WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT PALESTINE?

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT PALESTINE? ~~ TAKE A QUIZ TO FIND OUT

Palestine Quiz 1- Palestinian Refugees

Palestinians have experienced several periods of major displacement, beginning in 1947-48 war, followed by a second major displacement in the 1967 war. Additional displacement has resulted from Israeli government policies and practices inside Israel and in the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories, including land confiscation, house demolition, revocation of residency status, and deportation.

The state of Israel opposes the return of Palestinian refugees based on the desire to maintain Israel as a ”Jewish state” characterised by a solid demographic Jewish majority and Jewish control of the land.

This quiz aims to test your knowledge on the Palestinian refugees issue and to give you an insight into their unique 59-year struggle.

Click here to take the quiz now

Good luck!

Leave your score in the comments

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Palestine Quiz 2- U.S. Support of Israel

How much does Israel cost the American taxpayer? Does US law protect USA or Israel? How blind is the US governments’ backing of Israeli crimes? Test your knowledge on the different aspects of the US support for Israel…

Take the PalQuiz 2 HERE

Good luck!

Leave your score in the comments

Source

The full story in
http://desertpeace.blogspot.com/2007/12/what-do-you-know-about-palestine-take.html

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-muslim voice-
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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

ISRAELI APARTHEID IS OLDER THAN THE WALL ITSELF

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

(Ben Heine © Cartoons)

Zionism is Racism! So it was declared in the United Nations with the only objections coming from Israel itself and their closest allies.

The following excerpts taken from THIS essay state very clearly why zionism is racism…

I believe that zionism is racism, because 53 years after being exiled from their homeland, in defiance of the four Geneva Conventions, UN Resolutions 181, 194, 242, 338, and others, and other multilateral and international human rights conventions, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the disinherited refugees of Palestine, continue to endure merciless punishment from the Zionist entity, most recently in the bulldozing of makeshift homes in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza.

I believe that zionism is racism, because I am a Palestinian, and without recognizing the colonialist component in zionism, I cannot explain its racist character, a western movement uprooting the native peoples of Palestine, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Samaritan alike, a people bound to their land, through centuries of raising orange groves, and herding sheep, lending grace to the Hills of God, historically, religiously and culturally.

I believe that zionism is racism, because it fails to appreciate or acknowledge the Palestinians’ ties to their homeland, their love for their historical capital, Jerusalem, and the 53-yar plight they have endured as refugees worldwide, in Europe, in North America, in camps Dheishe, Shatila, Wehdaat and others, never giving up hope or struggle in yearning to return home.

I believe that zionism is racism, because it fails to admit the reality that the minority indigenous Jewish community in Palestine, that lived there for the last two thousand years, was an undistinguishable people from its Christian and Muslim Palestinian brethren, and that the leader of the Jewish community of the Jewish quarter of Old Jerusalem, Rabbi Lamram Blau, stood on the side of his Palestinian brothers and sisters being exiled in 1948.

I believe that zionism is racism because in modern times, the promise of liberal democracy and justice is a double-edged sword, preached by the Western powers, yet only paid lip-service to in the case of Israel, where Palestinian are continuously expelled, ethnically cleansed, and subjugated, and in the cases where they are assimilated, they are granted, limited, if any, civil rights.

I believe that zionism is racism, because in establishing the racially exclusive state of Israel, in 1948, and expelling the indigenous Palestinians from the land, the zionists severed a relationship that people had to the land for over 4,000 years, uninterrupted, since before Abraham.

I believe that zionism is racism, because in building Israel, the zionists were revising history, embracing the notion of racial superiority, an ideology that has empowered them to discriminate, with all of its associated social ills, injustices, and moral bankruptcy.

I believe that zionism is racism because it fails to distinguish between the nationalism of the American, based on multi-cultural harmony, and the racial exclusivity, separatism, ethnic cleansing, and brutality of zionism, that stands in clear violation of the most basic elements of international law and human rights practices, as most recently highlighted by reports issued by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

I believe that zionism is racism because in our world of post-modern identities, I know that we do not have to be “either-ors”, we can be “ands and buts” – a zionist and a settler, an American citizen of Polish heritage but a soldier in the Israeli army.

I believe that zionism is racism because it self-propagates itself as a democratic movement. However, a democracy, cannot, by definition, only be representative of one community in a bi-national and tri-religious contiguous geographic area. A democracy cannot exist for one people and not for another. This as called Apartheid in South Africa, and is now called zionism in Palestine.

I believe that zionism is racism, because it espouses an independent and sovereign Jewish state, in a land where there is no Jewish majority. It espouses that such a sovereign state be at peace and harmony with its neighbors without allowing the Palestinian refugees dwelling within their borders, who were expelled from their homes in Palestine by zionist militias, as is clearly documented by numerous sources including the memoirs of David-Ben Gurion himself, to return to their homes, which is a basic human right guaranteed by Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I believe that zionism is racism because it is presented by its champions, from Gil Troy to Elie Wiesel, as a romantic movement, which allowed zionists to reclaim the desert and build a model nation-state. This is racism at its most acute, since there was no desert in Palestine, other than the Negev in the South. This is simply a myth that has been propagated by racists who have supported Israel for the last 53 years, and economic data on agricultural exports to Europe from Palestine dating to medieval times easily rejects and exposes this as a blasphemous claim.

The above was written seven years ago, things have changed only for the worst. Since then, the wall of apartheid was built, mostly on Palestinian owned land. The following essay expresses the feelings of the people on the ‘other side’ of that wall….

Refusing to accept apartheid in Beit Jala

Adri Nieuwhof and Amer Madi writing from Beit Jala, occupied West Bank, Live from Palestine, 22 December 2007

The wall runs through the agricultural lands in Beit Jala

The full story in

http://desertpeace.blogspot.com/2007/12/israeli-apartheid-is-older-than-wall.html

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-muslim voice-

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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

On ‘Israel’s Right to Exist’

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

On ‘Israel’s Right to Exist’

John V. Whitbeck, Special to PalestineChronicle.com

There is an enormous difference between “recognizing Israel’s existence” and “recognizing Israel’s right to exist”.

December 22, 2007

Almost two years after the most democratic elections ever held in the Arab world, as Palestinians struggle to survive in two disconnected and hostile fragments of historical Palestine, a besieged Gaza Strip and a coopted West Bank, with the enemies of the Palestinian people sending arms and funds to the side perceived as responsive to Israeli and Western wishes for use against the side perceived as representing Palestinian interests, the justification put forward by Israel, the United States and the European Union for their refusal to accept the result of the January 2006 elections, their determined efforts to overturn that result and their brutal collective punishment of the Palestinian people — the refusal of Hamas to “recognize Israel” or to “recognize Israel’s existence” or to “recognize Israel’s right to exist” — merits serious examination.

These three verbal formulations have been used by media, politicians and even diplomats interchangeably, as though they mean the same thing. They do not.

“Recognizing Israel” or any other state is a formal legal and diplomatic act by a state with respect to another state. It is inappropriate — indeed, nonsensical — to talk about a political party or movement extending diplomatic recognition to a state. To talk of Hamas “recognizing Israel” is simply to use sloppy, confusing and deceptive shorthand for the real demand being made.

“Recognizing Israel’s existence” appears on first impression to involve a relatively straightforward acknowledgement of a fact of life. Yet there are serious practical problems with this formulation. What Israel, within what borders, is involved? Is it the 55% of historical Palestine recommended for a Jewish state by the UN General Assembly in 1947? The 78% of historical Palestine occupied by the Zionist movement in 1948 and now viewed by most of the world as “Israel” or “Israel proper”? The 100% of historical Palestine occupied by Israel since June 1967 and shown as “Israel” (without any “Green Line”) on maps in Israeli schoolbooks? Israel has never defined its own borders, since doing so would necessarily place limits on them. Still, if this were all that was being demanded of Hamas, it might be possible for it to acknowledge, as a fact of life, that a State of Israel exists today within some specified borders.

“Recognizing Israel’s right to exist”, the actual demand, is in an entirely different league. This formulation does not address diplomatic formalities or a simple acceptance of present realities. It calls for a moral judgment.

There is an enormous difference between “recognizing Israel’s existence” and “recognizing Israel’s right to exist”. From a Palestinian perspective, the difference is in the same league as the difference between asking a Jew to acknowledge that the Holocaust happened and asking him to concede that the Holocaust was morally justified. For Palestinians to acknowledge the occurrence of the Nakba — the expulsion of the great majority of Palestinians from their homeland between 1947 and 1949 — is one thing. For them to publicly concede that it was “right” for the Nakba to have happened is something else entirely. For the Jewish and Palestinian peoples, the Holocaust and the Nakba, respectively, represent catastrophes and injustices on an unimaginable scale that can neither be forgotten nor forgiven.

To demand that Palestinians recognize “Israel’s right to exist” is to demand that a people who have for almost 60 years been treated, and continue to be treated, as subhumans unworthy of basic human rights publicly proclaim that they are subhumans — and, at least implicitly, that they deserve what has been done, and continues to be done, to them. Even 19th century U.S. governments did not require the surviving Native Americans to publicly proclaim the “rightness” of their ethnic cleansing by the European colonists as a condition precedent to even discussing what sort of reservation might be set aside for them — under economic blockade and threat of starvation until they shed whatever pride they had left and conceded the point.

Some believe that Yasser Arafat did concede the point in order to buy his ticket out of the wilderness of demonization and earn the right to be lectured directly by the Americans. In fact, in his famous statement in Stockholm in late 1988, he accepted “Israel’s right to exist in peace and security”. This formulation, significantly, addresses the conditions of existence of a state which, as a matter of fact, exists. It does not address the existential question of the “rightness” of the dispossession and dispersal of the Palestinian people from their homeland to make way for another people coming from abroad.

The original conception of the formulation “Israel’s right to exist” and of its utility as an excuse for not talking with any Palestinian leadership which still stood up for the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people are attributed to Henry Kissinger, the grand master of diplomatic cynicism. There can be little doubt that those states which still employ this formulation do so in full consciousness of what it entails, morally and psychologically, for the Palestinian people and for the same cynical purpose — as a roadblock against any progress toward peace and justice in Israel/Palestine and as a way of helping to buy more time for Israel to create more “facts on the ground” while blaming the Palestinians for their own suffering.

However, many private citizens of good will and decent values may well be taken in by the surface simplicity of the words “Israel’s right to exist” (and even more easily by the other two shorthand formulations) into believing that they constitute a self-evidently reasonable demand and that refusing such a reasonable demand must represent perversity (or a “terrorist ideology”) rather than a need to cling to their self-respect and dignity as full-fledged human beings which is deeply felt and thoroughly understandable in the hearts and minds of a long-abused people who have been stripped of almost everything else that makes life worth living.

That this is so is evidenced by polls showing that the percentage of the Palestinian population which approves of Hamas’ steadfastness in refusing to bow to this humiliating demand by the enemies of the Palestinian people, notwithstanding the intensity of the economic pain and suffering inflicted on them, substantially exceeds the percentage of the population which voted for Hamas in January 2006.

Those who recognize the critical importance of Israeli-Palestinian peace and truly seek a decent future for both peoples must recognize that the demand that Hamas recognize “Israel’s right to exist” is unreasonable, immoral and impossible to meet. Then they must insist that this roadblock to peace be removed, that the siege of the Gaza Strip be lifted and that justice — not simply “peace”, which can be a euphemism for the successful repression of resistance to injustice — be pursued, with the urgency it deserves, with all legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people.

The full story in
http://uruknet.info/?p=m39475&hd=&size=1&l=e

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-muslim voice-
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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

Report: Israel continues to conduct human rights violations against Palestinians

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Thursday December 20, 2007 16:06 by Ghassan Bannoura – IMEMC News ghassanb at imemc dot org

The Adalah Human rights group that is based in Israel has recently issued a report presenting a selection of the cases it has worked on during the year in which it challenged some of Israel’s most blatant violations of human rights against the Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza strip.

Adalah is an independent human rights organization, registered in Israel. It is a non-profit, non-governmental, and non-partisan legal center. Established in November 1996, it serves Arab citizens of Israel, which make up over one million people or close to 20% of the population.

Adalah (“Justice” in Arabic) works to protect human rights in general and the rights of the Arab minority in particular. Hear is the full report: Splitting Families: The Ban on Family Unification Law Since May 2002, the Tbilah family has been living in a state of fear of future separation. Ranin, from Shafa’amr in Israel, married Hatem Tbilah, originally from Nablus in the occupied West Bank. Later they had two children, Asaleh and Dima.

They are living in fear because of the Israeli government’s policy of banning family unification for Palestinians. This policy was enshrined in law by the Knesset in 2003. The law bans the unification of families in Israel in which one spouse is a citizen of Israel and the other is a Palestinian from the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The Israeli Supreme Court decided in May 2006 to uphold what Adalah calls a ‘racist’ law, thereby rejecting Adalah’s petition challenging the constitutionality of the law.

As a result of the Supreme Court’s failure to protect their basic right to family life, the Tbilahs and thousands of other families like them now face the imminent break up of their families.

In March 2007, the Knesset expanded the scope of this law and the duration of its applicability until the end of July 2008. The new law not only prevents citizens of Israel married to Palestinians from the OPT from living together as a family in Israel, but also bans residents or citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria or Lebanon, legally defined as ‘enemy states’, from doing so. Adalah filed a petition against this new law in May 2007, demanding its cancellation.

Adalah argued that the law is racially discriminatory as it bars certain “non-citizen” individuals from family unification solely on the basis of their nationality, and that this exclusion has no parallel in any democratic nation. Adalah further argued that in addition to perpetuating violations of the right to dignity, privacy, equality and family life, the new law prevents Arab citizens of Israel from having contact with their families and members of the Arab nation and the Palestinian people. This is an extremely dangerous matter as the Arabs in Israel are not an immigrant group but an indigenous national minority.

Home Demolitions, Evacuations and Forced Relocations: Dispossessing and Displacing the Arab Bedouin in the ‘Unrecognized Villages’ Around 1,000 Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel belonging to the Abu al-Qi’an tribe live in Atir-Umm al-Hieran, an ‘unrecognized village’ located in the Naqab (Negev) desert. After the establishment of the state in 1948, the military government ordered the members of the tribe to leave their ancestral lands in Wadi Zuballa, which the state transferred to a kibbutz for use solely by Jewish Israelis. The tribe was moved to various locations and in 1956 was forced to relocate to Atir-Umm al-Hieran.

Despite having relocated them, however, the state did not officially recognize the village and as a result its inhabitants receive little-to-no basic services, including electricity, water, telephone lines, or education and health facilities.

There are dozens of Arab Bedouin ‘unrecognized villages’, referred to by the state as ‘illegal clusters’, in the Naqab. The state is seeking their direct, collective re-location from their land. In October 2007, Adalah and Bimkom submitted an objection to the National Council for Planning and Building on behalf of 82 people from Atir-Umm el-Hieran, seeking the revision of the master plan for metropolitan Beer el-Sabe (Beer Sheva).

The objectors’ demands include the recognition of the village and preparation of a master plan for it and the drafting of a plan for building infrastructure in the village. The master plan does not include suitable housing solutions for the Arab Bedouin of the Naqab in general, and for the residents of Atir-Umm al-Hieran in particular. Far from it: according to the master plan, a new community named Hiran – designated exclusively for Jewish citizens – will be constructed on most of the village’s land.

A report by the Israel Land Administration (ILA) identifies a number of ‘special problems’ that may affect the planning and establishment of Hiran, among them the Arab Bedouin inhabitants of the area. Two other new Jewish communities are also planned for the area. In order to establish these three new Jewish communities, the state is using multiple means and procedures to evacuate the entire Arab Bedouin population of Atir-Umm al-Hieran, including filing lawsuits to evict them and requests for demolition orders against their homes to the courts.

Despite court orders to freeze the home demolitions requested by Adalah, the ILA demolished some houses in June 2007 leaving many families homeless. Adalah is also representing village residents in lawsuits challenging all these orders, and is demanding an investigation and disciplinary proceedings against those responsible for the illegal demolitions.

In mid-June 2007, after Hamas seized control of Gaza, Israel closed the Karni crossing, which is a vital passageway for the movement of essential foods and goods to and from Gaza. Under international law Israel still occupies Gaza – even after the ‘Disengagement’ in 2005 – because it still exercises effective control over the lives of the residents of Gaza and the borders that link Gaza to the outside world.

Adalah accuses Israel of being in violation of its duties to protect the safety and security of the residents of Gaza, due to the closure of Karni and all other crossings. In a petition filed by Adalah, Al Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights-Gaza to the Supreme Court in June demanding the immediate reopening of the crossing, Adalah argued that the closure of Karni and not supplying basic foodstuffs and other essential provisions to the residents of Gaza violates their rights to life, health and to an adequate standard of living.

Adalah further argued that Israel’s actions amount to collective punishment. However, the court was unconvinced that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and advised the petitioners in October 2007 to withdraw the petition. By early September 2007, the Israeli government had decided to further reduce the supplies of fuel and electricity it provides to Gaza.

As Israel is not allowing the Palestinians to obtain fuel and electricity from an alternative source, these cuts also constitute collective punishment and not economic sanctions against a ‘hostile entity’, as Israel claims.

In October, Adalah and Gisha, on behalf of ten Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, petitioned the Supreme Court demanding an injunction to prevent the state from disrupting the supply of electricity and fuel to Gaza. The petitioners argued that the reduction in fuel supplies has already caused extensive damage to vital systems like water wells, and as a result around 250,000 Palestinians in Gaza are suffering from disrupted water supplies. In addition, cutting electricity will impair the operation of hospitals and other vital services, particularly since Gaza was left completely reliant on Israel for power after Israel destroyed all six transformers in Gaza’s only power plant in June 2006.

The petitioners also strongly contested the state’s claim that it is only bound to safeguard “a minimal humanitarian situation” in Gaza, a term that does not exist in international law. On 29 November 2007 the Supreme Court approved the government’s decision to cut fuel supplies to Gaza. The court has temporarily frozen cuts to the electricity pending receipt of information by the state on the effects of the plan on the Palestinian population in Gaza.

In Adalah’s view, the court’s ruling violates the basic principles of international humanitarian law, which prohibit using civilians for political purposes and bans collective punishment. Jewish National Fund Excludes Arab Citizens from 13% of ‘Israel Lands’ In the pre-state era, institutions such as the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund (JNF) pursued the project of “land redemption” in order to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.

After the establishment of the state in 1948, Israel transferred state-acquired properties and land development functions to these organizations for exclusive use by Jewish people, thereby discriminating against Palestinians who remained and became citizens of the state. The Israel Land Administration (ILA) manages all state lands, which comprise over 93% of the total area in the state, including JNF-owned land since 1961.

Thus, Palestinian citizens of Israel are completely excluded from approximately 13% of “Israel Lands,” or 2.5 million dunams, owned by the JNF. In 2004 Adalah petitioned the Supreme Court demanding the cancellation of an ILA policy which permits and conducts the marketing and allocation of JNF lands through bids open only to Jews.

In response to this petition and a further petition filed against the ILA’s policy by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the JNF declared that its loyalty is only to the Jewish people and not the Israeli general public, and that it operates solely for the benefit of Jewish citizens.

However, while the JNF claims to have purchased the lands in its ownership using money donated by Jews from around the world in order to buy land in Israel and its distribution among Jews, 78% (close to 2 million dunams) of the land in the JNF’s control were transferred to it by the state in 1949 and 1953. The majority of this land belonged to Palestinian refugees and displaced persons.

Adalah argued that the ILA, as a public agency established under law, is not authorized to adopt positions or pursue goals which are contrary to the principles of equality, just distribution and fairness, and it cannot be a sub-contractor for racial discrimination. Adalah emphasized that upholding this discriminatory policy will result in the institutionalization of racially segregated communities in Israel resembling those established under the Apartheid regime in South Africa, and in the perpetuation of the systematic violation of the land and housing rights of Arab citizens.

At a hearing on the petition in September 2007, the Supreme Court approved a proposal made by the JNF and the Attorney General’s Office to delay further deliberations on the case in order to allow a final agreement to be reached over a land exchange between the state and the JNF. Under this proposal, the JNF will allow Arab citizens to bid for JNF- lands for three months; in return the state will compensate the JNF for land acquired by Arab citizens by transferring alternative state lands to it.

Adalah objected to the proposal on the ground that it does not end the discrimination against Arab citizens as the JNF will maintain its current hold over 2.5 million dunams of land. The case is pending.

According to official figures, around 89% of all towns and villages in Israel are classified as Jewish. Palestinian Arab citizens of the state are excluded from purchasing leasing rights in approximately 78% of these towns and villages, which are known as community or agricultural towns.

The full story in
http://www.imemc.org/article/52054

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-muslim voice-
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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

MUSLIM HOLIDAY DISRUPTED BY ZIONIST TERRORISM

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Instead of celebrating and enjoying the holiday feast with their families, millions of Palestinians are just trying to live though another day of terror and genocide.

The following essay was just sent to me by the author, it’s a must read if you want a feeling of the horrors these people face every day… holidays included.

The essay is followed by a video clip featuring the brilliant hand of our very own Carlos Latuff….

Israel wants to annihilate Palestinians, not reach peace with them

From Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank

 

However, the ongoing orgy of killings and maiming in Gaza, carried out by the children and grandchildren and great grandchildren of the holocaust, leaves me no choice but to identify with these unwept victims of Zionist wickedness and arrogance of power.

 

In less than forty eight hours, more than 24 Palestinians have been killed. A large number of people have also been injured, some sustaining serious wounds that will leave them crippled for the rest of their lives.

 

The wanton killings are added to the manifestly evil blockade Israel has been imposing on the 1.5 million Gazans, which has already wreaked havoc on all aspects of life there.

 

Some Israeli apologists object to the use of terms such as “genocide” in describing the killings and strangulation of Gazans, arguing that no other suffering should be compared with Jewish suffering.

 

Needless to say, this unconscionable attitude is indicative of the brutal ugliness of Zionist mentality and its intrinsically racist perceptions of non-Jews in general and Palestinians in particular.

 

The slow-motion destruction of Gaza by Israel, a state that claims to be Judaic while its behavior is more compatible with the ideas of Adolph Hitler than with the teachings of Moses, is certainly of a lesser magnitude that Nazi atrocities in the course the Second World War.

 

Yes, there are no gas chambers in Rafah and Khan Younis and Nablus. And Palestinians are not being shipped en mass to crematoria.

 

However, Palestinians are being killed nonstop, each hour and every hour, seven days a week, four weeks a month, in their homes, their kitchens, their streets and their neighborhoods.

 

In fact, a PR-savvy Israel doesn’t need “gas chambers” to kill Palestinians, even on a genocidal scale. It can and it is killing them rather quietly but constantly through an open-ended campaign of murder and terror, which has been going on for over 60 years. This murderous obscenity is being done while virtually everyone else, from the calamity called Condoleezza Rice to the infamy called Mahmoud Abbas, keeps babbling about the virtues of peace and moderation.

 

Yes, what Israel is doing to the Palestinians may not be identical to what the Nazis did more than sixty years ago. But the mentality, the utter evilness and the nearly satanic predisposition to commit murder and do evil, are very much similar if not identical.

 

I know many Jews would vociferously protest these analogies. However, honest and intellectually-brave people should always repulse these hypocritical protestations with the contempt they deserve.

 

Today, Palestinians are very much facing the same situation that Jews in Germany encountered in the mid and late 1930s. Here it is more than mein kampf and kristalnacht, for Palestinians encounter a mein kampf and a kristalnacht every moment of their lives.

 

Today, Palestinians are murdered in cold blood, denied the most fundamental of human rights, treated and humiliated a round the clock for being “goyem.” Their homes and property are bulldozed nonchalantly and their very existence is being viewed as expendable by a morally insensitive people who have come to consider the killing a Palestinian child in Hebron as a finally-realized revenge for the killing of a Jewish child at the hands of the Nazis in the heart of Europe many years ago.

 

Of course, Israel and her chorus of liars and propagandists and intellectual prostitutes don’t stop claiming that Israel is only defending itself.

 

However, any honest individual could easily discover the utter mendacity of such claims.

 

Nearly two weeks ago, a friend of former Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz asked me if I would agree to meet with Peretz at the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem to discuss the situation in Gaza. I told the “friend” that I basically had no objections except that Jerusalem, East and West, are off-limit to Palestinians from the West Bank.

 

I also told the man that I was sure 100% that the Hamas-led government in Gaza would stop all “attacks” on Israel if Israel agreed to stop killing Gazans and lift the murderous blockade.

 

When the man related the conversation to Peretz, who then informed Ehud Barak about it, Barak dismissed the idea, telling Peretz to “shut up” because “I am the Defense Minister, not you.”

 

In other words, Israel, a state constantly ruled by vile war criminals who very much resemble the commanders of the Gestapo, SS and Wehrmacht, is hell-bent on murdering Palestinians on a daily basis.

 

These crimes are carried out under the pretext of self-defense against primitive and nearly innocuous projectiles , fired by desperate fighters seeking to create a modicum of deterrence against daily Israeli atrocities.

 

Today, the Palestinian people, especially in the Gaza Strip, are facing a looming genocide at the hands of the Nazis of our time. This looming genocide, a preview of which is already being demonstrated for quite sometime, could be effected in collusion with several parties, including the nefarious American administration, the whoring European Union and, of course, the quisling-like Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah.

 

Hence, Palestinians and their friends must never indulge in too much of wishful thinking by miscalculating that the world public opinion would prevent Israel from going too far.

 

Well, the world public opinion has been dead for a long time.

 

And the influential powers in this world, e.g. those states that are capable of pressuring Israel, are part of the problem and can’t be part of the solution.

 

The US, for example, which invaded and destroyed two Muslim nations and killed or caused the death of a million innocent Muslims, all under the mendacious rubric of the war on terror, will not seriously object to having Israel kill a million or two million Palestinians under the equally mendacious rubric of “self defense” and “preserving Israel as a Jewish state.”

 

Yes, we may not exactly be in 1939-Germany. But the evilness, the nefariousness and utter criminality of the world’s two most evil states in the world, the US and Israel, are almost identical to the evilness of the Nazi leadership.

 

For these reasons, the Palestinians must give more attention and devote more efforts to securing our physical survival as a people, a survival that we no longer can take for granted, given the Nazi nature of our oppressors.

A few days ago, an Israeli cabinet minister threatened a genocide against Israel’s own non-Jewish citizens.

 

This minister was quoted as saying that “those who keep invoking the Nakba, a new Nakba shall fall on their heads.”

 

This is very much like a Nazi leader warning that “those who keep invoking the holocaust, a new holocaust will fall on their heads.”

 

For these reasons, Palestinians must exercise utmost wisdom in order not to give the Nazis of our time (the Zionist regime) a pretext to exterminate our people, which could happen, even with the enthusiastic blessings of Washington and the capitals of Europe.

The full story in
http://desertpeace.blogspot.com/2007/12/muslim-holiday-disrupted-by-zionist_22.html

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-muslim voice-
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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

SANTA BEATEN BY ZIONIST THUGS IN BETHLEHEM

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Here’s something for Israel to be proud about ….. and Zionis’s lover must read!!!

‘Father Christmas’ beaten in West Bank demo: organisers

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AFP) – Israeli guards beat five demonstrators, including one dressed as Father Christmas, during a protest on Friday against Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank, organisers said. About 50 Palestinian, Israeli and international peace activists attended the rally in the village of Um Salomona, near Bethlehem, the Biblical birthplace of Jesus that is preparing to celebrate Christmas. Israeli border guards armed with truncheons briefly detained one activist and beat another five during the rally, the organisers told AFP, adding that one was wearing a Santa Claus costume. An Israeli army spokesman said there had been disorder at the protest and that several demonstrators who were briefly detained were subsequently released. Israel says the massive barrier of electric fencing, barbed wire and concrete walls built across the West Bank is needed to stop potential attackers from infiltrating the country and attacking Jewish settlements on Arab land. The Palestinians say the project is aimed at grabbing their land and undermining the viability of their promised state. In 2004, the International Court of Justice issued a non-binding ruling that parts of the 650-kilometre (410-mile) barrier criss-crossing the West Bank are illegal and should be torn down. Israel has vowed to complete the project. Source

The full story in
http://desertpeace.blogspot.com/2007/12/santa-beaten-by-zionist-thugs-in.html

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-muslim voice-
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The 9/11’s Real Victims : Al-Qaida jailbreak plot suspects freed

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

The 9/11’s Real Victims

Al-Qaida jailbreak plot suspects freed

By PAUL AMES, Associated Press Writer

Sat Dec 22, 1:36 PM ET

BRUSSELS, Belgium – A judge released 14 suspected Islamic extremists Saturday for lack of evidence of their involvement in a plot to break free an al-Qaida prisoner convicted of planning an attack on U.S. air base personnel.

Prosecutors said the investigation would continue and that heightened security measures imposed across the country after Friday’s arrests would remain in place through the New Year. “We think there is still a threat,” said Lieve Pellens, spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutor’s office.

She said intelligence that an attack could be imminent meant the security forces had to act without waiting to gather the evidence.

“We could not treat this as we would a normal criminal case,” Pellens said. “According to our investigation there were sufficient indications pointing to a terrorist threat. That is why we did not wait to detain the suspects.”

The government had said it had information the suspects were plotting to use explosives and other weapons to free Nizar Trabelsi, a 37-year-old Tunisian serving 10 years for planning to a drive a car bomb into the cafeteria of a Belgian air base where about 100 American military personnel were stationed.

Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt warned Friday that the suspects could have other targets and stepped up police patrols in public places, including the Brussels airport, subway stations and the capital’s popular downtown Christmas market.

The 14 suspects were arrested Friday in overnight raids. Reports indicated explosives had also been seized, but Pellens said Saturday that searches of the suspects’ homes uncovered no explosives, weapons or other evidence to persuade a magistrate to either charge them with any offense or keep them in jail.

The release renewed criticism of Belgian laws giving authorities 24 hours to present enough evidence to charge suspects or free them.

“Twenty-four hours is just not enough to look at the evidence in a terrorist inquiry,” said Claude Moniquet, president of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, a Brussels think tank.

“The police get the same time to question a terrorist as they would a shoplifter,” he said. “It’s a judicial fiasco.”

Most European nations allow police to hold terror suspects longer without charges. The limit is 48 hours in Germany, five days in Spain, six days in France and 28 days in Britain, according to the human rights group Liberty.

Belgian officials said police were continuing to investigate documents, computers and other unspecified materials found in the raids on the suspects’ homes.

“The release of the 14 does not mean the investigation is finished. All the material that was found is being examined,” Alain Lefevre, a director of the Belgian government’s Crisis Center, told a news conference.

The suspects, whose names were not released, were expected to remain under police surveillance and could be detained again if more evidence is uncovered.

But Moniquet, the security expert, said he doubted the Belgian police had the resources to maintain an effective watch on all 14.

The U.S. Embassy warned Americans on Friday of “a heightened risk of terrorist attack in Brussels,” although it said it had no indication of specific targets.

Trabelsi was arrested in Brussels two days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and police later linked him to the discovery of raw materials for a huge bomb in the back of a Brussels restaurant.

He admitted he planned to kill U.S. soldiers at the air base in northeastern Belgium, saying he had met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and asked to become a suicide bomber.

A former professional soccer player, Trabelsi came to Europe in 1989. Over the next few years, he bounced from team to team in the minor leagues, acquiring a cocaine habit and a criminal record.

Eventually, he made his way to al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan, where evidence presented at his trial showed he placed himself on a “list of martyrs” ready to commit suicide attacks. Security experts believe he was an important figure in Islamic extremist circles in Europe with links to groups in France, Britain and other countries.

The full story in
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071222/ap_on_re_eu/belgium_terrorism

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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

9/11 Panel Study Finds That C.I.A. Withheld Tapes

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

By MARK MAZZETTI

Published: December 22, 2007

WASHINGTON — A review of classified documents by former members of the Sept. 11 commission shows that the panel made repeated and detailed requests to the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 and 2004 for documents and other information about the interrogation of operatives of Al Qaeda, and were told by a top C.I.A. official that the agency had “produced or made available for review” everything that had been requested.

The review was conducted earlier this month after the disclosure that in November 2005, the C.I.A. destroyed videotapes documenting the interrogations of two Qaeda operatives.A seven-page memorandum prepared by Philip D. Zelikow, the panel’s former executive director, concluded that “further investigation is needed” to determine whether the C.I.A.’s withholding of the tapes from the commission violated federal law.In interviews this week, the two chairmen of the commission, Lee H. Hamilton and Thomas H. Kean, said their reading of the report had convinced them that the agency had made a conscious decision to impede the Sept. 11 commission’s inquiry.Mr. Kean said the panel would provide the memorandum to the federal prosecutors and congressional investigators who are trying to determine whether the destruction of the tapes or withholding them from the courts and the commission was improper.A C.I.A. spokesman said that the agency had been prepared to give the Sept. 11 commission the interrogation videotapes, but that commission staff members never specifically asked for interrogation videos.The review by Mr. Zelikow does not assert that the commission specifically asked for videotapes, but it quotes from formal requests by the commission to the C.I.A. that sought “documents,” “reports” and “information” related to the interrogations.

Mr. Kean, a Republican and a former governor of New Jersey, said of the agency’s decision not to disclose the existence of the videotapes, “I don’t know whether that’s illegal or not, but it’s certainly wrong.” Mr. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, said that the C.I.A. “clearly obstructed” the commission’s investigation.

A copy of the memorandum, dated Dec. 13, was obtained by The New York Times.

Among the statements that the memorandum suggests were misleading was an assertion made on June 29, 2004, by John E. McLaughlin, the deputy director of central intelligence, that the C.I.A. “has taken and completed all reasonable steps necessary to find the documents in its possession, custody or control responsive” to formal requests by the commission and “has produced or made available for review” all such documents.

Both Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton expressed anger after it was revealed this month that the tapes had been destroyed. However, the report by Mr. Zelikow gives them new evidence to buttress their views about the C.I.A.’s actions and is likely to put new pressure on the Bush administration over its handling of the matter. Mr. Zelikow served as counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from 2005 to the end of 2006.

In an interview on Friday, Mr. McLaughlin said that agency officials had always been candid with the commission, and that information from the C.I.A. proved central to their work.

“We weren’t playing games with them, and we weren’t holding anything back,” he said. The memorandum recounts a December 2003 meeting between Mr. Kean, Mr. Hamilton and George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence. At the meeting, it says, Mr. Hamilton told Mr. Tenet that the C.I.A. should provide all relevant documents “even if the commission had not specifically asked for them.”

According to the memorandum, Mr. Tenet responded by alluding to several documents that he thought would be helpful to the commission, but made no mention of existing videotapes of interrogations.

The memorandum does not draw any conclusions about whether the withholding of the videotapes was unlawful, but it notes that federal law penalizes anyone who “knowingly and willfully” withholds or “covers up” a “material fact” from a federal inquiry or makes “any materially false statement” to investigators.

Mark Mansfield, the C.I.A. spokesman, said that the agency had gone to “great lengths” to meet the commission’s requests, and that commission members had been provided with detailed information obtained from interrogations of agency detainees.

“Because it was thought the commission could ask about the tapes at some point, they were not destroyed while the commission was active,” Mr. Mansfield said.

Intelligence officials have said the tapes that were destroyed documented hundreds of hours of interrogations during 2002 of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, two Qaeda suspects who were taken into C.I.A. custody that year.

According to the memorandum from Mr. Zelikow, the commission’s interest in obtaining accounts from Qaeda detainees in C.I.A. custody grew out of its attempt to reconstruct the events leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

The full story in
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/22/washington/22intel.html?_r=2&ref=world&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW