Mohamed Hamzaoui’s video click here
by Francis A. Boyle / October 2nd, 2010
On November 15, 1988 the Palestine National Council (P.N.C.) meeting in Algiers proclaimed the Palestinian Declaration of Independence that created the independent state of Palestine. Today the State of Palestine is bilaterally recognized de jure by about 130 states. Palestine has de facto diplomatic recognition from most of Europe. It was only massive political pressure applied by the U.S. government that prevented European states from according to Palestine de jure diplomatic recognition.
Palestine is a member state of the League of Arab States and of the Islamic Conference Organization. When the International Court of Justice in The Hague—the so-called World Court of the United Nations System—conducted its legal proceedings on Israel’s apartheid wall on the West Bank, the World Court invited the State of Palestine to participate in the proceedings. In other words, the International Court of Justice recognized the State of Palestine.
Palestine has Observer State Status with the United Nations Organization, and basically all the rights of a U.N. Member State except the right to vote. Effectively, Palestine has de facto U.N. Membership. The only thing keeping Palestine from de jure U.N. Membership is the implicit threat of a veto at the U.N. Security Council by the United States, which is clearly illegal. Someday Palestine shall be a full-fledged U.N. Member State.
From a world-order perspective, the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence created a remarkable opportunity for peace with Israel because therein the P.N.C. explicitly accepted the U.N. General Assembly’s Partition Resolution 181(II) of 1947 that called for the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in the Mandate for Palestine, together with an international trusteeship for the City of Jerusalem, in order to resolve their basic conflict:
Despite the historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian Arab people resulting in their dispersion and depriving them of their right to self-determination following upon U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947), which partitioned Palestine into two states, one Arab, one Jewish, yet it is this Resolution that still provides those conditions of international legitimacy that ensure the right of the Palestinian Arab people to sovereignty and national independence.
The significance of the P.N.C.’s acceptance of the Partition Resolution in the Palestinian Declaration of Independence itself could not be over-emphasized. Prior thereto, from the perspective of the Palestinian People the Partition Resolution had been deemed to be a criminal act that was perpetrated upon them by the United Nations Organization in gross violation of their fundamental right to self-determination as recognized by the United Nations Charter and general principles of public international law. The acceptance of the Partition Resolution in their actual Declaration of Independence signaled the genuine desire by the Palestinian People to transcend the past century of bitter conflict with the Jewish People living illegally in their midst in order to reach an historic accommodation with them on the basis of a two-state solution.
The very fact that this acceptance of Partition Resolution 181 was set forth in their Declaration of Independence indicated the degree of sincerity with which the Palestinian People accepted Israel. The Declaration of Independence was the foundational document for the State of Palestine. It was intended to be determinative, definitive, and irreversible. As the P.N.C. well knew at the time, their Declaration of Independence was not something that could be amended or bargained away.
Nonetheless, the Palestinians have now fruitlessly spent the past twenty-two years trying to negotiate in good faith with Israel over the two-state solution set forth in Resolution 181. They have gotten absolutely nowhere. Israel has never demonstrated one iota of good faith when it came to negotiating a comprehensive Middle Peace settlement with the Palestinians on the basis of a two-state solution. Even the 1993 Oslo Agreement was nothing more than an Israeli-drafted interim Bantustan arrangement for five years that was rejected in Washington, D.C. by the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations for that precise reason. Both Israel and the United States now want to make the Oslo Bantustan permanent and, incidental thereto, destroy the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes as required by U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) of 1948 and general principles of public international law.
In this regard, shortly before he died on September 24, 2007, I called up the former Head of the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations, Dr. Haidar Abdul Shaffi at his home in Gaza in order to review the entire situation with him. According to Dr. Haidar: “The Zionists have not changed their objectives since the Basel Conference of 1897!” In other words, the Zionists want a “Greater” Israel on all of the Mandate for Palestine together with as much ethnic cleansing of Palestinians out of Palestine that the Zionists believe they can get away with internationally.
After twenty-two years of getting nowhere but further screwed to Israel’s apartheid wall on the West Bank and strangulated in Gaza, it is now time for the Palestinians to adopt a new strategy, which I most respectfully recommend here for them to consider: Sign nothing and let Israel collapse! Recently it was reported that the United States’ own Central Intelligence Agency predicted the collapse of Israel within twenty years. My most respectful advice to the Palestinians is to let Israel so collapse!
For the Palestinians to sign any type of comprehensive peace treaty with Israel would only shore up, consolidate, and guarantee the existence of Zionism and Zionists in Palestine forever. Why would the Palestinians want to do that? Without approval by the Palestinians in writing, Zionism and Israel in Palestine will collapse. So the Palestinians must not sign any Middle East Peace Treaty with Israel, but rather must keep the pressure on Israel for the collapse of Zionism over the next two decades as predicted by the Central Intelligence Agency. The correct historical analogue here is not apartheid South Africa, but instead the genocidal Yugoslavia that collapsed as a State, lost its U.N. Membership, and no longer exists as a State for that very reason.
All the demographic forces are in favor of the Palestinians and against the Zionists. The United States government is tired of its blank-check support for Israel because this policy seriously undermines and conflicts with America’s imperial objective to obtain the oil and gas lying beneath Arab and Muslim states by hook or by crook. Israel is ridden with and paralyzed by so many internal contradictions and conflicts that they are too numerous to list here.
Indeed, from the very moment of its inception as a direct result of the Zionists’ genocidal al Nakba in 1948, Israel has been the proverbial failed state, and still is so today. Israel would have never come into existence without the support of Western colonial imperial powers throughout the twentieth century. And the same is true today. Without the political, economic, diplomatic, and military support provided primarily by the United States, and to a lesser extent by Britain, France, and Germany, Israel would immediately collapse. The international Campaign for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (B.D.S.) against Israel is quickly whittling away Israel’s domestic support in those countries. Israel’s own serial barbarous atrocities perpetrated against the Palestinians and the Lebanese have revealed the true face of Zionism for the entire world to see: genocide.
In fact, Israel has never been a State but just an Army masquerading as a State — a Potemkin Village of a State. Israel is the archetypal Great Band of Robbers described by St. Augustine in Book 4, Chapter 4 of The City of God:
Kingdoms without justice are similar to robber barons. And so if justice is left out, what are kingdoms except great robber bands? For what are robber bands except little kingdoms? The band also is a group of men governed by the orders of a leader, bound by social compact, and its booty is divided according to a law agreed upon. If by repeatedly adding desperate men this plague grows to the point where it holds territory and establishes a fixed seat, seizes cites and subdues peoples, then it more conspicuously assumes the name of kingdom, and this name is now openly granted to it, not for any subtraction of cupidity, but by addition of impunity….
All of these political, economic, military, diplomatic, sociological, psychological, and demographic forces are working in favor of the Palestinians and against Israel and the Zionists in Palestine. It will take a few more years for these historical forces to predominate and then to prevail. But the proverbial handwriting is on the wall for the Zionist Enterprise in Palestine for the entire world to see, including and especially the C.I.A. Even large numbers of Zionists living in Israel have already prepared their parachutes, and their exit plans, and their landing zones to go elsewhere in the world. There is no reason for the Palestinians to give the Zionists a new lease on life in Palestine by signing any sort of peace treaty with Israel.
It is obvious that soon Zionism will enter into Trotsky’s “ashcan” of history along with every other nationalistic “ism” that has plagued humankind during the twentieth century: Nazism, Fascism, Francoism, Phalangism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc. The only thing that could save Zionism in Palestine is for the Palestinians to conclude any type of so-called comprehensive Middle East Peace treaty with Israel. It is for precisely that reason then that the Palestinians must sign nothing and let Israel collapse of its own weight over the next two decades.
Millions of Palestinians have waited in refugee camps since 1948 in order to return to their homes, that is for 62 years. They can wait a little longer until Israel collapses within 20 years. Otherwise, for the Palestinians to sign a comprehensive peace treaty with Israel means that they will never be able to return to their homes as required by Resolution 194 of 1948. History and demography are on the side of Palestine and the Palestinians against Israel and the Zionists. But the Palestinians must allow history and demography a little bit more time in order to produce the collapse of Israel and Zionism in Palestine. Twenty years is but the blink of an eye in the millennia-long history of the Palestinian People, who are the original indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. God had no right to steal Palestine from the Palestinians and give Palestine to the Jews to begin with. A fortiori the United Nations had no right to steal Palestine from the Palestinians and give Palestine to the Zionists in 1947.
In the meantime, the Palestinians must keep up the pressure on Israel, Zionism and the Zionists in Palestine. The Palestinians have a perfect right under international law to resist an illegal, colonial, genocidal, criminal, military occupation regimé of their lands and of their homes and of their People that goes back to 1948 so long as it is done in a manner consistent with the requirements of international humanitarian law. Simultaneously, the Palestinians must continue to build their state from the ground up as they have been doing successfully since the first Intifada began in 1987 with its grassroots Unified Leadership of the Intifada.
Internationally, the Palestinians must continue their diplomatic and political and legal offensive against Israel. Palestine has gained enormous ground since November 15, 1988 when the P.N.C. proclaimed the independent State of Palestine. Palestine will continue to gain more support internationally over the next two decades, including the accelerating B.D.S. campaign that will delegitimize Israel and Zionism all around the world. At the same time, Israel will continue its rapid descent into pariah state status along the lines of the genocidal Yugoslavia that collapsed as a state and no longer exists. Israel will meet the same fate as the genocidal Yugoslavia provided the Palestinians do not sign any type of international peace agreement with Israel.
When Israel collapses, most Zionists will have already left or will soon leave for other states around the world. The Palestinians will then be able to claim all of the historic Mandate for Palestine as their State, including the entire City of Jerusalem as their Capital. Palestine will then be able to invite all of its refugees to return to their homes pursuant to Resolution 194.
Some Jews will remain in Palestine either voluntarily or involuntarily. Palestine and the Palestinians will treat the remaining Jews fairly. Palestine and the Palestinians will not do to the Jews what Israel, Zionism, and the Zionists have done to the Palestinians.
The Palestinians must sign nothing and let Israel collapse!
The truth about the Euro-Demonstration 2010 in Brussels (29 sept) or what medias and union traders don’t want to talk about: arrestations of pacifist demonstrators, police violence, infiltration of policemen among demonstrators, preventive arrestations, intimidations of independant journalists, collaborations of union traders with the police… The police state in EU.
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by Flora Nicoletta
October 1, 2010
This is the life story of Jum’ah Arouq (Abu Akram), 67, a 1948 refugee from Hamama village living in Gaza.
“Who reads what you write? The Jews are afraid of those who write. They have killed Majed Abu Sharar [in Rome], Ghassan Kanafani [in Beirut] and… and… and they have almost killed Bassam Abu Shareef [in Beirut]… you can remember better than me!
“I swear! I swear by God! They forced us to leave in 1948… I swear! I swear by God! We did not abandon our village voluntary! It is the truth! I remember every single detail like I see you now. I was 5 years old.
“Write! I’m Jum’ah Hassan Arouq, from Hamama village. I was born in 1943. When the war started in Palestine in 1948 we heard boom! boom! and airplanes and shots. We left our home and we went to our orchard… not only us, all the inhabitants of the village went to their orchards to take shelter under the trees.
“We remained there for some days… two or three days… but we were afraid the airplanes would come to bombard the orchards too. So we left… We wanted to go to Gaza.
“We stopped in a small village near El-Majdal called El-Khasas. We spent there two or three days under the trees. We had with us three or four chickens from our orchard. My father killed them and we ate them.
“I was with my parents… my father was 40… three sisters and three brothers. No, there were only two sisters… the third one was born in Gaza later! One sister was 1-year old and the other one 8. My brother Mohammad was 3-year old, one was 11 and the oldest Ali was 18. We didn’t know where to go… We were scared by the airplanes and the bombings.
“When we left Hamama my parents took a cow, its son and a donkey, three or four blankets, some food and three or four chickens. The children were put on the donkey.
“Do you know where was Hamama? Do you know where is El-Majdal? It is called Askalan by the Jews. Hamama was located some five km to the north of El-Majdal… or perhaps more.
“I cannot tell you the day when we left… the month… At that time I was 5-year old or 5 and a half, I didn’t know what was September and October. It was maybe in June or July but I’m not certain… or maybe in May. I remember it was not cold and not hot, maybe it was spring or autumn.
“Came the Jewish soldiers in El-Khasas. There was not what nowadays is called Israel. We only knew there were Jewish soldiers. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘ We are afraid of the war.’ ‘You should go to El-Majdal otherwise we will shoot you. Go! Go!’ We said OK and we left.
“Many Majdalis had already fled. Many houses were empty there, in El-Majdal. We found a lonely old woman in a house, from the family Masawabeh. Her family had already escaped to Gaza. We stayed with her one or two weeks… I don’t remember exactly.
“The soldiers then came, they knocked on the door. ‘Hello! What’s the matter?’ ‘You have to go to El-Majdal Square.’ ‘We are eating!’ ‘No, no, it’s only for 5 minutes.’
“It was around 8 a.m. My mother had a clay tray… like this bowl, but it was very large. She had cooked rice with shariya… how do you call it in English? Shariya… very thin broken spaghetti… rice with small spaghetti. And it was very hot… So my mother was pushing the rice with her hand towards the edges of the tray. She was moving the rice like this… you see!
“The soldiers said: ‘You should go!’ Outside there was a donkey and a dog. They shot dead the donkey and the dog. We left… We had no time to taste the food cooked by my mother!
“We went to El-Majdal Square. Give me a pen… where can I write? This was the Square. Here there was an area on the right and here an area on the left, both enclosed by barbwire. ‘Where do you come from? From El-Majdal? Go to the right! From Beit Daras, Jura, Hamama? Go to the left!’ They asked the Majdalis to return home… and they brought trucks, not buses, big trucks for the transport of cows and animals and they pushed us in the trucks and deported us to Gaza.
“Two or three km to the north of Beit Hanoun the dropped us on the road and they said ‘Go to Gaza!’ Among us were elderly who couldn’t walk. Strong men had to carry them on their backs. At a certain point there was a broken bridge in Deir Sneid village. We had to go down and to go up. Now Deir Sneid is in Israel.
“We were walking all together on the road. Soldiers were controlling the march. All those we didn’t walk on the road were fired at. No one could leave the path… After six months they expelled the Majdalis to Gaza, including my maternal grandmother. [On 4 November 1950 no one Palestinian remained in El-Majdal, according to the Zionist version of Benny Morris.]
“Once in Beit Hanoun we didn’t find a suitable place to stay. We continued to walk towards Gaza City. We reached Gaza and my father searched for some accommodation. He found one… but it was not a house… it was the public Turkish bath. There we met my uncle with his family and with one blanket for the children. We had left our three or four blankets in El-Majdal! We arrived in Gaza with absolutely nothing, only the clothes we were wearing and at that time the clothes were very bad. During the night one child was pulling the blanket toward him and another child was pulling the blanket toward him! I swear! It’s the truth!
“Do you know where is the Turkish bath? Not far from the Gold Market in Ez-Zeitun. It is still functioning nowadays… It belongs to the Samra family. We slept inside, on the floor.
“In the morning where to go? We couldn’t remain in this place. We heard there was a forest. We went to the forest and many people went there too. Where there is El-Ansar today, Thalatini, the Islamic University, where was El-Muntada of Arafat… The forest covered all this area from the beach to Ez-Zeitun.
“People cut trees and built some shelters to protect us from the sun. Who? The refugees! They used the wood to make fire for cooking. A number of them sold wood to make some money, even to the Turkish bath! And they build shelters for the families too.
“My oldest brother Ali and my father returned to El-Majdal. They came back the same day with the cow, its son and the donkey and half a bag of flour. What to do with the animals? We sold them to buy some food. I still remember the price of the donkey. Do you know how much? We sold it for 50 piaster, that is half a pound. The cow and its son were sold for 25 pounds.
“It was extremely dangerous. Scores of refugees tried to return to El-Majdal or to their villages to retrieve some belongings, some clothes, food or gold or money. In every refugee family they can tell you at least one or two or even three were killed. One of my uncles was killed. A cousin lost his sight and his fingers when he fell on a mine. Some people had not the courage to return there. They paid others to go. It was very dangerous.
“We remained a month or so in the forest, not more. My father then went to down town Gaza and bought a tent and we erected the tent near the [old] port. Two or three weeks later the UN gave us a new tent and they started to distribute UN food to the refugees.
“For the 1st class I went to school near Firas Market. You know where is Firas Market… Every day we were going on foot to school from the Beach refugee camp distant 4 or 5 km, and we were barefoot. The name of the school is El-Imam Esh-Shafihi. All of us were children. I was 6.
“A couple of years later a new school was opened, it was called Er-Rimal. At the beginning the residents studied in the morning and the refugees after 12:00 because there were not enough schools. Today it’s called El-Carmel School… near Esh-Shawwa Center. This was my new school. After another two years they moved us to a newly built school in En-Nasser St, near the Swedish Clinic, the New Gaza Preparatory School.
“In 1970 we returned to visit Hamama. One year after the 1967 war the Jews let us go wherever we wanted. Before we reached our orchard I said to my small brother Mohammad: ‘Now, we will find a tree called sycamore in our orchard!’… because I wanted to show him I was still remembering. And the sycamore was there! The orchard was like before… but not a single house remained in the village! The place was full of threes and bushes. You would never believe if you saw the place that once stood a village there.
“In our village only two or three houses were made of stone, the rest were made of mud and clay. In El-Majdal, the houses were in stone.
The orchards were to the east of the sea and the village 2 km to the east of the orchards. In our orchard we had grapes, figs, tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, watermelons and berries. In Hamama many were fishermen.
“We never returned to our village. My father passed away 20 years ago and my mother 22 years ago. My father build many shelters in the Beach camp.
“My oldest brother Ali was killed in Rafah during the 1956 war [when Israel occupied for a number of months the Sinai and the Gaza Strip]. He was a soldier in the Egyptian army [in a Palestinian battalion]. Plenty were killed at that time.
“The second brother Abder Rahim was a soldier like Ali. The Egyptians had captured alive 4 or 5 Israeli pilots. They were exchanged with 4,000 Palestinians and Egyptian soldiers, including Abder Rahim. The Jews didn’t take them on the battle field, but found them in houses… They had spies… Maybe some of them where indeed captured at the Rafah border, in Gaza, in Rafah town, in El-Arish, in the Sinai…
“After that arrived the Swedish troops in Gaza [under Egyptian administration]. I left the school at that time, at the 8th grade at the age of
14, because we could make good money with the Swedish and the people were very poor at that time. In the same period I got married with the daughter of my uncle… I was obliged… I was not like today!
“The Swedish troops were based in El-Ansar. I opened there a small shop of souvenirs, a bazaar, and I sold fruit too. In the Strip came also contingents from Norway, Denmark, Finland, Indonesia, India, Canada, Brazil. Every six months they left and fresh troops came. They were controlling the border with Israel. The Canadian and Brazilian forces were based in Rafah. The blue helmets remained in Gaza till 1967, they were called the United Nations Emergency Forces. Their HQ was in Abu Khadra in central Gaza City.
“Abu Khadra was destinated to be a hospital, but he has never been a hospital. When the UNEF departed in 1967, the Jews seized Abu Khadra and it became their HQ.
“In 1965 I enrolled in the Palestinian army and my brother Mohammad replaced me in the shop. It was called Jesh El-Tahkhir El-Falastini, the Palestinian Liberation Army. Till 1967 I was in El-Arish, Khan Younis and Rafah. We were called also the soldiers of El-Shoukeiri because at the beginning Ahmad El-Shoukeiri was the head of PLO. Following the 1967 war Ahmad El-Shoukeiri left for Lebanon and there was no anymore Palestinian Army in Gaza [which fell under Israeli military occupation].
“I escaped to Egypt by sea with a number of soldiers. I left in Gaza 5 children, 2 boys and 3 girls. Afterwards, due to certain problems, the Palestinians soldiers were sent to Lebanon and Jordan and after being called the soldiers of El-Shoukeiri they were called the soldiers of Arafat. I returned to Gaza in 1969 with the Red Cross.
“From Gaza many Palestinian soldiers fled in 1967 to Egypt on foot or by sea like me. The Jews gathered the Gazans and asked where were the soldiers. The soldiers were captured and sent to Egypt. Some were able to return only after 18 or 20 years.
“I worked in Israel in the building sector from 1971 to 1975 or 1976. I rapidly learnt masonry and the Hebrew language. I build scores of houses in Israel, in the Beach camp, in Jabalia camp, in Sheikh Radwan.
“When my father and brothers worked as fishermen from 1953 to 1960 our living conditions improved. We had plenty of fish every day at home, in addition to the money. They returned from the sea with 5 to 10 kg of fish. We couldn’t eat all, we gave it to our relations and even we sold it. Every day they fished 2 or 3 tons… all kinds of fish. Now we cannot buy it. It was good fish and good money. At that time the fishermen can go after El-Arish in Egypt and till Port Said… 5 km before Port Said. I went there to fish for a time.
“Now the Jews are on the sea. Nobody can go here or there. It’s a prison on the sea. A few days ago a fisherman was fired at on the chest and died shortly afterwards.
“The fishing zone is very narrow now… there is no fish… Everywhere there is the siege. My father was bringing fish at home more than they fish at present! If they could fish only the quantity my father used to bring daily at home they would be very happy today. The son of mt brother is a fisherman. Now, when I ask him how was the day, he replies: ‘Today was a good day. We got 5 or 6 kg of fish!’
“I sold my mini-grocery in the Beach camp and also my house which was very small and 18 years ago I bought a plot of land on the outskirts of Jabalia town. I built this house myself with my son Amin: the ground floor and 3 stories, each one with two flats.
“All my children are now married. I have seven boys and seven girls. The boys live in this building with their respective families. At present, here, I have 28 grandchildren. In total, I don’t know how many grandchildren I have… they are over 80.
“My wife Um Akram passed away two years ago. After two months I married a young lady from El-Majdal. She is now 35. Yes, she is beautiful, but she is very difficult!!!
“I don’t know exactly my age. When we left Hamama we didn’t take any papers with us… not only us, all the people. I know I was born in 1943 because they said my cousin was born the same week. Once a teacher asked me my date of birth. I said 1944 and since then in all my papers it’s written 1944, but actually I was born in 1943. We had no birthday certificates… no birthday parties… Now we celebrate the birthday of the children!
“I experienced four wars in my life: 1948, 1956, 1967 and the latest one in early 2009. That time, at every bombing, we expected our building to be the next target. The danger was coming from the sky, the sea, the ground, the border!
“The most beautiful time in my life was when the Swedish troops were in Gaza because I was young and I earned money. I had many friends among them. I saw them when they departed on the first day of the 1967 war. They were waiting for a boat at the [new] harbor. They were taken to Lebanon. I was a soldier at that time and was coming from Rafah.
“When my father and my mother didn’t find their home and the whole village of Hamama in 1970, what could they say? In 1948, they expected to return after one month or after a long time… something like six months. We are still waiting after 60 years… no, now 62 years! It’s enough!
“The Return… I don’t know… It is up to Allah… We hope, but it is very difficult… The Return! Nowadays we are afraid they will drive us out of Gaza!!
“Now Israel discusses the fate of the Arabs in Israel [the Palestinians citizens of Israel]. What’s his name? What’s his name?… Lieberman! [the Israeli MFA] He wants to transfer the Arabs of Israel to the West Bank!
“In El-Majdal, in 1948, they told us after five minutes we will be back. When will end these five minutes? After 500 years? Were we terrorists at that time?
“The international law says everyone should defend his country. We have done that and they call us terrorists. What can we do?… This is America… America says OK for everything Israel wants!
“There is something else… I’m surprised by what is happening in the world. I know that the UK people, the French people, the Swedish people are good peoples, like the west in general. They love Law and Right and they have spread freedom in the world. So why do they agree with Israel? This is the problem! Israel is a lawless state and the irony is that the west supports Israel! I don’t understand!
“I’m ready to meet the Jewish soldiers of that time, of 1948… the soldiers who pulled us out of our home. If they read this interview… if i say something in the interview that is incorrect or is untrue, I want to hear from them…
“If these soldiers are still alive today, I’m ready to meet them any time… because I say the truth. I’m sure they are not ready to meet us because they know we say the plain truth!”
– Flora Nicoletta is and independent French journalist living in Gaza. She is currently working on her fourth book on the Palestinian question.
This is the most recent interview with Khaled Mesh’al who, since 1996, has been the Chairman of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) Political Bureau. After the assassination of Hamas leader Abdul ‘Aziz Rantisi in 2004, Mesh’al became the overall leader of the movement. In this interview with the Jordanian Al-Sabeel newspaper in July 2010, Mesh’al lays out the policy direction of Hamas on a number of critical issues: negotiations with Israel, international relations, Jews, Christians, women, among other issues. The interview – which was conducted over many hours – has been received as significant in the Arab world and is regarded as a clear indication of positions that Hamas wants to pursue, especially with regard to future attitudes towards Israel.
Oct 01, 2010 11:15 pm | Philip Weiss
Glyn Secker, the British captain of the Jewish boat to Gaza, reports on its interception earlier this week, and his deportation. Key excerpts:
There then developed a sight which will remain with me for the rest of my life – with the frigate in the background, two gunboats, two landing craft and four high powered ribs spread out in a semi-circle speeding towards us at perhaps 35 knots, with their bow waves and wakes flashing in the sunshine. It was surreal, it was like an action movie, and entranced by the sight I had to remind myself this was actually happening – this overwhelming force for a 9.7 metre 40 yr. old boat, the majority of its Jewish occupants over 60 years old, with no weapons and a publicized policy of passive resistance.
The next we knew there were two ribs very close alongside with the commander on a megaphone again warning us of the dangers if they boarded us. I reiterated our legal rights, and for what it was worth I accelerated, just to make a point that outpacing them was fantasy. Then as planned Itamar addressed the commandos in Hebrew and English, calling on them not to obey the orders to take actions which are illegal under international law. The ribs closed in, and the boarding commenced.
All the crew and passengers (apart from myself as I was steering) held hands.They boarded us simultaneously from both sides.
At that moment we cut the engines and sat over the access points to the cut offs to prevent them restarting the engines. The wheel is on the starboard side of the boat. I was surrounded by three commandos, I held on to the wheel as hard as I could. It reminded me of being on violent picket lines with the police trying to break through. One grabbed my left arm, another my right arm. The third stood by with a Tazer gun. After a struggle they managed to prize my hands from the wheel and threw me down on the floor. I managed to crawl behind them and remove the engine starter keys but one of them saw me and prized the keys from my hands.
On the opposite side of the cockpit Yonatan Shapira and his brother Itamar had been identified by the IDF commander in charge. He sought to separate them from the others. Yonatan clasped Rami in a hug to prevent himself being removed.
The senior officer then moved one sideYonatan’s lifejacket covering his left breast, placed a Tazer gun in contact with his clothing and fired it directly into his heart. Yonatan let out a dreadful scream and the force of the Tazer caused him to lose control of his muscles. He was pulled off Rami and across the cockpit to the middle. He was then hit twice more by the Tazer gun, screaming out again. Both he and Itamar were forcefully pulled off our boat onto the IDF rib on port side.They were driven at very high speed over the waters, which had now become moderately rough (the wind had increased to a F4) and it would have been very uncomfortable especially for Yonatan still recovering from the Tazer shocks…
[The boat was then towed in to Ashdod, at high speed] As a gesture of defiance I decided to cook lunch! Not easy in the circumstance but I managed to produce omlett (with garlic) sandwiches which Reuvan, Lillian and I think Eli and I shared. Whilst in the galley I took the opportunity of chucking out of the window the carving knife, the bread knife, a chisel and two hammers from the tool box, remembering that similar items had been photographed as evidence of weapons on previous boats.
I’d like to point out that in the USA it is illegal for the police or the army to fire Tazers directly into the heart as there have been a number of cases of heart failure and death as a result of such targeting.
The fact that Yonatan was released without charge makes it very clear that the use of the Tazer on him was purely malicious.
Contrary to IDF reports, there was therefore, considerable resistance, be it non-violent, to the IDF’s illegal hijacking of our boat, and there was considerable, unprovoked and very dangerous violence perpetrated by the IDF.
On arriving at Ashdod we were greeted by perhaps 100 people in uniforms of one sort or another within an a secure area created by ships containers. We were obliged to pass through a tent where we were subjected to detailed body searches and luggage searches. I was the last out as I insisted on making an inventory of the boat valuables, though I was unable to get any officer to countersign it it, it was taken by a female officer from I believe their foreign office, but this was not clear. Before I was allowed back on the boat to do the inventory it was searched, including the use of a dog. None of us of course had any illegal drugs, but I have to admit of a nervous moment when someone asked me if any previous owner might have stashed anything away – this hadn’t occurred to me. Whilst waiting I was approached by a Major who stated that he was in charge of Gaza boarder security and he offered to transport our aid to Gaza. He arranged for us to go onto the boat, I extracted the aid from the lockers and he placed it where he could find it later. The boat was in a state of chaos, having been ransacked by those searching it. I don’t suppose they intend clearing out the fridge and other food, so god knows what it will be like after a few weeks in what is still a hot time of year. Combined with the split bellows on the loo pump whoever goes on the boat next will need a good face mask and a strong stomach.
I was taken to the Immigration and Boarder Authority where I experienced a truly Kafkaesque moment. We were presented with a form to sign which stated that I was due to be deported being suspected of residing in Israel illegally. When I pointed out that the only reason I was in Israel at all was that the IDF had kidnapped me and forcefully brought me into Israel on the orders of the government, the reply was that it did not matter who had brought me in, but that now I was there I was there without permission and so due for deportation. They were not amused by my laughter.
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by Philip Weiss on October 2, 2010 ·
I must point out that Rick Sanchez, who was unceremoniously fired by CNN today for talking some trash about Jon Stewart and the Jewish ownership of networks, was one of the few network anchors to give any attention to the Palestinian side of the story.
He was plainly alarmed by the Israeli assault on Gaza in 08-09. He interviewed Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu. And below, he interviewed Mustafa Barghouti, and showed that Israel broke the cease-fire ahead of the Gaza onslaught.
As for his recent comments about Jews not being an oppressed minority and Jews owning the television networks– it seems to me that these are legitimate subjects for discussion. Maybe his tone was inappropriate, maybe he should have gotten out the kid gloves. But they are legitimate subjects; and the manner of Sanchez’s dispatching is only likely to feed uninformed debate about the nature of the American establishment. Let’s talk about it.
Of course I hope that in his next incarnation Sanchez looks more deeply into the Israeli oppression of Palestinians. Somehow I sense that’s not in the cards…
