestinian state but not in Israel." This they call "a bitter pill" but argue that "Israel cannot be expected to commit political suicide for the sake of peace."

Palestinian refugees have an internationally-recognized legal right to return to their homes and lands, but Israel has always denied this on the sole grounds that Palestinians are not Jews. Thus Gaza, where 80 percent of the population are refugees, is essentially a holding pen for humans of the "wrong" ethno-religious group. Would Brzezinski and Solarz be so sanguine about accommodating Israel's discriminatory character if its grounds for refusing the return of refugees was that they had the "wrong" skin color?

I write from downtown Pretoria, once the all-white capital of the South African apartheid state, which also argued that ending white rule would be "political suicide." The notion that people of different groups cannot or should not mix is belied by the vibrant multiracial reality in the streets of Pretoria outside my window today.

And precedents for the actual return of refugees abound. Under the US-brokered 1995 Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnia war, almost half a million refugees and internally displaced persons returned home with international assistance, to areas that had become dominated demographically and politically by members of another ethno-national community -- an enormous achievement in a country with a total population of 3.5 million and deep traumas as a result of recent war.

Other than Israel's discriminatory aversion to non-Jews it is difficult to see why Palestinian refugees could not also return to their lands inside Israel, the vast majority of which remain uninhabited.

By endorsing Israel's self-definition as a "Jewish state," Brzezinski and Solarz not only ratify the violation of the fundamental rights of refugees, but consign another 1.4 million Palestinian citizens of Israel to permanent second-class status within an increasingly intolerant and ultranationalist Israel. A more likely outcome than "two states living side by side in peace" is that Palestinian citizens of Israel will come under increasing threat of expulsion to the Palestinian state -- in other words, a new round of ethnic cleansing.

The vision of a truncated, demilitarized mini-state in no way fulfills basic Palestinian aspirations and rights and would bring no more peace or dignity than the bantustans which apartheid South Africa tried to establish for its black citizens to forestall and delay demands for equality and democracy. Nor would a trip by Obama do anything to revive shop-worn ideas that have gained little real support either among Palestinians or Israelis since they were first proposed at the failed Camp David summit in 2000.

Margaret Thatcher once said that partitioning South Africa to create separate black and white states would be like "trying to unscramble an egg," and could lead to tremendous bloodshed. It is time to recognize that this truth also applies to Palestine/Israel and to seek political solutions similar to the one here, or the settlement in Northern Ireland, that embrace rather than attempt to deny diversity, equality and justice for all who live in that land.

Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. This article was originally published by The Hill and is republished with the author's permission.