| PALESTINE BLOG |
| The musings of Dane Coefer, American. |
| August 2, 2003 I just came across an email posted on a message board from NJ resident Abe Greenhouse who is currently in Israel. Abe travelled there "free" through an organization that seeks to recruit Jewish immigrants. Abe, however, is a bit of a subversive Jew--he is a founder of Central Jersey Jews Against the Occupation and a Rutgers student. An internet search also turned up a run-in between Abe and the Rutgers Hillel last year. Although he is a Jewish student at Rutgers, Abe was blocked from attending a Rutgers Hillel sponsored event to which he sent an RSVP as requested. Seems that Rutgers Hillel is not living up to its mission statement that "any student may participate in Hillel - no membership is required. Hillel is committed to a pluralistic vision of Judaism which embraces all movements." Might I suggest the Governor of NJ have the State's Office of Counterterrorism investigate Hillel's possible connection to the Kach Movement--a US Dept. of State listed Jewish Terrorist organization. Rutgers Hillel's exclusionary actions indicate clear sympathy for racist Jewish supremacism as espoused by such hate groups as the Kach Movement and Yesha Council. [Edited 8/21/2003] August 6, 2003 Press reports state that the release of Palestinian prisoners by Israel is not part of the "road map." They are wrong. The "road map" explicitly requires Israeli implementation of the "Tenet Work Plan" as part of Phase 1. Section 2 of Tenet states "Israel will release all Palestinians arrested in security sweeps who have no association with terrorist activities." The wording may be open to interpretation (What constitutes a "security sweep" or "association with terrorist activities"?), but Israel is ignoring this and not applying the Tenet standards. Just today Israel made another "security sweep" that arrested 9 or 10 Palestinian police officers in Jericho. The officers were asleep in their police barracks when raided by Israel. Tenet also explicitly prohibits such attacks on police organizations. The assault was undoubtedly politically motivated as Jericho was one of the cities Israel announced it intended to "return" to Palestinian control, although at no time over the past three years of Intifada has it ceased to be under Palestinian National Authority control. August 7, 2003 Prisoner update--Palestinians arrested in recent Israeli "security sweeps" have outnumbered the prisoners released yesterday. 239 have been arrested in Hebron alone as of Monday. The number of police officers grabbed in the Jericho raid now is listed as 18. I've been wanting to write a blog on Arafat for a while. I found one by Israeli writer Uri Avnery that says it a lot better than I ever could. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_8-8-2003_pg3_5 August 19, 2003 Another bombing by Hamas. Another condemnation by Bush. Silence, however, from Bush on the 856+ violations of the roadmap by Israel. Silence on the continuing killings of Palestinians. Silence on the continuing expropriation of Palestinian land. Silence on the continuing demolition of Palestinian homes, orchards and farm land. The Palestine Liberation Organization chose peace over a decade ago. 10 years and over 3,000 dead Palestinians because Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush fail to be honest brokers of Peace. August 21, 2003 Once again Israel has committed a war crime and launched missiles at the most densely populated city in the world. Three Palestinians allegedly affilliated to Hamas were murdered. In the two months since Aqaba, Israel has murdered 76 Palestinians--at least 7 were children. At least eight assassination attacks were made. Why should Hamas not attack? Israel has had two months and still has not officially accepted the roadmap. It has demolished over 100 Palestinian homes and increased funding and subsidies of its settlement construction. Israel has done NOTHING. It is unfortunate that the PNA is now put in the position of acting against its own people while the murder regime of Israel plods on as if it were business as usual. August 22, 2003 Remember--Israel has not accepted the roadmap. Bush has not condemned Sharon for his refusal to endorse the roadmap. On June 29th Hamas, al-Aqsa, and Islamic Jihad agreed to a unilateral ceasefire at the request of the Palestinian National Authority. Four days later Israel assassinated a leader of al-Aqsa in Israeli-occupied Qalqilya and five days after that it assassinated 2 Hamas activists (and bystanders) in Israeli-occupied Nablus. On August 12th, two attackers from Israeli-occupied Nablus detonated explosive belts in attacks in Israel and an Israeli settlement compound in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. On August 14th Israel assassinated an Islamic Jihad leader in Israeli-occupied Hebron. Four days later an attacker from Israeli-occupied Hebron denotated an explosive belt in an attack against illegal trespassers in Israeli-occupied Jerusalem. Two days later Israel assassinated a moderate Hamas leader (architect of the ceasefire) in Gaza. Now--Who is an enemy to peace? Who was retaliating? Every single one of the Palestinian attacks came after an Israeli assassination and originated in the town where the assassination occurred. How is the PNA to blame when none of the attacks came from any territory under Palestinian control? The criminal who planned the Jerusalem bus bombing is none other than Israel's own twice-elected war criminal and master terrorist Ariel Sharon. August 23, 2003 The first Palestinian suicide bomber attacked in April 1994--27 (47) years after the beginning of Israeli occupation; 27 years after the UN Security Council told Israel to get out. The attack was 40 days after American-Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinian at prayer in a Hebron mosque. Goldstein was beaten to death--Does that make him a suicide attacker? The night before the attack Goldstein had a vigil with other Hebron settlers--Those settlers have never been charged with their complicity. No missiles attacked their cars; no bulldozers demolished their homes. August 24, 2003 It may seem cold to refer to children as illegal trespassers rather than victims, but it must be stressed that Israel is engaged in an illegal, vicious and violent occupation of the land of another nation and is doing so with the criminal use of its entire population--including children--as prohibited combatants and human weapons of occupation. As an individual, I morally oppose capital punishment. The taking of life by government or individual is unacceptable. The right to self-defense, however, is the instinct to survival. The right of Palestinians to resist extermination by the genocidal acts of Israel is absolute. No-one may order a people to lie down and die. August 26, 2003 Well, it looks as though the 3rd North American Student Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement will not be happening at Rutgers after all. The Rutgers administration has announced its intent to move the event from the Douglass Student Center, conveniently located in New Brunswick, to its athletic complex in more remote Piscataway. "Security" was the key euphemism used. Meanwhile the national organizing committee of the Conference is looking into relocating the event to Ohio State University due to "concerns about the capability of New Jersey Solidarity to host this year's conference successfully ." All this because of the "abominable" views of Rutgers NJ Solidarity. What are the views? "We are opposed to the existence of the apartheid colonial settler state of Israel, as it is based on the racist ideology of Zionism and is an expression of colonialism and imperialism, and we stand for the total liberation of all of historic Palestine....We unconditionally support Palestinians' human right to resist occupation and oppression by any means necessary." http://www.njsolidarity.org/ While this "from the river to the sea" is currently a fringe view, it a position that can be supported with some legitimate interpretations of international law. Unfortunately for the credibility of NJ Solidarity, this is not the position of the Palestine Liberation Organization--which chose over a decade ago to recognize the right of Israel to exist on a portion of historic Palestine. The Declarations of Principles of the Oslo Accords were signed by the excessively maligned Yasser Arafat in 1993--"The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security." The Covenant of the the PLO was formally amended by the Palestinian National Council meeting in Gaza in 1996 "canceling the articles that are contrary to the letters exchanged between the P.L.O. and the Government of Israel 9-10 September 1993." The views of NJ Solidarity are more in tune with those of Hamas (practically the only Palestinian resistence organization that is not a member of the PLO). The Hamas Covenant also calls for the total liberation of historic Palestine. It is rather unfair, however, to label NJ Solidarity's position "abominable." "Abominable" are the positions of the Israeli Political Parties that make up Sharon's coalition Cabinet. They are, after all, the Government that Bush claims supports peace. Sharon's Likud Party (15 Cabinet members): �Flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.� The National Union Party (2 Cabinet members): �Absolutely rejects the idea of a Palestinian state between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.� The National Religious Party (2 Cabinet members): "The State of Israel alone shall exist between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. No Palestinian state or any other foreign sovereign entity shall be established in this area.� The so-called moderate Shinui Party (5 Cabinet members): "Israel will not evacuate settlement blocs, and these will be integrated within Israel's borders." Note in 1993 when the PLO recognized Israel's right to exist, Israel did not reciprocate. All Israel did was recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people. Israel still has not recognized the right of a State of Palestine to exist. Israel still has not accepted Bush's "roadmap" which calls for a Palestinian State by 2005. August 28, 2003 Hamas has launched over 2,000 rockets out of the Gaza internment camp since the the Intifada began--Israeli fatalities = 0. I suspect the list of Palestinian fatalities to be over 100 from Israeli rocket attacks. It is hard to miss when aiming at the most densely populated residential area in the world. The Palestinians of Gaza have not killed a single Israeli civilian over the entire course of the Intifada. Yes, Hamas is active in Gaza. Yes, Hamas has a military leadership in Gaza. Hamas of Gaza, however, has never successfully killed anyone other than an Israeli "border" guard or an invading soldier. It has even been over a year since the last successful "extra-judicial assassination" of Israelis in the paramilitary occupation compounds that sever the Strip in two. In the first year of the Intifada, Israelis killed 90 Palestinian children in the Gaza strip; in the 2nd year Israelis murdered an additional 75 children. (Link) Gaza is a walled internment camp (slaughterhouse) within which Israel plays with its F-16s, Apache helicopters, air-to-surface missiles, sniper rifles, flechette-launching tanks, exploding cell phones, bulldozers... It is a clear case of genocide. (Read: The 1949 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide) "Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: .....(a) Killing members of the group; .....(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; .....(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; .....(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; .....(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." "Article III: The following acts shall be punishable: .....(a) Genocide; .....(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; .....(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; .....(d) Attempt to commit genocide; .....(e) Complicity in genocide." Seems Sharon and his government have commited all five punishable acts in at least the first three defined catagories. "I vow that I'll burn every Palestinian child (that) will be born in this area. The Palestinian woman and child is more dangerous than the man, because the Palestinian child's existence infers that generations will go on, but the man causes limited danger." --Ariel Sharon, 1956. September 2, 2003 Not counting this August's missle attacks, a review of B'Tselem statistics uncovers 105 murders by Israeli rocket fire. Also, thus far into the third year of the Intifada, Israel has murdered 74 children in the Gaza internment camp. September 6, 2003 The internet versions of most US papers are saying that Abbas has resigned as Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority. Reuters and several east Asian papers, however, are more precise and cautious in pointing out that a letter of resignation was submitted to President Arafat, but that it has not been confirmed that he formally accepted it. Abbas has submitted letters of resignation many times. It is a bargaining tactic. It is posited as a move to seek concessions from Yasser Arafat, but this is fiction. The real target is George Bush. Abbas can't submit a resignation to Bush saying "you haven't given me anything so I give up." Abbas is not stupid. He is a survivor just like Arafat. He knows he is played as a pawn in the great American chess game. He also knows that he is in reality more than that. He is a bishop in disguise, feinting a sacrifice and then sliding diagonally across the board to a position of safety. Palestinian chess is a game of survival, a marathon game of generations that outlasts the blitz chess of American diplomacy (where the game is over when time expires every 4 years). You see, Palestinian chess has no King, checkmate is not possible. Arafat? He is the Queen, a mighty piece that can move in all directions for any distance. The power of the queen, however, makes it a prime target for attack in the blitz game. Sharon? The bulldozer of Israeli chess, the castle plodding straight ahead and running over everything in its path. End of the file? Move to the side and start plodding down the next file. (Here's an article on Sharon by Knesset member Dr. Azmi Bishara.) Let's watch the Abbas story for a while. I think that next week he will still be Prime Minister. Meanwhile, here are links to two photos of the latest home demolition by Israel. The AP photo shows the rubble that typically makes the US press (on the few occasions when they actually publish the photos). The Reuters photo, however, shows the "home" as it is collapsing--all eight floors of the apartment building that was home to 28 families. September 7, 2003 What an interesting weekend it has been. Topics I want to blog about, but doubt I'll have the time to address-- Consequences of the deportation ("transfer" the symbol) or assassination ("ethnically cleanse" the symbol) of Arafat; how is Arafat "tainted by terrorism" and what is America's real reason for refusing to deal with him; Israeli law does not have capital punishment for terrorism, thus Sharon's murders of Palestinian "terrorists" are not "extra-judicial" but "anti-judicial"; trying to kill a blind, paralysed Sheik by missile fire (but Israel can do stupid things as long as the US elects stupid Presidents); the concept of "guilt by association" and its current abuse by Bush and Sharon; why cutting off the funds to Hamas charities was a long over due good thing that has nothing to do with terrorism; Qureia (AP)-Korei (Reuters)-Qurei (BBC)-Qorei (various online Australian papers)... September 8, 2003 Newsweek "Web Exclusive" with Israeli historian Benny Morris: "And you said you believe Israel should kill Arafat? --There is no solution except killing him. All this talk about exiling him is nonsense. He would be much more trouble wandering the world. I think the choice is between killing him and keeping him in his Ramallah compound." Israelis do not want Peace. They elected Sharon--twice. They call for the murder of Yasser Arafat. Palestinians want Peace. They elected Yasser Arafat President. They elected Arafat President after he signed the Oslo Accords recognizing Israel and renouncing Palestinian rights to historic Palestine. Israelis do not want Peace. They claim they want "security," but in reality they want to be the Masters of a land they find currently infested with a native goyim, sub-humans to be erased from the "stage of history." Never again, huh? Benny Morris is well aware of the Evils of Israel; he a historian who has written extensively on the massacres of Palestinians (er, Arabs) by Israelis in the 1940s. He was heavily criticized by fellow Israelis for exposing their "dirty laundry." Any means justify the ends of Eretz Israel for such racists. Dear Stalinists, Maoists, Nazis, Fascists, Phalangists, Zionists and Hamas--the ends is always a fiction to justify your evil. September 9, 2003 "There's a huge difference here," said Danny Seaman, an Israeli government spokesman who came to the site of the cafe bombing. "We're targeting militants, they're targeting civilians. If it's not a child on a bus, it's people having coffee at 11:30 at night." (From The Washington Post) As I blogged before: The individuals Hamas kills are predominately NOT civilians. In the past three years there have been NO Palestinian attacks on School Buses, No Palestinian attacks on Schools, No Palestinian attacks on Hospitals/Ambulances. (There have been Israeli attacks on School Buses, Schools, Hospitals, Ambulances...) No children were killed in either Palestinian attack on Israel today. The first target was a bus stop outside a military base--seven fatalities, all soldiers. A legal attack under the Geneva Conventions. The second target was "people having coffee at 11:30 at night." 11:30 AT NIGHT. A criminal act under International Law, but NO children killed. The only child murdered today was 12 year old Palestinian Thaer Sayuri--killed by Israel tank fire in downtown Hebron. A criminal act under International Law. http://www.whowillsavethechildren.org/children_remembered.html has side by side listings of Israeli and Palestinian children killed in the last 3 years. Their totals: Israeli children killed = 101 Palestinian children killed = 463 and remember the population of Israel is double that of Palestine. September 13, 2003 Today is the 10th anniversary of the Oslo Accords--signed by Yasser Arafat and denounced by Ariel Sharon. Palestinian and Israeli Minors Killed (B'Tselem) 1993--P-41/I-0 (all but 4 killed in the 9 months BEFORE Oslo) 1994--P-4/I-2 1995--P-5/I-0 1996--P-11/I-8 1997--P-5/I-3 1998--P-3/I-0 (The Oslo (Art. V) five year time-table for Israeli withdrawal expired and still they were there) 1999--P-0/I-0 2000--P-84/I-0 (all but 2 in the 3 months following the beginning of the Intifada) During the entire year of 2000, Palestinians only killed 4 Israelis in Israel--none of them children. In 2000, Israelis killed 84 Palestinian children and 292 adults. Israelis also killed a dozen of their own Israeli Arabs that year. Arafat brought Peace, but Sharon continued pushing the building of Israeli colonies on Palestinian land. By 2000, the Israeli population based in Palestine was double what it had been before Oslo. While free travel between Palestinian cities was in theory possible, in reality, Israeli control of territory surrounding the cities made them subject to roadblocks and travel bans. Israelis constituted a full fourth of the population of the West Bank and 10% of the electorate of Israel. It is no surprise that when Barak proposed reneging on the Oslo Accords at Camp David by keeping 20% of the West Bank, Arafat rejected his proposal. Final status issues that were supposed to deal with minor border changes (mostly in Jerusalem) and the return of 1948 refugees became an ultimatum to surrender huge tracts of Palestinian West Bank territory. Surrender of Palestinian territory for settlements is contrary to Article I of the Oslo Accords which clearly states: "It is understood that the interim arrangements are an integral part of the whole peace process and that the negotiations on the permanent status will lead to implementation of Security Council Resolution 242 and 338." and Security Council 242 clearly calls for: "Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict" [1967 War]. 242 also emphasizes "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." So why is it that Busharon continues to demonize Arafat? Israel failed to withdraw--per UN demand and per signed agreement with the Palestinians. Sharon is the one that rejected Oslo when it was signed and worked relentlessly against it until he was finally elected Prime Minister and could announce it was dead. It is Sharon who failed to endorse the "roadmap." (Endorsed were "steps of the roadmap"). It is Sharon who failed to implement the "roadmap"--he staged removal of outposts for the press while erecting new ones elsewhere and he certainly failed to end "incitement" against Palestinians. (Palestinians painted over anti-Israeli grafitti, moderated TV and radio programs and arranged a truce among militants--Israel announced bids for new settlement construction, Sharon told settlers "Just build" and the Israeli armed forces just kept on killing Palestinians). September 17, 2003 The Intifada is NOT "terrorism and violence" on the part of Arafat and the PLO. The PLO is NOT sending suicide bombers into Israel; Arafat is NOT throwing stones at Israelis (and he has a lot of rocks close at hand surrounding his Presidential Office). The Intifada is, rather, a demonstration that for seven years following OSLO the PLO and Arafat DID prevent terrorism and violence against Israel. The Intifada is a police department on strike--chaos and, yes, violence. For seven years (two years past the five of the Oslo contract) the PLO and Arafat upheld their obligations and Israel did not even evacuate their puny settlements in the Gaza Strip. Seven years and Israel merely redeployed their occupation troops outside of the urban centers. How absurd to declare Arafat "irrelevant," "an obstacle to peace" and "compromised by violence." Is there any greater evidence of the relevance of Arafat than the result of his inaction? Pundits speak of the non-violence of Gandhi and Mandela as examples that the Palestinians should emulate. Arafat IS Gandhi; Arafat IS Mandela. He is engaged in non-violence, non-action. The Indian and South African Independence movements were NOT non-violent--thousands died. Mandela's African National Congress engaged in terrorist acts. In the end, though, it was the non-violent faction of Gandhi to whom the British handed control in India, while Mandela, compromised by terror but non-violent by imprisonment, was democratically elected in South Africa. The denial of the "relevance" of Arafat today is the denial of the legitimacy, necessity and inevitability of independent Palestine. Just as the British originally sought to marginalized Gandhi and the South African government imprisoned Mandela, the issue is not the individual but the acceptance of the cause the individual represents. The relevance of Arafat is the relevance of Independent Palestine. It is a relevance the leadership of Israel (compromised by religion, war crimes and settlers' votes) is unwilling to accept. It is a relevance the leadership of the US (compromised by politics, PACs and racism) is unable to accept. September 19, 2003 "A Jewish settler was charged Friday with stealing weapons from the Israeli military, and prosecutors said he was procuring arms for Jewish vigilantes suspected of killing eight Palestinians." --Thus begins an AP article today. VIGILANTES! "Israeli authorities say the group was behind shootings that killed eight Palestinians, including a baby, and four failed bombing attempts, including a plan last year to detonate a bomb at a Palestinian girls' school in Jerusalem." Arms seized included "M-16 assault rifles, machine-guns, three anti-tank rockets, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and dozens of grenades." VIGILANTES! A vigilante is "someone who takes the law into their own hands, who acts outside the law in the interest of justice." A vigilante is an unauthorized enforcer of law--NOT a creator of law. The expression "judge, jury and executioner" does not include legislator. Al-Aqsa is a vigilante group; Hamas is a vigilante group. Settlers are the criminals against whom Palestinian vigilantes act. Settlers can never become vigilantes. Organized criminals committing terror for personal gain are TERRORISTS. September 21, 2003 I've mentioned the issue of demography in a previous blog. Today's St. Petersburg Times has an excellent article on the subject titled "Weapon of Mass Population." Also read my other webpages on Palestinian Issues: Palestinian Children Israeli Massacres of Palestinians The Tantura Massacre Jenin Demography Ariel Sharon the Terrorist Al-Fatah |
| Chronological Archive 8/2/03-9/30/03 |
