Child toll rises in Israeli air attack

An Israeli air strike on a car in the northern Gaza Strip has killed three Palestinian children and wounded 10 other people.

An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the strike on Tuesday, saying the car was carrying armed men from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, affiliated with the Fatah movement of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.

She had no immediate word on casualties, but medical sources at Shifa hospital in Gaza City said that among the 10 wounded were seven children.

The sources named the dead children as Mohammed Jamal Roqa, a five-year-old boy, and a seven-year-old girl who was not immediately identified.

Hospital officials said that a 16-year-old girl died of her wounds, and that among the other injured children, ranging in age from three and 12, three were in grave condition.

Israeli officials said the aircraft fired missiles at a car in the crowded Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Witnesses said the people in the car jumped out before the blast.

The car exploded on a narrow street in the crowded refugee camp. The front of the car was badly damaged, but the back was intact.

Hundreds of Palestinians gathered around the vehicle, shouting slogans.

Targeting civiliansIsrael's Channel 2 TV said the raid was "another failed assassination attempt, and again innocent civilians were hit".

The Israeli shelling has caused several civilian casualties, drawing widespread condemnation.

An air strike last week killed eight civilians, in addition to the two targeted men.

And earlier this month, seven members of a family having a picnic on the beach were killed in an explosion that Palestinians blamed on Israeli artillery fire.

About 100,000 Palestinians live in the Jabaliya camp, just north of Gaza City.

Jabaliya is the largest refugee camp in Gaza.

Israel Engineers Another Cover-Up

Leaving the Truth Buried in Gaza's Sands

By JONATHAN COOK

If you keep lying long enough and with enough conviction, people start to believe you -- or at least doubt the evidence in front of their own eyes. And so it has been with the Israeli army’s account of how seven members of a Palestinian family were killed, and dozens of other Palestinians injured, during shelling close by a beach in Gaza.

This week, according to reports in the Israeli media, even Marc Garlasco, a Pentagon expert on the effects of battlefield weapons hired by Human Rights Watch to investigate the deaths, "conceded" that he could not contradict the findings of the Israeli army’s own inquiry.

Presumably that is because Israel is not letting him or anyone else near their evidence. But Garlasco’s slight change of tune -- even if it is not exactly a ringing endorsement -- leaves the door ajar just wide enough that the Israeli army will doubtless slip through it to escape being held accountable yet again.

The army has been claiming for more than a week, based on its own evidence, that the lethal explosion was not caused by a stray shell landing on the Gaza beach but most probably by a mine placed there by Palestinian militants to prevent an Israeli naval landing.

The army’s case could be dismissed outright were it not for the racist assumptions that now prevail as Western "thought" about Arabs and Muslims.

To be plausible the army account requires two preposterous assumptions: first, that Palestinian militants are so fanatical that they consider it acceptable to lay a mine secretly in an area frequented by local families; and second, that they are so primitive that their best military minds could not work out the futility of placing a single mine along miles of coastline that could be used for a landing (or are we to assume that there are many more of these mines waiting to explode?).

To support its case, the army has produced two pieces of evidence that apparently make its denials of responsibility "airtight".

First, it claims that a piece of shrapnel removed by doctors from an injured Palestinian transferred to an Israeli hospital was not from one its shells but more likely from a Palestinian explosive device.

Given that, unlike Israel, the Palestinians do not have any factories manufacturing mines or rockets and are forced instead to make them out of any spare metal parts they can get their hands on -- doors, pipes, wrecked cars, fridges -- this evidence is meaningless. Palestinian witnesses have already said the beach victims were standing close to taxis when the shell exploded. So if the shrapnel was not from an Israeli shell, it suggests only that the missile also damaged other metal objects -- possibly the cars -- sending a shard into at least one of the victims.

The army will have a lot of explaining to do if reports on Israeli TV, not usually noted for its independent approach, confirm that another piece of shrapnel found in a victim is from an Israeli shell. So far, of course, the army is denying the report.

The second piece of evidence is supplied by the army, which says one of its many drones that circle overhead spying on Gaza round the clock shows the families calmly still on the beach, and later an ambulance arriving, tens of minutes after the army had finished shelling the area.

The problem with the Israeli evidence is that we have to take the army’s word for it: that the families shown are the ones who were about to be shelled, and that the timings given are accurate.

It also means we have to discount a lot of counter-evidence supplied by Garlasco, journalists, doctors and Palestinian witnesses -- and even the Israeli army. The army, for example, has admitted that one of the shells it fired in the area is unaccounted for, a striking admission in itself. The drones apparently were no help in locating this "missing" explosion, even though they were spying on the area.

Garlasco has already determined that the injuries sustained by the beach victims accord with a blast above ground -- an Israeli shell -- rather than one underground -- a Palestinian mine.

The many Palestinian witnesses have all put the time of the blast close to when the shelling occurred, and report that the reason they were queuing for taxis was because of panic sown by the shells they were hearing landing nearby.

Independent journalists have shown that, according to the clocks on the hospital computers that admitted the dead and injured, the timing of the first blood tests were taken soon after the Israeli army shelling -- and certainly too soon to accord with the army’s account of when the Palestinian mine supposedly exploded. Doctors have also confirmed that they were called to the nearest hospitals well before 5pm -- at about the time, or even before, the army claims the mine went off.

The outrage expressed in some quarters at the failure simply to believe the army’s version might sound more convincing were Israel welcoming an international investigation to adjudicate on the matter. But of course it is not. Just as in spring 2002, following the deaths of many civilians in the Palestinian town of Jenin and the destruction of the heart of the local refugee camp during a prolonged attack by the Israeli army and air force, Israel is rejecting all suggestions of an independent inquiry.

So why not just take Israel’s word for it? Its army is the most moral in the world, after all, and a state of law like Israel would gain nothing from lying in such a bare-faced manner.

The only problem is that Israel and its security forces have been caught out lying repeatedly during this intifada and before it, not just to people on the other side of the world who cannot verify the facts but also to its own courts and public.

Ths week, for example, the Supreme Court ordered the army and Ministry of Defence to pull down several kilometres of the steel and concrete barrier they have erected on Palestinian land in the West Bank after it was proved that the security considerations behind the choice of the wall’s route were entirely bogus. Official documents reveal that the wall was located there to allow for the future expansion of nearly illegal Jewish settlements on yet more Palestinian land. The army and government concocted the fib and then stuck to it for more than two years. Chief Justice Aharaon Barak called their systematic lying “a grave phenomenon”.

And at the start of the intifada, back in October 2000, the government and police covered up the fact that live ammunition and sniper units trained to deal with terror attacks had been used against unarmed Arab demonstrators inside Israel. For more than six months the government and security services denied that a single live round had been fired, despite mounting evidence to the contrary that lawyers and journalists like myself had unearthed.

They might have got away with their brazen lies too, had it not been for an unusual series of events that led to the appointment of a state inquiry headed by a Supreme Court judge, Theodor Or, who quickly exposed the truth.

That happened not because of any urge by official bodies to come clean or the inevitable triumph of Israeli justice. It happened for one reason alone: the prime minister of the day, Ehud Barak, feared losing the impending general election to his rival Ariel Sharon and thought he could buy back Arab votes by setting up an inquiry.

The inhabitants of Gaza have no such leverage inside the Israeli legal and political system. They have no friends inside Israel. And now it looks like they have no friends in the international community either.

Jonathan Cook, a writer and journalist living in Nazareth, Israel, is the author of “Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State”, published by Pluto Press. His website is www.jkcook.net

Who really killed the Ghalia family?

The battle of Huda Ghalia - who really killed girl's
family on Gaza beach? Guardian investigation casts doubt
on Israeli claim that army was not to blame

By Chris McGreal in Beit Lahia

The Guardian
17 June 2006

Heartrending pictures of 10-year-old Huda Ghalia running
wildly along a Gaza beach crying "father, father, father"
and then falling weeping beside his body turned the
distraught girl into an instant icon of the Palestinian
struggle even before she fully grasped that much of her
family was dead. But the images of the young girl who lost
her father, step-mother and five of her siblings as
picnicking families fled a barrage of Israeli shells a
week ago have become their own battleground.

Who and what killed the Ghalia family, and badly maimed a
score of other people, has been the subject of an
increasingly bitter struggle for truth all week amid
accusations that a military investigation clearing the
army was a cover-up, that Hamas was really responsible and
even that the pictures of Huda's grief were all an act.

However, a Guardian investigation into the sequence of
events raises new and so far unanswered questions about
the Israeli military probe that cleared the army of
responsibility. Evidence from hospital records, doctors'
testimony and witness accounts challenges the central
assertion that the shelling had stopped by the time seven
members of the Ghalia family were killed.

In addition, fresh evidence from the US group Human Rights
Watch, which offered the first forensic questioning of the
army's account, casts doubt on another key claim - that
shrapnel taken from the wounded was not from the kind of
artillery used to shell Gaza.

Iconic victim

The pictures of Huda's traumatic hunt for her father
garnered instant sympathy around the world and focused
unwelcome attention on Israel's tactic of firing thousands
of shells into Gaza over recent weeks, killing more than
20 civilians, to deter Palestinian rocket attacks.

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, initially
apologised for the killings but the military swiftly
realised it was confronting another PR disaster to rival
that of the killing of Mohammed al-Dura, the 12-year-old
boy who died in his father's arms amid a barrage of
gunfire six years ago and became the first iconic victim
of the intifada.

The army quickly convened a committee to investigate the
deaths on the beach and almost as swiftly absolved itself
of responsibility.

The committee acknowledged the army fired six shells on
and around Beit Lahia beach from artillery inside Israel.
But it said that by coincidence a separate explosion -
probably a mine planted by Hamas or a buried old shell -
occurred in the same area at about the same time, killing
the family.

The army admitted that one of the six shells was
unaccounted for but said it was "impossible", based on
location and timings, for the sixth shell to have done the
killing. The investigation also concluded that shrapnel
taken from the wounded was not from artillery.

The military declared its version of events definitive.
Others went further and saw a Palestinian conspiracy. An
American pro-Israel pressure group, Camera, which seeks to
influence media coverage, went so far as to suggest that
the film of Huda Ghalia's trauma was faked: "Were the
bodies moved, was the girl asked to re-enact her discovery
for the camera, was the video staged?"

But the army's account quickly came in for criticism, led
by a former Pentagon battlefield analyst, Marc Garlasco,
investigating for Human Rights Watch. "You have the crater
size, the shrapnel, the types of injuries, their location
on the bodies. That all points to a shell dropping from
the sky, not explosives under the sand," he said. "I've
been to hospital and seen the injuries. The doctors say
they are primarily to the head and torso. That is
consistent with a shell exploding above the ground, not a
mine under it."

Mr Garlasco also produced shrapnel from the site
apparently marked as a 155mm shell used by the army that
day.

Timing

The key part of the military's defence hinged on timings.
It says it fired shells toward the beach between 4.30pm
and 4.48pm, and that the artillery barrage stopped nine
minutes before the explosion that killed the Ghalia
family.

The army concluded that the deadly explosion occurred
between 4.57pm and 5.10pm based on surveillance of the
beach by a drone that shows people relaxing until just
before 5pm and the arrival of an ambulance at 5.15pm.

Major General Meir Kalifi, who headed the army's
investigation committee, said the nine-minute gap is too
wide for Israel to have been responsible for the deaths.
"I can without doubt say that no means used by the Israeli
defence force during this time period caused the
incident," he said.

But hospital records, testimony from doctors and ambulance
men and eyewitness accounts suggest that the military has
the timing of the explosion wrong, and that it occurred
while the army was still shelling the beach.

Palestinian officials also question the timing of video
showing people relaxing on the beach just before 5pm if
the army, by its own admission, was dropping shells close
by.

Several of those who survived the explosion say it came
shortly after two or three other blasts consistent with a
pattern of shells falling on the beach.

Among the survivors was Hani Asania. When the shelling
began, he grabbed his daughters - Nagham, 4, and Dima, 7 -
and moved toward his car on the edge of the beach. The
Ghalia family was on the sand nearby awaiting a taxi.

"There was an explosion, maybe 500 metres away. Then there
was a second, much closer, about two minutes later. People
were running from the beach," said Mr Asania. "Maybe two
minutes later there was a third shell. I could feel the
pressure of the blast on my face it was so strong. I saw
pieces of people."

This sequence is backed by others including Huda's
brother, Eyham, 20. Annan Ghalia, Huda's uncle, called an
ambulance. "We were sitting on the sand waiting for the
taxis, the men on one side and the women on the other. The
shell landed closer to the girls," he said. "I was
screaming for people to help us. No one was coming. After
about two minutes I called the ambulance."

The first ambulance took children to the Kamal Odwan
hospital. Its registration book records that five children
wounded in the blast were admitted at 5.05pm. The book
contains entries before and after the casualties from the
beach, all of whom are named, and shows no sign of
tampering. The hospital's computer records a blood test
taken from a victim at 5.12pm. Human Rights Watch said
altering the records would require re-setting the
computer's clock.

The distance from the beach to the hospital is 6km. Even
at speed, the drive through Beit Lahia's crowded back
streets and rough roads would not take less than five
minutes and would be slower with wounded patients on
board.

Dr Bassam al-Masri, who treated the first wounded at Kamal
Odwan, said allowing for a round trip of at least 10
minutes and time to load them, the ambulance would have
left the hospital no later than 4.50pm - just two minutes
after the Israelis say they stopped shelling.

Factoring in additional time for emergency calls and the
ambulances to be dispatched, the timings undermine the
military's claim that the killer explosion occurred after
the shelling stopped.

The first ambulance man to leave another Beid Lahia
hospital, the Alwada, and a doctor summoned to work there
say they clearly recall the time.

The ambulance driver, Khaled Abu Sada, said he received a
call from the emergency control room between 4.45pm and
4.50pm. "I went to look for a nurse to come with me," he
said. "I left the hospital at 4.50pm and was at the beach
by 5pm."

The Alwada's anaesthetist, Dr Ahmed Mouhana, was woken by
a call from a fellow doctor calling him to the hospital.
"I looked at the time. That's what you do when someone
wakes you up. It was 4.55pm," he said.

Dr Mouhana left for the hospital immediately. "It only
takes 10 minutes from my house so I was there by 5.10pm or
5.15pm at the latest. I went to reception and they had
already done triage on the children," he said.

If the hospital records and medical professionals are
right, then the emergency call from the beach could not
have come in much later than 4.45pm, still during the
Israeli shelling.

Killer shell

From the number of shells counted beforehand by the
survivors, Mr Garlasco believes the killer shell was one
the army records as fired at 4.34pm.

A military spokesman, Captain Jacob Dalal, said the army
stood by its interpretation. Military investigators said
shrapnel taken from Palestinians treated in Israeli
hospitals was not from 155mm shells fired that day. "We
know it's not artillery," he said. "It could be a shell of
another sort or some other device."

The military has suggested that the explosion was rigged
by Hamas against possible army landings but Palestinian
officials say that would only be an effective strategy if
there were a series of mines or Hamas knew exactly where
the Israelis would land.

Mr Garlasco said the metal taken from the victims may be
detritus thrown up by the explosion or shards from cars.
He said shrapnel collected at the site of the explosion by
Human Rights Watch and the Palestinian police was fresh
and from artillery shells.

The former Pentagon analyst said that after examining a
blood-encrusted piece of shrapnel given to him by the
father of a 19-year-old man wounded in the beach
explosion, he determined it was a piece of fuse from an
artillery shell.

"The likelihood that the Ghalia family was killed by an
explosive other than one of the shells fired by the
Israeli army is remote," he said.

Capt Dalal defended the army's investigation. "We're not
trying to cover up anything. We didn't do the
investigation to exonerate ourselves. If it was our fire,
we'll say it," he said.

30 years and the denials keep going

As we continue to see the Israeli PR machine spin its web, the Americans and major press outlets accept whole-heartedly the version of events that is spewed out by Israeli lap dogs.

My goodness, Israel you certainly have learned your lesson well from the old apartheid South African government.

Today marks 30 years since that infamous day in the township of Soweto that hundreds of thousands of students protested Bantu Education. The police waited for the marchers near a dusty intersection and, to make a long story short, unleashed hell on innocent children. Official reports claimed that 700 children died over the course of the year that the student uprisings occurred, more than likely these were conservative estimates.

Regardless of the numbers, a massacre occurred and the World barely took notice. Of course we can cut the World a little slack back then; they didn’t have the Internet, worldwide cable, or satellite dishes in many homes.

However, many brave journalists managed to get the word out about what was happening, and some people in other parts of the globe began to make a fuss.

But the South African government was skilled at PR and knew exactly what to do. The name of the game was denial. Deny that children were protesting against an unjust educational system; deny that the police were firing into crowds of unarmed youth; deny that children as young as twelve were being detained under terrorism statues; all for having the audacity to say, no to Afrikaans, no to Bantu education, and no to apartheid.

I remember receiving a newspaper from a cousin of mine several weeks after the incident and reading how John Voster, the then prime minister, claimed that the police were under heavy fire from Black terrorists and had no choice but to shoot in the direction of the children because that is where the shooting started.

What was more outlandish was the fact that many South Africans and the World for that matter bought this without so much as batting an eyelash.

As reports trickled in about the uprising escalating, many White South Africans were oblivious to what was transpiring not more than ten minutes drive from their cushy suburban households. And those who did read the news only received the official police version; “We are in a battle with Black terrorists and communists who want to take over this country.”

And with that the party line would be accepted. The demands for answers, with the exception of a few brave journalists and activists would cease, and the names and faces of those who perished would never be heard from again. One of which was my 15-year-old cousin Musa (pronounced Moo-saah) and my 13-year-old cousin Nomhle (nome-shlay)

Last Friday as I watched the footage of little Huda Ghalia screaming on the beach I wondered to myself if this could be a time when the World would finally take notice??

I wasn’t surprised to see the Israeli spin machine go into high gear after first regretting the deaths of Huda’s family members, then reversing course saying that the explosive was a mine planted by Hamas.

Several journalists, and the head of the UN Kofi Annan have expressed concerns over the events given by Israel; and a Pentagon damage expert, Marc Garlasco stated “‘all evidence points’ to a 155mm Israeli land-based artillery shell as it cause.” But CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, and BBC all stuck to the official Israeli version of the story putting the blame on Hamas.

And so the story goes.

I remember being at the Truth and Reconciliation Hearings in South Africa. I represented my family there because a policeman who had killed my brother in front of me when I was five was confessing his crimes during the apartheid era.

After the session, I arose to leave the room. An Afrikaans gentlemen stopped me. He had a huge smile on his tan leather-worn face. He leaned in close and said; “You know I never did trust what that bloody government told me back in ’76 about what was happening in the townships.”

I looked on at him, trying to contain my rage. I wanted to grab him, shake him and say; “Sure, it’s easy to say that now, Mister. Things have changed in such a dramatic way in the Country. The crimes committed against my family and many others are far too much to ignore!”

But I didn’t say it. I held my tongue and thanked him, as he turned and walked away.

As I sat watching Huda screaming at the loss of her dead father, I think to myself; “I wonder if some Israeli will walk up to her one day and make a similar comment as the Afrikaans’ gentleman did too me?”

I wonder how she would react?

Religious leaders speak out against torture

In what can only be described as unprecedented, 27 religious leaders including pastor Rick Warren, Elie Wiesel and Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick have signed a statement urging the United States to; “abolish torture now – without exceptions.”

The call comes from a new group calling itself: the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. The group will be placing ads in newspapers across the country. The group formed after alleged abuses of human rights in US detention centers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

It is an encouraging sign that religious leaders from across the spectrum have come out and condemned the use of torture by the Bush administration. More encouraging is the fact that those who called for the end of torture in “all it’s forms” cover a broad range of religious views including: Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; Archbishop Demetrios, primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; and Rev. William J. Byron, former president of Catholic University.

In a further bold step, the signers of the torture ban state:

“By reaffirming the ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment as well as torture, the McCain amendment, now signed into law, is a step in the right direction. Yet it’s implementation remains unclear.”

In response to the statement, Deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino said the administration has “the utmost respect for all religious leaders.” But, she continued, “I’ll simply repeat what the president has said many times, which is that this government does not torture, and we adhere to the international conventions against torture. That is our policy, and it will remain our policy.”

At present there are a little over 5000 signatures to the statement by various religious leaders, groups, and lay people.

It remains to be seen if “all forms” would include what has come to be known as “moderate pressure” or “torture light.”

Israel Spinning Out of Control

By Sam Bahour

Israel’s Defense Minister Amir Peretz announced today that Israel is preparing a global “propaganda offensive” to counter the recent barrage of news reports and writings that condemned Israel for the recent killing of 10 civilians, including 5 children, on a Gaza beach. In political and media lingo this is called spin, to twist and turn an event so as to give an intended interpretation, and Israel excels at it.

Israel is unable to comprehend that by going to extremes to find a single event that lends itself well for a “propaganda offensive,” its continued military occupation, now extrajudicially killing an average of 10 Palestinians per day, is causing so much death and destruction that its spin not only instigates further animosity against Israel, but fuels a culture of propaganda and arbitrary aggression in Israel that is ripping apart Israeli society at its fragile seams.

Context

Before looking at the specific Gaza beach killings, let’s remember Israel’s track record of conducting investigations. Not to bore you, I will not delve into the entire period of 58 years of dispossession of Palestinians caused by Israel’s creation, nor will I touch on the full 39 years of Israel’s ongoing military occupation of over 3.5 million Palestinians. It is enough to look only at the last few years of Israeli aggression to make the point that Israel is attempting to cover blatant war crimes by media spin. Worse yet, the international community is allowing them to get away with it.

These last few years have been characterized by the intensity of mostly the same practices Israel has used for decades. The context of these Israeli actions toward Palestinians may be summarized as follows: collective punishment, travel restrictions, denial of access to religious sites (e.g. Jerusalem, Bethlehem), bombarding population centers, arbitrary imprisonment (20% of population has been imprisoned at some time ion their lives since 1967, which equates to 60 million people if compared in U.S. terms), demolishing houses (since 1967 Israel has demolished almost 12,000 Palestinian homes, leaving some 70,000 without shelter and traumatized.), deporting Palestinians, uprooting trees, strangulating the Palestinian economy, taking Palestinians’ natural resources hostage (e.g. water, electromagnetic spectrum) - the list is endless.

Case in point as reported in The Guardian (UK) by Chris McGreal, of how Israel deals with investigating Palestinian deaths:

An Israeli army officer who repeatedly shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza dismissed a warning from another soldier that she was a child by saying he would have killed her even if she was three years old. The officer, identified by the army only as Captain R, was charged this week with illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and other relatively minor infractions after emptying all 10 bullets from his gun's magazine into when she walked into a "security area" on the edge of Rafah refugee camp last month.

A tape recording of radio exchanges between soldiers involved in the incident, played on Israeli television, contradicts the army's account of the events and appears to show that the captain shot the girl in cold blood.

The official account claimed that Iman was shot as she walked towards an army post with her schoolbag because soldiers feared she was carrying a bomb.

But the tape recording of the radio conversation between soldiers at the scene reveals that, from the beginning, she was identified as a child and at no point was a bomb spoken about nor was she described as a threat. Iman was also at least 100 yards from any soldier.

Instead, the tape shows that the soldiers swiftly identified her as a "girl of about 10" who was "scared to death".

The tape also reveals that the soldiers said Iman was headed eastwards, away from the army post and back into the refugee camp, when she was shot.

At that point, Captain R took the unusual decision to leave the post in pursuit of the girl. He shot her dead and then "confirmed the kill" by emptying his magazine into her body.

The tape recording is of a three-way conversation between the army watchtower, the army post's operations room and the captain, who was a company commander.

The soldier in the watchtower radioed his colleagues after he saw Iman: "It's a little girl. She's running defensively eastward."

Operations room: "Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?"

Watchtower: "A girl of about 10, she's behind the embankment, scared to death."

A few minutes later, Iman is shot in the leg from one of the army posts.

The watchtower: "I think that one of the positions took her out."

The company commander then moves in as Iman lies wounded and helpless.

Captain R: "I and another soldier ... are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill ... Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her ... I also confirmed the kill. Over."

Witnesses described how the captain shot Iman twice in the head, walked away, turned back and fired a stream of bullets into her body. Doctors at Rafah's hospital said she had been shot at least 17 times.

On the tape, the company commander then "clarifies" why he killed Iman: "This is commander. Anything that's mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over."

The army's original account of the killing said that the soldiers only identified Iman as a child after she was first shot. But the tape shows that they were aware just how young the small, slight girl was before any shots were fired.

The case came to light after soldiers under the command of Captain R went to an Israeli newspaper to accuse the army of covering up the circumstances of the killing.

A subsequent investigation by the officer responsible for the Gaza strip, Major General Dan Harel, concluded that the captain had "not acted unethically".

(CHRIS McGREAL / The Guardian (UK) Nov. 24, 2004)

If you are curious, a five-count indictment was ultimately brought against Captain R. A few months ago Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported that Captain “R,” a Givati Brigade soldier in the IDF, would be awarded 80,000 NIS [over $15,000 USD] in compensation from the State of Israel in addition to reimbursement for NIS 2,000 of legal expenses, as part of an arrangement reached between his lawyers and the military prosecution after being acquitted of all five counts against him related to the killing of Iman!

A second case in point:

On the night of July 22, 2002 an Israeli F-16 dropped a one-ton bomb in a densely populated area of Gaza City, killing Hamas military wing leader Salah Shehadeh and 16 others, of whom 15 were civilians and 9 were children (between the ages of two months and 13 years), including Shehadeh’s wife and child. Over one hundred others were injured in the attack.

Witnesses said that a F-16 fired a missile into an apartment house in which Shehadeh and his family were living. The air strike shortly after midnight leveled the five-storey apartment block and damaged several adjacent buildings.

In a Ha’aretz interview, the then Israeli Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz claimed to be satisfied both "militarily and morally" with the operation. He was subsequently promoted to his current position of IDF Chief of Staff.

A third case in point is the Jenin Refugee Camp in April 2002.

The Jenin Refugee Camp, the second largest refugee camp in the West Bank, was surrounded by Israeli occupation forces as part of their aggression throughout the West Bank and continuing till today. The camp was raided and tens of Palestinians were murdered and dozens of homes bulldozed. For days, the Israelis refused to allow medical personnel, journalists, Red Cross, and the UN enter the camp.

An Israeli military bulldozer driver, Moshe Nissim, left little to the imagination as he described his actions in the camp while it was besieged.

“They were warned by loudspeaker to get out of the house before I come, but I gave no one a chance. I didn’t wait. I didn’t give one blow, and wait for them to come out. I would just ram the house with full power, to bring it down as fast as possible. I wanted to get to the other houses. To get as many as possible, I didn’t give a damn about the Palestinians, but I didn’t just ruin with no reason. It was all under orders.”

On orders, the razing continued long after the battle was over. Dated aerial photos obtained from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs corroborate his tale, leading military expert and Amnesty International delegate Major David Holley to conclude: “There were events post-11 April that were neither militarily justifiable nor had any military necessity: the IDF leveled the final battlefield completely after the cessation of hostilities. It is surmised that the complete destruction of the ruins of battle, therefore, is punishment for its inhabitants.”

Nissim concurs. “I found joy with every house that came down, because I knew they didn’t mind dying, but they cared for their homes. If you knocked down a house, you buried 40 or 50 people for generations. If I am sorry for anything, it is for not tearing the whole camp down,” he says. “They will sit quietly. Jenin will not return to what it used to be.”

(Peter Lagerquist, The Daily Star, 11/22/03)

Palestinians demanded an investigation.

A fact finding mission was proposed by the United Nations on April 19, 2002. Israel initially agreed to co-operate with the inquiry, but demanded a set of conditions to do so. Among the conditions, Israel demanded that the mission should include anti-terrorism experts, that the UN agree not to prosecute Israeli soldiers for potential violations of international law, and that it limit its scope exclusively to events in Jenin. The UN refused to accept the last two conditions and were forced to ultimately disband their mission.

The world will never know, until a war crimes trail in The Hague of Israeli officials, what really happened inside the camp during those deadly days.

The cases demonstrating Israel’s systematic cover-up of Palestinian deaths are voluminous. It will suffice to direct you to Leigh Brady’s writing on this issue, entitled, "Don't worry - it's just another Palestinian child's death" (Live from Palestine, 31 March 2006, http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4607.shtml)

Not all Israelis are blind to Israel’s war crimes. The renowned Israeli journalist Amira Hass who lives in Ramallah wrote these words: “There is a long list of Palestinian civilians whose blood was spilled neither in battle nor because they endangered someone, and their blood has evaporated from our consciousness.” (Ha’aretz, 9 February 2005.)

Beach Killing

So back to the Gaza beach killings. Israel is now claiming, five days after the fact, that they are not responsible for the killing. Instead, the spin that they have developed is that the deaths were a result of a mine planted in the sand by Palestinians in anticipation of Israeli navy seals attacking Gaza from the sea. Is this possible? Yes? Will we ever really know? No? Well, again, not until Israeli officials are brought before The Hague for their war crimes.

In the hours and days to come, Israel will have an army of media experts speaking perfect mother-tongue language of their target audience explaining, in what seems scientific terms, why their “findings” exonerate the Israeli military from these killings. What they miss is that responsible accountability requires not the occupier to investigate the occupier, or Israeli military to investigate the Israeli military.

What is required is an international and independent investigation, an investigation that has consequences. Is this too much to ask for? Well, if we look at past Israeli investigations of their own leaders we can use the past Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to learn how Israelis punish their own leaders.

The date was September 16-18, 1982. The place was the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut. Then Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon encircled the camps, sealed them, and sent in his closest allies amongst the Lebanese militias to "cleanse" the area of the "2,000 terrorists" which he insisted had remained there during Israelis invasion of Southern Lebanon. As a result, hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were subject to three days of relentless torture, rape and killing, while hundreds more were arrested and trucked away, never to be seen again: an estimated 2000 civilians were killed or disappeared.

What happen to Sharon? A high-level Israeli commission was formed to investigate. The result of that investigation was the “Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Events at the Refugee Camps in Beirut” (The Kahan Commission, February 8, 1983). The report stated:

“We have found, as has been detailed in this report, that the Minister of Defense bears personal responsibility. In our opinion, it is fitting that the Minister of Defense draw the appropriate personal conclusions arising out of the defects revealed with regard to the manner in which he discharged the duties of his office - and if necessary, that the Prime Minister consider whether he should exercise his authority under Section 21-A(a) of the Basic Law: the Government, according to which "the Prime Minister may, after informing the Cabinet of his intention to do so, remove a minister from office."”

After being found unfit to be Defense Minister, Ariel Sharon swiftly rose to be the Prime Minister of Israel, twice.

Homemade Missiles

Of course Palestinians are firing missiles into Israel, albeit a failing strategy. If some Palestinians had the chance to smuggle F-16’s into Gaza to release them toward Tel Aviv, I’m sure they would. I wonder what the State of Texas would do if Mexico militarily occupied if for 39 years. I would assume, then, the Palestinian missiles excuse would be acknowledged for what it is, acts of desperation and not an existential threat.

In spinning the recent Gaza beach killings, Israel will no doubt point to the homemade missiles that a few Palestinians are firing into Israel as a pretext to the continuous Israeli shelling of Gaza. But again, Israel forgets that after occupying Palestinians by force in a most brutal way for so long and giving no indication of the possibility for peaceful co-existence built on international law and human rights, they are feeding a terrible, lethal despair within Palestine that gives rise to steps of desperation taken by a few desperate people to cause harm to the occupier.

Not only is the Palestinian firing of missiles into Israel a failing strategy, one I wish I had the power to stop, but it is a blatant example of Palestinians not having a strategy that can end the occupation. Not having a strategy of liberation is understood, albeit unacceptable.

Israel has killed off and imprisoned most of the first and second level Palestinian leadership. Also, two-thirds of the Palestinian population is denied entry into Palestine and thus cannot participate on the ground to create a better reality. Thus, without a cohesive leadership, who could expect those under Israel’s non-stop aggression to become peace doves overnight.

Chutzpah

Jews are very familiar with Yiddish, the Jewish dialect that gave us the widely used term, chutzpah. The dictionary defines chutzpah as unbelievable gall; insolence; audacity. In Palestinian lay terms, chutzpah relates to Israel’s amazing ability to kill a people in cold blood and then march solemnly in their funeral procession.

Israelis must wake up. International and humanitarian laws do not release the State of Israel, or individual soldiers, from their responsibility as an occupying force simply because they apologize for killing those they occupy.

While Israel launched its “propaganda offensive” today, another 11 Palestinians were killed, 2 of them children and 2 medics, when Israeli warplanes struck a Palestinian car on a crowded Gaza City street. Also, in the midst of this living hell, Israeli Defense Minister stated that the time for restraint is over.

If the Israeli-made living hell that we have been living with thus far was an example of Israel showing restraint, God help us all, Palestinians and Israelis, as the Israeli occupation flexes its military muscle in the coming days. When all the flexing is done and all the dead buried, the occupation will still be wrong and The Hague will still await all those who committed war crimes.


The writer is a Palestinian-American living in the besieged Palestinian City of El-Bireh in the West Bank. He is co-author of HOMELAND: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians (1994) and can be reached at sbahour@palnet.com.

Oops!

Oops! Well after denying with all their might that the shells that took the lives of a family of five and two other innocent people who were enjoying a “somewhat” normal day on the beach in Gaza, Israel is now saying that one of their old tank shells may have been the culprit of pain, suffering and death.

Israel went all out to deny that the explosion could have been their fault. They accused Hamas of planting the explosive devices in the sand to prevent Israeli forces from coming onto the beach. But alas, as they say in The National Football League: “Upon further review we have found that in fact this was an Israeli tank shell.”

What needs to happen is what Human Rights Watch, The Palestinians and even Kofi Annan have called for is an independent investigation of the incident.

Israel cannot afford to keep doing these so-called “Internal investigations.” If Israel is so confident of the “Purity of Arms” of it’s army then nothing should come of the external investigation.

And while we are at it, let’s let the independent investigators look into the incident that occurred on Tuesday June 13th when Israel extra-judicially killed 11 people nine of who were civilians.

Some would argue that the Israeli army has a policy of targeting civilians. I for one have not reached this conclusion, but I do know that the years I spent living in Palestine have shown me that what the outside World, especially those of us from the West, fail to see is that there needs to be a third party intermediary to resolve this 58 year old conflict.

It is imperative that the World put the same amount of pressure if not more upon Israel (as the occupying power), as they do with the Palestinians to try and find a way that both parties can co-exist with each other.

No one wants to relive the horrors of what little Huda went through on the beach Friday of screaming “Ya Baba! Ya Baba!” No one wants to see another suicide bombing and the screaming mass of innocent Israeli bystanders lying strewn on the ground.

No one.

Dear Mr. President

Setting the Record Straight on Hamas

By JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN

Oxford, England.

A June 3rd poll conducted by Near East Consulting based in Ramallah, Palestine shows that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians support the Prisoner's Agreement, an inter-factional agreement signed by one member each of Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, and the DFLP inside Israel's Hadarim prison this past May. (1) The document implicitly recognizes Israel by accepting, among other things, a Palestinian state in the lands occupied by Israel in the June 1967 war.

News reports have paid a lot of attention to the Prisoner's Agreement in part because it accepts the Arab League initiative (Saudi Plan) unanimously adopted by the Arab states in Beirut in 2002 at the height of the Second Intifada. By calling for an independent Palestinian state on the ë67 lines in return for peace with Israel, both the Saudi Plan and the Prisoner's Agreement echo the international consensus on Palestine since the mid 1970s. Israel has completely ignored the Arab initiative despite overwhelming support among the Palestinians.

But the Prisoner's Agreement has also become the focal point of the most recent crisis in internal Palestinian politics: Palestinian Authority president and Fatah deputy leader Mahmoud Abbas has called for a national referendum on the document should Hamas fail to adopt it as part of their official program. So far, Hamas has refused and has labeled Abbas' actions "illegal."

Not surprisingly, there is more to the referendum story than ever makes it into the press. In this case, the information omitted from the public record makes it possible for the United States, Israel and their allies to continue to justify the economic siege imposed on the Palestinian territories, a siege that is causing Palestinian society to teeter on the brink of ruin. In their rush to push forward a regional, pro-US and anti-democratic agenda, those states allied against the Palestine national movement (including Egypt and Jordan) have created the kind of humanitarian crisis one would expect to find as the result of a natural disaster.

No attention has been paid to what the Hamas leadership is actually saying, or to critical factors such as US efforts to build a 3,500 man militia around the office of Abbas in an effort to encourage civil infighting or Israel's recent approval of a large shipment of arms and ammunition from Egypt and Jordan for the equipping of the Presidential Guard. Abbas, who is supported by the US, aims to increase the number of armed soldiers around him to 10,000. He is also aiming, with US support, to create a shadow government that will undermine the legitimate one now controlled by Hamas.(2) It should come as a surprise to no one that, in the words of Mohammed Nazzal, a member of the Hamas government in exile, "Hamas will not submit to blackmail" (3) This is essentially the goal of Abbas' call for a referendum. There is no need to bring to a popular vote support for the Prisoner's Agreement. Overwhelming popular support for this and other initiatives, including support for the two-state solution, has long been documented.

Most of the rhetoric damns Hamas for refusing to follow Abbas' instructions. Hamas remains the reason why states should support the economic and political blockade on Palestine although this does little more than fuel the "War on Terror" by adding another organization to the blacklist of regional enemies. Labeling Hamas a "terrorist organization" obscures the reality, however. Its political leadership and its electoral/government program (i.e. not its Charter) have put forth both reasonable and moderate demands. Acceptance of an independent Palestinian state has long been part of its strategic agenda. Its reputation as a "rejectionist" movement stems in part from its unwillingness to act alone, without reciprocal moves by Israel, a state whose extremist policies over the past 5 decades have transformed the physical landscape of Palestine so dramatically that the prospects for a genuine peace settlement today are bleaker than ever.

In his latest comments on Abbas' decision to call the referendum, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert summed up his government's view of this effort insofar as it could create a bridge toward peace talks with Israel. He said, "The referendum is an internal game between one faction and the other.... It is meaningless in terms of the broad picture of chances towards some kind of dialogue between us and the Palestinians. It's meaningless." (4) Whether the referendum ësucceeds' or ëfails' therefore, will be of no consequence whatsoever in efforts to resume negotiations or as form of leverage to end the deadly siege on the territories.

II. Hamas accepts a two-state solution. When asked by Newsweek-Washington Post correspondent Lally Weymouth on 26 February 2006 what agreements Hamas was prepared to honor, the new Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh answered, "the ones that will guarantee the establishment of a Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital with 1967 borders." Weymouth went on, "Will you recognize Israel?" to which Haniyeh responded, "If Israel declares that it will give the Palestinian people a state and give them back all their rights then we are ready to recognize them." (5) This view encapsulates the Hamas demand for reciprocity.

In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer four days after the PLC elections, the new Hamas Foreign Minister, Mahmoud Zahar (considered the party's hard-liner) remarked, "We can accept to establish our independent state on the area occupied [in] 1967." Like Haniyeh and other Hamas members, Zahar insists that once such a state is established a long-term truce "lasting as long as 10, 20 or 100 years" will ensue ending the state of armed conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. (6)

Hamas government spokesman Ghazi Hamad commented to reporters on 10 May 2006, "Yes, we accept an independent state in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War. This attitude is not new and it is declared in the government's platform." (7)

In an effort to clarify the Hamas position on Abbas' call for a referendum, Hamas parliamentary speaker Aziz Duweik explained that it had nothing to do with a lack of support for the two-state settlement. "Everybody in Hamas says ëYes' to the two-state solution," he said. "The problem comes from the fact that the Israelis so far [have not said they] accept the 1967 bordersÖbetween the two states."(8)

Other leaders are just as explicit. "Hamas is clear in terms of the historical solution and an interim solution. We are ready for both: the borders of 1967, a state, elections, and agreement after 10-15 years of building trust," commented Usama Hamdan, the Hamas Chief Representative in Lebanon. (9) Notable here is that his remarks were made in 2003 well before the Hamas victory of January 2006. Indeed, it should be pointed out that most of the on-the-record comments to this effect were made prior to these elections.

Additional Hamas spokespersons who have made explicit reference to acceptance of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 lands include Sheikh Ahmad Haj Ali, a Muslim Brotherhood leader and Hamas legislative candidate currently imprisoned in Israel (interviewed in July 2005); Muhammad Ghazal, Hamas spokesperson also currently in an Israeli jail (Sept. 2005); Hasan Yousef, West Bank political leader (August 2005); and the Hamas Electoral Manifesto Article 5:1 which calls for "adherence to the goal of defeating the [1967] occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital." (10)

In 1989, Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin (assassinated by Israel in March 2004) stated, "I do not want to destroy IsraelÖ. We want to negotiate with Israel so the Palestinian people inside and outside Palestine can live in Palestine. Then the problem will cease to exist." (11)

The hard-line Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, assassinated by Israel in April 2004 commented in 2002 that, "[T]he Intifada is about forcing Israel's withdrawal to the 1967 borders." This "doesn't mean the Arab-Israeli conflict will be over," but rather that the armed resistance to Israel would end." (12)

In a 2004 report published by the highly regarded International Crisis Group, "During the 1987-1993 uprising, Hamas leaders proposed various formulas for Israeli withdrawal to the June 4th 1967 borders, to be reciprocated with a decades'-long truce (hudna)." That same report notes that, "In a March 1988 meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and then with Defense Minister Rabin in June 1989, Hamas leader (now FM) Mahmud Zahar explicitly proposed an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 boundaries, to be followed by a negotiated permanent settlement." The offer was refused. (13)



III. In a CounterPunch article posted on 24 February 2006, I wrote that the Hamas leadership had "clearly and repeatedly" called for an independent Palestinian state on the lands occupied by Israel in 1967. (14) I received numerous emails demanding "proof" of this assertion and calling me a traitor, a liar, a Nazi, a terrorist sympathizer and an anti-Semite. The statements included in this piece should help put to rest those accusations. Indeed, the statements made to this effect by Hamas members here are but a small sampling of similar statements made over the years that are part of the public (though unreported) record.

Surely, one can find many remarks by Hamas leaders over the years that are much less conciliatory, indeed even inflammatory and often disturbing. It would be misleading to suggest otherwise. Nonetheless the trend especially in the past few years up to the present has been toward a more conciliatory, indeed more realistic policy. As Crisis Group analyst Mouin Rabbani has written, "On Hamas I would not hesitate to say that the organization as a whole has essentially reconciled itself to a two-state settlement as a strategic option but has not formally adopted this as an organisational position. Yasin, Rantisi, Abu Shanab, Mashal, etc. have all made such statements. Have they made others that contradict them? Of course. But I think it can safely be concluded the strategic decisions have been made, the tactics remain unresolved and the formalities will come last." The question for us is whether or not we will give Hamas the chance to translate their words into actions. Rabbani writes, "it would be as naÔve to take the above statements on faith as it would be foolish not to put them to the test."(15)

As Menachem Klein points out in a recent Haaretz article, "The political texts of Hamas indicate that at present the organization is not fundamentalist." (16) It has moved away from the ideological demands of its Charter into a pragmatism that seeks to respond to the demands of the day without falling into the same traps that Fatah and the Fatah-led PA fell into over the years. It has respected a one-sided truce for the past 16 months ñthough with the June 9th Israeli artillery attack on a north Gaza beach in which 7 civilians died, six of them from the same family, this truce may have come to an end. Hamas has also agreed to support negotiations between Abbas and Israel.

Hamas' rejection of Abbas' call for a referendum on the Prisoner's Agreement has nothing to do with its willingness to accept an independent Palestinian state on ë67 lands and everything to do with its opposition to those in Fatah and in Israel, the US and EU who are doing everything in their power to bring down the Hamas governmentó and in the most depraved manner: by starving the population into submission and forcing on it the illegal diktats of anti-democratic warlords within the occupied Palestinian territories such as the US-backed Fatah militia leader and former head of the Preventive Security Services, Mohammad Dahlan.

In a June 8th 2006 article in the Financial Times, Henry Siegman commented on remarks made on Israeli television by Israeli security expert Ephraim Halevy. He writes, "Why should Israel care whether Hamas grants it the right to exist, Mr. Halevy asked. Israel exists and Hamas's recognition or non-recognition neither adds to nor detracts from that irrefutable fact. But 40 years after the 1967 war, a Palestinian state does not exist. The politically consequential question, therefore, is whether Israel recognizes a Palestinian right to statehood, not the reverse." (17)

Indeed, until Israel actively agrees to withdraw to the June 4th 1967 borders, Hamas should not fall into the trap that Fatah under Yassir Arafat fell intoó of conceding more and more for less and less until there is nothing left. Right now the US-backed annexation/cantonization program seems likely to bring the whole Palestinian tragedy to a hideous end. All the maneuverings are a cover for that, the whole discussion about the referendum included. Fatah should by now know better than to fall into the hands of US and Israeli overlords in its quest for local dominance. The fact that it does not should be reason enough for why it was voted out of power last January. Hamas has good reasons to demand that Israel, with US urging, show its good faith first. In the meantime Hamas' continued opposition to Abbas' dubious call for a referendum on the Prisoner's Agreement is justified.

Jennifer Loewenstein is a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford University's Refugee Studies Centre. She has lived and worked in Gaza City, Beirut and Jerusalem and has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, where she has worked as a free-lance journalist and a human rights activist. She can be reached at: amadea311@earthlink.net



ENDNOTES:

1 Press Release: The Palestinian National Dialogue and call for a Referendum Survey #2, 3 June 2006.

2. See "PA Chief Abbas aims to expand presidential guard," by Ze'ev Schiff, Haaretz, 28 May 2006. See also "Talking to Hamas," by Alastair Crooke in Prospect, issue 123, June 2006.

3. Ibid, Ze'ev Schiff, Haaretz, 28 May 2006.

4. "Abbas sets Referendum for July 26; Hamas rejects Poll," Mijal Grinberg and Assaf Uni, Haaretz, 10 June 2006.

5. "We do not wish to throw them into the sea," Interview between Lally Weymouth and Ismail Haniyeh in the Washington Post, Sunday 26 February 2006.

6. "Hamas leader sets condition for truce," on CNN World website, 29 January 2006.

7. "Abbas delays referendum decision," BBC News, Tuesday 6 June 2006.

8.. "Hamas says ready to accept Palestinian statehood in 1967 border," in China View, 10 May 2006;

9. "Enter Hamas: the challenges of political integration," International Crisis Group Report no. 49, Amman/Brussels; 18 January 2006. First edition (preliminary) report.

10. Ibid; The Hamas Electoral Manifesto also states, "Yes to a free, independent and sovereign state on every portion of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem without conceding any part of historic Palestine." This, of course, will raise red flags for some, which is why I include it here. I do not want to be accused of leaving out important statements or phrases. As with other statements, however, it must be measured against current realities both military and political.

11. "Dealing with Hamas," International Crisis Group Report no. 21, Amman/Brussels; 26 January 2004. From an interview in An-Nahar (Jerusalem), 30 April 1989. Quoted in Ziad Abu Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism. Op. cit. p.76

12. "Enter Hamas: the challenges of political integration," International Crisis Group report no. 49, 18 January 2006.

13. "Dealing with Hamas," International Crisis Group report no. 21, 26 January 2004. Amman/Brussels.

14. "For Those Who Haven't Noticed: Watching the Dissolution of Palestine," 24 February 2006; CounterPunch, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair.

15. Mouin Rabbani; personal correspondence. Also in "Enter Hamas" the ICG preliminary report on Hamas from 18 January 2006.

16. "Hamas' Contradictory Voices," by Menachem Klein, Haaretz, 2 June 2006.

17. "The Issue is not Whether Hamas Recognizes Israel," by Henry Siegman, Financial Times, 8 June 2006.

Wondering

I wonder what they were thinking of when the artillery shell hit? I wonder what they were doing? Do you think the children were romping round in the sand; building sand castles, running to the edge of the shore and scurrying back as the cool salt water reached their feet?

I wonder what the children’s parents, Ali and Raisa, were doing; sitting on a blanket having a simple meal of Arabic salad with Falafel, bread and cheese; talking to each other:

“It’s nice to have this time together. For this brief moment in time, I feel alive and happy.”?

Do you think that youngest child, whose body was vaporized by an Israeli artillery shells, which was manufactured by a US defense contractor, do you think he looked out upon the vast ocean and marveled at the horizon before him? Do you think he imagined that the sea that lay before his gaze, the very sea that now runs red with his blood, resembled tin foil that sparkles as the Sun shone down upon it?

I wonder if the little girl sat down and thought:

“Some day, I’m going to learn to swim and frolic with the dolphins.”

Do you think she thought about that?

What did the Israeli gunboat commander think about as he proceeded to fire his artillery shells upon this family and the four others?

Do you think he believed that just before he ended seven lives that all of them were terrorists?

How can one sleep after the truth comes out about such a horrible thing?

How can Israel act so cold and repeat the standard refrain:

“We regret any harm caused to innocent civilians.”

Do they think we believe they are sincere?

What of the wounded?

What of them?

Even if they are recovering in Israeli hospitals, does this wipe away the nightmares, flashbacks, post-traumatic stress, and loss of life that they will forever feel?

What of the World?

Why do we remain silent?

Why do we not care about our Palestinian brothers and sisters?

Why are so many so afraid to call the actions of the Israeli government against the Palestinian people, “A crime against humanity”?

Is it that we don’t consider the Palestinians human and thus, there is no crime against an inhuman population?

I wonder?

Here comes the flood

When the flood calls You have no home,
you have no walls
In the thunder crash
You're a thousand minds, within a flash
Don't be afraid to cry at what you see
The actors gone, there's only you and me
And if we break before the dawn,
they'll use up what we used to be.

from the song: HERE COMES THE FLOOD by Peter Gabriel

The Palestinians are in the midst of a storm that continues to rain down on they’re lives. As Prime Minister Ehud Olmert strode into Washington DC and addressed both houses of Congress declaring that: Unilateral Realignment is peace, the Israeli Occupation Army continued it’s unrelenting assault upon The Palestinians. As the storm clouds gathered over The West Bank and Gaza Strip, The Israeli version of raindrops, taking the form of tank shells, rubber bullets and live ammunition continued to flood The Occupied Territories.

Yet half way around the World, Olmert poured out empty rhetoric regarding his willingness to sit down and extend: “my hand in peace to Mahmoud Abbas, the elected president of the Palestinian Authority.” All of this sounded so wonderful to assembled, masses of both houses as they stood and gave Olmert a standing ovation.

Yes, Olmert was more than willing to sit down and talk with Abbas, provided that the Palestinians “renounce terrorism, dismantle the terrorist infrastructure, and accept previous agreements and commitments, and recognize the right of Israel to exist.”

This constant refrain from Israel about the Hamas government not recognizing Israel’s right to exist is one they constantly hammer into the minds of the World. And they have a right to do this. I agree, that Hamas should recognize Israel’s right to exist. But what about Palestine’s right to exist? Why is this never brought up in any conversation regarding the subject of Israel/Palestine from the mouths of heads of State or their representatives? Why not demand that Israel abide by the Road Map (Road Block actually), international law, stop building settlements, end extra-judicial killings of “wanted terrorists”, and stop building the wall on Palestinian (excuse me disputed) land?

But of course, Olmert is willing to sit down and talk with Abbas. The man that the US and Israel favored to negotiate for the Palestinians. The man whose Fatah party was overwhelmingly voted out of power by the will of the Palestinian people on January 26th 2006 in a democratic election. The man who is now demanding that the Hamas led PA accept the referendum that he claims is based on a document that was drawn up by both Hamas and Fatah prisoners now sitting in Israeli jails, though no provision exists for a referendum in the Palestinian Constitution.

Israel’s watchword is “terrorism”; a word that plays well on the ears of US lawmakers. Israel claims they are more than willing to negotiate with the Palestinians if they renounce violence; that they are doing the things they are doing now for “Israel’s security”. But no amount of elaborate highways, security fences, demolition of homes, water rationing, limited freedom of movement, and sanctions are for security.

Let’s call this occupation for what it is; a land grab.

The flood is here and it is washing away any reminisce of Palestine.

The case against torture: A personal account

June is Torture awareness month. I find it ironic that June was chosen as the month. June holds a very special and yet painful part of my life that I will never forget. For it was on June 4th 1990 that my life took a radical change.

June 4th, 1990 was the day that I was “Detained” by the Security Police in South Africa for violating a curfew. I remember a Caspir (riot vehicle) rambling by me down a dusty road. It was the first time I had seen such a machine. It was huge standing nearly 20 feet high and composed of solid bulletproof metals. As I watched this object of law-and order courtesy of the apartheid state ramble on, I wondered what sort of destruction this machine wrecked upon the children who first fought against it on June 16th 1976.

Suddenly, the Caspir turned around and headed back down the road towards me. I walked on thinking that they wouldn’t bother me.

I was wrong.

The Caspir came to a screeching halt in front of me. Several policemen appeared from the rear of the vehicle and one of them, an Afrikaans speaking man approached me. In Afrikaans, he asked me where I was going. Because I can speak Afrikaans fluently (in addition to four other South African languages) and with a strong South African accent, he assumed that I was a local. After a bit of questioning, he told me to get into the back of the Caspir. When I inquired why, he spoke to me sharply:

“Don’t get cheeky Kaiffer (the equivalent of Nigger) get in the back!”

That day was the last day I would see natural Sunlight for the next 550 days.

I wasn’t under arrest during my period of incarceration. I wish that they had arrested me. At least then I would have had rights. The right to see a lawyer; the right to let my family and friends know where I was and how I was doing, basically the chance for due process.

But there were two problems with this scenario. The first was that I was not under arrest, I was being detained; this meant that I had no access to a lawyer; no chance to contact anyone about my whereabouts, the detention could go indefinitely (Terrorism Act of 1967), and the most chilling part of it all was that this was the scenario where many in South African jails were tortured and died: "Deaths in Detention" they called it.

I had the misfortune or joy, depending on your view of me, of being put through “Sleep Deprivation” torture. Many in this day and age would regard this as “torture light.” Some might even say that this form of “interrogation” is useful in the War on Terrorism. Let me be blunt, there is nothing “light” about torture.

Sleep deprivation can and will play havoc on you over time. Imagine being questioned for 15 hours straight and then after this time has concluded, being allowed to go to bed. Now keep in mind, no one puts a hand on you during the “questioning”. No one is yelling at you or being abusive in a way we would think one could be.

Now let’s say you are headed back to your cell to get some sleep. You deserve it, heck you’ve been chatting for the last 15 hours, and you’ve got it coming. Right?

But there is a slight problem when you get to your room. For one, the lights are kept on while you’re trying to get sleep. To make matters worse, the light that is still is coming from a bright fluorescent tube that is suspended over your bed. Add to this, music blaring from down the hall of your cell. Good times.

Well, no sooner than you lay your head on your flea infested pillow, then someone comes, opens up the cell doors and says:

“Come on get up, you can’t sleep forever we want to talk to you!”

You wake up confused, disoriented. You look about asking yourself; “Didn’t I just get back from “talking” not more than 20 minutes ago?” But regardless of what time you got back, you have to go again. Besides, all they want to do is talk to you. Nothing more. Right?

But the fact of the matter is that there is so much more. Over time, one begins to get delirious. You begin to imagine things constantly; you talk to yourself, argue with yourself, asking yourself: “Is this real, am I really here?”

In some cases you begin to lose control of bodily functions. And all the while you lose track of time and space. A day seems like a week. A week seems like a month, and so on.

Oh don’t be too concerned; you’re not always being “talked to” for 15 hours straight. Some times it’s only for 4 hours on and one hour off. Maybe they want to have a late night bull session with you from 3 am to 9 am, then let you go back and rest while AC/DC wails in the background and jailers laugh and roar with their drunken buddies.

Not bad you say?

Well, imagine that this sort of treatment is kept up for over a period of time like a year and a half. Imagine that every once in awhile, they tell you that you’re going to be released the next day, and they tell you to gather your things. You’re going home! Never mind that you haven’t given them any useful information that’s not important. What is important is that you’re outta there!

Then imagine, that you have what little they’ve allowed you to have in your cell (Usually a Bible), and your walking down a corridor. You stop at a desk and they have papers for you to sign to be released. It’s legal. They have your name on the papers and everything. You read through them making sure it looks okay and you sign. You’re about to leave this God forsaken place when suddenly a man walks up to you and says:

“Are you Khaya Chris Brown?”

You nod in agreement.

“You’re being detained for 90 days under the Terrorism Act.”

And off you go for another round of conversation with your jailers. Not knowing when this “light” form of torture is going to end.

This is what happened to me over the course of my 550-day incarceration. You might say I was one of the lucky ones I didn’t end up dead.

And if you thought about it this way and have never experienced torture yourself, I suppose you’d be right.

But explain to me how lucky I was when after three months, I had been “questioned” so many times by the Security Police, and become so disoriented, that I began to believe that there was another man who was being tortured in a cell right next too me.

I was sure there was, because he and I had many conversations about our situation. In fact, during my darkest hours he would tell me to be strong and not give in. Now imagine that no one had been anywhere near my cell who was also incarcerated at the same time as myself. I had dreamed up my imaginary friend out of necessity for what little sanity I had left.

Maybe I was lucky when after six months had passed, someone was kind enough to tell me happy birthday. The funny thing was, he told me three months after my birthday had passed. I had lost complete track of time. At this point I had been in detention for more than a year.

Those who would proclaim that there are times when torture is necessary never seem to be the folks that have gone through any form of torture. Whether it is “hard torture” or “torture light.”

I’ve been in a number of support groups with other survivors of torture and we all arrived at the same thing. None of us, no matter how bad we went through it; no matter if we received water-boarding, electric shocks on our genitals, cigarette burns on our breasts and scrotum, or good old sleep deprivation; none of us would wish torture on even our worst enemy.

So, maybe I am lucky. Maybe I should be grateful that I didn’t die at the hands of my jailers like so many before me or since. But, I’ll tell you now, no matter what anyone says; a part of me died on June 4th, 1990 and I wish I could get it back.

State of confusion

I know I reserve at least one day a week for “Question Time” and many of you have said how much you’ve liked it or hated it depending on your point of view. Well today I thought I’d just center on one question if no one has an objection.

No one?

Good, then let’s get started. Now, rather than throw the question out to Prime Minister Olmert or President Bush, I thought I’d take a creative approach and throw it out there to anyone who wishes to answer it.

Are you ready?

Here’s the question:

I’m just curious. After Israel finally gives the Palestinians their State - Hey no laughing in the back there! This is a serious question coming up! Yes you in the blue with the funny hat on I see you there! – Where was I? Oh yes, after Israel gives the Palestinians a State are those of us who have friends and family in Palestine going to be allowed to go and see them?

I mean, lets look at this question for a moment. Right now, Israel is going to leave the huge settlement blocs intact: The Gush Etzion Bloc, The Ma’ale Adummim Bloc, The Ariel Bloc, and The Jordan Valley Bloc. In addition, they control the Karni Crossing and only those with Palestinian IDs can get into Gaza. Would those of us who are not Palestinian, nor holders of West Bank or Gaza permits, be allowed to enter the new Palestinian State?

You might think it’s a simple question, but it doesn’t appear that way. For instance, Israel controls the water, air, and electronic frequencies in both Gaza and The West Bank. What makes you think this is likely to change when a “so called” State of Palestine emerges?

I’d like to believe that Israel would get better about this but their track record is not that great to begin with.

If I flew into Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv and, as usual, got interrogated five times before I even got close to the conveyor belt to have my luggage x-rayed, and was asked where I was headed to in Israel, I would think the conversation would go something like this:

Security Girl: Hello Sir, can I see your ID?

Me: Certainly. Hey, nice uniform blue and white looks good on you really.

Security Girl: Please shut up Sir, I have a boyfriend.

Me: Oh.

(She checks my passport flips through it several times and glances up at me then back down at my passport.)

Security: Sir, where are you going in Israel?

Me: Oh I’m not going to Israel, I’m going to Palestine.

Security: Why?

Me: To visit some friends there and also to work. I have a job in Bethlehem.

Security: I see come with me Sir.

Me: Okay, you sure your boyfriend won’t mind?

Security Girl: Please give it up Sir you have no chance. Even if you were the last man on Earth and I was the last woman, I’d date trees.

And off I’d go for a lovely six-hour conversation (More than likely with her boyfriend in tow) and finally the opportunity to get on another plane for a 16-hour flight back to the States.

My reason for asking the question of how I get into the Country is valid. I’m sure you have all heard of Maureen Murphy. She worked with Al-Haq in Ramallah as a human rights defender. When she arrived at Ben Gurion airport in Israel, on her way back from The US to Ramallah in the occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). She was interrogated, denied entry into Israel, declared persona non grata and deported on a plane right back out of the country.

An Israeli lawyer tried to get an injunction to prevent the deportation but a Judge denied it over the phone. You see the formal charge of denying Murphy entry was immigration. The Israeli authorities were convinced that Murphy would try to settle illegally in Israel. The lawyer’s argument that Ramallah is not in Israel, but rather in the OPT was deemed irrelevant. But the problem here remains that there is not another way into The West Bank without passing through Israeli border control since Israel does not allow the operation of any airports inside the West bank, or Gaza for that matter.

Okay, granted the Palestinians do not have a State at this writing, but what about the future? Even if, Gaza is allowed to thrive, and control its borders, this doesn’t help those of us who wish to go to the West Bank.

Israel has effectively created a no-win situation for The Palestinians and at the same time can claim that they have given a State to them, and thus can claim that the occupation of Palestine is officially over.

Furthermore, there would be no guarantees from Israel that those of us with family, friends, and employment in Palestine, would ever be able to get pass Israeli border control without the proper documentation. Never mind the fact that at this point Palestine should be able to govern who is allowed to come in and out of their own country. The fact would still remain that I would have to go through Israel in order to get to Palestine in the first place.

Funny old world isn’t it?

So again, I have to ask: How will I be able to see my friends in the West bank? Unless, I can design some cool wings and find a way to gracefully glide into Palestine without touching Israeli soil …yeah that could work.

Hey, I might be on to something here!

Nah, probably better if I don’t try this; knowing my luck the Israelis would just shoot me down anyway. More than likely saying that I was a terrorist getting ready to drop a bomb on Jerusalem or something like that.

And besides, getting those kinds of wings probably requires some sort of permit and Lord knows the Israelis aren’t gonna give it too me anyway.

Countless My Lai Massacres in Iraq

By Dahr Jamail

Tuesday 30 May 2006

The media feeding frenzy around what has been referred to as "Iraq's My Lai" has become frenetic. Focus on US Marines slaughtering at least 20 civilians in Haditha last November is reminiscent of the media spasm around the "scandal" of Abu Ghraib during April and May 2004.

Yet just like Abu Ghraib, while the media spotlight shines squarely on the Haditha massacre, countless atrocities continue daily, conveniently out of the awareness of the general public. Torture did not stop simply because the media finally decided, albeit in horribly belated fashion, to cover the story, and the daily slaughter of Iraqi civilians by US forces and US-backed Iraqi "security" forces had not stopped either.

Earlier this month, I received a news release from Iraq, which read, "On Saturday, May 13th, 2006, at 10:00 p.m., US Forces accompanied by the Iraqi National Guard attacked the houses of Iraqi people in the Al-Latifya district south of Baghdad by an intensive helicopter shelling. This led the families to flee to the Al-Mazar and water canals to protect themselves from the fierce shelling. Then seven helicopters landed to pursue the families who fled … and killed them. The number of victims amounted to more than 25 martyrs. US forces detained another six persons including two women named Israa Ahmed Hasan and Widad Ahmed Hasan, and a child named Huda Hitham Mohammed Hasan, whose father was killed during the shelling."

The report from the Iraqi NGO called The Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq (MHRI) continued, "The forces didn't stop at this limit. They held an attack on May 15th, 2006, supported also by the Iraqi National Guards. They also attacked the families' houses, and arrested a number of them while others fled. US snipers then used the homes to target more Iraqis. The reason for this crime was due to the downing of a helicopter in an area close to where the forces held their attack."

The US military preferred to report the incident as an offensive where they killed 41 "insurgents," a line effectively parroted by much of the media.

On that same day, MHRI also reported that in the Yarmouk district of Baghdad, US forces raided the home of Essam Fitian al-Rawi. Al-Rawi was killed along with his son Ahmed; then the soldiers reportedly removed the two bodies along with Al-Rawi's nephew, who was detained.

Similarly, in the city of Samara on May 5, MHRI reported, "American soldiers entered the house of Mr. Zidan Khalif Al-Heed after an attack upon American soldiers was launched nearby the house. American soldiers entered this home and killed the family, including the father, mother and daughter who is in the 6th grade, along with their son, who was suffering from mental and physical disabilities."

This same group, MHRI, also estimated that between 4,000 and 6,000 Iraqi civilians were killed during the November 2004 US assault on Fallujah. Numbers which make those from the Haditha massacre pale in comparison.

Instead of reporting incidents such as these, mainstream outlets are referring to the Haditha slaughter as one of a few cases that "present the most serious challenge to US handling of the Iraq war since the Abu Ghraib prison scandal."

Marc Garlasco, of Human Rights Watch, told reporters recently, "What happened at Haditha appears to be outright murder. The Haditha massacre will go down as Iraq's My Lai."

Then there is the daily reality of sectarian and ethnic cleansing in Iraq, which is being carried out by US-backed Iraqi "security" forces. A recent example of this was provided by a representative of the Voice of Freedom Association for Human Rights, another Iraqi NGO which logs ongoing atrocities resulting from the US occupation.

"The representative … visited Fursan Village (Bani Zaid) with the Iraqi Red Crescent Al-Madayin Branch. The village of 60 houses, inhabited by Sunni families, was attacked on February 27, 2006, by groups of men wearing black clothes and driving cars from the Ministry of Interior. Most of the villagers escaped, but eight were caught and immediately executed. One of them was the Imam of the village mosque, Abu Aisha, and another was a 10-year-old boy, Adnan Madab. They were executed inside the room where they were hiding. Many animals (sheep, cows and dogs) were shot by the armed men also. The village mosque and most of the houses were destroyed and burnt."

The representative had obtained the information when four men who had fled the scene of the massacre returned to provide the details. The other survivors had all left to seek refuge in Baghdad. "The survivors who returned to give the details guided the representative and the Red Crescent personnel to where the bodies had been buried. They [the bodies] were of men, women and one of the village babies."

The director of MHRI, Muhamad T. Al-Deraji, said of this incident, "This situation is a simple part of a larger problem that is orchestrated by the government … the delay in protecting more villagers from this will only increase the number of tragedies."

Arun Gupta, an investigative journalist and editor with the New York Indypendent newspaper of the New York Independent Media Center, has written extensively about US-backed militias and death squads in Iraq. He is also the former editor at the Guardian weekly in New York and writes frequently for Z Magazine and Left Turn.

"The fact is, while I think the militias have, to a degree, spiraled out of US control, it's the US who trains, arms, funds, and supplies all the police and military forces, and gives them critical logistical support," he told me this week. "For instance, there were reports at the beginning of the year that a US army unit caught a "death squad" operating inside the Iraqi Highway Patrol. There were the usual claims that the US has nothing to do with them. It's all a big lie. The American reporters are lazy. If they did just a little digging, there is loads of material out there showing how the US set up the highway patrol, established a special training academy just for them, equipped them, armed them, built all their bases, etc. It's all in government documents, so it's irrefutable. But then they tell the media we have nothing to do with them and they don't even fact check it. In any case, I think the story is significant only insofar as it shows how the US tries to cover up its involvement."

Once again, like Abu Ghraib, a few US soldiers are being investigated about what occurred in Haditha. The "few bad apples" scenario is being repeated in order to obscure the fact that Iraqis are being slaughtered every single day. The "shoot first ask questions later" policy, which has been in effect from nearly the beginning in Iraq, creates trigger-happy American soldiers and US-backed Iraqi death squads who have no respect for the lives of the Iraqi people. Yet, rather than high-ranking members of the Bush administration who give the orders, including Bush himself, being tried for the war crimes they are most certainly guilty of, we have the ceremonial "public hanging" of a few lowly soldiers for their crimes committed on the ground.

In an interview with CNN on May 29th concerning the Haditha massacre, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace commented, "It's going to be a couple more weeks before those investigations are complete, and we should not prejudge the outcome. But we should, in fact, as leaders take on the responsibility to get out and talk to our troops and make sure that they understand that what 99.9 percent of them are doing, which is fighting with honor and courage, is exactly what we expect of them."

This is the same Peter Pace who when asked how things were going in Iraq by Tim Russert on Meet the Press this past March 5th said, "I'd say they're going well. I wouldn't put a great big smiley face on it, but I would say they're going very, very well from everything you look at …"

Things are not "going very, very well" in Iraq. There have been countless My Lai massacres, and we cannot blame 0.1% of the soldiers on the ground in Iraq for killing as many as a quarter of a million Iraqis, when it is the policies of the Bush administration that generated the failed occupation to begin with.

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Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who spent over 8 months reporting from occupied Iraq. He presented evidence of US war crimes in Iraq at the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York City in January 2006. He writes regularly for TruthOut, Inter Press Service, Asia Times and TomDispatch, and maintains his own web site, dahrjamailiraq.com.