By Eileen Fleming

I’m not a traitor.  I’m a man with a conscience who did what he did out of a deep belief after much thought and many doubts.  But I knew that I had to do it, that I had no choice…somebody had to do it…I contributed my share by making public what the public ought to know and they shut my mouth behind the prison walls. -Mordechai Vanunu

December 14, 2009

Mordechai Vanunu was released from Ashkelon prison to open air captivity in east Jerusalem on April 21, 2004 after 18 years-most all in solitary-on April 21, 2004.

In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu was clubbed, drugged, bound and kidnapped from Rome by the Mossad because he told the truth and provided the photographic proof of their clandestine 7 story underground WMD facility in the Negev.

In the case of Mordechai Vanunu, Americans and the World need to know that the restrictions that have held him captive in Jerusalem come from the Emergency Defense Regulations which were implemented by Britain against Palestinians and Jews after World War II.

After WW II, Attorney Yaccov Shapiro, who later became Israel’s Minister Of Justice, described the Emergency Defense Regulations as “unparalleled in any civilized country: there were no such laws in Nazi Germany.”

During one of my seven trips to Jerusalem since 2005, I asked Vanunu, “If the British Mandate has expired why not the British Mandate’s Emergency Defense Regulations?”

Vaunu replied, “The reason given is security but it is because Israel is not a democracy unless you are a Jew. This administration tells me I am not allowed to speak to foreigners, the Media, and the world. But I do because that is how I prove my true humanity to the world. My freedom of speech trial began January 25, 2006 for speaking to the media, the same day as the Palestinian elections…When I decided to expose Israel’s nuclear weapons I acted out of conscience and to warn the world to prevent a nuclear holocaust.”

In 1963, Peres was Israel’s Deputy Minister of Defense when he met with President Kennedy at the White House. Kennedy told Peres, “You know that we follow very closely the discovery of any nuclear development in the region. This could create a very dangerous situation. For this reason we monitor your nuclear effort. What could you tell me about this?”

Peres replied, “I can tell you most clearly that we will not introduce nuclear weapons to the region, and certainly we will not be the first.”

In 2005, Vanunu told me, “President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building atomic weapons. In 1963, he forced Prime Minister Ben Guirion to admit the Dimona was not a textile plant, as the sign outside proclaimed, but a nuclear plant. The Prime Minister said, ‘The nuclear reactor is only for peace.’

“Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. He wrote letters demanding that Ben Guirion open up the Dimona for inspection. The French were responsible for the actual building of the Dimona. The Germans gave the money; they were feeling guilty for the Holocaust, and tried to pay their way out. Everything inside was written in French, when I was there, almost twenty years ago.

“Back then, the Dimona descended seven floors underground. In 1955, Perez and Guirion met with the French to agree they would get a nuclear reactor if they fought against Egypt to control the Sinai and Suez Canal. That was the war of 1956. Eisenhower demanded that Israel leave the Sinai, but the reactor plant deal continued on.

“When Johnson became president, he made an agreement with Israel that two senators would come every year to inspect. Before the senators would visit, the Israelis would build a wall to block the underground elevators and stairways. From 1963 to ’69, the senators came, but they never knew about the wall that hid the rest of the Dimona from them.

“Nixon stopped the inspections and agreed to ignore the situation. As a result, Israel increased production. In 1986, there were over two hundred bombs. Today, they may have enough plutonium for ten bombs a year.”

On January 25, 2006, after nearly two years of speaking to hundreds of foreigners since his release from prison, Vanunu was convicted by the Jerusalem Magistrates Court of 15 violations of a military order that had prohibited him from talking to non-Israelis and because he attempted to “leave the state” by taking a cab from Jerusalem to Bethlehem to attend Christmas Eve mass at the Church of the Nativity in 2004. The original indictment included 22 different violations; Vanunu was charged with 19 and acquitted of four. He was acquitted of speaking to foreign nationals on the internet and via video and voice chats.

Just prior to the taping of “30 Minutes with Vanunu” on March 26, 2006, Vanunu told me, “Many journalists come here to the American Colony, from CNN and NY Times. They all want to cover my story, but their EDITORS say no…CNN wants to interview me; but they say they can’t do it because they don’t want problems with the Israeli censor. BBC is doing the same thing. Sixty Minutes from the United States from the beginning they wanted to do a program, but because of the censor situation they decide not to do it.”

On July 2, 2007, Israel sentenced Vanunu to six more months in jail for speaking to foreign media in 2004. On September 23, 2008, the Jerusalem District Court reduced Vanunu’s sentence to three months, “In light of (Vanunu’s) ailing health and the absence of claims that his actions put the country’s security in jeopardy.”

On June 14, 2009, Vanunu told me, “The Central Commander of the General Army testified in court that it is OK if I speak in public as long as I do not talk about nuclear weapons.”

Vanunu’s restrictions will be reviewed again by the Israeli High Court after Dec. 21, 2009. On July 6, 2009, the Supreme Court stated, “pending a review of his conduct, Vanunu will be able to ask for the restrictions to be lifted and be allowed to travel abroad…The state’s representative noted that six months may be too short a time period to determine a change in Vanunu’s behavior and that the state will reconsider the restrictions based not only on Vanunu’s behavior but a host of other considerations, including the time that had lapsed since he divulged state secrets to the British paper.” [1]

It will soon be twenty-four years since Vanunu “divulged state secrets” and as Vanunu told me, “All the secrets I had were published in 1989 in an important book, by [Nuclear Physicist] Frank Barnaby, The Invisible Bomb: Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East.” [2]

Regarding Israeli behavior towards Vanunu, Americans need to know that in 1986, Israel kidnapped him from Rome but Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: “No one shall he subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention”, including abduction of a person by agents of one state to another state.

Vanunu was charged with and convicted of treason and espionage. According to Section 99 of the Israeli Penal Code, treason is defined as “an act calculated to assist (an enemy) in time of war…delivering information with the intention that it fall into the hands of the enemy.”

Section 113 defines aggravated espionage as “deliver(ing) any secret information without being authorized to do so and with intent to impair the security of the state” and a sub-clause provides for a penalty of seven years for the unauthorized collection, preparation, recording or holding of secret information; if this is done with intent to impair the security of the state and then, the penalty is increased to 15 years.

Vanunu got 18 years and was also rendered defenseless when the court ruled that his motivations were not ideological and they refused to allow Vanunu’s own statements regarding his intentions to be considered in his defense.

A few days before Vanunu was lured from London to Rome, where he was clubbed, drugged and kidnapped by the Mossad, he spent three days being interviewed by Nuclear Physicist, Frank Barnaby.

Barnaby had been employed by the London Sunday Times to review the 57 photos Vanunu had obtained at various restricted locations in the Dimona and he also went to Jerusalem to provide expert testimony at Vanunu’s closed door trial.

Barnaby testified, “I found the fact that Vanunu was able to smuggle a camera and films into and out of Dimona and photograph highly sensitive areas in the establishment astonishing. I very vigorously cross-examined Vanunu, relentlessly asking the same questions in a number of different ways and at different times…I found Vanunu very straightforward about his motives for violating Israel’s secrecy laws he explained to me that he believed that both the Israeli and the world public had the right to know about the information he passed on. He seemed to me to be acting ideologically.

“Israel’s political leaders have, he said, consistently lied about Israel’s nuclear-weapons programme and he found this unacceptable in a democracy. The knowledge that Vanunu had about Isreal’s nuclear weapons, about the operations at Dimona, and about security at Dimona could not be of any use to anyone today. He left Dimona in October 1985 and the design of today’s Israeli nuclear weapons will have been considerably changed since then…Modern nuclear weapons bear little relationship to those of the mid-1980.”[3]

A total of 1,200 pages of transcript of that closed door trial have been released and Vanunu told the court: “I wanted to confirm what everyone knew, I didn’t want Israel to go on denying that it had nuclear weapons, and Shimon Peres to go on lying to (then US president) Ronald Reagan, saying that we didn’t have a nuclear arsenal. I also wanted controls to be placed on these weapons.” [4]

Defense witness and the Sunday Times journalist who broke Vanunu’s story, Peter Hounam, stated, “It is clear that, as far as Vanunu’s accusers are concerned, the trial is not only about whether this decision to reveal the secrets of Israel’s atom bomb amounted to treason and espionage, it is also about whether his decision to become a Christian was at the root of his alleged treachery”.

Hounam also testified that “We did not pay him money, but only covered his expenses… Money did not motivate him.” [5]

Sunday Times journalist Wendy Robbins wrote, “Mordechai never asked for nor received a single penny for his information… he blurted out the whole tale without first setting out any financial preconditions. Mordechai got nothing out of the whole episode.   He never `sold’ Israel’s secrets — he told them.”

In the 80’s, Vanunu was transported to and from his closed door trial in a crash helmet, handcuffs and leg-irons, inside a van with blacked out windows that blasted noise to assure Vanunu would not communicate with journalists or supporters. During the court hearings, two Israeli security agents flanked him at all times in order to be able to cover his mouth if he began to reveal anything they deemed secret. The public, the press and all observers-even Amnesty International- were excluded from the hearings and the court’s judgment was censored before publication.

On January 25, 2006, the first day of a freedom of speech trial in Israel only two reporters from minor media showed up for Vanunu’s historic court case. Not one was in the court room on February 22, 2006, when it was revealed that Israel had gotten Microsoft to hand over all the details of Vanunu’s Hotmail account before a court order had been obtained by eluding that he was being charged for espionage.

Vanunu wrote, “Microsoft obeyed the orders and gave them all the details…three months before I was arrested and my computers were confiscated…it is strange to ask Microsoft to give this information before obtaining the court order to listen to my private conversations. It means they wanted to go through my emails in secret, or maybe, with the help of the secret services, the Shaback, Mossad…Sfard [Vanunu's attorney] proved that the police had misled the judges who gave the orders to arrest me: to search my room, to go through my email, to confiscate my computers and that they misled Microsoft to believe they are helping in a case of espionage. The State came to the court with two special secret Government orders; Hisaion [documents or information that are deemed confidential by the government and kept from the court, the defendant, and lawyers.] This allows the prosecution to keep documents related to my court hearing secret. One was from the Minister for Interior Security and one from the Minister of Defense.”

Americans need to know that Vanunu’s secretly taped police interrogations, his 2004 Christmas Eve arrest for “attempting to leave the country” when he attempted to celebrate his first Christmas out of prison at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the confiscation of his private property by thirty Israeli Forces that stormed into his room at St. George’s Cathedral in 2004, according to Vanunu had all “been done…under the false and misleading statements to the courts of ’suspicion of espionage’, and yet they are not charging me with spy crimes… and the fact is that I have not committed any crimes.”

When Vanunu next faces the Israeli Supreme Court, the world will know more about Israeli democracy and Justice. Until then, learn more @ http://vanunu.com/ and see and hear Vanunu in 2005, 2006, 2008 video interviews freely streaming @ VANUNU ARCHIVES: http://wearewideawake.org/

1.      http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443734213&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

2.      http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1370&Itemid=223

3.      http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/barnaby.pdf

4.      http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/onvan.htm

5.      http://www.toysatellite.org/babel/vanunu/vaninfo.html#top

Eileen Fleming, Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com Author of “Keep Hope Alive” and “Memoirs of a Nice Irish American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory”  Producer “30 Minutes with Vanunu” and “13 Minutes with Vanunu”

Source

Perils of criticizing Israel

Seem you get a lot of e-mail some of it being hate mail. I think all media who receives  mountains of mail should keep it and publish it so the readers can see just what happens.

And /Or Do what this organization has done.

Supporters of U.S. Chamber of Commerce Make Violent Threats Against VR

So they Contacted the FBI

To the FBI

Re: Request for criminal investigation of death threats and use intimidation and violent threats

Enough with the hate and intimidation. All Israel wants to do is remove our Freedom of Speech and remove the Freedom of the Press. They want us all kept in the dark.

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Jewish town, Mitzpeh Kamon, won’t let Arab build home on his own land

Israeli settlers attack mosque in West Bank

West Bank Rabbi: Jews can kill Gentiles who threaten Israel including Children and even Babies

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Related

Israel’s Dirty Nuclear Secrets, Human Experiments  and WMD

Leading Edge Personal Assistants in Israel® is moving even further up in the world of Personal Assistant Services with a spiffy new logo and its Executive Director, D’vorah Joy Hoffmann, on “special assignment.”  D’vorah had been hand-picked to act as “Logistics Coordinator” in the “Department of Event Preparations” for a conference that took place on December 1st in Tel Aviv, Israel entitled “Safe City Tel Aviv 2009″ (and its subsequent meticulously designed Israel Experience Tour) which had drawn dignitaries and illustrious speakers from all over the globe,  and especially from the United States of America.

It’s objective: the discussion of seeking solutions and to finding ways of combating security risks, and the eradication of the recent inordinate high number  of violent crimes, not only here in Israel, but all over the world.

At this moment, much of what D’vorah is still working on and is involved with is not privy to public knowledge, however stick around for a very special update to this article coming on December 7, 2009; just about 3 days from now.

However, and in the meantime; part of her special assignment was to meet up with an awesome group of individuals.  These are the dedicated volunteers of the Arad (which is a city in the Negev Desert) Search and Rescue Team.  We salute these brave men who give much of their time and their strength to saving lives in treacherous and hard-to-reach places!  Lucky girl; who wouldn’t want to be rescued by these sweet, but strapping Israelis?

HonestReporting Media BackSpin, 23. November 2009

Air Force Ballet

Dusk Over the Kinneret

I’m So Cute

Negev Sand Tsunami

Sunset Skater

Min artikel om miljömedvetande i Nitzana, Negevöknen som publicerades i Menorah. En oas som fler borde besöka – bara en timme från Beer Sheva, och en känsla av att vara väldigt långt borta från civilisationen. Fascinerande och helt underbart ställe.

Quando l’attacco di bulimia porta all’arresto. E’ quello che è successo a un uomo di 35 anni di Beersheva (nel centro di Israele). Nel cuore della notte, e con tutti i negozi chiusi, il protagonista non ha resistito all’attacco di fame e ne ha scassinato uno pur di mangiare il suo snack preferito: le patatine al burro d’arachidi “Bamba”. Le più vendute nel Paese.

Dopo avere forzato la serratura della saracinesca sotto casa l’uomo si è messo a mangiare le patatine sul posto abbandonando la confezione sul bancone. L’indomani, il proprietario si è accorto dello strano furto ed è stato lui stesso a indirizzare la polizia sulle tracce di un cliente abituale, descritto come un consumatore compulsivo di “Bamba”. Il lavoro dei poliziotti – facilitato dal fatto che sul sacchetto c’erano le impronte del 35enne – s’è concluso con il fermo e la confessione. “Avevo i crampi allo stomaco”, si è giustificato.

Chissà se, la prossima settimana, il giudice proverà a chiudere un occhio o lo obbligherà a stare a non meno di 50 metri dalle confezioni di patatine.

Manuel sagte am Freitag in einem Kommentar:

Es ist ganz typisch, daß der Islam eine Art „Lähmung“ seiner Gegner hervorruft, einen paralysierten Zustand, das Gefühl, „daß man ja eh nichts machen kann“…

In OROP Wüste (S. 55f) beschreibt Reich, wie „Stille“ und „Stumpfheit“ sich bei Ausbreitung von DOR (abgestorbene und dadurch giftig gewordene Orgonenergie) über die Landschaft legt. Die Vögel verstummen, alles sieht traurig aus und verliert an Spannkraft, die Atmosphäre funkelt nicht mehr, alles wirkt und wird schwarz, depressiv und abgestorben. Genauso ist es, wenn bekennende Moslems die Szene betreten: die Stimmung kippt, als würde eine schwarze Wolke sich niedersenken. Auf diese Weise werden zunächst Stadtviertel, dann ganze Länder Teil Saharasias.

Wo immer sich Moslems niederlassen, verweigern sie die Assimilation, beuten wie selbstverständlich das Sozialsystem aus, verlangen Sonderrechte und schließlich Dominanz. Typisch dafür ist das Verhalten, der dänischen Imame, die, nachdem sie im „Karikaturenstreit“ von 2005 vor dänischen Gerichten kein Gehör fanden, sich mit teilweise selbst gefälschten Karikaturen (Mohammed aus islamischer Sicht? Als Schwein, Päderast und Sodomist!) an die islamische Welt wandten, damit diese Dänemark zur Räson bringt. Tolle Gäste! Tolle „Einwanderer“!

Überhaupt Dänemark als beliebiges Beispiel:

Mit vier Prozent Anteil an der dänischen Gesamtbevölkerung beanspruchen die muslimischen Einwanderer über 40 Prozent der gesamten dänischen Sozialausgaben.
[Sie] stellen aber die absolute Majorität aller verurteilten Vergewaltiger – was unter dem Gesichtspunkt, daß praktisch alle vergewaltigten Frauen nicht muslimisch waren, eine politische Zeitbombe sein dürfte.
Ähnliche disproportionale Ergebnisse gibt es für nahezu alle Bereich mittlerer und schwerer Kriminalität.

Wo immer sich Moslems niederlassen, hinterlassen sie eine Wüste. Man schaue sich nur an, was sie aus „Felix Arabia“, dem einst blühenden Mittleren Osten, Nordafrika und dem Byzantinischen Reich gemacht haben!

Besonders vielsagend ist in diesem Zusammenhang die Satellitenaufnahme unten. Zwischen der israelischen Negev-Wüste und dem Sinai (der in einem Anfall von nicht nur selbstmörderischem, sondern verbrecherischem Wahnsinn 1982 an die Araber zurückgegeben wurde) verläuft eine schnurgrade Linie. Auf israelischer Seite ist der Boden grau-grün-bräunlich, die Wüste lebt und verwandelt sich bei den seltenen Regenschauern in ein Blumenmeer, während auf ägyptischer Seite die gelbe Farbe auf eine tote Wüste hinweist, die bei jedem Regen weiter ausgewaschen wird. So ist es in jedem Bereich: von der Sexualökonomie, zur Wirtschaft, zur Bildung – in allem zeigt sich der Gegensatz „ORgon versus DOR“.

Polemik, Übertreibung, Ignoranz, Islamophobie, Rassismus? Man höre doch bitte, wie der ehemalige Moslembruder Hamed Abdel-Samad das Leben in Ägypten aus sexualökonomischer Sicht beschreibt!

Ähnliches konnte man vor 1989 mit dem sozialistischen Äquivalent zum Islam erleben, wenn man zwischen der Bundesrepublik und der „DDR“ hin und her wechselte. Nicht nur die Menschen, sondern sogar die Natur waren depressiv und „ver-DOR-t“.

The issue of dividing the land of Israel is of utmost seriousness to God. God will surely bring judgment upon those who promote the division of the land He calls His own (see scripture bellow). This issue will ultimately be  settled by Jesus at His return during the Battle of Armageddon (in the Valley of Jehoshaphat). America would certainly enter a new level of judgment by God should the Obama administration go forth with their intention to support the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian State including such large portions of the land allotted by God to the Jewish people.

Let us pray that God will bring about a change of course in these decisions.

“FOR BEHOLD, in those days and at that time when I shall reverse the captivity and restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all nations and will bring them down into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and there will I deal with and execute judgment upon them for their treatment of My people and of My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and because they have divided My land.” (Joel 3:1-2)

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad

TEL AVIV – The U.S. is considering adopting a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence in the West Bank and Jerusalem regardless of negotiations with the Jewish state, according to Israeli sources speaking to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.

WND first reported in September that according to a top Palestinian Authority official, the Obama administration has largely adopted the positions of the PA to create a Palestinian state within two years based on the pre-1967 borders, meaning Israel would retreat from most of the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem.

WND reported that the White House had accepted the positions of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who had quietly called for a state on the pre-1967 borders within two years.

Now Haaretz is quoting reports indicating that Fayyad has reached a secret understanding with the Obama administration over U.S. recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

Haaretz quoted Israeli sources stating Fayyad’s plan specifies that at the end of a designated period for bolstering national institutions, the PA, in conjunction with the Arab League, would file a “claim of sovereignty” to the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly over the 1967 borders.

Israeli officials further told Haaretz that Fayyad had boasted of positive meetings about his plan with prominent EU member states, including the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Sweden.

Fayyad also told Israeli officials the Obama administration did not oppose his plan.

A senior Israeli foreign-policy official told Haaretz, “It’s a very dangerous move.”

Israeli sources further said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is in Washington today, discussed Fayyad’s proposal in previous meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Obama’s Mideast envoy George Mitchell.

Netanyahu reportedly requested the U.S. tell Fayyad that it would not support his proposal and would veto it in the Security Council. Haaretz reported Netanyahu has yet to receive a clear response from Washington on its stance on Fayyad’s plan.

‘Obama can create headache for Netanyahu’

A top PA official told WND in September that the Obama administration told the PA it will support the announcement of a Palestinian state within two years.

The official also said Obama had accepted the PA position that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations begin where they left off under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who went further than previous Israeli leaders in his concessions to the Palestinians.

Olmert reportedly offered the PA not only 95 percent of the West Bank and peripheral eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods but also other territories never before offered by any Israeli leader, including parts of the Israeli Negev desert bordering Gaza as well as sections of the Jordan Valley.

“We understand from the U.S. that the Netanyahu government is not in a position to go against creating a state within two years,” the PA official said.

The official claimed the Obama administration was ready to ultimately consider “sanctions” against Israel if the Netanyahu government rejected negotiations leading to a Palestinian state. The official refused to clarify which sanctions he was referring to or whether he was specifically told by the U.S. government it would consider sanctions.

Obama can make a “headache” for Netanyahu if the Israeli leader does not conduct negotiations leading within two years to a Palestinian state, the PA official claimed.

After breakfast, we departed the hotel in Tiberias and headed north along the Sea of Galilee, then through the Hula valley between the Ridge of Napthali on the Lebanese border and the mountains ridge of the Golan Heights, to Tel Dan. Tel Dan is located in the extreme north end of Israel. It’s one of the northernmost areas in the country, nestled on a “land peninsula” between Lebanon to the north and west and Syria to the east. I don’t think Dan is a modern city, but Tel Dan is the site of both a beautiful nature reserve and some very interesting ruins.

Our guide explained to us that 60% of the southern half of Israel (called the Negev) is desert. On the way to the Tel we encountered a fairly massive artificial hill on the northwest shore of the Galilee sea. This hill houses three underground (evidently fairly massive) pumps which extract fresh water from the Sea of Galilee and pump it south to the Negev for irrigation. This is one of the many ways that Israel has restored life to the region since being re-established as a nation in 1948. What’s most amazing about this is that pumping this water south from Galilee (below sea level) is entirely an uphill process, so it takes a lot of power and pressure.

Another thing we saw along the way was very rocky soil, the result of volcanic activity in the area millennia ago. I was reminded of the parable of the four soils in Matthew 13. It was very obvious that the people listening to Jesus would have known exactly what he was talking about. I have pictures, but like many things they don’t really do it justice.

Despite some very rocky areas, we saw fruits and vegetables growing everywhere. Pretty much anything you can imagine: avocados, bananas, oranges, apples, grapefruit, dates, and so on. Every field had something different growing in it. It’s not hard to understand why Israel is the bread basket of the Middle East, why God called it a land flowing with milk and honey, or why everyone and their brother in that area (who are living in squalor in the dessert) wants to take it away from them (or destroy it if they can’t have it).

It was also pointed out that there are generally very few workers harvesting crops in the fields or working on roads, etc. When Faith and I visited the Philippines, we noticed how little equipment there was, and that most construction was accomplished by large numbers of men with very rudimentary tools. In Israel, much like in the United States, there is a lot of technology applied to construction and agriculture. One example I found amusing is that they have automated cow milkers. These are unmanned robotic stalls stuck out in a field of dairy cows. The cows eat all they want in the field, but there are treats dispensed by the robots. The cow comes into the stall to get the treat, the doors closed, and the robot milks the cow. It is then released back into the field. If the same cow tries to come back too soon, it is rejected by the milker robot and has to come back later. How cool!

But I digress. On to Tel Dan…

Dan was originally called Lyeish in the days of Moses and Abraham. The first thing we saw at the nature reserve that stands there now was the River Dan, one of the three tributaries which converge in northern Israel to form the Jordan river. Two of the three fountainheads of the Jordan originate in this area of the country. As the Jordan supplies much of the fresh water to Israel, it’s easy to understand why Israel wouldn’t want to give up control of it by giving up the territory in the Golan Heights.

We saw the ruins of an ancient site of one of the two pagan ritual centers that King Jeroboam built in about 1700 BC. The other was in Beth’El, Even so closely following the reigns of David and Solomon, the kingdom was divided and the people began intermarrying with pagan nations and following their gods. Jeroboam set up these two ritual centers to make it more convenient for people to get them rather than going all the way to Jerusalem (which I sortof understand having seen how far they’d have had to walk to get there). As our guide talked about how the Hebrews forgot God once they began to intermingle with their pagan neighbors, I thought about how much easier and more convenient it is to “follow” a god of your own making or choosing. It’s so much harder to build a real relationship with the One True God of the Universe.

At both of ritual centers, the rebellious Hebrews erected golden calves to be worshipped and to whom to sacrifice. The temple was set on a hill overlooking the Lebanon border, and I found it quite intimidating to be able to look down into a valley and see one town on the Israeli side and another on the Lebanese side. It was the first time I felt uncomfortable being so close to a spot where real war and conflict had been and could be again so easily. This was especially true after we spent a great deal of time while the bus was en route discussing conflict experienced with Lebanon and Syria over the years, including recent times when Syria thought it would be a good idea to lob thousands of rockets over the border into villages on the northern end of Israel. We saw those villages. Can you imagine living *there*? You’d think frequent rocket attacks would be hard on property values.

Coming over a hill, we were faced with a large downward slope. Ahead of us were the high ridges of the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon. Our guide explained that there were only a limited number of routes through mountain passes in this range, so again another extreme value of this territory. The main roads connecting places like Damascus with Jerusalem or Egypt pretty much have to come through the Golans, so Israel is pretty motivated not to give them up.

Next we came to a very well preserved gate section of a wall that once protected a Canaanite city there. These ruins were about 3700 years old. In fact, Abram is thought to have passed through these very gates in pursuit of the kings who kidnapped his nephew Lot in Genesis 14. Pretty cool to have walked in a place where Abram walked.

We also saw another entrance into the city where the king would sit to judge or listen to news as people approached. See 2 Samuel 19 as an example.

An interesting fact about Tel Dan. The excavation of archeological sites in this area revealed the only place where the term “House of David” has ever been found.

“Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev… he went on his journeys from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place of the altar which he had made there formerly; and there Abram called on the name of the LORD.”  Genesis 13:1-4

Many people today read scripture without asking questions of the text.  If we don’t stop to consider the motives of the people we are reading about, we may miss the bigger picture.  Genesis 12:1 – 13:4 is a story of reconciliation.  I am not sure why those who determined where the chapters should begin and end in the modern bible did not end chapter 12 here, as it brings the early part of our story with Abram full-circle.  If we think this portion of the text is about how God calls Abram, he goes to Canaan, takes a little trip down to Egypt and has a run-in with Pharaoh, but then goes on his way, we are missing the story!  See my previous postings for more details.

There is spiritual significance to many of the events between the time Abram is called by God in 12:1 and his return to the altar in 13:4.  Abram’s decision to go to Egypt in and of itself was not necessarily wrong or sinful.  It is true that we don’t know if God intended him to go to Egypt for provision or if God would have provided in Canaan despite the famine.  However, Abram’s decision to lie about Sarai being his sister was a sin.  Instead of trusting God for protection, Abram feared the Egyptians and sought to protect himself at the expense of the safety of his wife.  And like any lie, we see the trouble that ensues culminating in the confrontation with Pharaoh.  This seemingly simple lie on Abram’s part could have caused Pharaoh to commit the much greater sin of adultery.  It also resulted in unjust gain to Abram.

If we read what Abram did matter-of-factly, or don’t look at what he did as really lying or otherwise doing anything wrong, we miss the significance of the ending of this part of the story: the return to the altar.  In fact, the text refers to the place where Abram had his tent “at the beginning”.  This is speaking of the spiritual life of Abram and its new beginning with God, as Abram’s actual beginning would be back in Ur of the Chaldeans which is now the past.  Some translations even speak of Abram ‘descending’ to Egypt, in contrast to him ascending back to a better spiritual condition after the ordeal.

This interpretation shows us that when when we lie, we must go back to the time and  place before we sinned to set things right with God again – back to the place of the altar to call upon the name of the LORD – before we can move forward again spiritually.

Oleh: Faisal Assegaf

Presiden Amerika Serikat Barack Hussein Obama saja terkejut, apalagi warga dunia. Barangkali tidak ada seorang pun di jagad ini yang menyangka pada 9 Oktober lalu ia akan memperoleh Nobel Perdamaian hanya dalam sembilan bulan masa jabatannya. Komite Nobel di Ibu Kota Oslo , Norwegia, beralasan ia sudah berupaya sangat besar untuk menciptakan dunia bebas senjata nuklir dan situasi hubungan internasional lebih baik, terutama mengenai hubungan negaranya dengan dunia Islam.

Sebuah penilaian terburu-buru untuk menyimpulkan kebijakan Obama, 48 tahun, soal perdamaian dunia bakal berhasil. Belum ada satu pun dari dua gagasan besar itu yang terwujud. Lima anggota tetap Dewan Keamanan Perserikatan Bangsa-Bangsa ditambah India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran, dan Korea Utara masih memiliki kekuatan nuklir. Hubungan Amerika dan Islam pun belum harmonis. Jadi, pantas saja ia terkejut dan kontroversi soal Nobel merebak.

Dua ambisi Obama itu seperti mimpi yang mustahil dicapai. Bagaimana mungkin presiden kulit hitam pertama Amerika ini menyerukan dunia tanpa senjata pemusnah massal selagi Amerika masih mempunyai cadangan. Tentu saja, mereka harus memberikan contoh lebih dulu agar negara-negara berkekuatan nuklir lain meyakini itikad baiknya. Namun, dapat dipastikan Washington menolak menjadi negara pertama yang melucuti senjata nuklir.

Lucunya lagi, belum bisa menjadi panutan, negara Abang Sam ini melarang Iran dan Korea Utara memiliki teknologi nuklir. Sejak periode pertama pemerintahan mantan presiden George Walker Bush, Amerika getol berkampanye agar masyarakat internasional menekan kedua negara itu. Gedung Putih menganggap Pyongyang yang komunis dan Teheran yang anti-Zionis ancaman bagi perdamaian dunia karena dipercaya sudah memiliki senjata nuklir.

Untuk kasus India dan Pakistan , isu ini kian rumit diselesaikan. Kedua negara bertetangga ini sudah tiga kali berperang sejak Pakistan lepas dari India pada 1947. Konflik berkepanjangan menyangkut klaim atas wilayah Kashmir ini membuat hubungan mereka selalu dihantui kecurigaan. Alhasil, kekuatan nuklir yang sungguh dahsyat sangat diperlukan untuk mencegah kedua negara saling serang.

Seruan Obama ini juga akan dipandang sebelah mata karena standar ganda yang mereka terapkan atas Israel . Gedung Putih tidak pernah mengecam atau menyatakan kecurigaan negara Zionis itu telah mempunyai senjata nuklir. Padahal bukti nyata sudah diketahui dunia. Mordechai Vanunu, ahli nuklir yang pernah bekerja di Reaktor Dimona, kawasan gurun Negev, membocorkan Israel menyimpan 200 hulu ledak nuklir. Karena tindakannya itu, Vanunu sempat mendekam di penjara isolasi 18 tahun dan sekarang dikenai status tahanan kota di Yerusalem Timur. Israel dipastikan tidak akan mau melucuti senjata nuklirnya karena sadar ancaman besar hidup di tengah negara-negara Arab yang memusuhi mereka.

Mimpi kedua juga sungguh sulit diwujudkan selama Palestina belum merdeka. Isu ini menjadi satu-satunya kunci untuk masuk ke situasi hubungan harmonis antara Amerika bersama sekutunya dengan negara-negara Muslim dan terciptanya perdamaian di Timur Tengah. Dalam pertemuan dengan Perdana Menteri Israel Benjamin Netanyahu di Gedung Putih Mei lalu, Presiden ke-44 Amerika ini menyampaikan rancangan pembentukan negara Palestina paling lambat tiga tahun mendatang.

Dukungan penuh dan hubungan khusus antara Amerika dan Israel telah melahirkan kelompok-kelompok yang anti terhadap kedua negara itu, seperti Hamas di Palestina, Hizbullah di Libanon, serta Al-Qaidah dan Taliban di Afganistan dan Pakistan. Ia pun harus siap menanggung risiko anjlok popularitasnya di kalangan Muslim karena memindahkan medan perang dari Irak ke Afganistan.

Namun usaha keras Obama mendamaikan kedua pihak yang bertikai lebih dari enam dekade itu gagal. Lawatan ulang-alik utusan khusus George Mitchell dan Menteri Luar Negeri Hillary Rodham Clinton ke Timur Tengah hanya membawa tangan kosong. Yang terjadi, ia malah dipermalukan lantaran Perdana Menteri Israel Benjamin Netanyahu menolak tuntutannya agar pembangunan permukiman Yahudi di Yerusalem Timur, Tepi Barat, dihentikan. Obama merasa isu ini penting karena Presiden Otoritas Palestina sekaligus pemimpin Fatah Mahmud Rida Abbas menjadikan itu sebagai syarat kembali ke meja perundingan.

Proyek permukiman ini merupakan strategi Tell Aviv untuk mengusir warga Palestina dari Yerusalem Timur, kota suci tiga agama – Islam Yahudi, dan Kristen – yang diimpikan menjadi ibu kota negara Palestina mendatang. Meski melanggar hukum internasional, Negeri Bintang Daud ini sudah menetapkan Yerusalem sebagai ibu kota abadi mereka dan tidak dapat dibagi dua melalui Jerusalem Basic Law yang disahkan Knesset (parlemen Israel) pada 1980. Seluruh kantor pemerintahan, termasuk kediaman resmi Netanyahu sudah pindah ke Yerusalem. Sebagai gantinya, Israel menawarkan Abu Dis di pinggiran Yerusalem Timur, sebagai calon ibu kota Palestina merdeka.

Semestinya itu bukan prioritas pertama. Obama harus lebih dulu merekatkan kembali persatuan antara Hamas dan Fatah Perpecahan keduanya juga dipicu penolakan Amerika bersama Israel atas kekuasaan Hamas yang memenangkan pemilihan umum 25 Januari 2006 karena mereka anggap sebagai organisasi teroris. Perdamaian dua kelompok terbesar di Palestina ini sangat diperlukan agar bangsa Palestina mempunyai satu suara dalam berunding dengan negara Yahudi itu.

Namun misi itu pun masih terhambat oleh sikap agresif Israel terhadap rakyat Palestina. Obama sebaiknya segera menghentikan isolasi atas Jalur Gaza yang mengakibatkan sekitar 1,5 juta penduduk mati pelan-pelan lantaran pasokan bahan makanan, listrik, air, bahan bakar, obat-obatan, dan barang lainnya kian menipis. Kondisi mereka makin mengenaskan setelah Israel menggempur wilayah itu selama 22 hari dan menewaskan lebih dari 1.400 orang, setengahnya anak-anak dan perempuan. Israel beralasan itu sebagai hukuman atas serangan roket yang dilancarkan pejuang Hamas dan Jihad Islam ke wilayah selatan negara itu. Tentu saja, akibat dan kerusakan yang ditimbulkan tidak sebanding.

Presiden dari Partai Demokrat ini juga mesti menyetop dan menghancurkan proyek Tembok Pemisah di Tepi Barat. Pembangunan dinding apartheid ini telah menyerobot dan mengambil paksa tanah-tanah milik warga Palestina. Kebebasan mereka pun – yang sudah dibatasi oleh 650 pos pemeriksaan militer Israel – kian terbelenggu. Tembok sepanjang 750 kilometer ini hanya dilengkapi satu pintu keluar-masuk di tiap kota yang dilewati. Mereka juga diawasi kamera pengawas 24 jam dan pesawat pengintai tanpa awak.

Dengan hasil nol yang diraih Obama sejauh ini, ia belum pantas meraih penghargaan itu. Kalau sekadar gagasan hebat dan usaha keras yang dijadikan pertimbangan Komite Nobel, Richard Goldstone yang mengepalai tim pencari fakta Perserikatan Bangsa-Bangsa di Gaza lebih berhak. Ini pertama kalinya PBB menyelidiki perang yang melibatkan Israel , satu tindakan yang wajib diacungi jempol.

Hasilnya benar-benar mengejutkan. Laporan 575 halaman yang disusun hakim keturunan Yahudi dari Afrika Selatan itu bersama empat anggota timnya menyimpulkan Israel dan Hamas sama-sama melakukan kejahatan perang dalam 22 hari agresi Israel ke Gaza. Laporan tim pencari fakta ini merekomendasikan kepada Dewan Keamanan PBB untuk memerintahkan Israel dan Palestina membuat penyelidikan independent atas kesimpulan itu. Jika dalam enam bulan tidak ada hasil, Dewan Keamanan harus membawa kasus ini ke Mahkamah Kejahatan Internasional di Den Haag, Belanda. Sepekan setelah laporan ini diumumkan pada pertengahan bulan lalu, rezim Obama menyebut kesimpulan itu tidak adil karena dianggap lebih menyoroti kekejaman yang dilakukan Israel ketimbang apa yang diperbuat Hamas.

Calon kuat terakhir yang lebih patut ketimbang Obama adalah Presiden Mesir Husni Mubarak. Selama tiga tahun terakhir, ia sudah melakukan apa yang belum diperbuat oleh Obama, yakni menengahi perundingan Palestina-Israel, Hamas-Israel, dan Hamas-Fatah walau tanpa hasil. Ia pula yang kadang mengizinkan pasokan kebutuhan warga Gaza masuk melalui pintu perbatasan di Rafah. Amerika pun selalu menjadikan mitra untuk menghidupkan proses perdamaian Palestina dan Israel . Saking pentingnya posisi Mesir, Obama menjadikan Kairo sebagai tempat untuk menyampaikan gagasan hubungan baru dengan dunia Muslim, sebuah pidato yang disanjung banyak pihak.

Masyarakat internasional boleh saja menaruh harapan terlampau tinggi terhadap Obama. Tapi pemberian Hadiah Nobel kepada Obama pada tahun pertama tanpa prestasi itu terlalu prematur.

Dimuat di Koran Tempo, 26 Oktober 2009

Today, I finally arrived Jerusalem, and it is safe to say  that my time in the Negev is indeed over. I haven’t really had internet, which is why I have not been updating this blog.

These ten or so days in the desert have indeed been interesting to say the least. They have been a combination of socialising, hiking, educational activities and lots of sitting in circles, combined with little to no sleep, frequently moving around, and unsteady eating habits. This hecticness is something that will undoubtedly come to define our year of intensive traveling. We have bonded, learnt quite a lot, and met a series of truly fascinating people.

Among the highlights of our time in the Negev was the opportunity to interact with the Bedouin. The only thing most of us knew about Bedouins up to this point was experiences visiting a fake “Bedouin camp” on previous Israel trips.we quickly learnt that the ttruth about Bedouin life in Israel is much harsher than the quaint picture presented to us in tourist attractions. Most of them live in unrecognized villages and are essentially treated as second-class citizens. Many years ago, the Israeli government attempted to settle the Bedouin into townships, thereby threatening their traditional way of life. This attempt was unsuccessful considering the lack of jobs and resources in these townships, and most Bedouin chose to continue their traditional lifestyle in the land they had lived on for years. We visited one such village, where we were invited to the home of a man named Abu Yusuf for tea and delicious bread. He told us about the difficulties he and his village have had to overcome throughout the years, such as forced evictions amongst other things. We also learnt about other issues within the Bedouin community such as women’s rights through a woman named Amal, a feminist activist in the Bedouin community, as well as Clinton Bailey, an expert on the community and an advocate for Bedouin rights.

Another incredible experience was visiting the Village of Peace in Dimona. This community, essentially an urban Kibbutz, was settled by a group of African-American Jews known as the Hebrew Israelites who made aliya in the late 60s. The group’s practices differ greatly from what is considered ‘mainstream’ Judaism, even though they are strictly adherent to the laws of the Old Testament. For instance, they fast every Shabbat, keep a strict vegan diet, and have a strong emphasis on physical fitness. They created quite a remarkable community here, one which preaches respect and nonviolence, and constantly tries to set itself as an example for the rest of the community. At the same time, I find myself strongly disagreeing with many of their views on things such as their view of women and homosexuality, as well as their rejection of medicine/ science.

These two experiences are undoubtedly amongst the ones that stand out the most, certainly creating a more well-rounded view of what Israel is, and what it contains. Israel is certainly not the fairy-tale utopia I learnt about in youth group, nor is it this awful tyrannical war zone as it is often pictured in the media. Indeed, it is a deeply complex, and extremely flawed place, with quite a screwed-up government and deep political but at the same time, it is wonderful, diverse,  and exciting. Certainly a much more interesting Israel than what any earlier image would have given me. I look forward to what awaits me over the course of this year.

Group-wise, I still feel sort of awkward, as I attempt to find my niche here. Hopefully things will get better…

because colonialism doesn’t just exist in the west bank, this is a reminder of how palestinians in 1948 palestine must contend with their occupiers:

For the 31st time, Israeli Authorities demolished huts and removed tents used by the residents of the unrecognized Tawil Abu Jarwal Arab village in the Negev.

The villages said that Israel authorities are ongoing with their violations against the Bedouins and Arab villagers in the Negev, while the village head, Ibrahim Al Maliky, denounced the violation and stated that it is part of an ongoing Israeli policy against the Arabs.

He added that Israel did not even delay its attack at least until the Holy Muslim Month of Ramadan while the villagers are fasting.

Al Maliky further stated that the Israeli authorities are not granting construction permits for the residents while at the same time the construction of Jewish settlements and malls is ongoing. He added that the authorities must reach a solution and hold talks with the villagers.

The villagers said that they will not leave their lands, and will install tents and live in them.

da Internazionale

Il 20 agosto il professor Neve Gordon, dell’università israeliana Ben-Gurion del Negev, ha pubblicato un articolo sul Los Angeles Times che ha fatto molto discutere. Gordon fa parte del movimento pacifista israeliano, e nel suo editoriale chiede l’aumento della pressione internazionale perché si metta fine all’occupazione israeliana e all’”apartheid” presente nel paese. In questa lotta, Gordon si è unito al movimento Boicottaggio, disinvestimento e sanzioni (Bds) creato a Bilbao nel 2008.

“Se la soluzione dei due stati è l’unico modo per fermare l’apartheid”, si chiede Gordon, “come raggiungere questo obiettivo? Mi sono convinto che l’unica risposta possibile è la pressione dall’esterno. Sicuramente non si tratta di una posizione semplice: io, cittadino israeliano, chiedo ai governi stranieri, ai movimenti e alle associazioni internazionali, alle organizzazioni religiose, ai sindacati e alle persone di sospendere la cooperazione con Israele. Sono convinto che sia l’unica strada possibile per salvare Israele da sé stesso”.

L’editoriale ha generato parecchio dibattito e qualche polemica. La preside dell’università dove insegna Gordon, Rivka Carmi, ha risposto con un altro editoriale sul Los Angeles Times, affermando che Gordon “ha usato il pulpito dell’università per sostenere un’opinione persona, ammantando la demagogia di velleità accademiche” e che “i fatti mostrano che quello un boicottaggio distruggerebbe la fabbrica della società che Gordon intende proteggere. Invece di investire in attività che promuovono la coesistenza e la tolleranza, questa richiesta di boicotaggio finirebbe per dividere e isolare Israele”. Altri cittadini israeliani sono stati meno composti, chiedendo che Gordon venisse licenziato o addirittura espulso dal paese. Insomma: un boicottaggio del boicottatore.

Una contraddizione notata da Gideon Levy, su Ha’aretz: “Molti di quelli che promuovono il boicottaggio di Ikea e delle aziende svedesi [a causa della polemica nata qualche settimana fa] sono gli stessi che vorrebbero licenziare il professor Gordon, colpevole di aver promosso l’uso della stessa arma civica”. Al di là degli estremisti di entrambe le parte, la stessa contraddizione avvolge l’intero stato di Israele. “Un paese che chiede costantemente di boicottare altre nazioni, interrompendo relazioni commerciali o auspicando sanzioni, non può giocare il ruolo della vittima quando la stessa arma viene rivolta contro di lei”.

“Fin dal boicottaggio del Sudafrica ai tempi dell’apartheid”, prosegue Levy, “il boicottaggio è stata un’arma piuttosto efficace. Israele lo promuove nei confronti dell’Iran, gli Stati Uniti vogliono imporlo contro la Corea del Nord ed entrambi lo stanno utilizzando nei confronti del governo di Hamas a Gaza. Israele, e con lei buona parte della comunità internazionale, impone il boicottaggio su un milione e mezzo di abitanti di Gaza solo perché non hanno votato il partito che la comunità internazionale chiedeva”.

Differenze di linguaggio e di immagine: 1 e 2) Israele che boicotta Ikea e Svezia, 3 e 4) la comunita’ internazionale che boicotta Israele e i suoi  prodotti

In the letter , Adalah Attorney Morad el-Sana stated that a Green Patrol inspector named Mr. Oren Tsion went to the tent of Ms. al-Kallab on 26 July 2009 and severely beat her. He then cut the tent’s ropes, causing it to collapse and damaging many of her belongings. Attorney el-Sana emphasized that the inspector was not in possession of any court order for the demolition of the house, and that Ms. al-Kallab had been living in the same place for over 15 years, with the knowledge and approval of the Green Patrol.

For full article, visit http://www.adalah.org/eng/pressreleases/pr.php?file=09_08_23

here is jonathan cook’s latest article from the national on palestinians in the naqab:

The inhabitants of the Bedouin village of Amra have good reason to fear that the harsh tactics used by the Israeli army against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have been imported to their small corner of Israel’s Negev desert.

Over the summer, the Tarabin tribe, all of them Israeli citizens, have had the sole access road to their homes sealed off, while the dirt track they must use instead is regularly blocked by temporary checkpoints at which their papers and vehicles are inspected at length.

Coils of razor wire now surround much of the village, and children as young as eight have been arrested in a series of night-time raids.

“Four-fifths of our youngsters now have files with the police and our drivers are being repeatedly fined for supposed traffic violations,” said Tulab Tarabin, one of Amra’s 400 Bedouin inhabitants. “Every time we are stopped, the police ask us: ‘Why don’t you leave?’”

Lawyers and human rights activists say a campaign of pressure is being organised against the Tarabins at the behest of a nearby Jewish community, Omer, which is determined to build a neighbourhood for Israeli army officers on Bedouin land.

“The policy in Israel is that when Jews need land, the Bedouin must move – no matter how long they have been living in their homes or whether their communities predate Israel’s creation,” said Morad al Sana, a lawyer with the Adalah legal centre for Israel’s Arab minority. “The Tarabins’ crime is that they refuse to budge.”

The 180,000 Bedouin in the Negev have never been welcome, says Oren Yiftachel, a geographer at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheva. They are descendants of a few thousand who managed to avoid expulsion from the southern semi-desert region during the 1948 war that founded Israel.

Many of the surviving Bedouin, including the Tarabins, were forcibly relocated from their extensive ancestral lands in the 1950s to an area close to the Negev’s main city, Beersheva, Prof Yiftachel said. Israel declared the Bedouin lands as “state land” and established a series of overcrowded “townships” to house the tribes instead.

“The stated goal is one of ‘Judaisation’,” Prof Yiftachel added, referring to a long-standing policy of concentrating the rural Bedouin into urban reservations to free up land for Jewish settlement. About half of the Negev’s Bedouin, some 90,000, have refused to move.

According to a recent report from the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the townships have “continuously ranked as the poorest, least developed and most crime-ridden towns in Israel”.

The refuseniks, such as the Tarabins, have faced unrelenting pressure to leave their 45 rural communities, none of which is recognised by the state and that foster “third world conditions”, according to ACRI.

“The unrecognised villages are denied basic services to their homes, including water and electricity, and the villages themselves have no master plans,” Mr al Sana said.

As a result, he said, the villagers lived in tin shacks and tents because concrete homes were invariably destroyed by the authorities. In the past two years, several tin shacks as well as the local kindergarten in Amra have been demolished.

The stark contrast between the dusty encampment of Amra and the lawns and villas of Omer, the country’s third wealthiest community and only a stone’s throw away, is unsettling even for some of Omer’s 7,000 residents.

One, Yitzhak Nevo, a philosophy professor at Ben Gurion University and a leading activist with Dukium, a Negev coexistence group, said that although the lands on which the Tarabins lived fell under Omer’s jurisdiction, the Bedouin had been entirely excluded. “Even though they live within Omer’s municipal limits, their children get no education from us; our health clinic does not treat them; they are not hooked up to our water or electricity supplies and their refuse is not collected.”

He said the Tarabins had been treated as nothing more than an eyesore until the mid-1990s when the powerful mayor, Pinhas Badash, decided that the Tarabins were both harming property values and obstructing the town’s expansion plans.

As Omer’s new neighbourhoods reached the limits of Amra, Mr Badash stepped up the pressure on the villagers to leave. A few years ago he pushed through the building of a new community for the Tarabins away from Omer. Two-thirds of the Tarabin clan relocated, while the remainder fought the attempted eviction through the courts.

“It was a very dirty business in which those in the tribe who left first were offered cheap land on which to build while the rest were threatened that they would be offered nothing,” Mr al Sana said.

Amra’s remaining Bedouin have found themselves surrounded by a tall wire fence to separate them from Omer. Two gates, ordered by the courts to ensure the Bedouin continued to have road access through the town, were sealed this year.

Since the beginning of the summer police patrol Amra’s side of the fence around the clock and the Tarabins report that a private security firm chases off any of them found inside Omer.

Nissim Nir, a spokesman for Mr Badash, denied that the Tarabins were being hounded. Omer made a generous offer to relocate them from their “illegal” site, he said.

Recently he announced that thousands of acres around Omer would be forested with the intention of stopping the Bedouin from returning to the area once they had been evicted.

Mr Tarabin, 33, accused the police of being little more than hired hands carrying out Mr Badash’s plan.

“We are being suffocated. There are night-time searches of our homes using bogus pretexts, and arrests of young children. We are photographed and questioned as we go about our business. At the roadblocks they endlessly check cars entering and leaving, and fines are issued. No one visits us unless they have to, and we stay home unless we have to leave.” He added: “Why is it so impossible for Omer to imagine allowing us to be a neighbourhood of the town?”

A report by Human Rights Watch last year severely criticised Israel’s “discriminatory” treatment of the Bedouin.

The Arabs48 news Website reported that a Zionist organization calling itself Ha-Shomer Ha-Hadash (The New Guard), held a meeting on Thursday to ‘counter’ what they described as ‘the Arab embezzling of Israeli lands in the Negev and the Galilee.

The group disregarded the fact that the lands in question are owned by the Arabs, and called for bringing more Jewish settlers to live in the Galilee and the Negev.

Erez Eshil, one of the members of the group, said that Israel must bring thousands of settlers to the Galilee “or else we will lose it”, according to Eshil. 

He added that the State of Israel must be worried about the increasing number of Arabs, and described them as cancer.

“If Israel fails to realize that this is the cancer, then we will have no state at all”, he added.

For full article, visit http://www.imemc.org/article/61459

Hi all,

I am going to explain here how I managed to use the Cannon open source hack development kit , known as CHDK, to photograph stars and even create neat movies of the stars motion.

It all started this Monday, I was lucky to see that there is going to be Perseids meteor shower, a day in advance. So I had time getting the code ready before it was too late. I thought I would go somewhere next to Jerusalem and photograph, but in the end, friends of mine (Shy and Anna) from the Israeli Astronomy Association, which I am part of, told me they are going down south to the dessert, far away from light pollution, to take count of the meteors for the IMO. So I joined him, and my data is also available.

Before all the technical stuff, here is a video I made that shows you what this all comes to:

Now back to CHDK, and how this was done.

What is CHDK? And how do I install it?

CHDK is a firmware addon for Cannon powershot digital cameras. It supports most of them, mine is a simple powershot A590, costs to date about 700 NIS. Moreover, since its an addon, it will not void warranty, and can’t damage your camera. It has a lot of features (including games and an e-book reader!).

Installing it is really easy and comes the complete version comes with everything you need. All you do is extract the version for your camera on your SD card. Then start the camera in the review mode, and select in the menu ‘Firm Update…’, Look at CHDK’s wiki for more info.Now that CHDK is running,  pressing the (used to be useless) printer button on your camera. It will bring an <alt> symbol at the bottom of the screen, meaning all buttons will control the options of CHDK. Pressing the printer button again will move you back to use the camera menus. Restarting the camera will wipe out CHDK from the memory (you need to do ‘Firm Update’ again, to use it again). So if you want to stop CHDK, just turn the camera off and on. Uninstalling is just removing CHDK’s files from the card.

Firm Update (not really a firm update)

My Basic Ubasic application

Once I got CHDK running, and after  looking around the menus and confusing people by playing Reversi on my camera, I started looking in to the scripting capability.

One can write scripts both in ubasic and lua. I wrote mine in ubasic, although I never wrote in ubasic/basic before, it was dead easy to pick up. I choose ubasic because some developer told me lua has some timing problems. Both languages don’t need compilation, just write a text file and put it in the /CHDK/SCIPTS folder in the SD and they will run. To run a script select the ‘load script’ option, when in <alt> mode. Now, when in standby mode, using the capture button will run the selected script, and not just photograph as normal.

The programming commands I got mostly from this tutorial. Note how easy it is to let the user to have configurable parameters, print stuff on the screen, and shoot images. You can also change parameters of the camera using PropertyCase commands (see my code to see how it is used).

My meteor script, avilable here, it basically (pun!)  starts the camera, disables flash and goes in to loop shooting images on a given ISO and exposure time until the shooting button is pressed again. You can see the selection interface on the right (sorry for the typo on the word Meteor, it was late). If you use my script then you better disable the screen display before shooting, and the review time, so at night, all you see is a blinking led telling you the camera us working (was ok for the astronomer standard too). The camera lasted about an hour of photographing before the batteries ran out. Luckily I had about 4 pairs of AA batteries. There is much to improve in the script, but it works.

Loading the Meteor program

Processing Animations with FFmpeg

Sadly, I did not catch any meteors in any of my 700 images. I think I did not set the aperture to be open all the way, I expected it will do it in a dark setting.

However, connecting all the images together gave me an animation of the moving sky Using FFmpeg. It seems that FFmpeg is a bit picky about its file formats. So here is how to take your jpg images and turn them to a movie:

1. You will need to download all your images to a single folder.
2. Run this bash script I wrote, it will make an ‘out’ folder in the folder, and copy all the files numbering them 000.jpg 001.jpg etc. Like FFmpeg likes, otherwise ffmpeg segfaults (thanks to #ffmpeg on freenode for the guidlines):

#!/bin/bash
# Not enough information to compute
if [ $# -lt 1 ]; then
echo "Syntax: `basename $0` "
exit
fi
i=0
#if dir exists, then go over all files and copy them
if [ $# -eq 1 -a -d "$1" ]; then
mkdir -p $1/"out"
for file in $1/*.[jJ][pP][gG]
do
cp "$file" $1/out/$(printf "%0.3d.jpg" $i)
i=$(( $i + 1 ))
done
exit
fi
exit

3. After the jpg images ready, you can run FFmpeg with this command in your folder: ffmpeg -r 24 -f image2 -i %3d.jpg -b 700000 -s 720x480 output.avi . Note you can change resolution there, bitrate, and do anything ffmpeg does. Since the images are in a camera quality you can even do HD video with a cheep camera!
4. Thats is, you have a time lapse video

My Videos

List of videos using this script. I also made a page for them here.

• Orion, Venus and Sunrise (my favorite)
• Scorpius setting
• Polaris time lapse
• Cassiopeia time lapse
• Cygnus time lapse

Closing

CHDK seems to have many new ways to take a simple camera, one you might even already have, and do things you never thought possible on a normal camera. Maybe next I’ll try using RAW imaging, that will let me get even better views of the stars.

Thanks to #chdk and #ffmpeg on freenode, for helping me out with the code.

And thanks to Anna and Shai for a wonderful night

Update: There is a forum thread in CHDK’s website about the blog post with even more talks.

Meteor Counting

Waiting in the middle of nowhere, for my bus up north

I början av augusti månad nåddes vi av beskedet att israeliska myndigheter godkänt avhysningen av arabiska familjer vilka varit bosatta i östra Jerusalem. Efter vanligheten haglade de internationella protesterna. Brittiska diplomater sade exempelvis i ett uttalande:

“We are apalled by the eviction in East Jerusalem. (…) These evictions are incompatible with the Israeli professed desire for peace. We urge Israel not to allow the extremists to set the agenda.”

Britterna, och andra som riktat protester och fördömanden mot Israel såsom USAs utrikesminister Hillary Clinton och EU, glömmer dock en i sammanhanget avgörande detalj: araber har nämligen ockuperat cirka 1400 hus i Jerusalem sedan den judiska statens utropande 1948, då araberna jagade ut judarna och lade beslag på deras egendom. I den judiska delen av Jerusalem tilläts däremot araberna att bo kvar utan att behöva frukta för liv och hem.

De nu genomförda avhysningarna innebar endast att några få judiska familjer fått rättvisa efter 61 års väntan. Övriga judiska hus fortsätter att vara olagligen ockuperade eller byggda av araber. Om detta se denna länk:

http://www.jcpa.org/jlmbldg.htm

Sedan 1967, då den östra delen av Jerusalem befriades från den jordanska ockupationen, har judiska familjer utan framgång kämpat för att få hus och hem tillbaka. Det liberala rättssystemet i Israel har till helt nyligen sökt stoppa alla dessa försök med påföljd att många judar givit upp sina ansträngningar, icke minst till följd av en sviktande ekonomisk situation. De nyligen genomförda avhysningarna ger visst hopp om att dessa judar kan vederfaras rättvisa.

Karta över var avhysningar av arabiska husockupanter skett i Jerusalem. (Christian Science Monintor)

Man kan bara beklaga att processen tagit så lång tid i anspråk, och att många judar under tiden förlorat såväl pengar som sin tilltro till det israeliska rättssystemet. De som nu äntligen fått sin egendom tillbaka har inte fått någon särskild ekonomisk eller annan kompensation för att deras hem under så lång tid olagligen varit konfiskerade av arabiska ockupanter.

De internationella protesterna mot vräkningen av de arabiska ockupanterna måste, enligt mitt förmenande, ses som en kombination av antisemitism, hyckleri och okunnighet. De aktuella arabfamiljerna var trots allt fuller väl medvetna om det olagliga i deras boende och har haft många år på sig att se sig om efter alternativa bostäder. Nu valde de, föga överraskande, att efter vräkningen övernatta på gatan i syfte att ge pressfotograferna goda fotomöjligheter och få världssamfundets professionella gråterskor med på noterna.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/08/03/israel.evictions/

Det norska Sentrum mot antisemitisme (SMA) framhåller genom sin talesman Erez Uriely följande:

“SMA fördömer dem som diskriminerar judar genom att neka dem samma rättigheter som andra människor har, inklusive rätten att bo i sina egna hem och i sitt eget land. (…) SMA uppmanar israeliska domstolar att sätta stopp för den omfattande anarkin i Israel, där araberna olovligt ockuperar judiska fasta egendomar och nekar att ge dem tillbaka till sina ägare. Varje år stjäl araberna jord från staten, där de olagligen bygger hus. Fenomenet är utbrett i Jerusalem och andra städer, men särskilt i Negev i söder och i Galiléen i norr. Hundratusentals arabiska hus har byggts olovligt på jord som är köpt och ägd av det judiska folket.”

När det gäller att mot staten Israel rikta protester och fördömanden av allehanda slag är uppfinningsrikedomen som bekant nära nog total, men när det kommer till att kritisera apartheidliknande förhållanden i muslimska länder regerar tystnaden. Flera muslimska och/eller abarbiska stater blev Judenrein efter 1948, och närmare en miljon judar tvingades ut i en vansklig och osäker tillvaro.

 Benyamin Netanyahus administration har äntligen tagit itu med uppgiften att avhysa olagliga arabiska husockupanter i Jerusalem.

Det kan vidare nämnas att i den totalitära diktaturen Saudiarabien är det belagt med dödsstraff för judar att färdas i den heliga staden Mekka. I andra länder och territorier där muslimer styr, exempelvis i det “liberala” Jordanien och i territorier under Den palestinska myndigheten, är det vid hot om dödsstraff förbjudet att sälja fast egendom till judar. I samma länder och områden är judehetsande böcker såsom Sions vises protokoll och Hitlers Mein Kampf storsäljare.

Det är hög tid att rycka masken av och göra upp med det patologiska judehat som breder ut sig på olika håll i världen och som, ofta nog, döljs bakom en fasad av humanitärt engagemang och så kallad antisionism!

at camp al awda with kids from ibdaa cultural center at deheishe refugee camp a couple of weeks ago we realized, too late, that we made a big mistake with at least one of the villages we took the youth to. instead of taking kids to بيت عطاب (or beit ‘itab) we took them to deir al hawa instead. part of the mistake is somewhat understandable. although we were using salman abu sitta’s amazing book, the return journey, as our guide, it is extra challenging to find the remains of a palestinian village that was ethnically cleansed when one must do this in land that was forested over by the zionist terrorist colonists. this particular forest, “the american independence national park” contains at least twelve ethnically cleansed villages whose residents and their descendants now reside in deheishe refugee camp among other refugee camps. the map above is one that the zionist terrorist colonists give out at its information center of the so-called national park. the interesting thing about the map is that it identifies the names of several palestinian villages like beit ‘itab, however, it does not identify them as palestinian.

zionist terrorist colony on the land of beit itab

one of the ways one has to find palestinian villages that were ethnically cleansed is to look for the zionist terrorist colonies now occupying the land. and even in this national forest there are such colonies. one of them is nes harim, which is where we parked our car. i brought three youth back to the village who were the youth leaders we smuggled out to help us run the camp. because they are older than 15 years and already have identity cards it was especially dangerous for me to smuggle them out. too, it is far more difficult to smuggle out men and boys than women and girls. so we took a risk and did it one more time two days ago. we drove until we saw the sign for nes harim colony, which if you notice in the picture above has stickers over the arabic. this is a common phenomenon in historic palestine because the racist colonists actively work to conceal the arab character of this land. incidentally, jonathan cook reported for electronic intifada on a more official, state practice emerging that will remove the original arabic names from street signs altogether:

Thousands of road signs are the latest front in Israel’s battle to erase Arab heritage from much of the Holy Land.

Israel Katz, the transport minister, announced this week that signs on all major roads in Israel, East Jerusalem and possibly parts of the West Bank would be “standardized,” converting English and Arabic place names into straight transliterations of the Hebrew name.

Currently, road signs include the place name as it is traditionally rendered in all three languages.

Under the new scheme, the Arab identity of important Palestinian communities will be obscured: Jerusalem, or “al-Quds” in Arabic, will be Hebraized to “Yerushalayim”; Nazareth, or “al-Nasra” in Arabic, the city of Jesus’s childhood, will become “Natzrat”; and Jaffa, the port city after which Palestine’s oranges were named, will be “Yafo.”

Arab leaders are concerned that Katz’s plan offers a foretaste of the demand by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

On Wednesday, Mohammed Sabih, a senior official at the Arab League, called the initiative “racist and dangerous.”

“This decision comes in the framework of a series of steps in Israel aimed at implementing the ‘Jewish State’ slogan on the ground.”

Palestinians in Israel and Jerusalem, meanwhile, have responded with alarm to a policy they believe is designed to make them ever less visible.

Ahmed Tibi, an Arab legislator in the Israeli parliament, said: “Minister Katz is mistaken if he thinks that changing a few words can erase the existence of the Arab people or their connection to Israel.”

The transport ministry has made little effort to conceal the political motivation behind its policy of Hebraizing road signs.

In announcing the move on Monday, Katz, a hawkish member of Likud, Netanyahu’s right-wing party, said he objected to Palestinians using the names of communities that existed before Israel’s establishment in 1948.

“I will not allow that on our signs,” he said. “This government, and certainly this minister, will not allow anyone to turn Jewish Jerusalem into Palestinian al-Quds.”

Other Israeli officials have played down the political significance of Katz’s decision. A transport department spokesman, Yeshaayahu Ronen, said: “The lack of uniform spelling on signs has been a problem for those speaking foreign languages, citizens and tourists alike.”

while the racist nature of this new project of the zionist entity may seem new, it isn’t. there are many signs throughout 1948 palestine that only have hebrew, for instance. signs indicating the new zionist terrorist colonies where original palestinian villages used to be–like beit itab–only carry an arabic transliteration of the hebrew re-naming of the stolen land. so you can see the arabic in the sign pictured above peaking out from the other end of the sticker which shows the colony’s name not the palestinian village’s name.

in beit ‘itab the layers of erasure are even more striking. there are signs all over this so-called national park indicating the various touristic things one should hike to and look at. while palestinian names are used (as in the photo above where the youth point to their village’s name in arabic), the zionist entity has done all it can to elide thousands of years of history on this land, a history which the buildings and trees eclipse. and indeed we saw many remains from a water well to fig trees to cacti and olive trees attesting to the palestinian presence on this land.

water well in beit itab

an intertwined grape and fig tree in beit itab

the photograph below and above shows one of the signs that is trying to erase palestinian people and their history from beit ‘itab. while it acknowledges that these ruins exist, and that they are relatively recent ruins–from the 1830s, a date which they get wrong–they mention only the crusaders (another foreign entity that occupied palestinian land) and not the people whose labor and love built the homes pictured here. reading walid khalidi’s all that remains gives us a far more accurate view of the village:

The village stood on a high mountain, overlooking some lower mountain peaks below. Its lands extended southwest as far as Wadi al-Maghara. Several springs around the village provided drinking and irrigation water. A secondary road linked Bayt ‘Itab to the Bayt Jibrin-Bethlehem road that ran about 3 km to the south. Bayt ‘Itab is identified with Enadab, which appears in the list of Palestinian towns that was compiled by the fourth century A.D. historian Eusebius.The Crusaders knew it as Bethahatap. Edward Robinson visited the village in 1838 and described its stone houses as solidly built. Several houses had two storeys, and in the center of the village were the ruins of a crusader castle. (274)

if you compare the sign to khalidi’s book, or even to robinson’s book, you will realize that the zionist terrorist colonists attempting to re-write history are using robinson’s dates as if to say the village begins when the white man comes and notices it exists (this is akin to saying christopher columbus “discovered” america). khalidi gives us a sense of what the people’s lives were like in that village as well, which of course, is not acknowledged by the zionist entity’s sign because that would be to admit there were not just homes and structures but real live people who built and lived in them:

In the late nineteenth century, Bayt ‘Itab was a village built of stone, perched on a rocky knoll that rose 60 to 100 feet above the surrounding hilly ridge. Its population in 1875 was approximately 700. The villagers, who were Muslim, cultivated olive trees on terraces to the north. A large cavern–eighteen feed wide and six feet high–ran beneath the houses. The original layout of the village was circular, but new construction to the southwest (along the road that led to the neighboring village of Sufla) gave it the shape of an arc. Most of its houses were built of stone. Agriculture was the main source of livelihood. The village lands were planted in grain, grapes, olive trees, and other fruit trees. In addition, the residents owned extensive areas on the coastal plain that also were planted in grain. During the [British] Mandate, some village lands were expropriated to make a large, government-owned woodland. The villagers also engaged in livestock breeding. Crops were rainfed and irrigated from springs. In 1944/45 a total of 1,400 dunums was allocated to cereals; 665 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, of which 116 dunums were planted with olive trees The village contained the ruins of an old Crusader fortress. (275)

that is the life that the zionist terrorist colonists destroyed and here is what khalidi says about it:

Bayt ‘Itab was one of a string of villages in the Jerusalem corridor that was captured following the second truce of the war. Israeli historian Benny Morris writes that it was occupied on 21 October 1948, during Operation ha-Har. The operation was complementary to Operation Yo’av, a simultaneous offensive on the southern front that aimed at thrusting southwards into the Negev. (275)

the above, of course, is a militaristic description of an nakba experienced by the palestinians from beit ‘itab. merely addressing this history is in the process of being criminalized in the zionist entity’s usurping government:

Legislation that Israel’s Arab citizens fear could limit their freedom of speech came a step closer on Sunday to becoming law.

The bill, proposed by a legislator from the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, would withhold government money from any state-supported institutions that fund activity deemed detrimental to the state.

Such activity includes “rejecting Israel’s existence as the state of the Jewish people” and supporting “armed struggle or terrorist acts” against Israel.

A ministerial committee approved the bill, clearing the way for its presentation to parliament for future debate and voting.

zionist terrorist colonists erasing palestinians

to get to the village we had to hike quite a bit from the road where the entrance to the colony and park are. it took us about an hour and a half to climb up the mountain. it was super hot and we did not bring enough water with us and i think i had borderline heat stroke. at the top of the mountain the fruit on the fig trees was not quite ripe, but i tried to eat a few anyway just for the sake of getting something inside me to cool down. then i found a cactus with sabr fruit on it and decided i’d try that since it’s juicier. i broke one apart with a stone and then carefully tried to peel it back, trying to avoid any of the thorns. little did i know how difficult this would prove to be. not only did i get my hands covered in these hard-to-see little hairy thorns, but i also got them in my lips and on my tongue. this lasted until the next day. when we hiked back down the mountain we found one of the village springs where we drank the most amazing tasting water. i was so refreshed.

the ruins of beit itab

the ruins of beit itab

the palestinian houses that remain in beit ‘itab testify to the palestinian people, to their presence on this land, and to their right to return to it. this is why i take palestinian refugees to their land: to see it, to know it, to fight for their right to it. i wish i could have a full-time job doing this. i would make signs and paint them on the car saying سيارة العودة. i would spend all day doing this from all the refugee camps. we could make it a widespread movement to get palestinian teachers to circumvent the palestinian authority’s curriculum so that palestinians could actually learn their own history. they could use that history to fight for their rights. they could learn about their legal rights, think creatively about how to implement and take back what belongs to them.

a view from beit itab of the forested over palestinian villages

the shebab wanted to go for a swim at the beach in yaffa after we finished exploring their village. we drove to the beach and saw the palestinian cemetery in yaffa, which is next to the so-called “peres peace center.” peres, of course, is a notorious war criminal and this center named after him is on stolen land. but the cemetery was striking. it shows how the zionist terrorist colonists will not even let palestinians rest in peace after they die. it was totally vandalized and not only were there very few headstones left in tact, many of the tombs themselves were destroyed. you could see some places where some palestinians have tried to put the pieces back together, but it is difficult to find any marked grave that contains all the information about who is buried there.

palestinian cemetery in yaffa with the so-called peres peace center behind

not even the palestinian dead are allowed to rest in peace

they swam and i watched the sunset. it was a glorious sunset. i took them to yaffa to swim, but i want to be clear that taking palestinian refugees to any place that is no occupied by the zionist entity is a political act for me to help them feel connected to their land and to fight to take it back. this is in contradistinction to the zionist terrorist colonists who stand and watch (and do nothing i might add) at checkpoints, otherwise known as machsom watch, and who think that all palestinians need or want is a “fun” day at the beach, even if that is the child’s own wish:

The Israeli peace organization Machsom Watch had plans to take 50 West Bank children to the sea, but Israeli army denies one of them the entry permit, citing “security reasons”.

Israeli media report that 15-year-old Ahmad’s only wish was to go to the sea, but that his permit request was turned down by the military. Ahmad lives in the West Bank village of Burin, close to the city of Nablus, and has never in his life even seen the sea. In his daily life Ahmad work as a bottled-water and candy vendor at Huwarra checkpoint. Machsom Watch is convinced that the army’s decision was made without explanation or reason and set away the army’s security reasons as nonsense. “This is a 15-year-old boy, what could he possibly do?” a source said. The organization said they have known the boy for many years now. “We can testify, beyond a shadow of a doubt that he has never been part of any security incident, including throwing stones,” according to the organization’s spokeswoman Raiya Yaron. Machsom Watch sent out a petition for Ahmed. The petition has since then touched the hearts of many, among them two famous Israeli actors. This is the third time Machsom Watch holds a day of recreational activities for around 50 Palestinian children and youth from the area of Nablus, in the northern West Bank. The plan is to take the children to the beach, where they will get the chance to swim in the sea for the first time in their lives after which they will return to the West Bank on the same day. Just like Ahmad, most children in and around Nablus have never been to the sea and state this as their biggest dream. When asked, nearly all, children say that swimming is their favorite hobby, only to admit immediately after, that they don’t even know how to swim.

yes, they should know how to swim and they should be free to swim in their sea whenever they want to. but the zionist terrorist colonists, including those in machsom watch, are occupying their land. but they want to relieve their guilty consciences or some such thing and so they seem to think that spending the day at the beach with palestinian children, which forces the children to normalize with their colonizing occupying terrorists.

sunset over yaffa, palestine

and after all this we still had not eaten. so we got in the car and drove another 1.5 hours north to akka for some palestinian fish. we ate dinner and then went to another place to smoke argilla on the sea. and then we walked around the old city where i noticed new american and zionist terrorist colonizing schemes in the old city (see photos below).

we didn’t leave the old city until around 3 am. i drove all night and as we reached the checkpoint to come home the sun was rising and there was an amazingly beautiful layer of fog on the hilltop (see below). but the hardest part was taking the shebab home. while i think it is important, and i know that this trip was intensely meaningful to them, it kills me to have to take them back to the camp when their village exists. when so much of it remains unused. but, of course, their right of return is not just to their houses, but to the open space of their entire country. to the sea. to the borders–all the borders. but this is why i do this and why i believe and i hope and i will fight until my last breath for the right of return for all palestinian refugees.

sunrise over hanoun, palestine

deheishe refugee camp at 6 am