DECEMBER 2007
©2007 elliott rader • all rights reserved
"If there is a god, he must be evil".
Albert Camus
Christmas time in the Promised Land
By Jan Benvie
December 2007
The Israeli controlled Road 317 bisects the only road that leads out of At-Tuwani on the way to the main towns in the area. It is a busy intersection. Palestinians from At-Tuwani and neighboring villages cross to visit family, shop or access services in nearby Karmil or Yatta.
Last Tuesday (4 December) there was one of the frequent Israeli army roadblocks at the junction. It was early afternoon and, by the time we arrived, the soldiers had stopped several Palestinian vehicles and pedestrians on either side of 317. We asked the soldiers what was happening and were advised that a race was about to take place. That seemed a plausible explanation until we saw Israeli vehicles traveling along the road. We queried whether or not the road was closed. “Only Palestinians are stopped,” one soldier replied, and, when we asked why, he answered, “Because we are in charge.” The other soldiers looked on, grinning.
I felt angry at the blatant racism and the soldiers’ arrogance. I had to step back. I could not engage constructively with these soldiers. Another CPTer continued talking with the soldiers, and was able to include the waiting Palestinians in the exchange. My anger subsided, it was good to see this exchange.
Runners passed, along with a continuing flow of Israeli vehicles. Then the race was over.
As we waited for the army to reopen the road we saw two Israeli soldiers stop a woman with two children on a donkey. She had crossed the road and was trying to get home with her sick child. I moved towards them, working to keep my anger controlled, knowing that angry words would not help. The woman was pleading with the soldiers to allow her to go home, explaining that her child was sick. The youngest boy, clearly ill, kept turning to his mother to sob on her shoulder. It was a harrowing sight. I spoke to the soldiers. They stood, seemingly impassive, and refused to allow the woman to pass. I pleaded with them. “How would you feel if this was your child?” I asked, “What if this was your young brother, would you not let him go home?”
As I looked from the woman and her child to the soldiers, I saw their discomfort. They could not look at the sick child. They would not look at the mother or at me as we continued to plead. One soldier kept talking on the radio. I sensed he was seeking permission to allow the woman and her child to go. My anger dissipated, I felt only sadness for these young soldiers, coerced into committing such an inhumane act. Eventually they allowed the woman to take her child home, and a short time later re-opened the road.
Afterwards I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness.
edcell
This month's issue of The Handstand is very
large, on account of the project on the Balkans which is
covered in fairly strong detail. This problem created by
the European Union, doubtless at the behest of USA and UK
is coming back to haunt us as a result of elections which
have been poised in Kosovo just prior to so called
"settlement" talks. Talks that if held in
historical detail will reveal that as the Israelies in
Palestine so the Albanians in Serbia have developed their
hold on land in parellel lines.
I urge everyone to read Ronan Bennett's essay on Martin
Amis that appeared in Counterpunch on 27th November and
is reproduced here.
Jocelyn Braddell
TIMES (UK)
November 23, 2007
AFP
West 'pressing to dismember
Serbia'
BELGRADE The Serbian Prime Minister has said that
powerful Western nations have asked his country to give
up the province of Kosovo voluntarily and to be an
accomplice to the creation of a new Albanian state.
Vojislav Kostunica said: "We must now decide whether
Serbia will succumb to this violence and become the first
country in Europe to have been humiliated by a land grab
since the Munich agreement." That led in 1938 to
Hitler's dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Officials from
Serbia and Kosovo are to hold talks about the future
status of the province over three days in Baden,
Austria, next week, after talks on Tuesday failed.
Belgrade is willing to grant its southern province wide
autonomy, but not the independence demanded by the ethnic
Albanian majority. (AFP)
**************************************************************************
UPDATE:November 24, 2007 4:00 PM
For the first time since February 2007, the negotiations
on Kosovo's status
are again picking up speed. The Ahtisaari plan, which
called for the EU
management of conditional independence, floundered at the
security council.
Avoiding the UN, a new diplomatic solution indicates that
if Kosovo declares
independence, the US and a number of European countries
will recognise it
through bilateral agreements. This is the most practical
and realistic
option, as the argument goes. It pleases an increasingly
restive Albanian
population in Kosovo. It circumvents Russia's veto to any
security council
resolution that includes the word independence. Finally,
it breathes new
life in the Ahtisaari plan, ensuring that Kosovo will be
under EU management
for years on end.
http://commentisfre
"The entire Serbia
must strongly and unequivocally show that it does not
recognize that illegal entity and that the province of
Kosovo and Metohija is an Integral and inalienable part
of Serbia," Kostunica
said in a statement.
"No one can deny us the
right to reject unilateral Independence in line with the
Serbian Constitution and the U.N. Charter and no one can
deny Serbia the right to protect its sovereignty and
territorial integrity,"
Kostunica said.