Palestine/Israel (Alternative/Pro-Palestinian Perspective).

[Sativa Indica]

This is a topic for posting current event news (18 or less months to date) on the Palestine/Israel debate that is pro-Palestine. The rest goes to Historical Events. This thread is not for debate, go to Palestine/Israel debate for that





4/6/07

post all info relevent to palestine/Israel/ Lebanon/ AIPAC bullshit

http://www.counterpunch.org/lamb04062007.html

Why is Hezbollah on the Terrorism List?

By FRANKLIN LAMB

It was a sign of the times last week (March 27) when House Armed Services Committee Staff Director Erin Conaton declared in a memo to committee staffers that the powerful committee was scrapping the Bush Administration shop worn phrase, Global War of Terrorism. Conaton's boss, Rep. Ike Skelton,( D-Mo) the new Chairman of the Committee commented that "the overused label had become an embarrassment and had lost its meaning".

Recent research in Lebanon has turned up information previously unavailable which sheds light of the misapplication of the Terrorism label by the Bush administration.

The" T word" is often misapplied as former National Security Advisor Brzezinski reminds us as he tours the country promoting his new book, Second Chance and focusing on the "catastrophic leadership" crisis caused by the Bush administration's foreign policy.

Another area that would benefit from discarding the "terrorist label" is the Bush administration's ongoing campaign against Hezbollah. There is considerable doubt among international lawyers whether Hezbollah should ever have been classified as a terrorist organization.

At the urging of U.S. and Israel, Canada classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, which limits the group's ability to raise funds and travel internationally. . A Canadian peace coalition called Tadamon Montreal is working to remove Hezbollah from the Terrorism list in Canada.

Australia and the UK distinguish between Hezbollah's security and political wings, and other countries like China, Russia, and member states of the European Union and the United Nations have refused US/Israel demands to label Hezbollah a terrorist organization at all.

The process for putting an organization on the "Terrorism list" is as follows: The Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism in the U.S. State Department (S/CT) monitors the activities of groups active around the world considered potentially terrorist to identify potential targets for designation. When reviewing potential targets, S/CT looks not only at the actual terrorist attacks that a group has carried out, but also at "whether the group may be inclined toward future acts of terrorism or retains the capability to carry out such acts".

As of April 2007, a plurality (39%) of the organizations on the US Terrorism list represent Muslim groups recommended for inclusion by, among others, AIPAC and their friends in Congress. According to former AIPAC Director of Congressional Relations, Steve Rosen, soon to start his trial for passing classified information to Israel, "AIPAC owns the 'T' list!"

The US State Department definition of terror is a broad one: "the deliberate and systematic murder, maiming and menacing of the innocent to inspire fear for political ends

Suspected terrorist groups are thereby defined as such by the means they use to pursue their objectives. To describe an organization as terrorist is not a comment on its political goal or ends, which may be laudable ones such as national liberation or resistance to occupation.

The common saying that 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter' is rejected by this student of the subject because it is simplistic and even nonsensical. To whit, a terrorist can also be a freedom fighter struggling for justice and a freedom fighter can fight for freedom by using terrorist means.

Placed on the "T" list in 1999, Hezbollah was taken off the list a couple of years later following Hezbollah's strong condemnation of the 9/11 attack on America. Hezbollah was returned to the list when Dick Cheney opined that a "presumed Hezbollah operative" probably met with an Al Qaeda representative in South America in 2001. Similar to Cheney's Saadam Hussein-Al Qaeda 'contacts' claim.

Lebanese officials including Lebanese President Emil Lahoud contemptuously dismissed reports of such a meeting as Israeli-sponsored propaganda. According to Lahoud: "The media campaign, which is conducted by Israeli circles, seeks to exploit the September 11 attacks to slander the Lebanese resistance by stigmatizing it with the image of terrorism". Lebanon continues to reject US/Israeli demands that they freeze Hezbollah's back accounts and force it stop providing social services.

A study undertaken at the American University of Beirut in January- February 2007, benefiting from research and surveys from a variety of international and Israeli human rights organizations, tabulated no fewer than 6,672 acts of Israeli state terrorism directed against Lebanon and Palestine between the years 1967-2007. Not only is Israel absent from the US State Department Terrorism list, Israel appears to determines who is on it.

The case against Hezbollah presented in a draft by AIPAC for the State Department is virtually identical to the one finally issued by the State Department. It claims that Hezbollah bombed Americans at the US Embassy, the Marine barracks in 1983 and held a number of Americans hostages during the 1980's. Or as Hezbollah's rap sheet currently appears on US and Israeli government computers:

    "Hezbollah (as of April 3, 2007): Suicide bombings, hijacked 1985 TWA Flight 847; rocket attacks against Israel in 2006."

(The latter item re the "rocket attacks against Israel in 2006", is examined in the just released volume, The Price We Pay: A Quarter Century of Israel's Use of American Weapons against Lebanon.)

Hezbollah is accused by Israel and the Bush administration of a type of Islamist Terrorism similar to Al Qaeda but used in the context of National Liberation, just like Hamas. Both of which have fought Israel in the Lebanese and Palestinian contexts, respectively.

However, unlike al Qaeda, their enemy, Hezbollah and Hamas are complex social and political movements. They use different types of force, including guerrilla tactics which are legitimate under international law. They are also different from al Qaeda in that their alleged terrorist activity aims to liberate Palestine and Lebanon, as opposed to being part of a 'global struggle' against the United States with undefined objectives.

Was Hezbollah involved in the attacks against Americans a quarter century ago? Hezbollah has consistently denied these charges ever since it published its "open letter" announcing its foundation in 1985, years after the first attacks.

The results of an investigation conducted entirely in Lebanon including interviews with some who claim to have been personally involved with the "rap sheet" events do not credit Bush administration claims.

What the record to date shows, pending the Bush administration release of claimed evidence to the contrary, is the following:

1) When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and quickly routed much of the PLO resistance, more than 30 local resistance groups formed. Some were no doubt inspired by the success of the Iranian Revolution three years earlier and took advantage of available political and physical training. Arms were available from the soon to depart PLO, and other sources, sometimes as gifts and sometimes for cash.

For example, in late August 1982, as Fateh was preparing to depart Beirut for Greece and goodbyes were being said, two American researchers in Beirut were given ('for safe keeping') 250 brand new Chinese made Ak-47's wrapped in thick grease and heavy plastic. Not knowing exactly what to do with the gifts in the 'wild west' atmosphere of the time, the Americans, doing what came naturally, hastily buried them at night. The weapons were never found by the advancing Israelis but were discovered 15 years later when the Commodore Hotel in Hamra was enlarged and workers dug up that vacant lot to its south! Who has them now is anybody's guess!

The goal of these new groups in the 1980's was to drive Israel and its foreign sponsors from Lebanon. The local and regional political situation of the early 1980's was very tolerant of militant modes of actions and many groups adapted and acted because no single force, power or obstacle stood in their way.

'Operations' were sometimes carried out by part of a group without the knowledge, participation or liability or the particular organizations command.

Teams of foreign assassins were active those days including one traced to Israel which tried to assassinate one of America's most competent Ambassadors to Lebanon, John Guenther Dean on August 27, 1980. The weapons used in the failed attempt were traced to a shipment made from the US to Israel. Dean's crime was getting too chummy with Yassir Arafat and his deputy Abu Jihad, who were helping Dean to get the American Embassy hostages released from Iran.

Another "operation" during this period was the CIA funded attempt of March 8, 1985 to assassinate Sheik Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. The car bomb killed eighty, mostly women and children and wounded 256. As Bob Woodward points out in his book, Veil, the CIA's William Casey mistakenly thought Fadlallah was the spiritual leader of Hezbollah. To this day Fadlallah is quite independent of Hezbollah although he is probably Lebanon's most revered cleric due in no small measure to his scholarship, his three decades of social service work as well as his passionate defense of human rights.

2) An exhaustive review, by American researchers, of the nearly 80 Western kidnapping cases, organized by a staggering variety of groups in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990 concluded that more than 100 Western detainees were taken, released, killed or exchanged. As for the Lebanese themselves, thousands were kidnapped; many by Israel and their allies and hundreds are still unaccounted for.

According to some who claim to have participated in one way or another, in some of these kidnappings, active groups sometimes declared responsibility and sometimes were silent. Among the groups admitting their actions at various times were: The Organization of Socialist Revolutionary Work, the Armed Revolutionary Factions in Lebanon, Islamic Jihad, the Organization of the Oppressed in the World, the Revolutionary Justice Organization, Holy Warriors for Freedom, the Khaibar Brigade, the Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine, the Blessed Resistance, the Islamic Liberation Organization, the Organization of the Mujhahideen for Freedom, the Revolutionary Cells, The Organization of the Islamic Dawn, The Organization of Militant Revolutionary Cells.

These were some of the 'main stream' groups, there were others, some for whom kidnapping was a cottage industry. Some functioned much like the current US and the UK hired mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan. In some cases contracts were drawn up with individuals willing to "hire out" for certain specific abduction projects. Given the available labor pool there was sometimes intense competition for a contract. For some groups, westerners were snatched for no other reason than the ransom money was good. Often those involved would use the ransom money to start a legitimate business, pay for family needs such as medical care or their children's tuition fees. Sometimes Western companies paid for the release of their employees and in other cases governments would pay.

The largest payment for hostages during this period was the Arms for Hostages deal worked out by the Reagan administration when it provided missiles and spare parts to Iran to use against Saadam Hussein's army after the same administration had supplied the Iraqi regime with chemical weapons to use against Iraqi Kurd, Shiites and Iranians.

Lebanese Islamist groups, and others, who in the 1980's were resisting Israel's attacks did not feel that their acts were nearly as reprehensible as the US responsibility for what Israel was doing to their people and country.

For example, once it became clear to them that the US Marines had abandoned their initially claimed neutrality as 'peace keepers' and instead began the shelling of Lebanon with 2,700-lb shells from the USS New Jersey most of these groups felt it their duty to repulse the US attacks.

Interviews with some of these now middle aged resistance fighters in Lebanon who were active in this period make plain that these groups, felt that their military actions against the foreign forces constituted legitimate self defense, protecting Lebanon's population from attacks by foreign forces.

While the military legitimacy of fighting the American and French forces was clear to the Lebanese during the early 1980's what about bombing the American Embassy? International law has protected Embassies since the 1815 Congress of Vienna extend protection to foreign plenipotentiaries.

Safe passage for diplomats is not always honored and as recently as February 2007 the United States government has been accused by Iraq and Iran of unlawfully kidnapping Iranian diplomats

The evidence from the 1980's suggests that Hezbollah stayed out of the kidnapping game and concentrated on building its organization which they formally announced in an 'open letter' on Feb. 14, 1985.

Would the founders of Hezbollah have heard of something on the street, village or family level of who may have been responsible for some of the high profile western kidnapping cases? One assumes so. Did neighborhood gossip attach an obligation to get involved on behalf of their viewed oppressors, including the US, and rescue their hostages? In order to avoid some future 'terrorism' list?

The evidence suggests that Hezbollah is on a "political list" called the "terrorism list" because Israel wants it there not because there is proof that it engaged in terrorism against Americans 25 years ago.

Using the scare tactic of 'kidnapping Americans' and 'terrorism' without proof, adds to the international ridicule of Bush's policies.

In the nearly empty Lebanese Parliament building these days the gossip is that the Bush administration wants to bargain with Hezbollah to remove it from the 'T' list if Hezbollah gives up its objective of liberating Palestine and cancels its opposition to the Bush/Olmert backed Siniora government

Given this kind of Bush administration offer, many view Hezbollah's spot on the 'T list' as a badge of honor . Yet, respect for international law would suggest that the Bush Administration ought to show their 'evidence' or remove Hezbollah from the list.

When pressed in early April, 2007 by a former House Judiciary Committee staffer, one lawyer in the State Department Office of the General Counsel commented, "Its not that Hezbollah is terrorist per say, actually we know they are pretty clean-they are ok- but you must realize that they do associate with shady characters to their East, if you know what I mean."

Hezbollah's view of the April 17, 1983 Embassy bombing is different from some militia operating during this period. Hezbollah has consistently opposed attacks on foreign civilians. It was one of the first to condemn the 9/11 operation as well as the 1997 attack at the Temple of Hatshepsut at Luxor, Egypt which killed 58 civilians as "bloody and terrible, calling them crimes against Islam. Hezbollah also condemned the Cairo attacks on the Greek tourists, and the Algerian killing of 7 trappist monks in Algerian by claimed Islamists.

Despite Hezbollah's view, which is based on the Koran's prohibitions against harming innocent civilians, was the 1983 US Embassy attack terrorism against an internationally protected structure or had the Embassy become a legitimate military target? In the assertion of one individual, a former member of Islamic Jihad, interviewed by American researchers during the spring of 2007 his group had nothing to do with Hezbollah during the Embassy operation or at any other time. He claims his associates knew in advance (soviet intelligence passed to Lebanon via Syria) that the eight CIA operatives assigned to Lebanon were holding meetings in the Embassy and using its diplomatic protection for cover for plotting assassinations and attacks on Lebanon. The entire CIA contingent was indeed meeting on the 6th floor of the Embassy at the time of the attack. The same source claims that the Embassy was also being used for feeding targeting information to the USS New Jersey, visible offshore from the upper floors of the Chancery.

The view that the American Embassy was a legitimate target on April 17, 1983 cannot be summarily dismissed without careful review because principles of International law tend to support it. Once an Embassy's is used for aggressive military purposes its protection collapses and it becomes what Donald Rumsfeld calls a "legitimate target of opportunity".

Where is the proof that has been demanded for more than two decades? Is the only reason Hezbollah is on the 'terrorism list' is because Israel wants it there and a desire by some in the Bush administration to settle old scores without proof of who was responsible?

Organizations such as Islamic Jihad, Organization of the Oppressed on Earth and the Revolutionary Justice Organization are considered by the Bush administration and Israel to be synonymous with Hezbollah. That grouping appears to be a clumsy and inaccurate conclusion designed to support political objectives. No proof has ever been offered to establish that these groups were part of Hezbollah during this period rather than adversaries or competitors.

As one Hezbollah supporter commented:

    "In America as you built a resistance to the British invaders and occupiers were all the groups neatly organized? Were some 'terrorists'? Did the ones who did operations such as the Boston Tea Party' give their names and address to the occupiers? Or did some hide their identity and even dress like natives? Did George Washington and his staff know everything that was going on or did some groups just form and decided it was better to work on their own liberation project? That is what it was like here in Lebanon during this period. We should leave that period and concentrate on working together to solve today's problems in Lebanon and the Middle East. All parties talking and meeting"

In denying Hezbollah involvement in operations targeting American civilians, their leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah has stated:

    "The truth of the matter is that there was something other than Hezbollah, called the Islamic Jihad, who kidnapped the hostages. There exist videocassettes, communiqués that bear the signature of the Islamic Jihad. It is independent form the party. It is absolutely incorrect that the Islamic Jihad is a cover name for Hezbollah.

    Hezbollah remains on the US and Israel 'terrorism' list for purely political reasons and to punish the organization for its resistance to Israeli aggressions against Lebanon and Bush administration plans for the region."

It is time for the Bush administration to present its case and prove what terrorism Hezbollah has actually used against the American people in the 1980's in light of US government admissions that since 1999 there is no evidence that Hezbollah has engaged in 'Terrorism'.

It's time for the poker players to reveal their cards, or as they say down in Crawford.. ' y'all show 'em er fold 'em!

Franklin Lamb has been in Lebanon researching a book for the past nine months. Hezbollah: a brief Guide for Beginners in expected in early summer, 2007. He can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com

[Sativa Indica]

3/26/07

http://en.baztab.com/content/?cid=1337

Gap among Jews widens on question of Zionism
By Yakov M. Rabkin
A profound division has developed between Zionist advocates of Israel and Jews, secular and religious, who reject or question Zionism and actions taken by the state of Israel.

Public debate about Israel's place in Jewish continuity has become open and candid.

Many Jews try to come to terms with the contradictions between the Judaism they profess to adhere to and the Zionist ideology that has taken hold of them. This coincides with serious concerns expressed across Israel's political and religious spectrum about the future of Israel.

Quite a few Jews now publicly ask whether the chronically besieged ethnic nation-state in the Middle East is "good for the Jews." Many continue to be concerned that militant Zionism destroys Jewish moral values and endangers Jews in Israel and elsewhere. This debate has entered pop culture as well: The recent film Munich by Steven Spielberg sharply focuses on the moral cost of Israel's chronic reliance on force.

The Israel lobby in the United States, aligned with the nationalist right in Israel, viciously attacked the Jewish director and his film even before it was released. It also lashed out at several books published over the past few years - Prophets Outcast, Wrestling With Zion, The Question of Zion, The Myths of Zionism - all authored by Jews who are concerned about the same essential conflict between Zionism and Jewish values.

A few weeks ago, the Israel lobby (through its constituent American Jewish Committee) issued a report alleging that Jews who criticize Israel endanger its "right to exist" and foment anti-Semitism. This provoked a number of prominent Jews in Britain, Canada and the United States to speak out, moving candid debate about Israel into mainstream, even conservative, publications. In January, the eminently pro-establishment Economist published a survey of "the state of the Jews" and an editorial that called on rank-and-file Diaspora Jews to move away from the "my country, right or wrong" attitude adopted by many Jewish organizations.

Making a stand for Jewish emancipation from the state of Israel and its policies has bridged some old divides and created new ones. Thus, an ultra-Orthodox critic of Israel, usually antagonistic to Reform Judaism, commended a Reform rabbi for saying that "when Israel's Jewish supporters abroad don't speak out against disastrous policies that neither guarantee safety for her citizens nor produce the right climate in which to try and reach a just peace with the Palestinians ... they are betraying millennial Jewish values and acting against Israel's own long-term interests."

Their relationship with the state of Israel and with Zionism has polarized the Jews. The axis along which this polarization has taken shape does not correspond to any of the habitual divisions: Ashkenazi/Sephardic, observant/nonobservant, Orthodox/non-Orthodox.

In each of these categories are Jews for whom national pride, even arrogance (chutzpah), is a positive value, and who give their enthusiastic support to the state that incarnates what they identify as a life force, a triumph of the will and a guarantee of Jewish survival.

But each of these categories also includes Jews who believe that the very idea of a Jewish state, and the human and moral price that it demands, undermines all that Judaism teaches, particularly the core values of humility, compassion and kindness. They, along with Israel's staunchest supporters, point up the paradox that has seen Israel, often presented as an ultimate haven, become one of the most precarious places for Jews. Israeli media report unprecedented levels of concern not only for the future of the state but also for the physical survival of its inhabitants. Some attempt to redefine "Israel's national purpose" as a means to revitalize Israel's largely demoralized society.

Divisions about Israel and Zionism are so acute that they may split Jews as irremediably as did the advent of Christianity two millennia ago. Christianity, which embodies a Greek reading of the Torah, eventually broke away from Judaism. Like Christianity, Zionism, reflecting a nationalist, romantic reading of the Torah and Jewish history, has come to fascinate many Jews.

It remains to be seen whether the fracture between those who hold fast to Jewish moral tradition and the converts to Jewish nationalism may one day be mended. However fateful for Jews and Judaism, this fracture may not necessarily affect Israel, which nowadays counts many more evangelical Christians than Jews among its unconditional supporters.

Yakov M. Rabkin, author of "A Threat From Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism," is professor of history and associate of the Centre for International Studies at the University of Montreal. His e-mail is yakov.rabkin@umontreal.ca.
Originally published in the Baltimore Sun March 8, 2007

[piercehawkeye45]

4/8/07

http://www.twincities.com/national/ci_5619703?nclick_check=1

Israeli airstrike into Gaza kills fighter

Israelis accused of breaching truce

BY RICHARD BOUDREAUX and RUSHDI ABU ALOUF
Los Angeles Times
Article Last Updated: 04/07/2007 11:58:27 PM CDT

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - An Israeli helicopter fired into the Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing a member of a militant squad that was clashing with Israeli forces in one of the most serious breaches of a 4-month-old cease-fire, Palestinian officials said.

The Israeli military said the air attack was aimed at militants planting a bomb along the border fence. It denied sending ground forces into the coastal territory.

But Palestinian officials who monitor the border said fighting erupted before dawn when plainclothes Israeli special forces slipped across the fence and were discovered by a squad of fighters from two small militant groups that refuse to honor the Nov. 26 truce.

The helicopter attack, apparently aimed at covering the special forces' retreat, was part of a more aggressive Israeli policy that itself is straining the cease-fire. In the previous two weeks, Israel had staged an airstrike and a brief ground incursion against Palestinian gunmen, killing one in each operation.

Palestinian witnesses who described Saturday's 90-minute battle said the Israeli helicopter fired at least four missiles between the border fence and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Islamic Jihad said they had been firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at the Israeli special forces and setting off explosives along the fence.

On Saturday, the Palestinian Authority said Egypt had handed

Israel a list of prisoners the captors want freed in exchange for Cpl. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier seized from his post along the Gaza border last year.
"The procedure for a (prisoner) exchange has started," Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti said. "If the Israeli government is serious, there is now a very good opportunity to end this chapter."

The Gaza clashes are a setback for a U.S. effort, pressed during three visits to the region by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice since November, to extend the Gaza truce to the West Bank.

Israeli officials have rebuffed the proposal, demanding full compliance with the Gaza truce first. They say militant groups in Gaza, including Hamas, which shares power in the Palestinian Authority government, have been exploiting the cease-fire to smuggle explosives, missiles and other weapons into Gaza through tunnels from Egypt.

Israeli officials say their recent incursions into Gaza have been to check for bombs or strike at militants about to launch attacks, and do not amount to cease-fire violation.

[Sativa Indica]

4/13/07

http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=15154&language=en

Israeli soldiers use Nablus youths as ‘human shield’


 13/04/2007 Despite repeated promises by the Israeli occupation army not to make use of Palestinian civilians as ‘human shields’ during its activity in the territories, occupation troops operating in Nablus were filmed ordering two Palestinian youths to stand in front of their vehicle to protect it from stones thrown by locals. The act, which was also in violation of a Supreme Court decision from 2005, was filmed by a foreign activist on Wednesday in Nablus’ Sheikh Munis neighborhood, where the soldiers encircled the home of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades member Abed el-Qadr.



Meanwhile, a number of Palestinian youths threw stones at an Israeli army Hummer that was securing the soldiers encircling the house. According to foreign peace activists at the scene, the occupation soldiers then ordered two youths who happened to pass by to stand in front of the vehicle in order to stop the stone-throwing.
The activist said that in the past few months he had witnessed a number of incidents in which soldiers used Palestinian civilians during their activity.
Following the video’s publication on the Israeli daily Ynet, Military Advocate General Avihai Mandelblit ordered an investigation into the incident, and Central Command chief Yair Naveh ordered the suspension of the commanding officer.
Comment this article

[Sativa Indica]

4/16/07

http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/News.aspx?language=en

16/04/2007 The Winograd Commission has decided Sunday that it would release the testimonies of Israeli officials questioned by the commission only two weeks after its interim report is published. The interim report into the performance of the political and military echelons during the Second Lebanon War is scheduled to be published at the end of April. The first testimonies to be released are those of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and outgoing army Chief of Staff Dan Halutz.
The commission's decision followed a High Court of Justice hearing Sunday in which the date of the testimonies' publication was discussed again.
During the hearing, the judges harshly criticized the commission for the delay in releasing the testimonies.
In light of the commission's decision, the High Court has asked Knesset Member Zahava Gal-On (Meretz), who petitioned for the testimonies' publication, to submit her response to the decision by Monday at 11 am.
"I plan to inform the High Court tomorrow that I reject the State's statement. It is vital that the protocols are published before the interim report, so that false testimonies can be refuted," Gal-On said.

[Sativa Indica]

4/17/07

http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=15432&language=en


17/04/2007 China has thrown its weight behind the Palestinian unity government, a move to re-establish the longstanding state of Palestine. During a weekend meeting with Palestinian leaders, China's envoy to the Middle East, Sun Bigan, "welcomed the founding of the Palestinian unity government", the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.
Sun was visiting the region and met with Israeli and Palestinian officials, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the occupation vice premier Shimon Peres.



He "reiterated that China will consistently support the Palestinian people's pursuit of justice", the ministry said on its website late Monday.
Sun hoped that "all the Palestinian political forces will make utmost efforts to realize the goal of setting up an independent country under the leadership of Abbas'', it added.
While China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has no direct stake in the Mideast, it does have growing economic and political ties there and is keen on strengthening its image as a major global player.
The unity government, made up of Fatah and Hamas parties, was formed last month after the political rivals agreed to a power-share in an attempt to break a Western boycott on the Palestinians.
The body was immediately recognized by Norway and Switzerland, which has dealt with Hamas in the past, said its policy had not changed. The US and EU have said they would meet only with non-Hamas members of the Cabinet.

[Sativa Indica]

4/17/07

http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=15445

17/04/2007 Thousands of Palestinians poured into streets throughout the territories on Tuesday, demanding the release of Palestinian detainees from Israeli occupation jails.
Showing photos of many of the 9,000 detainees held by 'Israel', and waving flags of various political factions, men women and children attended rallies in the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus and Jenin as well as in Gaza City to mark the annual Detainee's Day.



"No peace without release of all Arab and Palestinian detainees from Israeli jails" read one sign in the northern city of Nablus.
At a ceremony kicking off the annual remembrance - held the previous day in Gaza - Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas called for Israel to release all the Palestinian prisoners.
"All the detainees should be released, not only those who are included in the exchange" for captured Israeli occupation soldier Gilad Shalit, Haniya said.
Egypt has been mediating drawn-out talks between the Israelis and Palestinians over a possible detainee release in exchange for the soldier.
"No country has stopped talking about Shalit," Haniya said. "His name is one of the most famous. But who knows the names of... our detainees in the prisons of the occupation?"

[Sativa Indica]

4/22/07

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2472179.ece

 By Ali Daraghmeh in Nablus, West Bank
Published: 22 April 2007

Israeli troops killed six Palestinians, including a 17-year-old girl, in clashes across the West Bank and Gaza Strip yesterday, making it the bloodiest day of fighting this year.

The dead included three militants travelling in a car in Jenin, in the northern West Bank, a Palestinian policeman shot on the roof of his home nearby and a man killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, launched in response to a Palestinian rocket attack. Palestinian officials said the 17-year-old girl, identified as Bushra Wahash, was shot by Israeli gunfire as she looked out of the window of her home. The army was investigating the report.

Israeli spokesmen defended the operations as the latest steps in their war against Palestinian militants, but Palestinian officials said the bloodshed damaged efforts to expand a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip to the West Bank.

The fighting erupted early yesterday in the northern West Bank, an area known as a stronghold of militant groups. Troops returned to the Jenin refugee camp late last night, setting off a fierce clash with local militants.

Israel and Palestinian militants have been observing a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip since last November.

[Sativa Indica]

4/21/07

Jordan's King to 'Israel': We have same enemies

21/04/2007 Israeli occupation daily "Haaretz" reported in its Friday's edition that occupation Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has invited Jordan's King Abdullah II to visit the Jewish state as 'Israel' and Arab governments edge toward new discussion of an Arab peace proposal.
No date has been set for the visit by the monarch, Israeli and Jordanian officials said.
"His Majesty is ready to engage in any effort that helps to bring about the success of the Arab initiative and the setting up of a Palestinian state," a source in the Jordanian royal palace in Amman said.
Olmert's Office said it had not yet had an official response from Jordan and gave no details on the plans for the visit. King Abdullah II told a delegation of Knesset members Thursday that "we are in the same boat, we have the same problem. We have the same enemies." The king reiterated the comments a number of times, which those at the meeting said referred to Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. 
Abdullah also emphasized that he spoke not only for Jordan but for a group of states in the region. The king asked at one point: "Do you want Iran on the banks of the Jordan?"
The king made the comments at his palace in Amman in a meeting with Acting Israeli President Dalia Itzik and Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Tzachi Hanegbi, as well as six additional lawmakers. The Israeli delegation attacked a mention of an Arab right of return, saying there is no Israeli who will agree to that and it would be like asking 'Israel' to commit suicide.
"Haaretz" added that the king responded again and again that everything would be consensual. He claimed the Arab peace plan is not a plan but talking points. After Rivlin said the Arab League secretary commented "Take it or leave it," Abdullah said "Leave him to me." He did say that instead of talking about the right of return, it might be necessary to talk about the right to compensation and that it was not only an Israeli problem, but also a problem of the wealthy Arab countries.
The king called on 'Israel to "adopt the Arab initiative as the basis for negotiations with the Palestinians and not to miss this historic opportunity for recognition by all the countries of the region and true integration into the region." He added: "I worry about the generations to come. This is an unparalleled opportunity and I have taken it upon myself to influence the people of Israel."
The palace announcement emphasized that the Knesset delegation was invited as part of the king's diplomatic efforts to jumpstart the peace process. The Arab League has decided to appoint Jordan and Egypt to take the lead in approaching the Jewish state to promote the Arab peace plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Israeli delegation was impressed with Abdullah's frankness but said he demands too high a price.

[Sativa Indica]

4/23/07

http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=15806&language=en

23/04/2007 The aim at the popular base of Hezbollah constituted Israel's major objective in its war against Lebanon last summer. This is what the Israeli political and military leadership stated on many occasions, saying that the goal of air raids, bombing civilians and displacing them was to incite them against Hezbollah to isolate it.
However, Israeli massacres failed to achieve its goals. Instead it had opposite results, so Israel brought about a second plan to stop an increase in Hezbollah's popularity. US and Israeli administrations expressed deep concern over Hezbollah's exceptional preparedness to compensate those damaged by the war. In a meeting for the Tel Aviv government, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz hastened to warn the international community against the dangers of what he termed as the neglect of the direct Iranian interference in rebuilding south Lebanon. He suggested forming a powerful international economic force to stop Iranian money from reaching Hezbollah so as not to further strengthen it in the region. Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres then rushed to Washington for an urgent meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to tell her that Lebanon must be rebuilt by western countries and "moderate" Arab states, but not by Iran.
Despite efforts to materialize this plot, Hezbollah once again dealt a blow to Washington, Tel Aviv and their allies inside and outside Lebanon, when it fulfilled its promise and fully compensated the public. US Under-Secretary of State David Welch had cast doubt on Hezbollah's capability to keep its promise of giving a sum of 12,000 USD to every family whose home was damaged during the war. This frustration prompted the ruling bloc in Lebanon to try to keep face, and made promises of compensations to the Lebanese public. However, the unconstitutional government of Fouad Saniora has so failed to finalize the first phase of its plan, nine months after the end of the war.   

[Sativa Indica]

4/24/07

24/04/2007 The armed wing of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas on Tuesday said a five-month truce with the Israeli occupation army "no longer exists". The announcement by the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades came after the group said it had fired nearly 30 rockets and 61 mortars into Occupied Palestine. It marked the first time that Hamas claimed responsibility for launching rockets into Occupied Palestine since a November 26 truce took effect between the Zionist army and Gaza fighters. A spokesman for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obaida, said the truce no longer exists, adding "it's the Israeli that has not respected it and now it's the turn of Palestinian groups". Abu Obaida said the firing of Tuesday's projectiles was a response to the martyrdom of nine Palestinians by Zionist troops over the weekend in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. The deaths marked the bloodiest weekend of the Israeli violence since the November truce and sparked calls for retaliation on the part of Palestinian resistance groups.
 

[Sativa Indica]

4/26/07

26/04/2007 An Egyptian official said Thursday that Palestinian factions are prepared to stand by a truce which Hamas had declared over this week. "The Egyptian security delegation told the Israelis it was informed by the Palestinian factions they were ready to respect the Truce and not carry on firing rockets and mortars on occupied Palestinian territories.
"The Palestinian factions demanded reciprocal respect of the truce and that it is applied equally to the Gaza Strip and West Bank," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They consider any Israeli attack on Palestinian people in the West Bank an aggression against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip," the official said.
Hamas would hold rocket fire "if Israeli incursions and aggressions stop," a spokesman for the movement said.  "Rocket fire is a form of resistance invoked to confront the Zionist enemy and its aggressions," Ismail Radwan said. The armed wing of Hamas, whose political branch is the senior
Coalition partner in the Palestinian government, on Tuesday said it
Fired nearly 100 projectiles towards occupied territories and declared a Five-month fragile truce over. The Islamic resistance group said it was abandoning the truce following Israeli raids that killed nine Palestinians at the weekend.
"Israel" threatened a serious response to continued rocket fire on Wednesday but Israeli occupation Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appeared to rule out any imminent large-scale operation against the Gaza Strip. Eight Palestinians were arrested in the northern occupied West Bank by Israeli troops on Thursday, including one suspected local leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Palestinian security sources said.
 

[Sativa Indica]

4/28/07

28/04/2007 Israeli occupation troops shot dead three members of the Islamic resistance Hamas's armed wing and wounded a fourth in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, a Palestinian medical source said. The incident took place northwest of Gaza City and near the security barrier between occupied territories and Gaza, said emergency medical services Chief Dr. Maawia Hassanin.
The armed wing of the Palestinian party Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said on its Internet site that the three dead "were martyred during a jihad (holy war) operation."
It named two of them as Said Bassam Hellis, 21, and Abdel Halim al-Fayyumi, 27. Hassanin said the third man was 24-year-old Mohammed al-Fiqi. The incident was confirmed by the Israeli occupation army.
"Israeli soldiers spotted four armed Palestinians trying to place an explosive charge next to the security barrier between Gaza and Israel, and shot them down," a spokeswoman claimed.
In a separate incident, a Palestinian security source said Shadi Abdul Rahim Abu Daher, 18, was killed by Israeli occupation tank fire near the border in southern Gaza. The Israeli army denied carrying out any attack in the area.
 

[kittenslayer]

4/17/07

17/04/2007 China has thrown its weight behind the Palestinian unity government

cool as, China always kept a good relationship with both sides, Israel actually disobeyed America in the past and help China retro fit most of their armored vehicles.  It is seen as a debt paid for saving millions of Jews during world war 2. 
Arafat's son is also living in China.

[Sativa Indica]

5/10/07

http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=16768

 10/05/2007 Thousands of Palestinian police began deploying in Gaza City in the first phase of a security plan approved by the Palestinian unity Cabinet.
It came after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh gave the final go-ahead for the implementation of the new security plan. Security men from both Hamas and Fatah faction were expected to fan out together through Gaza.
Deputy PM Azzam al-Ahmad said the plan "will begin to go into effect tomorrow (Thursday) morning" after a meeting between Haniyeh and the security chiefs.
Abbas and Haniyeh reached agreement during a Wednesday evening meeting to implement the security plan.
Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said security chiefs would meet soon to finalize remaining details.
Nabil Shaath, an aide to Abbas, said about 3,000 police were fanning out across the city.
The first phase, set to last 100 days, covered traffic and crime fighting, officials said. The overall goal is to put an end to the chaos and violent infighting that has plagued Gaza, they said.
"There is a full agreement," said Nabil Shaath, a close aide to Abbas.
"The determination is there and I think what we will see in the next 48 hours is a full deployment to deal with the lawlessness in the Gaza Strip," he added.
Shaath said Hamas and Fatah policemen would now wear the same uniform and take orders from the Interior Ministry.
In addition to maintaining security, the plan also calls for unification of rival security forces loyal to Abbas's Fatah party and Haniyeh's Hamas movement.
In parallel to their precarious domestic situation, Gaza has faced mounting threats of an Israeli incursion.
Shaath said, "In such climate it is difficult to have a national dialogue about a ceasefire with Israel."
Palestinians have fired home-made rockets at Israeli targets in response to the occupation regime's continued military actions in the occupied West Bank.
Meanwhile, Israeli army arrested 15 Palestinians throughout the occupied West Bank early Thursday morning.
Comment this article

[Sativa Indica]

5/8/07

http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=16609

08/05/2007 The Palestinian coalition cabinet will not survive a continuing embargo on direct aid from the West, foreign minister Ziad Abu Amr has warned. "We ask the world to accept to lift the siege as its continuation will no doubt result in the end of the national unity government," Abu Amr, an independent in the new coalition, said late on Monday.
Following months of deadly factional fighting, the Palestinians formed a new unity government on March 17 uniting the Islamic Resistance of Hamas movement and President Mahmud Abbas's Fatah parties with independents.
The Palestinians hoped that the move would lead the West to lift a ban on direct aid to the government that was imposed against the Palestinians in March 2006. But the European Union and the United States, although agreeing to meet non-Hamas ministers, have refused to release funds, demanding that the new coalition explicitly renounce violence, recognize "Israel" and abide by past peace deals. "The economic aid has not been released up to now, the siege is continuing and we have not accomplished what we had hoped," Abu Amr said. The aid freeze has wreaked havoc on the Palestinian Authority finances, with tens of thousands of civil servants not receiving their full salaries for a year.

[Sativa Indica]

5/9/07

09/05/2007 Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Kassem said that the so calld New Middle East project has failed. He added that what the US and its ally Israel want is to plunder the riches of this region, rip it apart and subjugate Arab leaders to their decisions.
Sheikh Kassem was speaking during a political gathering at the "Bassel Assad" stadium in Damascus' faculty of civil engineering.
His eminence said that a new middle east meant ruptured Arab countries, subject rulers and policies, lost riches, oppressed and humiliated people and occupied territories. "We tell Israel that as long as there are honest freedom fighters within our people, control will not be yours, it will be the control of those brave heroes." Sheikh Kassem touched on the issues of the resistance. He said that the arms that defend legal rights are not for political bargain. "The resistance that returns back rights to its owners cannot be abandoned. We are honored to have a cohesive axis comprising Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iran and Iraq to resist US and Israeli occupation, to gain back our independence and to be free. We are honored to be part of the resistance axis facing the axis of Satan. Some European countries have sent us many indirect American messages and offered billions of dollars for Hezbollah to reconstruct south Lebanon. In return they said that it is required that Hezbollah reconsiders disarming, so we told them we don't need you money or reconstruction," Sheikh Kassem said.

[kittenslayer]

5/9/07

"Farfur pulled from air"

RAMALLAH, West bank: A program using a Mickey Mouse-like character to urge Palestinian children to fight Israel and the West and work for world Islamic domination has been pulled off Hamas's television station for "review," the Palestinian information minister said.

Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti said the use of the cartoon character in such a role represented a "mistaken approach" to the Palestinian struggleagainst Israeli occupation.

Barghouti wrote that following a request from his ministry, the program was pulled from the Hamas-affiliated Al Aqsa TV and "placed under review."

In the statement, Barghouti said his ministry "would continue to ensure freedom of expression and freedom of the press, but that media outlets breaking the law would be penalized."

Barghouti complained that the Mickey Mouse story continued to receive attention by "some American television stations" after it was resolved, and that media did not broadcast video of Israeli human rights violations supplied by his ministry in recent weeks.


Israel has long complained that the Palestinian airwaves are filled with incitement.

"You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists," the cartoon character squeaked on a recent episode of the show, which is titled, "Tomorrow's Pioneers."

"We will return the Islamic community to its former greatness, and liberate Jerusalem, God willing, liberate Iraq, God willing, and liberate all the countries of the Muslims invaded by the murderers."

Children call in to the show, many singing Hamas anthems about fighting Israel.



Tho I wouldn't blame em if the people around Ramallah hates the Israelis since they "moonscaped" Jenin.

BUT FARFUR IS WRONG! 

[Sativa Indica]

5/17/07

17/05/2007 Gaza is on fire.
Israeli occupation air force launched its sixth air raid Thursday on the Strip.
The last attack targeted a car in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood north of Gaza. Medical sources said that Tal'at Haniyah, a member of the Executive Force has been killed in the raid, while four other people have been injured. Witnesses said that at least one missile exploded outside the house of Khaled Abu Hilal, the spokesman of the Palestinian interior ministry. Israeli warplanes had earlier launched an airstrike against a post for the Popular Resistance Committees in Beit Lahiya north of Gaza. No casualties had been reported. This came after Israeli helicopters raided a civilian car north of the Strip. 
Hours earlier warplanes struck a car in the Jala'a neighborhood in Gaza city killing one man and injuring five others. The man was identified as "Mohamad Shebaneh", a member of Hamas' military wing, the Ezzeddine al-Qassam Brigades. Helicopters also raided the Executive Force post killing two members and injuring 30 others. Another airstrike targeted a Hamas post east of Jabalia leaving a number of martyrs and injured Palestinians behind. Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation army sent several tanks into the northern Gaza Strip near the town of Beit Lahiya. The tanks moved several hundred meters inside the security fence; their pretext is to battle Qassam rocket fire in the area. This is the first time that Israeli tanks have entered Gaza since the ceasefire took effect six months ago. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni spoke with her German counterpart Thursday about the operation, and said that “in the absence of an effective plan by the international community to stop the rocket fire towards Sderot, Israel will act to end the attacks on its citizens,”
Wednesday overnight Israeli jets attacked the National Security post in the city, killing another Palestinian. Israeli military sources confirmed the attacks against the Shujaiyyah neighborhood east of Jabalia in Gaza city. Rami Zaqzouq, 27 was killed in the attack and four others were injured. Israel vowed on Thursday to hit Gaza fighters firing rockets that have injured four settlers this week. "We are going to hit all those who are implicated in the firings and the production of rockets," Israeli Deputy Minister Ephraim Sneh said. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has ordered a harsh response to the attacks after consultations with security officials. "After consultations, it was decided to authorize the army and the security services to proceed with a series of actions aimed at hitting those who fire the rockets, and their leaders." On the other hand, tension gripped Gaza on Thursday after five people were killed despite a new truce to halt days of fierce fighting between rival factions that has sent the Palestinian unity government to the brink of collapse. Sporadic gunfire rang out in the streets of Gaza City, where masked gunmen still roamed and snipers could be seen on rooftops, but the latest ceasefire between the rival Hamas and Fatah groups appeared to be holding for the moment. President Mahmud Abbas of the Fatah party was due to travel to the unruly territory on Thursday for talks with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya on ending the violence that has killed 43 people in five days. The two rival groups agreed their fourth truce in as many days Wednesday in a bid to stop the clashes that have shaken their two-month-old unity cabinet. But within hours of the truce taking effect, two Fatah loyalists and three Hamas members were killed in separate shooting incidents. Three previous ceasefires collapsed within hours since the violence first flared on Sunday. Overnight, unknown gunmen opened fire on Haniya's home in Gaza, his office said. His bodyguards returned fire and the gunmen ran off. Nobody was injured.


Date Posted: May 19, 2007, 08:28:06 am5/19/07
 
19/05/2007
Israeli occupation forces continued Saturday hitting targets across Gaza for a fifth straight day and threatened "other actions" should rocket fire against the occupied territories.
One Palestinian was killed and five others were wounded in the new Israeli occupation air attack on the town of Beit Hanun in the northern Gaza Strip. The identity of the victim remained unclear but one medical source identified him as a civilian. The Israeli occupation army confirmed carrying out an air raid in Gaza.
'Israel' resumed air strikes on Gaza Tuesday for the first time in six months, so far killing 18 people and wounding dozens of others.
Meanwhile, Hamas movement and Fatah faction have agreed to implement a new ceasefire deal with effect from 12:00 GMT on Saturday in a bid to end deadly Gaza violence, an official said.
"Hamas and Fatah reached a ceasefire deal through the mediation of Palestinian factions and an Egyptian delegation as of 15:00 (local time) today," Prime Minister Ismail Haniya's spokesman Ghazi Hamad told reporters.
Under the agreement, "armed men will leave (their positions in) buildings and streets, will remove road blocks and release hostages on both sides at 1600," he added.
The ceasefire deal is the fifth the two sides have signed since the outbreak of internecine violence in the Gaza Strip last Sunday which has left some 50 people dead.
 


Posted on: May 19, 2007, 08:28:50 am5/24/07

24/05/2007
The UN's newly-appointed special envoy to the Middle East said on Thursday he was "troubled" by Israel's arrest of the Palestinian education minister and other Hamas legislators. "I'm troubled when I see Israeli soldiers arresting Palestinian legislators. I'm troubled that the education minister was arrested," UN Envoy Michael Williams told Reuters in an interview.



"Of course legislators cannot be immune from the law. But what worries me is that in most cases, as I understand it, there haven't been any charges...Let alone trials," Williams added, referring to Israel's arrest of Hamas lawmakers last year.
Thursday morning, Israeli occupation forces captured Hamas officials in the occupied West Bank and launched more air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, stepping up a campaign against the Palestinians.
Four Palestinians were injured in two Israeli air strikes on buildings of Hamas's paramilitary force in Gaza. The first raid struck an abandoned building of Hamas's Executive Force, wounding four civilians passing by. The second strike hit an abandoned structure in Deir Al-Balah in the south of the coastal strip without causing casualties.   
In the north of the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian farmer was killed in the new Israeli attacks, medics said. Said Al-Attar, 28, was killed after an Israeli tank opened fire toward a village near to the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya.
In the West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli troops entered and took into custody Education Minister Naser al-Shaer of Hamas. It was the second time Shaer was arrested in a roundup of Hamas members in the past year.
Israeli soldiers also arrested former cabinet minister Abdel Rahman Zeidan, legislators Hamed Bitawi and Daoud Abu Ser, the mayors of the towns of Nablus, Qalqiliya and Beita - Adli Yaish, Wajih Qawas and Arab Shurafa - as well as the head of the main Islamic charity in Nablus, Fayad al-Arba.
Occupation troops also searched for Ahmed Haj Ali, a Hamas legislator in Nablus, but didn't find him at home, neighbors said.
During an evaluation meeting in 'Tel Aviv', Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz instructed the Israeli army to continue its military operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
More than 40 Palestinians have been killed in such strikes in the past week.
Hamas's armed wing vowed in a statement: "Our strikes against the enemy will continue."
 
Posted on: May 28, 2007, 08:50:04 am5 Palestinian security members killed in Gaza raid
5/26/07

26/05/2007 Israel resumed its air raids against Palestinians in Gaza. Israeli gunships struck a post for the Executive Force in the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City killing five security members and injuring 18 other people. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh addressed the Israeli army's continued attacks in the Gaza Strip, saying, "The bombardments indicate Israel's national and security crisis and moral bankruptcy. The Israeli occupation attacks will fail against the unity and resistance of the Palestinian people."
Israeli helicopter gunships had fired missiles at six targets throughout the Gaza Strip early Saturday morning. One of the attacks Friday night hit a guard post opposite Haniyeh's home. Haniyeh called on Palestinian residents of the strip to maintain alertness against the air raids. The Prime Minsiter was not hurt in the attack. On Friday night, at least two Hamas fighters were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a car in Gaza City, shortly after a Qassam rocket fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip wounded three Sderot settlers. Another Qassam hit a factory in Sderot later Friday, causing damage to property but no casualties.
Hamas claimed responsibility for both attacks. A total of six rockets were fired at Israel on Friday. Meanwhile, Israel seized a Palestinian cabinet member on Saturday. The Palestinian Minister of State, Wasfi Kabha of Hamas, was detained in an early morning raid on his village near the West Bank city of Jenin. Kabha is the second cabinet minister seized by Israeli occupation forces since Thursday when troops arrested Education Minister Naser al-Shaer of Hamas and 32 other officials in the occupied West Bank.
Posted on: May 28, 2007, 08:51:18 amIsraeli army receives approval to broaden ground role
5/28/07

8/05/2007 Israeli occupation military officials said that Israeli army received approval Monday to broaden its ground operations in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military, which has been primarily relying on intensified air strikes in the past two weeks, will be able to increase the number of forces it sends into Gaza to carry out pinpointed raids. But no widespread campaign is expected at this time, Israeli officials said.
The authorization by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and military chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi came just a day after Olmert said he would let the army do whatever necessary to halt the rocket fire.
Olmert cautioned, however, that there was no quick solution to the crude rockets the Palestinians are firing. On Sunday, the second Israeli was killed in a week in an attack on the southern town of Sderot.
Gaza fighters fired six rockets into the occupied territories early Monday, two of them crashing in the southern town of Sderot. Preliminary reports spoke of one person slightly injured, the military said. The armed wing of the Islamic resistance of Hamas claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks.
Israel's air strike campaign entered the 12th day Monday as the rocket fire persisted. Israel's operation has killed about 50 Palestinians.
On Sunday night, Israeli aircraft hit what the military said were Hamas facilities to the north and south of Gaza City, wounding two Palestinians.
Olmert told Israelis on Sunday to be ready for a drawn-out conflict.
"We need to be prepared for dealing with this in the long term," Olmert warned his Cabinet. He said Israel's campaign against the attacks would not be limited in time, nor would the country yield to outside pressure.
"There will be no limit in acting against the terror groups and against those who are responsible for the terror. No one is immune," Olmert said.
In the private Cabinet session, Olmert seemed cool to efforts by Egypt and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate a new cease-fire, according to a participant who spoke on condition of anonymity according to civil service rules. Olmert acknowledged there was no immediate military answer to the crude Qassam rockets, which have long baffled Israel's high-tech army. "We don't want to create unrealistic expectations that it's possible to stop the Qassams totally," he said.
Olmert spokeswoman Miri Eisin would not say if Hamas' top political leaders were now targets, but said 'Israel' would strike those involved in the attacks as well as anyone who smuggles weapons or money used for the attacks.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, warned 'Israel' not to target the movement's leaders. "Whoever thinks that harming the Hamas leadership can dissipate the movement is a fool," he said.

[piercehawkeye45]

6/6/07

http://www.twincities.com/national/ci_6073304?nclick_check=1

JERUSALEM—Military police are investigating a high-ranking West Bank commander on suspicion his troops used Palestinian civilians as human shields in violation of an Israeli Supreme Court order banning the practice, military officials said.
Brig. Gen. Yair Golan is the most senior officer to be questioned in a probe the army launched in March after Associated Press Television News filmed soldiers forcing a young Palestinian man at gunpoint to lead them from house to house during an arrest sweep in the West Bank city of Nablus.

The military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said investigators want to determine how much Golan knew, and whether he explicitly authorized the practice. Golan is commander of the army's West Bank division.

The investigation has put Golan's chances of being promoted on hold, the officials said. Golan is believed to be a candidate to become Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's military secretary.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. But the case was reported in several Israeli newspapers Wednesday.

The Israeli army declined comment on Golan or the status of the probe. The army also said Golan could not be interviewed because the investigation was still under way.

"The extremely thorough investigation is still in progress," said Capt. Noa Meir.

In a landmark 2005 decision, Israel's Supreme Court banned the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields in general, and specifically outlawed taking Palestinian civilians on searches. Before the decision, the army often would have Palestinian civilians knock on the doors of houses where militants were believed to be hiding and ask them to surrender.
The army said the practice—known as the "neighbor procedure"—prevented violence by encouraging militants to give themselves up. But in August 2002, a 19-year-old Palestinian student was killed in a gunfight that erupted after he was forced to knock on the door of a building where a Hamas fugitive was hiding.

Since the Supreme Court decision, Palestinians have accused the army of continuing the practice, but proof was elusive. Human rights groups say the use of civilians in military operations has dropped sharply since the Supreme Court ban, but has not disappeared.

Rare evidence that the practice may continue has been provided by the AP video, and a second video filmed by a peace activist showing two Palestinian youths standing in front of an army jeep, apparently to protect it from Palestinian stone-throwers. One junior commander has been suspended as a result of the second video.

Sarit Michaeli, spokeswoman for the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, said the new reports that the investigation is targeting senior officers was an encouraging sign the army is taking the matter seriously. In the past, she said, complaints have been denied or dismissed as isolated occurrences.

"This is the proper way to be doing things," she said.
Posted on: June 06, 2007, 09:56:41 am6/7/07

http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=18524&language=en

07/06/2007 Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and The Public Committee against Torture in Israel petitioned "the Tel Aviv Administrative Court" on Wednesday, demanding an urgent court order allowing their physician to visit a minor Palestinian detainee at the Sharon Prison.
The young man said he was tortured during his stay in the prison, and that cigarettes were put out on his body. PHR was given permission by the Israeli Prison Service o send a doctor to visit the minor and check whether or not he had been abused, only after an official query was made by the Israeli daily Ynet.

The 17-year-old boy was arrested by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in early March. He reported the incidents to his attorney in May, saying that he was severely abused both while in custody and during his stay at the Kishon detention facility.
He said that he was handcuffed, blindfolded and put in a military jeep, where he was thrown around the vehicle walls by the soldiers. After being left out in poring rain for two hours, he was transferred to the Salam detention facility, where he spent a few hours before being transferred again, to the Kishon detention facility. The young man further added that he was held in solitary confinement for a week, while being questioned from dusk to dawn, with his hands and feet in chained.

The youngster said that once he cussed his investigators, and they proceeded to chain him to his chair, handcuff him, put cigarettes out on his hands and feet, and beat him. The young man's attorney verified the existence of burn marks on his body.
Anat Litwin, PHR representative for the case, said the prison took its time in granting a request be allowed to bring a camera and document the session and abuse marks.

"They kept telling us the matter was under advisement, and just kept stalling… we didn't think there would be any security problem, but we were denied access."

On May 31, and after the Prison Service failed to comply with PHR request, they petitioned, along with The Public Committee against Torture in Israel, for a court order compelling the prison service to allow their physician's visit, but the court has yet to reply.
"As time goes by," said Litwin, "the signs of abuse are fading, making it harder to affirm the allegations."
A PHR doctor was allowed to visit the youngster.
"Anything that might have happened to the minor in question during his arrest is the Shin Bet's responsibility," a source in the Prison Service told Ynet Wednesday.
"As for the requests to allow a visit by a private physician with a camera and an attorney, the request for a private physician was granted. He could not be accompanied by an attorney and a camera. That constitutes a separate visit."
Posted on: June 08, 2007, 05:29:25 am6/9/07

http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=18658&language=en

09/06/2007 Israeli occupation troops, supported by tanks and heavy military machineguns pushed into the southern Gaza Strip early Saturday.
The invading troops faced an all-out resistance, when they traded gunfire with members of the armed military wing of the Islamic resistance of Hamas movement.
An Israeli army spokesman confirmed that an incursion by tanks and infantry units was under way east of the town of Rafah.

Palestinian security officials said a number of Israeli tanks and bulldozers rolled into the eastern part of Rafah town in the southern Gaza Strip, kidnapping several Palestinians.
The media office of the Palestinian National Security Forces added in a statement that the bulldozers destroyed farmlands and the Israeli troops occupied the roofs of three houses.
The statement also said that the occupation troops, covered by machine gunfire, used loudspeakers to call on people, aged above 16, to surrender themselves.

Last week, the Israeli army also invaded the area and snatched some 20 Palestinian residents.
On Monday, the Israeli occupation army carried out an incursion deep into Palestinian territory, also at Rafah, in a one-day operation in which they questioned dozens of Palestinians and arrested four.
The incursions come after 'Israel' resumed air strikes on May 16 on Palestinians in Gaza after a six-month truce