Do Palestinians Exist? Hollywood Denies the Existence of Palestine

Click on the link below and then click on "Take action now" to send a message to Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to allow this movie to be considered for best foreign film in the Oscars.

Well, consider some facts.

The historical territory of "Palestine," which was never an actual country or state and never had an established government, was a decent-sized area. But 75% of the territory referred to as "Palestine" was chopped off and made into trans-Jordan, which is now the country of Jordan. Historically, over hundreds and hundreds of years, there's no language or cultural difference between people now known as Jordanians and people now known as "Palestinians."

There's no language called "Palestinian."

There were many Jews who lived in the Palestinian areas, too. It's a fact that the "Palestine Post" was a jewish-owned newspaper. It changed it's name to the Jerusalem Post.

When people say "Palestinians need a state of their own," it's just weird because 75% of the land referred to as "Palestine" already was made a state in the 1900's, that state is Jordan.

If the west bank and gaza turn into a palestinian state, it will be the second "palestinian" state. There's already a giant one.

The people living in the land that became Jordan are just as much "Palestinians" as the arabs that actually do call themselves "Palestinians."

And most arabs who were settled in israel/palestine flocked there in the 1900's, like jews did. But britain allowed unlimited immigration for arabs, while limiting jewish immigration, even when jews were fleeing the holocaust. Look at arab immigration to palestine/israel in the 1900's. Why is it that when jews started trying to flock there, arabs immediately did, too? Before the 1900's palestine/israel had very few people. Read Mark Twain's observations.

No one is denying that the human beings called "Palestinians" exist. But the issue is that people are pretending that "palestine" is some ethnicity or country that was being stomped away, when the fact is, there was no palestinien government, there's no palestinian langugate, they are arabs like the millions of arabs right next door. There's no ethnic difference.

For the ever shifting boundaries of Palestine over the past 2000 years, see here:

http://www.mideastweb.org/palmaps.htm



It is not as if the Nazis came and ethnically cleansed Germany of Jews....
....they did not exist!"
--Adolf Meir


A land without chosen-ones for the chosen-ones without a land"
--Adolf Weizman


I have a huge 4MG Map of of Palestine from 1918 signed by Moshe Dayan if yr interseted.

Regardless of your interpreation and despite the signature...it's an extremely beautiful map.

Uh, Jordan was "invented" in the 1900's, too. So was Kuwait. Iraq wasn't an official state until the 1900's as well. What's your point? Half the countries in the middle east were "invented" by foreign or local owners.

In the Middle East, only Israel was created by people who came from other parts of the world. And it was created by ethnically cleansing the land of its original inhabitants through massacres.

Even Israel's one million Palestinians who are citizens are treated as second class citizens. They should be given equal rights, especially if we are paying for Israel and have given commitments that we are to go protect it in case of a war in the region.

Anyway, this thread is about a movie made by and about Palestinians and the this movie is being kept out of the Oscars for that reason in order to limit its exposure to American audiences. This is blatant, out and out discrimination and should be fought.

"Even Israel's one million Palestinians who are citizens are treated as second class citizens."

Perfect example of the myth of the "palestinian". There are no "palestinians" who are citizens simply because there are no such people. There are those that were Egyptian and Jordanian before they attacked Isreal in 67 and lost there land through hate and humiliating arrogance. But "palestinian"? Nope. In fact all this talk of "occupation" itself is bullshit. The Gaza Strip and The west Bank are clearly Isreali land. I can't believe Isreal has the decency and compassion to allow their sworn enemies to live amongst them simply because no one else will have them. Isreal deserves the nobel peace prize and I don't think there's any valid argument against that.

A 15-year-old Palestinian girl [with second class Israeli citizenship], hospitalized in Meir Hospital in Kfar Sava for three bullet wounds suffered when she allegedly attacked soldiers at a checkpoint, is handcuffed to her hospital bed, in contravention of hospital regulations.

The girl, Riham Assad Mussa was hospitalized on Sunday after being shot at a checkpoint by soldiers who said she tried to attack them. Health Ministry regulations forbid shackling patients, unless it is ordered by a security agency and does not disrupt the medical treatment. The Shin Bet and IDF so far have rebuffed doctors' requests to have the handcuffs removed.

The girl was hit by three bullets and during surgery, part of her large intestine was removed, two bullets remain in her body. She was first put in the pediatric ward, but when doctors insisted on the handcuffs being removed she was moved to the surgery department. Two women soldiers stand guard at all times around her.

Physicians for Human Rights' Anat Litvia on Tuesday wrote to Dr. Ehud Aharonson, chief administrator at Meir Hospital, asking that he immediately have the handcuffs removed.

"It is unreasonable to think that a 15-year-old girl, who was hit in the kidney, had part of her intestine surgically removed, is attached to an intravenous solution, and two bullets are still in her body, will escape from the hospital by overcoming the IDF guards - or that she poses any danger to the doctors or the other patients," wrote Litvia.

The hospital has asked the Shin Bet and IDF to allow the removal of the handcuffs, but to no avail. Prof. Avinaom Reches, head of the Israel Medical Association's Ethics Council, also tried to intervene, but so far, to no avail.
-from Haaretz


Even if this Palestinian girl did attack Israeli soldiers (which I doubt), she sure wasn't much of a threat to them since they shot her three times with their M-16 assault rifles that we gave to them free of charge.

There are no "Israelis," either. All these people are actors. Their "cities" are paper mache. The "news" is nothing but fiction. There isn't even land there. Rand McNally lies. The Mediterranean actually extends well into Jordan. Amman is actually a sea port.

One cannot help but wonder, with artifice so grand, whatever could it be that they are distracting us from?

The palestinkians need to join the human race - then the world will allow them to have a state. Their Arabs own trillions of dollar of oil and have land 100 times the size of Israel. Think about why Arab Muslims keep other Arab Muslim in shithole poverty while Israel absorbed Jewish refugees from all over the world.

--"The palestinkians need to join the human race..."

Oh yeah. That's not racist at all.

then they will be allowed to live in peace, dance at weddings, ride the bus and eat pizza.

Contact everyone you know and have them send a message to AMPAS to allow this Palestinian film to be considered in the Oscars next year.

That this film is being denied entry to the Oscars on the basis that it is by and about Palestinians reeks of racism. And this is most likely being done to try to limit the film's exposure to American audiences where it would have the effect of *humanizing* Palestinians who have been so thoroughly demonized through disgustingly racist depictions in the movies.

Click on the link below and then click on "Take Action Now" to send a message to Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to allow this movie to be considered for best foreign film in the Oscars.

There are some reactionary posts and truly disgusting un-historical backgroung of reference.
First, let be clear that Israel never existed in history as a state (in the way we see it now) before 1948.
The so called-Israel was formed of two kingdoms. The richest Israel on the north and the poorest and smallest on the south called Judah. These two kingdom never join together.
Israelites and Judah's people were nomads, like the beduins. Maybe they are the same people. But the land they occupied (this was later on) belonged to other established people. There were some city-states in there already.
Arabs and Jews integrated together from century. Arabs is a modern name. In the Christian and Jews books refer these cohabitation of the land of what we called Israel now.
Palestinians are semitic people like jews.
The problem is that the so-called Jews of Israel are not Jews at all. There were of European origins, they lost their semitism. They, but not all, retain their faith on Judahism. They have two thousand years of European culture on their shoulders, their way to see the world is like the old European and American now, that palestinians are inferior individuals or race (?), as European considered Jews inferiors.
I have to make a point, in the mind of Catholic Church Jews were considered God's killers, for that they were considered inferiors. Before Christianity the Romans never consider inferior, maybe barbaric in the way they saw Jews, but not inferior.

Palestinians walk among the remains of a series of homes which were blown up last Sunday by Israeli army in Beit Hanoun (photo:AP)


Palestinian Hala H. Issa cries as an Israeli army bulldozer (BACKGROUND) destroys her house in the Palestinian West Bank city of Bethlehem on December 17, 2002, a week before Christmas!

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Stateless Pigs
by mike Saturday March 01, 2003 at 08:56 PM


The palestinkians need to join the human race....
====================================



Another classic zionazi quote from the ubermensch.

Aren't you ashamed, Mike?


Are any zionists capable of shame?

First of all, Israel's neighbors tried to kill Israel repeatedly. It is NICE of Israel to even CONSIDER offering the west bank and gaza over to people who hate them and want to kill them. You people are so backward in your facts, logic and "thinking" it's incredible.

=================
Stateless Pigs
by mike Saturday March 01, 2003 at 08:56 PM


The palestinkians need to join the human race....
====================================


Another classic zionazi quote from the ubermensch.

Aren't you ashamed, Mike?


Are any zionists capable of shame?

--"...Israel's neighbors tried to kill Israel repeatedly."

This is a lie repeated over and over. Out of all the wars in the region (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1978, 1982), only the 1973 war was started by the Arabs and then only against Israeli positions in territories occupied six years earlier in a war Israel started. Israel started all the rest of the wars in order to expand their borders.

This is documented in Noam Chomsky's book "The Fateful Triangle" for anyone who cares to know the truth.


--"It is NICE of Israel to even CONSIDER offering the west bank and gaza over to people who hate them and want to kill them."

Israel offered them nothing (except Bantustans). The only thing Israel didn't do was completely ethnically cleanse Gaza and the West Bank -- if you consider that "NICE." The Palestinians were always there and are being ethnically cleansed from there right now and with our weapons that we give Israel free of charge.

The twentieth century saw the movement of tens of millions of refugees in connection with two world wars and the founding of dozens of new nations. Millions of Indians, Pakistanis, Germans, Frenchmen, Japanese, English, Jews, Arabs and dozens of African tribes left or were driven out of their former homes. Of all these groups only the Palestinians remain as refugees. There are no more Jewish refugees from Iraq, Russia, Yemen or Libya. There are no more German refugees from Poland and Hungary. there are no more Hindu refugees from Pakistan. Why are the Palestinians the only ones left festering in camps now 55 years later? He're a hint - why wasn't a Palestinian state formed in the West Bank and Gaza from 1948 to 1967 when these lands were controlled by Jordan and Egypt? The answer is that the Arab world hates the Palestinians and uses their suffering for domestic propaganda and geopolitic gain. Arabs support Palestinian terror because they know it will keep the war with Israel going strong. Arab dictators, monarchs and generals (there are no democratically elected Arab leaders) use images from this war to distract their populations from their own curruption and decay and justify continued repression. These Arab leaders also know that continued war with the Palestinians will weaken Israel. Unfortunately, Arafat has become a puppet of his people's enemies. It is only when new Palestinian leaders not beholden to Egypt, Syria or Saudi Arabia arise that there will be a chance for true peace in the region and an end to the grotesque spectacle of third and fourth generation refugees living in "temporary" camps.

"Why are the Palestinians the only ones left festering in camps now 55 years later?"
============================

Why did the insular Jews fester in ghetto's for so many centuries?

Why did they refuse to assimilate?


Why was I assassinated, "Jim"?

Who wrote PNAC?

Good questions Folke. Imagine if the "insular Jews" were festering in ghettos while 22 nearby Jewish controlled states refused to allow them to become citizens. Imagine if these Jewish states had unlimited oil wealth and more than enough land for every ghetto jew to live. In such a case I would say damn the greedy selfish Jews for turning their backs on their brothers in need. But of course, there were no Jewish states to protect the Jews of the ghettos. Now that one tiny Jewish state does exist, jewhaters have adopted the Palestinian cause as a means to continue their 2000 year old war. When the Palestinians take their destiny into their own hands there will be peace - if they allow themselves to be continued to used by foreign jewhaters and Arab dictators we will continue to see Palestinians refugees in the midst of Arab wealth and land.

Either by force or choice, most Jews in Europe ultimately became Christians. It is likely that every person in Spain has at least one Jewish ancestor. The Palestinians don't need to assimilate to live in Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon or Syria - every one of these countries is a Muslim Arab state populated by peoples who traveled the region for hundreds of years. A Palestinian in Egypt would be at home as a Kansan in Nebraska.

There were hundreds of thousands of arab refugees from israel.

There were hundreds of thousands of jewish refugees from arab countries.

Israel accepted the jewish refugees as citizens.

Arab countries REJECTED the vast majority of arab refugees, and kept them as refugees while continuing to try to exterminate israel. And when they gave up, palestinian leaders kept trying to do it. That's why palestinians are still refugees.

And, for those of you who are extremely educated about this, you are aware of palestinian actions against jordan and lebanon and kuwait that pissed those countries off in a big way. But chances are almost none of you know about that. Feel free to forget it, then, as it is secondary to the key FACTS above.

The haters of nazimedia don't give a shit about the Palestinians. They hate Jews. They're no point debating them since at the end, they will always lift their mask and rant about "chosen people", "zionist controlled media" or "greedy bankers". They're ranting is indistinguishable from the lunacy of the racist right. Fortunately, these kooks are few in number and rarely show their faces in public. And when they do try to take limited actions, like the Rainbow boycott of Israel, they are quick to retreat and apologize when their bigotry is publicized.

> Israel accepted the jewish refugees as citizens.

Or rather, it made sure no jewish citizen was safe in Arab nations because of terrorist acts by zionists. There were no jewish refugees until the ethnic cleansing in what was to become eretz israel began, and zionists began bombing campaigns in Iraq, against arabs, to make jews look bad, and against jews, to make sure they didn't want to stay.

Yes I have read Shlomo Hillels book

The ongoing existence of jewish settlements in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem is a reward for ethnic cleansing and jewish terrorism, paid for by Uncle Sam.

Oh, right, sure thing buddy! So all the Jews who had their property confiscated and had to leave Arab countries weren't really harrassed by arabs or the arab governments, it was zionists? Hahaha! Be quiet, foo!

I write this article for the same reason I wrote my book:
to tell the American people, and especially American Jews, that Jews from Islamic lands did not emigrate
willingly to Israel; that, to force them to leave, Jews killed Jews; and that, to buy time to confiscate ever more Arab lands, Jews on numerous occasions
rejected genuine peace initiatives from their Arab neighbors. I write about what the first prime minister of Israel called "cruel Zionism."
I write about it because I WAS PART OF IT.
[...]



March 19, 1950-a bomb went off at the American Cultural Center and Library in Baghdad, causing property damage and injuring a number of people. The center was a favorite meeting place for young Jews.

The first bomb thrown directly at Jews occurred on April 8, 1950, at 9:15 p.m. A car with three young passengers hurled the grenade at Baghdad's El-Dar El-Bida Café, where Jews were celebrating Passover. Four people were seriously injured. That night leaflets were distributed calling on Jews to leave Iraq immediately.

The next day, many Jews, most of them poor with nothing to lose, jammed emigration offices to renounce their citizenship and to apply for permission to leave for Israel. So many applied, in fact, that the police had to open registration offices in Jewish schools and synagogues.

On May 10, at 3 a.m., a grenade was tossed in the direction of the display window of the Jewish-owned Beit-Lawi Automobile Company, destroying part of the building. No casualties were reported.

On June 3, 1950, another grenade was tossed from a speeding car in the El-Batawin area of Baghdad where most rich Jews and middle class Iraqis lived. No one was hurt, but following the explosion Zionist activists sent telegrams to Israel requesting that the quota for immigration from Iraq be increased.

On June 5, at 2:30 a.m., a bomb exploded next to the Jewish owned Stanley Shashua building on El-Rashid street, resulting in property damage but no casualties.

On January 14, 1951, at 7 p.m., a grenade was thrown at a group of Jews outside the Masouda Shem-Tov Synagogue. The explosive struck a high-voltage cable, electrocuting three Jews, one a young boy, Itzhak Elmacher, and wounding over 30 others. Following the attack, the exodus of Jews jumped to between 600-700 per day.


Zionist propagandists still maintain that the bombs in Iraq were set off by anti-Jewish Iraqis who wanted Jews out of their country. The terrible truth is that the grenades that killed and maimed Iraqi Jews and damaged their property were thrown by Zionist Jews.

Among the most important documents in my book, I believe, are copies of two leaflets published by the Zionist underground calling on Jews to leave Iraq. One is dated March 16, 1950, the other April 8, 1950.
The terrible truth is that the grenades that killed and maimed Iraqi Jews and damaged their property were thrown by Zionist Jews.

The difference between these two is critical. Both indicate the date of publication, but only the April 8th leaflet notes the time of day: 4 p.m. Why the time of day? Such a specification was unprecedented. Even the investigating judge, Salaman El-Beit, found it suspicious. Did the 4 p.m. writers want an alibi for a bombing they knew would occur five hours later? If so, how did they know about the bombing? The judge concluded they knew because a connection existed between the Zionist underground and the bomb throwers.

This, too, was the conclusion of Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former senior officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), whom I had the opportunity to meet in New York in 1988. In his book, Ropes of Sand, whose publication the CIA opposed, Eveland writes:

In attempts to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and in synagogues. Soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel. . . .

Although the Iraqi police later provided our embassy with evidence to show that the synagogue and library bombings, as well as the anti-Jewish and anti-American leaflet campaigns, had been the work of an underground Zionist organization, most of the world believed reports that Arab terrorism had motivated the flight of the Iraqi Jews whom the Zionists had "rescued" really just in order to increase Israel's Jewish population."[6]

Eveland doesn't detail the evidence linking the Zionists to the attacks, but in my book I do. In 1955, for example, I organized in Israel a panel of Jewish attorneys of Iraqi origin to handle claims of Iraqi Jews who still had property in Iraq. One well known attorney, who asked that I not give his name, confided in me that the laboratory tests in Iraq had confirmed that the anti-American leaflets found at the American Cultural Center bombing were typed on the same typewriter and duplicated on the same stenciling machine as the leaflets distributed by the Zionist movement just before the April 8th bombing.

Tests also showed that the type of explosive used in the Beit-Lawi attack matched traces of explosives found in the suitcase of an Iraqi Jew by the name of Yosef Basri. Basri, a lawyer, together with Shalom Salih, a shoemaker, would be put on trial for the attacks in December 1951 and executed the following month. Both men were members of Hashura, the military arm of the Zionist underground. Salih ultimately confessed that he, Basri and a third man, Yosef Habaza, carried out the attacks.

By the time of the executions in January 1952, all but 6,000 of an estimated 125,000 Iraqi Jews had fled to Israel

http://www.inminds.co.uk/jews-of-iraq.html

=========================================

Iraqi Jews in Israel anticipate a visit home

By Tim Collie
Staff Writer - South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted March 2 2003

OR YEHUDA, Israel -- For men like Modechai Ben-Porat, an invasion of Iraq brings his life full circle through the -isms of the 20th century -- Nazism, socialism, communism and Islamism.

As a young Jewish resistance fighter in the 1940s, Ben-Porat began organizing the secret exodus of Iraq's besieged Jewish community to the nascent state of Israel. He pulled off a similar operation in revolutionary Iran.











They were called Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, the underground missions that brought 120,400 Iraqi Jews to Israel by the early 1950s. Excluding the Biblical exodus from Egypt, it was the largest population transfer in the history of the Jewish people. Only 38 Jews are left in Baghdad, according to the most recent count.

If Iraq is opened up by U.S. soldiers, Ben-Porat, 79, and others might get one last look at the land of their birth, once one of the most important Jewish communities in the Middle East.

"Would I go back to live? Never," said Ben-Porat as he sat in the museum he created on the street named for him in a town of Israeli-Iraqis that he founded.

"I think all of us, though, the old ones who still remember it, would like to go back for one last visit."

About 450,000 Iraqi Jews live in Israel, which has a population of 6.5 million, making them the fourth-largest immigrant group behind Russians, Moroccans and Romanians. In listening to their stories, told in a mix of Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish and Hebrew, it becomes clear that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would be a short chapter in the long sagas of many ancient peoples.

"Personally, I think the United States is making a mistake even bothering with Iraq," said Eliahu Laor, 72, a former schoolteacher who came from the small town of Kifri, in northern Iraq. "They don't understand the Arab mind like we do. [Arabs] may greet an invasion at first to get rid of Saddam, but over the long term, it's not going to work if the United States stays."

Whatever happens, said Ben-Porat, the long history of Babylonian Jewry is likely finished.

"Even if Saddam Hussein is done, the damage has been done," said Ben-Porat. "The Jewish community in Baghdad is finished. We're talking about an ancient community, one that lasted from 586 B.C. to today. The 38 who are left, the story will end when they die."

Hussein's mother

The survivors of that community show up every day at the Museum of Babylonian Jewry -- the schoolteacher, the former banker, the man whose family owned a string of jewelry shops in Baghdad's old Jewish quarter.

The old men and women look at the pictures of young Baghdad yeshiva students and stare at the traditional wedding gowns, prayer shawls and other artifacts. They walk down a replica of a Baghdad street from their youth, and pause at old Torah scrolls smuggled out of the country.

They tell stories to adults and children who cannot fully comprehend what it was like growing up in such a world, an ancient Middle Eastern society, now a sworn enemy of Israel, swept up in the currents of 20th-century politics.

Some of those stories are relevant today. Among the Iraqi Jewish community in Or Yehuda is a family from Tikrit, Hussein's birthplace, who befriended his mother while she was still pregnant with the future dictator. The family, one of only two Jewish families who lived in Tikrit at that time, took in the young woman and talked her out of an abortion.

"The story is true, I've pretty much confirmed all of the details, but the family doesn't like to talk about it," said Amatzia Baram, Israel's leading expert on Iraq. "There was this fear that people would blame the Jews for Saddam.

"After it became public, the family got this angry response from some people saying they should have done something. But it was ridiculous. We weren't talking about killing a dictator but a fetus."

For the children of these aging immigrants, only now are the stories of that era becoming clear. The Jews who came from Iraq endured discrimination for years in Israel from European Jews who didn't understand their culture and felt spooked by the fact they spoke Arabic.

"I have a German neighbor, and she explained to me one day: `You have to understand how it was: here were these strange people who looked like Arabs and spoke Arabic -- it was very shocking to Europeans that these were Jews, too," said Rachel David, 29, a musician whose grandfather emigrated from Iraq.

Iraqi Jews were the cream of Baghdad's society, prosperous landowners, merchants, authors and intellectuals who made up a large percentage of the society's teachers, attorneys and physicians.

Leaving many of their possessions behind, they wound up in horrid camps in the fields that eventually would became Israeli cities such as Or Yehuda and Ramat Gan.

"What's shocking for someone of my generation is to hear how much they liked the life back there, how good it was for them, they'll tell you," said David. "I used to think they were so submissive toward Arabs who treated them so badly. Now I realize how truly brave they were to come to a country like this where they had nothing but their Judaism."

During the early 20th century, the Jewish Quarter of Baghdad numbered about 137,000 people worshiping at dozens of synagogues. Under the Ottoman Turks, who ruled the region until World War I, the Jews of Baghdad were dhimmis, a so-called protected minority, guaranteed freedom of worship but subject to discriminatory taxes and forbidden to own arms.

When the Ottoman empire fell, relations began to sour as Jewish agitation for a homeland grew stronger.

There were periodic attacks on Jewish neighborhoods and schools, but the turning point came in 1941 in the aftermath of a pro-Nazi coup, when 135 Jews were murdered during a two-day rampage.

"It was a huge shock for people, who up to then thought they were safe in Baghdad among neighbors and friends no matter what their religion," said Ben-Porat.

"The mob came to the door of our house and was about to attack," he said. "But our Muslim neighbor, the wife of an Iraqi army colonel, came rushing out to save us. She held a hand grenade and said she would blow them up if they didn't go away."

Despite the neighbor's courageous act, Ben-Porat's parents had had enough. His family obtained forged passports and left Iraq in a seaplane that touched down on the Dead Sea.

Ben-Porat stayed behind to complete his schoolwork and to work with the underground Halutz movement, dedicated to creating a pathway for Jews to reach Palestine. He was 19.

"In 1945, I walked to Jerusalem," he says. "I walked for 30 days, through Syria and then down from the north through Lebanon."

Punishing the Jews

Ben-Porat soon found himself a company commander in Israel's War of Independence. After the war, realizing Jews were endangered throughout the Arab world, Israel's predominantly European leaders turned to the Iraqi Jews, who knew the streets of the region's cities and spoke the language.

"I had to think it over when they asked me to go back," said Ben-Porat. "My mother was so afraid, but in the end I had no choice."

By the end of 1951, only 9,000 Jews remained in the Iraqi capital.

Many like Ben-Porat have fond memories of their Muslim and Christian neighbors. Some were pulled to Israel by religion, but others felt pushed out by the turbulence of the times.

"First it was Nazism, then Zionism," recalled Daniel Halussi, 91, a professor of languages when he immigrated to Israel at the age of 40. "The life of the Jews in Baghdad was very good until Hitler came into power."

But Laor said the final straw for the Iraqi Arabs was the creation of the Jewish state.

In 1947-48, he said, Zionism became such a force in the Middle East that Arabs felt insulted by the idea of a Jewish state.

"They fired us, all of us, from jobs with the government," said Laor, who was a schoolteacher. "I don't think so many people would have left if they hadn't began punishing the Jews.

"I really had no choice but to go, or stay in Baghdad and be a servant."

I write this article for the same reason I wrote my book:
to tell the American people, and especially American Jews, that Jews from Islamic lands did not emigrate
willingly to Israel; that, to force them to leave, Jews killed Jews; and that, to buy time to confiscate ever more Arab lands, Jews on numerous occasions
rejected genuine peace initiatives from their Arab neighbors. I write about what the first prime minister of Israel called "cruel Zionism."
I write about it because I WAS PART OF IT.

http://www.inminds.co.uk/jews-of-iraq.html


Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT
Jews killed Jews...I WAS PART OF IT



Stop trying to submerge facts in spin - we've become immune via an al-gorithm (Baghdad, 835CE) for explanatory fitness.

Some of us ARE Jews.

Listen, "Indymedia," if some of you are Jews, you should perhaps wonder why you allow Israel and Jews to be CONSTANTLY singled out and exaggerated about and scapegoated, while the actions of other people that are DIRECTLY RELEVANT to how jews and/or israelis have to act is downplayed or ignored.

But, honestly, I doubt that any of you are Jewish. If so, you're hte most stupid Jewish people on the planet.

--"...you should perhaps wonder why you allow Israel and Jews to be CONSTANTLY singled out and exaggerated about and scapegoated..."

This is BS. Jews are not being singled out (or scapegoated or whatever). In fact this is not about Jews. It is about the state of Israel and its supporters (whether they are Jews or non-Jews).

Also, Israel is not being singled out. It is just being criticized like so many other countries on Indymedia including our own. And even if it were singled out, it would be appropriate because it is also singled out for preferential treatment by our government. We give it more aid by far than any other country on earth. And when Israelis use this aid to ethnically cleanse the land then that blood is on our hands.

A few years after the bombings, in the early 1950s, a book was published in Iraq, in Arabic, titled Venom of the Zionist Viper. The author was one of the Iraqi investigators of the 1950-51 bombings and, in his book, he implicates the Israelis, specifically one of the emissaries sent by Israel, Mordechai Ben-Porat. As soon as the book came out, all copies just disappeared, even from libraries. The word was that agents of the Israeli Mossad, working through the U.S. Embassy, bought up all the books and destroyed them. I tried on three different occasions to have one sent to me in Israel, but each time Israeli censors in the post office intercepted it.

In September 1949, Israel sent the spy Mordechai Ben-Porat, the one mentioned in Venom of the Zionist Viper, to Iraq. One of the first things Ben-Porat did was to approach el-Said and promise him financial incentives to have a law enacted that would lift the citizenship of Iraqi Jews.

Sixteen years later, the Israeli magazine Haolam Hazeh, published by Uri Avnery, then a Knesset member, accused Ben-Porat of the Baghdad bombings. Ben-Porat, who would become a Knesset member himself, denied the charge, but never sued the magazine for libel. And Iraqi Jews in Israel still call him Morad Abu al-Knabel, Mordechai of the Bombs.

Left: James Longley received the Student Academy Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his short documentary, "Portrait of Boy with Dog," about a boy in a Moscow orphanage. "Gaza Strip," his first feature documentary, was produced on location during the spring of 2001. James Longley, director of the 2001 feature documentary "Gaza Strip," will return the prestigious Student Academy Award he received from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) unless the Academy explains why it has deemed Palestine ineligible to enter the Oscars competition.

"Unless people stand up in vocal opposition to what they feel is wrong, there is a good chance that their views will simply go unnoticed," Longley told EI in an interview. "When I won the Student Academy Award eight years ago I felt it was a great honor and very exciting. The Academy makes a big point of touring you through all of the big Hollywood institutions, introducing you to all the right people and effectively inviting you to be part of the club."

Longley added that, "to now return the award would be a way to publicly reject that invitation on principle, to take a personal stand in favor of free speech and against what I perceive to be unfairness and cowardly partisan politics on the part of the Academy."

EI reported on 10 December that AMPAS Executive Director Bruce Davis had told the producer of Elia Suleiman's award-winning film, "Divine Intervention," that it could not be entered into the competition for Best Foreign Language Film because Palestine is not a recognized member state of the United Nations. In fact, AMPAS routinely accepts official entries from territories, such as Wales, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Puerto Rico that are neither independent states, nor have any status at the United Nations, and its published rules make no mention of a UN membership requirement.

Despite Davis' position that the film could not be entered, John Pavlik, communications director for the Academy wrote to Longley and others who had protested, that since "Divine Intervention" was never formally submitted to the Academy, "no decisions were made by the Academy with regard to accepting the film."

This technicality is rather like a shopkeeper protesting that he has never refused to hire a Palestinian because none has ever asked for a job, while failing to mention the sign on his door stating 'Palestinians need not apply.' In its responses to Longley and media enquiries, the Academy has continued to act as if mere procedure is at issue, while refusing to acknowledge that Davis' ruling that Palestine is ineligible effectively shut out "Divine Intervention."

Pointing to the glaring inconsistencies in the Academy's attempts to explain the exclusion of Palestine, Longley wrote to Davis, "I must ask how AMPAS can explain this apparent double standard." He is still waiting for a reply.

James Longley won the Student Academy Award for his short documentary, "Portrait of Boy with Dog," about a boy in a Moscow orphanage. "Gaza Strip," his first feature documentary, has been exhibited at dozens of film festivals, cinemas and universities around the world. The film was so popular at last April's Chicago Palestine Film Festival that hundreds of people had to be turned away, even when an unscheduled screening was added. Learn more about James Longley and his films at www.littleredbutton.com

Left: James Longley.
Full EI Interview with James Longley:

EI: Why did you feel a need to say you would return your Student Academy Award over the exclusion of Divine Intervention?

James Longley: Unless people stand up in vocal opposition to what they feel is wrong, there is a good chance that their views will simply go unnoticed. When I won the Student Academy Award eight years ago I felt it was a great honor and very exciting. The Academy makes a big point of touring you through all of the big Hollywood institutions, introducing you to allthe right people and effectively inviting you to be part of the club. To now return the award would be a way to publicly reject that invitation on principle, to take a personal stand in favor of free speech and against what I perceive to be unfairness and cowardly partisan politics on the part of the Academy.

EI: What is your reaction to the Academy's response?

James Longley: Predictably, the Academy is attempting to squirm out of the situation without addressing the bigger issues, such as why a film from Palestine was discouraged from participating while films from other places with far less official recognition as states are allowed to compete. I am still waiting for a response to my 17 December letter.

EI: What do you think lies behind the Academy's decision to deem Palestine ineligible for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar?

James Longley: Given that the "Palestine is not a state" excuse used by the Academy clearly contradicts their own past actions, I am left with no other possible conclusion than the Academy acted in a politically motivated way when it discouraged the producer of "Divine Intervention" from entering his film. Anyone who has seen "Divine Intervention' can well imagine the almost desperate desire on the part of some not to have attention given to this film in the United States.

EI: Is there a connection between the fate of Elia Suleiman's "Divine Intervention" which has been excluded from the Oscars, and Muhammad Bakri's documentary "Jenin, Jenin" which has been banned by Israel?

James Longley: While I have not seen "Jenin, Jenin" I have certainly heard the arguments of its detractors. The issue boils down to one of freedom of speech, and the suppression of it. It is clearly the intent of many in the pro-Israeli government camp to squelch voices with which they disagree. One might conclude that this is only necessary because of the inherent weakness of their position in a fair and open debate.

EI: "Divine Intervention" has been celebrated as a major achievement outside the United States, winning a Jury Prize at Cannes, as well as the European Film Award, and yet it can't even enter the Oscars this year. Can you reflect on this based on the reception your own film, "Gaza Strip" has received?

James Longley: My own experience with "Gaza Strip" has been more prosaic. It has received very positive reviews and an enthusiastic audience response everywhere it has been shown. I chalk up the lack of U.S. broadcasters to pure terror on their part. I was told flat out by a vice president of programming at PBS that though he liked the film it would be "politically very difficult" to show it. He was being diplomatic; it is politically impossible to broadcast a documentary like mine in the United States on a national network. Not because it isn't a good documentary, but because broadcasters are terrified of showing something that contradicts the status quo when it comes to Israel-Palestine, and broadcasters have no incentive to be anything but spineless. Neither, apparently, does the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

EI: What role do you think film plays in Palestine? What role do films about Palestine play in the rest of the world?

James Longley: Until the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land ends, I think there won't be much opportunity for Palestinians to think about normal things like going to the movies. Internationally, of course, films about Palestine play an extraordinarily important role. I maintain that if the American public could only see for themselves what is taking place, the Middle East conflict would end because all support for Israel's policy of occupation would evaporate instantly. Film has the power to provide that window.

Related Links:
, by Benjamin J. Doherty and Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 10 December 2002.


Ali Abunimah is one of the founders of the Electronic Intifada. Benjamin J. Doherty is an occasional contributor. EI's Nigel Parry also contributed to this report.

Hmm here we have a technical definition. either palestine is a state in which case the palistinians are not occupied - they are an independant state which just happens to have unfavourable relations with its neighbour.. or they are currently inside of israel and are therefore not a country. Tough call but really should clear it up.

Still I dont see why films have to be country dependant or why his can't be submited under israel.

There are around 1 million Palestinians who live within Israel and have Israeli citizenship but are second class citizens (less money for schools and neighborhoods, can't buy land, can have their own land confiscated, etc.).

There are also Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories who are currently being ethnically cleansed from there by destroying their homes, hospitals, schools, etc. and by killing them every single day.

In any case, this film is being kept out of the Oscars because it is made by and about Palestinians. AMPAS says Palestine is not a state in the UN so that's why it can't be considered. But films have been accepted from Wales, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Puerto Rico that are neither independent states, nor have any status at the United Nations.

That this film is being denied entry to the Oscars on the basis that it is by and about Palestinians reeks of racism. And this is most likely being done to try to limit the film's exposure to American audiences where it would have the effect of *humanizing* Palestinians who have been thoroughly demonized through disgustingly racist depictions in the movies.

Contact everyone you know and have them send a message to AMPAS to allow this Palestinian film to be considered in the Oscars next year.

Click on the link below and then click on "Take Action Now" to send a message to Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to allow this movie to be considered for best foreign film in the Oscars.

Israel's goal is to be left alone. Israel cannot achieve that while lunatic terrorists who seek its destruction are refusing to stop attacking it. Israel cannot even think of removing all their troops from west bank towns when lunatics from the west bank won't stop coming into israel for the expressed purpose of killing every jewish israeli they can get at.

--"Israel's goal is to be left alone."

True, Israel's goal is to be left alone...as it ethnically cleanses the Occupied Territories, murders civilians there, steals their property, and creates settlements on top of other people's land all with our tax money.

or the arabs could some how manage to defeat israel and have lots of fun getting suntans in israels Mutually Assured Destruction strie.
not to mention the bio wepons. I hear that the palistinian people support the use of bio weapons (public opinion survey) hmmm.... maybe it would be even worse if it was peaceful....

Israel did not steal land. Jews purchased land over 100 years, immigrating there. No land was "taken" from anyone. There were refugees of war in 1948, and that land was taken, and at the exact same time, jewish land was taken from jews across various arab countries.

If you want israel to give land back to arab refugees, tell the arab countries to give the jewish homes and possessions back to the jews.

You people defy logic, and you defy history.

--"No land was "taken" from anyone"

That one quote right there shows this guy to be a liar and a propagandist for the state of Israel.

What makes you think we jewhaters care about truth? We hate jews - we use any weapon we can to attack them - palestinians, war on Iraq, the economy - any excuse we can think of. Shit, even though most of us here at Indymedia are marxists, we like to use nazi websites and references in our attacks on jews. Who murdered americans on the USS Liberty! Who controls most of the media and buys off congress! Who is greedy and selfish for land! And you morons try to talk sense to us, as if we cared about history, logic, reason! What idiots you are.

get it right

You know why "Jews not Zionists" is such an unconvincing stance, even though it's been repeated here so many times?

Maybe it's because for the last two thousand years, Jews prayed three times a day for Jerusalem to be restored?

Maybe it's because for at least the last thousand, Jews ended every Passover seder by saying "Next year in Jerusalem"?

Or maybe it's because anybody with a newspaper can see articles in the last week or so about the Orthodox (and in some case Ultra-) religious parties -- like the National Religious Party and Shas -- that are becoming part of Sharon's new coalition government. From which it _immediately_ follows that it's simply ridiculous to claim that Orthodoxy must be opposed to Zionism.

Out of all the reality distortions of the Rod-Serlingesque version of Zionism being dogmatized on Indybay, that's the one that always struck me as the most bizarre -- the peculiar ideation that Judaism and Zionism are _opposing_ forces.

So there are some far-Orthodox Jews who believe that and love the publicity they get for their stance. There are more far-Orthodox Jews who don' t think that. Neither Reform nor Conservative Judaism teach that. Yet, due to the constant respamming of the Neturai Karta websites, if all you knew about Judaism you learned from Indybay, you'd come away thinking this was actually a major dividing point in Jewish theology.

It ain't. Pure and simple. It ain't.

Pragmatically, I can see what purpose that stance holds for the Dismantle Israel movement. It allows cover for the frequent lapses into rhetoric with antisemitic overtones -- you know, The Zionist controls the media, The Zionist controls international banking, The Zionist is the secret power behind the US government -- by suggesting that it's possible to cut the baby in half, to be ardently anti-Zionist while scrupulously anti-antisemitism.

The record here in the last few weeks suggests that some of the loudest of you in the Dismantle Israel movement are having tremendous trouble cutting that baby in half.

@%<

So you are saying that to be against the establishment of Israel is anti-semitic, since in your opinion, zionism is inherent to judiasm? So then, using your logic, any criticism of the Israeli state, being inherently part of BEING Jewish, would entail being critical of Jews in general and of course anti-semitic.

My question is, if Jews wanted to return to Jerusalem, then why hadn't they for over these thousands of years? If it was just an empty desert for so long, "a land without people," why didn't the Jews return there long ago? Obviously this craving to return to Jerusalem was not as prevasive in the Jewish community and you describe and is not inherent to being Jewish, otherwise the mass exodus to the "promised land" would of started hundreds of years ago.

Your argument has no basis in reality, and is only spread by zionists wishing to end all criticism of Israel and it's atrocities.

"Maybe it's because for at least the last thousand, Jews ended every Passover seder by saying "Next year in Jerusalem"? "

I grew up saying that but it was ritual and even if taken at face value it has nothing to do with supporting a Jewish state (If anything it sounds more like a desire to visit)

"So then, using your logic, any criticism of the Israeli state, being inherently part of BEING Jewish, would entail being critical of Jews in general and of course anti-semitic. "

Here, let me buy you a funnel, since that will help you jam more words into my mouth than you already have.

I have said many times here that I do not believe that criticism of Israeli practices or politics is inherently antisemitic. What I've said -- and what some folks seem to prefer to ignore or not believe -- is that there is such a thing as antisemitic attacks on Israel and only fool would deny it.

What happens, invariably, when I make this point? Somebody immediately tries to oversimplify it to "so you think criticizing Israel is automatically antisemitic, huh?"

If my stance isn't clear to you, read it again. D'oh.

And there has _always_ been a Jewish presence in Jerusalem, and there have _always_ been Jews who have sought to return to Jerusalem. But imagine that you're a Jewish bread baker in Minsk with three children to feed. What are you going to do, _walk_ to Jerusalem?

@%<

I am only taking your bullshit statement to its logical conclusion. You said that returning to Jerusalem was inherent to Judiasm, which means that zionism itself is part of being Jewish and that all Jews should return to "Israel." Why can't you explain why Zionism then is a modern ideology? You claim that it is because Jews were too poor to move to Palestine, yet droves of them went to Palestine during and after WW2, which can be expected considering that the Nazis were slaughtering them (and others) in camps, and that the Allies were ignoring their plight. Yet you cannot explain why for thousands of years Jews didn't move to Palestine and create a Jewish homeland (of course there were small groups of Jews in Palestine, as there are small groups of Jews practically every where), because you as well as I know that Judiasm says that Jews will return to Israel only when the Messiah comes. That is what the phrase means "Tomorrow in Jerusalem," implying that the Messiah will come and Israel will be restored, that is the very importance of the custom, not the fetishization of Jerusalem itself.

So, it is shown for all to see here that Zionism is not inherent to following Judiasm or being Jewish, but was a modern nationalist construct fueled by Jewish persecution in Europe, and resulted in the expulsion of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine.

First, let me spit out the funnel you used to funnel _more_ words into my mouth. Ptui!

Next -- you continue to interpret what I'm saying as if it were an either/or dichotomy, which isn't what I'm saying, but rather what you're jamming into my mouth because it can trigger your pre-cooked response.

It's as foolish to say that Zionism and Judaism are _unrelated_ as it is to say that they're _identical_. Both are egregious oversimplifications. Reality is more complicated. They overlap, however, strongly. Most Jews, religious or secular, have no trouble accepting Israel as a manifestation of Jewish identity. That's why it's wrong to say that Zionism is a secular movement, and equally wrong to say it's a religious movement. Again, reality is more complicated.

@%<

Student, be sure to stay in school. Are you honestly asking why Jews didn't return to israel? Because they weren't allowed to.

What a dumb question. Jews have been kicked around the world for 2000 years, and you have the ignorant audacity to say "well gee, why didn't they just move in?" Answer: because where Jews could move was restricted by much of the world.

"Hollywood" is right- "Palestinians" don't exist.

Zionists wanted the same thing 50 and 80 years ago as they want now, a safe little Jewish state where Jews don't have to worry about being attacked just for being Jewish.

Jordan offered Israel a real, honest peace offer, and Israel accepted, and gave Jordan control of the massive Sinai, even though there is OIL in the Sinai. There has been peace between the two nations ever since.

Egypt offered Israel a real, honest peace offer, and Israel accepted. There has been peace between the two nations ever since.

There is ample evidence that Israel wants peace and is willing to make huge concessions to receive it, as evidenced by Israel giving the Sinai away, a MASSIVE chunk of land that would have served as a great buffer, and could have served as future homes once the land was cultivated (it's mostly desert, but it has oil, landing strips, and would have been extremely useful. It's bigger than israel, yet israel gave it away in return for peace).

Palestinians have offered Israel terrorist attacks, lies, and madness. Palestinians have waged an "intifada" against Israel. Israel has no choice but to kill those who are trying to kill them. Arafat should have taken the land for peace offer Israel made 3 years ago. Arafat should have locked up terrorists in the 90's when he had the power to do so and israel was not preventing him from doing so.

The "zionist agenda" is a safe home. But home isn't safe when the neighbors have sworn to kill you, so the only possible response is to take control of the neighbors and smack them around until the evil neighbors are gone and civil neighbors remain.


Zionism: 1) 19th century Jews, to varying degrees in different parts of Europe, have limited freedom. This ranges from not being able to hold public office or go to universities to living in walled ghettos and facing pogroms. 2) While the rest of the world is engaged in nationalism, Jews realize that they need their own right to self determination, a right that a huge majority of the Jewish people does not have. 3) Having been a diaspora community since the year 70, scattered around the world, Jews look to the home that they have longed for for 1900 years, the Land of Israel, as the place of this self determination. 4) Jews begin to develop the agriculture of this land, called by Mark Twain in the 1870s as one of the most barren, depressing places on earth, and cultivate an economy. 5) A modern state is formed.


This crazy anti-zionism ranting is lunacy.

Jews bought the land they moved to. No one got kicked out of palestinian/israeli land until the 1948 war. Arab countries teamed up to try to kill off the jews there and take over the land that jews had spend the last 100 years buying and moving to, and many arabs who were in israel supported the death of israel.

For all the hundreds of thousands of arab refugees from that and future wars, there were hundreds of thousands of jewish refguees from arab countries.

Israel accepted jewish refugees into it.

arab countries rejected most arab refugees.

instead, arab countries just kept waging war on israel. and finally they stopped, but palestinian leaders kept right on attacking.

As for your insane summary of zionism, jews had been discriminated against in many countries around the world, and were becoming extremely desperate. Country after country proved to be unsafe for jews at one time or another for a very long time, and finally, some powerful jews tried to figure out where the hell on earth jews could be safe from that happening. Zionism was founded by non-religious jews. It was about finding a safe home for jews. Have you studied history at all? Jews were horribly discriminated against in a HUGE number of countries. Zionism was a response, it was about finding a home SOMEWHERE, ANYWHERE, wehre jews could be safe. Many places were considered for this home, it wasn't necessarily going to be israel. At one point, UGANDA was considered. But israel made sense, since (1) it was where jews came from in the first place and (2) it wasn't an actual established country yet, palestine was a "land territory" and (3) in the late 1800's, when zionism began, there were very few people living in palestine/israel. Mass immigration of jews ANd arabs began in the early 1900's, though arab immigration was unlimited, and jewish immigration was limited. Even during the holocaust, britain often rejected jews trying to flee and enter israel, and forced many of them to go back to europe to die.

Zionism was a response to the world's treatement of jews. IT was about a safe home for jews. Some jews already lived in israel/palestine, and others from the late 1800's and all through the 1900's bought land and bought homes there, and moved there. It had nothing to do with "jewish supremecy" and the LIES some of you people want to make up. How the hell can any educated person look at the history of the world's treatement of the jews in the 1700's, 1800's, and 1900's, and not understand a simple desire to have SOME PLACE on this planet where jews living in europe and in hostile middle east countries could try to be safe?

Zionism was about finding a safe home for jews. Buying land in that place. Establishing a nation. When there's war, bad things happen and refugees occur, but the goal was not "war" or "supremecy" or any sort of crazy bad stuff. Take all your horrible lies about the motivations behind zionism and shove them.

As for some bad things some people who happen to believe that israel should exist have done, not every human being of any race, religion or movement is always going to be a good person, obviously some people suck, obviously some people do the wrong thing, and obviously not all elected (or non-elected) governments always do the right thing.

So, ponting out some bad things the israeli govt may or may not have done does not affect the big picture, that (1) zionism was a response to the world's treatement of jews and the recognition that jews needed some sort of safe haven, and (2) israel's main goal is to exist and be safe.

When I wrote these things- [these instructions to the embassies to frame Arabs for Israeli terrorism against U.S. targets in Egypt] - I still didn't know how crushing is the evidence that was
ALREADY PUBLISHED
refuting our official version. The huge amounts of arms and explosives, the tactics of the attack, the blocking and mining of the roads ... the precise coordination of the attack. Who would be foolish enough to believe that such a complicated operation could "develop" from a casual and sudden attack on an Israeli army unit by an Egyptian unit?
- Moshe Sharett, Prime Minister of Israel 1954 & 1955.

04 March 2003

A pregnant woman crushed to death when Israeli soldiers dynamited the house next door; a few streets away a smear of the blood on the road where a boy aged 14 was shot dead by tank fire – this was the scene in the Gaza Strip yesterday, when the Israeli army was celebrating what it considered to be a big success.

During a deep incursion into the Bureij refugee camp, the Israeli army detained Mohammed Taha, the first senior leader of the political wing of Hamas, the Palestinian militant organisation responsible for more suicide bombings than any other, to be arrested.

Also among those captured by the army was a man it said was the deputy of Mohammed Deif, leader of the armed wing of Hamas and Israel's most wanted man. Although Hamas denied the man was Mr Deif's deputy, there was little doubt that the incursion was a heavy blow to the militant group.

But a more unpalatable truth lurked in the bullet holes that spattered Peace Street, where 14-year-old Tariq Akil was killed, and in the ruins of the house where Nuha al- Magadmeh, nine-months pregnant, was crushed to death 10 days before she was due to give birth. These are what armies like to describe as "collateral damage", the civilians who are "unavoidably" killed in the course of a military operation.

Eight Palestinians were killed in the incursion. Local Palestinians said three were unarmed militants – the others were unarmed civilians. They also confirmed Israeli army reports that there had been heavy fighting between Israeli soldiers and armed militants resisting the incursion.

But there were disturbing signs that some of the civilian deaths were not unavoidable – that the Israeli army did not do enough to prevent them.

In the half-ruined house where Ms Magadmeh was crushed to death, her son, Naseem, 12, told us the family was sheltering in one room. "Suddenly there was a big explosion and the wall fell on us," he said. "My mother was crying 'Help me, Shukri [her husband], help me.'

"We were shouting for help from the neighbours but no one could come. My father tried to move pieces of wall." Israeli soldiers had dynamited a neighbouring house, which belonged to the family of a suicide bomber, Sami Abed al-Salam. He had killed himself when he tried to blow up a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip in December. The Israeli army routinely demolishes the homes of suicide bombers' families, a practice condemned as collective punishment by human rights groups.

The wall between the house that was blown up and Ms Magadmeh's collapsed on her. But that could have been avoided. "We did not go out because the Israeli soldiers ordered everyone to stay inside over a loudspeaker," said the dead woman's husband, who has a fractured neck. It appears the soldiers evacuated only those inside the house that would be demolished and those living on either side – not those whose houses backed on to the demolished building.

In the neighbouring Nusseirat refugee camp's Peace Street, where Tariq Akil, 14, was killed, his uncle, Usama Akil, told us he was fleeing because one of his relatives is a wanted militant. The entire family had abandoned their house and run, but the boy was the last to leave. As he ran up the street, a tank opened fire.

Mr Akil and other Palestinian witnesses said there was no fighting and no militants in the street at the time. Mr Akil said the fighting was in the next street. It is never possible to confirm such reports with certainty. But the disturbing evidence was lying a few metres up the road: the twisted metal remains of a tank shell. Beside them great rents were blasted out of the asphalt road, and through a gaping hole in the wall you could see through into Rajab Abu Hamdi's living room. The Israeli army fired a tank shell into a civilian house, running a high risk of civilian casualties. Mr Abu Hamdi had cowered in his living room, he told us. "It's a miracle I'm alive." He said there were no militants in the house at the time.

Mr Abu Hamdi said he believed the Israeli tank fired the shell at Tariq Akil. "There was no one else here. They were firing at anything that was moving," he claimed. "If a chicken had been in the street they would have fired at it."

Mohammed al-Rifai said his son Maher, 24, died after he was hit by shrapnel from tank fire when they went to see if they could help the wounded. "He was hit in the chest and in both legs," said the old man, who was injured in the foot." I was two metres from him. They were shooting at us." Mr Rifai said his son was a member of the Palestinian police force but was off duty at the time and was not carrying his gun.

The deaths came a day after a boy aged nine was shot dead during the funeral of two militants killed in the south of the Gaza Strip. Palestinians said he was shot by Israeli soldiers after a group of children started throwing stones at a settlement. The Israeli army said the soldiers had come under fire.

Hamas denied Israeli army claims that the main target of yesterday's operation, Mr Taha, was one of the seven founders of Hamas. Although leaders of the group's armed wing have frequently been arrested and assassinated by the Israeli army, Mr Taha is the first senior leader of the political wing to be detained.

Lets review facts:

(1) When any innocent people die, it's sad

(2) Palestinians brought this on themselves by declaring their intiafa and waging terrorist attacks almost daily against israel while israel was mostly withdrawn from the west bank and gaza. Terrorist attacks against israel in 2000 and 2001 is what brought israel back into more west bank and gaza towns

(3) hamas are not freedom fighters, they seek the destruction of israel. israel does not want to destroyed. yet hamas are the most popular palestinian organization and enjoy enormous support. same with islamic jihad, hizbollah, and countless other lunatic palestinian organizations.

(4) if palestilians don't want buildings to fall on top of them, all they have to do is call off their intifada, get some responsible leadership, and give up their dream of destroying israel.

(5) palestinians were doing much better a few years ago. Attacks against israel have just resulted in israel extending their troops and making most of the fighting take place outside of israel, making it harder for palestinians to intentionally blow up israeli civilians as they ride a bus or eat pizza at a pizza place.

(6) if you're rooting for palestinians to have freedom, help them get responsible, honest leaders, convince them to give up their dream of destroying israel, and somehow help get rid of hamas, who have sworn to destroy israel no matter what

In the following video documentary, the first scene shows Israelis in 1995 stealing Palestinian property openly, blatantly and with OUR M-16 rifles:
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/jerusalem.ram

Note that this is 1995 before the current intifada.

Frankie, you are so blinded...why don't you open your eyes to the facts of how Israel came into being...by
evil acts of uprooting a people who has been
there for thousands of years..I agree that Jews have been mistreated and prosecuted in history and needs a country of their own...but that does not give them the right to come in and uproot Palestinian villages by force. There have been so many acts of terrorism on the part of Palestinians because they are placed in a desperate situation by Israelis who want to continue their illegal Jewish settlements and won't be satisfied until Palestinians are left with absolutely nothing.
I read that 90% of all Palestinian children experienced Israel soldiers breaking into their homes. How would you feel about that? If you want to know both sides of the story, read "The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflect" published by Jews for justice in the Middle East. I'm neither Jew nor Palestinian nor Middle Eastern for that matter, as a non biased observer, I think Palestinians are the oppressed and deserves sympathy from the rest of the world.

For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, take a look at the Preview to Divine Intervention up in the original article.

This is a movie that has been kept out of the Oscars deliberately because it is made by and about Palestinians.

Please follow the link to take action on this and send a letter to AMPAS to have get this movie considered for the Oscars in 2003.

Any one see this as an extension of the oslo accords? Two political bodies extending politics into war..No more, no less

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