Passover - living history

As children, we were told at school about the festival of Passover, and it sank in as a fairly benign kind of celebration, for all that it evokes a dark event in Jewish mythology. Simply because the uninitiated were bowing to the ‘wrong’ god and hadn’t heard about the magic trick of eating unleavened bread, they were killed off by the dark angel. But it was in The Bible, so to our unworldly primary-school lady teachers it was ‘good’. Anyway, it was all past history, and just celebrating it must be harmless.

Harmless no doubt, for most Jews in the world, but like the Battle of the Boyne in Belfast and Glasgow, it is living history in Palestine. The army of occupation announced a "general closure" of the West Bank during the Passover holiday, which began on Sunday 17th April (Palestinian Prisoners’ Day) at 11:50 p.m. and continues for ten days.
The closure will affect Palestinians with work permits, barring them from access to Israel and Jerusalem until 11:50 p.m. on 26 April.

A perfectly incoherent statement from military authorities said the decision came "In accordance with the directives of the Minister of Defence and as part of the situation assessments adopted by the defence establishment."

A hearing was held in the Israeli Central Court on Sunday: a young man and 3 children from Silwan were arrested on charges of throwing a bottle at Israeli troops during clashes in the previous week. 
Palestinian residents of Silwan speculate that Israeli forces’ recent campaign of arrests in the village may be part of an attempt to establish a “quiet atmosphere” in the lead-up to Passover, thus allowing Jewish ‘settlers’ and visitors to Silwan a “trouble-free” festive period.

http://silwanic.net/?p=14913

Exceptions to the closure might include those in need of medical attention, humanitarian aid or exceptional assistance and Christian Palestinians "holding the relevant permits," for Easter holiday celebrations - although this is the official statement and not a binding guarantee. For instance, Egypt's Rafah crossing will be opened on Monday only for Gaza residents registered as pilgrims on the Ummrah pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Speaking on behalf of Palestinian Christians, the Kairos Palestine group called for unfettered access to holy sites and an overhaul of Israel's permit system, which the group called an "obvious violation of the [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights], Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international covenants and treaties to which Israel is a signatory."

Officials said on radio that there were warnings of possible soldier abductions, following a Hamas call on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, to capture soldiers in order to ensure the release of Palestinian political prisoners. Israeli officials announced heightened “security” measures around Jerusalem. Israel's police department told the radio station that extra officers would be deployed around areas where Christian pilgrims (with permits) might gather for the upcoming Easter holiday.

A member of a Silwan family stated that “an overwhelming number of Silwan’s youth have been seized and their detention extended recently. We take this as a precautionary tactic employed by Israeli authorities in the lead-up to their holiday of Passover. We, meanwhile, must suffer the closure of roads, acts of provocation and the arrest of our children – throughout every Jewish holiday.”

Photo: Greek Orthodox Priests wait for the arrival of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of

Jerusalem Theophilos III, outside the Church of the Nativity.

[MaanImages/Luay Sababa]

Drones over Gaza

It is no secret that the citizens of the Gaza district have been walled in and kept alive only to be used as guinea pigs for the Israeli arms industry. The Guardian got reporters into the Strip, and they came out with hard evidence of the role that Israeli-manufactured armed drones played in the attack of 2009. The UK was already known as being guilty of involvement in Cast Lead, as Raytheon, the company that makes the electronics inside the F16s which continue to bomb the Gazans, has its offices in Bristol. But further than that: the European Union, through the European Research Programme, has been subsidising the Israeli arms industry as part of the current EU / Israeli Association Agreement. Under this, Israel is entitled to the same funding for research as are EU member states.

In return, Israel sells its weapons back to EU countries, having tested them on the Strip. One EU subsidy was specifically given for the development of these drones, despite their use being (at the moment) illegal in Europe: Open Architecture for UAV-based Surveillance Systems (OPARUS) received an EU subsidy of E11.88m for the development of drones such as the armed Herons, manufactured by Israeli Aerospace Industries, which were used in Operation Cast Lead.

The arms industry is now Israel's biggest export - just as with Britain - and so both states can only profit from war. And any tendency by our politicians to prefer bombing or the supply of weapons over diplomacy - as in Libya, for instance - must be viewed with suspicion.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/mar/23/isreael-gaza-drones-arabic

Israeli airstrike turns Gaza family's life into torment

GAZA, April 9 -- Ibrahim Qdieh, a 52-year-old resident of the southern Gaza village of Abassan, never knew that a few minutes' absence from home would rescue him from a possible death but left him gulping the pain of losing wife and daughter for the rest of his life. His wife and daughter were killed in an Israeli air raid on their home, a 90-square-metre house built on a farm in the village in the east of Khan Younis city ... When the air raid took place on Friday afternoon, Qdieh and some family members were praying in a mosque, while his wife stayed at home, about to wash the children's school uniforms for the school day right after the weekend ..."...as soon as I reached the house, I saw the horrible and awful crime, smears of blood and remnants all over the place. I wasn't able to believe my eyes to see my daughter Nidal, who was preparing for her wedding next week and my wife are dead." An Israeli reconnaissance drone fired one missile, directly hitting the house. The missile took the lives of Nidal and her mother, and injured four others in the family.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-04/10/c_13821140.htm

Bad news - good news

Israeli incursions into the Palestine “Occupied Territories”; March 2011 Palestine in March was like most other months in the past 60-odd years. In the 31 days of the month there were:
29 air strikes by Israel (F16 fighter planes, Apaches Helicopter Gunships)
137 land-based armed attacks (tanks, armoured vehicles, troops)
539 other raids and house invasions (weapons present not used);
327 night/early morning disturbances (low-flying aircraft, vehicle-borne loudspeakers); and
7 curfews - all in occupied territories. As a consequence
24 Palestinians were killed,
170 were seriously injured,
55 others were beaten,
247 were taken prisoner,
532 detained for up to 24 hours and
2,467 had their movements restricted at road-blocks and arbitrary checks.
In addition, of course, tens of thousands had their lives made a misery by the continual harassment inflicted by the Israeli army and illegal settlers. To give a complete picture: there were Palestinian attacks on 14 days in March - missiles were fired towards the Green Line. There were no reports of injury. To illustrate the life of Palestinians under Israeli occupation, here are three examples taken at random: - on the 1st March at 13:10pm, Occupation troops cut down about 25 olive trees on land near the village of Al Fureidis, in so doing taking away the farmer's livelihood - on 16th March a fanatic from the colony of Maskiot held up Palestinian children on a road near the village of Al Malih, stole their horse and tied it to his vehicle, which he then used to drag the animal along the road until it died, and - on the 22nd at 9.00am a 12-year-old boy, Shadi Fayez Omar, was admitted to hospital with severe injuries following a beating by a group of Israeli soldiers near the village of Al Jib Despite this, our politicians give their tacit support to Israel. They refuse to allow open debate about Israel's breaches of International Law - and even its own skewed laws, they allow British exports used directly in furthering the Occupation, and are promoting changes to prevent citizens initiating legal action against Israeli war criminals; while in Europe there are moves to give even more preferential treatment to Israeli exports, despite Brussels lobbying by activists in March.
list compiled by Laura Stuart

At the same time, global activism continues to build. From America, here's a perfect condemnation of the Israeli apartheid system, and its source below: Jewish Voice for Peace co-coordinator Bryan James Gordon stated: “The U.S. and Israeli governments should realize that walls and guns do not stop peaceful, hardworking people from seeking a future, and they do not make national economies any stronger, fairer or more independent. They only cause violence, and trick one exploited class into fearing and attacking another exploited class instead of the elites that are exploiting them both.” http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/arizona-wall-5959

Land Day was marked all over the world by flash mobs and boycott incursions of varying sizes:

http://youtu.be/ZabFuP7EH3s

Samouni family from Gaza on Goldstone's U Turn

As news of Richard Goldstone's public disavowal of his own opinions has spread back to Gaza, one of the families most badly hit by the Zionist blitz speaks out.

Goldstone turns, dispossessions continue: SNAFU

As Gilad Atzmon said, ‘Every so often, the Jewish state exercises a genocidal act.’ But the rest of the time, so regular that it doesn’t hit the radar as News, the demolitions and dispossessions continue:

Ayed Kastero, a Palestinian living in Al-Qarmi area in the Old City of Jerusalem, has faced since 1987 great pressures from the Israelis to force him to leave his 600 year old house. He was fined several times by Israeli courts where they imposed heavy fines on him for reasons such as claiming that his house obscures the sun from a Jewish family living nearby. In addition, the courts conducted a ‘search’ on his monthly income and threatened to seize his restaurant and sell its contents in an auction if he does not show up at court. The court also refused to allow him to renew his travel papers and his driving licence in addition to moving the ownership of the building from his father’s to his name to make it easy for them to seize and confiscate the three storey building. Meanwhile, the Israeli municipal court prevented him from living in the upper floor of the building claiming that it was not licensed. This story is repeated all over the West Bank and especially in Jerusalem. All this while Richard Goldstone has been busy denying his unwitting part in adding to Israel’s opprobrium just by producing that Report which did no more than list the truth in a dispassionate, disinterested manner. Now he has succumbed to great pressure and apparently cares only for readmittance to the tribe.

Read Ilan Pappe: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11895.shtml and Gilad Atzmon: http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/gilad-atzmon-goldstones-u-turn-1.html

Off-shore gas from Gaza?

After years of talk about the possibility of there being off-shore oil or gas access near Gaza, Israel has given up its pretence of imprisoning the Gazans because they are criminals. Why are they criminals? Because they shoot rockets. Why do they shoot rockets? Because they are imprisoned, starved to the edge of death but no further, because their use is as guinea pigs for Israel's arms industry.

Yisrael Katz, Israeli transport minister, has announced that an artificial island is to be built off the shore of Gaza. This would enable the Israelis to extract gas, as it now believed to be, in safety, while continuing to use the mainland for its experimental bombing raids. In a typical piece of Newspeak, a spokesman (according to the Observer) for the ministry of transport said the main aim was to improve the quality of life for Palestinians in Gaza while ensuring Israel's security. Netanyahu is said to approve of the proposal. You bet he does.

The Israeli scam is that the island will be to replace the airport they destroyed by bombing and will be to take the place of a sea-worthy dock. Although they have not considered building a port instead, which would obviously be a lot more cost-effective and practical.

They also claim that the island would encourage tourism in the area.

Mr Katz does admit that there is something in this for the Regime: it would relieve Israel of the obligation to be the transit point for goods into Gaza. Another way to relieve Israel of this obligation would be to open Gaza, to pull down all the walls, but we can't have that. Where would that leave the arms industry? And if one set of walls comes down, who knows where it might lead?