ABDUL WAHID OSMAN BELAL
--- On Thu, 3/7/08, Palestine Think Tank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: Palestine Think Tank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Palestine Think Tank Digest
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thursday, 3 July, 2008, 3:35 PM
Palestine Think Tank
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Palestine Think Tank Digest
Thinking quote
Posted: 03 Jul 2008 02:48 AM CDT
Not all citizens, even when they can do so and have access to digital devices,
record disasters or human rights abuses - especially when their own security
could be compromised for having done so. Governments can also clamp down hard
on citizen journalism. The French Constitutional Council approved a law in
early 2007 that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by
people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the
imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of
Web sites publishing the images.
Nalaka Gunawardene, journalist
Falastin quote
Posted: 03 Jul 2008 02:42 AM CDT
I believe that the Palestinians in general are a people who want democracy. The
Palestinians are among the most educated in the Arab world and they have been
exposed both to the Israeli democratic system and to the Western democratic
system. Unlike many of the Arab countries, there is an open debate today in
Palestinian society. I believe democracy might happen, but not in the near
future. As long as you have armed gangs in the streets and as long as the
Palestinian security forces are not real security forces and as long as there
is no rule of law, you can’t have democracy.
Khaled Abu Toameh, Journalist
I Shall Visit Israel, by Paul Grenville
Posted: 03 Jul 2008 02:27 AM CDT
I shall visit Israel
I shall visit Israel when the olive trees are in blossom
I shall visit Israel when an Arab can marry a Jew
I shall visit Israel when Torah Jews are no longer beaten up in the streets of
Jerusalem
for reminding their countrymen of the commandments of Moses
I shall visit Israel when the speaking of Arabic in certain neighbourhoods no
longer causes heads to turn
I shall visit Israel when the learning of Arabic is mandatory in Israeli
schools
I shall visit Israel when Arab and Jewish children mingle freely in one system
of state education
I shall visit Israel when the 7 million refugees from the land of Palestine
can choose between a country they can call their own, or compensation for
what they lost
I shall visit Israel when the invaders make peace with the invaded (not the
other way about)
I shall visit Israel when there is a public apology for the war crimes of 1948
and compensation for the families of the victims
I shall visit Israel when West Bank settlers on stolen land no longer shoot to
kill the natives and get off scot free
I shall visit Israel when her soldiers no longer shoot down unarmed children
in cold blood and call it a mistake
I shall visit Israel when the Wall is demolished by Israelis and Palestinians
together
I shall visit Israel when the house demolitions stop
I shall visit Israel when 600 West Bank checkpoints are taken down and the
bullying, humiliation, beating and rape of Palestinian citizens stops
I shall visit Israel when to be born Palestinian is not a reason to be hunted
and spied upon
I shall visit Israel when Jews stop arriving from far away and calling it
their land
I shall visit Israel when Gaza is no longer the cruel laboratory experiment in
slow genocide that it is today
I shall visit Israel when her planes stop bombing and strafing towns in Gaza
and terrifying the people at night with sonic booms
I shall visit Israel when the Lebanon and Gaza are no longer grisly testing
grounds for new weapons
I shall visit Israel when Israel ceases to invade her neighbours on the
slightest of pretexts and cause devastation
I shall visit Israel when 10,000 Palestinian prisoners are released from jail
and pardoned for acts of resistance
against a state that took their country by force of arms and terror
I shall visit Israel when the routine practice of torture in Israeli prisons
stops
I shall visit Israel when a Romanian fascist is no longer part of the
government
I shall visit Israel when the illegal villages are made legal
I shall visit Israel when the Bedouin of the Negev are no longer persecuted
I shall visit Israel when Arab towns and villages have the same status and
funding as Jewish ones
I shall visit Israel when the land is shared by all Semites - Arabs and Jews
I shall visit Israel when the Jewish state is an unhappy memory
I shall visit Israel when Nazi war crimes against the Jews are used to justify
every
imaginable cruelty in a land where they are still the uninvited guest…
I shall visit Israel when the name of Israel is no longer another excuse to
hate the Jews
Paul Grenville 1st July 2008
75 children and 23 women killed, the harvest of Israel’s terrorism in the first
6 months of 2008
Posted: 02 Jul 2008 10:34 AM CDT
The Israeli occupying forces have killed 75 children and 23 Palestinian women
during the first half of this year, says a report published yesterday by the
National and International Relations Department of the PLO in Ramallah.
The report informs us that the Israeli military occupation authorities
continued their violations of the rights of the Palestinians, showing no
respect to international protests and Palestinian efforts to secure peace in
the region, and to end the conflict.
The report highlighted the main violations against the Palestinian people
during the first half of 2008, most important of all the violation of the right
of living … The report pointed out that the occupation army killed 466
Palestinian citizens during military operations carried out in the Palestinian
territories during the first half of this year, including 75 children under the
age of 18 and 23 women.
131 Palestinians have died as a result of the unjust siege imposed on Gaza,
preventing Palestinians from leaving to receive adequate treatment abroad,
bringing the number of martyrs as a result of the siege to 200.
In addition to the deaths, 1,740 Palestinians were wounded by the occupation
bullets which left dozens permanently disabled.
During these attacks a Palestinian journalist was killed while on duty when an
Israeli tank rocket was fired at his car in Gaza, besides killing two disabled
persons.
At the same time the report confirmed that the occupation authorities continue
to arrest Palestinian people, bringing the total of detained Palestinians
during the last six months to 2,776 people, raising the number of Palestinian
prisoners in occupation jails to almost 11,000 prisoners, almost 1,000 of them
are ill.
32 patients reside permanently in the prison hospital in Ramle, not receiving
adequate medical treatment.
Meanwhile, 80 Palestinian women are kept in Israeli prisons, 29 of them are
mothers of 76 children. Five of the female prisoners are minors, and 29 are
sick. All of them experience humiliation and abuse by the Israeli prison
wardens.
Iqbal Tamimi / Palestinian journalist - UK
Cartoon of the day
Posted: 02 Jul 2008 10:11 AM CDT
Khalid Amayreh - Behavior Unbecoming of a Palestinian
Posted: 02 Jul 2008 09:42 AM CDT
Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, holds a number of key portfolios of
immense significance and symbolism.
He is the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), President of
the Palestinian ‘national’ Authority (PA) and Chief of the Fatah organization.
As such, he ought to strive to represent his tormented people in the best
possible manner. He should also make every possible effort to eloquently and
effectively communicate to the world at large the Palestinian people’s pains
and grievances as well as their hopes for freedom and liberation from the
manifestly criminal Israeli occupation.
More to the point, Abbas should carefully shun any behavior that would harm his
people’s dignity, image and national interests.
Indeed, these are the most elementary tasks a leader, let alone a leader of a
people languishing under a sinister foreign military occupation, is expected to
perform.
However, Abbas’s diplomatic behavior doesn’t suggest that he is the best and
most effective representative of the Palestinian people and cause. In fact, the
opposite seems to be true.
This week, while attending the 23rd congress of the Socialist International at
the Lagonissi Grand Resort in Greece, Abbas was audacious enough to introduce
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to Israeli war minister Ehud Barak.
Talabani and Barak shook hands rather cordially as a visibly satisfied Abbas
was looking on. The Palestinian leader behaved as if the arranged handshake
between the certified Israeli war criminal was merely part of the diplomatic
niceties expected in such circumstances.
Well, since when have Palestinian leaders assumed the role of encouraging and
expediting normalization between Arab states and Israel which continues to
rape Palestine and savage its people?
Have we lost our sense of dignity as individuals and as a people?
The shameless encounter in Greece, though symbolic, did carry a horrible
message. It showed that Israel and Arab regimes can normalize relations, even
publicly, while the Zionist regime continues to torment the Palestinian people
and steal the remainder of their homeland.
What is particularly scandalous though is that all of this obscenity occurs
with Palestinian blessing and encouragement. This is more than outrageous.
I don’t know what was going on in Abbas’s mind when he decided to do what he
did. Perhaps he thought, out of sheer naiveté, that the vacuous gesture would
prompt Israel to display more flexibility in the moribund ‘peace talks’ with
the PA.
Or perhaps he thought that he as ‘President of Palestine’ ought to show
courtesy, civility and even cordiality to Israeli leaders regardless of their
murderous, cruel and humiliating treatment of his people.
But in both cases, Abbas can’t be given the benefit of the doubt, for many
reasons.
Abbas, as a long-time PLO leader, should be fully aware of the brutal ugliness
of the Israeli mentality and the fact that no amount of ‘normalization’ and
courtesy by the Arabs and Muslims would make the racist entity come to terms
with Palestinian rights or even mitigate its terror and ethnic cleansing
against the Palestinian people.
Israel has succeeded in establishing diplomatic and economic relations with a
large number of Arab states, including Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE,
Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania.
However, far from showing good will toward these states, Israel stepped up its
genocidal drive throughout the occupied territories, continued stealing Arab
land and building Jewish colonies at the expense of the native Palestinians.
In addition, Abbas’s behavior in Greece reflected a great deal of national
irresponsibility. As President of the PA, Abbas should have understood that
socializing with Israeli leaders and embracing them warmly before TV cameras
would create the wrong impression and send the wrong message to people around
the world, especially friends and supporters of the Palestinian cause.
One doesn’t have to be a great expert in PR to realize that the scenes of Abbas
and other PA leaders exchanging kisses with Israeli leaders give the erroneous
impression that all is well between Israel and the Palestinians and that only
minor psychological problems stand in the way of peace between the two sides.
In the final analysis, Israel and the US, our tormentors, would hector the
Arabs to normalize relations with Israel by arguing that “you can’t be more
Palestinian than the Palestinians themselves.”
Some Palestinians may argue that Abbas has to behave somewhat sycophantically
toward the Israelis in order to safeguard his people’s interests.
However, it is amply obvious that this reasoning is faulty since the damage
done to the Palestinian cause, and especially to the Palestinian national
dignity, exceeds by far whatever short term ‘benefits’ Abbas and his regime
might stand to reap from appeasing the Zionist leadership.
Besides, should Abbas realize that arranging ‘Arab-Israeli encounters’ serves
only to divert attention from wanton Israeli crimes, such as the unmitigated
obliteration of the Arab identity of East Jerusalem and ongoing efforts to
destroy the al-Aqsa mosque.
Interestingly, while Abbas has shown no remorse or regret or even embarrassment
for arranging the Talabani –Barak handshake, the office of the Iraqi president
has issued a ‘clarification’ tacitly blaming Abbas for presenting Ehud Barak to
shake hands with Talabani ‘who responded to President Abbas’ request.’
The statement said Talabani shook hands with Barak “not as President of Iraq,
but rather in his capacity as President of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK) and the Vice President of the Socialist International (IS).”
Despite its flimsiness, the statement showed that Arab leaders are still
apprehensive about appearing in public with Israeli officials.
This trend ought to be encouraged and enforced even further as there should be
no normalization between Zionist criminals and their Palestinian victims at
least until the victims recover their rights, including the right to return to
their homeland from which they were uprooted by force at the hands of
diabolical Zionism.
It is really sad that until recently Palestinians left no stone unturned in
order to stop any form of normalization between Israel and the Arab and Muslim
world.
Now, however, it is lamentable that some Palestinian leaders have become the
bridge through which Israel is normalizing relations with the Arab world.
Have we become our own worst enemies?
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