Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

click on image to enlarge

Commentary by Chippy Dee, Photos © by Bud Korotzer

From Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

9 Minute Video I just put out on life in Bethlehem area during Christmas. It starts with a Jewish guy who joined the demonstration in Al-Masara asking that the soldiers disobey orders and not join in oppressing the Palestinians. Picture attached is of me in my red Christmas sweater  speaking to the same soldiers explaining how they are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. In addition to the usual struggles against the occupation, we did have celebrations.  The video shows the lighting of the Christmas Tree, home parties, and 3 nights of activities for everyone (Muslims, Christians, Internationals, locals, children adults) and with a theme of support for Jerusalem.  We called it the Shepherds’ Nights.

Video from AlJazeera: Bethlehem in Christmas: Many tourists but no economic boom

UN Report: Only 13% of the land in Bethlehem available to local use, more than 85% has been swallowed by colonial settlements, space for their future use, their infrastructure, and the apartheid barriers.

UN expert urges pressure on Israel to end blockade of Gaza, and the implementation of the Goldstone Report

Steps to create an Israel-Palestine by Jonathan Kuttub
Los Angeles Times  December 20, 2009

Jerusalem – An Inexorable Trajectory by Anat Biletzki | Fri, 11/27/2009 – 10:15am

A powerful speech by a US army veteran/refusenick

(Ben Heine © Cartoons)

Israel Admits Stealing Palestinian Organs By Khalid Amayreh “If such is what they are willing to admit, imagine how much they are concealing,” Knesset member Teibi told IOL. OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — For the first time, Israel has tacitly admitted stealing Palestinian body parts for transplant in Jewish patients, vindicating accusations leveled by Palestinians and rights groups over the past years.”We started to harvest corneas…whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family,” pathologist Yehuda Hiss, the former head of the Abu Akbar  Center, also known as the L. Greenberg Institute for Forensic Medicine, told Nancy Sheppard-Hughes, now a professor of Anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley, in a documentary aired by the Israeli Channel Two. The documentary revealed that in the 1990s, forensic specialists harvested corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives. Hiss said his doctors often sought to mask the removal of corneas from bodies.”We’d glue the eyelid shut. We wouldn’t take corneas from families we knew would open the eyelids.” Other body parts believed to have been harvested from deceased Palestinians and others included heart arteries, bones and corneal tissues. “The skins were taken from the bodies and transmitted to Hadasah hospital in West Jerusalem on the request of the Israeli army to be transplanted to wounded soldiers and in case of disaster,” said Hiss. Hiss revealed that in the early 1990s, military surgeons began removing a thin layer of skin from bodies to treat burn victims, which he said was done without family consent. Hughes reportedly decided to publish the interview, recorded in 2000 as part of her studies at the Israeli forensic institute, after a leading Swedish daily reported in August that Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians to trade in their organs. A Swedish journalist revealed earlier this year that Israeli doctors at the Abu Akbar forensic institute had been harvesting organs from Palestinians killed by the Israeli army. The Aftonbladet report, written by Donald Bostrom, cited an incident of Palestinian organ harvesting by Israel in 1992 during the first Intifada. Incriminating Ahmed Teibi, a member of the Israeli Knesset and head of the Arab nationalist Party, insists that the new evidence incriminates the Israeli army and government. “If such is what they are willing to admit, imagine how much they are concealing,” he told IslamOnline.net. Teibi says the revelations amounted to irrefutable evidence proving that Israeli doctors at the Abu Akbar institute harvested appendages and corneas from bodies of slain Palestinians in the 1990s. He says the latest revelations underscored the “inherent racism plaguing the Israeli Jewish society.” Teibi was the first to raise questions about the issue of Palestinian organ harvesting by Israeli doctors. In January, 2002, then Israeli Health Minister Nessim Dahan said in response to a question by Teibi that he couldn’t deny or confirm that organs of Palestinian youths and children killed by the Israeli army were taken out for transplants or scientific research. “I couldn’t say for sure that something like that didn’t happen.” At that time, Teibi said he had received credible evidence proving that Israeli doctors at the forensic institute of Abu Akbar extracted such vital organs as the heart, kidneys and liver from the bodies of Palestinian youth and children killed by the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli military confirmed to the Channel Two documentary that the practice of harvest Palestinian organs took place in the 1990ss. “This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer.” Palestinians, however, insist that the Israeli army continued to harvest Palestinian organs for transplant or for sale in the black market. Earlier this year, relatives of several Palestinians killed by the Israeli army during Al-Aqsa uprising  told IOL that their beloved ones were returned to them shortly after they were killed  without their vital organs and  with a huge cut from the stomach to the neck stitched up.

Written FOR

Commentary by Chippy Dee, Photos © by Bud Korotzer

On the very cold evening of December 18th, Times Square was the scene of a send-off rally for the New Yorkers participating in the Gaza Freedom March.  The event will take place in Gaza on the first anniversary of the brutal Israeli attack (the subject of the Goldstone Report) that killed over 1,400 people, mostly civilians, more than 400 being children.

Bethlehem honors Jerusalem and Gaza this Christmas season

By Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

Groups in the Bethlehem area dedicate a series of events called Shepherds’ Nights (December 23-25) to Jerusalem (increasingly being de-Palestinized) and hold a commemoration and protest asking to lift the siege on Gaza (December 31^st). See program below and join us (also we could use volunteers, please email me if you can help). Here in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace was born in an area ruled by a tyrant ruler (King Herod while claiming Judaism engaged in slaughter of Aramaic speaking natives) who was supported by a world empire.  Here where 2000 years later, natives are still engaged in a struggle against tyrant rulers supported by distant empires.  Here where civil resistance flourished and where its history over millennia is yet to be told.  Here where Jesus did not spare the money changers in front of the temple nor did the early Christian descendents (Muslim and Christian) spare the rulers from their anger at injustice starting a number of uprisings to challenge the brutality of occupation and colonization (we call such an uprising a shaking off or Intifada).  Here where life is so abnormal today that visiting internationals no matter how prepared are always shocked to see concentration camps surrounded by walls, Nazi-like behavior of occupation soldiers brought from around the world to police native people, and Palestinian officials who keep accommodating the occupation and finding out that the demands of the occupation keep increasing.  But here is also where love and hope grow and where people of all backgrounds (religions and ethnicities) get together to work for peace (and not just talk about it).  Come and see.

You may want to see this Video of (at least last) Christmas in the Holy Land http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9esPiCxLDZk and an article I wrote about Christmas under occupation (http://www.qumsiyeh.org/christmasunderoccupation/ )

Shepherds’ Nights Festival 2009

Join us this Holiday Season and show your support of Palestine

23 – 25 December (All events at the YMCA Beit Sahour) *
Theme: For Jerusalem

Day One – Wednesday 23:

17:00 Opening and Welcoming.

17:30 Band Show.

18:00 Dabka Dance Performance.

Day Two – Thursday 24:

15:00 Children show and Christmas Gifts Distribution.

16:30 Christmas Service at YMCA Shepherds’ Grotto.

21:30 Choir Performance – Christmas Hymns.

Day Three – Friday 25:

16:00 Gathering at the Greek Orthodox Shepherds Field.

16:30 Candle Procession towards the YMCA Beit Sahour (Jerusalem theme).

17:30 Dabka Group Performance.

18:00 Christmas Carols.

*Organized By Palestinian Center for Rapprochement, Siraj Center, East Jerusalem YMCA / Beit Sahour Branch, and YMCA-YWCA Joint Advocacy Initiative

31 December 2009, 4-6 PM: Vigil and commemoration in Bethlehem to honor the victims of last year’s massacres and to demand lifting the siege on Gaza.  There will be simultaneous events around the world and a march on Gaza.  In Bethlehem, it is planned to have Children read names honoring the 300+ children murdered in Gaza a year ago and to pray and pledge to work for peace in 2010 (Organized by several groups in the Bethlehem area).

El Principito and more

By Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

The Air France jet landed in Madrid and I stepped out quickly through the impressive airport to the luggage area.  There was no need for border passport check as the trip from Paris to Madrid is an internal European trip.  No more are these national borders of utility and they are only being enforced between nation states like Jordan and Syria and Palestine/Israel (nation states created ironically by Europeans!).  I walk through the airport noting the clean marble floors, beautiful arts, lighting that invokes museums, sharply dressed serious people going about from one area to another or shopping in the hundreds of shops in the spacious airport.  These images are only intruded upon by thoughts of what to expect in Spain.  Past and present melt together: conquistadores, bull fights, Al-Andalusia, Spanish conquests of the America, King Ferdinand, beautiful folkloric dancing, good foods etc… But my interest is always people of the present.  Of course I had met and worked with many Spanish activists before and we received many delegations in Palestine.  But somehow being met by two lovely people at the airport in Madrid caries special significance.  Manuel (Mano) is a 60+ veteran activist with white beard, a vibrant, easy and outgoing personality (a thoughts of a mix of Santa Claus and Jeff Halper cross my mind). The other is a young and beautiful girl (Lina) who seemed like so many serious dedicated activists I met in 20 other countries: concerned that a guest is comfortable.  We had a cup of coffee while we waited for another speaker.  I noticed both new friends speak little English so I go to the bookshop next door to buy a Spanish phrase book.  I end up also noting and buying the book El Principito (the Little Prince).  I was given the English version of this book some 30 years ago by a dear friend and have always found it useful in my life.  It is a symbolic story that relays to us in childlike fashion the vanity of so many people who are living in the past, or in the future, or who are doing things but not knowing why they are doing them (unfortunately some like Zionists harming others in the process of doing what they do).  Perhaps most of all it is a story of the importance of love and friendship and paying attention to little things.

Mano’s son (also Manuel) who organized our trip was especially kind. We quickly developed deep friendship with people like Manuel, Mano Lina, Laura, Tina, and dozens of others we met along the way in Spain.  I think to myself how lucky I am to have literally now thousands of friends around the world.  What strikes me sometimes is the similarity between people in different countries who have similar interests.  It is actually remarkable how the activists for human rights are in particular “birds of a feather who flock together” so to speak.  Motivated, energetic, outgoing, concerned, not afraid to challenge own assumptions etc.  During the two days in Madrid and two days in Barcelona, we met with politicians, journalists, students, professors, waiters, fellow passengers, and people of all walks of life.  Again I am struck by our human similarities.  A student in Madrid is like a student at Bethlehem University or Yale University.  A politician or journalist in Spain also behaves the same as politicians or journalists in Ramallah.  Those who care for people are easy to identify and are genuinely interested to know what is really going on and how it impacts people’s lives.  We explain to all how European governments have been complicit in violations of International law and human rights.  We explain the importance of treating apartheid Israel just like apartheid South Africa to effect a restoration of basic justice starting with the right of refugees to return to their homes and lands. We are gratified by the positive response.

When we drove through Barcelona before dawn heading to the airport, I looked up at the stars in the sky and wondered if the sheep has eaten the flowers. !Y ninguna persona grande comprendera jamais que tenga tanta importacia! (And no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance!)

As I crossed the bridge back into the West Bank after a night in Jordan, I noted the grouchy Israeli occupation soldiers have added a new procedure (denoted by a blue sticker) without any explanation.  The lines were a bit longer at bottlenecks where these stickers are checked.  The thoughts of El Principito and that I am finally on the blessed homeland of Palestine (yes despite the occupation) gave me a smile…

Now for action: Here are ten products to boycott this holiday season for the sake of peace: Ahava, Delta Galil Industries, Motorola, L’Oreal, Dorot Garlic and Herbs (Trader Joe’s), Estee Lauder, Intel, Sabra, Sara Lee, and Victoria’s Secret. More info on each at: http://www.baceia.org/2009/11/top-ten-brands-to-boycott/

And if you are in the US and want to buy something for a gift, consider

http://www.PalestineOnlineStore.com

Egyptian government shamefully trying to kill off lifelines to Gaza’s 1.5 million besieged people

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10948.shtml

(you may still want to join the Gaza Freedom March http://www.gazafreedommarch.org/ )

Guardian: CIA working closely with Palestinian Security services

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/17/cia-palestinian-security-agents

Getting away with murder

Settler attacks on Palestinians escalate while Israel does nothing to apprehend the culprits, writes Khalid Amayreh in Ramallah

Paramilitary Jewish terrorists have stepped up their attacks on Palestinians and their property throughout the West Bank, with the Israeli occupation army doing next to nothing to stop them.

The settlers, who act on religious rulings issued by local rabbis, have long adopted a policy whereby they attack “Palestinian targets” every time the Israeli government moves to evacuate them from land seized at gunpoint from Palestinian landowners.

On Friday, 11 December, suspected settler terrorists burned down the main mosque in the village of Yasuf, 13 kilometres south of Nablus. The fire gutted the entire interior of the house of worship. The incident, though not the first of its kind, represents a dramatic escalation in the ongoing reign of terror by settlers vehemently opposed to any peaceful solution that cedes any part of the West Bank to Palestinians.

In addition to torching the mosque, attackers scrawled Nazi slogans in Hebrew, reading “We will burn all of you” and “Price-tag greeting from Efi”, where Efi is a Hebrew name.

Munir Abboshi, the governor of the Salfit district where the terrorist act was perpetrated, blamed the Israeli occupation army for encouraging settler terrorism against Palestinians. “The Israeli army is doing nothing to protect the Palestinians from settler aggression. Army inaction encourages the settlers to keep up and escalate their attacks on our people.”

On Monday, 14 December, Israel’s chief Ashkenazi rabbi, Yona Metzger visited the damaged mosque, escorted by Israeli soldiers and Palestinian police. Denouncing the attack, the Rabbi Metzger compared the attack on the mosque with Kristallnacht, when Nazi thugs attacked and vandalised synagogues, businesses and other Jewish targets throughout Germany in November 1938.

“I came here to express my revulsion at this wretched act of burning a place holy to the Muslim people,” Metzger told local residents. “This is how the holocaust began.”

Other political and religious figures in Israel also condemned the attack on the mosque, saying that its burning was incompatible with Jewish ethics.

Palestinian leaders, however, questioned the condemnations, noting that the chief rabbinate in Israel has been all but silent about the murder by the Israeli army and settlers of Palestinian civilians both in the West Bank and Gaza. “Metzger wholeheartedly supported the genocide in Gaza. He never denounced his fellow rabbis who issued edicts urging soldiers to murder Palestinian civilians, including children,” said Anwar Abboshi, a political activist from Salfit. “So, is he trying to tell us that torching a mosque was a huge vile crime while murdering kids is an acceptable and desirable act?”

Khaled Maali is a journalist from Salfit. He attributed the torching of the mosque to the repeated edicts by rabbis who have instructed their followers to murder Palestinians and vandalise their property. “These rabbis are saying in broad daylight that it is a mitzvah (good religious deed with which one endears himself to God) to murder non-Jews and destroy their property. And the settlers are simply acting on and carrying out these edicts.”

Like other Palestinians, Maali charged that the Israeli army was effectively legitimising settler terror on Palestinians by failing to apprehend and punish the terrorists. “This is tantamount to giving them a green light to commit murder and terror. When these terrorists are allowed to get away with impunity, the Israeli government is simply telling them that they can murder Palestinians and torch mosques without having to worry about anything.”

Indeed, far from imposing law and order on the estimated half a million settlers in the West Bank, the Israeli government has been adopting a policy of appeasement towards these fanatical forces that are trying rather successfully to control the entire Israeli society, including the Israeli army. It is widely believed that over 50 per cent of high-ranking army officers are affiliated with the national-religious camp, or the settler camp. This fact is significant since many soldiers and officers would choose to listen to and obey their rabbis rather than their army superiors.

This week, a prominent settler rabbi openly urged his student-soldiers to disobey army orders to evacuate settlers from seized hilltops in the West Bank. The rabbi, Eliezer Melamed, head of the Bracha Talmudic School, or Yeshiva, in the West Bank, argued that “his soldiers” couldn’t carry out orders and instructions that contravene their conscience and religious beliefs.

Visibly perplexed and hesitant, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak responded to Melamed’s defiance by announcing that the army was expelling the rabbi’s Har Bracha Yeshiva from the so-called Hesder programme, a long-standing arrangement combining Talmudic studies and military service. However, it is widely believed that Barak will sooner or later back down in the face of the settlers, given the growing power of the settler camp that more or less dominates the present Israeli government.

This dominance is also what prevents the government from taking meaningful steps to freeze settlement expansion in the West Bank. Indeed, instead of carrying out commitments made to the Obama administration to dismantle and remove the so-called “illegal outposts”, the Israeli cabinet this week approved a far-reaching plan to subsidise settlements both west and east of the apartheid wall. The funds allocated to “strengthen” these settlements amount to hundreds of millions of dollars, which demonstrates that real peace with the Palestinians is not on the Israeli government’s agenda.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) must be worried that the escalation of settler attacks on Palestinians — especially mosques — might generate a popular reaction that could assume Intifada-like proportions. The PA is already embarrassed as many Palestinians are wondering why the estimated 70,000 Palestinian security forces, trained by the US, don’t make any effort to protect Palestinian civilians from settler terror. The answer appears clear. The raison d’être of PA forces in the West Bank is to fight Hamas, not Israel.

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Also see…FROM

Settlers in Jerusalem attack Palestinian family, 3 injured 25 detained

The REAL reason behind Global Warming….

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

Jewish terrorists torch West Bank Mosque, scrawl Nazi slogans

From Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank

In what seems to signal an escalation of organized Jewish terror against Palestinians and their property, suspected Jewish terrorists on Friday torched a mosque in the northern West Bank . Palestinians sources said armed settlers from a nearby settlement threw flammable substance inside the Hasan Khadr Mosque at the village of Yasuf near Salfit, 15 kilometers, south west of Nablus . The incident occurred around 4:00 am shortly before dawn. The suspected terrorists also scrawled Nazis slogans in Hebrew, reading “revenge” and “we will burn all of you.” Other scrawls read “price-tag-greeting from Effi” Effi is a Hebrew name. Yasuf local council head Abdul Rahim Musleh said the fire gutted the mosque’s interior, including the carpeted floor, numerous, numerous Qurans and as well as furniture.. The targeted mosque is the largest of four mosques in the village of 2000 inhabitants. Munir Abbushi, the governor of the Salfit district, where the terrorist act took place, accused the Israeli government and army of encouraging the settler terrorists to attack Palestinians. “The Israeli army is doing nothing to protect the Palestinians from the settler aggression. Army inaction encourages the settlers to escalate their terror against our people and holy places,” said Abbushi. The head of the Israeli army’s so-called Civil Administration in the West Bank , Yoav Mordechai, condemned the torching of the mosque, saying he would see to it that the perpetrators are apprehended and brought to justice. However, Palestinians doubt Israeli sincerity in combating organized Jewish terror carried out by settlers indoctrinated in extremist religious ideology advocating genocide against non-Jews. Khalid Maali, a Palestinian journalist from Salfit, attributed the incident to repeated edicts, or religious rulings, by rabbis urging settlers to kill Palestinians and vandalize their property. “These rabbis are saying in broad daylight that it is a mitzvah (good religious deed) to murder non-Jews and destroy their property. And these terrorist settlers are simply acting on and carrying out these edicts.” Maali charged that the Israeli government and army were legitimizing settler attacks against Palestinians by failing to apprehend and punish terrorists involved in terrorist attacks. “This is tantamount to encouraging them to commit more terror. When these terrorist are allowed to get away with impunity, the Israeli government is effectively telling them that you can attack Palestinians and torch mosques and have nothing to worry about.” Reactions The torching of the Hasan Khadr mosque has drawn angry reactions from Palestinian leaders on both sides of the Green Line. Ahmed Teibi, a prominent leader of the 1.5 million-strong Arab community in Israel , who is also a Knesset member, held Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak responsible for this “sinful act.” “By giving these thugs (Jewish settlers) a carte blanch to maraud and rampage throughout the West Bank , the Israeli army and government are effectively encouraging them to commit crimes against the Palestinians.” He urged the occupation army to immediately put an end to settler terror and violence before the situation gets out of hand. The league of Muslim Ulema or religious scholars in occupied Palestine strongly condemned the “sacrilegious act,” calling on the Palestinian Authority to stop stripping Palestinians of fire arms. “The PA has stripped the people of their arms. Now we stand unable to defend and protect ourselves. And the PA security agencies are not allowed to repulse settler attacks as their only task is to fight the resistance fighters,” said league chief Sheikh Hamed al Beitawi. Al-Beitawi, who is also an elected member of the Palestinian legislative council who has spent years in Israeli jails for opposing the Israeli military occupation, also denounced rabbis for issuing edicts to their followers, inciting them to murder Palestinians and vandalize their property. “These rabbis call themselves men of peace, but true men of peace don’t incite to terror and hatred and bloodshed. Imagine how these rabbis would react if a Jewish synagogue was torched in London or in Paris. They would invoke the entire history of anti-Semitism from the Spanish inquisition to the Nazi holocaust.” Settler leaders have repeatedly said they will attack Palestinians and their property every time the Israeli army moves to vacate settlers from illegal outposts. The threats have been carried out, with settlers attacking Palestinian farmers, especially olive-pickers, businesses and now mosques. This is not the first time Jewish terrorists attack Muslim holy places. In 1994, a Jewish terrorist who had immigrated from the United States, riddled Muslim worshipers with bullets at the Ibrahimi Mosque in downtown al Khalil, killing 29 and injuring and maiming dozens. The terrorist, Baruch Goldstein, who was eventually killed by survivors, became a saintly figure for right-wing Jewish fanatics who advocate the extermination, enslavement or expulsion of non-Jews from mandatory Palestine (the land between the River Jordan to the Mediterranean). The Aqsa Mosque in al Quds has also been a constant target for organized Jewish terror since Israel occupied the city from Jordan in 1967. Similarly, other mosques, both in the West Bank and pre-1948 Palestine, have been repeatedly vandalized and desecrated by supremacist Jewish groups seeking the extirpation of non-Jews from Palestine. Also see an AlJazeera Report of the incident HERE

Palestinians want more than words

The EU’s policy statement on a future Palestinian state now needs to be acted on, writes Khalid Amayreh from occupied Jerusalem

Adopted by European foreign ministers in Brussels on 8 December, the document reasserts the two-state solution, urging Israel to allow for the creation of a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its future capital.

While begrudgingly recognising the “eventuality” of a Palestinian state of some sort, Israel insists that it will be subject to stringent limitations that the Palestinians say would drain it of any substance.

Reaffirming European non-recognition of the annexation by Israel of predominantly Arab East Jerusalem, the ministers agreed that genuine peace between the two sides required that the status of the city be resolved through negotiations. They rejected the mantra that East Jerusalem is Israel’s “united and undivided capital”.

“The EU will not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties,” read the ministers’ statement.

The statement also urged Israel to halt settlement building and end discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

Palestinian leaders in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip reacted cautiously, if positively, to the EU statement. In Ramallah, Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad even sounded a euphoric note.

“I believe it is a good day for international law, for international legitimacy, for justice, for our own people to begin to have a sense of hope about the future.”

Speaking to reporters, Fayyad voiced the hope that “this path is going to take us to freedom and allow us to be able to live like other people around the world, as a free people with dignity in a country of our own, on the territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem.”

Fayyad, who enjoys strong Western backing due to his reputation for fighting corruption and promoting transparent governance, described the EU stance as an “important juncture” towards realising Palestinian statehood.

He applauded the EU’s assertion that a final resolution of the conflict would have to be based on UN Security Council resolutions, the Arab Initiative and the land- for-peace formula.

Other Palestinian politicians showed more caution.

Abdullah Abdullah, a former director- general of the Palestinian Foreign Ministry and member of Fatah’s revolutionary council, described the statement as significant only “if acted on and translated into tangible policy”.

“It is a watered-down statement, much less than what we would like to see. But it is ten times better than earlier European positions, characterised by vacillation, ambiguity and indecisiveness.”

Abdullah pointed out that Europe appeared increasingly willing to adopt distinctive and independent policies vis-à-vis the Palestinian question. This, he said, constituted a departure from earlier European subservience to Washington.

“The other thing is that the Obama administration seems to have refrained from exerting pressure on the EU to adopt a more pro-Israeli stand. This happened despite strong Israeli pressure on the US to do so.”

The veteran Palestinian diplomat nonetheless cautioned that transforming the EU policy statement into a tangible political reality will depend on what the Palestinian-Arab side does as much as on the EU’s own actions.

“We have to make tremendous efforts to get the EU, both as a bloc and also as individual states, to translate this important statement into a manual for action. Israel is not going to give a damn about statements and declarations not backed by action. Hence the urgent need for an immediate, pro-active implementation of this policy in the EU’s relations with Israel.”

One Fatah official, Tayib Abdel-Rahim, castigated French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner for taking a “vague position” with regard to the borders of any future Palestinian position.

Abdel-Rahim was quoted by the local Maan news agency as saying that Kouchner’s position in Brussels was incompatible with France’s longstanding policy supporting the creation of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders.

Infuriated by the pro-Israeli French stance, PA chief negotiator Saeb Ureikat called on Arab states to take a stand against Paris for its opposition to unconditional EU recognition of East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.

Israel, which had waged an extensive diplomatic campaign against the Swedish draft both in Brussels and Washington, insisted any “damage” caused by the EU statement would be limited and contained.

An unnamed senior Israeli official praised East European states which helped “moderate and weaken” the original Swedish draft.

“The EU’s only saving grace is that some of its members are responsible and moderate nations that didn’t support the Swedish draft, which looked like something taken from the Fatah platform at the Bethlehem conference.”

The same official was quoted as saying that “a group of [moderate] nations saved the EU from itself, since any other decision would have severely harmed relations between Jerusalem and Brussels, and would have prevented the EU from becoming an important partner in the peace process.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman issued a statement deploring the EU’s policy statement, saying that Israel regretted that the EU chose to adopt a text that, although containing nothing new, did not contribute to the renewal of negotiations.

Lieberman, shunned in much of the world due to his racist attitudes, expressed partial satisfaction that the EU didn’t adopt the original Swedish proposal which called for EU recognition of East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

“In light of the extreme draft originally presented by the Swedish presidency at the start of discussions Israel does welcome the fact that at the end of the process the voice of the responsible and reasonable EU states prevailed, balancing and improving the text.”

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On December 9th at 14:00 PM, two rural activists of Liga dos
Camponeses Pobres in Rondonia, North Brazil, were kidnapped by hitmen
in the road between Rio Alto camp and the city of Buritis. Elcio
Machado (alias Sabia) and Gilson Goncalves were both tortured,having
finger nails and parts of skin pulled out, and then executed.

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

On October I met Sabia, his wife and children in Buritis, during my
trip to countryside Rondonia. He can be seen in this photo, holding a
Palestinian flag.

May he rest in peace. Struggle goes on.

Nudity at last

By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank

In a brazen disregard for Muslim (and Christian) sensibilities, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is reportedly allowing a westernized group of   women to organize a beauty queen contest in Ramallah later this month.

In the pageant contest, scantly clad young women will display their naked bodies in front of a selectively-invited audience.

The organizer of the contest, a woman by the name of Salwa Yousuf, was quoted as saying that 58 pageants would participate, including 26 from Israel and 32 from the West Bank. None would come from the Gaza Strip.

Yousuf said officials from the PA ministries of Information and Culture would be invited to take part in the committee that would choose the winners.

The winner will receive a brand new car, $2700 and free 10-day trip to Turkey.

In the west, where I lived for many years, the so-called beauty-queen contests are more or less exercises of visual prostitution, where pageants are reduced to sexual objects, deprived of real honor, dignity, and humanity.

I really don’t know how the PA can justify this horrendous act of  profanity. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how displaying our women’s bodies would contribute to promoting the Palestinian cause and freeing our people from the shackles of Zionist colonialism.

This is a question I put to our “cultured” officials who think the road to enlightenment and modernity begins with encouraging nudity, sexual permissiveness and prurient behavior.

But I know well that these agents of moral decadence wouldn’t dare tell us what their real agenda is. Instead, they will start barking like mad dogs, calling the vast bulk of Palestinians names such as “agents of obscurantism” and “forces of darkness.”

Well, I really wonder what is so enlightening about displaying women’s naked bodies before the gluttonous eyes of sex-crazed men and women who readily surrender to the reality of women’s sexual exploitation.

Similarly, I fail to understand what  makes these ‘cultured people’ more intellectual and more enlightened than those of us who reject this contemptible denigration of at least 50% of humanity.

Muslim as well as Christian leaders in occupied Palestine have rightly denounced this shameless endeavor to corrode our moral heritage and collective dignity as a people struggling against foreign occupation, oppression and racism.

We must maintain this honorable image of a people who constantly guard against moral depravity, a virulent character that could destroy the moral essence of our people and enable our enemy to obliterate us from the face of earth.

Indeed, one really wonders how victory would be granted to a people that keep silent while pornographic shows are organized in Ramallah and Jerusalem , in the vicinity of  the Aqsa Mosque.

It is sad and lamentable that the PA regime is contributing to the deterioration of Palestinian moral values.

On Wednesday, the usually reliable Israeli journalist Amira Hass reported  that a sex trade was flourishing in the occupied territories.

“Young Palestinian women are being forced into prostitution in brothels, escort services, and private apartments in Ramallah and Jerusalem, including in areas inhabited by Jews,” said Hass, quoting a report by a Palestinian women group called SAWA.

So, what is the PA doing about this? And why are the PA security agencies not hounding those beastly persons who are exploiting poverty-stricken women and forcing them to sell their bodies for food?

One of the most popular sayings in occupied Palestine says “Taju’uo al Horratu wala Taakulo bethadyayha” meaning “a noble woman would rather starve than sell her body for food.”

This proverb squarely applies to any girl that agrees willingly to display her body for money or other inducements.

Since time immemorial, the role model for a Palestinian woman has always been  that of  a mother,  daughter,  sister  or wife of a martyr or prisoner  who would stay the course.

Hence, pageants who would display their bodies in so-called beauty contests, which are likely to be funded by Zionist organizations, can never reflect the reality of Palestinian women.

Having said that, I realize that it  is  unlikely that moral degeneration rather than poverty is the driving causes behind this moral downfall.

I do hope that Muslim Ulema will devote their sermons on Friday to raise people’s awareness against these “immoral plots” targeting our people.

I also hope that it is not too late to prevent the agents of moral decadence from holding their pornographic contest in Ramallah, which is less than 15 miles away from the Aqsa Mosque.

Some people might think that we are making an issue out of nothing.

But, Nay, for a people who allow these abominations to occur in their midst will not have the moral immunity to resist, let alone defeat, their enemies.

I believe that a single  pornographic or semi-pornographic party in occupied Palestine would have an impact more disastrous than a hundred Israeli air raids or forays against our population centers.  Zionist raids kill humans and destroy buildings. But moral decadence destroys the collective soul of a people.

Finally, does anyone think that we could repulse fanatical Jewish settlers seeking our destruction and extirpation from our ancestral homeland  by displaying the naked bodies of our women in x-rated parties in Ramallah?

Judeo-Nazi settlers rampage through West Bank, IOF looks on

Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine

Netanyahu and the settlements…..

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

click on image to enlarge

Twenty nine years ago today…. forever remembered and loved

(Ben Heine © Cartoons)