War crimes intensifying
several news by Mazin Qumsiyeh, 02 Apr 2002

The Israeli army is committing massacres throughout the territories.  Just when I talked to my parents today in Beit Sahour they informed me of how Israeli soldier shoot people and then leave them to bleed under guard to insure they died (and suffered) before they move on to kill more.  Denying medical care and executing prisoners is very common.  This report from an American student on the ground in Ramallah is heart-renching:

http://electronicintifada.net/diaries/archives/00000032.shtml

See also the short plea for help from International citizens in Palestine, in part it says: "WE are witnessing war crimes and must work to stop this!  Please act now before it is too late. ...WE NEED HELP!  SEND HELP NOW!  PLEASE."

While this slow genocide is going on, the US media has been so fixated on the issue of "campaign or war on terrorism" that they fail to see the Israeli campaign of relentless colonial drive and barbaric terror and ethnic cleansing that has taken place (since 1947!) and is taking place today at a feverish pitch.  Already since this weekend, dozens of Palestinians were executed while some in the US the media continue to speak about this using the colonial and despicable language of Sharon ("retaliation", "fighting terrorism" etc.).  While 8.5 million Palestinians are either under occupation or (for the majority) refugees, they continue to babble about what Arafat can and cannot do.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu observed during Christmas visit December 25, 1989: "I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank could describe events in South Africa [under apartheid]." (From Israeli daily Haaretz, cited in Palestine Perspectives, January/February 1990).  In the 1980s ofcourse, Israel was the biggest supporter and mutual military ally of the South African Apartheid regime (itself supported by the Reagan Administration at the time).

Editors and journalists should read Congressman Paul Findley's book "Deliberate Deceptions" or the many books by Prof. Noam Chomsky on media to understand the self censorship and use of language of the oppressors in describing the struggle of the oppressed.

Below, I also copied three letters published today in The Day (New London, CT) worth reading.

To reiterate the call from Ramallah by Internationals: "WE are witnessing war crimes and must work to stop this!  Please act now before it is too late. ...WE NEED HELP!  SEND HELP NOW!  PLEASE."

Mazin Qumsiyeh
--------------------

SEND HELP NOW

As members of the international civilian peace force on the ground in the besieged Palestinian towns of Ramallah and Bethlehem, we are sending out an urgent call for help.
    First of all we'd like to confirm that there are 34 foreign civilians still inside the Presidential compound, under siege by Israeli forces.  They are 27 French, 2 Germans, 1 British, 1 Belgian, 1 Brazilian, 1 Israeli/Canadian and 1 Irish.  They have been in there since Sunday, March 31, 2002.  They are reporting to us a severe shortage of food, no water and a desperate need for medical supplies.  We have repeatedly attempted to deliver food, water and medicine via a Red Crescent ambulance but the Israeli military is not allowing the aid through.  The foreign peace activists inside the compound are calling for immediate international intervention.  They have issued an urgent call to their respective ambassadors.  In addition to the ambassadors, we are calling upon UN Secretary General Kofi Anan, EU Foreign Minister Javier Solana, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, General Anthony Zinni, and EU Special Envoy Miguel Moratinos to come immediately to Ramallah and intervene to stop the Israeli assault on all Palestinian cities and people.
       Up until now unarmed foreign civilians have been doing the work that our governments and the international community should be doing and MUST START DOING NOW.  We have now also become purposeful targets of the Israeli military. Yesterday Israeli soldiers opened fire on a large group foreign peace activists in Beit Jala, wounding six (2 Americans, 3 British and 1 Australian).   Now international peace activists are in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, the Dhaishe refugee camp, Aida refugee camp, and Azza refugee camp, serving as human shields to protect the Palestinian people.  The Israeli government has declared martial law in Ramallah and Bethlehem and has ordered all of us out.  We refuse to leave.  Some of  us have already been arrested and deported for our solidarity work with the Palestinian people.
    We need help NOW.  The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross are being prevented from working  inside the besieged Palestinian towns. The   Palestinian Red Crescent society and aid workers are being detained by Israeli forces and their ambulances are denied passage to deliver humanitarian aid and to pick up wounded and the dead.  Ambulances are also being shot at and medics and doctors forced to sit on their knees at gunpoint in the streets.
       We appeal to the world not to remain silent and to come to the Occupied Palestinian Territories to help protect the Palestinian people.  WE are witnessing war crimes and must work to stop this!  We will continue our attempts to help the Palestinian people, despite the danger on our lives.  The United Nations and our respective governments must intervene now, decisively and unconditionally.

WE NEED HELP!  SEND HELP NOW!  PLEASE.
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Published on 04/02/2002
 

Israelis never fulfilled Oslo promises

There are some that say Yasser Arafat has chosen terror over peace and that he ignored peace proposals or should have engaged in passive resistance. It has been seven years since the Oslo process was supposed to be complete, and five years of that passed in relative peace.
    Where is the land bridge between Gaza and the West Bank that was promised? Why are all the prisoners who were supposed to be released still in jail?
    The ceasing of settlement activity never ceased and, even as people are blown up in the West Bank and Gaza, there have been 34 new illegal settlements since Ariel Sharon took office.
    Demolishing of houses has increased, not decreased, along with poverty, unemployment, restrictions and summary executions. The increases are all due to the Israeli conduct, and that conduct is inconsistent with the Oslo Accords.
    What Israeli supporters are saying is that they would have preferred the Palestinians to remain passive as Israel failed to make good on any of its promises.

John Medina,
Ledyard
 

Lack of human rights will tear apart Israel

To the Editor of The Day:
Some say the Arabs are trying to destroy Israel. All forms of self-defense are then morally allowable. That all terrorists may be killed without need for a trial, whether they are gunman, a child throwing stones, medics helping wounded or a man speaking out against the occupation. All are terrorists, all may be killed.
    Yet the years of occupation have left the Hebrew State so morally vacant, that some Israelis advocate genocide against the Palestinians or transferring the population outside of Israel. The complete denial of Palestinian rights is what will rip apart Israel.
    Only in Israel would a reputable poll propose crimes against humanity as a policy option, and only in Israel would a large proportion of the respondents openly admit to endorsing such an option. The Israeli public now advocates sick schemes that defy all human rights doctrines created since the Holocaust. America is ethically obligated to stop the Israelis or we shall become as honorable as the terrorists we have declared war against.

Mohd B. Malik
Old Lyme
 

Arafat's peace attempts negated by Sharon

Published on 04/02/2002

To the Editor of The Day:
I take issue with your March 31 editorial echoing the discredited view that somehow if Yasser Arafat stopped the violence, all would be fine. I would like to remind you that it was Ariel Sharon who said in1998 that "Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything we take now will stay ours... Everything we don't grab will go to them."
    The occupation and the settlements are the main reason we are in this mess. Mr. Sharon is the same man who committed countless massacres of Palestinians starting in 1953 and as late as this week with the mass murder of 30 Palestinians while in custody on Sunday.
    Mr. Arafat, by contrast, stated as early as 1977, "We are not against the Jews: we are against Zionism...Why not speak about living together, all of us in this homeland? I think that in the future, all the Jews will understand that we are fighting for them too."
    Mr. Arafat and his team were negotiating in Taba with the Israelis when Ehud Barak decided to pull out from the negotiations (contrary to the myth that Palestinians ended the negotiations).
    Mr. Sharon then repudiated the Oslo agreements and escalated his war on the Palestinian people. Since then, Mr. Sharon has refused to negotiate while Mr. Arafat asked for resumption of political negotiations broken off by the Israelis in Taba in early 2001.
    I am not supportive of the Oslo agreements signed by Mr. Arafat because, as Amnesty International rightly pointed out, these agreements ignored human rights, including the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands. As Amnesty also stated, the fourth Geneva Convention and other international treaties must be implemented.
    It is time to end the Israeli brutal occupation, remove all the settlements, and return the Palestinian refugees to their homes and lands from which they were expelled. Everything else, done in the guise of "security," is an illusion. As the hundreds of Israeli soldiers refusing to serve said in their statements: the occupation is killing all of us.

Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ph.D.

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