srael pounds Gaza after deadly attacks near Eilat
The attacks in Israel started with an assault on a bus
The Israeli military has carried out air strikes over the Gaza Strip, targeting those it blamed for a series of deadly attacks in southern Israel.
At least six people, including a senior militant, were killed in the air strikes, Palestinian sources said.
Earlier, Israeli officials promised a strong response after attacks on vehicles near Eilat left seven dead.
Israeli officials said Gazan militants were responsible, although Gaza's Hamas government denied involvement.
The Israeli air strike hit a house in the town of Rafah.
Palestinian sources told the BBC that four members of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a faction in Gaza that is loyal to Hamas but sometimes operates separately, had been killed in the air strikes, including the group's head, Kamal al-Nairab.
PRC military chief Immad Hammad and the son of the owner of the house were also among those killed, Palestinian sources and residents said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said those killed were responsible for the attacks earlier in the day near Eilat.
"The people who gave the order to murder our people and hid in Gaza are no longer among the living," he said in a televised address.
"If anyone thinks the state of Israel will resign itself to this, they are wrong."
The PRC denied involvement in the attacks in Israel, Reuters reported.
Further air strikes were reported in the early hours of Friday morning.
'Risk of escalation'A spokesman for Israel's domestic security agency, Shin Bet, said several of those who died in the air strikes had been involved in the 2006 kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Continue reading the main storySeries of attacks
- Shooting attack on bus near Eilat wounds 14 Israelis, including five soldiers
- Other vehicles hit soon after, killing seven Israelis - five men and two women
- Israeli military patrol vehicle targeted, no immediate reports of injuries
- Seven suspected gunmen are killed as Israeli security forces confront them
- Israeli air strikes on Gaza kill at least six people, including a militant leader and a child
Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television reported that security forces in Gaza had evacuated their headquarters in anticipation of Israeli military action.
The attacks near Eilat, a southern resort city, began when gunmen opened fire on a bus.
Israeli officials said at least two other vehicles were then hit nearby - one by a rocket and one by an explosive device.
They said that the attacks left seven Israelis dead and that a number of gunmen were killed in an ensuing firefight.
In response, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said: "The real source of the terror is in Gaza and we will act against them with full force and determination."
Hamas, which governs Gaza, denied responsibility, and said it would retaliate if Israel attacked.
"We will not stand handcuffed and we will spearhead resistance to the occupation," Hamas official Salah Al-Bardaweel was quoted as saying.
The US, the EU and the UN condemned the attacks in Israel.
"We condemn the brutal terrorist attacks in southern Israel today in the strongest terms," the White House said in a statement.
A UN spokesman said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was "concerned at the risk of escalation and calls for all to act with restraint".
Israeli officials said the men who attacked the vehicles near Eilat came from the Gaza Strip and had entered Israel through Egypt's Sinai desert.
There has been growing concern about a decline in security in Sinai since Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February.
"This violence only underscores our strong concerns about the security situation in the Sinai Peninsula," said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"Recent commitments by the Egyptian government to address the security situation in the Sinai are important and we urge the Egyptian government to find a lasting resolution."
An Israeli official said gunfire on either side of the border was continuing into the evening.
Late on Thursday, Egyptian officials said at least two Egyptians were killed near the border in northern Sinai.
Details of the deaths were unclear, though there were reports that gunmen had attacked a police post.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Israel pounds Gaza after deadly attacks near Eilat
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Hamas' Powerful New Weapon Alters Strategic Calculations Along the Gaza Strip
Hamas’ recent use of a Russian-made, laser-guided anti-tank missile against a school bus marks a clear change in the strategic balance along the fragile Gaza-Israel border: By either fate, or perhaps design, the Hamas attack comes just as Israel deployed its “Iron Dome” missile defense system that has rendered Hamas’ Grad rockets almost useless against civilian targets.
Israel called the use of the of the advanced weaponry a “red line,” now putting in danger the tens of thousands of Israelis who drive on roads with a line of sight view from the Gaza Strip. Until now, drivers only had to worry about highly inaccurate mortar fire that had to be launched from relatively open areas.
“We are talking about sophisticated anti-aircraft weaponry, sophisticated anti-tank weaponry and long-range rockets that can hit even north to Tel-Aviv. Now Hamas was restrained so far not to use many of them in order not to force Israel with its back to the wall to initiate another huge military ground operation against Hamas,” said Ronen Bergman, an Israeli security expert who has written extensively on the Jewish state, its security services and its relationship to the Islamic world.
Now that Hamas has shown a willingness to use a next-generation weapon against a civilian target, experts say Israel will have to re-evaluate how it looks at the hot truce that exists on the border.
Currently, there is a tit-for-tat relationship between Hamas mortar and rocket attacks answered by Israeli air strikes taking out various militant targets, depots and the occasional target assassination of a cell leader.
Hamas says the missile attack was making good on a promise to retaliate against Israel for killing three of its leaders in a targeted assassination earlier this month. While the attack only wounded two people -- the bus had just dropped its students off -- militants fired more than 100 rockets and mortars into southern Israeli. The Israeli Air Force raised the normal reciprocity multiplier a couple of times in what was called a clear message to Hamas that attacks with this new type of weapon would carry an overwhelming price tag.
“Because the conditions of the cease-fire are very flexible, this is not a cease-fire. This is a low level, a very low-level-intensity conflict. The interpretation of the conditions of this very low-intensity conflict are different, and they can lead to another deterioration,” Bergman said.
In the weekend exchange, Israel killed at least 20 Palestinians, including civilians and at least a few Hamas leaders. Even still, it took a few days for Hamas leaders to gain control of the various militant groups within Gaza, many of whom are seemingly unconcerned with the Israeli counterattacks or their collateral damage and are singularly focused on harassing Israel and threatening its southern residents.
Many of the more hawkish members of Israel’s political and defense establishment argued for Israel to continue the attacks on Gaza. It's generally accepted that it’s a question of when, not if, the skirmish will escalate and the Israeli Army will once again invade Gaza to try and root out the Hamas weaponry.
For years, Israel has warned that Iran and Syria are smuggling not only mortars, rocket propelled grenades and AK-47s to Hamas but also more sophisticated weapons capable of giving Hamas a significantly better chance against the Israeli military. Israel enters the urban war zone against a dug-in, well trained and now even better-supplied group of militants.
“Like Iran and Syria supplied Hezbollah with sophisticated anti tank rockets – Matisse, Cornet and other RPG's that caused great damage to Israeli tanks and Israeli infantry in 2006 -- they did the same in Gaza with Hamas. Now Israel is well prepared. This is why we saw they're looking for another target, a non military target. This is why they hit the bus with the Kornate,” said Bergman.
Hamas poked the sleeping lion just as the lion finished thickening its fur. In the hour and days after the bus attack as Israel fighter jets and helicopters pounded targets in Gaza, Hamas and some of the more radical organizations lets loose their usual barrage of unguided rockets and mortar shells at towns in southern Israel. The mortars landed as they often do in unpopulated areas. The rockets, including some of the larger Grad rockets, met a new fate as they were intercepted mid-flight by Israel’s Iron Dome.
Built largely in response to the 2006 war with Hezbeollah in Lebanon when thousands of rockets rained down on civilian populations, the Iron Dome is capable of shooting down missiles as they head for Israel’s towns. Last weekend was the systems first “battlefield test,” and it performed better than many expected or even hoped, shooting down at least eight rockets and only missing one.
At $40,000 a shot, a lot was riding on this deployment, shooting down rockets that often don’t cause more than $400 in damage.
However, proponents of the system argue that it is able to calculate an enemy rocket's probable target after launch and then decide if its worth sending an interceptor to protect a civilian population or allow it to destroy a few crops or trees as they often do.
“Like Israel, Hamas is testing the system. I think Hamas is trying to find ways how to bypass the system or how much missile at one time at one launching can the system take,” Bergman said.
Again the latest weaponry appears to have altered the strategic balance, both in the sense that civilian populations no longer feel helpless and thus demand large-scale Israeli counterattacks, and with the high publicized success of the system, it's harder for Israel to justify its airstrikes in the court of public opinion. which is often less than favorable to the Jewish state.
The new balance of power must then be looked at through the lens of the broader Middle East, which itself seems to be changing like a kaleidoscope. Hamas is largely a proxy of Syria and Iran, Bergman said. There may not be the kind of direct control that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard exercises over Hezbollah to Israel’s north in Lebanon, but there is real fear that either Syria or Iran could turn Hamas loose to launch attacks on Israel as a distraction from their own internal security problems.
Over the weekend both sides publicaly said they wanted a cease-fire, and Hamas’ foreign minister made the all-but-unprecedented move of going on Israeli radio and asking in Hebrew for the airstikes to stop.
While it seems that would bring a quick calm to any conflict, it took at least 48 hours for both sides to stop, as they attempted to find their new equilibrium. The balance of power shifted in just a few days.
While Monday and Tuesday brought an eerie calm to the skies above the Gaza border, it appears that with Hamas willing to use a new class of weapons and Israel’s technology making their traditional ones largely irrelevant, it will be even more difficult to find that calm once the next round of bullets, mortars or missles fly.
“Everybody should bear in mind that if this missile would have been fired five minutes before (when the bus was filled with children), we would have been witnessing a full-scale war between Israel and the Gaza strip today,” Bergman said.
Additional reporting by Dana Karni
Israel Aiming Punitive Measures at Soft Targets by Mel Frykberg -- Antiwar.com
RAMALLAH – As the international community becomes increasingly critical of Israel’s discriminatory treatment of Israeli-Arabs and the brutal occupation in the Palestinian West Bank, the Israeli authorities are venting their anger against soft targets such as Arab-Israeli parliamentarians and Palestinian and Israeli nonviolent peace activists.
The majority of Knesset members recently voted in favor of stripping Israel-Arab Knesset member Haneen Zoabi of her parliamentary privileges following her participation in the ill-fated Mavi Marmara flotilla to Gaza last year.
The flotilla tried to break Israel’s crippling siege on the Gaza Strip. Nine people were shot dead—some of them at point-blank range—by Israeli commandos after some of the passengers resisted the commandos.
Zoabi, a slight woman, was arrested and initially accused of trying to stab a commando. “It was ridiculous. I just laughed when they made the accusations. I never even tried to resist. They knew the charges were false and subsequently withdrew them. They are just trying to persecute me politically,” Zoabi told IPS.
An Israeli high court will shortly rule on Zoabi’s petition against having her parliamentary privileges revoked. These include the withdrawal of her diplomatic passport, entitlement to financial assistance for legal assistance, and the right to visit countries with which Israel does not have political ties.
“The right-wing consensus in the Knesset is trying to punish me and prevent my freedom of expression,” she said as she arrived at the court last week.
Israel’s crackdown on dissent continued when the Knesset recently approved a law that would enable Israel’s Supreme Court to revoke the citizenship of anyone convicted of espionage, treason, or aiding the enemy during war. The problem is the interpretation of this law, which is wide open to Israeli sensitivity to any criticism, however legitimate and nonviolent.
The move follows the Knesset voting overwhelmingly, earlier in the year, in favor of a legislative commission of inquiry to investigate the funding and activities of leftist Israeli organizations that support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, as well as other critical NGOs.
Pro-Palestinian Israeli activists are also being targeted. The Israeli authorities have admitted to forming a special police unit to monitor Israeli protesters in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
Every Friday, for the last couple of years, hundreds of Israeli peace activists have been peacefully protesting the eviction of Palestinian residents from their homes to make way for illegal Israeli settlers.
Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, has also monitored the telephone calls of Israeli activists and summoned a number of them for interrogation.
Yonatan Shapira, a former Israel Air Force (IAF) pilot and a member of the organization Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall (AAW)—the separation barrier that divides Israel proper from the West Bank but diverges off the internationally recognized Green Line and into Palestinian territory—is one of them. Shapira co-authored the Pilot’s Letter in 2003.
Together with 30 other IAF pilots, Shapira signed the letter, which stated: “We the undersigned are no longer willing to be part of the indiscriminate attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territories. We declare our refusal to participate in what we believe to be illegal and immoral activities.”
Another Israeli member of AAW, Yonatan Pollack, was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment at the beginning of the year after he took part in a bicycle protest against Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, the war on Gaza in 2008-2009. He was the only protester arrested and charged.
But Pollack has been a thorn in the side of the Israeli authorities for some time now. As a spokesman for the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees and a regular participant in West Bank protests against the separation barrier, he as been arrested and beaten on numerous occasions.
Meanwhile, on the ground in the occupied West Bank the Israeli military continues to attempt to crush dissent and popular revolt in several Palestinian villages where weekly protests against the separation barrier and illegal settler annexation of Palestinian land have grown.
Last Saturday, 19 Israeli peace activists were arrested, several beaten and all imprisoned overnight when they held an impromptu nonviolent protest outside the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, in the southern West Bank.
The activists were protesting the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) siege on the village, which had lasted several weeks. Entrances to Beit Ummar were closed with concrete blocks and metal gates manned by Israeli soldiers. Residents were unable to leave or enter to attend school or work or to go shopping.
The IDF was enforcing a collective punishment on the little town in response to a spate of stone- and Molotov-throwing at Israeli settler cars by Palestinian youth. The attacks came after one of the settlers opened fire on a funeral procession in Beit Ummar killing one Palestinian.
“The army has crossed another red line,” Micha Kurz, a long-time Jerusalem peace activist told Israeli-American journalist Joseph Dana. “The soldiers acted as if they’d thought about how much they hate leftist Jews before we arrived and then just unleashed fury on us,” Kurz recalled.
(Inter Press Service)
Palestinian Village Under Siege Following Settler Killings by Mel Frykberg -- Antiwar.com
AWARTA, West Bank – Food supplies are running low, ambulances have been detained for hours at checkpoints, and hundreds of young men have been held, interrogated, and beaten up, some requiring hospitalization, in the Palestinian village of Awarta in the northern West Bank. The village has been under continuous curfew for four days.
“Please, please come quickly. Dozens of masked Israeli settlers have entered our village, and they are attacking people and our homes. We don’t have enough food to eat. Now the soldiers are returning and are breaking into our home again. I can’t talk anymore,” Mahmoud (whose surname will remain anonymous for his own protection) told IPS in a hasty telephone conversation.
“Several days ago I was beaten up badly and had to be hospitalized. The soldiers also beat my sister and my uncle. They broke furniture and windows and cut power cables as they ransacked cupboards and upturned the contents of drawers.
“About 300 of the village’s young men were blindfolded, handcuffed, arrested, and taken for interrogation at the local school, where they were beaten,” added Mahmoud.
Homes have been ransacked and their contents destroyed and vandalized as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) searches for the killers of an Israeli settler family who lived in the illegal Israeli settlement of Itamar, which has been built on Palestinian land and borders the village of Awarta.
Five members of the Fogel family, two parents and three children, including a 4-year-old boy and a 3-month-old baby, were stabbed to death by assailants who managed to penetrate the illegal settlement’s elaborate security system.
Entrances to Awarta have been closed off and a heavy military presence has saturated the area as the IDF re-mans roadblocks that were evacuated several months ago following increased security coordination between Palestinian and Israeli security forces. IDF flying checkpoints have also been set up and Palestinian motorists and pedestrians delayed as their IDs are examined.
The IDF has declared the village and the surrounding area a closed military zone and said anybody, including media and foreign activists, caught in the area will be arrested. The Israeli police have declared a news blackout on the case, and IPS has been unable to enter the village.
In addition to the 300 young men taken in for interrogation, Thai laborers working in Itamar have also been rounded up for questioning. However, according to the Israelis the attack is most likely to have been perpetrated by Palestinian militants for nationalistic purposes.
The savagery and brutality of the killings have shocked Palestinians, including fighters from the various resistance groups, and angered Israelis. There appears to be consensus on the moral heinousness of the act.
But while the attack on Israeli innocents, albeit members of a fanatical settler movement residing illegally on Palestinian land, has saturated local and international media outlets, there is a lot more to the story of Awarta and the suffering and brutality its inhabitants have endured at the hands of the settlers and Israeli soldiers.
Last year, IPS visited the village after two young, unarmed men were gunned down by Israeli soldiers at close range in a hail of bullets in late March as they collected metal aggregates that they hoped to sell at the local market to help pay for their education.
Autopsies on the bodies of cousins Salah Qawariq, 18, and Muhammad Qawariq, 19, concluded they had been shot at close range. Some of the bullets entered their shoulders and exited through their lower backs in line with being shot from above while seated or kneeling on the ground.
IPS accompanied the grieving families and villagers to the site of the execution. Despite IDF claims to have investigated the shootings, dozens of empty bullet cartridges, a saline solution kit, and other related paraphernalia lay on the ground undisturbed.
Israeli soldiers initially claimed self-defense after they alleged they were attacked but subsequently changed their story several times. An official investigation by the IDF stated that the deaths were unnecessary and could have been avoided if the situation had been handled differently.
While the IDF officially took responsibility for the killings, rumors surfaced about the possibility of a settler militia from Itamar being responsible. After the deaths a settler website mentioned that the first person to “find the bodies” was an extremist settler from Itamar. However, when news of this began to circulate in the media the website hastily withdrew the claims.
Awarta’s and surrounding villagers have been subjected to settler abuse and attacks on a regular basis and with increasing frequency during the last few months as settlers carry out their “price-tag” policy.
Every time an illegal settler outpost is razed by the IDF, the settlers carry out revenge attacks on Palestinians and their property. These attacks have included arson attacks on mosques, cutting down and burning agricultural fields, killing livestock, and attacking homes, people, and property.
Ironically and perversely, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has used the attack to announce the construction of 500 new settlement homes in the West Bank despite international condemnation.
Some have argued that the Israeli government is using the attack to divert increasing international criticism away from its recalcitrant stance on peace talks by portraying itself once again as the victim.
The settlers, who have always argued in favor of unlimited West Bank construction for ideological reasons and what they see as “security,” have wasted no time in erecting a new settlement outpost on Awarta land.
(Inter Press Service)
http://original.antiwar.com/frykberg/2011/03/15/palestinian-village-under-sie...
Palestinian Village Under Siege Following Settler Killings by Mel Frykberg -- Antiwar.com
Palestinian Village Under Siege Following Settler Killings
by Mel Frykberg, March 16, 2011AWARTA, West Bank – Food supplies are running low, ambulances have been detained for hours at checkpoints, and hundreds of young men have been held, interrogated, and beaten up, some requiring hospitalization, in the Palestinian village of Awarta in the northern West Bank. The village has been under continuous curfew for four days.
“Please, please come quickly. Dozens of masked Israeli settlers have entered our village, and they are attacking people and our homes. We don’t have enough food to eat. Now the soldiers are returning and are breaking into our home again. I can’t talk anymore,” Mahmoud (whose surname will remain anonymous for his own protection) told IPS in a hasty telephone conversation.
“Several days ago I was beaten up badly and had to be hospitalized. The soldiers also beat my sister and my uncle. They broke furniture and windows and cut power cables as they ransacked cupboards and upturned the contents of drawers.
“About 300 of the village’s young men were blindfolded, handcuffed, arrested, and taken for interrogation at the local school, where they were beaten,” added Mahmoud.
Homes have been ransacked and their contents destroyed and vandalized as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) searches for the killers of an Israeli settler family who lived in the illegal Israeli settlement of Itamar, which has been built on Palestinian land and borders the village of Awarta.
Five members of the Fogel family, two parents and three children, including a 4-year-old boy and a 3-month-old baby, were stabbed to death by assailants who managed to penetrate the illegal settlement’s elaborate security system.
Entrances to Awarta have been closed off and a heavy military presence has saturated the area as the IDF re-mans roadblocks that were evacuated several months ago following increased security coordination between Palestinian and Israeli security forces. IDF flying checkpoints have also been set up and Palestinian motorists and pedestrians delayed as their IDs are examined.
The IDF has declared the village and the surrounding area a closed military zone and said anybody, including media and foreign activists, caught in the area will be arrested. The Israeli police have declared a news blackout on the case, and IPS has been unable to enter the village.
In addition to the 300 young men taken in for interrogation, Thai laborers working in Itamar have also been rounded up for questioning. However, according to the Israelis the attack is most likely to have been perpetrated by Palestinian militants for nationalistic purposes.
The savagery and brutality of the killings have shocked Palestinians, including fighters from the various resistance groups, and angered Israelis. There appears to be consensus on the moral heinousness of the act.
But while the attack on Israeli innocents, albeit members of a fanatical settler movement residing illegally on Palestinian land, has saturated local and international media outlets, there is a lot more to the story of Awarta and the suffering and brutality its inhabitants have endured at the hands of the settlers and Israeli soldiers.
Last year, IPS visited the village after two young, unarmed men were gunned down by Israeli soldiers at close range in a hail of bullets in late March as they collected metal aggregates that they hoped to sell at the local market to help pay for their education.
Autopsies on the bodies of cousins Salah Qawariq, 18, and Muhammad Qawariq, 19, concluded they had been shot at close range. Some of the bullets entered their shoulders and exited through their lower backs in line with being shot from above while seated or kneeling on the ground.
IPS accompanied the grieving families and villagers to the site of the execution. Despite IDF claims to have investigated the shootings, dozens of empty bullet cartridges, a saline solution kit, and other related paraphernalia lay on the ground undisturbed.
Israeli soldiers initially claimed self-defense after they alleged they were attacked but subsequently changed their story several times. An official investigation by the IDF stated that the deaths were unnecessary and could have been avoided if the situation had been handled differently.
While the IDF officially took responsibility for the killings, rumors surfaced about the possibility of a settler militia from Itamar being responsible. After the deaths a settler website mentioned that the first person to “find the bodies” was an extremist settler from Itamar. However, when news of this began to circulate in the media the website hastily withdrew the claims.
Awarta’s and surrounding villagers have been subjected to settler abuse and attacks on a regular basis and with increasing frequency during the last few months as settlers carry out their “price-tag” policy.
Every time an illegal settler outpost is razed by the IDF, the settlers carry out revenge attacks on Palestinians and their property. These attacks have included arson attacks on mosques, cutting down and burning agricultural fields, killing livestock, and attacking homes, people, and property.
Ironically and perversely, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has used the attack to announce the construction of 500 new settlement homes in the West Bank despite international condemnation.
Some have argued that the Israeli government is using the attack to divert increasing international criticism away from its recalcitrant stance on peace talks by portraying itself once again as the victim.
The settlers, who have always argued in favor of unlimited West Bank construction for ideological reasons and what they see as “security,” have wasted no time in erecting a new settlement outpost on Awarta land.
(Inter Press Service)
Read more by Mel Frykberg
- War Clouds Back Over Gaza – April 12th, 2011
- Israel Aiming Punitive Measures at Soft Targets – April 5th, 2011
- Palestinian Revolution by Default – February 16th, 2011
- It Could Be Too Late for Two States – January 26th, 2011
- Gaza’s Children Dare to Dream – January 11th, 2011
http://original.antiwar.com/frykberg/2011/03/15/palestinian-village-under-siege/
Bereaved Israelis, Palestinians Unite Across Violent Borders by Mel Frykberg -- Antiwar.com
Bereaved Israelis, Palestinians Unite Across Violent Borders
by Mel Frykberg, January 05, 2011JERUSALEM – With Middle East peace talks at a standstill, a group of activists is taking matters into its own hands. The Parents’ Circle Families Forum, a group comprising Palestinians and Israelis who have lost family members in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, aims to build a bridge between the two fractured communities.
“Waiting for our respective leaderships to forge peace will take too long,” Israeli board director and forum member Rami Elchanan told IPS. “It is through the common people that we can consider a different tomorrow.”
“We want to prevent further bereavement, in the absence of peace, to influence the public and the policy makers – to prefer the way of peace to the way of war, as well as educate for peace and reconciliation. We also want to promote the cessation of acts of hostility and the achievement of a political agreement and prevent the usage of bereavement as a means of expanding enmity between our peoples,” said Elchanan.
Every week members of the Parents’ Circle Families Forum give talks at schools, universities, hotels, and other venues to Israelis, Palestinians and foreigners. The group also holds summer camps, offers youth leadership seminars, and produces TV and radio programs and documentaries.
The organization comprises 13 Palestinian and Israeli staff who work from two offices, one located in Tel Aviv and the Palestinian office located in Aram, north of Jerusalem. The staff are backed by a large body of trained and experienced volunteers from bereaved families, while an international network of organizations offer support.
The group has also given talks overseas in conflict zones, including Spain’s Basque region and Northern Ireland. Wilhelm Verwoerd, the grandson of former South African premier and chief apartheid architect Hendrik Verwoerd, and now a resident of Northern Ireland, expressed his admiration for the group following their visit there.
Aziz Sara, a Palestinian member from Jerusalem, lost his older brother Tayseer following a brutal interrogation by Israeli security forces 15 years ago.
“I became extremely bitter and angry. Even at 10 I understood that his death was not natural, and someone was responsible. I grew up with anger burning in my heart. I wanted justice. I wanted revenge,” recalls Sara.
“I feel obligated to use my pain to spread peace, rather than using it to fuel a hatred that would have eventually consumed me. I believe we are all obligated to do our best to create peace, and not wait until it hits home,” explains Sara.
A member of the Forum, U.S. national Moira Julani, 43-year-old mother of three daughters, is also working through her grief. “Some days I feel angry and think of revenge, but most days I think about the situation rationally and want to educate people about the situation on the ground in occupied Palestine. I don’t want others to endure what I am going through, whatever their religion or nationality,” Julani tells IPS.
“We are not discussing who is to blame, who started the conflict or who suffered the most,” Julani added. “We are acknowledging the other side as equal human beings who suffer as much as we do.”
Elchanan, 61, has three sons. Thirteen years ago, he suffered every parent’s worst nightmare: the death of a child. Smadar, a bright, vivacious girl and Elchanan’s only daughter, was just 14.
“I was driving to the Tel Aviv airport when I got a distraught call from my wife in Jerusalem saying there had been a Palestinian suicide bombing and that our daughter Smadar had been seen in the vicinity,” he recalled.
“The next frantic hours were spent contacting police stations and hospitals, desperately trying to find out if our daughter had been admitted. Eventually, we had to go and identify her corpse.
“The day Smadar died, a big part of me died too,” he said.
Five Israelis, including Smadar, were killed and hundreds injured when three young Palestinians from the West Bank blew themselves up in a pedestrian mall in September 1997. Smadar and several friends had been on their way to purchase schoolbooks.
Moira Julani lost the love of her life to violence stemming from the ongoing conflict. But her loss occurred on the other side of the border.
Several months ago, Julani’s Palestinian husband, Ziad, was shot at close range by an Israeli policeman.
“It was a beautiful day, and Ziad told me to get the girls ready so that when he returned we could take a family outing to the Dead Sea. He was on his way to Friday Muslim prayers,” Julani told IPS.
As Ziad drove through East Jerusalem, he was caught in the crossfire of stone-throwing and shooting between Palestinian youngsters and Israeli soldiers. Ziad swerved slightly to avoid the stones and accidentally brushed against one of the Israeli border policemen. The police opened fire.
The frightened man got out of his car and tried to run away, but fell to the ground critically wounded. One of the policemen walked over and shot him in the head at point-blank range several times, despite the fact he was unarmed and badly injured. Ziad died shortly afterward in the hospital.
The policeman who shot Ziad changed his story several times, falsely claiming that Ziad had a suicide belt on him. None of the police involved have been brought to justice.
“My husband wasn’t politically active at all,” Julani told IPS.
(Inter Press Service)
http://original.antiwar.com/frykberg/2011/01/04/bereaved-israelis-palestinian...
Goldstone Recants, Gaza Dies by Philip Giraldi -- Antiwar.com
Goldstone Recants, Gaza Dies
by Philip Giraldi, April 14, 2011The United States has long been on the receiving end of Israeli misbehavior. Israel invades Lebanon or Gaza, the US vetoes UN Security Council resolutions condemning civilian deaths and destruction of infrastructure, and Washington winds up taking the blame for condoning Tel Aviv’s recklessness. Repeat that twenty times and it is no surprise that most of the world regards the United States as the enabler of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians. Osama bin Laden has repeatedly cited American support of Israeli repression as one of his reasons for attacking the United States. Opinion polls taken in Muslim countries, where footage of Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians is nightly fare on television, demonstrate sharp declines in the numbers of those who regard the US favorably. And the repeated application of the get out of jail free card to Israel has produced an insufferable arrogance in Israeli leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu, confident that the American dog will let itself be wagged by the Israeli tail whenever necessary. It invites more of the same, whether it is building more settlements, killing civilians in Gaza, or intercepting humanitarian missions on the high seas.
Not being held accountable ever has led to recklessness on the part of the Israelis and has further diminished America’s international reputation as it is increasingly seen as complicit in various outrages and even war crimes. In the Cast Lead invasion of Gaza in December 2008 Israel was able to unleash an enormous and sophisticated US-provided military arsenal against a largely helpless civilian population within which a small number of genuine Hamas militants concealed themselves. It was probably Israel’s most audacious defiance of international norms of behavior and the fact that it has escaped consequence-free suggests that history will soon repeat itself in the form of another assault on Hamas which will undoubtedly bring in its wake a large number of civilian casualties and further destruction of schools, hospitals, homes, and businesses.
This time Judge Richard Goldstone, who was commissioned by the United Nations to head a group of four jurists asked to write a report on Cast Lead, has to be seen as an enabler of any possible future conflict. Let us assume for a moment that Goldstone, who was under tremendous pressure from international Jewry, was actually sincere in his recent recantation regarding Israeli war crimes in Gaza. His first report for the United Nations asserted that Israel and Hamas had both been guilty of war crimes, but that the devastation produced by Israel far exceeded anything accomplished by Hamas. Israeli crimes included destroying clearly identified schools, hospitals, and United Nations food warehouses. White phosphorous artillery shells were used against civilian targets, generally regarded as completely unacceptable by most of the world’s militaries. It was collective punishment time with Israel’s Deputy Defense Minister declaring "The Palestinians are going to bring upon themselves a Holocaust."
The UN report details how civilians were shot down when trying to surrender to advancing Israeli soldiers. Mostly civilians died, possibly as many as 1,000, including at least 300 children. The Goldstone report concluded that Israel had initiated a "deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate, and terrorize a civilian population." It also called for the behavior of both Israel and Hamas to be thoroughly investigated in both Gaza and Israel and that the issue of possible war crimes be referred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for adjudication. But as the Goldstone report must first be referred to the court by the UN Security Council, a veto by the US to halt the proceedings is more-or-less a given.
In the more than two years since Cast Lead neither Israel nor Hamas has seriously investigated any aspects of it, and several independent reviews have concluded that Israel, which basically lets its army investigate itself, is institutionally incapable of an objective inquiry. The Israeli Defense Forces officer who oversaw the killing of 29 members of one Palestinian family has not been charged or even investigated. One soldier received a seven-month prison sentence for stealing a credit card while another who used a Palestinian child as a shield received a three-month suspended sentence.
Now Goldstone would have one believe that it is his modified viewpoint that Israel did not deliberately target the civilians, the only issue that he is seeking to "reconsider" in the 575 page report. That presumably means that there is no order on paper in his possession indicating that to be the intention. And since Goldstone has had no access to any official Israeli sources of information as Tel Aviv did not cooperate in the inquiry, even that conclusion can presumably be challenged. One has to suspect that Goldstone has bowed to pressure, possibly including Israel’s recent creation of a branch of military intelligence that has been tasked with seeking out and confronting individuals and groups suspected of "delegitimizing" Israel abroad. That knock on the door might be a magazine salesman or it might be a friendly IDF representative with a warning.
Israel has been increasing the pressure on Gaza over the past month and many believe that the reprieve provided by Goldstone will give the green light to another major incursion. Prime Minister Netanyahu has threatened to use all necessary force to stop the missiles being fired into Israel from Gaza, while other government officials and military sources suggest that another invasion of Gaza is being planned, possibly for next month. The Gazan authorities have declared a cease-fire, which apparently is holding from their side, but Israeli artillery barrages have continued. The tit-for-tat between Hamas in Gaza and Israel began, in fact, with the Israeli targeted killing of five Palestinians in Gaza between April 1st and 5th. Hamas retaliated on the 7th by firing mortars into Israel and Israel responded immediately with artillery that killed five Palestinians. Over the weekend, Israel killed thirteen more Gazans with artillery and rocket strikes. When Israel kills civilians, they are invariably described as terrorists.
If Israel unleashes its military on Gaza many Arab civilians will die and it is the United States that again will ultimately pay the piper. Congress will immediately support Israel, claiming that it has the right to defend itself and the mainstream media will also be on board. Even if the White House knows it is Israel that is cranking up the fighting, it too will quickly cave in and make itself available to stop any contrary resolution in the UN Security Council. American prestige in the Middle East will be mired in the single digits and the ability of Washington to act effectively in any country in the region if a vital interest seriously is threatened will be nullified. Judge Richard Goldstone might feel that he has mended fences with his coreligionists, but he has a lot to answer for among those who believe that truth and accountability truly matter.
http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2011/04/13/goldstone-recants-gaza-dies/
War Clouds Back Over Gaza by Mel Frykberg -- Antiwar.com
War Clouds Back Over Gaza
by Mel Frykberg, April 13, 2011RAMALLAH – After several days of intense violence, during which 19 Palestinians were killed and one Israeli wounded, a fragile calm has returned to Gaza. But political commentators argue that this could well be a precursor to Israel’s next war on the coastal territory.
During the last week the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a series of attacks following a rocket attack from Gaza that hit an Israeli school bus, seriously injuring a 16-year-old pupil.
Palestinians countered that Israel’s assassination of three Hamas commanders a week before the latest bloody confrontations was the spark. Israel blamed elements in Gaza that it says were planning the kidnapping of Israelis in the Sinai.
Following Israel’s strike, resistance fighters from a variety of factions in Gaza retaliated by launching dozens of rockets and missiles at Israel.
Many of those killed in Gaza were Palestinian resistance fighters, but civilians were among the dead and injured. The precise number of civilian casualties is being disputed by Israeli and Palestinian officials.
Israeli intelligence has argued for a number of years that Israeli soldiers are the targets of potential kidnappings. Every year during the Jewish Passover, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, warns Israelis not to travel to the Sinai due to a risk of kidnapping. There has been none to date.
This has raised questions about Israel’s timing of the killing of the Hamas commanders. Many are asking whether Israel intends to follow up with another brutal military assault along the lines of Operation Cast Lead, the previous war on Gaza at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009, which left over 1,400 Palestinians dead, most of them civilians, including 300 children.
“The goal that we have settled on, of seeking a return to calm, is a grave error because it will allow Hamas to reinforce along the lines of Hezbollah,” Israel’s outspoken foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israeli Army Radio.
“The objective must be to force Hamas out of power. To return to calm accepts a war of attrition in which Hamas can determine when there is a lull and when the front is heating up,” he said.
Lieberman’s controversial comments provided a peak into the thinking of the Israeli cabinet, which met Tuesday to discuss the flare-up on the country’s southern border with Gaza. Military sources were quoted in Israeli media as saying that the truce would be followed by an even wider confrontation.
“Hamas has been busy rebuilding its forces for the past two years, and this can only mean we’re facing an all-out clash,” a senior IDF officer told Israeli media.
An Israeli cabinet member told the Israeli YNetNews.com that “in any event, it is not in our interest to launch an extensive operation until after Independence Day, so for now we seek to calm things down. However, if the rocket fire is resumed and Israel hit, there’s no telling what will happen.”
For the time being, Israeli analysts argue that both sides are interested in a temporary truce despite the heated rhetoric and the chest-thumping because both sides have something to lose.
Hamas can hold a significant section of Israel’s population in the south hostage in their underground bunkers as code-red warnings continually warn of incoming rocket barrages. Israel, on the other hand, can wreak such devastation on Gaza’s civilian population and infrastructure as to set the territory back decades, not to mention the huge death toll.
Dr. Samir Awad from Birzeit University near Ramallah says that not only will the Israelis attack, but also the timing and agenda of another full-scale war is reliant purely on Israeli dictates.
“Hamas and the other Palestinian factions are in a weak position. They can threaten Israel all they like, but Israel has superior military power. It also controls Gaza’s coast, airspace, border-crossings and has the entire strip under lockdown, so there is very little Hamas can do in reality,” Awad told IPS.
“One of the reasons behind the timing of the assassination of the three Hamas commanders was the prospect of Fatah-Hamas unity talks resulting in some concrete and positive developments as the two sides met recently,” added Awad.
“Israel greatly fears a united Palestinian front. Now there is tension and chaos again in Gaza, and unity talks are once again on the back burner. Furthermore, Israel has also taken advantage of the confusion and unrest sweeping the Arab world when Hamas is weakened by a disaffected public in Gaza and is struggling to control the smaller factions.”
Prof. Moshe Ma’oz from Jerusalem’s Hebrew University believes that if Israel does attack it would have to consider the complications and consequences on the ground. “In order to keep control of Gaza, the IDF would have to reoccupy it. This would be costly and a military drain. What would the follow-up plan for dealing with 1.5 million people be, and has this been thought through?
“However, one thing is for sure. Should Hamas hit another civilian target like a school bus and cause a high number of deaths, Israel would strike with an iron fist and the consequences would be very bloody.”
(Inter Press Service)
http://original.antiwar.com/frykberg/2011/04/12/war-clouds-back-over-gaza/
Friday, January 28, 2011
Disturbing Quotes From Leading Zionists
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www.whale.to
Sat Jan 29 05:15:22 2011
Apache
Zionism
Zionism
[back]See:Christopher Bollyn Illuminati Eustace Mullins Israel Joseph G. Burg Mossad
Disturbing Quotes From Leading Zionists[2010 June] Ponerology 101: The Political Psychopath
Israel did 9/11, ALL THE PROOF IN THE WORLD!!
[2010 May] Anti-Semitism is Zionism's Bread and Butter by Henry Makow Ph.D.
[2008 May 13] The Zionist Money Behind 9-11 by Christopher Bollyn
[2002] The Zionist Roots of the "War on Terror" by Henry Makow Ph.D.
[1985] The Life of an American Jew in Racist Marxist Israel Jack Bernstein
[1993] Zionism and the Third Reich by Mark Weber In spite of the basic hostility between the Hitler regime and international Jewry, for several years Jewish Zionist and German National Socialist interests coincided. In collaborating with the Zionists for a mutually desirable and humane solution to a complex problem, the Third Reich was willing to make foreign exchange sacrifices, impair relations with Britain and anger the Arabs. Indeed, during the 1930s no nation did more to substantively further Jewish-Zionist goals than Hitler's Germany.
[Joseph G. Burg] The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Z-- 1988
An Interview With JOSEF GINSBURG by Eric Thomson
Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
[1976] The Hidden Tyranny: The Harold Wallace Rosenthal Interview "Most Jews do not like to admit it, but our god is Lucifer."
Book
Solving 9-11: The Deception that Changed the World by Christopher BollynThe Thirteenth Tribe The Khazar Empire and its Heritage By Arthur Koestler
[2009] The Invention of the Jewish People, by Shlomo Sand
Zionists
Ehud Barak
Begin, Menachem
Chertoff
Freedman
Gilbert
Goff, Michael S.
Hellerstein, Alvin K.
Kissinger, Henry
Mukasey, Michael Bernard
Olmert, Ehud
Peres
Sharon, Ariel
Troy (formerly Troyansky), Tevi David
Straw, Jack
Silverstein, Larry
ZakheimExternal
Zionism and Nazism: Is there a difference that makes a difference?, by Roger TuckerThe Hidden History of Zionism By Ralph Schoenman
Americans are Rothschild Proxies in Iraq By Henry Makow Ph.D.(March 14, 2004)
Zionism: Compulsory Suicide for Jews (December 9, 2002)The Zionist Roots of the "War on Terror" (November 18, 2002)
Zionists Made Deal with the Devil (November 4, 2002)
Zionism, Anti Semitism and American Democracy (September 24, 2002)
[July 2008] The Canaanite Response
The Reptilian Issue By Don Bradley
Books
Lenni Brenner "Zionism in the Age of Dictators"[2007] The Life of an American Jew in Racist, Marxist Israel by Jack Bernstein
[1962] Guilt and Fate by Joseph G. Burg
Scapegoats by Joseph G. Burg
Zionist Nazi Censorship in the Federal Republic of Germany by Joseph G. Burg
National Socialist Crimes of Bad Conscience by Germans Against Germans under Zionist Direction by Joseph G. Burg
Major Attacks of Zionists against Pope Pius XII by Joseph G. Burg
German Governments by Joseph G. Burg[1988] The Hidden History of Zionism by Ralph Schoenman
Monarch mind-control programming in pop culture
Monarch mind-control
Mind Control[2010 EW] MONARCH Schools---I"m not kidding!
See: MILABS
Researchers, whistleblowers:
Fritz Springmeier & Cisco Wheeler
Brice Taylor (Sue Ford)
OBrien, CathyProject Monarch: Nazi Mind Control by Ron Patton
Milab Operations Detailed article about military and alien abductions. By James Bartley. (PDF)
External
Nicki Minaj: A New Puppet is in Town
Mind Control Symbolism in Russian Pop: Vintages Mikkie
The Hidden Meaning of Lady Gagas Telephone The video refers to mind control and, more specifically, Monarch Programming, a covert technique profusely used in the entertainment industry.
Kerlis Creepy Video About Mind Control
Paramores Brick by Boring Brick: A Song about Mind Control
Beyonces Sweet Dreams Occult Mind Control
Another movie that shows the Monarch upbringing is Repulsion by Roman Polanski. They never come out and say it, but these movies demonstrate generational mind control and abuse. http://doppels.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=2&page=90Carey, Mariah
MonarC EntertainmentFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
MonarC Entertainment Parent company Island Records Founded 2002 (2002) Founder Mariah Carey Status Defunct Country of origin United States MonarC Management is a record label formed by Mariah Carey, under Island Records. The name comes from Carey's well-documented fascination with butterflies. The creative capitalization emphasizes Carey's initials.
The only albums released with the MonarC logo were Charmbracelet and The Remixes. Afterwards, by the summer of 2004, Mariah reportedly shut down her MonarC label, as her subsequent releases were released under just Island Records, alone.[1]
http://www.whale.to/a/monarch1.html
HAIL BARBIE? GTFO!