copyandpaste

I invite Israelis who believe in peace and justice to sign a petition in solidarity with the Methodist Church, which is facing pressure against adopting proposals to divest from companies that enable the Israeli occupation of Palestine and Palestinians to continue.

Two years ago at the New England Conference of United Methodists the Church passed a selective divestment resolution and issued a report last summer urging divestment from 20 companies. The General Conference of the United Methodist Church meets every 4 years. This year, the meeting will be in late April. Delegates from around the world will be coming to adopt policies governing the church. A divestment measure similar to the one approved in New England will be considered. It does not call for divestment from Israel, but from US and international companies that support the occupation. Already, many forces are mobilizing against it. There is particular concern about its impact on interfaith relations, and efforts are being made to cast it as anti-Semitic and harmful to Jews.

It is therefore of the utmost importance that Israelis sign the petition in support of the Methodists, a petition that affords statistics and other material to counter the charge of anti-Semitism. These statistics and materials lengthen the petition but furnish information that members of the Church can use to counter accusations of anti-Semitism and the like.

Please note, there is an error in the petition on-line in the amount of water that Palestinians receive compared to settlers. The figures in the petition below have been corrected. They cannot be corrected on-line, but I will advise the addressee, James A. Winkler, General Secretary of the United Methodist Church of the correction.

Letter of support from Israelis to the

2008 General Conference of the United Methodist Church

We, as Israelis, express our support of the 2004 resolution adopted by the General Conference of the Methodist Church that states “The United Methodist Church opposes continued military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, the confiscation of Palestinian land and water resources, the destruction of Palestinian homes, the continued building of illegal Jewish settlements and any vision of a ‘Greater Israel’ that includes the occupied territories and the whole of Jerusalem and its surroundings [Book of Resolutions, 2004, #12].” Should the Methodist Church in the wake of the above resolution elect to divest from companies that enable the occupation to continue, we the undersigned shall applaud your courageous initiative, and fervently hope that it will set an example for many others to follow.

We assure the Methodist Church that it is no more anti-Semitic to criticize and oppose Israeli government policies than it was anti-American to oppose the Vietnam war or is anti-American to oppose the present war in Iraq. It is never anti-Semitic to oppose injustice, destruction, gross inequity, and inequality. We also assure the Church that Israel, having the fourth most powerful military in the world, is in no existential danger.

As citizens devoted to the promotion of peace and democracy in the region, we denounce the international community’s continued economic investments in our country which directly and indirectly support Israel's daily violations of international law and colonization of the occupied territories. We fear the potentially irreversible damage created by Israeli occupation, by Israel’s unilateral plans, and by the international community’s impotence in ending Israel’s occupation. We realize that Israel’s occupation of Palestinians and their lands will probably not end without international sanctions.

Moreover, Israelis, as well as Palestinians, will benefit from ending the occupation Symmetry never exists between occupier and occupied, oppressor and oppressed. Yet Israelis suffer from loss of life, increase in militarism, and a steady devaluation of human life. This latter is particularly evident in the socio-economic sphere and the affliction of post-traumatic distress.

Successive Israeli governments have spent enormous amounts of money on expansion, to the detriment of social benefits for the Israeli population. While it is true that had there been no occupation, Israeli governments might not have spent the money on social benefits, the fact that expansion continues apace alongside continued endeavors of ethnic cleansing reveals Israel’s intention to rid the West Bank of as many Palestinians as possible and to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state.

To this end, money is spent on maintaining a large military presence in the occupied Palestinian Territories, on erecting the apartheid wall at 4 million dollars a mile, with 400 miles planned (twice as long as if it had been built on the ‘green line’), and constructing more housing units in highly subsidized settlements. In December 2007, for instance, the Israeli Housing Ministry announced that it was building 300 more units on Har Homa (Jabal Abu Ghnaim to Palestinians), with another 1000 intended, and more recently has begun construction of 60 homes in the Ras Al-Amud section of East Jerusalem. Israel claims Har Homa to be a part of Jerusalem, but the international community regards Israel’s construction on it and in East Jerusalem to be further illegal colonization of Palestinian land. Given the subsidies and other perks with which Israel lures Israelis to colonize the West Bank, it is small wonder that population increase in the occupied Palestinian territory is five to six percent, by contrast to the two to three percent maximum growth in Israeli communities within Israel proper. Israel additionally spends much on constructing super-highways for Israelis-only in the occupied Palestinian Territories, as well as for lookout towers (that can double as sniper towers), and checkpoints galore. Furthermore, the majority of the more than 500 checkpoints separate Palestinian communities from one another.

While all this is taking place at considerable economic cost, poverty in Israel has increased sharply. Israel in 2006 gained the dubious notoriety of having the worst poverty level in the Western world, and has retained this position through 2007. Over one quarter of Israelis now live under the poverty line. One of every three children goes to bed hungry. And every fourth elderly person is poor. No wonder, then, that many of Israel's elderly are “suicidal.” The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot revealed in a report that over 50 percent of suicides in Israel every year are committed by people aged 65 and over. And there are additional worrying trends. Not only are the few rich getting richer and the numerous poor getting poorer, but also many in the middle class who have jobs are sliding into poverty due to low wages. The Adva Center report of December 2007 showed that a fifth of Israeli wage earners are now living under the poverty line.

One result of the increased poverty is that 25% of Israelis forego medical care because they cannot afford it. 75% of the poor cannot afford medication. But of all the sad statistics, one of the more shocking is that over 80,000 Holocaust survivors—now mostly aged individuals--live in desperate straits. It is shameful that of all places in the world, in Israel, Holocaust survivors live in dire poverty and misery.

The worsening economic conditions contribute, in turn, to escalation of violence. Thus, for instance, one of every five elderly Israelis is subject to abuse, mainly by spouses or children. And the Israeli police recorded a 24% increase in violence among youth the first months of 2006.

A direct cost of occupation and a threat to Israel's welfare is post-traumatic stress, which can result in addiction to drugs and alcohol, and can also contribute to violence. A counselor at a rehabilitation center terms the malady “a ticking bomb," Help, he relates, is unavailable for many soldiers who have gone "into terrible distress of drugs, beatings, violence, impatience, ... soldiers who clashed with a civilian population, and when they were discharged understood that they had been wrong." Hundreds, he reveals, "are roaming about with the feeling that there is no point to living, and the path to suicide and drugs is very easy. We are afraid that former soldiers will commit criminal acts as a result of their distress."

On the Palestinian end of the occupation, the situation is far worse both economically and in terms of security. For Palestinians, occupation means a loudspeaker in the middle of the night ordering residents out of their homes, regardless of whether it’s winter or summer, hot or cold, wet or dry. Occupation means long waits at checkpoints, even in emergencies. Occupation means that one needs permits to go to one’s fields, permits that are often not given. Even when permits are given, the Palestinian farmer often finds that the military gates that control accessing his fields are closed and fail to open, and, for that matter, fail to open also for children on their way to school. Occupation means land theft and uprooting of olive trees, some of which are 100s of years old, all of which are means of sustenance for the Palestinian people, some now the only means.

Occupation means curfews, during which sick people can and do die. Occupation means that one’s home can turn into rubble in minutes, as bulldozers or explosives demolish it, along with its furnishings, toys, family photograph albums, computers, and all else. Occupation means imprisonment. Approximately 11,000 Palestinians are now incarcerated in Israeli facilities.

Israeli Occupation means apartheid. The separation wall is one instance; four additional ones are water, roads, home construction, and checkpoints. Settlers are allowed to use approximately 9 times as much water as Palestinians. On average, a Palestinian citizen in the West Bank is allowed to use no more than 50-70 liters of water per capita per day, while Israeli settlers in the West Bank can use up to 450-540 liters per capita per day. Palestinians are not permitted to drive on ‘settler’ roads, which are highly superior to other roads in the occupied Palestinian territories. Palestinians are not allowed to build houses or even to add rooms, while Jewish settlement building continues uninhibited. Checkpoints also discriminate. Israelis, tourists, and Jews from abroad can go from the Territories to Israel via many checkpoints, but Palestinians having permits are allowed to enter Israel only through 11 of them, forcing Palestinians fortunate enough to have a permit to travel far out of the way on their way to work or for medical care in Israel.

For the above reasons, we Israeli seekers of peace and justice express our sincere gratitude to the Methodist Church for its stand on the occupation, and support the proposals before the General Conference this April on divestment. Boycott and divestment are non-violent means of pressuring governments to change their policies--means now sorely needed to compel the Israeli government to end its occupation of Palestinians and their lands and thereby to better the lives of Israelis as well as of Palestinians.

27TH jAN.2008 :FLASHBACK TO 2000.

“Hatib said in regard to Mazuz' decision that ‘this is a black day for justice, human rights and the aspiration for equality and respect between peoples. Mazuz, with unprecedented inflexibility, legitimized the murder.’"

For those of you who don’t remember or know, in October 2000 Arab citizens of Israel from various communities demonstrated against what they (justly) felt was discrimination against them, and what Israel was doing to Palestinians (the 2^nd Intifada had broken out on September 28, 2000). The Israeli police used live ammunition to control the demonstrators. 13 of the demonstrators (12 of whom were Israeli citizens) were killed by the police. In other words, the police killed 12 Israeli citizens and 1 Palestinian from the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Police should not shoot citizens demonstrating! And in Israel the police don't, unless they are Muslims, or not Jews! Hatib is absolutely correct to say above that Mazuz by closing the case today, “legitimized the murder.” LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, JUST IMAGINE THAT HAD 13 JEWS BEEN KILLED ANYWHERE IN THE WESTERN WORLD, AND THE CASE HAD BEEN CLOSED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE COUNTRY WHOSE POLICE KILLED THEM! ! ! JUST IMAGINE! WHAT AN OUTCRY. WHAT A SCENE. And justifiably so. Because to close the case is to sanctify murder. But this is against Muslims not Jews. So what the hell! Who cares!?!

I realize that I should have written you about the ‘wonderful’ demonstration yesterday. But somehow or other I haven’t any heart to. Of course we have to continue demonstrating and protesting and showing solidarity with the people in Gaza and the West Bank. But after the show is over, the curtain comes down and nothing has changed. So instead of writing about it, I’m sending you a video which will give you an idea of the nature of the convoy and demo. In my opinion, the most important part of it was a young girl from Sderot who acknowledged that the Qassams are not easy to take, but also said that the shooting of the Qassams was not done in a vacuum, that Israel also had a role in causing them. I have hope in the younger generation. Maybe someone of it will become the Knight in shining armor that we all want to deliver us from this mess.

In addition to the video and the report about closing the case on the 13 deaths, am including also 2 pieces. I would only remark about Kathy Christison’s. that to me a single state here need not be restricted to Israelis and Palestinians. It could include, so far as I’m concerned, as many people of diverse races, religions, and ethnic divisions as want to live here, people who love the land and want to see it bloom in peace and prosperity. A single state yes! But not one that is restricted to 1 or 2 ethnic groups, but one open to all, similar to Western countries as a whole--countries in which populations mix in melting pots, rather than being like ice cubes separate from one another in a tray.

Thanks to Sol for recommending that I check out Australian papers. The update on Gaza from the Sidney Morning Herald is one of the most even-handed and fullest that I have seen in the dozen or so write-ups that I have checked out. In addition to its opening paragraph which depicts Gaza as a prison for years, the Herald is the only newspaper that I have seen today that mentions the fact that the increase in Qassams fired at Israel was not done in a vacuum: "A redoubled barrage of homemade Palestinian missiles injured several civilians last week after a routine Israeli invasion - itself supposed to help curb missile fire - which killed about 40 Palestinians and injured more than 100." Let us hope that something positive comes of the breach in the wall, that it not remain just another episode in the 60 year tragedy that Palestinians have been suffering. Enough! D.N.

Sydney Morning Herald
January 26, 2008
The open border between Gaza and Egypt provided its residents with a respite from the blockade, but it has also raised questions about Israel's next move, reports Ed O'Loughlin in Rafah.
It's cold and wet, the electricity keeps going out, there's no petrol for the car and no goods left in the shops, and the row with the neighbours could soon turn really nasty. Yet despite the wider cause for gloom there was an air of suppressed carnival in Gaza this week as tens of thousands of people enjoyed a rare outing from what has been for many years a de facto prison for 1.5 million untried inmates.

On Thursday, a day after Hamas militants theatrically broke Israel's ever-tightening siege by blowing holes in the Egyptian border wall, Hanan Atala, 18, came all the way from Gaza City hoping to leave the strip for the first time in her life.Sadly, her 55-year-old mother's legs were not up to vaulting the low concrete wall on the actual border with Egypt. So while her brother crossed in search of cheese, yoghurt, milk and washing powder, the two women stood and gazed at the sandy scrub and rough concrete houses of Egypt, only a few metres away."It looks just like here," said Hanan, a little disappointed.

It was the second day of the exodus and already much of the border commerce was a great deal more organised. Fifty metres back from the wall a few stalls sprang up, selling shwarma and baklava. Amar Al Kor, 21, the son of a Rafah concrete merchant, had hired a large truck to haul home 30 tonnes of precious cement powder, handed sack by sack across the border wall. "There hasn't been any shipments of cement since Hamas took over Gaza from Fatah last year," he explained. "The Israelis wouldn't let us have any after that, so people who want to build or fix their houses can't do anything - you can't even get cement to put on graves. We got thirty tonnes yesterday and another thirty tonnes a day. It's only a little bit, really. It will help, but in Gaza we need a lot more cement than this."

Mohammed al Rifai, 20, from Gaza City was herding back 10 goats and two kids his family had just bought in Egypt for $US1700 ($1943) - steep even at First World prices, but still only a third of the previous going rate in blockaded Gaza, where fresh meat has become a rare luxury in recent months even for those with salaries. "We'll keep some to fatten but most will be sold for meat straight away," he said. "It's hard to find food for them now. We try and bring them to the north, near the border, where it's still green, but the Israeli soldiers shoot to make us go away." Some brought back luxuries such as biscuits, sweets, cigarettes and televisions, and portable generators and cheap Chinese motorbikes. But the most popular items seen bobbing above the crowd this week were big drums of cooking oil, boxes of dairy products, baby milk formula, tinned meat and fish, washing powder, sanitary towels, mattresses, school copy books and - above all - fuel of all kinds: diesel and petrol in all manner of plastic containers and metal canisters of the liquid petroleum gas which most Gazans use for cooking.

"We've had nothing to cook with for five days," complained Mortaz Abu Khuji, 19, earlier this week, having spent most of Tuesday queuing for a gas refill only to see supplies run out just as he reached the pump. "I went to Beit Hanoun [near the northern border] yesterday to get wood to burn but the Israelis were shooting from the border to make us run away. I tried to buy some wood but a kilo costs two shekels, and who has that money now? I'll sleep here tonight. I can't go home to my brothers and sisters without gas." Having cut off all fuel supplies to Gaza late last week - a much reduced flow has since resumed - Israel blamed the new crisis on militants who continue to fire missiles from Gaza at Israeli border communities.

A redoubled barrage of homemade Palestinian missiles injured several civilians last week after a routine Israeli invasion - itself supposed to help curb missile fire - which killed about 40 Palestinians and injured more than 100. An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Arye Mekel, said this week that if the rocket fire stopped life in Gaza would return to "normal". The Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, said that Israel would not allow Gazans to live well while the rocket fire continued, but would not allow a "humanitarian crisis" to develop there. But United Nations agencies and aid groups working in the strip say that in Gaza a humanitarian crisis is already the normality.

Medicines are in short supply or totally exhausted, while restrictions on spare parts have shut down vital medical equipment in some hospital wards. The embargo on building supplies, plus restrictions on fuel and spare parts, has left about 40 per cent of Gaza's people without running water, while most of Gaza City's sewage - 400,000 litres a day - is now being pumped raw into the sea without being treated. The rest is overflowing into streets and basements, poisoning ground water that is already polluted far beyond minimum World Health Organisation standards. Nearly all of the Israeli-dominated enclave's 1.5 million people are now dependent on foreign donors and UN food aid because of an economic boycott - imposed with full Western support after Hamas won Palestinian elections in early 2006 - which had shut down most of Gaza's remaining private industry long before the latest crisis began. The only remaining productive sector, agriculture, has been unable to resume its once highly profitable sale of fruit and flowers to Europe and North America because of Israel's ban on exports.

Ismail Al Helo, a north Gaza fruit farmer, snorted contemptuously when asked about the announcement, shortly before the visit of the US President, George Bush, earlier this month, that Israel was relaxing its ban on food and flower exports from Gaza. "They are great liars," he said. "Nothing has happened. It was all said just to look good when they were supposed to have peace talks."

Aid agencies warn that the goods coming across from Egypt this week, on foot and in donkey carts, cannot even begin to compensate for the thousands of daily tonnes of imported fuel and supplies cut off by the now near-total Israeli blockade. "What everybody should realise is just how desperate the situation here continues to be," said John Ging, the director of the UN's Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, now by default the biggest employer and provider in Gaza. "Last week we had something in the order of 100 trucks a day of humanitarian supplies coming into Gaza. Yesterday we had 10, the day before 16, today none at all. Before June there were 400 trucks coming in a day - and that to an economy that was already very severely damaged."

UNRWA and the UN's World Food Program, which together feed around 1.1 million of Gaza's 1.5 million people, only have enough stocks of basic foodstuffs - flour, rice, lentils and sugar, for a month, and these are being rapidly depleted."Dairy products, fresh meat, all the things that are needed to supplement our distribution are disappearing from Gaza," said Ging. "We only give people 61 per cent of the minimum calorie intake. You can't live just on what the UN gives you. The situation is very bleak."

Hamas's dramatic initiative in blowing open the Egyptian border crossings early Wednesday has created a public relations problem for Egypt and Israel. Neither government wants to be seen to publicly slam the door on desperate civilians whose purchases - mainly small quantities of food, medicine and fuel - underline the urgency of their plight.But Israel, with strong support from the United States, believes that its blockade can force Gaza's people to rise up against the Hamas militants who seized control of the strip last June from the rival US-backed Fatah party. This in turn, it is argued, would end the cross-border bombardment which has terrorised the town of Sderot and killed 10 Israeli civilians over the past seven years.Israel and the US both told Cairo, their formal ally, that it must solve the problem, warning of an influx of terrorists and weapons into Gaza if the border is not closed. The Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, defended his country's decision not to try to turn the Gazans back empty-handed, saying they were "starving" people who should be treated with compassion.

But many Gazans have already discovered that the Rafah escapade is providing, at best, only an illusion of freedom. This week, after months blockaded by Egypt and Israel, many Palestinians took advantage of the breach in the wall to try and take up jobs or studies in Egypt and abroad. Many - if not all - were turned back at checkpoints on the way to the Suez canal because they did not have Egyptian entry stamps from the Rafah border crossing. A crossing which, by agreement with the US and Israel, cannot reopen without Israel's permission.

Dear All, Jeff Halper not only expresses truths that I believe below, but also that same sense of elation at seeing the Palestinians break out of the ghetto that Israel imposed upon them. Will we see the same happen in the West Bank? Palestinians exploding the wall? That will be more difficult, perhaps. But it will happen. Walls must fall. As Robert Frost wrote "There is something that doesn't love a wall, that wants it down"

And who knows? Perhaps this act of the Palestinians--their breaking out of their Israeli- and world- imposed prison--might encourage others in the Middle East to revolt against repressive regimes. Israel's leaders in taking on Gaza, have possibly bitten off more than they can chew, just as they did in taking on Hezballah in 2006. Thanks, Jeff, for saying what I feel. D.N.

POWER TO THE (PALESTINIAN) PEOPLE!
Jeff Halper
January 23, 2008
The people of Palestine have done it again, taking their own fate in their hands after being let down by their own "moderate" political leadership and, indeed, the entire international community in their struggle for freedom. Early this morning they simply blew up the wall separating Gaza from Egypt, breaking a siege imposed on them by an Arab government in collaboration with Israel.
We, the peoples of the world, should take great pride and encouragement in this quintessentially civil society refusal to accept subjugation, to abandon their fate to governments, including their own, for whom the lives of ordinary people are simply grist for their political charades – Annapolis and its subsequent "peace process" being but the last cynical expression. For the Palestinians represent far more than just themselves. Their refusal to submit to the dictates of governments, or to governments' lack of interest in the well-being of people in general, reflects the desire of billions of oppressed people for identity, freedom, a decent life and actualization of their collective and individual rights and potentials. Most of the oppressed, the "wretched of the earth" as Franz Fanon called them a half-century ago, are too preoccupied with the daunting daily struggle for survival to organize and resist. Others do resist in a myriad of ways, but are most often repressed by their own political and economic "leaders," disappearing anonymously from view. In a few cases they have managed to mount effective resistance to oppression, even to prevail – though the billions spent on "counterinsurgency" warfare by the US, Europe, Russia, Israel and many "developing" nations augur ill for peoples attempting to overthrow oppressive regimes.
In this the Palestinians stand at the forefront, in the front lines of peoples' insistence everywhere that their rights, well-being and fundamental values as human beings be respected by governments. And they do so (and I write this as an Israeli with great sorrow and shame) against one of the world's strongest and most ruthless military powers – a power that has dispossessed them from 85% of their land, which is trying to transform its occupation into a permanent regime of apartheid, which has spent decades impoverishing and disenfranchising them; the fourth largest nuclear power which nevertheless casts itself as the victim. Not only have the Palestinians experienced the dehumanization all oppressed and colonized peoples experience, not only have they been made into the embodiment of the rich and powerful's greatest fear, evil "terrorists" who may tear down their privileged "civilization," but they have been turned into guinea pigs. Israel is able to gain an edge in the counterinsurgency industry and win entree into the heart of the American military/hi tech complex by turning the Occupied Territories into a laboratory for the development of fiendish weaponry and tactics intended for use against people.
And yet the Palestinian people – and in particular those who remain sumud, steadfast, in Palestine – continue not only to resist but to surprise and confound its would-be Israeli master at every turn. Despite unlimited control, a complete monopoly over the use of force, utter callousness and a vaunted Shin Beit, Israel's military intelligence, Palestinians vote as they want, resist, carry on their daily lives with dignity – and blow huge holes in the walls and policies constructed in order to imprison and defeat them.
All this is not on the minds of those desperate people who surged into Egypt today. They may not have the "Big Picture." Yet they deserve the respect and gratefulness of every person who cherishes a better world based on human rights and dignity, a world that is inclusive. As an Israeli Jew, I have been saddened and mortified that my own people, after all they have experienced, cannot see what they are doing to others. But on a larger scale, not as an Israeli Jew but as a human being, I take heart in the Palestinians' active refusal to be ground under a global system that is producing unimaginable wealth and power for a few at the expense of the growing ranks of the wretched.
I am not a Palestinian; I am not one of the oppressed. I only hope I can use my privilege in an effective way in order to redeem the gift the people of Gaza have given all of us: the realization that the people do have power and can prevail even in the face of overwhelming power. We may each express our responsibility towards the people of Gaza in whatever way most suits us, but as the privileged we must do something. We owe the Palestinians and the Palestinians writ large at least that.

(Jeff Halper is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).

Two months after the end of the olive harvest, in most places, Palestinians were able to harvest their olive trees. However, we know of four places in which they could not harvest because of settler aggression, inspite of appeals to the DCOs.

Palestinians of the village Karyut could not harvest, fearing settlers of the settlements Shvut Rachel and Esh Kodesh.

Palestinians of Jit were attacked by settlers of Havat Gilad and could not harvest their olives.

Palestinians of Bani Na'im, in that part of their land surrounded by the security fence of the settlement Pnei Hever, were not permitted to enter and harvest their olives

A Palestinian by the name of Khalifa Da'ana of Hebron, whose land is surrounded by the security fence of Giv'at Harsina, was permitted entry only on 18th January 2008. There was already nothing left to harvest. The following day settlers arrived and stoned his home. When he tried to photograph them, his camera was confiscated by soldiers. Only after human rights' workers intervened was it returned to him.
Questions & queries: amosg@shefayim.org.il

I apologize. As a number of you reported to me, Gaza was in the news in your countries. And today it was also in the news in the papers that did not have it yesterday when I checked. I guess I expected too much—that it would be out there the moment it happened—breaking news-- just as it was in Israeli newspapers. Did not intend to unnecessarily knock the media. Just, the pictures on the TV news and descriptions of what Gazans are undergoing truly upset me (to put it mildly) and blackened my mood. I feel so useless. I see what is happening, and can do nothing to stop it.

Below are 5 items, plus the above link, whose title is the crux of the report. Poor Gilad Shalit and his parents, as well as the 400+ Palestinian prisoners that are incarcerated (along with 11,000 others) in Israeli prisons, many of them unjustly. But that’s another story.

As you might expect, four of the five items below focus on Gaza. All day the radio has been reporting that Olmert insists that Israel will not allow a humanitarian crisis to occur in Israel. Just what does Olmert mean by the term ‘humanitarian crisis’?!? That the Hamas is using the crisis for publicity is likely true. But that does not mean that there is no crisis. Olmert and the government use Sderot for publicity too, as Micki Longum suspects (item one below), and I feel certain that she is right. The qassam barrages on Sderot enable Olmert, et al. to cry crocodile tears: “Look at how the poor people are suffering,” he and others in the government say. True. The people in Sderot are suffering, but who brought this on them if not Israeli policy? Undoubtedly, Olmert’s PR needs would be greatly enhanced if a qassam managed to hit a Sderot school and kill children. Then he could crow, ‘look at how inhumane the Palestinians are! They kill children.’ But that would not make the parents’ loss less real. And the possibility or probability that Hamas is using the situation in Gaza for publicity does not make the situation less real. Indeed, the Guardian item below notes that 40 people were killed in Gaza just this past week. It mentions nary a one killed in Sderot. That, at least, is positive. I hope that residents of Sderot never suffer losing children to a quassam, as I also hope that Gaza residents will some day once again see the light. But the blame for what happens in Sderot (which the government refuses to build shelters for) is squarely on Israeli policy, those who make it, and those who carry it out.

Why did Israel have to kill 19 Palestinians? Even Israeli news commentators knew that such an event could not bode well for Sderot residents. For how long will the world continue to believe Olmert? And why did Israel kill 800 Palestinians the past 2 years? The point is, as Gideon Levy demands, “And what [by all this killing] have we solved?” For how much longer?

The final item might be of special interest to academics. Israel has its very own Daniel Pipes—a solid right winger who leads others like himself to sniff out in Israeli universities every drop of criticism of Israeli policy or of Zionism that he sees as ‘rampant’ in Israeli universities, and to publicize names. He of course adds some of his own to what he finds, to enhance his findings. Ah well. What can one expect. This is Israel.

Which reminds me, today on a radio broadcast covering the Herzliah Conference currently taking place, the moderator, Yitzhak Noy, noted that there is a true demographic problem in the world: Muslims are greatly increasing in numbers throughout the world. Imagine, dear friends, someone saying that there is a real demographic problem because Jews are rapidly multiplying. But, as I said above, this is Israel!.D.N.

Yes, it is terrible.There have been scarce reports on Gaza in the national Norwegian papers, reports are beginning to come in - I have sent articles to newspapers, but I don't know how much it has helped. The national evening news on television at last presented a live report from Gaza, with a Norwegian reporter on the spot - it was fair. I am working on what will hopefully be an article - I mention it because you imply some of what I am more and more convinced about - unprotected

Sderot is useful to the Israeli authorities. Anti rocket shields"Sky Shields", based on special research made on Kassams and Katyushas have been available for some time at Lockheed Martin Corporation, in USA. 4-5 of these systems can provide effective defence for a town like Sderot. Each Sky Shield costs $15 million. The system includes a radar and a rapid fire cannon which destroys the incoming rocket - why is Israel dragging its feet? The rockets started in in 2002 or 2003(I have to check the date) in response to Israeli attacks, killings, demolitions ewtc, NOT the other way around.Israeli authorities talk now as if thery are attacking because of the rockets, in self defence. This makes no sense, they were doing all the things they are doing now, long before the Kassams. Plans to launch a full attack on Gaza have been ready, they were only waiting for the right pretext - just as the launching of the war on Lebanon in 2006. I have collected some material, but would appreciate more if you have any suggestions. I think one of the reasons the Gaza attacks and siege are not reported on, is because media and people generally have accepted the Israeli argument of self defence.

GIDEON LEVY WRITES:Here we have the yardstick for security success: the number of Palestinians killed. As in the most primeval wars, the heads of the defense establishment are boasting about the number of people Israel has killed. Their job is to ensure protection for the residents of the state. And, as we know, the residents of the "Gaza perimeter" are not receiving this protection. So the death toll has become the measure of their success.

Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin briefed the cabinet last week about the "achievements" of his organization: 810 Palestinians killed during the past two years. His predecessor, Avi Dichter, once appeared before the editorial board of Haaretz and proudly presented a sophisticated slideshow from his laptop computer: a pie chart of Palestinian casualties, in several colors. Last week, the brigade commander in Gaza, Colonel Ron Ashrov, defined the operation in the Zeitun neighborhood as "very successful." Why? Because his troops killed 19 Palestinians in a single day and further inflamed the conflagration in the South. How depressing, morally and in practical terms, to think that this is the measure of success.

Has the daily mass killing in Gaza improved the security situation? No, it has only made it worse. Has it reduced the number of Qassams? No, it has led to their proliferation. So why are we killing? We need "to do something" and there needs to be "a price tag." These are hollow cliches. A review of recent newspapers presents a clear picture: As long as the U.S. president was still in the country, Israel refrained from liquidations, and the number of Qassams decreased. When George Bush left, we resumed killing and, as a result, Sderot has faced the most difficult days it has ever known. The burning question that arises is: What are we killing for? Someone must answer this.

The distinction that Diskin and his ilk make between "armed" and "unarmed" Palestinians also does not change a thing. Whether 600 armed men were killed (the number cited by the Shin Bet director) or only 455 (according to Haaretz's calculation), this does not justify the scope of the killing or serve as an indication of its effectiveness. Not every armed person deserves to die. All of the killings, of armed and unarmed, have only led to an escalation of the violence on the other side. For every "senior Jihad commander," for every Qassam launcher killed, seven others immediately emerge. The killing is useless, and the defense establishment boasts about it only to satisfy public opinion.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak should understand this better than anyone. He has certainly read a book or two about history, and he knows that it is impossible to forcefully extinguish a determined and protracted struggle for freedom, like that of the Palestinians. He is also the person who once said in a television interview, courageously and frankly: "If I were a Palestinian, I would join a terror organization." He is the one who is now orchestrating the sowing of death in Gaza.

One's heart goes out to the residents of Sderot, but one should also remember that they bear the same responsibility for the situation as do all Israelis. If a survey were conducted in this battered city, it would show that there is also a majority in Sderot in favor of continuing the occupation and siege, as everywhere else in Israel. And despite all the suffering they are experiencing, the situation of their neighbors to the south is much worse.

Haaretz presented a mirror image last week on its front page: a crying toddler in Sderot and a crying toddler in Gaza, both in the arms of their fathers. The other newspapers deemed it sufficient to print pictures of the weeping in Sderot on their front pages. But in recent days, Israel has killed dozens of residents of the besieged, blacked-out and starved Gaza Strip. This information cannot be ignored, with all due sympathy for Sderot.

The continued killing in Gaza is leading nowhere, except for exacerbating the situation in Sderot. It will not weaken the Palestinians' struggle for freedom and will not bring security for Israel. The yearning for a "large-scale military operation" in Gaza, as described by warmongering generals and commentators, is also infuriating. This operation already started a long time ago - just listen to the death figures of Diskin and his colleagues. We have killed over 800 Palestinians in two years, and it is appalling that some take pride in this. And what have we solved?

University staff have engaged in public demonstrations, prepared and signed petitions addressed to Israeli soldiers to disobey their commanders' orders

Some 20% to 25% of the humanities and social sciences staff in Israel's universities and colleges have "expressed extreme anti-Zionist positions," according to Israel Academia Monitor.

"In addition (the university staff) have engaged in public demonstrations, prepared and signed petitions addressed to Israeli soldiers to disobey their commanders' orders and not serve in Judea and Samaria, and have been active in encouraging academic organizations abroad to boycott Israel universities and academics," states a new Monitor position paper made available online.

In one of hundreds of recent documented examples, Israel Academia Monitor's website lists Dan Bar-On, a psychology professor at Israel's Ben Gurion University, who penned an article in a Palestinian journal this past April arguing alleged Israeli "aggression" against Palestinians is morally equivalent to the Holocaust."Some of the aggression that the Jews did not exercise against the Germans, they are expressing against Palestinians," stated Bar-On. According to Israel Academia Monitor, Bar-On has promoted textbooks in which terrorists are described as freedom fighters, and he signed a statement - later proved false - claiming Israel was about to perpetrate genocidal atrocities against Arabs just as Allied Forces invaded Iraq in 2003.

Also at Ben Gurion University, the Monitor documents geographer Oren Yiftachel, who wrote a book last year, "Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine," in which he argued that there is no place in the Middle East for a Jewish nation. According to Israel Academia Monitor, other professors at Ben Gurion University denounced Israel as an "apartheid" regime and claimed anarchists arrested during protests here are victims of "Israeli state terror."

Moving on to a host of other major colleges, Israel Academia Monitor documents how Hebrew University sponsored a recent two-day seminar that according to its own published minutes discussed, among other things, dealing with the Israeli "occupation" of Jerusalem, and suggested students lead tours of Jerusalem that inform visitors of what Arabs call the Nakba, or the "tragedy" of Israel's founding. According to Palestinian account, the Nakba commemorates a period in which hundreds of thousands of Arabs were purportedly displaced from their homes by Jews. Many positions of the Palestinian narrative have been disputed by scores of history books and documentary evidence.

This past November, Tamar Yarom, a professor at Hebrew University's college of arts, produced a documentary, "Would I smile?" accusing Israeli soldiers of "atrocities" against Palestinians in the West Bank. "I have served in the West Bank during the first intifada in 1987 - 1988, and when I finished my service I wondered 'how would a woman like me take part in suppressing and oppressing another nation, how can a gentle woman remain silent regarding this cruel violence against the Palestinian people?" commented Yarom during an interview about her recent film.

Also at Hebrew University, an academic paper that won a teachers' committee prize last month lamented the lack of rape of Arab women by Israel Defense Forces soldiers, theorizing Jewish soldiers do not rape Arab women because they dehumanized Arabs. The paper cited higher statistics of rape in other Western militaries. Critics stated the paper failed to explore whether Jewish culture and values could have contributed the lower rape statistics among the IDF. Defending the paper, Hebrew University professor Dr. Zali Gurevitch, who headed the committee that published the work, stated in a media interview, "This was a very serious paper that asked two important questions: Is the relative lack of IDF rapes a noteworthy phenomenon, and if so, why is it that there are so few IDF rapes when in similar situations around the world, rape is much more common?"

Documenting cases of Israeli academics making public their activism, Israel Academia Watch recently posted a first-person account by Dr. Roni Hammermann, a senior Hebrew University librarian describing how she attempted to infiltrate an Arab home being searched by what she labeled "bored, power thirsty (Israeli) soldiers." Hammermann is a member of Machshom Watch, or Israeli Women Against the Israeli Occupation of the Territories and the Systematic Repression of the Palestinian Nation. The group is a leftist activist organization that has previously served as human shields for suspected Palestinian militants and regularly protests Israeli anti-terror check points in the West Bank, many of which have been directly credited with stopping scores of suicide bombings.

Israel Academia Monitor goes on to document purported anti-Israel views, teachings and activism by dozens of professors at other Israeli colleges, such as the University of Haifa and Tel Aviv University. Theorizing in its recent policy paper as to the motivation of Israeli academics, Israel Academia Monitor notes some Israeli academics might subscribe to a more globalist ideology. "Not a few of the anti-Zionist academics were lifetime communists and adhere to a Marxist ideology that opposes separate nationalism beyond the international brotherhood of the proletariat. To dismantle Israel is a first step in this direction, despite the fact that other nations oddly enough refuse to follow suit," states the paper."These people are among those who teach our youth in the universities and who exert enormous influence on their ideas, attitudes, values and strivings," the paper states.

Dear Charlie, No electricity, people are going hungry, no bread, and no medicine and lots of things that are missing. people are out in the streets now calling for the world to end the starvation and siege. it might be that people's only option is to break out the borderline and go to Egypt and get food. It's scary here. no bread, no water at home where I am. I have some leftovers biscuits from two days ago. but my laptop batteries will be flat soon. I will find a new agency from those who have electricity generators to recharge my laptop and keep online, if you don't hear from me this is why. Again, I fear Israeli warplanes will bomb the people in the streets. people are in lines trying to find bread. I never seen this in all my 23 years life!

Dear All,
The story in the link below sounds very similar to the story of a good friend of ours who lives in Hares. He was shot and paralyzed 6 and a half years ago, when, after learning that soldiers were in the village, he went out to warn the women and to bring the children in. He, too, was left to die by the soldiers; members of the family not allowed to go near him for 1/2 an hour, while he was laying on the ground bleeding to death. He had been a physical education instructor before, and doctors said that because of this his body was strong and let him survive. He was shot with a dum dum bullet which entered his shoulder and went into his spine where it exploded. He was the father of a 2 months old baby when this occurred. Like Saed, he too will be paralyzed his whole life. He opposes violence, refusing to be like the Israeli military. He is an extraordinarily humane person. By being alive and continuing to live and to remain in his village, in Palestine, he feels that he is opposing the occupation. He is a truly wonderful man. I feel privileged to be his friend. Dorothy

A moment that changed my life

That particular day seemed somehow strange to me, and different from previous marches - usually the Israeli army filled the streets of our town during protests, occupying every corner, but on this day the army remained in their camp, and did not show any presence.

Something felt wrong. Deep inside of me I felt that there was something that did not feel right. Where was the army? What I did not realize was that the army was in fact already present, but in a different shape and form.

On that particular day, it was "the death squads" (as they were known to us), known in Israel as the Dovadim, the Israeli special forces, who were policing and patrolling our demonstration. These are forces which are specially trained for assassinations and are well known for their brutality and their 'shoot to kill' orders. Apparently, after the Israeli prisons were filled with Palestinians, and after the Israeli policies of 'bone breaking' and long imprisonment failed to stop the uprising, the army decided on a new policy, a policy of 'assassinating' the youth, or at least severely injuring and disabling them. During the first Intifada, an Israeli high official was quoted as saying that the army should not kill the Palestinian youth, because a youth killed by the army would then be honored as a martyr and thousands would follow their lead. He said that it is better to paralyze and disable the youth, knowing the way society looks down on disabled people. This official decided that the army, especially the well trained 'death squads' should 'give their utmost effort' to paralyze the youth of the Intifada.

As for me, on that fateful April evening in 1991, I discovered at one point during the demonstration that I was surrounded by a group of masked men who pretended they were also Palestinian protesters. They tried to talk to me in Arabic and ask me about "the location of the soldiers" in an attempt to fool me, but the man who spoke to me didn't pronounce the Arabic words correctly. It was at that moment I realized that I was actually surrounded by a death squad.

When the man noticed that I had realized their true identify he pulled a small automatic gun from under his shirt, and I ran away knowing that even if I surrendered to him then, I would have been immediately assassinated, as had happened to so many Palestinian martyrs before me. The man ran after me, along with the other undercover death squad members, until I came to an area were he was standing above me on a hill, just five meters away from me. When he shouted at me again, I began to turn, and I could see his eyes, or at least, what was visible of them from under his mask. It was at that moment that he started to shoot. After five or six rounds penetrated my chest and back, I fell to the ground, motionless, soaked with my own blood. I could not feel anything, I could not see clearly, and I could hardly hear anything.

I fell down face first, injuring my face and breaking my teeth on the ground. Then the man approached me and kicked me in my chest, breaking four ribs, in order to flip me over onto my back. The last thing I heard before I passed out was that man who shot me saying, "After all that, and you're still alive!?" Those are words I can never forget, for they revealed to me at that moment the true identity of the Israeli army, the army of criminals and murderers.

In spite of the fact that the Israeli military ambulance was already present in my town when I was shot, apparently they believed that if the death squad was in town, that meant that death was there too, and they didn't show up until 30 minutes after I was shot.

When the Israeli ambulance crew finally arrived (no Palestinian ambulance was allowed in to take me), the medics told the soldiers that they should impose curfew because "I was dead". They thought there was no way I could survive such serious wounds - they were sure I would be dead within hours. During the first Intifada the army would impose a curfew every time they killed someone, thus punishing all the Palestinians in the area for the army's own misdeed. Military medics tried to give me first aid there on the ground, I was bleeding so much it was flooding the area were I fell. After the 'first aid' they gave me, they drove the ambulance to a military base in Bethlehem - as my body was fighting to stay alive, they went through their procedures, handing over my identity card to the military, filling out forms and filing their report before they even brought me to the hospital. I was driven out of Bethlehem (where there are two hospitals), and all the way to an Israeli hospital in Jerusalem, where it would be difficult or even impossible for my family to come see me due to the Israeli-imposed closure and checkpoints.

Meanwhile, a military commander in Bethlehem phoned my father at home, and told him that I was mildly injured in my face, leaving out the five bullets which were lodged in my lung and spine - apparently these bullets did not count as injuries. When they finally transferred me to the Israeli hospital I was operated on for the entire night. The surgeon who operated on me decided that it was easier to cut off one third of my lung and throw it away with the bullets than to take the care needed to extract the bullets from the lung (a move which led a Palestinian reporter to editorialize that my 'surgeon had been a butcher in his past profession' in an article he wrote about my injury). One of the bullets penetrated my spine - it went through my chest and lodged in my spine, causing paralysis. That fateful bullet has led to me being paralyzed from the waist down, for life. In the morning, one of the doctors told my mother, "You have a new born baby for a son" -- that was me, paralyzed, unconscious and half dead. I woke up for a few minutes three days after my injury. I did not know anything, did not remember anything, I saw my mother next to me, I tried to speak but that was useless, she was tortured to see me there, I could feel it, and could easily notice her health had deteriorated fearing that I would die at any moment. I tried to ask her what I was doing there, and she said, "Relax my son, you are alright", so I did, and "relaxed" for an additional seven days in another coma. After those seven days, I was transferred out of the intensive care unit to another branch of the hospital, even though I still felt lost and unconscious even when I was awake.

Then, the hospital administration, after failing to make the army pay for my expenses, decided that I should leave, and told my father he must pay for the expenses. When they realized he could not pay, that he was without money, they told my father, "send him to an Arabic hospital, we saved his life, and he must go".

But I was in no condition to be moved at all. Out of intensive care, my condition deteriorated rapidly, and I had to go back to intensive care for another ten days. When they decided I was "ok" I had to leave, even though I was nowhere near the condition that would normally be acceptable for releasing a patient with such severe injuries - but after all, I was "just a Palestinian", and didn't seem to count for much in the Israeli hospital. In fact, the hospital even insisted that a Palestinian ambulance come to fetch me, for they could not bear the expense of using one of their own ambulances to transport me to a Palestinian hospital. So I was transferred (by a Palestinian ambulance) to Al-Makessed hospital in Jerusalem. I was hospitalized for three months, during this time I kept losing a lot of blood, internally and externally, due to my injuries (and the part of my lung that had been completely cut out). I still couldn't think straight, couldn't figure out why I was there - I had only visions spinning in my head, and vague memories. After that time, I was transferred to Abu Raya Rehabilitation center in Ramallah. By then I started to realize that my life had changed forever. I received rehabilitation for several months. I can still remember the first time I could dress alone, it felt good to be able to dress or bathe alone after a lot of work and effort - something that, previously, I would never have thought difficult had become such a challenge in my new body.

Ten months after my injury I enrolled as a student at Bethlehem University and I studied four years, receiving my B.A degree in English and translation. Now, many years later, am still paralyzed of course, but my life is a clear proof of the failure of the Israeli vision that paralyzing, injuring and killing us will make us give up. I have learned that the bullet which does not kill us makes us stronger.So I am in a wheelchair, facing difficulties in life, facing repeated infections and bad health, but I am still the man who stood up to the Israeli occupation day after day and said NO to the occupiers.

One day I saw a program on Israeli TV about the special forces, the so-called 'death squads' which shot me. They showed scrambled pictures of soldiers talking about the attacks they carried out in Palestinian areas. Most of them are receiving psychological help now, and therapy. At that moment I felt victorious, after all they failed to kill my will and my internal strength, while these men who shoot unarmed youth with impunity are suffering internal torment and anguish for the crimes they have committed. I sit with my full mind, in honor, knowing I have done no wrong, and even after all they have done to me, I am still here willing to liberate my country, even while sitting on my wheelchair. Its true, I will live my life on this wheelchair, paralyzed, and that is difficult sometimes to accept. They may have been able to take my mobility away, they may have been able to take my life as a completely healthy young man, but what they could not take, and will never be able to take away is my internal strength, my will and my love of my country.

The spirit of revolution, the path of freedom requires sacrifices we need to be ready and willing to make, until we reach our legitimate goal of freedom and liberation. After the thousands of sacrifices of the Palestinian people, the thousands of martyrs, and tens of thousands of injured and disabled, we know that there can be no solution without liberation. The revolution will resume, even if it pauses for a while. Palestine is our dream, our heart and life, the spirit of revolution and the longing for freedom can never die. Their tanks, apaches, shells, and bullets of hatred can never win.