>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 14:12:23 EST
>Subject: Fwd: Israeli Prof Urges Sanctions Against Israel [STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
>In a message dated 13/11/00 20:12:51 Pacific Standard Time,
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
><<
> > November 8 2000
> >
> >
> > ISRAELI PROFESSOR SAYS TIME TO SANCTION
> > ISRAEL
> >
> > "Not long ago, the Western world was shocked
> > and angered at
> > Milosevic atrocities against the Kosovo
> > Albanians, which
> > were described as ethnic cleansing. But what
> > Israel has
> > started executing is incomparably worse... He
> > did not
> > send Apache helicopters to bombard residential
> > areas...
> > He did not put the Kosovar towns under siege;
> > he did not
> > use missiles from tanks, and he did not send
> > snipers to
> > wound and kill en-mass."
> >
> >
> > DON'T SAY YOU DIDN'T KNOW
> >
> > By Prof. Tanya Reinhart*
> >
> > In the whole six years of the previous Intifada
> > (87-93),
> > there were 18.000 Palestinian injuries. Now in
> > one month
> > we are already at 7000. An alarming number of
> > them are
> > injured in the head or legs (knees), with
> > carefully aimed
> > shots, and, increasingly, live ammunition. Many
> > will not
> > recover, or will be disabled for life.
> >
> > As the media keeps us busy with reports on
> > cease-fire, peace
> > initiatives, and 'reduction of violence', Israeli
> > crimes in the
> > occupied territories continue undisturbed. To
> > understand the
> > extent of these daily crimes we should look at the
> > injuries, not
> > just at the rapidly growing number of dead. On
> > Friday, November
> > 3rd, CNN reported a 'relative calm' in the
> > territories. By
> > afternoon that day there were 276 people injured
> > (LAW report, Nov
> > 3), and by the final count "Up to 452 Palestinians
> > were hurt on
> > Friday across the territories, according to the
> > Red Crescent"
> > ('ha'aretz', Nov 5). On Saturday, October 4th, as
> > the the media
> > covers in great length of Barak's "plea to
> > Palestinian leader
> > Yasser Arafat to return to the negotiating table
> > and stop the
> > Palestinian-Israeli bloodshed for the sake of
> > peace" (AP),
> > "another 153 were treated for injuries sustained in
> > clashes with
> > Israeli troops" ('ha'aretz', there), including "5
> > school children
> > from Sa'ir (near Hebron) who are in extremely
> > critical condition"
> > (Addameer - Prisoners' Support and Human Rights
> > Association,
> > Report, Nov 4.).
> >
> > More than 7000 Palestinians are reported injured so
> > far. Several
> > Palestinian medical sources report that an
> > alarming number of
> > them are injured in the head or legs (knees),
> > with carefully
> > aimed shots, and, increasingly, live ammunition.
> > (Dr. Jumana
> > Odeh, Director, Palestinian Happy Child Center, Oct
> > 24 report;
> > LAW, November 2 report.) Many will not recover,
> > or will be
> > disabled for life.
> >
> > This pattern of injuries cannot be accidental. Dan
> > Ephron, Boston
> > Globe correspondent in Jerusalem reports (Nov 4) on
> > the findings
> > of the Physicians for Human Rights
> > delegation: "American
> > doctors who examined Israel's use of force in the
> > West Bank and
> > Gaza Strip have concluded that Israeli soldiers
> > appeared to be
> > deliberately targeting the heads and legs of
> > Palestinian
> > protestors, even in non-life-threatening
> > situations." Medical
> > School doctors in the delegation explained that law
> > enforcement
> > officials worldwide are trained to aim at the chest
> > in dangerous
> > situations (since it is the largest target), and
> > the fact that
> > Palestinians were hit in the head and legs suggests
> > that there
> > was no life-threatening situation, soldiers had
> > ample time, and
> > were deliberately trying to harm unarmed people.
> >
> > In fact, the Israelis are not even trying to
> > conceal their
> > shooting strategies. Interviews like the following
> > can be easily
> > found in the Israeli media:
> >
> > Nahshon battalion ready for urban
> > warfare
> > By Arieh O'Sullivan
> >
> > JERUSALEM (October 27) - "I shot two
> > people...
> > in their knees. It's supposed to break
> > their bones
> > and neutralize them but not kill them,"
> > says
> > Sgt. Raz, a sharpshooter from the
> > Nahshon
> > battalion.
> >
> > "How did I feel? ...Well actually, I
> > felt pretty
> > satisfied with myself," the 20-year-old
> > soldier
> > confides. "I felt I could do what I was
> > trained to
> > do, and it gave me a lot of
> > self-confidence to
> > think that if we get into a real war
> > situation I'd
> > be able to defend my comrades and
> > myself."
> >
> > A common practice is shooting a rubber coated
> > metal bullet
> > straight in the eye - a little game of well
> > trained soldiers,
> > which requires maximum precision. Reports on eye
> > injuries keep
> > coming daily. "On October 11, El Mizan Diagnostic
> > Hospital in
> > Hebron reported treating 11 Palestinians for
> > eye injuries,
> > including 3 children. El Nasir Ophthalmic Hospital
> > in Gaza has
> > treated 16 people for eye injuries, including 13
> > children. Nine
> > of them lost one of their eyes". (LAW report, Oct
> > 19). "From 29
> > September to 25 October 2000, Jerusalem's St. John
> > Eye Hospital
> > has treated 50 patients for eye-injuries".(LAW, Nov
> > 2, '...Eye
> > Injuries').
> >
> > Contrary to the standard 'clashes' reports the
> > victims are not
> > just demonstrators. Here is just one story,
> > investigated by LAW
> > (there): Maha Awad, a 36 years old woman lives with
> > her family in
> > Al Bireh (near Ramallah) in a flat that faces
> > the Jewish
> > settlement of Psagot. "On Wednesday night, 4
> > October 2000, she
> > was at home... She recalls that: 'At about 9
> > pm, we heard
> > shooting in our neighborhood; it was intensive
> > random shooting.
> > We did not know what was going on but we were
> > very scared.I
> > closed my room and went to the balcony in order to
> > shut the door.
> > At that moment I was hit in my right eye by a
> > bullet, which
> > entered through the glass door of the balcony'."
> > "Maha was,
> > however, not the only person of the family to
> > be seriously
> > injured that night. After taking her to hospital,
> > her 54-year-old
> > brother, who was visiting from the United States,
> > went back to
> > their home to get some clothes for Maha. When he
> > went to see the
> > spot where Maha had been shot, he himself was
> > shot in the
> > stomach." It is hard to avoid the feeling of some
> > sort of a
> > hunting game, played cold bloodily, by well trained
> > sharpshooters
> > with advanced equipment.
> >
> > Stray bullets do not hit so many people precisely
> > in the eye
> > head, or knee. The Israeli army prepared
> > carefully for the
> > present events: "Established just over a year ago
> > specifically to
> > deal with unrest in the West Bank...The IDF has
> > trained four
> > battalions for low-intensity conflict, and Nahshon
> > is the one
> > specializing in urban warfare. Its troops
> > train in mock
> > Palestinian villages constructed in two IDF
> > bases." (Jerusalem
> > Post, Arieh O'Sullivan,Oct 27.00). Specially
> > trained Israeli
> > units, then, aim, shoot and hit the target in
> > a calculated
> > manner: Cripple, but keep the statistics of dead
> > low. This is
> > reported openly (and quite proudly) in the Israeli
> > media. The
> > same Jerusalem Post article explains that "the
> > overall IDF
> > strategy is to deprive the Palestinians of the
> > massive number of
> > casualties the army maintains Palestinians want in
> > order to win
> > world support and consolidate their fight for
> > independence. 'We
> > are very much trying not to kill them...' says
> > Lt.-Col. Yoram
> > Loredo, commander and founder of the Nahshon
> > battalion."
> >
> > The reason is clear enough: Massive numbers of dead
> > Palestinians
> > every day cannot go unnoticed even by the most
> > cooperative
> > Western media and governments. Barak was explicit
> > about this.
> > "The prime minister said that, were there not 140
> > Palestinian
> > casualties at this point, but rather 400 or 1,000,
> > this... would
> > perhaps damage Israel a great deal." (Jerusalem
> > Post, Oct 30).
> > With a stable average of five casualties a day, they
> > believe that
> > Israel can continue 'undamaged' for many more
> > months. In a world
> > so used to horrors, many feel that 180 dead in a
> > month is sad and
> > upsetting, but it is not yet an atrocity that the
> > world should
> > unite to stop.
> >
> > The 'injured' are hardly reported; they 'do not
> > count' in the dry
> > statistics of tragedy. Who will pay attention to
> > their fate after
> > the injury, in overcrowded and underequipped
> > hospitals? Who will
> > stop to think how many of them will die slowly,
> > from their
> > wounds, or remiain disabled, blind or maimed for
> > life? Or to
> > think about their chances to survive the siege
> > and starvation
> > inflicted on their people?.
> >
> > Never did Israel dare to respond daily with such
> > brutal massive
> > force to demonstrators throwing stones. In the whole
> > six years of
> > the previous Intifada (87-93), there were 18.000
> > Palestinian
> > injuries. Now in one month we are already at
> > 7000. What we
> > witness is a new phase. Israel started launching a
> > systematic and
> > preplanned destruction of the Palestinian
> > infra-structure, towns,
> > and life.
> >
> > The Israeli army provoked and enlarged the
> > escalation into
> > firearms, by its massive offensive against angry
> > demonstrators.
> > Under the circumstances of fire (and often with no
> > fire pretext
> > at all), residential neighborhoods are bombarded
> > almost every
> > night from helicopters and tanks, using missiles,
> > machine guns
> > and 'precision' weapons, while the army calls on
> > residents to
> > evacuate "for their own protection". The settlers
> > are given free
> > hand to attack, shoot people and destroy property.
> > In Hebron, a
> > particularly massive Israeli attack has been
> > launched in what
> > looks like an attempt to enlarge the Jewish
> > quarters. All
> > combined, there is an enormous pressure on
> > residents of many
> > areas bordering with Israeli settlements to
> > evacuate, enabling
> > enlargement of the land seized already by
> > Israel. Indeed,
> > appropriation of land takes place every day, bit
> > by bit (See
> > Katriel, Indymedia/Israel Oct 30). Desperate
> > Palestinian reports
> > on all this and much more keep coming every day. It
> > is up to us
> > to choose to know.
> >
> > Not long ago, the Western world was shocked and
> > angered at
> > Milosevic atrocities against the Kosovo Albanians,
> > which were
> > described as ethnic cleansing. But What Israel
> > has started
> > executing is incomparably worse.
> >
> > When faced with terrorist attacks (by KLA) on
> > Serbian institutes
> > and civilians in Kosovo, Milosevic did retaliate
> > brutally, using,
> > no doubt, 'excessive force'. His acts were criminal.
> > But he did
> > not send Apache helicopters to bombard residential
> > areas, as does
> > Israel. He did not put the Kosovar towns under
> > siege; he did not
> > use missiles from tanks, and he did not send snipers
> > to wound and
> > kill en-mass.
> >
> > Israel should be sanctioned.
> >
> > * Tanya Reinhart is a professor of linguistics and
> > cultural
> > studies at Tel Aviv University and the University
> > of Utrecht.
> > She can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >>
>
>
>
>
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