ZGram - 8/20/2001 - "Orient House" - IX

[Ingrid Rimland]

Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

August 20, 2001

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

"Orient House # 9" - two more to go!  Yesterday I read the extraordinary
and disturbing essay by Israel Shamir titled "Cornerstone of Violence" and
I am thinking of making it #10, replacing the Robert Fisk article I had
planned to use on the capture and beating of a Palestinian - a brutally
honest report that can make your heart stop beating.  But the Shamir
article gives a dimension into the occult world of the Israelis. I feel I
need to pass this information on, for many things become much clearer and
easier to understand after reading Shamir's expose.

Here is what I had prepared for today:

[START]

(No date, but I received it on August 13)

It is building up.   You are invited to join.  This is a report about the
International solidarity movement  activities.

Ghassan Andoni  

 How can we support the non-violent  Palestinians and Israelis? was the
intelligent question asked me yesterday.  This nicely avoids the childish
question of who-hit-who-first. Or the complex  questions of international
law  and UN resolutions governing military  occupations, resistance to
oppression,  protection of civilian populations,  refugees, torture,
arbitrary arrest and  imprisonment, or how one  ethnic/religious group
claims the right to return  thousands of years later to  ethnic cleanse the
territory of another.

  In fact there are dozens of  actions on the ground in occupied Palestine,
by  dozens of different groups  and individuals, designed to protect and
bring  relief to thirsty, hungry,  besieged, and bombarded civilian
populations.

 Here's one recent  report.

  Internationals are not as killable as Palestinians.  Internationals enjoy
more freedom of movement, but still risk bombs, bullets,  broken bones,
beatings and arrest while bringing food, water, medicine and  protection to
the victims of the savage Israeli ethnic cleansing campaign for  apartheid
Jewish settlements.

  Well, I too shudder at all this, and begin and end my  conversations by
referring to the likelihood of regional nuclear warfare.  Were you there
for  all the 60's talk of the global effects of nuclear  fallout? Have  you
forgotten?

 _________________________________________

Reprint from  Jordan Times, August 9, 2001

 BRING ON THE 'HUMAN SHIELDS'

 By Michael  Jansen

 TO MAKE up for the international community's failure to send a  protection
force, or even monitors, to the occupied Palestinian territories,  foreign
human rights activists are volunteering to shield Palestinian  civilians
from  Israeli abuse and military action. Private citizens are doing  the
job their  governments have refused to undertake.

 A group of 40  fresh volunteers from the US and Europe arrived yesterday.

 Heidi Arraf,  spokeswoman of the International Solidarity Movement, told
this  correspondent  that the volunteers will receive training so they can
take  part alongside  Palestinians in a campaign to lift the siege and end
the  blockade of  Palestinian towns and villages. Arraf, who comes from
Detroit,  Michigan, said  that volunteers will participate in mass actions
designed to  open roads,  demolish earthworks and fill trenches around
Palestinian  population  centres.

 Volunteers will also accompany Palestinian farmers to their  fields so
they  can harvest their crops without Israeli army and settler  harassment.
Earlier arrivals and locally based volunteers continue to  spend nights in
repeatedly shelled Palestinian homes in the village of Beit  Jala adjacent
to  Bethlehem. Arraf said that as long as Israeli tanks menaced  Beit Jala
an  average of 30 "human shields" were deployed, two to a house,  every
night.

 At present eight deploy, one in each home. The volunteers  maintain
secrecy  about their positions so the Israeli army does not know  exactly
where they  are, forcing gunners to curb random fire. While this  policy
puts the  volunteers at considerable risk, it also restrains the  Israelis
who, Arraf  said: "Do not want a public relations disaster on their
hands."

  Taking part in the Beit Jala "human shield" endeavour were 18 US
Anglican  Church members who returned home on Sunday. Ronald Forthofer, 57,
from  Longmount, Colorado, was in this group. He explained why they had
come:

"We  believe that we who are protected in America should experience and
live  in  the same way that Palestinians are living."

Brenda Holliday, 60, from  Orange  County, California, said that no part of
the house where she stayed  was  safe. "If children live under this kind of
oppression... a vicious  cycle  will be repeated. The child who was
oppressed will become the adult  doing  the oppressing."

At a news conference last week the volunteers called  on the  international
community to intervene "to cease active support of  Israeli  aggression
against the Palestinian people."

Volunteers include  members of  other Christian denominations as well as
European, Japanese and  Israeli  peace activists.

 Neta Golan, one of two Israeli women acting  as "human shields," has been
staying in the village for the past few weeks.  "I am living with a family
in  which a five-year-old boy lost a hand from  Israeli fire a few weeks
ago."  She said that activists "are not deluded into  believing" that they
can  prevent Israeli shooting.

"We aren't here to provide  cover for Palestinian  snipers but for the
civilians who are hit by Israeli  fire," she stated. In  her view most
Palestinian firing at the nearby Israeli  settlement of Gilo is
ineffectual and Israeli responses are  "exaggerated."

  One of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs)  sponsoring the campaign
is  the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement in Beit  Sahour, next to Beit
Jala.  The centre's offices have been repeatedly shelled,  Arraf observed.
In  addition to the volunteers coming from abroad, there are  200 locally
resident foreign activists participating in the "human shield"  campaign,
most of them based in the area with international and local  NGOs.

 Israeli defence ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror called the group's
deployment  in Beit Jala a provocation and expressed his opinion that
participants are  anti-Israeli.

  While middle-aged US citizens put their  lives on the line in Beit Jala,
on  the roads and in the fields of the  occupied West Bank, Washington
continues  to dither over the sending of  "observers" to monitor flash
points in the  escalating Israeli war of  attrition.

  According to a report published in The Guardian last Friday,  the Bush
administration "is secretly drawing up detailed plans.. resurrecting  an
idea  that seems to have been killed off by Israeli objections two weeks
ago." It  would appear, however, that the administration has been put off,
once again,  by the flat rejection of monitors by Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel  Sharon.

 The administration's resolve has also been weakened by divisions  within
its  own ranks. This was exposed by last week's statement by Vice
President Dick  Cheney justifying Israel's policy of assassinating alleged
Palestinian  activists. It is clear that Cheney disagrees with Secretary of
State Colin  Powell who opposes Israel's liquidation policy. A statement by
the White  House issued on August 3rd said that the US remained opposed to
Israel's  targeted assassinations of suspected Palestinian  militants.

  But the administration has done nothing to force Israel to  desist from
its  murderous tactics. Instead, this week the Israeli army  loosened its
rules of  engagement, giving Israeli soldiers and hit squads a  freer hand
in dealing  with Palestinians resisting the  occupation.

"Bring on the "human shields."

_____

 George  N. Rishmawi
 Projects' Coordinator
 The Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement  Between People
 Star Street No. 64  P.O.Box 24
 Beit Sahour -  Palestine
 www.rapprochement.org  Telefax:  +972-2-2772018

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UPDATE:

>From Damascus comes a report that more than 500,000 Syrians demonstrated in
support of the Palestinians.  Syrian's vice president, Mohammed Zuhair
Masharqah, is quoted as saying:  "Israel can increase tension, but it
cannot stop it. Syria will not stand idle.  Israel does not want peace."

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