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Israeli soldier posts disturbing Instagram photo of child in crosshairs of his rifle

Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Fri, 02/15/2013 – 21:28

This disturbing image shows the back of the head of a child or young man as seen in the crosshairs of a rifle. The photo was posted on the personal Instagram account of Mor Ostrovski, a 20-year old Israeli soldier in a sniper unit.

The context – particularly the character of the buildings seen in the background of the image – strongly suggests the child could be Palestinian.

There are no other images to suggest that the photographer actually fired at the person in the image in this case. The image is simply tasteless and dehumanizing. It embodies the idea that Palestinian children are targets.

It reminded me of a chilling account another Israeli soldier gave to the group Breaking the Silence about how Israeli soldiers in Nablus in 2006-2007 would deliberately fire at children, sometimes using live ammunition and sometimes rubber-coated steel bullets:

Where do you aim? Do you choose some kid at random?
Yes. Choose someone, aim at his body.
Body?
Center of mass.
10 meters’ range at the center of mass?
I remember one time we put a kid down. We didn’t kill him but someone hit the kid in the chest and he fell and probably lost consciousness, or at least, it was pretty close. About 10 meters.

Recently, Benjamin Doherty pointed out how the Israeli army has wittingly and unwittingly used Instagram and other social media to promote itself. These images, which Doherty calls “war sporno” use “male and female bodies to eroticize the military, to displace violence against Palestinians, to encourage Western publics to identify with Israeli soldiers.”

Ostrovski’s account includes other images of himself and his weapons:

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Lawmakers Threaten Funding of Brooklyn College for Hosting Event on BDS Campaign Against Israel

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omarb
Omar Barghouti

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Israel must withdraw all settlers or face ICC, says UN report

vendredi 1er février 2013, par La Rédaction

A Palestinian demonstrator during a weekly protest against the Jewish settlement of Qadomem, near Nablus, West Bank. (Photograph : Alaa Badarneh/EPA)

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Israel must withdraw all settlers from the West Bank or potentially face a case at the international criminal court (ICC) for serious violations of international law, says a report by a United Nations agency that was immediately dismissed in Jerusalem as “counterproductive and unfortunate”.
All settlement activity in occupied territory must cease “without preconditions” and Israel “must immediately initiate a process of withdrawal of all settlers”, said the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Israel, it said, was in violation of article 49 of the fourth Geneva convention, which forbids the transfer of civilian populations to occupied territory.

The settlements were “leading to a creeping annexation that prevents the establishment of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state and undermines the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination,” it said.

The UNHRC report broadly restated international consensus on the illegality of Israeli settlements. But its conclusions are likely to bolster the Palestinians following their admission last November to the UN as a non-member state, which potentially gives them recourse to the ICC.
“The Rome statute establishes the international criminal court’s jurisdiction over the deportation or transfer, directly or indirectly, by the occupying power of parts of its own population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory,” said the UNHRC report .
It added : “Ratification of the statute by Palestine may lead to accountability for gross violations of human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law and justice for victims.”

In a statement, the Israeli foreign ministry said : “Counterproductive measures – such as the report before us – will only hamper efforts to find a sustainable solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The human rights council has sadly distinguished itself by its systematically one-sided and biased approach towards Israel. This latest report is yet another unfortunate reminder of that.”

Israel refused to co-operate with UNHRC investigators over the report, barring them from access to the West Bank. Investigators conducted more than 50 interviews in Jordan with Palestinians about the impact of settlements, the confiscation of and damage to land, and violent attacks by settlers.

Hanan Ashrawi, a prominent Palestinian politician, said the report’s findings were a “clear and unequivocal indictment of the illegal Israeli settlement policies and practices.” Israel, she added, was “liable to prosecution”.
“The report concludes that the goal behind the terror and violence of the Israeli settlers is to expel the Palestinians from their lands in order to expand illegal settlements ; this is a clearly a form of forced transfer, and a proof of Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing,” she said.
Earlier this week, Israel became the first country to refuse to participate in a “universal periodic review” of the human rights records of the UN’s 193 member states, conducted by the UNHRC.
Palestinian and Israeli human rights group said Israel’s boycott of the review set a “dangerous precedent … that could be followed by other states refusing to engage with the UN in order to avoid critical appraisals”.

The UNHRC rescheduled the review for later in the year in order to give Israel time to reconsider its stance.
Israel also refused to co-operate with a UN investigation, headed by Richard Goldstone, into the three-week war in 2008-09, and it has refused entry to Israel to Richard Falk, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, since his appointment in 2008.

According to the UNHRC’s report on settlements, Israel has established around 250 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967, home to more than half a million Israeli citizens.
The settlements impede Palestinian access to water resources and agricultural lands, it said.

Following the Palestinians’ upgrade to non-member state status, the Israeli government announced a fresh wave of settlement-building, including the development of a highly sensitive swath of land east of Jerusalem known as E1. Palestinians and most international diplomats say construction on E1 will effectively close off East Jerusalem from the West Bank and impede a territorially contiguous Palestinian state.

(01-02-2013 – Harriet Sherwood)

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‘It’s Suffering and Sacrifice That Moves A Public’ Norman Finkelstein and Harry Fear

[youtube http://youtu.be/t7KjT9KvuNU?]
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Democracy Now : The Gatekeepers

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TheGatekeepers-2

 

 

 

 

Amidst a spate of killings by Israeli forces of unarmed Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, we turn to the stunning Oscar-nominated documentary, “The Gatekeepers.” The film brings together six former heads of Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, collectively speaking out for the first time ever. They detail their methods against Palestinian militants and civilians in the Occupied Territories, including targeted killings, torture, recruiting informants, and the suppression of mass protests during two intifadas. But in doing so, they also criticize the occupation they were assigned with defending and warn that successive Israeli governments have endangered their country’s future by refusing to make peace. “We are making the lives of millions unbearable, into prolonged human suffering, [and] it kills me,” Carmi Gillon says in the film. “[We’ve become] a brutal occupation force similar to the Germans in World War II,” adds Avraham Shalom. We are joined by the film’s director, Dror Moreh. [includes rush transcript]

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BDS Soda Stream

Truth in advertising: SodaStream ad attached to video showing Israelis arresting 18-month-old infant

by on January 24, 2013 12

soda stream arrest
An ad for SodaStream attached itself to this video showing Israeli soldiers arresting a mother and her baby.

Google Ads for SodaStream, the carbonated beverage maker produced in Israeli settlements, seem to be hounding my every move on the Internet these days. That’s most likely because I’m in the midst of working on a nationwide interfaith collaborative boycott campaign against the newest kitchen-tech gadget to hit the American market.

One such appearance recently, however, reached the heights of perfect irony. Were it not so sickening, it could almost be funny: Google placed a SodaStream ad on the bottom of a video that captured Israeli soldiers arresting a young Palestinian woman and her 18-month-old baby.

SodaStream is marketing itself as a holistic and environmentally friendly alternative to established sodas, such as Coca Cola and Pepsi. It’s supposed to help cut down on plastic bottles in landfills and its syrups are supposed to be less expensive and healthier than pop you’d buy in the store. All advertorial hyperbole, based upon one investigation.

The biggest reason Palestine solidarity activists around the world are boycotting SodaStream is because it is produced, in part, in an Israeli settlement, which is built illegally on stolen Palestinian land. Settlements entrench Israel’s colonizing and apartheid  policies by confiscating ever more land, roads and buffer zones meant only for Jewish residents. Because settlements are protected by the Apartheid Wall, checkpoints and Israel’s security apparatus, Palestinians have lost their freedom of movement. Many of them have lost their jobs as a result because they cannot travel into 1948 Palestine anymore, or because the Wall has cut them off from their fields and other livelihoods. As a result, many Palestinians  — including children as young as 12 — work in settlements. They are routinely underpaid and overworked, according to a new study by  WhoProfits.org, an organization that tracks companies that profit from the occupation.

Another reason activists boycott products made in settlements is because these items support the settlement industry, which in turn helps nourish Israel’s continued occupation of Palestine.

Another practice that shores up the occupation is Israel’s random arrest and detention of Palestinians. Currently, more than 4,600 Palestinians are incarcerated illegally in Israeli prisons. Every year, some 700 children, as young as 10 years old, are arrested and processed through Israel’s military court system, according to Swiss-based organization Defence for Children International – Palestine Section. As of December 2012, nearly 180 children were behind bars.

Apparently, 18 months isn’t too young to be jailed. On Jan. 19, Israeli soldiers, acting to help illegal settlers appropriate Palestinian land and olive orchards, arrested Qamar, her mother Rima Ismail Awad, and several others as they attempted to access their land.

[youtube http://youtu.be/tuuC6XBkxX8?]
Ma’an News reported that the infant was released that night, while Rima was released the following day.

What kind of democracy takes a baby into custody?

The fact a SodaStream ad appeared on the video of the violent arrest breaches credulity. SodaStream is a product that supports an occupation apparatus that allows for the incarceration of an infant – and indeed thousands and thousands of innocent Palestinians, many of whom are being held without charge or trials.Samer Al-Issawi is one such prisoner. He is in critical condition and near death, after having refused food for 184 days to protest Israel’s use of administrative detention, torture and other human rights abuses.

SodaStream needs to go away, and settlements along with it. Boycott, divestment and sanctions is the one way to make this happen. BDS is a peaceful method to pressure Israel to comply with international law in the absence of global diplomatic or political pressure.

Do you part. Join BDS. Boycott SodaStream. Fight for justice for Palestinian prisoners. And stand in solidarity with Palestinians as they work for their internationally guaranteed right of self-determination.

The interfaith boycott committee, housed within the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, is a group of Jewish, Christian and Muslim activists committed to working for justice in Palestine. American Muslims for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Unitarian Universalist for Middle East Justice, Quakers and other Christians groups are involved. We’re gearing up to kick off our campaign on SuperBowl Sunday, when SodaStream plans to have a splashy commercial during the fourth quarter. Get involved by entering a ‘spoof commercial’ video contest, holding a Fizzies For Freedom house party on Super Bowl Sunday, or join our Twitter campaign. For more information and the list of all the fun ways you can help boycott SodaStream, click here.

This post originally appeared on the blog Zatar and Spinach.

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Hasbara fail: the ambassadors mutiny

by Annie Robbins and Phil Weiss on January 3, 2013 37

 

Some late developments from Israel only solidify the impression that this country is working hard to destroy its international reputation and simply cannot help itself because of internal pressures from rightwing politicians.

First, annexation of the West Bank is being pushed aggressively so that Likudniks can win the Israeli election, in complete disregard of international opinion. Harriet Sherwood in the Guardian:

Prominent members of Israel‘s ruling Likud party have proposed the annexation of part of the West Bank as the battle for rightwing votes intensifies before the general election in less than three weeks.

Government minister Yuli Edelstein told a conference in Jerusalem that the lack of Israeli sovereignty over Area C – the 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli military control in which all settlements are situated – “strengthens the international community’s demand for a withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines”.

About that international opinion: Here is a delicious story in Ynet about the Israeli ambassadors complaining to the home office about the crap they have to push to the world, and a Netanyahu aide slapping them down:

[Ambassador to the UN Ron] Prosor, one of the highest ranking Israeli diplomats in the world, asked [National Security Council head Yaakov] Amidror what was the rationale behind timing the decision to promote construction in area E1 (between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim)  after the UN resolution to upgrade the Palestinian Authority to an observer state status.

Prosor’s fellow ambassadors, who found it difficult to explain to the world the basis of Israel’s foreign policy on the matter, applauded Prosor….

Ambassadors left the conference feeling highly displeased. “It ended in unpleasant tones. Prosor asked a completely legitimate question and was rebuked. We don’t argue that our job is to represent the state, but those who do have to understand the logic behind its decisions.”…

President Shimon Peres also discussed the Palestinian issue on Monday, for the second time this week. A day after declaring Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to be a partner for peace and severely criticizing Netanyahu and Lieberman’s handling of diplomacy, the president said that “there is nothing wrong with talking to Hamas, as long as it accepts the terms of the Quartet

A key point in that Ynet piece is that the government has no choice but to annex, and that it knows it is killing itself internationally:

It should be noted that the Foreign Ministry recommended to the government to postpone any counter-measures to the Palestinian bid so as not to focus international attention on Israel, fearing it may be seen as vindictive.
OK, but there is too much internal political pressure not to annex. Again from that Ynet piece: “Amidror said that there was a need to make it clear to the Palestinians that unilateral moves on their part come with a price.” And check this out, from the Times of Israel, echoing that Guardian piece above:

[Likud member of Knesset] MK Yariv Levin advocated a slow but steady de facto annexation of the West Bank, mainly by expanding existing settlements and taking whatever steps were possible to apply laws on Jewish communities beyond the Green Line.

“In this way, we will try, slowly but surely, to expand the circle of settlements, and to afterwards extend the roads that lead to them, and so forth. At the end of this process, the facts on the ground will be that whatever remains [of the West Bank] will be merely marginal appendages,” he said.

Last week, two senior Likud MKs caused an uproar when they stated that the party does not support a two-state solution, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2009 Bar-Ilan University speech, during which he in principle agreed to a demilitarized Palestinian state, if the Palestinians recognized Israel as a Jewish state.

Israel might think it can annex under the radar. But nothing is escaping European attention; this is what their ambassadors have to sell.

The mutiny by the ambassadors may have been sparked by an upstart Israeli thinktank that released a study last week.

“Israel’s public diplomacy apparatus, contrary to its poor reputation, is well-coordinated and highly sophisticated. Israel’s diplomatic isolation, therefore, cannot be attributed to a mythic ‘hasbara problem’; it can only be a product of Israeli policy itself

Haaretz reported on the study: There is causal connection between Israel’s poor international image and the policies of its government.

“Instead of dealing with the connection between the policies of Israel’s government and the country’s image in the world,” [Molad thinktank study] continues, “a myth is taking hold, one which stresses an ‘advocacy problem’ caused by anti-Israel organizations and institutions which exploit double standards and even anti-Semitic tendencies in the international community in order to damage Israel.”

The study insists that “inflating anti-Israel propaganda on the one hand, and inflating criticism of Israeli advocacy on the other hand, deflects public attention away from the causal connections between the erosion of Israel’s image and of its international status and the policies of its government.”

And interestingly, Haaretz even suggested that the ambassadors should bring the study up:

Next week in Jerusalem, the Foreign Ministry will hold its annual conference of the country’s ambassadors around the word. During past meetings, former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman regularly upbraided and insulted Israel’s ambassadors, the participants of the conference. He claimed that instead of explicating Israel’s policies and positions more assertively, and defending “national honor,” the country’s diplomats cowered and surrendered around the world. But now Lieberman, facing indictment, has left the Foreign Ministry – and the ambassadors conference this year may serve as a good opportunity to discuss Molad’s findings.

About Annie Robbins and Phil Weiss
Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.

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Israel’s Invasion of US Justice, By Miko Peled

In an interview on Sixty Minutes with Bob Simon, Israel’s ambassador to the US Michael Oren made a chilling remark, the significance of which must not be overlooked. The interview was shown at the end of a report by Bob Simon on the situation of Christians in the Holy Land. Apparently when the ambassador heard about the report being made he called the Chairman of CBS and complained that his sources told him the report was going to be a “hatchet job.” At the end of the report Simon said to the Ambassador that he had never had anyone react to a story before it was even aired and before anyone had a chance to view it. The Israeli ambassador seemed taken aback for a second or two, but then he collected himself, and replied: “Well Bob, there’s a first time for everything.”

Israeli influence over America is not new and it has been well documented. From American politics to economic issues, to issues of foreign policy and national security Israel’s influence has shown its marks everywhere. Now, Israel’s influence has infiltrated the “holy of holies” of American democracy, the judicial system. As the ambassador said, “There is a first time for everything.”

The case of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) in which five Palestinian American Muslims were convicted and sentenced in a US court to decades behind bars based on questionable testimony by two anonymous Israeli intelligence officers, demonstrates the invasive nature of Israeli influence in American courts. There is an abundance of information about this case so we won’t get into too many details here, only to say that HLF, at one time the largest Muslim charity in the US was accused of providing “material support to Hamas.” It is a bewildering accusation to say the least. HLF provided much needed charity to Palestinians by raising modest funds for orphans and widows that had to qualify in order to receive these funds, and contributed to libraries and hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli authorities began a campaign against HLF in 1996. They closed down the HLF office in Jerusalem and arrested the local director, a Palestinian from Jerusalem. He was interrogated by the Israeli police, and the internal security service (Shabak). He was asked repeatedly if the organization has ties to Hamas and if moneys were given particularly to orphans whose fathers were members of Hamas who became Shahids, either through suicide attacks or because they were killed by Israel. He repeatedly claimed that HLF was not affiliated to Hamas, and that all recipients had to go through the same screening process by social workers who determined if they qualified for aid.

He showed that HLF did not in any way favor the orphans of Hamas “Shahids.” Still he was charged, convicted and had spent several years in an Israeli prison.
Israel skillfully manipulated the anti Arab and anti Muslim hysteria that took hold over America post 9/11 to pursue its campaign against HLF in the US. And indeed in 2002 the WSJ quoted Presidnet George Bush, who gladly served Israeli interests in this regard saying:
“The facts are clear,” Mr. Bush declared. “The terrorists benefit from the Holy Land Foundation, and we’re not going to allow it. … Money raised by the Holy Land Foundation is used by Hamas to support schools and indoctrinate children to grow up into suicide bombers [and] to recruit suicide bombers and support their families.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB101476025597651120.html

None of the things Bush said constitute clear facts, nor were they true.

Still, the Holy Land Foundation offices were placed under watch by the FBI, its main officers’ phones were tapped, their meetings recorded and a case was built against them. In 2007 a trial took place ending in an acquittal on most counts but the jury remained hung on a few charges. The judge declared a mistrial and a year later, in 2008, convictions with unprecedented long sentenced were meted out to the defendants. One juror said: “If they had been a Christian or Jewish group, I don’t think [prosecutors] would have brought charges against them.”

The justice department congratulated itself on a job well done in a piece on the FBI website declaring that this was the largest terrorism financing prosecution in US history.

http://www.fbi.gov/dallas/press-releases/2009/dl052709.htm

The Israeli Internal Security Service, the Shabak, posted on its website that one of two Israelis that testified in the HLF trial that brought town a terror financing organization, was an employee of the Shabak and that his testimony played a crucial role in the bringing convictions.

http://www.shabak.gov.il/publications/publications/pages/020609.aspx

In 2009 officers and volunteers of HLF, who became known as the HLF 5 were given unprecedented sentences for “funneling $12 million to Hamas.” $12 million is a laughable amount that only serves to demonstrate the absurdity of the accusations and the modesty of the HLF operations. In a discussion I had in Jerusalem where I described the jail sentences the HLF 5 received I got looks of disbelief. One Muslim leader who was present and was familiar with the HLF and with Hamas finally commented: “HLF was so small, how can anyone think it had any impact on Hamas?” Indeed.

In an affidavit by Israeli attorney Lea Tsemel it was made clear that Israeli security officers regularly lie in court in order to get convictions. In an interview to Israeli press, retired chief interrogator of the Shabak admitted this too. “The security officers know that an Israeli judge will always believe their testimony over that of an Arab.” he said. Now this is true of judges in the US as well. As the ambassador said: “There is a first time for everything.”

After being found guilty in the second trial, Mufid Aabdulkader, Shukri Abu Baker, Ghassan Elashi, Mohammad El Mezaine and Abdulrahman Odeh were immediately sent to Federal prison in Seagoville, Texas (this was November 24, 2008). Judge Jorge A. Solis who presided would not let them stay out until sentencing. He told all defendants they had 5 minutes to say goodbye to their families.

”The judge said we would have to choose 3 people from each family to say goodbye, because there were too many people. I let my three daughters say goodbye, so I did not even get to tell Mufid goodbye. It would not have taken that long if the judge had let us all say goodbye, perhaps 10 minutes.” Diana Abdukader, Mufid’s wife told me.

Sentencing took place on May 27, 2009. The prosecution tried to have the five men moved immediately to CMUs, but the families fought to have them stay at Seagoville where they could be close to their families. They were successful at keeping them there until April 22, 2010, when all but one were moved to the CMUs. Abdulrahman Odeh, went to general population at FCI Victorville in Adelanto, CA. Mufid and Ghassan were sent to Marion CMU, while Mohammad El-Mezzeine and Shukri Abu Baker were sent to the CMU in Terre Haute Indianna.

The following was written by Mufid Abdulkader, describing their transfer to the CMUs. Mufid is one of three defendants with whom I have been in touch for close to a year now via email and phone. All three had given me permission to publish what they had written to me. This is the first of several articles I mean to publish with material written by the HLF defendants.
“Dear brothers & Sisters, our trip to USP Marion started way before Thursday April 24, 2010, the day we were moved from Seagoville to USP Marion in Illinois. The trip went from Seagoville to Texarkana Texas to Oklahoma City to Philadelphia to Ohio to St. Louis, Missouri & finally ended when we were bussed (3 hours trip) from St. Louis to USP Marion in Marion Illinois. It was 6 days of pain, extreme discomfort, racist treatment by guards, we were singled out to be screamed at, it was a show of disrespect and racist behavior on many different levels.

On Wednesday March 31, I was suddenly called by the guard & told to see the Counselor. Once I saw the counselor, he immediately told me that he has received orders to handcuff me & move me to the Special Management Unit (SMU) at Seagoville. He said it was orders from way above (meaning the Warden) & he does not know why, he just followed orders. So one by one, El-Mezain, Shukri, Ghassan & I, were taken and placed in the SMU. The condition at the SMU are terrible. In the SMU you are held for 23 hours in a solitary confinement in a small cell. You are allowed 1 hour outside the cell (called recreation). It means literally to be taken out of your cell in handcuffs & placed in a cage closed from all sides including the top.”

“This only happens only Monday – Friday. On weekends you are kept in your cell for 24 hours. You are handcuffed thru a bean hole in the cell’s door prior to you going out of the cell, whether to go for the 1 hour recreation, see a doctor (very rare) or visit your family or get a hair cut. Getting a hair cut while handcuffed is a very painful experience. If the doctor needs to x-ray anything, you stay handcuffed & it is your responsibility to get in the position to take the x-ray for any part of your body (hand, leg, arm, ..etc) & suffer the pain caused by the handcuffs.”
“When you go see your family it is only thru thick glass windows. Hand cuffs are only taken after you are placed in the 4X5 feet room with thick glass and a phone. After you enter the room they open the bean hole & you extend your handcuffed hands (in extreme pain) to be removed. After the visit is over, again they open the bean hole & handcuff you again before they open the door to take you back to your cell. You cannot touch your family & only talk to them thru the one phone & they take turns to talk to you.”

“After 21 days they moved us to another cell. Then came the day we were expecting: Around 10 AM, 3 guards came & asked us if we want to go to outside recreation (the 1 hour outside) and we said yes. A few minutes later they came & they handcuffed us and and we were thinking that we were going to the outside cages for the one hour recreation & instead they took us to R&D (Receive and Discharge) Dept. This is the department where they receive inmates & ship them out. Now we realized that they were shipping us out of Seagoville & that was it!!! Ghassan & Shukri left their medical eye glasses in their cells & they asked the guards to get them & that is when the guard started screaming at Shukri & Ghassan.”

“They put a big handcuff around each leg with heavy chains and then handcuffed the hands from the front with heavy chains and tied the handcuffs from the legs and the hands together. This was done for all inmates but for us they had a special treatment. They used what is called the black box. The black box is a box that tighten your hands handcuffs & legs chains together make it extremely difficult to move your hands even to touch your face. It was very difficult to move especially when the handcuffs were very tight to start with. After that they walk us very slowly to the bus waiting outside. We walk and El-mezain was barely able to walk because they forced him to walk without his cane. He almost fell down several times. It took around 5 minutes to walk about 20 feet (6 meters) to the bus.”

This was only the beginning. Mufid’s account doesn’t ends here, there are pages and pages of descriptions of the horrors that these five men had to endure on their way to the CMU and at the CMU. And, as long as people on the outside sit quiet instead of crying for justice, they will continue to suffer.
Israel is on a mission to destroy Palestine and its people, and as part of that mission Israel holds thousands of Palestinian political prisoners in its jails. This is not new nor should it come as any surprise to anyone. But the Israeli invasion of US politics, media, national security and foreign policy all started at a point when someone said, “There is a first time for everything.”

Miko Peled
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Democracy Now : Israel Apartheid and BDS

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latuff

Read also http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/2012108871435279.html

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