Asherah's Journals

Gaza: The Forgotten Story

Systemic destruction of lives and infrastructure was not an unintended consequence

By Aditya Ganapathiraju

Why are people on Gaza so unhappy? Well, if you had to live in a prison, wouldn't you be unhappy?— Former CIA officer Robert Baer

It’s the most terrifying place I’ve ever been in… it’s a horrifyingly sad place because of the desperation and misery of the way people live. I was unprepared for camps that are much worse than anything I saw in South Africa.– Professor Edward Said 1993

They may be living but they're not alive. – Journalist Philip Rizk

The situation on the ground in Gaza has continued to deteriorate since January. One of the most densely populated areas in the world, this small coastal strip is home to a million and a half Palestinians, many of them refugees for over 60 years. It is now the worst condition it’s been in since 1967 when the Israeli army took military control of the land.

As numerous scholars and observers have concluded, the Israeli plan for Gaza seems to be to turn it into a depoliticized humanitarian catastrophe, turning the Palestinians trapped in there “beggars who have no political identity and therefore can have no political claims.”

The Israeli assault against Gaza last winter brought this enclave to the forefront of the news cycle, only to disappear from the headlines in the weeks and months that followed. The attention of much of the world’s dominant media moved on to other issues soon after a unilateral Israeli pullout—planned precisely timed so as not to cause an unsightly distraction from the inauguration of the new American president.

The lack of prominent coverage was not because there was a lack of newsworthy events in Gaza. No, “breaking news is Gaza's middle name,” says freelance journalist Philip Rizk. “But because this breaking news always holds the same kind of information, no one cares to report on it.”

“An Eye for an Eyelash”[8]

Violence in the occupied territories has always been bloody but many longtime observers were shocked by the brutality of winter assault, which killed more Palestinians in the first three weeks than during the entire first Intifada, or uprising against the occupation (1987-1993), prompting the UN to label it “one of the most violent episodes in the recent history of the occupied Palestinian territory.”

The January offensive left 1,417 people dead, 1,181 of which were non-combatants (313 children and 116 women). Another 5,303 Palestinians were injured in the attacks, including 1,606 children and 828 women, many left devastated with life-altering conditions.

The attack, carefully-planned six months in advance, destroyed 60 police stations early on, obliterated 20 ambulances and 30 mosques, in addition to leaving several hospitals bombed. Some 280 schools and kindergartens were damaged, 18 of which were destroyed completely (including 8 kindergartens).

Another 6600 dunams of agricultural land, which Palestinian farmers depend on for their livelihood, were razed (1 dunam=1,000 square meters). In all, some 21,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. An estimated $1.9 billion worth of damage was inflicted, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit report.

“What we're witnessing today is an assault, a massacre,” and “not a war whatsoever,” said Zahir Janmohamed of Amnesty International on the 15 of January, reminding an audience that this was not a conflict between two equivalent military powers but rather another bloody chapter a long history of “Israel’s colonial operations” in the occupied territories. His views were confirmed by facts on the ground, as one scholar recently observed.

The systemic and widespread destruction of both lives and infrastructure was not an unintended consequence of the offensive but rather a deliberate strategy derived from the destruction inflicted during the 2006 Lebanon conflict.

The attack followed the “Dahiya Strategy,” referring to the Beirut area that was destroyed during the attack on Lebanon in 2006. It concluded civilians must pay for their leader’s actions.

Of course if one were to conclude that Israeli civilians should pay for their leader’s actions or American civilians be held responsible for George Bush’s actions, the (muted) international response might be different.

The strategy was formalized two months before the attacks by Tel Aviv University's Institute of National Security Studies and urged the use of “disproportionate force” ( by definition a war crime) to inflict crushing damage on “economic interests” and “centers of civilian power,” leaving the targeted society devastated and “floundering” in a long reconstruction process. (for more on the political dynamics involved and actions of Hamas and Israel before and during the attacks, see these papers).

“Behind the dry statistics lie shocking individual stories,” a group of Israeli human rights groups wrote. “Whole families were killed; parents saw their children shot before their very eyes; relatives watched their loved ones bleed to death; and entire neighborhoods were obliterated.”

The stories of those who experienced the attacks, who lost loved ones, and who continue to suffer, offer another perspective often absent here in the U.S. Some of these stories, which described the toll of war beyond numerical abstractions, trickled out in the British press, where journalists are less ideologically constrained to follow the party line, even despite the Israeli military ban on foreign journalists.

Anwar Balousha, a 40-year-old man living in Jabalyia refugee camp in northern Gaza told British reporters of his personal loss. It was around midnight when an Israeli bomb struck their refugee camp’s mosque with a blast so powerful it collapsed several neighboring buildings, including the Balousha’s home. Of his seven daughters sleeping in a single room, five were killed—buried under bricks and rubble as they slept.

"We are civilians,” Anwar said. “I don't belong to any faction, I don't support Fatah or Hamas, I'm just a Palestinian. They are punishing us all, civilians and militants. What is the guilt of the civilian?"

While human rights groups and other observers painstakingly extracted similar stories, the lesser-known narrative of a siege decimating Gaza’s society remained largely untold, confined to the dissident press and humanitarian groups.

Most stories usually report on the violence and bloodshed between two forces, which are often implied to be equivalent both morally and physically. The day-to-day struggles of 1.4 million Palestinians enduring and resisting a 42-year old occupation do not fit neatly into the standard narrative of events describing the Palestinian-Israeli issue. It becomes easy for many to see ordinary Palestinians as nameless and faceless creatures, characters in a story taking place in a faraway land.

Israeli violence towards Gaza did not begin on the 27th of December.

As Amnety’s Janmohamed observed, the assault included the blockade and other attacks and incursions into Gaza, all of which started well before that Saturday morning in December. The roots of the humanitarian disaster imposed by the Israeli need to be examined, he said, alluding to what one OXFAM official described as “a serious crime against humanity,” a situation where 1.5 million people “are being punished for something they haven't done.”

[This is the first part of a series on Gaza, Part II describes life under siege]

Brutal Destruction Of Iraq's Archaeological Sites

Brutal Destruction Of Iraq's Archaeological Sites Continues (Photogallery)

Diane Tucker

September 21, 2009

Buried in Iraq's clay and dirt is the history of Western civilization. Great empires once thrived here, cultures that produced the world's first wheel, first cities, first agriculture, first code of law, first base-sixty number system, and very possibly the first writing. A brutal plundering of this rich cultural heritage has been taking place in broad daylight ever since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. These days Ancient Mesopotamia looks more like a scene from the movie Holes.

"I still find it hard to believe this is happening," Clemens Reichel told the Huffington Post. "Since the 2003 Iraq War, my work as a field archaeologist has changed forever. Sometimes it feels more like an undertaker's work." Reichel, a Mesopotamian archaeologist at the University of Toronto, is former editor of the Iraq Museum Database Project at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute.

The scope of the catastrophe taking place cannot be overstated, said Reichel.

Thousands of cuneiform-inscribed tablets, cylinder seals, and stone statues have illegally made their way to the lucrative antiquities markets of London, Geneva, and New York. Irreplaceable artifacts have been purchased for less than $100 on Ebay.

Beyond the loss of these precious objects, reckless digging has destroyed the ability of researchers to assemble a mosaic of meaning from the shards of ancient art left buried in the ground. "Artifacts without context are decoration, nothing more. Pretty, but useless," said Reichel.

Looters Aren't The Only Culprits

The United States military turned the site of ancient Babylon into Camp Alpha in 2003, inflicting serious damage according to an exhaustive damage assessment recently released by UNESCO. Bulldozers leveled many of Babylon's artifact-laden hills. Helicopters caused structural damage to an ancient theater.

But don't be quick to pin the blame on the U.S. military. In the past, protecting antiquities was an important part of U.S. military planning -- that is, when the leadership at the Defense Department deemed it important. During World War II, American officers persuaded allied commanders to avoid combat inside Florence, birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. Members of the Third Army rescued ten works by Rembrandt from the salt mines of Germany, then shipped them to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. for painstaking restoration before returning the works to Europe.

Why, then, are military helicopters still landing on the remains of ancient Babylon? Why are looters still bringing shovels to the cradle of civilization and stripping it bare?

The Buck Stops With Donald Rumsfeld

Remember Rummy? The former defense secretary's jaw-dropping insensitivity was immortalized by the Washington Post's Thomas E. Ricks, after Army Specialist Thomas Wilson complained to Rumsfeld that he and his comrades were forced to root through Iraqi junkyards to improvise armor for their military vehicles:

TW: "A lot of us are getting ready to move north soon. Our vehicles are not armored."
DR: "You go to war with the Army you have."

Rumsfeld was equally indifferent about the looting of more than 15,000 objects from the National Museum in Baghdad on his watch. "Stuff happens," he said.

According to U.S. military intelligence officer Major James B. Cogbill, the principal reason the U.S. failed to protect the National Museum in Baghdad and key archaeological sites was the relatively small size of the force sent into Iraq. "There weren't enough troops on the ground to guard known ammunition dumps, let alone cultural and archaeological sites," Cogbill told the Huffington Post.

Remember it was Rumsfeld who pushed hard to send as small a force as possible into Iraq. This failed strategy, now called the Rumsfeld Doctrine, resulted in unnecessary loss of life, and loss of history.

In 2003, museum officials in Baghdad had more on the ball than Rumsfeld. They wisely hid many premier objects inside an air-raid shelter and the Central Bank before the Coalition invasion. Even so, thousands of precious objects covering 5000 years of recorded history were stolen or smashed to bits. Today nearly 10,000 artifacts remain missing.

Even more devastating is the continued destruction of Iraq's reknowned archaeological sites. Here are three examples. There are thousands more.

Babylon

First built nearly 5,000 years ago, the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon was once the largest city in the ancient world. Hammurabi, whose principles of justice are still recognized today, lived here. So did Nebuchadnezzar, who reputedly established the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Alexander the Great once ruled this resilient city.

The use of Babylon as a military base was a grave encroachment on the ancient site. Several areas were leveled to serve as parking lots. Heavy vehicles destroyed relics buried near the surface. Troops filled sandbags with soil full of archaeological fragments. (Something as simple as a broken plate can hold the key to how ancient cultures traded.) The remains of Ishtar Gate, the most beautiful of the eight gates that ringed Babylon's perimeter, was among the structures most abused.

"The damage to Babylon is so great," said Maryam Mussa, an official from the Iraqi state board of heritage and antiquities, "it will be difficult to repair it, and nothing can make up for it."

Samarra

The Great Mosque of Samarra, built in the 9th century, was once the largest mosque in the world. It's minaret, the Malwiya Tower, is a dramatic spiraling cone that rises more than 170 feet above the desert. Not only is the tower one of the most recognized buildings in the Middle East, it was featured on Iraq's currency. Despite protests issued by scholars, U.S. snipers occupied the Malwiya Tower as a lookout. In 2005, the top of the minaret was blown apart by an insurgent bomb.

Umm al-Aqarib

Archaeologists uncovered a palace and a large temple complex more than 4,500 years old at the ancient site of Umm al-Aqarib, findings that were expected to help rewrite the history of Sumerian architecture. Today this buried treasure has been completely picked over by looters. Many of the illicit digs were massive efforts carried out by organized teams with backhoes and bulldozers, some financed by foreign operations. Stolen artifacts included fragile clay tablets etched in cuneiform script that revealed recorded decrees, business transactions, and other details of Mesopotamian life.

Who is going to step in and protect these sites?

The United Nations is trying to name Babylon a World Heritage Site, a designation that would bring additional support and protection. The hitch? The World Heritage Organization might deny the request if it decides Iraq doesn't have the personnel to maintain the site. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has kicked in $700,000 to help with restoration, a figure most archaeologists consider too small to make a difference. "Of course it is not enough, but it is better than nothing," said Mussa.

Speaking of better than nothing, last fall the U.S. became the 123rd country to ratify the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. (That date, 1954, is not a typo. It took 55 years for the U.S. to get on board.) The Hague Convention is the first multilateral treaty devoted exclusively to the protection of cultural heritage in the event of armed conflict.

Major Cogbill is pushing to institutionalize wartime cultural planning "so it is not marginalized as an afterthought in the junk drawer of the Pentagon."

The U.S. Government should create a permanent, dedicated structure within the Department of Defense that, at a minimum, ensures that appropriate cultural planning occurs and is disseminated to all levels of command. This organization should be fully integrated into the operations and policy directorates -- not marginalized as an afterthought in the "junk drawer" of the Pentagon. It would also be responsible for coordinating directly with whatever civilian agency has overall responsibility for protecting cultural arts and antiquities. Perhaps most importantly, cultural planning should not be relegated to the periphery as part of "phase IV" operations. Unless such planning is a formal aspect of all phases of the operation, it will not be executed properly.

The Department of Defense is "seriously considering this recommendation" said Cogbill.

Army cultural services manager Laurie Rush told the Huffington Post the Department of Defense has already started to do more than just talk about antiquities issues. In 2007, Rush developed a set of playing cards illustrating Iraq's wealth of ancient historical sites for U.S. forces. "This summer the Central Command Historical Cultural Advisory Group completed its first ever on-site archaeology training for military personnel in the Middle East. Next month, the group will return to Cairo to provide additional sessions with an international faculty."

In the meantime, the U.S. military is in the process of slowly withdrawing its troops from Iraq, which begs the question: who is going to step in and stop the slow death of human history?

Archaeological remains of the ancient city of Umm al Aqarib just weeks before the US-led invasion of Iraq. (Area in dotted box appears in next photo.) (March 2003)

Umm al Aqarib five months later, looking more like a scene from the movie Holes. Looters brutally destroyed this archaeological site. (August 2003)

Too late – a U.S. military patrol inspects deep trenches dug by looters hunting for valuable archaeological objects at the ancient site of Isin, which was irretrievably destroyed. (May 2003)

In this recent photo of the ancient site of Babylon, what appears to be a military camp can be seen to the right of the Southern Citadel (1). Three helicopters can be seen in the upper left corner.

Nearly 5,000 Mesopotamian cylinder seals were stolen from Iraqi museums and sites. Engraved stone cylinders like this one produced a raised impression when rolled over clay. This scene shows two gods attacking a Hydra with seven heads.

Nearly 10,000 objects are still missing from the National Museum in Baghdad, including this ivory plaque with gold inlays and lapis lazuli stones that is one piece of a larger frieze. (c.900)

When the famed Bull Lyre of Ur was carefully excavated from Iraqi soil in 1926, its wooden body had all but disintegrated. Fortunately, a cavity left in the undisturbed soil was recognized by archaeologists as the negative of the ancient artifact.

Mounted on a new wooden frame, the fully restored Bull Lyre of Ur includes magnificent inlay work of lapis lazuli, carnelian, shell, and a golden bull's head. It is one of the world's oldest surviving stringed instruments. (c.2600 BCE)

The Bull Lyre of Ur was severely damaged during the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad. Gold bands stripped off the instrument presumably were melted down. (The bull's head, stored separately, survived.)

:: Article nr. 58169 sent on 22-sep-2009 00:07 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=58169

Link: www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-tucker/brutal-destruction-of-ira_b_290667.html

Enough About Nonviolence - by Steven Salaita

Memo From the Wretched: Enough About Nonviolence

by Steven Salaita

September 9, 2009

No people has been the recipient of more unsolicited advice than the Palestinians. The exemplars of barbarity to neoconservatives and the subjects of anguished progressive reprimands, the Palestinians often serve as a pretext for blowhards of all political affiliations to dust off their soapboxes. A particularly egregious form of sermonizing to which the Palestinians are subject is the admonition that they undertake nonviolent modes of resistance. I would like to argue that this sort of admonition is both ignorant and immoral.

I do not want to explore whether or not nonviolence is the best strategic or moral form of anti-colonial resistance. The difference between violence and nonviolence is not as trenchant as most commentators imagine. Violence and nonviolence, both amorphous terms, are in constant dialectic, and no historical example can be found of either of these approaches being effective without the other present. Undertaking nonviolent resistance is an ethical and strategic decision with which I have no quarrel. In fact, I have tremendous admiration for those who practice this method at the risk of their personal safety and in the service of national liberation.

I dislike the frequent lecturing from Western liberals to Palestinians about the merits of nonviolence, an act as misguided as it is patronizing. Michael Tomasky of The Guardian, for example, posed the following hypothetical amid Israel’s January, 2009, massacre of civilians in the Gaza Strip: "A hypothetical question for you. Suppose the Palestinian liberation movement, going way back to the founding of the PLO in 1964, had been dedicated to nonviolent struggle as opposed to armed struggle, and the Palestinians had had a Gandhi, and not an Arafat." The Palestinians, Tomasky surmises, would have had a state over twenty years ago. His colleague Gershom Gorenberg argues that "[t]hrough violence—from airplane hijackings to suicide bombings and rocket fire—Palestinians have failed to reach political independence…. So why not adopt the strategy of nonviolent civil disobedience, the methods of Gandhi?" Gorenberg wonders, "Is that kind of radicalism imaginable in Islam?"

On CommonDreams.org, Marty Jezer explains, "Palestinian nonviolence seems a romantic fantasy, an idealistic dream. But perhaps idealism is the most realistic approach at this time; and nonviolence the solution most grounded in reality. I challenge anybody to come up with an equivalent strategy, one that assures Israelis their security and Palestinians their state." Michael Lerner asks what he imagines to be a self-evident question: "Who are Palestine’s friends? Those who encourage a path of non-violence and abandoning [sic] the fantasy that armed struggle combined with political isolation of Israel will lead to a good outcome for Palestinians."

It would be too time consuming to respond to all the problems in these passages, but in them we can identify some useful points of analysis. The most important point is that the Palestinians do practice nonviolence. They have done so ever since Zionists began settling their land, a process that is by its very nature violent. Today, as throughout the twentieth century, one can find ample examples of intrepid and imaginative civil resistance. I have met very few Westerners who have traveled to Palestine and didn’t return home inspired.

An interesting feature of Palestinian nonviolence is that it usually evokes a ferocious response by Israel. During the 1980s, peaceful demonstrators had their bones broken at the behest of Yitzhak Rabin. Earlier generations were deported and had their homes demolished. Today’s nonviolent activists are often shot, imprisoned, or beaten. The village of Bi’lin in the West Bank has done a weekly protest for over four years. During the course of these peaceful gatherings, the Israeli military has been utterly brutal. In April, 2009, soldiers shot and killed an unarmed demonstrator, Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahmah. Abu Rahmah was hit in the chest with a tear-gas grenade, the same weapon that earlier in the year cracked open the skull of American demonstrator Tristan Anderson. In June, 2009, one of the leaders of the Bi’lin demonstrations, Adeeb Abu Rahme, was arrested and kept in military detention without due process. The breathless appeals by concerned Western liberals for the Palestinians to practice nonviolence are both ludicrous and immoral in light of the historical record and the invidious violence of the Israeli state.

The Palestinians have always mixed violence and nonviolence, like all anti-colonial movements. It is through a host of racist presuppositions and an inherent commitment to Zionism that American liberals imagine that somehow Palestinians are a special case, that their reliance on violence is culturally innate (Gershon Gorenberg) or that they are motivated by factors other than liberation, such as anti-Semitism and civilizational envy (Alan Dershowitz). The inability or unwillingness of so many liberal intellectuals to recognize the long tradition of Palestinian nonviolent resistance bespeaks tacit racism in addition to a hypocritical devotion to Israel’s normative and continuous state violence.

These calls for Palestinian nonviolence pretend to be ethically disinterested, but they are entangled with troublesome politics that are fundamentally destructive and undemocratic. For instance, they are often accompanied by appeals to avoid criticism of Zionism (Norman Finkelstein), to eschew effective nonviolent tactics such as boycott and divestment (Michael Lerner), and to reject counterproductive things like binationalism and right of return (Finkelstein and Lerner). In other words, the Palestinians should reject violence, and while they’re at it go ahead and give up all of their legal entitlements and decolonial aspirations.

My good friend, the philosopher Mohammed Abed, pointed out to me recently that the grueling endurance of life under military occupation—waiting hours at checkpoints, being denied medical care, having universities shut down—is itself a testament to an unusual commitment to nonviolence. I suspect that when many Western liberals urge the Palestinians (and other colonized people) to undertake nonviolence, they are using a truncated definition of the term informed by a poor or distorted understanding of the concept. In this usage, they conflate nonviolence with passivity. It is a great convenience to the liberal advocates of colonization to have a colonized population comprised of passive resistors. But colonized people are never as stupid and gullible as their liberal saviors imagine them to be.

The Palestinians, anyway, are far too evolved to listen to those who would use their courage and diligence to dispossess them of their right to active resistance. Violent or nonviolent, their choice of resistance isn’t the business of liberal armchair ethicists. Those ethicists are fond of claiming that if the Palestinians resisted nonviolently they would have already achieved their liberation. This claim is factually untrue. It is just as likely that if liberal commentators would assess their own profound support of violence they would have a lot less to say to others and more time to devote to their own failed selves.

Steven Salaita's latest book is The Uncultured Wars: Arabs, Muslims, and the Poverty of Liberal Thought

Against the Reintroduction of Race Laws in Europe

Against the Reintroduction of Race Laws in Europe

To European democratic public opinion and the press that keeps it informed

Events in Italy have always – for better or worse – had an extraordinary influence on the whole of European society, from the Italian Renaissance to Fascism.
But, all too often, Europe has not become aware of these events in time.
There is currently a great deal of attention in major European newspapers on some aspects of the crisis that has engulfed our country. But we believe that it is our duty – the duty of all those living in Italy – to inform European public opinion on other alarming aspects that have not elicited such interest, such as the draft legislation proposed by the Italian Government, called the “Security Decree”. If it is not prevented, this legislation runs the risk of disfiguring the image of Europe and dealing a severe setback to human rights worldwide.
The Berlusconi Government, using security as a pretext, has imposed on our Parliament – over which it has total control – the adoption of laws discriminating against immigrants, laws the likes of which we had not seen in this country since the passing of the Fascist Race Laws.
The victim of the discrimination has changed: it is no longer the Jews but the undocumented migrant population, hundreds of thousands of people. But the discriminating measures have not changed: if passed, these new laws may, for example, forbid mixed marriages.
Such a prohibition would prevent a person from exercising a fundamental right, the right to marry without constraints of an ethnic or religious nature. The victims of discrimination would be denied this right simply on the basis of their nationality. Not to mention the fact that Italians would equally be denied their right to marry the person of their choice.
Another norm contained in the decree – even more abusive of human rights and dignity – is the prohibition for foreign women lacking permits (an administrative offence) to recognize their children at birth. Thus, the children born to “undocumented” foreign women, by virtue of a political decision by a temporary majority, shall be for their entire lives the children of unknown parents, they may be removed from their own mothers at birth and placed under the care of the State.
Not even Fascism had gone that far! The Race Laws introduced by the Regime in 1938 did not subtract children from their Jewish mothers, nor did they induce the mothers to abort rather than have their children confiscated by the State.
We would not be addressing European public opinion if the gravity of these measures were not such that it transcends national boundaries, calling for a reaction by all those who believe in our shared humanity. Europe cannot accept that one of its founding members regresses to primitive levels of social organization, contradicting international law and the very principles upon which the European political union is based.
It is in the interest of all of us that this not happen. It would dishonour us all.
European democratic public opinion must become aware of the disease ravaging Italy and act swiftly so that it does not spread further.
We are confident that each one of you will choose an effective way to demonstrate your opposition.

Roma, June, the 29th 2009

Andrea Camilleri, Antonio Tabucchi, Dacia Maraini, Dario Fo, Franca Rame, Moni Ovadia, Maurizio Scaparro, Gianni Amelio

ISRAEL ATTACKS JUSTICE BOAT; KIDNAPS HUMAN RIGHTS WORKERS; CONFISCATES MEDICINE, TOYS AND OLIVE TREES

ISRAEL ATTACKS JUSTICE BOAT; KIDNAPS HUMAN RIGHTS WORKERS; CONFISCATES MEDICINE, TOYS AND OLIVE TREES

For more information contact:
Greta Berlin (English)
tel: +357 99 081 767 / friends@freegaza.org

Caoimhe Butterly (Arabic/English/Spanish):

tel: +357 99 077 820 / sahara78@hotmail.co.uk
www.FreeGaza.org

[23 miles off the coast of Gaza, 15:30pm] - Today Israeli Occupation Forces attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries, including Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (see below for a complete list of passengers). The passengers and crew are being forcibly dragged toward Israel.

“This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip,” said Cynthia McKinney, a former U.S. Congresswoman and presidential candidate. “President Obama just told Israel to let in humanitarian and reconstruction supplies, and that’s exactly what we tried to do. We're asking the international community to demand our release so we can resume our journey.”

According to an International Committee of the Red Cross report released yesterday, the Palestinians living in Gaza are “trapped in despair.” Thousands of Gazans whose homes were destroyed earlier during Israel’s December/January massacre are still without shelter despite pledges of almost $4.5 billion in aid, because Israel refuses to allow cement and other building material into the Gaza Strip. The report also notes that hospitals are struggling to meet the needs of their patients due to Israel’s disruption of medical supplies.

“The aid we were carrying is a symbol of hope for the people of Gaza, hope that the sea route would open for them, and they would be able to transport their own materials to begin to reconstruct the schools, hospitals and thousands of homes destroyed during the onslaught of "Cast Lead”. Our mission is a gesture to the people of Gaza that we stand by them and that they are not alone" said fellow passenger Mairead Maguire, winner of a Noble Peace Prize for her work in Northern Ireland.

Just before being kidnapped by Israel, Huwaida Arraf, Free Gaza Movement chairperson and delegation co-coordinator on this voyage, stated that: “No one could possibly believe that our small boat constitutes any sort of threat to Israel. We carry medical and reconstruction supplies, and children’s toys. Our passengers include a Nobel peace prize laureate and a former U.S. congressperson. Our boat was searched and received a security clearance by Cypriot Port Authorities before we departed, and at no time did we ever approach Israeli waters.”

Arraf continued, “Israel’s deliberate and premeditated attack on our unarmed boat is a clear violation of international law and we demand our immediate and unconditional release.”
###

WHAT YOU CAN DO!

CONTACT the Israeli Ministry of Justice
tel: +972 2646 6666 or +972 2646 6340
fax: +972 2646 6357

CONTACT the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
tel: +972 2530 3111
fax: +972 2530 3367

CONTACT Mark Regev in the Prime Minister's office at:
tel: +972 5 0620 3264 or +972 2670 5354
mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il

CONTACT the International Committee of the Red Cross to ask for their assistance in establishing the wellbeing of the kidnapped human rights workers and help in securing their immediate release!

Red Cross Israel
tel: +972 3524 5286
fax: +972 3527 0370
tel_aviv.tel@icrc.org

Red Cross Switzerland:
tel: +41 22 730 3443
fax: +41 22 734 8280

Red Cross USA:
tel: +1 212 599 6021
fax: +1 212 599 6009
###

Kidnapped Passengers from the Spirit of Humanity include:

Khalad Abdelkader, Bahrain
Khalad is an engineer representing the Islamic Charitable Association of Bahrain.

Othman Abufalah, Jordan
Othman is a world-renowned journalist with al-Jazeera TV.

Khaled Al-Shenoo, Bahrain
Khaled is a lecturer with the University of Bahrain.

Mansour Al-Abi, Yemen
Mansour is a cameraman with Al-Jazeera TV.

Fatima Al-Attawi, Bahrain
Fatima is a relief worker and community activist from Bahrain.

Juhaina Alqaed, Bahrain
Juhaina is a journalist & human rights activist.

Huwaida Arraf, US
Huwaida is the Chair of the Free Gaza Movement and delegation co-coordinator for this voyage.

Ishmahil Blagrove, UK
Ishmahil is a Jamaican-born journalist, documentary film maker and founder of the Rice & Peas film production company. His documentaries focus on international struggles for social justice.

Kaltham Ghloom, Bahrain
Kaltham is a community activist.

Derek Graham, Ireland
Derek Graham is an electrician, Free Gaza organizer, and first mate aboard the Spirit of Humanity.

Alex Harrison, UK
Alex is a solidarity worker from Britain. She is traveling to Gaza to do long-term human rights monitoring.

Denis Healey, UK
Denis is Captain of the Spirit of Humanity. This will be his fifth voyage to Gaza.

Fathi Jaouadi, UK
Fathi is a British journalist, Free Gaza organizer, and delegation co-coordinator for this voyage.

Mairead Maguire, Ireland
Mairead is a Nobel laureate and renowned peace activist.

Lubna Masarwa, Palestine/Israel
Lubna is a Palestinian human rights activist and Free Gaza organizer.

Theresa McDermott, Scotland
Theresa is a solidarity worker from Scotland. She is traveling to Gaza to do long-term human rights monitoring.

Cynthia McKinney, US
Cynthia McKinney is an outspoken advocate for human rights and social justice issues, as well as a former U.S. congressperson and presidential candidate.

Adnan Mormesh, UK
Adnan is a solidarity worker from Britain. He is traveling to Gaza to do long-term human rights monitoring.

Adam Qvist, Denmark
Adam is a solidarity worker from Denmark. He is traveling to Gaza to do human rights monitoring.

Adam Shapiro, US
Adam is an American documentary film maker and human rights activist.

Kathy Sheetz, US
Kathy is a nurse and film maker, traveling to Gaza to do human rights monitoring.
###

Netanyahu's "brilliant" peace plan

Hasan Abu Nimah and Ali Abunimah

17 June 2009

The Har Homa settlement in the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu defied calls for a halt to settlement expansion in his speech on Monday. (ActiveStills)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a peace plan so ingenious it is a wonder that for six decades of bloodshed no one thought of it. Some people might have missed the true brilliance of his ideas presented in a speech at Bar Ilan University on 14 June, so we are pleased to offer this analysis.

First, Netanyahu wants Palestinians to become committed Zionists. They can prove this by declaring, "We recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own in this land." As he pointed out, it is only the failure of Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular to commit themselves to the Zionist dream that has caused conflict, but once "they say those words to our people and to their people, then a path will be opened to resolving all the problems between our peoples." It is of course perfectly natural that Netanyahu would be "yearning for that moment."

Mere heartfelt commitment to Zionism will not be enough, however. For the Palestinians' conversion to have "practical meaning," Netanyahu explained, "there must also be a clear understanding that the Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside Israel's borders." In other words, Palestinians must agree to help Israel complete the ethnic cleansing it began in 1947-48, by abandoning the right of return. This is indeed logical because as Zionists, Palestinians would share the Zionist ambition that Palestine be emptied of Palestinians to the greatest extent possible.

Netanyahu is smart enough to recognize that even the self-ethnic-cleansing of refugees may not be sufficient to secure "peace": there will still remain millions of Palestinians living inconveniently in their native land, or in the heart of what Netanyahu insisted was the "historic homeland" of the Jews.

For these Palestinians, the peace plan involves what Netanyahu calls "demilitarization," but what should be properly understood as unconditional surrender followed by disarmament. Disarmament, though necessary, cannot be immediate, however. Some recalcitrant Palestinians may not wish to become Zionists. Therefore, the newly pledged Zionist Palestinians would have to launch a civil war to defeat those who foolishly insist on resisting Zionism. Or as Netanyahu put it, the "Palestinian Authority will have to establish the rule of law in Gaza and overcome Hamas." (In fact, this civil war has already been underway for several years as the American and Israeli-backed Palestinian "security forces," led by US Lt. General Keith Dayton, have escalated their attacks on Hamas).

Once anti-Zionist Palestinians are crushed, the remaining Palestinians -- whose number equals that of Jews in historic Palestine -- will be able to get on with life as good Zionists, according to Netanyahu's vision. They will not mind being squeezed into ever smaller ghettos and enclaves in order to allow for the continued expansion of Jewish colonies, whose inhabitants Netanyahu described as "an integral part of our people, a principled, pioneering and Zionist public." And, in line with their heartfelt Zionism, Palestinians will naturally agree that "Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel."

These are only the Palestinian-Israeli aspects of the Netanyahu plan. The regional elements include full, Arab endorsement of Palestinian Zionism and normalization of ties with Israel and even Arab Gulf money to pay for it all. Why not? If everyone becomes a Zionist then all conflict disappears.

It would be nice if we could really dismiss Netanyahu's speech as a joke. But it is an important indicator of a hard reality. Contrary to some naive and optimistic hopes, Netanyahu does not represent only an extremist fringe in Israel. Today, the Israeli Jewish public presents (with a handful of exceptions) a united front in favor of a racist, violent ultra-nationalism fueled by religious fanaticism. Palestinians are viewed at best as inferiors to be tolerated until circumstances arise in which they can be expelled, or caged and starved like the 1.5 million inmates of the Gaza prison.

Israel is a society where virulent anti-Arab racism and Nakba denial are the norm although none of the European and American leaders who constantly lecture about Holocaust denial will dare to admonish Netanyahu for his bald lies and omissions about Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.

Netanyahu's "vision" offered absolutely no advance on the 1976 Allon Plan for annexation of most of the occupied West Bank, or Menachem Begin's Camp David "autonomy" proposals. The goal remains the same: to control maximum land with minimum Palestinians.

Netanyahu's speech should put to rest newly revived illusions -- fed in particular by US President Barack Obama's Cairo speech -- that such an Israel can be brought voluntarily to any sort of just settlement. Some in this region who have placed all their hopes in Obama -- as they did previously in Bush -- believe that US pressure can bring Israel to heel. They point to Obama's strong statements calling for a complete halt to Israeli settlement construction -- a demand Netanyahu defied in his speech. It now remains to be seen whether Obama will follow his tough words with actions.

Yet, even if Obama is ready to put unprecedented pressure on Israel, he would likely have to exhaust much of his political capital just to get Israel to agree to a settlement freeze, let alone to move on any of dozens of other much more substantial issues.

And despite the common perception of an escalating clash between the Obama administration and the Israeli government (which may come over minor tactical issues), when it comes to substantive questions they agree on much more than they disagree. Obama has already stated that "any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state," and he affirmed that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided." As for Palestinian refugees, he has said, "The right of return [to Israel] is something that is not an option in a literal sense."

For all the fuss about settlements, Obama has addressed only their expansion, not their continued existence. Until the Obama administration publicly dissociates itself from the positions of the Clinton and Bush administrations, we must assume it agrees with them and with Israel that the large settlement blocks encircling Jerusalem and dividing the West Bank into ghettos would remain permanently in any two-state solution. Neither Obama nor Netanyahu have mentioned Israel's illegal West Bank wall suggesting that there is no controversy over either its route or existence. And now, both agree that whatever shreds are left can be called a "Palestinian state." No wonder the Obama administration welcomed Netanyahu's speech as "a big step forward."

What is particularly dismaying about the position stated by Obama in Cairo -- and since repeated constantly by his Middle East envoy George Mitchell -- is that the United States is committed to the "legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own." This formula is designed to sound meaningful, but these vague, campaign-style buzzwords are devoid of any reference to inalienable Palestinian rights. They were chosen by American speechwriters and public relations experts, not by Palestinians. The Obama formula implies that any other Palestinian aspirations are inherently illegitimate.

Where in international law, or UN resolutions can Palestinians find definitions of "dignity" and "opportunity?" Such infinitely malleable terms incorrectly reduce all of Palestinian history to a demand for vague sentiments and a "state" instead of a struggle for liberation, justice, equality, return and the restoration of usurped rights. It is, after all, easy enough to conceive of a state that keeps Palestinians forever dispossessed, dispersed, defenseless and under threat of more expulsion and massacres by a racist, expansionist Israel.

Through history it was never leaders who defined rights, but the people who struggled for them. It is no small achievement that for a century Palestinians have resisted and survived Zionist efforts to destroy their communities physically and wipe them from the pages of history. As long as Palestinians continue to resist in every arena and by all legitimate means, building on true international solidarity, their rights can never be extinguished. It is from such a basis of independent and indigenous strength, not from the elusive promises of a great power or the favors of a usurping occupier, that justice and peace can be achieved.

Hasan Abu Nimah is the former permanent representative of Jordan at the United Nations.

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (Metropolitan Books, 2006).

A version of this article first appeared in The Jordan Times and is reprinted with the authors' permission.

:: Article nr. 55230 sent on 17-jun-2009 20:54 ECT
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Link: electronicintifada.net/v2/article10606.shtml

:: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.

Let them be sad! - by Gilad Atzmon

As part of their racist campaign against the indigenous Palestinians, Israeli lawmakers are now insisting upon making the commemoration of the Nakba illegal. Recently a number of Israeli cabinet and Knesset Members proposed a "draft law" that would criminalize the remembrance of 1948 Palestinian holocaust (Nakba) by Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship. Interestingly enough, the Jewish state that sets its raison d'être around the remembrance of Jewish suffering is attempting to ban Palestinians from doing exactly the same with their own.

As we know, Israel had wiped out every possible remnant of Palestinian existence on the ground. Palestinian villages, towns, orchards, fields and cultural assets had been erased soon after 1948. Currently, the Israeli lawmakers are taking the war against the Palestinian heritage one step further. It is not just a physical expulsion and erasure of facts on the ground, it is not just racially motivated ethnic cleansing, starvation, land confiscation, house demolition, bombing schools or spreading white phosphorous over populated neighbourhoods, from now on, Israel wants to invade the Palestinian mind. Israeli Knesset members insist upon eradicating the Palestinian collective memory. At least formally, they are trying to ban the right to remember.

As Khalid Amayreh pointed out a few days ago, “one Israeli Palestinian parliamentarian compared the proposed law with an imagined promulgation by Germany of a law banning all Jewish activities commemorating the holocaust.” The equation between the Nakba and the Jewish holocaust is well placed. We are talking about two racist crimes of a colossal magnitude. Yet, it is rather obvious that while Germans came collectively to terms with their past, the Jewish state is advancing into its seventh decade of denial bonded with total abuse of an innocent civilian population.

In the light of the new measures of Israeli merciless brutality it is rather interesting to explore a Jewish ‘voice of reason’. The odd voice of a person who stood up against this very ludicrous draft law. Professor Ruth Gavison is such a voice. Gavison is an Israeli Law professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She is also ‘the president’ of, try not to laugh, ‘The Centre of Zionist, Jewish, Liberal and Humanitarian Thought’. Last week she published an article in the highly popular Hebrew Ynet online news magazine denouncing the new proposed law.

Professor Gavison believes that Zionism could be interpreted as humanist and a liberal endeavour. However, a brief scrutiny of her thoughts reveals the devastating truth, the Law professor lacks the essential comprehension of the notion of universal ethics or humanism. Her vision of justice, is rather Zionised. She, seemingly, tries to juggle some old Zionist symbolic clichés hoping that her Hebrew readers would be too bored to challenge her lame argument.

Gavison is against the draft law. She rightly argues that the proposed law is, “Unjustified and foolish for misidentifying the core problem in our public life.” She argues that legalism is the least appropriate route to confront the core issue. But this is more or less where Professor Gavison runs out of kindness.

In spite of the promising departure, it doesn’t take too long before the Israeli law professor shows her spots.

Here is Gavison on the Nakba.

“It is an accepted fact that the day when the Jewish majority celebrates their independence in their own land, is the same day that symbolizes for some of the Arab minority the day of their disaster.” It is indeed revealing to know that as far as Professor Gavison is concerned, it is not the Palestinians as a whole who commemorate their Nakba as a disaster but only just “some” of them. However, for Gavison, the Palestinians have themselves to blame for it and no one but themselves.

“It must be remembered,” says Gavison, that “it could as well be different… this day could have been a celebration for both Israelis and Palestinians who could celebrate the foundation of two national states.” One may wonder at this stage, who is it exactly which Gavison is trying to fool or mislead. Surely she must know that the plan to expel the Palestinians was well imbued in the Zionist agenda from the very beginning. “The Palestinians,” she continues, “stood up against the partition resolution and the consequences of this war is the fact that the Israeli state was erected on the wreckage of the Palestinian

society and over the Palestinian land. Many Palestinians became refugees and a Palestinian state is yet to be established.”

One would expect that at this stage, the Israeli law professor who is also a ‘president’ of an institute that is there to promote an image of ‘Jewish humanism’ would come with the necessary conclusion: time is more than ripe to bring the expelled Palestinians back to their lands and homes.

Do not hold your breath, Gavison is not exactly a universal humanist, she is just a Zionist one. All she really wants is to stop the current legislation that bans Palestinians from mourning. In other words, she wants to allow Palestinians to be sad so they can lament as much as they want.

“Sadness is a natural feeling for people who suffer so much,” acknowledges the gracious professor, “We should never deny the history, we should never ban it legally, our challenge is to confront it.” One would expect that such a revelation from an alleged humanist would lead her to acknowledge the Zionist sin and even take responsibility.

This is not going to happen. The president of ‘The Centre of ‘Zionist, Jewish, Liberal and Humanitarian Thought’ doesn’t fit easily into our common notion of a humanist. She is more of a Jewish tribal campaigner that tries to mould some liberal sporadic terminology to justify some relentless and crude non-ethical behaviour. Gavison doesn’t really want to bring justice to the region. All she demands is to develop an “awareness of the past, that would eventually evolve into a civilian future in which Arab and Jews live side by side,” never together I guess.

True, Gavison is indeed compassionate enough to let the Palestinians lament over their past. But she is clearly reluctant to take responsibility for the consequences of the Jewish national colonial apparatus. She clearly prefers to dwell on Palestinian land and even to call it “homeland” rather than giving it back to its true owner. More than the right wing Zionist zealots who brought up the sinister draft law, it is actually Professor Gavison, the so-called ‘humanist Zionist’, who embodies the true meaning of Israeli brutality and ugliness. In the name of humanist symbolism she promotes the maintenance of the Jewish nationalist crime.

Professor Gavison ends her article by declaring that, “denial of the past is inappropriate, but failing to take responsibility for it is unacceptable either. We have to come with solutions that approve the right of the Jews of self determination in (part of their) homeland.” I would really expect the profound ‘Zio-humanist’ professor to open our eyes so we understand once and for all what gives the Jews the right to ‘self determination’ at the expense of others. Once we understand that, we may be mature enough to let professor Gavison or any other ‘Humanist Zionist’ enlighten us so we grasp what is it in Palestine that makes it into a legitimate Jewish homeland.

Reading Gavison reveals once again how devastating the truth of the matter is: Zionism and liberal Jewish thought have very little to do with humanism, ethics or universalism. If anything, Zionism and humanism are opposing concepts for the simple reason that Zionism is a racially orientated tribal philosophy and humanism aims at the universal.

Interviews with fishermen in Gaza

Palestinian fisherman collecting his nets in Rafah.
Image Credit: Mohammed Omer, Rafah Today 2007-03-26.

May 23, 2009

GAZA: INTERVIEW OF FISHERMAN WOUNDED BY ISRAELIS

GAZAN FISHERMAN, SAMI AL GOAGA, DESCRIBES HOW HE LOST HIS HAND IN ATTACK BY ISRAELIS.

GAZA: INTERVIEW OF FATHER OF FISHERMAN KILLED BY ISRAELIS

GAZAN FATHER OF FISHERMAN, HANY AL NAJAR, KILLED BY ISRAELIS RECALLS HIS SON AND ATTACKS ON FISHING BOATS.

:: Article nr. 54517 sent on 24-may-2009 16:23 ECT
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:: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.

Human Rights Organizations Warn of Obstacles to Gaza Reconstruction

Human Rights Organizations Warn of Obstacles to Gaza Reconstruction (Report)

Palestinian Information Center

May 16, 2009

After the passage of more than a hundred days since the end of the Zionist war on the Gaza Strip, international humanitarian and human rights organizations are warning of the consequences of an alarming humanitarian situation in the Strip.

This is due to an inability to reconstruct homes and businesses and to repair the extensive damage caused to infrastructure and basic services that were destroyed in the assault. That inability is a result of the ongoing Israeli policy of keeping the border crossings closed and refusing to allow the entry of many materials necessary for reconstruction.

The policy is being implemented in an atmosphere of international complicity and silence.

Robert Serry, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, after a visit to the Gaza Strip on April 30th, warned that "the situation is really worrying, and it seems it will be impossible to meet the humanitarian needs and repair the damage as long as it is impossible to bring in the necessary quantities of funds and materials."

He added, "Time is passing, and we do not see any real progress."

Rehabilitation and Recovery
He explained that, even though a hundred days have passed since the end of the war, tens of thousands of Gaza’s residents whose homes were damaged during the Israeli attack, "have found themselves without proper housing for the hot summer. It is urgent to begin reconstruction and repair houses."

At the same time he warned of, "a resumption of the violence due to the lack of progress in reconciliation between the Palestinians, in the opening of the border crossings, in the exchange of prisoners, and in the extension of security on the borders," as he put it.

For its part, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) announced on April 27th that the situation of children in the Gaza Strip remains unsettled, despite the passage of a hundred days since the end of Zionist military operations in the Strip.

The organization said that children in Gaza continue to suffer physically and psychologically and that it is essential for the purposes of rehabilitation and recovery that permission be granted for entry of the required materials and supplies to Gaza.

UNICEF added: "Electricity is still unavailable to 10% of the population, while about 9% of them lack safe drinking water;" not only that; 65 types of essential medicines have run out at the central warehouse in the Gaza Strip.

20 Thousand Families Left Homeless
In the same vein, several international humanitarian organizations operating in the Gaza Strip have mentioned that about 20 thousand families in Gaza are living without shelter and without any basic services, more than three months after the end of the war.

Maya Myers, the director of CARE in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, issued a statement in which she declared, "The industrial and agricultural sectors in the Gaza Strip have almost entirely collapsed and the reconstruction process is almost impossible.

Operation "Cast Lead" has destroyed what was already, after months of siege, a fragile economy in the Strip. In addition, 35 thousand people in the Strip have no access to drinking water or safe sewage systems." She stressed that "unless the European Union places limits on strengthening its relations with Israel, it gives a dangerous signal to the world that it is in agreement with a policy of destruction and siege."

The U.S. Downplays the Impact of the Crossings Closure
Expressing similar sentiments, John Brooks, the director of the British charity, Oxfam, said, "There has been no progress at all in getting the construction materials into Gaza that would help people rebuild, and this is totally unacceptable." He called for pressure on the Israeli government "so that Palestinian families will be able to see a glimmer of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel."

He stressed that the occupation is still "failing to implement its obligations in respect of the basic rights of the Palestinians in the Strip by restricting the free movement of people, goods and materials."

Despite the foregoing, the American administration has maintained silence over the continuation of the occupation’s criminal blockade and its refusal to allow the entry of a great deal of basic aid and materials necessary for reconstruction. Not only that; the American administration has gone out of its way to downplay the effects of the border closure on Gaza, which has prompted human rights organizations to criticize American officials.

Human Rights Watch, in a letter addressed to the US Secretary of State, criticized her testimony before the Congressional Committee on Foreign Relations, in which she minimized the impact of closing Gaza’s borders by stating that the crossings are not completely closed and that many supplies are being transferred through the crossings now.

The organization said: "The Israeli restrictions on the borders are preventing the rebuilding of homes and schools destroyed or badly damaged during the recent military aggression, which lasted three weeks."

Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director for the Middle East and North Africa in the organization, said: "Secretary of State Clinton’s comments made it seem like border closure is not a big problem for the civilians of Gaza," emphasizing rejection of the policy of collective punishment of civilians in Gaza.

Mud Houses and the Challenge to the People of Gaza
Whitson requested the United States to "dissociate itself from the illegal Zionist policy, which directly harms civilians," and warned that failure to do so would suggest that it supports policies that violate international law.

Despite the negative impacts caused by the Zionist war on Gaza and the continued Israeli closure of the border crossings, the people have not surrendered to this situation and all its tragic implications; rather, they are actively participating with ministries and governmental institutions to deal with what can be done.

Examples of this approach include feasibility studies for model buildings and installations using mud, rubble and the ruins of houses and buildings as substitutes for cement and other construction materials that are being prevented from entering the Strip.

In this regard, the Department of Public Works and Housing of the legitimate government in Gaza established a committee to conduct empirical studies for the establishment of model buildings and installations from clay.

The Minister of Public Works and Housing, Yousuf al-Mansi, announced that his government would construct model buildings of this type, including a mosque, school and clinic, which will be treated as an experiment for evaluation.

If they pass the test, then the Department will start expanding the implementation of such projects.

The government is actively striving to develop the idea of constructing buildings and houses from clay as a substitute for buildings made of cement due to its scarcity in the Gaza Strip, and because of the resulting delay in reconstruction of the Strip as well.

He stressed the determination of the people of Gaza to get through this period and its challenges, and he commended the government of Gaza for making great efforts to communicate with Arab and international governments and institutions in order to open the crossings and allow the entry of cement and other construction materials to the Strip.

:: Article nr. 54309 sent on 16-may-2009 22:33 ECT
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Link: www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s
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No Album Title Has Ever Been More In Line With My Feelings 'Till Now

May wasn't a good month for me 'till now...I had some bad heartbreaks, I've been beaten down in all the ways possible on earth (and I still am for what it matters), I've been pretty fucked up and on the edge of turning into alchool.

So well....

Nice thing that Green Day are back with a new album, I'll have something to fill my mind with instead of thinking of the same crappy things over and over again.

The funny thing now is that because I preordered the album on ebay, and preordered it from UK....I still haven't got it!!

(WTF you say? Yes....I still haven't listened to it yet!!)

So I'm freaking out, trying to resist the urgency to download it or to run to the first store and buy it once again!

I think I'll make up something like borrow it from some friends like....Oh damn! I haven't got anymore friends with a Green Day passion...uhm..

Ah ah ah

Whatever...

Now comes the better news...

I'M GOING TO SEE GREEN DAY LIVE!

So no cold, no fever, no fuckin' heartattack, earthquakes, tsunamy, vulcan explosions, nuclear attack, war, Berlusconi's death and graduation's day....nothing will stop me!!

I'll be in Bologna november 11th, whatever it happens to me in those six months I'll have to wait.

End of the rant....