Host Sherif Fam and the staff of WZBC's Truth & Justice RadioThis Week In Palestine: Israel's ever-increasing oppressive abuses and restrictions on Palestinians' mobility (August 23, 2009)
OUTLINE: Summary of this week's continuing shocking, awful news, including Israeli assassinations of women and children doing as they are ordered while carrying white flags. Then a detailed interview with Dr. Ahmad Jamil Azem on the Karama ("Dignity") campaign and Israel's ever-more-oppressive abuses and restrictions on Palestinians' mobility, including checkpoints, strip searches, and impossible permit and paperwork requirements.
SCRIPT:
It is Sunday, August 23rd, 2009. We begin with a summary of news highlights.
Early this month, Human Rights Watch released a report entitled: "White Flag Deaths: Killings of Palestinian Civilians during Operation Cast Lead" ("Operation Cast Lead" is Israel's name for its monstrous military attack against the imprisoned civilian population of Palestinians in Gaza). Among the more than 1,400 Palestinian civilians who were killed (assassinated would be a more fitting word), Human Rights Watch focused on 7 incidents where 11 innocent civilians, including 5 women and 4 children were deliberately murdered by Israeli soldiers while they were carrying white flags.
The lead author of the report, Fred Abrahams, appeared on the Monday edition of Democracy Now. Israel's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Daniel Carmon, predictably declined an invitation to appear in the program with Human Rights Watch and preferred to talk over the telephone. No Israeli official has ever, in memory, appeared for a face-to-face debate on any alleged wrongdoing by Israel. Carmon hemmed and hawed, and went on a wild tangent of drivel about the report tending "to mislead in a conception that takes it to a generalized world" – if you know what I mean.
Some of the incidents mentioned in the Human Rights Watch report were covered in detail in the Tuesday edition of Democracy Now! We repeat them here because they bear repeating and repeating and repeating.
In the village of Khuza'a, the Al-Najjar family were ordered by Israeli soldiers to get out of their house and head toward the village center. When they did, bearing white flags, a soldier suddenly appeared on the stairs of a house down the street, took deliberate aim and shot Rawhia Al-Najjar, 47, dead, under the eyes of her fifteen-year-old daughter Heba.
In the Jabalya refugee camp, Mr. Khaled Abed Rabbo's family were ordered out of their home by Israeli soldiers over a megaphone. Mr. Abed Rabbo came out with his mother, his wife, and three young daughters, all holding white flags. They waited seven minutes while two soldiers atop a tank ate chips and chocolate. Suddenly, a soldier emerged from the tank and fired at the children. Mr. Abed Rabbo's seven-year-old daughter Suad died almost instantly; his two-year-old daughter Amal's intestines fell out, and she died a few hours later because the Israeli soldiers would not allow ambulances into the area; and his four-year-old daughter Samar was shot in the back, chest, and stomach, and is now paralyzed from the waist down.
Israel continued to claim that Hamas used civilians as human shields, and further claimed that its soldiers saw Hamas fighters hiding behind civilians, even children, in Gaza carrying white flags, but Human Rights Watch investigators on the ground could not find any evidence to support these allegations, and were denied access to the soldiers who purportedly made those claims. In addition, on-the-ground investigations by the British newspaper The Guardian some months ago showed videos of Israeli soldiers routinely using Palestinian civilians as human shields during their obscene military attacks against civilian population centers in the West Bank.
Frankly, we do not know which Israeli lies to believe.
May all the victims of Gaza never be forgotten. May their image never fade from public memory. We honor them now with a minute of silence.
We will continue to bear witness – loudly – day after day after day until Israel is made accountable for its war crimes and its crimes against humanity.
On Friday, August 21st, The International Women's Commission for a Just and Sustainable Palestinian-Israeli Peace visited the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and stood shoulder to shoulder with the Al Hanoun, Ghawi and Al Kurd families who were forcibly evicted from their homes in East Jerusalem and demanded that they be reinstated in their homes. The Commission was headed by former Vice-President of the European Parliament Luisa Morgantini accompanied among others by Simone Susskind, President of Actions in the Mediterranean; Salwa Hdeib, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Women's Affairs; Naomi Chazan, Former Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, and Professor of Political Affairs Emerita at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and Galia Golan, Professor of Government Emerita at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The holy month of Ramadan started yesterday. We take this opportunity to express to our Muslim friends everywhere our best wishes for a spiritually fulfilling and happy Ramadan. Unfortunately, our brothers and sisters in Gaza will not be able to participate as fully as they have the right to, because Israel closed all crossings yesterday, the first day of Ramadan, and announced that the closings will continue at least through today, thus preventing any shipments of necessary supplies into Gaza, and denying Palestinians their fundamental human right to practice their faith. Hamas has promised to give one hundred U.S. dollars and food aid to each of 78,000 families in Gaza.
Israel has added yet another layer of intensely oppressive measures against Palestinians, particularly Palestinians who wish to cross over to Jordan or return home from Jordan. The level of mistreatment and abuse has escalated considerably at the border, severely restricting the movement of Palestinian civilians. In addition, Israel has instituted measures to restrict the movement of human rights workers in the occupied West Bank.
Our brothers and sisters in Palestine have issued a call for an International Campaign for the Freedom of Movement for Palestinians. The campaign has taken on the name of Karama, which means dignity, honor, nobility in Arabic. The first meeting of the Campaign was held in Ramallah on August 8th, 2009. The purpose of the campaign is to raise global awareness of the ever increasing oppressive abuses and restrictions Palestinians are experiencing to their mobility while traveling to and from Jordan and Egypt, and in moving about in occupied Palestine.
Today, we have the privilege of discussing these and other matters with Dr. Ahmad Jamil Azem. Dr. Azem received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh for his dissertation entitled "Jerusalem and the Politics of Settlement in the Middle East" and is a frequent contributor to the UAE's newspaper Al-Ittihad and Jordan's newspaper Al-Ghad. He joins us now by telephone.
Good afternoon, Dr. Ahmad Jamil Azem and thank you for being our guest on "This Week in Palestine."
1. Please talk to us about the measures Israel recently instituted at the border with Jordan and the difficulties which, I believe, you have personally experienced.
(Israel is now issuing a new visa stamp on passports which greatly restricts visitors' freedom of movement. From now on visitors entering the occupied West Bank from Jordan are only allowed in that part of the West Bank known as "Area C" which is composed of 13 non-contiguous areas constituting in totality only 17 percent of the occupied West Bank. Occupied East Jerusalem, which is under Israeli control, is out of bounds. Visas as short as one week are now being issued.)
(It is as if Palestinians and visitors are expected to suddenly appear at one of the enclaves under nominal PA control without passing through the intervening areas controlled by Israel!)
(Previous Israeli-issued tourism visas allowed visitors to travel freely whether they chose to visit the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, or the Palestinian city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. The new restrictions preclude travel to areas of pre-1967 Israel, as well as to Israeli controlled areas in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.)
2. How is the International Karama campaign going? Are flyers and fact sheets being circulated worldwide? We would appreciate receiving them so we can distribute them here in the U.S.
3. Dr. Azem, I wonder if I can ask your opinion on political issues in your capacity as political science scholar and analyst. If you prefer not to engage in a political discussion, please let me know. What is your opinion on Fateh's recent Sixth Congress and its achievements?
4. We have not heard of any arrangements being made for the PA's Presidential and Parliamentary elections due to take place next year. Are any plans being drawn up now?
5. What can you tell us about the PLO? Are there any plans to re-invigorate it?
Thank you very much Dr. Ahmad Jamil Azem for being our guest today. It was a pleasure to have you with us.
And that is all we have for today. We wish our brothers and sisters in Palestine a very happy Ramadan and to all our listeners a pleasant and restful weekend. This is Sherif Fam for This Week in Palestine reminding everyone to get involved. GET INVOLVED!
This Week In Palestine (a weekly part of Truth and Justice Radio) is (normally) a three-quarter-hour segment of news from Palestine and discussion of issues relevant to the Palestinians' struggle for freedom from Israel's brutal military occupation and colonization, and now bombing, devastation, and murder, of their homeland.
It's part of Truth and Justice Radio, aired Sundays 6:00-9:30am ET on WZBC 90.3FM, Newton, MA, streaming (and also archived for two weeks) at wzbc.org. Our website, truthandjusticeradio.org, links to This Week In Palestine's 2008/2009 audio archives; this and earlier editions are obtainable at radio4all.net by typing "This Week In Palestine" into its search box.
The most important message we repeat is that all caring humans must GET INVOLVED.
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