Hundreds of Palestinians Declare Hunger Strike

By DALIA NAMMARI
Associated Press
RAMALLAH, West Bank
April 17, 2012 (AP)

Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel launched a hunger strike on Tuesday, officials said, protesting their conditions and demanding an end to detentions without trial as the Palestinians marked their annual day of solidarity with the inmates.

Some 3,500 prisoners refused meals on "Prisoners' Day," and 1,200 of them said they would continue with an open-ended hunger strike, according to Israeli prison service spokeswoman Sivan Weizman.
The hunger strike is one of the largest on record, said Sahar Francis of Addameer, a prisoner rights group.
Although it remained unclear how many will continue with the protest, they join 10 other Palestinian prisoners already on hunger strike, including two who have been hospitalized after refusing food for more than 40 days, she said.

The days' activities, which included protests throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, coincided with the scheduled release of the longest hunger striker in Palestinian history.
Khader Adnan, who didn't eat for 66 days, was set to be freed later Tuesday as part of a deal reached with Israel.

Adnan, a spokesman of the violent Islamic Jihad group, called his strike to protest Israel's policy of "administrative detention," in which Palestinians can be sentenced to months or years behind bars by military courts without being charged. In February, Israel agreed to release him at the end of his detention in exchange for ending the hunger strike.

"He began the first step for the rest of the prisoners," said his wife, Randa, referring to Tuesday's hunger strike.

In his West Bank hometown of Arrabeh, well-wishers decked posters of Adnan on the streets, and the family prepared to slaughter a sheep in his honor.

The fate of the prisoners held by Israel is one of the most emotional issues in Palestinian society. Their crimes range from throwing stones to deadly militant attacks. They are generally seen as heroes — even when their crimes have involved killing Israeli civilians.

In demonstrations in the Palestinian areas, hundreds of people held framed pictures of their loved ones in prison and waved the flags of different Palestinian political factions.

At a military prison near Jerusalem, Palestinian youths hurled rocks at Israeli forces, who fired back rounds of tear gas and pellets. No injuries were reported.

There are some 4,000 Palestinians currently in Israeli jails, said Francis, including some 300 in administrative detention. The striking prisoners are demanding an end to such detentions, solitary confinement and to allow Gaza families to visit prisoners held in Israel.

The largest Palestinian prisoner strike was in 2004, when some 10,000 prisoners refused food, many of them for 17 days, Francis said.
———
Associated Press writers Daniella Cheslow in Jerusalem and Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City contributed to this report.

Bewildered fly-in activist makes it to Bethlehem

Fly-in organizer says those who made it past security did not tell airport passport control why they arrived. Photo: REUTERS

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
The Jerusalem Post
04/16/2012 01:31

By accident Tanya slipped passed 650 police officers at Ben-Gurion Airport – determined to bar her entry to Israel – and made it to the West Bank Palestinian city of Bethlehem.

The young petite woman, with her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, seemed surprised to be standing there, let alone talking with a room full of reporters.
Related:

“I do not know why I am here, but I am here,” said Tanya. Although she is a French citizen, she spoke in English and did not give her last name.

She was one of an estimated 12 members of the “Welcome to Palestine” event who actually made it to Bethlehem. Close to 2,000 activists were expected to try to fly into Ben-Gurion and announce that they had come to visit Palestine.

On Sunday, as of press time, only hundreds had participated, and many of them were barred from boarding flights in their home countries after Israel sent the airlines a blacklist with 500 names. Some 60 activists were detained upon arrival.

Tanya, who wore a blue shirt and a gray sweatshirt, described how she had been part of a group of 25 pro- Palestinian French activists who flew from Geneva to Tel Aviv.

“I was one of the last to get off the plane. There were a lot of police officers. I saw a lot of people who were on the flight and who I am friends with,” she said.

After that, she explained, it was very confusing. People spoke with her in Hebrew, but she didn’t understand them. They kept wanting her to move from one place to another and she never was able to explain to them why she had arrived.

“They said, ‘follow this man.’ Then they said, ‘follow this woman.’ So I followed. I ended up outside the building. There were two buses and a lot of people. They were staring at me. Someone said I had to be on a particular bus,” she said.

So she got on that bus and before she knew it, she was outside Terminal 3.

“It is important to be here because we should all have the right to come to Palestine and to meet Palestinian people. We should fight for what we believe is right,” she said.

Tanya was among the lucky activists. Palestinian organizer Mazin Qumsiyeh said that the dozen who made it to Bethlehem did not tell passport control why they arrived.

In Istanbul, another group of 50 French citizens were not as lucky. They flew Turkish Airlines believing it would not cede to a request by Israel not to board passengers participating in the event, which has been dubbed the fly-in or the flytilla.

Initially, their tactic appeared to work, as they easily left Paris.

But according to French pro-Palestinian activist Olivia Zemore, 63, who heads the delegation, they were stopped in Istanbul, when they tried to board a 12:40 p.m. flight for Tel Aviv.

She spoke with The Jerusalem Post from her cellphone, close to press time, while she was still in the airport, but was hopeful that she had a seat on a flight back to Paris on Monday.

“We have been squatting here to protest and to get our money back. We wanted a piece of paper stating that we were denied boarding, and we finally got it,” she said. “Now we are asking Turkish Airlines to pay our return ticket.” It appeared, she added, that the airline had agreed to do this.

“I think the Israeli government is just crazy because it would have been easy to let us go to Bethlehem,” she said, and explained that among the activities they planned to participate in was to build a school.

Zemor, who heads the Euro Palestine group and who is a member of the BDS movement, had been vocal before the trip about her intention to participate in the flytilla.

She had been hopeful that she would be allowed to enter Israel, even though she attempted to participate in the same event last July and was barred from boarding a plane at the airport in Paris.

Last year Belgian citizen Myriam De Ly, 60, flew to Israel in the July Welcome to Palestine event.

When she landed, she was stopped at passport control, taken to a nearby prison and deported after four days.

On Saturday, the airline and the Belgian Foreign Ministry informed her that her ticket to Israel had been canceled.

Still, she was among 60 Belgian citizens who went to the airport with their luggage at 5:30 a.m. in hopes that they would still be able to board their flights on Lufthansa and Swiss Air.

“One by one they said we could not check in,” she said. None of the group was allowed to board, she explained.

When they refused to leave the airport and protested the police were called.

“They intervened violently, and they tried to take us out, one by one,” she said.

But not everyone on a list of 500 names blacklisted by Israel were activists.

Among those kept from boarding was former banker Jules Troxler, 62, who described himself as pro-Israel. He left his home in Zurich at 6:30 a.m. only to discover that he could not fly to visit an ailing friend because he was blacklisted.

He was startled, he said, but not totally surprised, because his friend had warned him that there might be trouble because of the flytilla.

But the airline never explained to him why his ticket was canceled. Additionally, all of his attempts to reason with Swiss Air, he said, failed. The trip, Troxler said, had been planned for two years.

“We were going to go to the Dead Sea for two days. I especially wanted to come at this time of year because it is not so hot,” he said.

“I guess I booked the wrong day,” he added.

Ben Hartman contributed to this report.

Press Release from the Welcome to Palestine Campaign

[HumanRights] Press Release from WTP2012
From: Mazin Qumsiyeh

We did not have to show our 1500 visitors Israeli racism, arrogance, and
human rights violations; the Israeli government showed them and also showed
the whole world.  Calling itself a democracy, this outlaw state denied the
right of people from around the world to come visit us and see for
themselves the reality of life under occupation.

We the Palestinian people are 11 million normal human beings, 7 million are
refugees or displaced people simply because they are natives to a land that
was wanted for a Jewish state.  Five million of us are living in
increasingly shrinking ghettos on a tiny fraction of our land.  We remain
here despite an illegal and brutal occupation that includes land
confiscation, movement restrictions, home demolitions, illegal imprisonment
of thousands (many now on hunger strike), and countless other inhuman
conditions. We did not expect from this occupation that daily violates
human rights to also allow us as prisoners under its boot to openly and
honestly receive visitors.  These visitors who wanted to come and see what
reality is like here certainly were shocked at the Israeli behavior.  And
those who wanted to welcome our visitors and were brutally assaulted will
remember how the same Israeli police let right wing fanatics sing and
disrupt at the airport.  The whole world is now seeing Israel for what it
is: a police state that fulfills all the requirements of being an apartheid
pariah state per the International Convention on the Suppression and
Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973).

Countries that once supported Apartheid in South Africa had people who
mobilized against it.  Now people of conscience mobilize to challenge this
apartheid that is now so explicitly expressed.

Those airlines and governments that acted as subcontractors for the Israeli
apartheid regime are being challenged by their own people.  In denying
boarding to a passenger by Air France, the airline documented that she
cannot board because she is neither Jewish or Israeli! (see in french
http://wtp2france.palestinejn.org, English:
http://palestinianspring.palestinejn.org)

In claiming in writing that we called for disruptions and for challenging
"security" of Israel, the Israeli government was exposed as lying.  In
forcing a Swedish passenger (unrelated to our campaign) to sign that he was
not going to meet with any "pro-Palestinian" individuals or groups, the
Israeli government was shown to be racist.  Imagine if a similar
requirement was posted to visitors to any other country about visiting or
meeting with "pro-black" individuals or organizations.  In sending a letter
to that claims activists should worry about Iran and Syria before worrying
about this system of apartheid, the Israeli government showed the
bankruptcy of its arguments.  In denying us the right to visit, the Israeli
government showed the world that it has a lot to hide.

For examples of participant profiles of those denied their right to visit
us in Palestine, visit
http://www.welcometopalestine.info/index.php/participant-profiles-uk-us

At the end of our press conference in Bethlehem, we passed out Easter
colored eggs.  We Palestinian Christian and Muslims are grateful to all who
act on their conscience, Internationals, Israelis, and Palestinian
volunteers.  Thousands of us say loud and clear: we will not be silenced,
we will continue to organize campaigns until we have freedom and until
Israel complies with all relevant International and Humanitarian laws.

Contact email: media@palestinejn.org
Contact phone numbers in languages: Arabic, English. French, Spanish, Hebrew
0599255573 (A, E, F)
0568347074 (A, E, S)
0598939532 ((A, E)
0505633044 (A, E, H)

Welcome to Palestine 2012 Campaign websites
http://bienvenuepalestine.com
http://palestinianspring.palestinejn.org
http://www.righttoenter.ps
http://welcometopalestine.info
http://bienvenidosapalestina.jimdo.com/
http://bienvenuepalestine.ca/

English: http://palestinianspring.palestinejn.org
Arabic: http://wtp2arabic.palestinejn.org
Spanish: http://wtp2spain.palestinejn.org
French: http://wtp2spain.palestinejn.org
Swedish: http://wtp2sweden.palestinejn.org
Norwegian: http://wtp2norway.palestinejn.org

Israeli police arrest fly-in activists

Israeli police officers are deployed at the Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, April 15, 2012. Israel deployed hundreds of police Sunday at its main airport to detain activists flying in to protest the country's occupation of Palestinian areas, defying vigorous Israeli government efforts to block their arrival. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

  
By AMY TEIBEL
The Associated Press
 April 15, 2012 08:26 AM EDT

JERUSALEM — Israel deployed hundreds of police Sunday at its main airport to detain activists flying in to protest the country's occupation of Palestinian areas in defiance of vigorous Israeli government efforts to block their arrival.

At mid-afternoon, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said a total of 27 activists had landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport. All were denied entry and were to be placed on return flights, he said. Hundreds more were expected throughout the day.

Four Israeli supporters of the fly-in were arrested for causing a disturbance at the main airport terminal after unfurling a banner bearing the protest's theme, "Welcome to Palestine," Rosenfeld said.

Israel is jittery about the prospect of large numbers of protesters arriving because of deadly confrontations with pro-Palestinian activists in the past, notably a naval raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in May 2010. The activists participating in the fly-in say all planned activities, such as planting trees in the West Bank, are non-violent and accuse Israel of being unnecessarily heavyhanded.

The effect of the protest was diluted by airlines that canceled the reservations of at least 100 known activists, and perhaps hundreds more, under pressure from Israel.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad said Israel had sent a list of suspected activists to international airlines, asking the carriers to block them from boarding Israel-bound flights. It warned the airlines they would have to cover the cost of the activists' return flights, and threatened unspecified sanctions on airlines if they did not comply, she said.

One of the protest's organizers, Amira Mussalam, said that as of midday, no activists had managed to get out of the airport and make their way to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai said the government "will make sure that everyone who wants to provoke is returned home and the rest will be allowed to enter Israel."

Activists who had been barred from flying to Tel Aviv from airports in Paris and Brussels staged impromptu protests, and Israel Radio reported that activists in Geneva had their passports confiscated.

The protest is meant to draw attention to how Israel controls access into Palestinian areas. The Palestinians claim the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, all captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for their future state.

Visitors can only reach the West Bank through Israeli-controlled land crossings or Israeli airports, though at any given time, hundreds of foreigners, including activists, are in the territory, which Israel captured in 1967.

Travelers headed for Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank often report being detained and questioned, sometimes for hours, by Israeli border authorities.

As a result, some lie about their intended destination within the West Bank, where 300,000 Jews live in more than 120 settlements alongside 2.4 million Palestinians.

Mussalam, the organizer, said participants were told not to hide their intentions. "The aim of 'Welcome to Palestine' is when we have guests coming to Palestine — to Ramallah, Hebron, to Bethlehem, they should be able to say we are going to Palestine and not to lie," Mussalam said.

Israel restricts access to the border crossing with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers. Some 1.6 million Palestinians live there.

Last July, Israel blocked a similar fly-in effort by preventing dozens from boarding Tel Aviv-bound flights in Europe and denying entry to 69.

Asked why Israeli authorities consider this particular group of activists a threat, police spokesman Rosenfeld replied that they have "security backgrounds" or were "involved previously in different activities," including "security issues concerning Israel."

He would not elaborate.

Some Israelis accused the government of overreacting to the activists' campaign.

"Instead of waiting to present the crackpot activists with flowers, putting them on buses and leading them directly to their destination in Bethlehem, the heads of the defense establishment and security forces have once again lost their minds," columnist Eitan Haber wrote in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper. "We are only goading the plotters into planning actions that the state of Israel has no response to."

German writer Guenter Grass barred from entering Israel

BBC News
8 April 2012
Last updated at 10:07 ET

Guenter Grass' poem has infuriated the Israeli government and has been condemned in Germany

Israel has declared the German author Guenter Grass "persona non grata" and barred him from entering the country.

Grass, a Nobel laureate, recently criticised Israel in a poem.
In it, Grass condemned German arms sales to Israel, and said the Jewish state must not be allowed to launch military strikes against Iran.

Israeli interior minister Eli Yishai says Grass is not welcome because he has tried "to inflame hatred against the State and people of Israel."

Yishai, the leader of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party in Israel's coalition government, suggested that Grass should go to Iran, "where he would find a sympathetic audience should he want to continue disseminating his warped and mendacious work."
'What Must Be Said'

In one section of the poem, published in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and called "What Must be Said", Grass attacks Israel's nuclear programme.

"Why do I say only now... that the nuclear power Israel endangers an already fragile world peace? Because that must be said which may already be too late to say tomorrow," Grass wrote in the German-language poem, "Also because we - as Germans burdened enough - may become a subcontractor to a crime that is foreseeable."

The poem has already been condemned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Grass's most recent work has also been widely criticised in Germany, which is extremely sensitive about attacks on Israeli policy because of its role in the Holocaust.
The German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told the Bild newspaper that "putting Israel and Iran on the same moral level is not ingenious but absurd".

The author told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that, in retrospect, he should have phrased his poem differently to "make it clearer that I am primarily talking about the (Netanyahu) government.

"I have often supported Israel, I have often been in the country and want the country to exist and at last find peace with its neighbours," he said.

Some of Grass's critics have referred to the fact that the 84-year-old writer served in the Nazi Waffen SS during the Second World War, something he did not admit until 2006.

But he has been defended by some sections of Israeli opinion.

Writing in the Haaretz newspaper, columnist Gideon Levy criticised the ban on Grass.

"A situation in which any German who dares criticise Israel is instantly accused of anti-Semitism is intolerable", he said, "after we denounce the exaggeration, after we shake off the unjustified part of the charge, we must listen."

Happy Easter, everyone!

As the sun rises each new day so too will our souls be resurrected into a glorious World to Come

Red Cross delivers fuel to Gaza hospitals

BBC News
2 April 2012
Last updated at 12:36 ET

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says it has begun distributing emergency fuel supplies to hospitals in the Gaza Strip.

The 150,000 litres (33,000 gallons) of diesel would help 13 public hospitals maintain essential health services for the next 10 days, the ICRC said.

Immediate action had to be taken to prevent further deterioration of the fuel and electricity crisis, it added.

Gaza's only power plant closed eight days ago because of a lack of fuel.

Hamas, which governs the coastal territory, decided more than a year ago to fire the plant with fuel smuggled from Egypt, rather than pay for fuel from Israel, which is more expensive and subject to restrictions.
'Specialist units hardest hit'

But in February, Egypt began to crack down on the smuggling of fuel, because it was suffering shortages itself and wanted imports to Gaza to pass through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing.

Hamas has also blamed Israel's continuing blockade of the territory, from which it withdrew in 2005 but nearly all whose land crossings it still controls. But Israeli officials have accused the Islamist group of manufacturing the crisis and of rejecting offers of supplies from Israel.

The head of the ICRC delegation for Israel and the Occupied Territories, Juan-Pedro Schaerer, said on Friday when announcing the shipment: "The current failure to ensure delivery of fuel and electricity could rapidly lead to interruptions in vital public services such as hospital care and water supply, putting the lives of thousands of patients in danger."

"We have already warned that in the event of any such disruption, hospital operating theatres and specialist units, such as those providing intensive care, neonatal care and haemodialysis, would be especially hard hit," he added.

The prime minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, said on Monday that his foreign minister was in Cairo for "intensive consultations" with Egypt and the Palestinian Authority on the issue.

The ICRC gave another 150,000 litres of fuel to the hospitals in February

Aung San Suu Kyi: "We hope that this will be the beginning of a new era"

 Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi says she hopes Sunday's by-elections marked the start of a new era in Burma.

BBC News
2 April 2012 Last updated at 04:35 ET

Burma poll: Aung San Suu Kyi hopes for 'new era'

Calling the polls a "triumph of the people", she said the goal now was reconciliation with other parties.

Official results for the polls that saw 45 seats contested are expected later this week.

But Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) said she easily won in her Kawhmu constituency, and that the party expects to win multiple seats.

Aung San Suu Kyi's comments came as she addressed a crowd of supporters outside NLD headquarters in Rangoon, Burma's commercial capital.

"It is not so much our triumph as a triumph of the people who have decided that they have to be involved in the political process in this country," she said. "We hope this is the beginning of a new era."

"We hope that all other parties that took part in the elections will be in a position to co-operate with us to create a genuinely democratic atmosphere in our nation."

Sunday's vote was seen as a key test of political reforms, though the army and its allies dominate the 664-seat parliament.

The by-elections were being held to fill parliamentary seats left vacant by the appointment of ministers after the polls that formally ended military rule in November 2010.

The NLD was competing in its first elections since 1990, after boycotting the 2010 polls. It was one of 17 opposition parties that took part.

Apart from winning her own seat, Ms Suu Kyi appears to have helped a number of her colleagues to victory, correspondents say.

NLD officials say they believe the party has won almost all of the 44 seats it contested, including some in the remote capital, Nay Pyi Taw. There has been no formal word yet from the Election Commission.

But even if the NLD wins most of the seats, the army and its proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) will still hold about 80% of seats in parliament.

Ms Suu Kyi - who spent years under house arrest after her party won polls in 1990 but was not allowed to take power - has promised to use her voice to continue to push for further reform.
'Step forward'

Speaking in Cambodia ahead of an Asean summit, Burma's Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin said the polls had been "free, fair and transparent".

During the campaign, foreign journalists and international observers were given the widest access to the former military-ruled nation for years.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton congratulated Burma on holding the vote and said that the US was ''committed to supporting these reform efforts".

The European Union hinted that it could ease some sanctions if the vote went smoothly.

US lawmakers who drafted sanctions against Burma remained cautiously optimistic.

"While much remains to be done in Burma, Suu Kyi's apparent election to parliament, like that of the apparent election of large numbers of her NLD colleagues, is an important step forward for the country," said Senator Mitch McConnell.

Representative Joe Crowley said ''now is not the time'' to rush towards lifting the sanctions.

"Far too many political prisoners are still locked behind bars, violence continues against ethnic minorities and the military dominates not only the composition but the structure of the government," he added.

HumanRights--Land Day!

Report from Mazin Qumsiyeh

*Injuries to our friends, death and mayhem on Land Day and the Global March
to Jerusalem*

This blog report is also posted at
http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2012/03/land-day.html where you can
leave comments

*Two of our  friends were among the over >150 people injured today by the
Israeli occupation forces.  Demonstrations were held in dozens of locations
in Palestine and the border areas of Palestine.*  Other demosntrations were
held for Land Day in cities around the world.  The ambulance took our
friend and home guest Don Bryant (US Citizen) to the hospital as he was hit
in the head by a tear gas canister.  We quickly gathered the rest of the
group and rushed to the hospital.  There we find many injured people (I
counted 8 in the emergency room and two at the X-ray).  One of the injured
there was our friend Yusef Sharqawi hit with a rubber-coated steel bullet
that fractured his shoulder blade. Mohamed Zakout, 20 year old was shot and
kileld by Israeli forces in Gaza as he participated in a demonstration near
the Erez checkpoint.  In Jerusalem, Israeli occupation forces used horses
to trample on people and arrested 36 individuals.  Before all is done
Israel will likely to arrest 300 people.   Below is our video and other
relevant videos.

Some of my students have more logic/sense than the political leadership of
the USA, Israel and the "Palestinian authority" combined.  For example,
last week we had a lively discussion about roles of politiciansin creating
the problems and perpetuuating the disastrous human rights violations here.
I don't teach this course human rights but I coach it so after we exchanged
significant information about these issues all of it showing the bad things
of politics (collaborations, agreements of surrender, etc), I asked to take
time for us to talk just about the positives (no negatives).  I was
surprised at some of the good comments that came out: persistance of the
Palestinain people, demonstrations and many forms of popular resistance
happening, the fact that rights are not lost for people even when their
leadershuip is corrupt and weak, the fact that many were
martyred/injured/imprisoned for their work for Palestine, the fact that
while some collaborated and even sold their conscience and tehir heritabe,
more simply refused ……

So it is that we can always look at the glass half empty or half full.  We
can always curse the darkness or light a candle and hope for the best.  We
can feel depressed and powerless or we can actually do something.  I was
anxious before the demonstrations today.  Our mind racing to worry about
level of participation/attendance and about Israeli authorities' violent
reaction to peaceful demonstrators (there is afterall a long history of
that including shooting at unarmed demonstrators). We have to remind myself
of the positives and forget all the  negatives (or at least just learn from
them lessons and keep them in the back of our mind).  The march was a
success even before it started.  The thousands who tried to arrive to us
here in Palestine got an education THROUGH the process of preparing to come
to nearby boerders and they each  told many othesr where they are going and
why.  This ripple effect that started montsh before today's events is
critical. Here are a few other positives before, during and after this
event today:

-37 Indian activists were stranded in a ship off the port of Beirut for 36
hours.  Activists in India mobilized speaking to parliamentarians and other
officials and the indian embassy was able to get the Lebanese government to
finally issue the visas for them.  This ensured atht more people because
aware of our predicament here: not onlt the Zionist regime but the
col;lusion sometiems of Arab regimes.  It also meant more avtivism in india
will be growing and more boycotts, divestments and sanctions.

- Hundreds of actvists from different countries did not know about each
other or their commen interests until this event. The process of linking
together via physical meetings and internet empowered many of tehm and they
became more active in tehir local communities.  I know of several example
where new projects (e.g. on boycotts divestment, sacnction, different ways
of media work etc) were started in some copuntries or localities because
they learned from the networking with other activists.

-Activists learned via doing how to work in team efforts, how to make
collective decisions etc.  These skills are useful for any kind of
collective work.

-The attempts by the Zionist manipulated media to hide and ignore the
brutality of the apartheid regime is backfiring.  More and more people
stopped seeking news via these corporate outlets and started to get news
directly via blogs, live feed, email etc.

-Israeli  Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai said about the events today
"It's important to remember that this is the first day. The Nakba and Naksa
days are ahead of us, and that is where the challenge will be."  It is
obvious that they start to worry!

I could go on to list a few more.  But we need now to focus on our next
events : the Welcopme to Palestine Campaign for 15-21 April.  We do need
people to work hard on this (volunteers are always welcome).  Action is the
best antidote to despair.

*Our video in Bethlehem: http://youtu.be/7U1qQVqVnsM*

Other videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVuxQJw-6TI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukH9VBD2Zeg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkF9awg-HPA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nffbnYZW4ws

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkaIs8s4i4Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXJnBZfX1GA


Pictures

http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/30/10940732-violence-on-land-day-as-israeli-f
orces-and-palestinians-clash


Take action Land Day
http://www.stopthejnf.org/unitedstates_takeaction_landday2012.html

Israel Defense Ministry plan earmarks 10 percent of West Bank for
settlement expansion. Newly released maps indicate Civil Administration
secretly setting aside additional land for Jewish settlements, presumably
with the intention of expanding them. By Akiva Eldar

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-defense-ministry-plan-earmarks-10-per
cent-of-west-bank-for-settlement-expansion-1.421589

More links/news on this land day events

http://www.imemc.org/article/63234

http://www.imemc.org/article/63235

Thousands of demonstrators mark Land Day in Jordan

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Mar-30/168555-thousands-of-demonstrators
-mark-land-day-in-jordan.ashx#axzz1qc3PlPcd

Rabbis of Anti-Zionist Group Join Protest Marking Land Day on
Lebanon-Israel Border

http://tv.ibtimes.com/rabbis-of-anti-zionist-group-join-protest-marking-land-day-on-lebano
n-israel-border/4523.html

Why Land Day still matters: Today, with no resolution in sight to the
historic injustices inflicted upon them, Palestinians in Israel and
elsewhere use this day to remember and redouble their efforts for
emancipation.

By Sam Bahour and Fida Jiryis

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/why-land-day-still-matters-1.421606


Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

http://qumsiyeh.org

UPDATE 2-Israeli forces clash with Palestinians on Land Day

Fri Mar 30, 2012 7:48am EDT

* Israeli forces on alert on Lebanese, Syrian borders

* Palestinians organise "Global March to Jerusalem"

By Jihan Abdalla

JERUSALEM, March 30 (Reuters) - Israeli security forces fired rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades to break up groups of Palestinian stone-throwers on Friday as annual Land Day rallies turned violent.

Medics in the Gaza Strip said the Israelis also used live fire to prevent protesters from nearing the frontier wall, seriously wounding one man.

Palestinian activists have called for a "Global March to Jerusalem" to mark the day when Israeli Arabs protest against government policies that they say has stripped them of land.

Israeli forces were put on high alert at frontier crossings with Lebanon and Syria, but there were no reports of anyone nearing the border fences, unlike last year when several demonstrators were killed in separate protests.

However, violence flared at checkpoints in the occupied West Bank to the north and south of Jerusalem. Witnesses also reported disturbances at gates leading into the Old City, with police limiting access to the Muslims' revered al-Aqsa Mosque.

A Reuters reporter saw two men being carried away injured after scuffles at Jerusalem's Lions' Gate, while police said they had made five arrests at the Damascus Gate.

Jerusalem is a focal point of conflict, as Palestinians want the city's eastern sector, captured by Israel in a 1967 war, as capital of a future state. Israel has annexed East Jerusalem as part of its capital and insists the city remain united.

"We are determined to march together toward Jerusalem, and hopefully we will break through and reach it," said a masked youth, calling himself Rimawi, as he faced off against soldiers in the West Bank city Ramallah, a short distance from Jerusalem.

Flag-waving crowds neared the Qalandiya crossing out of Ramallah, some of them hurling stones at the security forces, but were forced back when border police sprayed them with foul smelling liquid from a water cannon.

There were also confrontations in Bethlehem, where Palestinians hurled petrol bombs at an Israeli watchtower.

BORDER FEARS

Land Day commemorates the killing by security forces of six Arabs in 1976 during protests against government plans to confiscate land in northern Israel's Galilee region.

Previous remembrances have mostly passed quietly, but Israel decided to reinforce its defences following deadly clashes along the Lebanese and Syrian borders in May that appeared to catch the military off guard.

Palestinian organisers called for peaceful rallies against "the policies and practices of the racist Zionist state" and said solidarity protests were planned in some 80 nations. "When crowds from 80 countries move towards Jerusalem, they send a strong message to the Israeli occupation that no one can accept what they are doing in Jerusalem," said Ismail Haniyeh, the Gaza leader of the Islamic group Hamas.

Israel is wary of growing unrest in the Palestinian Territories, with peace talks stalled for months and Palestinian leaders refusing to return to the negotiating table until Israel halts all Jewish settlement building in the West Bank.

Leading Palestinian activist Marwan Barghouti, serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli jail for orchestrating suicide attacks, called on Monday for a new wave of civil resistance in the decades-long quest for statehood.

On high alert along its borders, police were also wary of possible friction within the boundaries of Israel, where the Arab minority was planning protests.

Arabs make up about a fifth of Israel's total population. Many complain of discrimination. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently called for improved efforts to integrate Arab citizens into Israel's work force.

Israel Seals off West Bank Before Protests

Time
By AP /
DIAA HADID
Friday, Mar. 30, 2012

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2110595,00.html#ixzz1qbTbBKJE
(JERUSALEM) — Israeli forces went on high alert in anticipation of mass demonstrations Friday, sealing off swaths of territory and tightening restrictions on entering a flashpoint holy site as Palestinians and Arabs prepared for a day of marches throughout the region.

The Land Day rallies are an annual event marked by Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who protest what they say are discriminatory Israeli land policies. Supporters in neighboring Arab countries are also planning marches near Israel's borders in solidarity events. (MORE: A New Season of Palestinian Protest Challenges Both Israel and Abbas)

Similar demonstrations turned deadly last year, and thousands of Israeli troops and police were deployed Friday in anticipation of possible violence.

Israel's military closed off the West Bank to all but humanitarian emergencies, saying the move was "in accordance with security assessments."

The West Bank is a hilly territory on Israel's eastern border where over 2.5 million Palestinians live, alongside hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jewish settlers. The closure will not apply to the settlers.

Police also restricted access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, Islam's third holiest site and a frequent flashpoint for Palestinian-Israeli violence. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said only men over 40 years of age may enter the compound, while women may freely do so.

The age restriction applies to Palestinians from Jerusalem who carry residency permits, and for West Bank Palestinians — though few of them are expected to be allowed into the city because of the military's closure of the territory.

Israeli-Arab citizens, regardless of age, will be allowed to enter, Rosenfeld said.

Thousands more policemen were deployed into northern Israel, where Israel's Arab citizens are expected to hold a large demonstration in the village of Deir al-Assad, Rosenfeld said.

Israel's military was also preparing for possible trouble along the borders with Lebanon and Syria in the north, Jordan to the east, and Egypt and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to the south.

Mahmoud Aloul, a Palestinian leader in the West Bank involved in the marches, said Friday's demonstrations were to be held in Jerusalem, the Qalandiya checkpoint — a frequent flashpoint of violence on the outskirts of Jerusalem — and in the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

While organizers said Friday's marches would be nonviolent, similar protests last year turned deadly.

At least 15 people were killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers when they tried to cross the Syrian and Lebanese borders with Israel in a May protest marking Palestinian sorrow over Israel's creation in 1948.

A month later, Israeli troops killed 23 demonstrators who crossed into the no-man's land between Israel and Syria in a demonstration against Israel's control of the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.

Activists in Gaza planned to hold a demonstration about half a mile from the Israeli border, but said they did not plan to move closer, minimizing the chance of clashes.

Likewise, authorities in Lebanon and Jordan said they would keep demonstrators far from the Israeli border. Several thousand protesters were expected in each place. It was not clear whether protesters would gather in Syria, which is in the midst of an anti-regime uprising that has killed thousands.

Land Day commemorates an event in 1976, when Israeli Arab protests against land confiscation turned deadly. Since then, it has been used a rallying cry for Israeli Arabs and Palestinians to highlight what they say are Israel's discriminatory policies that have seen their lands confiscated in Israel and in the West Bank, mostly to be utilized by Jewish Israelis.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2110595,00.html#ixzz1qbTKFHLi

Jailed Palestinian leader Barghouti urges resistance

From his prison cell, Marwan Barghouti has remained an influential figure

BBC News

27 March 2012 

Last updated at 08:02 ET

A jailed leader of the Palestinian Fatah movement, Marwan Barghouti, has called for a new wave of civil resistance against Israel.

In a message sent from Hadrim prison in Israel, Barghouti said the "launch of large-scale popular resistance at this stage serves the cause of our people".

He also called on the the Palestinian Authority had to halt immediately all co-ordination with Israel.

Barghouti was convicted on five counts of murder by an Israeli court in 2004.

But the trial turned him into household name and he enjoys widespread support among all Palestinian factions.

If Barghouti were ever released, many believe he would be a favourite to succeed to Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian Authority president.
'Marketing an illusion'

Barghouti, the former leader of Fatah in the West Bank and chief of its armed wing, the Tanzim, issued his call ahead of the 10th anniversary of his detention by Israel.

Thousands of Palestinians are expected to protest against the Israeli government's land policies later in the week in an occasion know as Land Day.

"The launch of large-scale popular resistance at this stage serves the cause of our people," Barghouti said.

"Stop marketing the illusion that there is a possibility of ending the occupation and achieving a state through negotiations after this vision has failed miserably."

"It must be understood that there is no partner for peace in Israel when the settlements have doubled," he said.

It is the Palestinian people's right to oppose the occupation in all means, and the resistance must be focused on the 1967 territories."

Barghouti also said the Palestinian Authority had to halt immediately "all co-ordination with Israel - economic and security - and work toward Palestinian reconciliation", rather than a peace agreement.

He called instead for "a renewal of efforts" to achieve recognition of Palestinian statehood, which was blocked at the UN Security Council by the US last year.

"The PA must turn to the UN General Assembly and the rest of its agencies."

Barghouti was arrested by Israeli troops in Ramallah in April 2002 and first appeared in an Israeli court the following August - charged with the killing of 26 people.

Throughout his trial, he refused to recognise the legitimacy of the Israeli court. His lawyers insisted he was only a political leader.

In 2004, Barghouti was convicted on the murder of four Israelis and a Greek monk, as well as attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, and membership of a terrorist organisation.

The court found there was insufficient evidence connecting him to the 21 other deaths.

From his prison cell, Barghouti has remained an influential figure, helping negotiate a short-lived truce declared by militant groups in 2003, and several other agreements.

U.N. Human Rights Council to probe Israeli settlements-Israel doesn't want this

March 22, 2012 3:13 PM

Israel condemns UN settlement probe

JERUSALEM — Israel's prime minister has rejected a vote by a U.N. body to send a team to investigate Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Benjamin Netanyahu issued his statement Thursday after the U.N. Human Rights Council voted for the inquiry.

"This is a hypocritical council with an automatic majority against Israel," Netanyahu said. "This council ought to be ashamed of itself. Until today, the council has made 91 decisions, 39 of which dealt with Israel, three with Syria and one with Iran," he said.

On Thursday the council approved four other resolutions critical of Israel.

Some 300,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, an area Palestinians claim as part of a state. Israel says the issue must be resolved in peace talks.

Israel stacks the legal deck

A Palestinian woman holds a poster with a drawing depicting baker and activist Khader Adnan with a locked mouth. Adnan captured headlines recently for a 66-day hunger strike that led him to the brink of death. (Bernat Armangue / AP Photo)

L.A. Times
Op-Ed
March 07, 2012|By George Bisharat

Its court system provides little justice for Palestinians.

Palestinian baker and activist Khader Adnan captured headlines recently for a 66-day hunger strike that led him to the brink of death. His ordeal began in the dead of night on Dec. 17, 2011, when Israeli soldiers broke down the door of his West Bank home. Adnan was arrested before his terrified wife and daughters, and was reportedly abused verbally and physically upon detention and later in interrogation.

Adnan was never tried but instead faced administrative detention. Israeli prosecutors presented secret evidence to a military judge, who then ordered a four-month detention. Adnan is widely believed to be a leader in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which Israel considers a terrorist organization. The government, however, lacked evidence that he was directly involved in terrorist attacks. Adnan's protest against Israel's unjust legal practices ended after an agreement between his lawyers and prosecutors to release him April 17 barring substantial new evidence.

Adnan's case was unique for the extreme sacrifice he offered and the public attention it earned. Yet Israeli military courts, established after Israel's 1967 seizure of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, have imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, including men, women and children, in similarly unfair proceedings, as documented by Lisa Hajjar in her book, "Courting Conflict: the Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza."

To Palestinians, Israeli military courts are sites of repression, not houses of justice. Palestinian defendants facing trial in 2010 were found guilty in 99.74% cases, according to Israel Defense Forces documentation. Proceedings are conducted in Hebrew, which few Palestinians speak. Judges and prosecutors answer to higher military authority, denying military tribunals full independence. Courts may renew administrative detentions in six-month increments indefinitely. Some Palestinians have been so detained for years, never having enjoyed the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses nor even to know the evidence against them.

Such evidence is frequently provided by Palestinian informers recruited by Israeli authorities, often through exploitation of the vulnerable. For example, Palestinians seeking advanced medical care that is unavailable in their own less-developed hospitals are sometimes pressured to collaborate in exchange for permits to enter Israel for treatment, according to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. Credible allegations of torture and physical abuse of detainees gathered by such groups as the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel also continue to dog the military court system, despite a 1999 Israeli High Court of Justice decision barring four forms of torture previously used by interrogators. Evidence derived through informers is notoriously unreliable. Physically coerced statements are no more reliable: Those undergoing torture often say anything to alleviate their pain.

The quip often credited to Georges Clemenceau — "Military justice is to justice as military music is to music" — springs to mind. Yet the injustices of Israel's legal treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank cannot be so blithely dismissed. The crude procedures of military courts may be tolerable during brief military occupations. Israel's occupation of the West Bank is anything but brief.

Moreover, Palestinian litigants have fared scarcely better in Israeli civilian courts, including its vaunted High Court. There, suits to defend Palestinian rights routinely fail. Most recently, the High Court denied a petition that would have barred Israeli corporations from exploiting West Bank natural resources such as water, gravel and stone for Israeli use.

In the Jordan Valley, 10,000 Israeli settlers were allocated 18 times the water per capita that native Palestinians were allocated in 2008, according to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem. Restricted access to water and other natural resources has doubtless contributed to the dwindling Palestinian population in the Jordan Valley, from as many as 320,000 in 1967 to 56,000 in 2009. In leaving discriminatory allocations of resources undisturbed, the High Court functions as a tool of colonization.

Israel is a colonial power that is still expanding in an era of human rights and mass-media scrutiny. Its methods for clearing land for settlement are necessarily different than those of earlier colonial powers, which sometimes employed genocide and ethnic cleansing. Israel made the most of its opportunities by denying return to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled from their homes or were forcibly expelled by Israeli forces in the wars of 1948 and 1967. Thereafter, its inexorable takeover of Palestinian lands and other resources has assumed primarily bureaucratic form, with its courts providing a veneer of legality. But the end result — the displacement of a native population in favor of settlers — is the same.

Israeli courts may provide justice to Jews living in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories. But a legal system that is fair to one ethno-religious group while trampling the rights of others deserves to be recognized for what it is: a handmaiden to apartheid.

Our own government, by running diplomatic interference for Israel and providing it billions in military aid, is complicit in the entrenchment of Israel's variant of ethno-religious discrimination. Why we support practices that subvert our interests and defy our values is a question that every American should ponder.

George Bisharat is a professor at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and writes frequently about law and politics in the Middle East.

Palestinian female detainees tell horrific stories of abuse in Israeli prisons

Women show their solidarity with Hanaa Shalabi, a Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike to protest her detention by Israel, at a rally in Palestine. (File photo)


Al Arabiya
Thursday, 08 March 2012

By Amjad Samhan
Al Arabiya Ramallah

Throughout the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, around 800,000 Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli authorities, more than 10,000 of whom are women. Many of those female detainees were subjected to several forms of abuse, sexual in particular, but very few were willing to talk. On the eve of International Women’s Day, however, some decided to break their silence.

S.H., who refused to disclose her full name, was arrested for a few days to put pressure on her husband, also detained at the time, and extract confessions from him.

“They striped me and the officer who was interrogating me sat beside me and tried to molest me but I resisted,” she told Al Arabiya.

Hanaa Shalabi, the 30-year-old prisoner who has been on a hunger strike for 21 days in protest of the humiliation to which she was subjected in detention, said that an officer in civil clothes claimed he was a nurse at the prison and asked her to take off her clothes so he could search her.

“When I refused, he called other officers who tied me up and started beating me,” she said in a statement to the Palestinian Prisoner Society.

Shalabi’s lawyer Mahmoud Hassan said that one of the female officers wanted her to take off all her clothes in front of the other interrogators for the search.

“She kept refusing until the officer had to search her in the bathroom but threatened to retaliate against her,” he said in statement, of which Al Arabiya obtained a copy.

Hassan added that his client’s hands and legs were illegally tied during the trial.
Shalabi, who has so far lost 10 kilos, vowed to go on the hunger strike until she is released. She was sentenced to six months in jail and the sentence was reduced to four months, but no clear charges were leveled against her.

According to former detainee Iman Nafea, Israeli authorities abuse female prisoners all the time if not physically then at least verbally.

“In many cases, they search female prisoners after forcing them to take off their clothes. This is very humiliating even if it is done by a female officer because it shows there are bad intentions.”

Nafea argued that Israeli officers do not need to get prisoners naked to search them properly because they have advanced equipment that can reveal what is under the skin.

Nafea added that Israeli officers do not necessarily harass Palestinian detainees through direct physical contact with them, but they use other forms of sexual abuse.

“I know of a Palestinian woman who was assaulted with a club and several others who were constantly threatened with rape.”

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, which is an official holiday in Palestine, Palestinian Minister of Social Affairs Magda al-Masry stated that women have always been an integral part of the Palestinian struggle for freedom.

“This struggle is manifested in the plight of female detainees like Hanaa Shalabi,” she told Al Arabiya.

Masry added that the Palestinian government should take a firm stance on the naked search of Palestinian female detainees.

“This violates all human rights laws and the world has to break its silence.”
All Palestinian women, stressed Masry, will mark International Women’s Day by declaring solidarity with Shalabi.

“We will all support her until Israeli occupation forces release her.”

Several Israeli human rights organizations filed 17 complaints on behalf of Palestinian female detainees who accused Israeli officers of sexual harassment.

According to the organizations, the Israeli military prosecution is currently looking into the complaints.

(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid)

US, Israel play-acting with a purpose

The core of all this anti-Iran brouhaha is regime change. It's the same strategy used by America and its allies to invade Iraq
 
By Linda S. Heard,
Special to Gulf News

Published: 00:00 March 6, 2012

Interesting scenario being concocted between Tel Aviv and Washington! Apparently, we are meant to believe that the Obama administration is going all out to restrain Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from pre-emptively striking Iran's nuclear sites.

If we're gullible enough to swallow the message put out by the US and Israeli media, we might imagine that Netanyahu is furious over President Barack Obama's reticence to trigger conflict and is preparing for his country to go it alone — without alerting the White House in advance. What a joke that is!

In reality, there isn't a hair's breadth of difference between US and Israeli foreign policy on this issue. Neither government can afford to fall out with the other; their relationship is incestuous.

The US is Israel's only friend in the region and one of the few it has worldwide. And Obama needs to keep the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and the other pro-Israel US lobbying organisations happy if he wants to get re-elected. Moreover, the aims of both are the same. The official version is that neither Israel nor America can allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons capability. But that isn't what they fear the most.

In the first place, there's no proof that Tehran seeks a nuclear bomb. Secondly, US National Intelligence estimates tell us that Iran binned its nuclear weapons ambitions in 2003. Thirdly even if Iran had a bomb, it would be used only as a deterrent. The ayatollahs would have to be deranged to nuke Tel Aviv in the knowledge that repercussions would be swift and merciless.

Furthermore, a nuclear strike on Israel would also kill Arab Israelis and Palestinians, while the fall-out would likely affect Iran's friends in Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. The heart of all this anti-Iran brouhaha is regime change. But that is not a casus belli under international law and violates the United Nations Charter. What's happening now is deja vu. It's exactly the same strategy used by the US and its allies to invade Iraq.

Fragile ties

That's not to say that Iran isn't dangerous from Israel's perspective when it gives financial and military support to Israel's enemies — Hezbollah, Hamas and the Bashar Al Assad regime in Syria. Iran is also encouraging Shiite communities in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states to rise up and is dangling its wealth to lure Egypt into its sphere of influence when Egyptian-American relations are fragile.

Should Cairo fall to Iran, Israel's situation would, indeed, be precarious. The Camp David Peace Treaty would be annulled, Egypt would be free to expand its army, Israel's blockade on Gaza would no longer be effective and the Palestinians would be greatly emboldened to launch a Third Intifada, which according to the Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is currently being considered.

Returning to the duplicitous propaganda of Washington and Tel Aviv, this is nothing but a good cop, bad cop play with a dual purpose. You can just imagine the American public's uproar if Obama initiated a new major war that would endanger US bases throughout the region, send petrol prices through the roof and further dent the economy when a rising number of Americans are surviving on food stamps.

Yesterday, Netanyahu was scheduled to meet with Obama in Washington. It is thought the Israeli leader will ask his US counterpart for the green light to attack Iran. In any event, even if Obama gives him the wink, I doubt that conversation will be made public.

In reality, the conflict is already raging beginning with the Stuxnet and Duqu viruses that have infected Iranian computers, the assassination of four Iranian nuclear scientists, the explosion at an Iranian Revolutionary Guards military base — and US and EU anti-Iranian sanctions targeting Iran's oil industry and banking.

For its part, Iran has terminated oil exports to the UK and France, has carried out a series of military and naval exercises in the Gulf region, has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz to shipping and may be behind the recent attempted assassinations of Israeli diplomats in India, Georgia and Thailand.

One thing is sure: if Israel does strike Iran, the US will act in tandem; at the very least it will supply Israel with every logistical requirement. More likely, the two allies will go for gold, together taking out as many Iranian nuclear facilities as they can.

Obama can then tell his compatriots and the world that he did his best to stop Netanyahu in his tracks but when push came to shove he had to ensure the survival of the Jewish State.

Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com Some of the comments may be considered for publication.

Killer Tornadoes

most recent tornado video from BBC

3 NC kids survive tornado pulling them from home

Published March 05, 2012

Associated Press

• inShare

CHARLOTTE, N.C. –  A North Carolina family says three children were ripped from their beds by a tornado, throwing one about 100 feet away along a fence lining a highway. All have been released from hospitals and are back with relatives.

Latonya Stevens says her 7-year-old son Jamal was sucked from his room as a tornado tore apart the family home's second floor where he slept. It was one of nearly 200 homes damaged by the storm in the Charlotte area.

A neighbor found Jamal about 100 feet away, tossed to the far side of a fence along Interstate 485.

His 3-year-old sister Amber and 4-year-old Ayanna were released from a hospital on Sunday. Amber was found in her home's yard under some debris. Ayanna landed in a neighbor's yard.

I took this picture of the tornado cloud that Sparky and I chased previously like idiots storm chaser wannabes across dirt farm roads outside Ogallalah, Nebraska, last year. The cloud formation was about 2 miles away and I asked Sparky to play his drum and call in the Thunder Beings which he did and lo and behold! I kid you not, seven funnels came down from that cloud but none reached the ground and they evaporated fairly quickly. The sky overhead was just amazing, circular cloud formation with rolling thunder and lightening in them and with winds coming into the center from all four directions at once. Then the cloud formation headed slowly toward Ogallalah, Neb, and the motel where we were staying with storm warnings going off on our TVs every 2 minutes warning residents to seek shelters and interior rooms which we did. It made me think on the way back home to California why don't these people all have concrete storm shelters? I thought of the concrete water tanks that only needed lids and doorway to make into a tornado proof shelter. Somebody could clean up in such businesses manufacturing ready-made storm shelters. I checked later and saw there are quite a few concrete storm shelter mfg. but there wasn't that many places with them I found out from our friend Bridgit's brother who lives outside of Kearney. Tornado ran right by their place the year before. I hope the shelters catch on more and save more lives.

Israel shuts down Palestinian TV in raid

By Paul Colsey, CNN
updated 6:30 AM EST, Wed February 29, 2012

Jerusalem (CNN) -- Israeli security forces and intelligence officers raided a Palestinian television station overnight and took computers, tapes, transmitters and paperwork, the director of the station said Wednesday.

The raid began at 2 a.m., Wattan TV director Muamar Orabi said.

"Four night-shift employees were detained for more than three hours inside the offices after their mobile phones were taken," he added.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the raid had taken place.

Israeli Ministry of Communications spokesman Yehiel Shavi said Wattan broadcasts "were interfering with the signals of Israeli broadcasters" and said the interference had been stopped "with the assistance of the IDF."

The IDF said repeated requests had been made to Wattan to stop their broadcasts because they interfere with Israeli broadcasters and flight communications at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv.

But Orabi said his station had never received a complaint about transmission frequencies, and said the response was disproportionate even if that was the reason for the raid.

"Why destroy the TV station when they could have just confiscated the two transmitters?" he asked.

"This is not the first time this has happened. Wattan TV was destroyed 10 years ago, in March 2002," he said.

The station called the raid an act of piracy and vowed to continue its work.

"Wattan TV deplores this aggressive behavior against an efficient and effective media organization and will work through its contacts with local and international media and human rights organizations to expose this criminal act," the station said in a statement. "Wattan will work on restoring all the stolen equipment and transmitters and continue interrupted broadcasting."

CNN's Enas Muthaffar contributed to this report

Iran Accuses West of Double Standard on Nuclear Weapons

Voice of America
February 28, 2012
Lisa Schlein | Geneva

 In this photo released by the Iranian President's Office, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right, is escorted by technicians during a tour of Tehran's research reactor center in northern Tehran, Iran, February 15, 2012.

With tensions high over whether Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, Iran on Tuesday repeated that it is open to talks on its nuclear program, and it accused the West of a double standard on the nuclear issue.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi stressed the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program as he addressed the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

He called for nuclear disarmament worldwide - saying the gravest threat to sustainable security is the existence of thousands of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of a few countries.

Western countries and Israel fear that Iran, despite its denials, is trying to join that group of nuclear-armed nations.

Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it has "major differences" and "major concerns" with Iran over its nuclear program and possible weapons development.

U.N. inspectors said their latest visit to Tehran, aimed at gaining greater access to key nuclear sites and scientists, ended in failure.

On Tuesday, Salehi told the U.N. conference that Iran will continue to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes. He said other countries have two choices on how to deal with this program.

“One way is engagement, cooperation and interaction, and the other is confrontation and conflict. The Islamic Republic of Iran, confident of the peaceful nature of its nuclear program, has always insisted on the first alternative," said Salehi. "When it comes to our relevant rights and obligations, our consistent position is that Iran does not seek confrontation, nor does it want anything beyond its inalienable legitimate rights.”

Salehi said the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran has signed, upholds the right of member states to produce nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

He criticized the sanctions placed on Iran by nations that fear Iran's nuclear intentions are not peaceful.

“Monopolizing selfishly the scientific knowledge and the technology of peaceful nuclear energy and depriving others from it through various means including atrocious assassination of scientists is an illusion, which will certainly not lead to the preservation of their perceived supremacy,” said Salehi.

Salehi was referring to the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist last month. Iran blames the killing on Israel.

The Iranian foreign minister accused the West of double standards and discrimination in supporting Israel, which has not joined the NPT and is widely believed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East, although it has never confirmed having a nuclear arsenal.
The U.S. ambassador to the disarmament conference, Laura Kennedy, cast doubt on Iran’s nuclear program. She said the Iranian minister’s stated commitment to nuclear disarmament stands in stark contrast to Iran’s failure to comply with its international obligations.

She said Iran has just expanded its ability to enrich uranium and noted Tehran continues to deny U.N. inspectors full access to its nuclear facilities.


It's amazing to see this concerted political attack on Iran's nuclear program orchestrated by Israel which is actually the supreme villainous military entity that has developed nuclear weapons in secret and refuses any international inspection of its nuclear facilities. Israel never has let any outside agencies in and Israel is the record holder for non-compliance with U.N. resolutions. Why do we turn a blind eye to Israel? Because Israel is running our American foreign policy with Zionists positioned throughout the Bush/Obama administrations and acting as a 5th Column in America to get the U.S. to do Israel's bidding.

Report: Millions of White House dollars helped pay for NYPD Muslim surveillance

Published February 27, 2012
Associated Press

WASHINGTON –  Millions of dollars in White House money has helped pay for New York Police Department programs that put entire American Muslim neighborhoods under surveillance.

The money is part of a little-known grant intended to help law enforcement fight drug crimes. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush and Obama administrations have provided $135 million to the New York and New Jersey region through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, known as HIDTA.

Some of that money -- it's unclear exactly how much because the program has little oversight -- has paid for the cars that plainclothes NYPD officers used to conduct surveillance on Muslim neighborhoods. It also paid for computers that store even innocuous information about Muslim college students, mosque sermons and social events.

When NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly was filled in on these efforts, his briefings were prepared on HIDTA computers.

The AP confirmed the use of White House money through secret police documents and interviews with current and former city and federal officials. The AP also obtained electronic documents with digital signatures indicating they were created and saved on HIDTA computers. The HIDTA grant program is overseen by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The disclosure that the White House is at least partially paying for the NYPD's wholesale surveillance of places where Muslims eat, shop, work and pray complicates efforts by the Obama administration to stay out of the fray over New York's controversial counterterrorism programs. The administration has championed outreach to American Muslims and has said law enforcement should not put entire communities under suspicion.

The Obama administration, however, has pointedly refused to endorse or repudiate the NYPD programs it helps pay for. The White House last week declined to comment on its grant payments.

John Brennan, Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, last year called the NYPD's efforts "heroic" but would not elaborate. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, whose department also gives grant money to the NYPD and is one of the lead federal agencies helping police build relationships with Muslims, has refused in recent months to discuss the police tactics. Tom Perez, the Justice Department's top civil rights lawyer, has repeatedly refused to answer questions about the NYPD.

Outside Washington, the NYPD's efforts drew increased criticism last week. College administrators at Yale, Columbia and elsewhere issued harsh rebukes for NYPD's infiltration of Muslim student groups and its monitoring of school websites. New Jersey's governor and the mayor of its largest city have complained about the NYPD's widespread surveillance there, outside New York's police jurisdiction.

The White House HIDTA grant program was established at the height of the drug war to help police fight drug gangs and unravel supply routes. It has provided about $2.3 billion to local authorities in the past decade.

After the terror attacks, law enforcement was allowed to use some of that money to fight terrorism. It's unclear how much HIDTA money has been used to pay for the intelligence division, in part because NYPD intelligence operations receive scant oversight in New York.

Congress, which approves the money for the program, is not provided with a detailed breakdown of activities. None of the NYPD's clandestine programs is cited in the New York-New Jersey region's annual reports to Congress between 2006 and 2010.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne did not respond to questions the AP sent to him in two emails about the White House money and the department's intelligence division.

Most of the money from the White House grants in New York and New Jersey has been spent fighting drugs, said Chauncey Parker, director of the program there. He said less than $1.3 million was spent on vehicles used by the NYPD intelligence unit.

"Those cars are used to collect and analyze counterterrorism information with the goal of preventing a terrorist attack in New York City or anywhere else," Parker said. "If it's been used for specific counterterrorism effort, then it's been used to pay for those cars."

Former police officials told the AP those vehicles have been used to photograph mosques and record the license plates of worshippers.

In addition to paying for the cars, the White House money pays for part of the office space the intelligence division shares with other agencies in Manhattan.

When police compiled lists of Muslims who took new, Americanized names, they kept those records on HIDTA computer servers. That was ongoing as recently as October, city officials said.

Many NYPD intelligence officers, including those that conducted surveillance of Muslim neighborhoods, had HIDTA email addresses. Briefing documents for Kelly, the police commissioner, were compiled on HIDTA computers. Those documents described what police informants were hearing inside mosques and which academic conferences Muslim scholars attended.

When police wanted to pay a confidential informant, they were told to sign onto the HIDTA website to file the paperwork, according to a 2007 internal document obtained by the AP.

Parker said the White House grant money was never used to pay any of the NYPD intelligence division's confidential informants. The HIDTA computer systems, he said, are platforms that allow different law enforcement agencies to share information and work.

"I am shocked to hear that federal dollars may have helped finance the NYPD's misguided efforts to spy on Muslims in America," said Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., one of 34 members of Congress who have asked the Justice Department and House Judiciary Committee to investigate the NYPD.

The connection between NYPD and the White House anti-drug grant program surfaced years ago, during a long-running civil rights lawsuit against police. Civil rights attorneys asked in court about a "demonstration debriefing form" that police used whenever they arrested people for civil disobedience. The form carried the seal of both the NYPD Intelligence Division and HIDTA.

A city lawyer downplayed any connection. She said the NYPD and HIDTA not only shared office space, they also shared office supplies like paper. The NYPD form with the seal of a White House anti-drug program was "a recycled piece of paper that got picked up and modified," attorney Gail Donoghue told a federal judge in 2003.

The issue died in court and was never pursued further.

Last week, the controversy over NYPD's programs drew one former Obama administration official into the discussion.

After the AP revealed an extensive program to monitor Muslims in Newark, N.J., police there denied knowing anything about it. The Newark police director at the time, Garry McCarthy, has since moved on to lead Chicago's police department where President Barack Obama's first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is now the mayor.

"We don't do that in Chicago and we're not going to do that," Emanuel said last week.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the NYPD surveillance in his state was "disturbing" and has asked the attorney general to investigate. Christie was New Jersey's top federal prosecutor and sat on the HIDTA executive board during 2006 and 2007 when the NYPD was conducting surveillance in New Jersey cities. Christie said he didn't know that, in 2007, the NYPD catalogued every mosque and Muslim business in Newark, the state's largest city.

"I kind of think I would have remembered that," he said on Fox Business News last week.

Why has Obama turned out to be another Clinton sell-out to Zionists? Can no one get elected to high office in the U.S. who is not in Israel's pocket? So it would seem. How long do we have to wait for America to become the America Americans can be proud of anywhere in the world? Every decade I've lived I seen America's image of a haven for democracy ruined by take-over by self-serving politicians who cave in to anyone who's got the money to pay for their elitist lifestyle needs. I voted for Obama but next time it will be for Kucinich who still has integrity.

EU report calls for action against Israeli settlements

18 January 2012 Last updated at 09:19 ET
By Yolande Knell BBC News, Jerusalem

The European Commission is being urged to consider drafting legislation to ensure financial transactions by EU member states do not support Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem.

The proposal is made in a confidential report by top EU diplomats in the area.

The report says "the systematic increase in settlement activity" undermines a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

It also describes a "deteriorating situation on the ground".

The EU Heads of Mission Report on East Jerusalem, which was sent to Brussels this week and was leaked to the BBC, builds on earlier reports that also criticised Israeli policies.

In a long list of recommendations, it suggests that the Commission proposes "appropriate EU legislation to prevent/discourage financial transactions in support of settlement activity".

Settlements are considered illegal under international law although Israel disputes this.
Continue reading the main story
"The EU treats these serial reports in the best possible way - they are discussed briefly, their absurd recommendations are disregarded and the reports are quickly shelved”

Yigal Palmor Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman

The EU document argues that Israel is "actively perpetuating its annexation" of Arab East Jerusalem, which it captured in 1967, by "systematically undermining the Palestinian presence in the city".

It outlines the problems caused by "the continued expansion of settlements, restrictive zoning and planning, ongoing demolitions and evictions, an inequitable education policy, difficult access to health care, the inadequate provision of resources and investment and the precarious residency issue".

The Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future state, but Israel is determined that Jerusalem be its undivided capital.

'Facts on the ground'

Palestinian officials are reluctant to respond to the report because it has not been published.

However, speaking on condition of anonymity one told the BBC: "We think it shows facts on the ground that nobody can dispute. We now expect European capitals to implement the recommendations."

The Israeli foreign ministry's spokesman, Yigal Palmor, said there had been no consultation with Israel on the subject and that it was "therefore the result of an extremely dubious methodology".

"The EU treats these serial reports in the best possible way - they are discussed briefly, their absurd recommendations are disregarded and the reports are quickly shelved," he added.

This document follows a number of strongly-worded European statements and reports that have come to light in recent days.

On Monday, the UK's Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, condemned settlements as "an act of deliberate vandalism to the basic premise upon which negotiations have taken place for years".

Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, who is visiting the UK, described Mr Clegg's comments as "ill-informed" and "irresponsible", saying they gave the Palestinians an excuse to set pre-conditions on negotiations with Israel on a peace settlement.

An internal EU report leaked last week was very critical of Israel's policies and planning rules in "Area C", the 62% of the West Bank which it fully controls.

A French parliamentary report also described Israel's water policies in the occupied Palestinian territories as a form of "apartheid", because they give preferential treatment to Jewish settlers. The comments were welcomed by the head of the Palestinian Water Authority.

Tent of Nations Told to Stop Working its Own Land – Be Ready to Act!

Friends of Tent of Nations has just shared this upsetting letter from Daoud Nasser (above left):

From Shalom Rav
A Blog by Rabbi Brant Rosen
Posted on February 21, 2012 |


 Dear Friends,

    Today, the 14th of  February at 1.30 PM and as we were working on our land, specifically in the tree of life orchard, we found on three different places ,  papers with maps signed by the civil administration of Judea and Samaria which is the Israeli military government.

    The papers say that we have to stop working  on the land specified on the map, because they declared it as a state land. According to them, this land doesn’t belong to us but it is a state land and we are cultivating it. The papers also say  that if we want to challenge this order, we can appeal against it within 45 days in front of the military representative office.

    It is a shock to receive something like that after 21 years of legal battle defending our land and the right to it in front of Israeli courts.

    We sent those papers to our attorney in Jerusalem and he is going to appeal against it within the next days.

    This is just to inform you about what happened today, please be aware that the situation might get worse, please be prepared in case actions are needed. In the meanwhile, our attorney will appeal against it and we will see what kind of reaction we receive”

    We will keep you updated and will inform you about our next steps and how you can help.

    Thank you so  much for your support and solidarity. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

    Blessings and Salaam.

Readers of my blog should be well acquainted with my friend and personal hero Daoud Nasser. Last year I wrote about Tent of Nations and my visit, together with twenty JRC congregants, with Daoud on his family farm.

This new development is just the latest in a long history of harassment courtesy of the military administration in the West Bank – an institution that provides the shameful “legal” cover for Israel’s outright theft of Palestinian lands. Please stand by – I will forward any further news from Daoud and let you know how you can act on his behalf.

 

Tent of Nation outside of Bethlehem, Palestine, has adopted Paxcalibur as it's official logo so I therefore have a personal stake in supporting this great Palestinian Christian peace activist organization. This action by Israel against Tent of Nations showcases Israeli Apartheid ethnic cleansing in action. Anyone wishing to help Tent of Nations check out their blog links and do what you can to support Palestinian right to their own land.