Skip to content or view screen version

Undercurrents in Palestine

undercurrents | 21.07.2005 15:07 | London | World

Out trusty book keeper is in the middle east to be a witness.
Heres her report.

It has happened to many Palestinian women in the past and it is still happening to many Palestinian women - it almost happened to another Palestinian womanat Huwara checkpoint as I came through to Nablus last week.

I'd been told that the checkpoint had been open for a few weeks, so I felt sure getting through would be simple - but this is Palestine and the Israeli invaders make sure that nothing is ever simple or easy for the people whose land they occupy.

There had been a bombing in Israel that day killing two and injuring many -in the eyes of the Palestinians, another martyr in their fight for freedom and justice, in the eyes of the Israelis and the West - a suicide bomber. As always, the people are held collectively responsible for any blow struck against Israel - so all the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza are punished. For the people of Nablus it meant the checkpoint was immediatley
closed.

When I arrived there I was told by the women that they had been there over an hour, people looked weary and resigned and the children fractious. As I was munching on a cucumber handed to me by one old woman (in her 70s - 80s) two women supporting a third came towards us, the woman in the middle wascrying. Suddenly she squatted on the ground and gave a long low moan. She was obviously well along in labour.

With the help of a young woman with good English I found out that they had been pleading with the soldiers to let the woman through or to call an ambulance. They refused and sent her back.
She was groaning continually now, and it look like she would give birth on the spot. I went back with the women to the soldiers and harangued them and embarrased them ('this woman could be your sister, your cousin - would you allow this to happen to her?') until they agreed to call an ambulance.

Doesn't it disgust you that it takes an International person, a 'white'
person to force the Israel Army to grant someone the most basic of human rights? Should a woman have to give birth in the dust and dirt when there is a well equipped hospital 10 minutes away - would this be allowed to happen anywhere else in the world?

And these acts are being carried out by a so-called 'Demorcracy', a so-called 'civilised' country, a county supported by the us, by the West. You must come here to feel the level of frustration on one hand and resignation on the other.

This country was invaded in 1967 - almost 40 years ago. Remember when Sadam Hussein invaded Kuwait? The might of the Allies descended on him and the misfortunate people of Iraq 3 weeks later - 3 WEEKS LATER. But here 38 YEARS have gone by and this country remains Occupied.

How can this be? Can anyone not understand the despair that must come over the people sometimes? As we continued to wait, one man rushed forward shouting in English:

'KILL ME NOW, DO IT, DO IT, I DON'T CARE ANYMORE, IT'S WHAT YOU WANT TO DO, ISN'T IT, GET IT OVER WITH - DO IT, DO IT, YOU WON'T LET ME GO TO MY HOME,
TO MY FAMIILY, SO KILL ME!!.

The 18 year old soldiers looked on impassively - the man's friends led him away. I held back the tears, as I am holding them back now - you don't cry here, or you would never stop, there is so much to cry for.

d. in Balata Camp, Nablus.

undercurrents

Comments

Hide the following 11 comments

A just, fair and balanced view

21.07.2005 16:00



End the occupation!

Human Being


Justified

21.07.2005 16:41

So, let's be clear "Human Being", if you were devastatingly maimed by a bus bomb, then you would consider that a worthy price to pay for the end of the occupation in Palestine?

artaud


Fascinating

21.07.2005 17:03

So, it appears that the correct response after a city has been the target of bombings is to gloat!!!

The fact of the matter is that most Londoners can see that it is the UKs role in Iraq that has put us in danger. And Iraq is quite far away.

Meanwhile, Israelis steadfastly refuse to see that the occupation on their very own doorstep causes them to be in danger.

So gloat away and see just how many converts you win to your cause. My prediction is that you'll support from those who have, up till now, given Israel the benefit of the doubt.


BRB


a quick ...

21.07.2005 18:38

.. fuck off to the zionist pigs here ...

Do they really think it is acceptable to more or less say:

'stop responding to our provokation and we will stop provoking you'

or:

'stop demanding the things back that we stole from you, and we will give you bak only some of them'

or:

'stop attacking us for shooting your children dead, and we will shoot less of them'.

Cilivilzed and democratic - my arse.

How dare they attempt to link the death and suffering of londoners to their dispicable path - the choosen path of; 'god gave us this land because we are special'.

It makes me more and more belive that the inconsistances - and there are many - in the 'offical' story, are covering up something unpalatable.

How more unpalatable could it be than our 'friends' conducting false flag operations against us?

'through deception we wage war'.

Have they changed since the lavaon affair? [israeli agents disguised themselves and got caught trying to attack their great allies the usa]

Have they changed since trying to set up an 'al cia da' cell in Palestine? [israeli agents disguised themselves and got caught trying to attck their great allies the usa]

Have they changed since blowing up the king davids hotel? [israeli agents disguise themselves and get caught trying to blow up their great allies the uk]

On and on it goes.

How dare tey block basic medical treatment to a woman in labour - a civilaian. This is a war crime as constitued by every treaty and international body.

But, for zionists, this is irrelivant. As long as any situation can be bent to their needs, it is.

They are not our allies, but our deadly enemies.

jackslucid
mail e-mail: jackslucid@hotmail.com


Arabs killing Arabs

21.07.2005 19:28

The Palestinian Authority is clamping down on media coverage of the worsening battles between PA and Hamas forces.

-------------
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday instructed local reporters and photographers to refrain from covering the clashes between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority security forces.

In a statement, the syndicate, which is controlled by members of the ruling Fatah party said that “pictures that some journalists are conveying to the international and local public opinion don’t benefit the struggle of the Palestinian people for liberation and independence.”

It warned the journalists against continuing to cover the “unfortunate clashes for fear that that they would add fuel to the fire.”

The syndicate warned that anyone who violates its instructions would have to bear the personal consequences of his or her deeds.
-----------
Translation: failing to follow these guidelines may result in being shot in the town square, dragged through the streets, and hung upside down from a lamp post.

Charles Johnson


...

21.07.2005 20:09

Israel illegally occupies Palestinian land...then they get their buses blown up by the Palestinian resistance.

The UK illegally occupies Iraq...then we get our buses blown up by a rightfully pisses off minority.

Spain illegally occupied Iraq...then it got it's trains blown up by Al Qaeda....then they withdrew, and they didn't have any more problems.

Hmmm, I think I can see a connection, and a possible solution to the problem.

End the occupations!!!

Or let's follow the path of war and conflict our zionist friends here would have us follow.

Quite simply, fuck off. England didn't have to put up with this rubbish until we decided to get involved with US and Israeli foreign policy in the middle east. Now your neo-conservative fascist agenda has put us all at risk. Go to hell.

Hermes


Jack you may be...

21.07.2005 21:06

...lucid you ain't.

You're all over the place! The attack on the King David hotel was the work of an extreme splinter group, the Stern Gang, and it took place before the establishment of the State of Israel and certainly at a time when there was little love lost between the Jewish and Arab nationalist movements and the British - yes, how easily one forgets the common cause waged at the time by Jewish and Arab fighters against the British mandate and the desire by a number of zionists for a bi-national state.

But please tell me. After all these years, what exactly has Palestinian terrorism achieved, particularly the suicide variety?

Do you really think that it will solve things in the region?

artaud


Artaud or just Aarf-baked?

22.07.2005 01:03

When ever ther'es any sort of criticism of his fascist zionist buddies, up pops smug Artaud, or is it Magoo, or is it any number of mossad disinfo ops at the blogging desk for his shift?

Israel has NO moral justification to exist at all - period.

The 'peaceful' israelis who live on stolen arab land, should get down on their kness and pray to whichever vengeful, supremacist god they think makes them better than everyone else, and thank their lucky stars that there are, amongst the embattled ranks of these noble Palestinian people, those who would even now, after all you have done to them, live side by side with you in peace.
I wish i had their courage, their fortitude their generosity of spirit which is the true spirit of human brotherhood.
For if it was me, and i had suffered 60 years of oppression, theft and murder, I should settle for nothing less than to push every last one of you Zionist scum into the sea.

For your information Artaud, the Stern gang were no splinter group - among their numnber was Yitzak Shamir who went from terrorst to statesman, lauded and welcomed by his sponsor pals in the ZOG of the US, and also by the government of the UK - presumably in recognition of the number of British soldiers he'd shot in the back - him and his pals in the black-hand gang.

DOnt talk to me if irrelevance
Israel is a law unto itself internationally - more than 60 COUNT EM 60 UN resolutions ignored which, were they any other nation on the planet, would have rendered them bomb-runs, for their rich bully big brother, the USA.
Instead, more and more $$$ flow to her for NOTHING, while americans starve - yes its hard to beleive isnt it, land of the brave etc etc...but true nevertheless.

And lets no buy the bullshit that the LAvon affair was some out of the ordinary one off:
August 20, 1937 - June 29, 1939. During this period, the Zionists carried out a series of attacks against Arab buses, resulting in the death of 24 persons and wounding 25 others.

November 25, 1940. S.S.Patria was blown up by Jewish terrorists in Haifa harbour, killing 268 illegal Jewish immigrants (see below).

November 6, 1944. Zionist terrorists of the Stern Gang assassinated the British Minister Resident in the Middle East, Lord Moyne, in Cairo.

July 22, 1946. Zionist terrorists blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which housed the central offices of the civilian administration of the government of Palestine, killing or injuring more than 200 persons. The Irgun officially claimed responsibility for the incident, but subsequent evidence indicated that both the Haganah and the Jewish Agency were involved.

October 1, 1946. The British Embassy in Rome was badly damaged by bomb explosions, for which Irgun claimed responsibility.

June 1947. Letters sent to British Cabinet Ministers were found to contain bombs.

September 3, 1947. A postal bomb addressed to the British War Office exploded in the post office sorting room in London, injuring 2 persons. It was attributed to Irgun or Stern Gangs. (The Sunday Times, Sept. 24, 1972, p.8)

December ll, 1947. Six Arabs were killed and 30 wounded when bombs were thrown from Jewish trucks at Arab buses in Haifa; 12 Arabs were killed and others injured in an attack by armed Zionists on an Arab coastal village near Haifa.

December 13,1947. Zionist terrorists, believed to be members of Irgun Zvai Leumi, killed 18 Arabs and wounded nearly 60 in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Lydda areas. In Jerusalem, bombs were thrown in an Arab market-place near the Damascus Gate; in Jaffa, bombs were thrown into an Arab cafe; in the Arab village of Al Abbasya, near Lydda, 12 Arabs were killed in an attack with mortars and automatic weapons.

December 19, 1947. Haganah terrorists attacked an Arab village near Safad, blowing up two houses, in the ruins of which were found the bodies of 10 Arabs, including 5 children. Haganah admitted responsibility for the attack.

December 29, 1947. Two British constables and 11 Arabs were killed and 32 Arabs injured, at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem when Irgun members threw a bomb from a taxi.

December 30,1947. A mixed force of the Zionist Palmach and the "Carmel Brigade" attacked the village of Balad al Sheikh, killing more than 60 Arabs.

1947 -- 1948. Over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were uprooted from their homes and land, and forced to live in refugee camps on Israel's borders. They have been denied the right to return to their homes. They have been refused compensation for their homes, orchards, farms and other property stolen from them by the Israeli government. After their expulsion, the "Israeli Forces" totally obliterated (usually by bulldozing) 385 Arab villages and towns, out of a total of 475. Commonly, Israeli villages were built on the remaining rubble.

January 1, 1948. Haganah terrorists attacked a village on the slopes of Mount Carmel; 17 Arabs were killed and 33 wounded.

January 4, 1948. Haganah terrorists wearing British Army uniforms penetrated into the center of Jaffa and blew up the Serai (the old Turkish Government House) which was used as a headquarters of the Arab National Committee, killing more than 40 persons and wounding 98 others.

January 5, 1948. The Arab-owned Semiramis Hotel in Jerusalem was blown up, killing 20 persons, among them Viscount de Tapia, the Spanish Consul. Haganah admitted responsibility for this crime.

January 7, 1948. Seventeen Arabs were killed by a bomb at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem, 3 of them while trying to escape. Further casualties, including the murder of a British officer near Hebron, were reported from different parts of the country.

January 16, 1948. Zionists blew up three Arab buildings. In the first, 8 children between the ages of 18 months and 12 years, died.

December 13, 1947 -- February 10, 1948. Seven incidents of bomb-tossing at innocent Arab civilians in cafes and markets, killing 138 and wounding 271 others, During this period, there were 9 attacks on Arab buses. Zionists mined passenger trains on at least 4 occasions, killing 93 persons and wounding 161 others.

February 15, 1948. Haganah terrorists attacked an Arab village near Safad, blew up several houses, killing 11 Arabs, including 4 children..

March 3, 1948. Heavy damage was done to the Arab-owned Salam building in Haifa (a 7 story block of apartments and shops) by Zionists who drove an army lorry ( truck) up to the building and escaped before the detonation of 400 Ib. of explosives; casualties numbered 11 Arabs and 3 Armenians killed and 23 injured. The Stern Gang claimed responsibility for the incident.

March 22, 1948. A housing block in Iraq Street in Haifa was blown up killing 17 and injuring 100 others. Four members of the Stern Gang drove two truck-loads of explosives into the street and abandoned the vehicles before the explosion.

March 31, 1948. The Cairo-Haifa Express was mined, for the second time in a month, by an electronically-detonated land mine near Benyamina, killing 40 persons and wounding 60 others.

April 9, 1948. A combined force of Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang, supported by the Palmach forces, captured the Arab village of Deir Yassin and killed more than 200 unarmed civilians, including countless women and children. Older men and young women were captured and paraded in chains in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem; 20 of the hostages were then shot in the quarry of Gevaat Shaul.

April 16, 1948. Zionists attacked the former British army camp at Tel Litvinsky, killing 90 Arabs there.

April 19, 1948. Fourteen Arabs were killed in a house in Tiberias, which was blown up by Zionist terrorists.

May 3, 1948. A book bomb addressed to a British Army officer, who had been stationed in Palestine exploded, killing his brother, Rex Farran.

May11, 1948. A letter bomb addressed to Sir Evelyn Barker, former Commanding Officer in Palestine, was detected in the nick of time by his wife.

April 25, 1948 -- May 13, 1948. Wholesale looting of Jaffa was carried out following armed attacks by Irgun and Haganah terrorists. They stripped and carried away everything they could, destroying what they could not take with them.


THE SS PATRIA.

November 25, 1940. In September, 1940, around 3,000 Jewish refugees from Vienna, Prague and Danzig were attempting to reach Palestine. In a convoy of four river steamers, they set sail down the Danube and reached the Romanian port of Tulcea where they transferred to three Greek cargo ships named Atlantic, Pacific and Milos. Conditions on board these three ships were horrendous, reminiscent of Japanese hell-ships later in the war. Eventually the ships reached Palestinian waters, but the British Colonial Office refused them permission to land. It was finally decided to deport the refugees to the island of Mauritius where a special camp was to be built. The three ships were then brought into Haifa harbour where the liner Patria was berthed. The refugees were then embarked on the Patria and as the last passengers from the Atlantic were coming on board, a tremendous explosion ripped the liner apart. The death toll amounted to 267 refugees killed. The explosion was the work of the Jewish underground army, the Haganah, who had meant only to damage the ship to prevent it sailing but had miscalculated the amount of explosives needed to disable the ship. Many say that this was no miscalculation and was deliberate murder of Jews by Jews, in an attempt to influence British immigration policy to Palestine.


A LIGHT UNTO THE NATIONS.

The first act of air piracy in the history of civil aviation was carried out by Israel, in Dec. 1954, when a civilian Syrian airliner was forced down in Tel Aviv and its passengers and crew held for days, despite international condemnation.

In 1968, Israeli commandos blew up 13 civilian airliners at Beirut airport in Lebanon.

The first deliberate shooting down a civilian airliner was carried out by Israel, when a Libyan airliner was shot down by Israeli jet fighters over Sinai, in Feb. 1973, on the direct orders of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, killing all 107 of its passengers and the entire French crew.

Then more recently we've got the USS LIberty during the 6 day war
a concerted 2 hour air assault by israeli fighter aircraft on an American ship
 http://www.ussliberty.org/

Not to mention strong (though still attemptedly suppressed) evidence to suggest their involvement in 911

And, in my view, 7/7/05 in London

Yes, fascist Israel is on the march, and it aint nothin new.

All hail the New American Century, or should that be the New Zionist Century?

pentos


22 Arab nations, 54 Moslem nations and Israel shouldn't exist??

22.07.2005 05:31

"Israel has NO moral justification to exist at all - period."

Kool...
How do you feel about the existence of:
Saudi Arabia, yemen, Lebanon, Jordan (trans-jordan 80% palestinian population)TransJordan became a "nation" in 1947. By 1948 they attacked Israel and OCCUPIED Judea and samaria, and annexed the same.
Syria, Iraq, Qatar, UAE, Oman etc ad nauseum....
All created after the OTTOPMON Empire was demolished, and after the German Nazis and their Arab allies were defeated in WWII

Idiots for Palestine


I finally understand!

22.07.2005 09:28

All bombings, murders and terrorist activities ever undertaken by "zionists" are an abomination. All bombings, murders and terrorist activities ever undertaken by Palestinians are perfectly justified and a worthy tool. Is that your point of view Pentos?

I wish that I was a Mossad disinfo op. I could use the dough...

artaud


...

22.07.2005 21:46

The difference being, of course, that all those countries had been inhabited by the arabs for over a thousand years, including all of Palestine, which is now Israel.

It is true the British created the names of these countries, but originally they were all one Arabia. It is like the Chinese invading England and dividing it into the 'countries' of Devon, Sussex, Yorkshire. The people who live in all these 'countries' had been there all along, only the names are different.

But imagine theChinese create the country of 'Cornwall', in which live hundreds of thousands of cornish people, and then promise this land to the Roma. The Roma come to Cornwall, and start taking the land of the indigenous Cornish, this causes a conflict, and in the end the majority of the Cornish are ethnically cleansed from their land.

I could imagine then that the other new English countries of Devon, Avon and Somerset would try to claim the land back that has been inhabited by Anglo-Saxons for almost 2000 years, about the same amount of time Palestine has been inhabited by Arabs.

Well, it is like this with Israel. You know, the land of Palestine was not the British's to give away, just as Cornwall does not belong to the Chinese to give away. In that sense Israel has no right to exist, until the Palestinians, whose land it justly is, willingly give it a right to exist.

Your only claim to the land is almost 2000 years old, and dubious, as many of the Palestinians are also descendents of Jews who had lived in that area before the coming of the Romans and Arabs. And the only right you have is that of the force of arms. You stole that land, no one can take it back, therefore it is yours.
Well, if we accept that argument, ( which I don't ) then the Arabs have every right to try and take that land back.

Hermes