EL WAHDA
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Long Live Palestine - LowKey
Massive props to Lowkey for laying truthful and eye-opening bars on this track. He has displayed huge support and love for the people of Palestine, which should not just be shared by Muslims or Palestinians, but by EVERY HUMAN because support for innocent and oppressed people is irrespective of religious faith or nationality. As a HUMAN it is your responsibility to accept that it is simply WRONG to bomb and use toxic phosphorus compounds as weapons against UN-ARMED people who have no means to defend themselves.
Lowkey says "Nothing is more anti-Semitic than Zionism", this is impossible to deny because Judaism and Zionism are two completely different philosophies. During the past two thousand years of existence of Jews, they have been DIVINELY decreed exile and no Jew had ever intended to end this exile and establish any independent political sovereignty in any land. This was in place to ensure that not only the Jews, but the people as a whole fulfil the commandments of the Torah. However the Israeli state has been created by Zionists within the past 100 years. The ultimate mission behind this is to detach the Jewish people from Judaism and replace it with an affinity and loyalty to a racist, murderous political movement. This movement is Zionism and leaders have deceived, terrorised, manipulated the media and have used clever and false propaganda as mechanisms in the manufacture of this state, which is a catalyst for the NWO.
But although Zionist leaders have global political power and unlimited finances at their disposal, their plans of deceiving the entire world have failed. This is because although they plan, God also plans, and He is the best of planners. The truth remains, that the law of the Torah clearly states that the Jewish people are FORBIDDEN to have their own state. It is important to stress, that Zionism is NOT representative of Judaism and Jews have never selected the Israeli leaders. It is also vital to know that many Rabbis and Jews oppose Zionism, and I honour them and the many Jews who marched alongside myself in protest against this genocide. I want to remind Israeli Jews to uphold to their true faith and its teachings.
It should be known that most of the United States Bill of Rights and founding principles correlate with the religious principles and teachings of the people of Palestine. The American government has continually supported the Zionist state of Israel despite the fact that George Washington wanted America to be a country that HAS NO PASSIONATE ATTACHMENT TO ANY FOREIGN NATION. I would therefore like to remind Americans to be TRUE AMERICANS and to uphold to their founding principles.
رَبَّنَا وَلاَ تُحَمِّلْنَا مَا لاَ طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِ وَاعْفُ عَنَّا وَاغْفِرْ لَنَا وَارْحَمْنَا أَنتَ مَوْلاَنَا فَانصُرْنَا عَلَى الْقَوْمِ الْكَافِرِينَ
http://www.myspace.com/lowkeyuk
"The end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning accomplishments of the past century, but we would not have succeeded without the help of international pressure-- in particular the divestment movement of the 1980s. Over the past six months, a similar movement has taken shape, this time aiming at an end to the Israeli occupation". Desmond Tutu
Action Alert: Gaza photo exhibition threatened with closure
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East sent out this action alert. The video features some of the photos in the exhibit.
Human Drama in Gaza, Photo Exposition, Cinéma du Parc, 3575 Parc Ave., Montreal, Jan. 15 Feb. 28 , 2010
On Monday, Feb. 15th, Cinema du Parc received an email insisting that CJPME’s Photo Exposition, Human Drama in Gaza, be immediately removed from the Cinema. The email was from a legal representative of Gestion Redbourne PDP Inc., the owners of the building housing Cinema du Parc. The Cinema has hosted dozens of expositions in the past three years, and this is the first time that such action has been taken. This move on the part of Redbourne seems entirely political, to muzzle the message of Human Drama in Gaza.
Cinema du Parc has been great partner in the hosting of the Exposition in Montreal.
Human Drama in Gaza, Photo Exposition, Cinéma du Parc, 3575 Parc Ave., Montreal, Jan. 15 Feb. 28 , 2010
On Monday, Feb. 15th, Cinema du Parc received an email insisting that CJPME’s Photo Exposition, Human Drama in Gaza, be immediately removed from the Cinema. The email was from a legal representative of Gestion Redbourne PDP Inc., the owners of the building housing Cinema du Parc. The Cinema has hosted dozens of expositions in the past three years, and this is the first time that such action has been taken. This move on the part of Redbourne seems entirely political, to muzzle the message of Human Drama in Gaza.
Cinema du Parc has been great partner in the hosting of the Exposition in Montreal.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Amir, ten years old, abducted by Israeli soldiers from his bed
Nora Barrows-Friedman writing from Hebron, occupied West Bank, Live from Palestine, 8 March 2010
Amir and his mother just hours before he was abducted by Israeli soldiers. (Nora Barrows-Friedman)
Amir al-Mohtaseb smiled tenderly when I asked him to tell me his favorite color. Sitting in his family's living room last Thursday afternoon, 4 March, in the Old City of Hebron, the ten-year-old boy with freckles and long eyelashes softly replied, "green." He then went on to describe in painful detail his arrest and detention -- and the jailing of his 12-year-old brother Hasan by Israeli occupation soldiers on Sunday, 28 February.
Hours after our interview, at 2am, Israeli soldiers would break into the house, snatch Amir from his bed, threaten his parents with death by gunfire if they tried to protect him, and take him downstairs under the stairwell. They would beat him so badly that he would bleed internally into his abdomen, necessitating overnight hospitalization. In complete shock and distress, Amir would not open his mouth to speak for another day and a half.
In our interview that afternoon before the brutal assault, Amir said that on the 28th, he was playing in the street near the Ibrahimi Mosque, on his way with Hasan to see their aunt.
"Two of the soldiers stopped us and handcuffed us," Amir said. "They brought us to two separate jeeps. They took me to the settlement and put me in a corner. I still had handcuffs on. They put a dog next to me. I said that I wanted to go home. They said no, and told me I would stay here forever. They refused to let me use the bathroom. They wouldn't let me call my mother. They blindfolded me and I stayed there like that until my father was able to come and get me late at night."
Amir's detention inside the settlement lasted nearly ten hours. "The only thing that I thought about was how afraid I was, especially with the dog beside me. I wanted to run away and go back to my house," he said.
Amir and Hasan's mother, Mukarrem, told me that Amir immediately displayed signs of trauma when he returned home. "He was trying to tell me a joke, and trying to laugh. But it was not normal laughter. He was happy and terrified at the same time," she said. "He wet himself at some point during the detention. He was extremely afraid."
Amir revealed that he hadn't been able to sleep in the nights following his detention, worried sick about his brother in jail and extremely afraid that the soldiers would come back (which, eventually, they did). Today, approximately 350 children are languishing inside Israeli prisons and detention camps, enduring interrogation, torture and indefinite sentences, sometimes without charge. The number fluctuates constantly, but thousands of Palestinian children between the ages of 12 and 16 have moved through the Israeli military judicial system over the past decade since the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada. Israel designates 18 as the age of adulthood for its own citizens, but through a military order, and against international law, Israel mandates 16 as the age of adulthood for Palestinians. Additionally, Israel has special military orders (#1644 and #132) to be able to arrest and judge Palestinian children -- termed "juvenile delinquents" -- as young as 12 years old.
"This way, they have a 'legal' cover for what they are doing, even though this is against international laws," said Abed Jamal, a researcher at Defence for Children International-Palestine Section's (DCI-PS) Hebron office. "However, in Amir's case, they broke even their own laws by arresting and detaining him as a ten-year-old boy. These laws are obviously changeable according to Israel's whim. We have yet to see a prosecution for crimes such as these."
I asked Amir and Hasan's father, Fadel, to describe how one is able to parent effectively under this kind of constant siege.
"It's not safe for the children to go outside because we've faced constant attacks by the settlers and the soldiers," he explained. "This by itself is unimaginable for us. And now, we have one son in jail and another traumatized ... they're so young."
On Sunday, 7 March, exactly a week after Hasan's arrest and Amir's detention, the family and members of the local media made an early-morning journey to Ofer prison where Hasan had been held since his initial arrest. After a lengthy process in which the Israeli military judge admitted that the boy was too young to stay in prison, Hasan was released on the condition that he would come back to the court to finish the trial at a later date. This trial followed the initial hearing last Wednesday at Ofer, where Maan News Agency reported that the judge insisted that Fadel pay the court 2,000 shekels ($530) for Hasan's bail. According to Maan, Fadel then publicly asked the court, "What law allows a child to be tried in court and then asks his father to pay a fine? I will not pay the fine, and you have to release my child ... This is the law of Israel's occupation."
Consumed by their sons' situations, Mukarrem and Fadel say they are trying to do the best for their family under attack. "What can we do?" asked Fadel. "We lock the doors. We lock the windows. We have nothing with which to protect our family and our neighbors from the soldiers or the settlers. If a Palestinian kidnapped and beat and jailed an Israeli child, the whole world would be up in arms about it. It would be all over the media. But the Israelis, they come into our communities with jeeps and tanks and bulldozers, they take our children and throw them into prison, and no one cares."
DCI-PS's Jamal reiterates the point that international laws made to protect children under military occupation have been ignored by Israel since the occupation began in 1967. "Most of the time, we try to do our best to use the law, the Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention for the Rights of the Child as weapons against this brutality," said Jamal. "All of these laws exist, but Israel uses their own military laws as excuses to defy international law. As Palestinians, we have to work together to create solidarity against this brutality. Through our work, we try to tell the international community what's going on with Palestinian children to create a wide berth of support against this situation. We believe that the only way this will stop is through the support of the international community."
Amir slowly began speaking again 36 hours after the beating by Israeli soldiers. Zahira Meshaal, a Bethlehem-based social worker specializing in the effects of trauma in children, said that Amir's "elective mutism," a symptom of extreme psychological shock caused by his beating and detention, is a common response, but that it is a good sign that he began talking again. "This is a reaction of fear on many levels. Amir's house and his family are his only source of security," said Meshaal. "This was taken away from him the moment the soldiers invaded his home. It's easy to attend to the immediate trauma, but the long-term effects will undoubtedly be difficult to address. He'll need a lot of mental health services from now on."
Meshaal comments on the nature of this attack in the context of the unraveling situation inside Hebron. "We are talking about a place that is on the front lines of trauma," she said. "This is an ongoing and growing injury to the entire community. Parents have to be a center of security for their children, but that's being taken away from them. Especially in Hebron, the Israeli settlers and soldiers know this, and use this tactic to force people to leave the area. It's a war of psychology. This is a deliberate act to make the children afraid and force people to leave so that their children can feel safer."
At the end of our interview last Thursday, Amir sent a message to American children. "We are kids, just like you. We have the right to play, to move freely. I want to tell the world that there are so many kids inside the Israeli jails. We just want to have freedom of movement, the freedom to play." Amir said that he wants to be a heart surgeon when he grows up. His mother and father told me that they hope Amir's own heart -- and theirs -- heals from last week's repetitive and cumulative trauma at the hands of the interminable Israeli occupation.
Nora Barrows-Friedman is the co-host and Senior Producer of Flashpoints, a daily investigative newsmagazine on Pacifica Radio. She is also a correspondent for Inter Press Service. She regularly reports from Palestine, where she also runs media workshops for youth in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
Amir and his mother just hours before he was abducted by Israeli soldiers. (Nora Barrows-Friedman)
Amir al-Mohtaseb smiled tenderly when I asked him to tell me his favorite color. Sitting in his family's living room last Thursday afternoon, 4 March, in the Old City of Hebron, the ten-year-old boy with freckles and long eyelashes softly replied, "green." He then went on to describe in painful detail his arrest and detention -- and the jailing of his 12-year-old brother Hasan by Israeli occupation soldiers on Sunday, 28 February.
Hours after our interview, at 2am, Israeli soldiers would break into the house, snatch Amir from his bed, threaten his parents with death by gunfire if they tried to protect him, and take him downstairs under the stairwell. They would beat him so badly that he would bleed internally into his abdomen, necessitating overnight hospitalization. In complete shock and distress, Amir would not open his mouth to speak for another day and a half.
In our interview that afternoon before the brutal assault, Amir said that on the 28th, he was playing in the street near the Ibrahimi Mosque, on his way with Hasan to see their aunt.
"Two of the soldiers stopped us and handcuffed us," Amir said. "They brought us to two separate jeeps. They took me to the settlement and put me in a corner. I still had handcuffs on. They put a dog next to me. I said that I wanted to go home. They said no, and told me I would stay here forever. They refused to let me use the bathroom. They wouldn't let me call my mother. They blindfolded me and I stayed there like that until my father was able to come and get me late at night."
Amir's detention inside the settlement lasted nearly ten hours. "The only thing that I thought about was how afraid I was, especially with the dog beside me. I wanted to run away and go back to my house," he said.
Amir and Hasan's mother, Mukarrem, told me that Amir immediately displayed signs of trauma when he returned home. "He was trying to tell me a joke, and trying to laugh. But it was not normal laughter. He was happy and terrified at the same time," she said. "He wet himself at some point during the detention. He was extremely afraid."
Amir revealed that he hadn't been able to sleep in the nights following his detention, worried sick about his brother in jail and extremely afraid that the soldiers would come back (which, eventually, they did). Today, approximately 350 children are languishing inside Israeli prisons and detention camps, enduring interrogation, torture and indefinite sentences, sometimes without charge. The number fluctuates constantly, but thousands of Palestinian children between the ages of 12 and 16 have moved through the Israeli military judicial system over the past decade since the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada. Israel designates 18 as the age of adulthood for its own citizens, but through a military order, and against international law, Israel mandates 16 as the age of adulthood for Palestinians. Additionally, Israel has special military orders (#1644 and #132) to be able to arrest and judge Palestinian children -- termed "juvenile delinquents" -- as young as 12 years old.
"This way, they have a 'legal' cover for what they are doing, even though this is against international laws," said Abed Jamal, a researcher at Defence for Children International-Palestine Section's (DCI-PS) Hebron office. "However, in Amir's case, they broke even their own laws by arresting and detaining him as a ten-year-old boy. These laws are obviously changeable according to Israel's whim. We have yet to see a prosecution for crimes such as these."
I asked Amir and Hasan's father, Fadel, to describe how one is able to parent effectively under this kind of constant siege.
"It's not safe for the children to go outside because we've faced constant attacks by the settlers and the soldiers," he explained. "This by itself is unimaginable for us. And now, we have one son in jail and another traumatized ... they're so young."
On Sunday, 7 March, exactly a week after Hasan's arrest and Amir's detention, the family and members of the local media made an early-morning journey to Ofer prison where Hasan had been held since his initial arrest. After a lengthy process in which the Israeli military judge admitted that the boy was too young to stay in prison, Hasan was released on the condition that he would come back to the court to finish the trial at a later date. This trial followed the initial hearing last Wednesday at Ofer, where Maan News Agency reported that the judge insisted that Fadel pay the court 2,000 shekels ($530) for Hasan's bail. According to Maan, Fadel then publicly asked the court, "What law allows a child to be tried in court and then asks his father to pay a fine? I will not pay the fine, and you have to release my child ... This is the law of Israel's occupation."
Consumed by their sons' situations, Mukarrem and Fadel say they are trying to do the best for their family under attack. "What can we do?" asked Fadel. "We lock the doors. We lock the windows. We have nothing with which to protect our family and our neighbors from the soldiers or the settlers. If a Palestinian kidnapped and beat and jailed an Israeli child, the whole world would be up in arms about it. It would be all over the media. But the Israelis, they come into our communities with jeeps and tanks and bulldozers, they take our children and throw them into prison, and no one cares."
DCI-PS's Jamal reiterates the point that international laws made to protect children under military occupation have been ignored by Israel since the occupation began in 1967. "Most of the time, we try to do our best to use the law, the Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention for the Rights of the Child as weapons against this brutality," said Jamal. "All of these laws exist, but Israel uses their own military laws as excuses to defy international law. As Palestinians, we have to work together to create solidarity against this brutality. Through our work, we try to tell the international community what's going on with Palestinian children to create a wide berth of support against this situation. We believe that the only way this will stop is through the support of the international community."
Amir slowly began speaking again 36 hours after the beating by Israeli soldiers. Zahira Meshaal, a Bethlehem-based social worker specializing in the effects of trauma in children, said that Amir's "elective mutism," a symptom of extreme psychological shock caused by his beating and detention, is a common response, but that it is a good sign that he began talking again. "This is a reaction of fear on many levels. Amir's house and his family are his only source of security," said Meshaal. "This was taken away from him the moment the soldiers invaded his home. It's easy to attend to the immediate trauma, but the long-term effects will undoubtedly be difficult to address. He'll need a lot of mental health services from now on."
Meshaal comments on the nature of this attack in the context of the unraveling situation inside Hebron. "We are talking about a place that is on the front lines of trauma," she said. "This is an ongoing and growing injury to the entire community. Parents have to be a center of security for their children, but that's being taken away from them. Especially in Hebron, the Israeli settlers and soldiers know this, and use this tactic to force people to leave the area. It's a war of psychology. This is a deliberate act to make the children afraid and force people to leave so that their children can feel safer."
At the end of our interview last Thursday, Amir sent a message to American children. "We are kids, just like you. We have the right to play, to move freely. I want to tell the world that there are so many kids inside the Israeli jails. We just want to have freedom of movement, the freedom to play." Amir said that he wants to be a heart surgeon when he grows up. His mother and father told me that they hope Amir's own heart -- and theirs -- heals from last week's repetitive and cumulative trauma at the hands of the interminable Israeli occupation.
Nora Barrows-Friedman is the co-host and Senior Producer of Flashpoints, a daily investigative newsmagazine on Pacifica Radio. She is also a correspondent for Inter Press Service. She regularly reports from Palestine, where she also runs media workshops for youth in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
Interview: "Anything you want, we can bring to the Gaza Strip"
Jody McIntyre writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 10 March 2010
Abu Hanin working in his tunnel on the border with Egypt. (Jody McIntyre)
Jody McIntyre is a journalist from the United Kingdom. He writes a blog entitled "Life on Wheels" which can be found at jodymcintyre.wordpress.com. He can be reached at jody [dot] mcintyre [at] gmail [dot] com.
The siege on Gaza is tightening as the Egyptian government continues construction of an underground steel wall at the Rafah border with Gaza to block the tunnel trade. The tunnels, which journalist Robert Fisk has described as "the lung through which Gaza breathes," are the only means in which most basic goods like food and medicine reach the besieged population in Gaza. Jody McIntyre spoke with Abu Hanin, a Palestinian laborer from Gaza who works in one of the tunnels at the border with Egypt.
Abu Hanin: My name is Abu Hanin, I am 29 years old, from Rafah, on the Palestinian side, and I work in the tunnels. I am married, with five daughters and one son, and my wife is now pregnant with twins, so after that we'll be ten overall.
Jody McIntyre: Do you talk to your family before you go out to work?
AH: They say to me every morning, "We hope you come back safe and sound," because they know where I am going out to work. When I leave my wife, I see tears in her eyes, and when I get back, I see happiness. It's like going out to fight a war, every day.
JM: Why are you working in the tunnels?
AH: Because of the dire situation this is the only work here. There is no way to live but from the tunnels. Every day you leave your home, without guaranteeing that you'll be back. You're working while being surrounded by death ... you are digging your tomb with your own hands.
JM: How are the tunnels built?
AH: They are all built with our own hands. The tunnels range from 7 to 35 meters in depth. After you dig down, you draw your line to Egypt. You determine the width, usually one to three meters, and the distances, usually a kilometer but sometimes 200 to 300 meters ... however you like, you can build it!
JM: What goods do you bring in through the tunnels?
AH: Anything you want, we can bring to the Gaza Strip. Everyone knows about the smuggling that happens here; we smuggle animals, water, cars ... and even people, for example, if someone wants to come to get married. I'm serious!
Most of the goods come from al-Arish. You are deemed as a "smuggler" -- you are not working at [Israeli-controlled] Erez or Karni crossing, so you are not an official worker, you are a smuggler. So the people in al-Arish bring the goods to the entrance of the tunnel on the Egyptian side, quickly sneak them in, and we bring them over to Gaza.
The tunnels for the cars are so expensive to build, because it has to be three meters wide, [and as tall] as if you are walking in a room. Imagine that you are walking in a room, that is 1.5 kilometers under the ground, and then imagine how much that costs to build.
You may be shocked, but we have brought in camels. Imagine the size of a camel! We put the animal on a sled-like contraption, and it rides into the tunnel down a slope. We have lamps in the tunnel, and every time we turn a lamp off, the animal will walk forward towards the next light, until it reaches the well at the other end. Then we handcuff the animal, and bring it up -- this part really is quite perilous ... people have lost their legs. Donkeys are the most lethal.
JM: How many tunnels are there overall?
AH: It's difficult to know exactly ... but I'd say around 1,250. It's funny to think that every stride you take around here, there are different tunnels underneath you!
JM: Isn't it dangerous to have so many clustered together?
AH: No, on the contrary, it can work to our advantage, because if any sand collapses, we can cross over into a neighboring tunnel. If people get stuck in their tunnel, we can dig across into another tunnel and help them out, otherwise they would suffocate from lack of oxygen. We have learned that oxygen stays for 12 hours in the soil, so after that has passed you need to get out.
JM: What equipment do you have in the tunnels?
AH: We have electricity. Oxygen, we don't care about so much -- now, we are so used to being suffocated all the time, that we don't like to be up in the open air! We prefer to spend most of our time down in the tunnels. We also have an intercom system so that we can talk with each other, lamps so that we can see and water, tea and instant coffee to drink ... it's like a whole different life under the ground.
JM: Apparently, before the siege of Gaza was tightened in 2006, wages were higher for tunnel laborers?
AH: Yes, that is true. Wages for tunnel laborers have dropped by a third. Now, there is more demand, more tunnels and more laborers. There were tens of tunnels, now there are hundreds, and on top of that thousands of laborers. We work in two shifts, each tunnel needs around 30 workers for the day shift, and another 30 for the night. One shift to take the goods down on one side, and one to drag them up at the other side.
JM: The work must take a lot of energy, so how do the older laborers cope?
AH: All the guys over 35 years of age work at the surface of the tunnels, to collect the goods and transfer them to the vehicles. But underground you need to have young, agile guys. The exit of the tunnel in Egypt is like a bomb; you have to open the trap door, quickly get all the goods in and then close the door as quickly as possible, because if the police see us it would be a complete disaster.
JM: How many people have died working in the tunnels?
AH: Many people have died ... every month there are more casualties in the tunnels from Israeli air strikes. We are dealing with fear like a nightmare, a nightmare that rains down on you 24 hours a day. Every day you are working in the tunnels, you are wondering if you will get out alive. Many times the sand has collapsed ... death is inevitable from this kind of work.
JM: Is the Egyptian government pressurizing you by building the steel wall?
AH: Of course, but our guys can find a solution. Nothing will prevent us ... this is our only source of life!
JM: How will the steel wall affect the tunnels?
AH: The Egyptians are digging underground in order to establish this steel wall. After digging, they pour sand, and then pour iron, making a structure 28 meters in length ... it's the same structures that the Israelis previously built in Gaza. It consists of layers, layer after layer, until it is fixed in the ground. However, the tunnels are not a new project, and many are still not affected, some old men have built cities under this ground.
The thing we are afraid of now is that the Egyptians will supply the iron with electricity, making a lethal electric fence, and add sensors to flood the land below, which would make our mission impossible. The Egyptians are more clever than the Americans and Israelis put together ... in order to satisfy them, they will destroy 50 kilometers of land to establish this "electric water pool!"
JM: Will it be easy to penetrate the steel wall?
AH: God willing, because the tunnels were dug by the hands of our ancestors, not us. If they could build these tunnels with their bare hands, then we will not be stopped be a steel wall, we will cut down the wall! Even if they put water, electricity, even if they put human beings down there to stop our tunnels, we will evade them! You know why? Because this is our only source of life left.
JM: Have the tunnels been beneficial for Egyptians?
AH: Very much so ... I went there with the owner of this tunnel, and the laborers from Egypt take home $1,000 dollars. Imagine a normal Egyptian makes 5-10 pounds ($1-2) a day from work, and the tunnel workers are making 550 pounds a day. To them it is unbelievable, the tunnels have made them rich. The factories, the shopkeepers ... they have all benefited from the tunnels.
There are 80 million Egyptians and we are only 1.5 million, but we have greatly influenced their economy because there is such a high rate of unemployment in Egypt, and each tunnel creates 30 to 50 new jobs.
JM: Would you ever leave this job for alternative employment?
AH: Now, frankly, no. Even if the wages dropped, the tunnel work is in our blood now. Even if there is no work we still go down into the tunnels. We get accustomed to this life.
JM: How do you see your future?
AH: I don't have a future. As it is, there is no future in Gaza. I go across the entire width of Gaza on my motorcycle in 20 minutes. How can you see a future from within a box of matches? I take my sons from the house to school and back ... they are so fed up. We will live and die with the same routine. There are some people who feel afraid of working in the tunnels, so they only have the walls of their home and their UNRWA [the UN agency for Palestine refugees] card to protect them. This is Gaza.
Abu Hanin working in his tunnel on the border with Egypt. (Jody McIntyre)
Jody McIntyre is a journalist from the United Kingdom. He writes a blog entitled "Life on Wheels" which can be found at jodymcintyre.wordpress.com. He can be reached at jody [dot] mcintyre [at] gmail [dot] com.
The siege on Gaza is tightening as the Egyptian government continues construction of an underground steel wall at the Rafah border with Gaza to block the tunnel trade. The tunnels, which journalist Robert Fisk has described as "the lung through which Gaza breathes," are the only means in which most basic goods like food and medicine reach the besieged population in Gaza. Jody McIntyre spoke with Abu Hanin, a Palestinian laborer from Gaza who works in one of the tunnels at the border with Egypt.
Abu Hanin: My name is Abu Hanin, I am 29 years old, from Rafah, on the Palestinian side, and I work in the tunnels. I am married, with five daughters and one son, and my wife is now pregnant with twins, so after that we'll be ten overall.
Jody McIntyre: Do you talk to your family before you go out to work?
AH: They say to me every morning, "We hope you come back safe and sound," because they know where I am going out to work. When I leave my wife, I see tears in her eyes, and when I get back, I see happiness. It's like going out to fight a war, every day.
JM: Why are you working in the tunnels?
AH: Because of the dire situation this is the only work here. There is no way to live but from the tunnels. Every day you leave your home, without guaranteeing that you'll be back. You're working while being surrounded by death ... you are digging your tomb with your own hands.
JM: How are the tunnels built?
AH: They are all built with our own hands. The tunnels range from 7 to 35 meters in depth. After you dig down, you draw your line to Egypt. You determine the width, usually one to three meters, and the distances, usually a kilometer but sometimes 200 to 300 meters ... however you like, you can build it!
JM: What goods do you bring in through the tunnels?
AH: Anything you want, we can bring to the Gaza Strip. Everyone knows about the smuggling that happens here; we smuggle animals, water, cars ... and even people, for example, if someone wants to come to get married. I'm serious!
Most of the goods come from al-Arish. You are deemed as a "smuggler" -- you are not working at [Israeli-controlled] Erez or Karni crossing, so you are not an official worker, you are a smuggler. So the people in al-Arish bring the goods to the entrance of the tunnel on the Egyptian side, quickly sneak them in, and we bring them over to Gaza.
The tunnels for the cars are so expensive to build, because it has to be three meters wide, [and as tall] as if you are walking in a room. Imagine that you are walking in a room, that is 1.5 kilometers under the ground, and then imagine how much that costs to build.
You may be shocked, but we have brought in camels. Imagine the size of a camel! We put the animal on a sled-like contraption, and it rides into the tunnel down a slope. We have lamps in the tunnel, and every time we turn a lamp off, the animal will walk forward towards the next light, until it reaches the well at the other end. Then we handcuff the animal, and bring it up -- this part really is quite perilous ... people have lost their legs. Donkeys are the most lethal.
JM: How many tunnels are there overall?
AH: It's difficult to know exactly ... but I'd say around 1,250. It's funny to think that every stride you take around here, there are different tunnels underneath you!
JM: Isn't it dangerous to have so many clustered together?
AH: No, on the contrary, it can work to our advantage, because if any sand collapses, we can cross over into a neighboring tunnel. If people get stuck in their tunnel, we can dig across into another tunnel and help them out, otherwise they would suffocate from lack of oxygen. We have learned that oxygen stays for 12 hours in the soil, so after that has passed you need to get out.
JM: What equipment do you have in the tunnels?
AH: We have electricity. Oxygen, we don't care about so much -- now, we are so used to being suffocated all the time, that we don't like to be up in the open air! We prefer to spend most of our time down in the tunnels. We also have an intercom system so that we can talk with each other, lamps so that we can see and water, tea and instant coffee to drink ... it's like a whole different life under the ground.
JM: Apparently, before the siege of Gaza was tightened in 2006, wages were higher for tunnel laborers?
AH: Yes, that is true. Wages for tunnel laborers have dropped by a third. Now, there is more demand, more tunnels and more laborers. There were tens of tunnels, now there are hundreds, and on top of that thousands of laborers. We work in two shifts, each tunnel needs around 30 workers for the day shift, and another 30 for the night. One shift to take the goods down on one side, and one to drag them up at the other side.
JM: The work must take a lot of energy, so how do the older laborers cope?
AH: All the guys over 35 years of age work at the surface of the tunnels, to collect the goods and transfer them to the vehicles. But underground you need to have young, agile guys. The exit of the tunnel in Egypt is like a bomb; you have to open the trap door, quickly get all the goods in and then close the door as quickly as possible, because if the police see us it would be a complete disaster.
JM: How many people have died working in the tunnels?
AH: Many people have died ... every month there are more casualties in the tunnels from Israeli air strikes. We are dealing with fear like a nightmare, a nightmare that rains down on you 24 hours a day. Every day you are working in the tunnels, you are wondering if you will get out alive. Many times the sand has collapsed ... death is inevitable from this kind of work.
JM: Is the Egyptian government pressurizing you by building the steel wall?
AH: Of course, but our guys can find a solution. Nothing will prevent us ... this is our only source of life!
JM: How will the steel wall affect the tunnels?
AH: The Egyptians are digging underground in order to establish this steel wall. After digging, they pour sand, and then pour iron, making a structure 28 meters in length ... it's the same structures that the Israelis previously built in Gaza. It consists of layers, layer after layer, until it is fixed in the ground. However, the tunnels are not a new project, and many are still not affected, some old men have built cities under this ground.
The thing we are afraid of now is that the Egyptians will supply the iron with electricity, making a lethal electric fence, and add sensors to flood the land below, which would make our mission impossible. The Egyptians are more clever than the Americans and Israelis put together ... in order to satisfy them, they will destroy 50 kilometers of land to establish this "electric water pool!"
JM: Will it be easy to penetrate the steel wall?
AH: God willing, because the tunnels were dug by the hands of our ancestors, not us. If they could build these tunnels with their bare hands, then we will not be stopped be a steel wall, we will cut down the wall! Even if they put water, electricity, even if they put human beings down there to stop our tunnels, we will evade them! You know why? Because this is our only source of life left.
JM: Have the tunnels been beneficial for Egyptians?
AH: Very much so ... I went there with the owner of this tunnel, and the laborers from Egypt take home $1,000 dollars. Imagine a normal Egyptian makes 5-10 pounds ($1-2) a day from work, and the tunnel workers are making 550 pounds a day. To them it is unbelievable, the tunnels have made them rich. The factories, the shopkeepers ... they have all benefited from the tunnels.
There are 80 million Egyptians and we are only 1.5 million, but we have greatly influenced their economy because there is such a high rate of unemployment in Egypt, and each tunnel creates 30 to 50 new jobs.
JM: Would you ever leave this job for alternative employment?
AH: Now, frankly, no. Even if the wages dropped, the tunnel work is in our blood now. Even if there is no work we still go down into the tunnels. We get accustomed to this life.
JM: How do you see your future?
AH: I don't have a future. As it is, there is no future in Gaza. I go across the entire width of Gaza on my motorcycle in 20 minutes. How can you see a future from within a box of matches? I take my sons from the house to school and back ... they are so fed up. We will live and die with the same routine. There are some people who feel afraid of working in the tunnels, so they only have the walls of their home and their UNRWA [the UN agency for Palestine refugees] card to protect them. This is Gaza.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Building international solidarity during Israeli Apartheid Week
Ilaria Giglioli, The Electronic Intifada, 1 March 2010
(Israeli Apartheid Week)
Ilaria Giglioli is an IAW organizer at the University of Toronto.
In March 2005, a group of activists from the Arab Student Collective at the University of Toronto launched the first Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). The aim of the week was two-fold. On one hand, it sought to break the wall of silence and misrepresentation around what was happening in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip at the time of the second Palestinian intifada. On the other hand, it aimed to situate direct military violence against Palestinians within the broader context of Israel's apartheid policies. Focusing on the broader system of Israeli apartheid allowed activists to link the construction of the Apartheid Wall in the occupied West Bank, settler violence and home demolitions to a broader system which systematically discriminated against the civil and political rights of Palestinian citizens in Israel, or 1948 Palestinians, and denied the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland.
Six years later, IAW is taking place in more than 40 cities in five continents, and is a key event in the yearly calendar of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, launched by more than 170 Palestinian civil society organizations on 9 July 2005. Outside its North American and European centers, IAW is also taking place in South Africa, Palestine, Lebanon and Australia. South African anti-apartheid activists have played a key role in the promotion of IAW, including former African National Congress member Ronnie Kasrils who opened IAW in London, New York and Toronto in 2009.
Situating the Palestinian struggle in the context of anti-racist and anti-colonialist movements has also allowed strong alliances to be forged at the local level. In Canada, for instance, IAW has worked to build solidarity with First Nations communities, and is endorsed by a broad base of progressive organizations. This focus is also reflected in the themes tackled during the week itself. In Toronto, for example, the 2010 IAW program includes a night focusing on the environmental costs of apartheid, another on queer solidarity activism in the anti-apartheid movement and one on "Fighting Racism, Fighting Apartheid." Overall, IAW has become an arena to promote a broad anti-colonial and anti-racist vision and to build solidarity between movements working towards this vision and resisting settler colonialism throughout the world.
Forming these types of alliances has been important to resist attempts to shut down IAW. These are not limited to harassment and verbal abuse by Zionist groups on campuses; over the years, organizers have faced ongoing institutional harassment, including last-minute cancellation of room bookings and the banning of Apartheid Week materials. In fall 2008, for instance, room bookings for an IAW organizing conference in Toronto were cancelled on short notice by the university under pressure of local Zionist groups. Similarly, in March 2009, the University of Pisa, Italy, denied university venues to IAW organizers. In the same year, the poster for the 5th International Israeli Apartheid Week was banned at Carleton University in Ottawa and Trent University in Peterborough.
IAW has also been the object of investigation by the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA), a highly contentious initiative that has been defined by the Canadian Independent Jewish Voices as an "attempt to attack free speech and silence criticism of the Israeli government's oppressive and illegal policies" and "to label criticism of Israel and its behavior, as well as organized efforts to change them, as anti-Semitic and to criminalize both."
Attempts at shutting down IAW on campuses are in line with growing efforts of the Israeli government to crush the BDS movement. To the present time, this crackdown has primarily targeted Palestinian grassroots activists within the occupied West Bank, including Mohammad Othman Jamal Juma' from the Stop the Wall Campaign, recently released from prison.
However, a recent report published by the Reut Institute, an Israeli think tank, and presented at the 10th Herzliya Conference in February 2010 identifies a global campaign of "delegitimization" of Israel -- which includes the BDS movement and IAW -- as one that "is effective, possesses strategic significance, and may develop into a comprehensive existential threat within a few years." As such, it also underlines the need for Israel to engage in a substantial diplomatic counter-effort to sabotage the movement.
While this means that organizers will face increasing obstacles in the coming years, it also testifies to the growing strength of the BDS movement, which has reached fundamental targets in the last year, including the divestment of the Norwegian state pension fund from Israeli military contractor Elbit Systems in September 2009. On university campuses, the year 2009 marked the first campus-based divestment, as on 7 February the Board of Trustees at Hampshire College in the United States divested from six Israeli companies directly involved in human rights violations against Palestinians. Similar divestment campaigns have been launched on various university campuses, including Carleton University in Ottawa. Last year also saw the Canadian Union of Public Employees pass a motion in support of the boycott at its provincial meeting in Windsor.
It is in this context that the 6th International Israeli Apartheid Week is centered around "Solidarity in Action: Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions," celebrating the achievements of the past five years and preparing the next ones. A diverse program of events -- lectures, demonstrations, film screenings and other cultural activities -- will take place throughout the world between 1-14 March 2010.
(Israeli Apartheid Week)
Ilaria Giglioli is an IAW organizer at the University of Toronto.
In March 2005, a group of activists from the Arab Student Collective at the University of Toronto launched the first Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). The aim of the week was two-fold. On one hand, it sought to break the wall of silence and misrepresentation around what was happening in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip at the time of the second Palestinian intifada. On the other hand, it aimed to situate direct military violence against Palestinians within the broader context of Israel's apartheid policies. Focusing on the broader system of Israeli apartheid allowed activists to link the construction of the Apartheid Wall in the occupied West Bank, settler violence and home demolitions to a broader system which systematically discriminated against the civil and political rights of Palestinian citizens in Israel, or 1948 Palestinians, and denied the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland.
Six years later, IAW is taking place in more than 40 cities in five continents, and is a key event in the yearly calendar of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, launched by more than 170 Palestinian civil society organizations on 9 July 2005. Outside its North American and European centers, IAW is also taking place in South Africa, Palestine, Lebanon and Australia. South African anti-apartheid activists have played a key role in the promotion of IAW, including former African National Congress member Ronnie Kasrils who opened IAW in London, New York and Toronto in 2009.
Situating the Palestinian struggle in the context of anti-racist and anti-colonialist movements has also allowed strong alliances to be forged at the local level. In Canada, for instance, IAW has worked to build solidarity with First Nations communities, and is endorsed by a broad base of progressive organizations. This focus is also reflected in the themes tackled during the week itself. In Toronto, for example, the 2010 IAW program includes a night focusing on the environmental costs of apartheid, another on queer solidarity activism in the anti-apartheid movement and one on "Fighting Racism, Fighting Apartheid." Overall, IAW has become an arena to promote a broad anti-colonial and anti-racist vision and to build solidarity between movements working towards this vision and resisting settler colonialism throughout the world.
Forming these types of alliances has been important to resist attempts to shut down IAW. These are not limited to harassment and verbal abuse by Zionist groups on campuses; over the years, organizers have faced ongoing institutional harassment, including last-minute cancellation of room bookings and the banning of Apartheid Week materials. In fall 2008, for instance, room bookings for an IAW organizing conference in Toronto were cancelled on short notice by the university under pressure of local Zionist groups. Similarly, in March 2009, the University of Pisa, Italy, denied university venues to IAW organizers. In the same year, the poster for the 5th International Israeli Apartheid Week was banned at Carleton University in Ottawa and Trent University in Peterborough.
IAW has also been the object of investigation by the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA), a highly contentious initiative that has been defined by the Canadian Independent Jewish Voices as an "attempt to attack free speech and silence criticism of the Israeli government's oppressive and illegal policies" and "to label criticism of Israel and its behavior, as well as organized efforts to change them, as anti-Semitic and to criminalize both."
Attempts at shutting down IAW on campuses are in line with growing efforts of the Israeli government to crush the BDS movement. To the present time, this crackdown has primarily targeted Palestinian grassroots activists within the occupied West Bank, including Mohammad Othman Jamal Juma' from the Stop the Wall Campaign, recently released from prison.
However, a recent report published by the Reut Institute, an Israeli think tank, and presented at the 10th Herzliya Conference in February 2010 identifies a global campaign of "delegitimization" of Israel -- which includes the BDS movement and IAW -- as one that "is effective, possesses strategic significance, and may develop into a comprehensive existential threat within a few years." As such, it also underlines the need for Israel to engage in a substantial diplomatic counter-effort to sabotage the movement.
While this means that organizers will face increasing obstacles in the coming years, it also testifies to the growing strength of the BDS movement, which has reached fundamental targets in the last year, including the divestment of the Norwegian state pension fund from Israeli military contractor Elbit Systems in September 2009. On university campuses, the year 2009 marked the first campus-based divestment, as on 7 February the Board of Trustees at Hampshire College in the United States divested from six Israeli companies directly involved in human rights violations against Palestinians. Similar divestment campaigns have been launched on various university campuses, including Carleton University in Ottawa. Last year also saw the Canadian Union of Public Employees pass a motion in support of the boycott at its provincial meeting in Windsor.
It is in this context that the 6th International Israeli Apartheid Week is centered around "Solidarity in Action: Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions," celebrating the achievements of the past five years and preparing the next ones. A diverse program of events -- lectures, demonstrations, film screenings and other cultural activities -- will take place throughout the world between 1-14 March 2010.
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