Hello Tirza and Ron, I haven't been in touch for a few weeks but have been
following events here and in Israel/Palestine.  Are you suggesting giving
money to Gush Shalom or directly to a Palestinian source?  I am in favour of
collecting money as a way of activating/educating people so would only ask
for donations if accompanied by political/factual material.   What I think
is also urgent is the passing on of information to journalists here.  Jude
tells me that there is left organization but none of it is reported here and
knowing that the left in Israel is protesting may encourage people here to
take a stand too.  What do you think?   Yours Ruth.
----- Original Message -----
From: Ron Cohen <rony@...>
To: JustPeaceUK <JustPeaceUK@egroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2000 12:34 AM
Subject: [JustPeaceUK] Fw: (Fwd) West Bank village under tight siege, water
cut off, oliv


>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ron Cohen <rony@...>
> To: JustPeaceUK <JustPeaceUK@egroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2000 11:41 PM
> Subject: Fw: (Fwd) West Bank village under tight siege, water cut off,
oliv
>
>
> Dear friends,
>
> We start getting urgent appeals for humanitarian help for sieged
Palestinian
> villages and cities (Harres & Hebron according to the information I got so
> far).
> I enclose the background about the village of Harres, + 2 appeals that
where
> sent over the past week.
>
> I'm not sure how exactly we can help with it from London, but this is a
> certainly a new phase in the desperation - and we can't ignore it.
>
> My opinion is that it is VERY important to do the political work,
> e.g. to spread the word about this reality (I haven't seen anything about
> the closure in the BBC news, for example), as part of our efforts to
> advocate immediate end to the occupation. But should we also try and work
on
> the humanitarian basis? after all - we want to end the occupation because
> there are PEOPLE suffering (yes,  Israelis as well - and for me its a
major
> reason to work for peace - but they don't suffer hunger...). I feel that
> this humanitarian aspect "bring it home", and maybe some people around us
> would feel better doint something "real" to relieve the suffering, rather
> than going on demonstrations and signing petitions...
> So maybe we CAN do something from here, collect donations or something
like
> this. Do you think we should? Do you know any person or organization that
> might want to join or take on such a charity work? Does anyone feel like
> working on
> this aspect? Mika? Anyone? (I don't mind helping).
>
> tirza
>
> 1) First report, from 29.10.00 - background
>
>
> ------- Forwarded message follows -------
> From:           "Gush Shalom/Israeli Peace Bloc" <otherisr@...>
> To:             Activists List <info@...>
> Date sent:      Sun, 29 Oct 2000 17:09:03 +0200
> Subject:        West Bank village under tight siege, water cut off, olive
> trees cut down.
> Send reply to:  info@...
> Priority:       normal
>
> GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - http://www.gush-shalom.org/
>
> Here follows the text of a press release which we just sent out. We also
> send it to our non-press list so that you will know what hardly gets any
> press
> coverage. You may want to make yourself an effort in getting it into the
> media,
> by using what ways are open to you.
>
> Thank you.
> ---------------
> Tel Aviv - Gush Shalom press release October 29
>
> West Bank villages under tight siege, water cut off, olive trees cut down.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
> ----
>
> ---------------------
>
> "Hares village is surrounded on all sides already for a week, and the army
> is
> making the siege tighter by the day. All entrances and roads, even the
> unpaved
> sideroads, were blocked with enormous rocks, and soldiers are preventing
> people
> from going in or out. "The army is  systematically cutting down our olive
> trees,
> which we were just going to harvest. Two hundred trees were already
> destroyed.
> Our land does not produce enough food for our daily needs, we relied on
what
> we
> could buy from outside. Now, even if we suceed in slipping around the
> soldiers
> and getting to neighboring village, it does not help because they are in
the
> same position, also besieged by the army. "The officer in the roadblock
told
> me
> it was all in punishment for our throwing stones. Last night our water was
> also
> cut off.
>
> This description of the situation was given  by inhabitants of Palestinian
> villages Hares (5000 inhabitants) Kifl Hares (4000) and Dir Istiya (8000)
in
> the
> north-eastern parts of the West Bank, who spoke to activists of Gush
Shalom.
>
> The three villages are surrounded by the Israeli settlements Ariel (one of
> the
> biggest on the West Bank) Yakir and Revava. This makes them part of a
> "settlement bloc" whose annexation to Israel Prime Minister Barak demanded
> at
> camp David, and which is currenty mentioned as one of the areas to be
> unilateraly annexed in case of a Palestinian Declaration of Independence.
> The
> Palestinian villagers report settlement security guards working in close
> cooperation with the soldiers besieging their villages. In recent weeks,
> settler
> leaders demanded that the  army increase its punitive measures against the
> Palestinians, and some settler groups made open threats to take such
> punitive
> steps on their own. News of such sieges have come also from other parts of
> the
> West Bank, where access roads to various villages had been blocked by the
> army
> with rocks or concrete blocks, causing extreme hardship to whole
> populations.
>
> "Subjecting tens of thousands of  civilians collectively to cruel forms of
> structural violence is among other things a breach of the Geneva
Convention
> to
> which Israel is a signatory, and turns Barak's call upon the Palestinians
> for a
>
> 'reduction of the violence' into sheer hypocrisy" says the Gush Shalom
> movement.
>
>
> Contact:
>
> Hosni (Hares Village) 972-(0)54-293399
> Fuad or Hassan (Hares Village) 972-(0)54-370683
> Neta Golan (Liaison Centre) 972-(0)50-757504
>
> Adam Keller (Gush Shalom Spokesperson) 972-(0)3-5565804
>
>
> ========================================================
>               JERUSALEM CAPITAL OF TWO STATES
>                   Add this to all your mail
>           (and suggest to your friends to do the same)
> ========================================================
> ========================================================
>          Sign the "Our Jerusalem, Capital of Two States" petition
>             full text in Hebrew, Arabic and English at
>                http://www.gush-shalom.org/jerusalem
>
> If you want to support our activities you can send a check to:
> pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 or, with credit card, click:
> https://www.givetocharity.com/cgi-bin/give.pl?CODE=11505
> NB: Please, email us that you did so!
>
> If you do (not) want our action alerts and updates (un)subscribe to:
> <info@...>
> ========================================================
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------- End of forwarded message -------
>
> 2) First appeal, sent 9.11.00:
>
> We received a desperate appeal
> for help: 5 families, living in the periphery
> of Haris village (near Ariel settlement)
> are in dire need for food and milk for their 32 children.
>
> To donate money for an immediate relief action,
> please contact Naama ASAP 051-890714.
>
> We shouldn't stay indifferent to this
> direct plea for aid.
>
> ** End of message 2 **
>
> 3) Second appeal, sent today, 14.11.00:
>
> Return-Path: <info@...>
> From: "Rabbis For Human Rights" <info@...>
> To: <info@...>
> Subject: HUMANITARIAN APPEAL/OLIVE HARVEST - Immediate Response Requested
> Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 18:22:15 +0200
> X-MSMail-Priority: High
> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300
> Importance: High
>
>
> Dear Friends and Supporters,
>
> 1.  I want to again remind you that we are collecting funds to deal with
the
> various urgent humanitarian requests that we and others are receiving,
> particularly for people without food.  If you notify us of a pledge, we
can
> authorize funds before your pledge actually arrives.  PLEASE OPEN YOUR
> HEARTS AND HELP OUT.  To RHR rabbis - please announce in your
congregations.
>
> 2.  We have finally received a green light from Palestinians in Harres
(near
> Ariel) to help with the olive harvest and to protect them from settlers.
> Like the need for food, defending the basic right of Palestinians to farm
> their land safely supercedes whatever we feel about the current events.
> Please let us know ASAP if you are willing to help out, and on which
day/s.
> WE HAVE BEEN TOLD OUTRIGHT THAT PARTICIPATION COULD BE VERY DANGEROUS.
> However, it will be an opportunity not only to help people in need, but to
> make a strong statement about the closure of the area, the resulting
> humanitarian problems and the ongoing harassment and worse of
Palestinians.
> Please respond ASAP by email or to 02-563-7731, 050-607034 or 03-6733037.
>
> Today two Israelis and one individual from Japan arrived in Harres to
begin
> what will now be a permanent international violence reduction and
> observer/reporting team.  They have been picking olives along with local
> Palestinians all this afternoon in order to provide some measure of
> protection from settlers.
>
>
> B'Vrakha,
> Rabbi Arik Ascherman
> Executive Director
> Rabbis For Human Rights
> info@...
> Tel. 972 2 563-7731
> Fax: 972 2 566-2815
> Mobile:  972 50 607034
> Website:  www:/rhr.israel.net
>
>
> ** End **
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> JustPeaceUK-unsubscribe@egroups.com
>
>
>
>

----- Original Message -----
From: Ron Cohen <rony@...>
To: JustPeaceUK <JustPeaceUK@egroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2000 11:41 PM
Subject: Fw: (Fwd) West Bank village under tight siege, water cut off, oliv


Dear friends,

We start getting urgent appeals for humanitarian help for sieged Palestinian
villages and cities (Harres & Hebron according to the information I got so
far).
I enclose the background about the village of Harres, + 2 appeals that where
sent over the past week.

I'm not sure how exactly we can help with it from London, but this is a
certainly a new phase in the desperation - and we can't ignore it.

My opinion is that it is VERY important to do the political work,
e.g. to spread the word about this reality (I haven't seen anything about
the closure in the BBC news, for example), as part of our efforts to
advocate immediate end to the occupation. But should we also try and work on
the humanitarian basis? after all - we want to end the occupation because
there are PEOPLE suffering (yes,  Israelis as well - and for me its a major
reason to work for peace - but they don't suffer hunger...). I feel that
this humanitarian aspect "bring it home", and maybe some people around us
would feel better doint something "real" to relieve the suffering, rather
than going on demonstrations and signing petitions...
So maybe we CAN do something from here, collect donations or something like
this. Do you think we should? Do you know any person or organization that
might want to join or take on such a charity work? Does anyone feel like
working on
this aspect? Mika? Anyone? (I don't mind helping).

tirza

1) First report, from 29.10.00 - background


------- Forwarded message follows -------
From:           "Gush Shalom/Israeli Peace Bloc" <otherisr@...>
To:             Activists List <info@...>
Date sent:      Sun, 29 Oct 2000 17:09:03 +0200
Subject:        West Bank village under tight siege, water cut off, olive
trees cut down.
Send reply to:  info@...
Priority:       normal

GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - http://www.gush-shalom.org/

Here follows the text of a press release which we just sent out. We also
send it to our non-press list so that you will know what hardly gets any
press
coverage. You may want to make yourself an effort in getting it into the
media,
by using what ways are open to you.

Thank you.
---------------
Tel Aviv - Gush Shalom press release October 29

West Bank villages under tight siege, water cut off, olive trees cut down.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

---------------------

"Hares village is surrounded on all sides already for a week, and the army
is
making the siege tighter by the day. All entrances and roads, even the
unpaved
sideroads, were blocked with enormous rocks, and soldiers are preventing
people
from going in or out. "The army is  systematically cutting down our olive
trees,
which we were just going to harvest. Two hundred trees were already
destroyed.
Our land does not produce enough food for our daily needs, we relied on what
we
could buy from outside. Now, even if we suceed in slipping around the
soldiers
and getting to neighboring village, it does not help because they are in the
same position, also besieged by the army. "The officer in the roadblock told
me
it was all in punishment for our throwing stones. Last night our water was
also
cut off.

This description of the situation was given  by inhabitants of Palestinian
villages Hares (5000 inhabitants) Kifl Hares (4000) and Dir Istiya (8000) in
the
north-eastern parts of the West Bank, who spoke to activists of Gush Shalom.

The three villages are surrounded by the Israeli settlements Ariel (one of
the
biggest on the West Bank) Yakir and Revava. This makes them part of a
"settlement bloc" whose annexation to Israel Prime Minister Barak demanded
at
camp David, and which is currenty mentioned as one of the areas to be
unilateraly annexed in case of a Palestinian Declaration of Independence.
The
Palestinian villagers report settlement security guards working in close
cooperation with the soldiers besieging their villages. In recent weeks,
settler
leaders demanded that the  army increase its punitive measures against the
Palestinians, and some settler groups made open threats to take such
punitive
steps on their own. News of such sieges have come also from other parts of
the
West Bank, where access roads to various villages had been blocked by the
army
with rocks or concrete blocks, causing extreme hardship to whole
populations.

"Subjecting tens of thousands of  civilians collectively to cruel forms of
structural violence is among other things a breach of the Geneva Convention
to
which Israel is a signatory, and turns Barak's call upon the Palestinians
for a

'reduction of the violence' into sheer hypocrisy" says the Gush Shalom
movement.


Contact:

Hosni (Hares Village) 972-(0)54-293399
Fuad or Hassan (Hares Village) 972-(0)54-370683
Neta Golan (Liaison Centre) 972-(0)50-757504

Adam Keller (Gush Shalom Spokesperson) 972-(0)3-5565804


========================================================
               JERUSALEM CAPITAL OF TWO STATES
                   Add this to all your mail
           (and suggest to your friends to do the same)
========================================================
========================================================
          Sign the "Our Jerusalem, Capital of Two States" petition
             full text in Hebrew, Arabic and English at
                http://www.gush-shalom.org/jerusalem

If you want to support our activities you can send a check to:
pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 or, with credit card, click:
https://www.givetocharity.com/cgi-bin/give.pl?CODE=11505
NB: Please, email us that you did so!

If you do (not) want our action alerts and updates (un)subscribe to:
<info@...>
========================================================






------- End of forwarded message -------

2) First appeal, sent 9.11.00:

We received a desperate appeal
for help: 5 families, living in the periphery
of Haris village (near Ariel settlement)
are in dire need for food and milk for their 32 children.

To donate money for an immediate relief action,
please contact Naama ASAP 051-890714.

We shouldn't stay indifferent to this
direct plea for aid.

** End of message 2 **

3) Second appeal, sent today, 14.11.00:

Return-Path: <info@...>
From: "Rabbis For Human Rights" <info@...>
To: <info@...>
Subject: HUMANITARIAN APPEAL/OLIVE HARVEST - Immediate Response Requested
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 18:22:15 +0200
X-MSMail-Priority: High
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300
Importance: High


Dear Friends and Supporters,

1.  I want to again remind you that we are collecting funds to deal with the
various urgent humanitarian requests that we and others are receiving,
particularly for people without food.  If you notify us of a pledge, we can
authorize funds before your pledge actually arrives.  PLEASE OPEN YOUR
HEARTS AND HELP OUT.  To RHR rabbis - please announce in your congregations.

2.  We have finally received a green light from Palestinians in Harres (near
Ariel) to help with the olive harvest and to protect them from settlers.
Like the need for food, defending the basic right of Palestinians to farm
their land safely supercedes whatever we feel about the current events.
Please let us know ASAP if you are willing to help out, and on which day/s.
WE HAVE BEEN TOLD OUTRIGHT THAT PARTICIPATION COULD BE VERY DANGEROUS.
However, it will be an opportunity not only to help people in need, but to
make a strong statement about the closure of the area, the resulting
humanitarian problems and the ongoing harassment and worse of Palestinians.
Please respond ASAP by email or to 02-563-7731, 050-607034 or 03-6733037.

Today two Israelis and one individual from Japan arrived in Harres to begin
what will now be a permanent international violence reduction and
observer/reporting team.  They have been picking olives along with local
Palestinians all this afternoon in order to provide some measure of
protection from settlers.


B'Vrakha,
Rabbi Arik Ascherman
Executive Director
Rabbis For Human Rights
info@...
Tel. 972 2 563-7731
Fax: 972 2 566-2815
Mobile:  972 50 607034
Website:  www:/rhr.israel.net


** End **

----- Original Message -----
From: tamar peleg <tamarpel@...>
To: <alef@...>
Cc: <mail@...>
Sent: Saturday, November 11, 2000 8:59 PM
Subject: ALEF: press relase


>Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 21:15:55 +0200
>From: pchr <pchr@...>
>Reply-To: pchr@...
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (Win98; I)
>X-Accept-Language: en,arabic
>To: pchr@...
>Subject: press relase
>
>Press Release
>
>Israeli occupation forces kill six civilians in less than 24 hours:
>New cold-blooded killing at Gush Qatif junction
>
>Ref:   162/2000
>Date: November 11, 2000
>Time: 18:30 GMT
>           20:30  Palestine Time
>
>In a new serious escalation of the use of lethal force against
>Palestinian civilians, the Israeli occupation forces opened fire on a
>Palestinian civilian car on Salah El-Din Street (the main road between
>the north and south of the Gaza Strip), near a junction leading to Gush
>Qatif settlement block, killing two persons.  The Israeli occupation
>forces closed the mentioned road and prevented the entry of ambulances
>into the area.  The closure coincided with the passing vehicle of the UN
>High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, when she was
>returning from her visit to Rafah.  She was also prevented from
>proceeding on her way to Gaza City.
>
>In the area of Beit Hanoun (Erez) Checkpoint, the Israeli occupation
>forces shot at Palestinian demonstrators, killing one with a live bullet
>in the heart.  In Hebron, the Israeli occupation forces shot at a young
>man this evening in an area that did not witness any clashes, killing
>him with a live bullet in the chest.  In Jenin, a Palestinian young man
>succumbed this morning to an injury incurred yesterday from a live
>bullet in the head shot by the Israeli occupation forces.  On the 44th
>day of clashes, which started on September 29, 2000, the number of
>Palestinians killed by the Israeli occupation forces increased to 179,
>including 58 children.  More sweeping of agricultural land took place
>today.
>
> 1. Shots Fired at a Palestinian Civilian Car Kill Its Occupants:
>
>At about 12:20 p.m. local time, the Israeli occupation forces opened
>fire on a civilian car travelling on Salah El-Din Street (the main road
>between the north and west of the Gaza Strip), near the junction leading
>to Gush Qatif settlement block.  Eyewitnesses stated that shooting was
>heard in the area five minutes before the passing of the mentioned
>civilian car, and such shooting stopped for several minutes.  Then,
>intense shooting was heard.  Later, it was clear that shooting targeted
>a civilian car, a blue-colored Delta.  Immediately after that, Israeli
>occupation troops, reinforced with tanks and jeeps, were abundantly
>deployed in the area, closing Salah El-Din Street.  These forces
>prevented an ambulance of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society from
>entering the area to evacuate the persons who were in the car.  PCHR's
>field officer in the area reported that he filmed some of the area
>immediately after the incident took place.  He added that the Israeli
>occupation forces did not allow the evacuation of the wounded who
>remained in the car until 13:21 local time, when two corpses were
>removed from the car using a crane.  The Israeli occupation forces put
>the two corpses alongside the road and then destroyed the car,
>apparently to hide any evidence that might refute their pretenses
>concerning the crime.  PCHR's field officer added that he saw the
>evacuation of the corpses and the destruction of the car from a distance
>of 60 meters, and that the Israeli occupation forces did not get out any
>military equipment or any weapons.  This absolutely proves that the
>victims were civilians and they had no relation with any kind of
>shooting.  PCHR's field officer also saw the Israeli occupation forces
>cutting the clothes of the two martyrs, refusing to hand their bodies
>over to the Palestinian side.  The two martyrs were moved to an unknown
>place.  Later in the day the Palestinian side received the bodies of the
>two martyrs.  The martyrs are:
>1) Mohammed Yassin Darwish El-Madhoun, 25 years old, from Al-Shati
>refugee camp in Gaza, who received heavy bullets throughout the body;
>and
>2) Monther Hamdi Yssin, 25 years old, from Al-Shati refugee camp in
>Gaza, who received heavy bullets throughout the body.
>
>PCHR condemns this terrible crime which is to be added to the long
>record of crimes and cold-blooded killings perpetrated by the Israeli
>occupation forces.  PCHR refers to a similar incident that took place on
>September 9, 2000, when the Israeli occupation forces opened fire on two
>civilian cars, passing on Salah El-Din Street, near the settlement of
>Kfar Darom, near Deir El-Balah.  As a result, E'etedal Hamza Moa'mmar,
>29 years old, was killed and her infant son Mohammed, 6 months, was
>seriously wounded.  Her other child, Rae'd, 4 years old, and her
>husband, Sharif E'id Moa'mmar, 37 years old, were moderately wounded.
>Another civilian car was also hit with bullets fired by the Israeli
>occupation forces.  As a result, Saleh Mahmoud Saleh, was wounded with a
>live bullet in the thigh.  As usual, the Israeli occupation forces
>claimed that shots were fired in their direction.  Later, it was clear
>that the two targeted cars were civilian vehicles.
>
> 2. Shooting at Demonstrators in the Areas of Clashes:
>
>In the aftermath of shooting by the Israeli occupation forces on the
>civilian car near Gush Qatif junction, tension spread over the area.  At
>about 14:20 local time, shooting was heard.  The Israeli occupation
>forces were seen shooting at Palestinians who gathered in the area,
>wounding:
>1) Ahmed Hassan Yousef Dahlan, 18 years old, from Khan Yunis, critically
>with a live bullet in the head;
>2) Mohammed Ibrahim Al-Najjar, 18 years old, with a live bullet in the
>foot; and
>3) Abdel-Wahab Ahmed Hssan Abu Than, 47 years old, a member of the
>Palestinian National Security, with a live bullet in the back, when he
>was at the service post in the area.  His wound in the back proves that
>he was not participating in shooting at the Israeli occupation forces.
>The three were evacuated to Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis.
>
>This afternoon, clashes broke out between Palestinian demonstrators and
>the Israeli occupation forces near Al-Tuffah roadblock between Khan
>Yunis city and Al-Mawasi (agricultural) area, under the security control
>of the Israeli occupation forces. These forces shot at Palestinian
>demonstrators, wounding two with live ammunition and another one with a
>rubber coated metal bullet.  Among the wounded is the child Bassem
>Mattar El-Faqa'awi, 13 years old, who was wounded with a live bullet in
>the abdomen, and was evacuated to Shifa' hospital in Gaza.
>
>In the vicinity of Beit Hanoun (Erez) Checkpoint, at the northern end of
>the Gaza Strip, clashes have broken out between Palestinian
>demonstrators and the Israeli occupation forces since the morning.  The
>Israeli occupation forces shot at Palestinian demonstrators from a
>distance of more than 100 meters, killing the child Bassel Hussein Abu
>Qamar, 15 years old, from Jabalya, with a live bullet in the heart.
>PCHR's field officer in the area reported that another eight Palestinian
>civilians were wounded with live ammunition.
>
>This afternoon, in the area near Al-Mentar (Karni) Outlet, to the east
>of Gaza City, clashes broke out between Palestinian demonstrators and
>the Israeli occupation forces which reinforced their presence in the
>area with tanks and jeeps.  These forces shot at Palestinian
>demonstrators from a distance of about 150 meters, wounding two with
>live ammunition.
>
>In Rafah, clashes broke out this afternoon between Palestinian
>demonstrators and the Israeli occupation forces near Salah El-Din Gate
>on the Palestinian-Egyptian border. PCHR's field officer in Rafah
>reported that the Israeli occupation forces shot at Palestinian
>demonstrators, wounding two with live ammunition, including the child
>Ahmed Abu A'mra, 12 years old, who was wounded in the shoulder.
>
>At about 17:45 local time, the Israeli occupation forces shot at Munib
>Mohammed Barakat Abu Monshar, 18 years old, from Hebron, killing him
>with a live bullet in the right side of the chest, which penetrated his
>lung and then his heart.  According to eyewitnesses, the incident took
>place in the area of Bab Al-Zaweya in the area under the control of the
>Palestinian National Authority in Hebron, and the martyr was unloading a
>truck loaded with construction materials when he was shot.  Moreover,
>there were no clashes in the area at that time.
>
>In Jenin, Hani Abdullah Marzouq, 35 years old, died from his injury in
>the head, when the Israeli occupation forces shot at Palestinian
>demonstrators yesterday.  In addition, clashes broke out today in
>several areas in the West Bank, especially in Hebron, Tulkarm, Al-Bireh
>and Jenin.  PCHR learned that 29 Palestinian civilians were wounded by
>live ammunition and rubber-coated metal bullets, and dozens suffered
>from suffocation due to inhaling tear gas.
>
> 3. Shelling of Civilian Buildings and Facilities:
>
>Yesterday evening, the Israeli occupation forces shelled Palestinian
>residential areas and civilian facilities in the West Bank and the Gaza
>Strip.  In Hebron, Rae'd Sa'di Al-Muhtaseb, was killed with a medium
>caliber bullet in the back during the shelling of the city by the
>Israeli occupation forces.
>
>In Al-Bireh, the Israeli occupation forces shelled several facilities,
>including the headquarters of the Palestinian Central Bureau of
>Statistics.  The headquarters and a number of files and records were
>severely damaged.
>
>In Khan Yunis, last night at midnight, the Israeli occupation forces
>fired at houses in the west of Al-Amal neighborhood and the refugee camp
>of Khan Yunis.  As a result, the child Mohammed Abdel-Majid Sukkar, 13
>years old, was wounded with a live bullet in the foot, and Tawfiq Abu
>Shammala, was wounded with splinters of live ammunition in the chest.
>
>
> 4. More Sweeping of Agricultural Land:
>
>The Israeli occupation forces resumed the sweeping of agricultural land
>in Rafah.  These forces started such sweeping on November 8, 2000, which
>included more than 640 donums of agricultural land adjacent to the
>Palestinian-Egyptian border in the southeast of Rafah.  PCHR's field
>officer in Rafah reported that the Israeli occupation forces swept:
> ? A five-donum area of agricultural land planted with olives and owned
>by Ahmed Khalil Abdel-Hadi Baroud.
> ? A one-donum area of agricultural land, on which a greenhouse was
>established, owned by Zaki Salim Abu Jarad.
> ? A 200-square meter poultry farm owned by Subhi Abu Shousha.
> ? Two graves of the family of Abu Shousha.
>In Khan Yunis, at midnight yesterday and again this morning, the Israeli
>occupation forces swept areas of agricultural land in the area of Gizan
>Al-Najjar, in the south of the city, to the north of Morag settlement,
>including the following:
> ? Demolishing a house and a fence established on a 500-square meter
>area of land, in which 16 people live, owned by Abdel-Hafez Abdel-Karim
>Al-Najjar.
> ? Sweeping a two-donum area surrounding the mentioned house, a pool, a
>motorized pump and a motor for spraying agricultural chemical materials,
>owned by the above-mentioned citizen.
> ? Sweeping a ten-donum area of agricultural land planted with
>vegetables, and destroying its irrigation network, owned by Khali Shaker
>Al-Najjar.
> ? Sweeping a 30-donum area of agricultural land owned by the
>above-mentioned citizen.
> ? Closing two agricultural roads leading to the above-mentioned areas.
>
>
>***
>
>PCHR reiterates its call for the international community to immediately
>intervene to stop the killings and criminal acts perpetrated by the
>Israeli occupation forces against Palestinian civilians.  PCHR calls in
>particular for:
>
> 1. Establishing without delay an independent commission of inquiry, in
>accordance with UN Security Council resolution 1322 (2000), to carry out
>a thorough and comprehensive investigation into the abuses and killings
>perpetrated by the Israeli occupation forces against Palestinian
>civilians.
> 2. Convening a conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth
>Geneva Convention of 1949 to ensure Israel's compliance with its
>obligations under the Convention.
> 3. Immediately providing international protection for Palestinian
>civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories in the face of the
>killings and criminal acts perpetrated by the Israeli occupation forces
>and groups of Jewish settlers who move under the protection of these
>forces.
> 4. Use by the EU of effective political and economic measures with
>reference to Article 2 of the Euro-Israel Association Agreement which
>calls for the respect of human rights.
> 5. Providing humanitarian and medical assistance for the Palestinian
>people whose living conditions are increasingly deteriorating because of
>the continued total siege imposed by the Israeli occupation forces on
>the entire occupied Palestinian territories.
>
>
>***
>
>"End"
>
>For more information on Al-Aqsa Intifada visit:
>www.pchrgaza.org
>
>

----- Original Message -----
From: Naama Carmi <naama@...>
To: <alef@...>
Sent: Saturday, November 11, 2000 9:51 PM
Subject: ALEF: Fwd: petition - supporting Palestinian statement (fwd)



>Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 23:54:08 +0200 (IST)
>From: Oren Yiftachel  <yiftach@...>
>X-Sender: yiftach@...
>To: naama carmi <naama@...>,
>Subject: petition - supporting Palestinian statement (fwd)
>
>
>Hello: Sorry for cross-posting! please find two attachments (hebrew and
>english) and the same text in english pasted below. please forward to all
>the organisations and lists from where support may be coming.
>toda, oren
>
>---------------------
>
>SUPPORT FOR PALESTINIAN STATEMENT CALLING FOR PEACE
>
>---------------------
>
>Shalom to all:
>
>We are organizing a show of support in the Palestinian statement to the
>Israeli public published in Haaretz on Friday. This was the first such
>address by a very large group of
>Palestinian leaders and intellectuals to the Israeli public with a clear
>agenda for peace.
>
>We hope to create NEW MOMENTUM in the Israeli public debate towards
>focusing on the common grounds for peace emerging in the two communities.
>
>We hope you can join and lend your name to this first Israeli-Palestinian
>joint effort since the beginning of the current Intifada.
>
>The text of the Israeli support statement is pasted below, with the
>details of registration and financial requirements. The abridged
>Palestinian statement is pasted below our statement, and their full
>statement is available on: http//arabrights.org
>
>Hope to hear from you!
>
>----------------------------------------
>
>DECLARATION OF SUPPORT FOR THE PALESTINIAN STATEMENT
>
>"We, the undersigned, express our support of the statement to the Israeli
>public by Palestinian leaders and intellectuals, published in
>"Ha'aretz" on Friday 10 November.
>We assert that peace between Israelis and Palestinians is only possible on
>the basis of UN Resolution 242, entailing the evacuation of Jewish
>settlements and the transfer of all occupied territories to Palestinian
>sovereignty.
>We believe that peace agreements between Israelis and Palestinians are
>necessary and urgent to prevent the deterioration of the national conflict
>into a total or religious war.
>Such agreements must be based on the cessation of violence and on mutual
>respect of the rights of Palestinians and Israelis for independence and
>security.
>  We contend that peace between the two peoples is also contingent on
>achieving full equality between Palestinian-Arab and Jewish citizens in a
>democratic Israeli state."
>
>----------------------------------------
>
>All those who support, please send ASAP a cheque for 50 shekel payable to
>"Ha'aretz", to: Eitan Zomerfeld, Post Office Box 6398, Haifa, 31063,
>Israel.
>
>To Register your support and make sure your name appears in our
>advertisement in "Ha'aretz" and other papers (in Arabic and English),
>please send your name, title, affiliation and place to one of one of the
>following organizers:
>
>Dr. Dan Rabinowitz msdan@...
>Dr. Asad Ghanem ghanem@...
>Prof. Oren Yiftachel yiftach@...
>
>
>URGENT PALESTINIAN STATEMENT TO THE ISRAELI PUBLIC
>
>In February of this year, we, a group of Palestinian academics and
>activists, addressed an urgent call to the Israeli public in which we
>expressed our fear that the Oslo peace process, as it had evolved, was
>inevitably leading to further conflict rather than to a final historic
>reconciliation that would enable our two peoples to live in peace and
>human dignity.
>
>We explained that the Oslo accords have been used by Israel, to create
>unprecedented expansion of settlements, almost double the settler
>population, and continue the expropriation of Palestinian land. Freedom of
>movement for Palestinians has been severely curtailed while settler
>violence against our communities continues without restraint. Within this,
>the Palestinian population has had no physical, legal or political means
>of protection. While military occupation affects us every day, it has been
>disguised under Oslo in ways that negate international law and the
>protection it might afford. We now live in a series of small disconnected
>areas which are being posited as the emerging Palestinian state. The only
>way to expand these Bantustans according to the distorted logic of the
>negotiations, is for the Palestinian leadership to make concessions which
>would legitimize a number of Israeli demands in contravention to
>international law: to concede our national rights to East Jerusalem, allow
>settlements to remain in occupied territory and renounce the right of
>return for Palestinian refugees.
>
>  The Israeli leadership (be it Likud or Labor) has continued to imagine
>that, given the massive military balance of force in its favor, it would
>be able to impose on the Palestinian Authority its unjust vision of a
>final settlement. This delusion that a deeply unjust agreement can be made
>by Israel with President Yasser Arafat alone, who is then expected to
>force his people into accepting it, has inevitably led to the critical
>situation that confronts us now.
>
>All of us are firm believers in an equitable and just negotiated peace
>between Israelis and Palestinians but like our communities, have lost hope
>in the possibility of resolving the current inequities in the framework of
>the Oslo agreements and the exclusive American 'brokerage' of the
>process. We believe that an equitable basis for peace must necessarily
>take the following  principles as a point of departure:
>
>1. Negotiations must be based on the principles that all the lands
>occupied by Israel in 1967 are, in fact, occupied territories and that
>peace will be only be achieved by ending the occupation of these
>territories  thus enabling Palestinians to exercise their right to
>self-determination and sovereignty.
>
>2. A final settlement must include Palestinian sovereignty over the 1967
>occupied territory of East Jerusalem and the commitment to Jerusalem as
>the recognized capital of two states.
>
>3. Israel's recognition of its responsibility in the creation of the
>Palestinian refugees in 1948 is a pre-requisite to finding a just and
>lasting resolution of the refugee problem in accordance with relevant  UN
>resolutions.
>
>4. Both sides must recognize the spiritual and historical affinities of
>each other to sites and locations within their own borders and they must
>affirm and guarantee the access and protection of the other people to
>them. But in neither case should the existence of such sites be used to
>advance extra-territorial claims.
>
>We believe that the implementation of these principles will provide for a
>just and therefore, genuine and lasting peace.  The hoped-for co-existence
>between our two peoples can only become possible  if a reconstructed peace
>settlement is equitable. It is our hope that, out of the tragedies of
>recent weeks, we can find this new and fair vision of peace.
>
>Contact:   zyriab@...       Fax:  (972) 02 -
>5828901;    http//arabrights.org
>
>

----- Original Message -----
From: Susi Mordechay <susim@...>
To: <susim@...>
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2000 9:01 AM
Subject: ALEF: LAW:Israel's continuing infractions of the Fourth Geneva
Convention,wilful killings


Return-Path: <MAILER-DAEMON@...>
From: "Lawsociety" <law@...>
To: "lawlist List Member"  <susim@...>
Cc: <law@...>
Subject: Israel's continuing infractions of the Fourth Geneva
Convention,wilful killings
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2000 20:03:32 +0200
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200
Importance: Normal
X-MDaemon-Deliver-To: susim@...
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Sender: BadMsgQ@...
X-MDMailing-List: lawlist@...
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                    ISRAEL'S CONTINUING INFRACTIONS OF THE FOURTH GENEVA
CONVENTION
                                            WILFUL KILLINGS
                                            NOVEMBER 13 2000

This afternoon, 13 November 2000, two Palestinian youths were killed by live
ammunition during a demonstration in Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. Muhammad
Nasser Al-Tawil (18) was hit in the chest, and Yahya Nayef Abu Shamalah (17)
in the heart. Both were killed by Israeli snipers shooting from a distance
of 150 meters.

A third youth, 18-year-old Ahmad Hassan Dahlan, died from injuries sustained
two days ago. On 11 November, Dahlan had been shot in the head with live
ammunition during clashes with Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip.

The use of excessive lethal force by the Israeli security forces has been a
constant feature of the current Intifada. To date, this has resulted in the
deaths of an estimated 186 Palestinians, the vast majority of them unarmed
demonstrators, with many being minors under the age of 18. The use of
excessive lethal force by the Israeli security forces has been repeatedly
condemned by the United Nations and international human rights organizations
like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

According to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the use of
excessive lethal force by Israel is tantamount to a crime of war and a crime
against humanity. The seemingly systematic and deliberate use of lethal
force in many instances has resulted in a number of wilful killings. Wilful
killing constitutes a grave breach of the Geneva Convention Relative to the
Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (Fourth Geneva Convention) and
is subject to prosecution under international law.

Article 1 of the Fourth Geneva Convention requires the High Contracting
Parties to ensure respect for its provisions in all circumstances. LAW calls
on the signatories of the Convention to comply with their obligations under
article 1, to bring perpetrators of grave breaches of the Convention to
trial and to ensure Israel's respect of its provisions dealing with
instances of belligerent occupation.

LAW calls on the Israeli Government to implement United Nations resolutions
242, 338 and 194 and to respect international law.

LAW - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the
Environment is a non-governmental organisation dedicated to preserving human
rights through legal advocacy. LAW is affiliate to the International
Commission of Jurists (ICJ), The Fédération Internationale des Ligues de
Droits de l'Homme (FIDH),The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and
is a                  member of the Euro- Mediterranean Human Rights
Network.

_____

November 12th, 2000

NO FUTURE WITH THE SETTLEMENTS

To Prime Minister Barak:

Today, more than ever, it is clear that the settlements and by-pass roads
are the main obstacles to the achievement of an agreement with the
Palestinians and security for Israelis. Construction in the settlements and
the paving of by-pass road are unilateral Israeli actions, perpetrated
through force and arousing a violent response. Today, it is also clear that
the existence of the settlements endangers the soldiers protecting them.

In order to demonstrate an honest willingness to progress toward an
agreement with Palestinians, we call upon you to take the following steps:



1. halt all construction in the settlements






2. freeze the construction of provocative neighborhoods in East
Jerusalem, such as Har Homa and Ras al-Amud






3.

	 immediately dismantle those settlements that are located in the
midst of heavily populated Palestinian areas and continue to exact a
terrible price in lives, such as Netzarim, Kfar Darom, Psagot, Yitzhar,
Itamar and the settlements in the heart of Hebron





4. cancel the extraordinary financial benefits given the settlers






You have acknowledged the need for contiguity for any Palestinian state
established alongside Israel. Therefore, you surely understand that the
settlements have neither right nor chance of survival, except within the
framework of territorial exchange. You must also understand that an
agreement is possible only on the basis of the 1967 border, from which
mutually agreed upon minor adjustments and security arrangements can be
negotiated.

Respectfully,

Peace Now



Peace Now will continue to provide the public with information about the
millions of Shekels still pouring into the settlements, the continued
confiscation of land and the ongoing construction of more and more houses in
the settlements. We will continue our struggle against a settlement policy
that sacrifices lives for the sake of a messianic dream that has long since
passed into oblivion.

Hebrew and Arabic versions of this letter in attached files.

Further Information:

Didi Remez
Peace Now Spokesperson
972-54-302796
peacenow@... <mailto:peacenow@...>


   _____

Other foreign language press contacts
English: Prof. Galia Golan 972-54-794298
French: Dan Bitan 972-53-476879, Irena Steinfeldt 972-53-920231
Italian: Prof. Amiram Goldblum 972-54-653292
German: Irena Steinfeldt 972-53-920231
Spanish: Gaby Lasky 972-54-418988  Affiliates
Americans for Peace Now:  <http://www.peacenow.org> www.peacenow.org
Canadian Friends of Peace Now:  <http://www.peacenowcanada.org>
www.peacenowcanada.org
British Friends of Peace Now: Call Vivien Lichtenstein 44-20-7286-5614
   _____

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   _____


Donations: PO Box 29828, Tel-Aviv 61297, Israel

12/11/00

àéï äñãø òí ääúðçìåéåú

ìøàù îîùìú éùøàì, àäåã áø÷:

äéåí, éåúø îàé-ôòí, áøåø ëé ääúðçìåéåú äï äîëùåì äòé÷øé ìäùâú äñãø òí äôìñèéðéí åáéèçåï ìàæøçé éùøàì. äáðéä áäúðçìåéåú åñìéìú äëáéùéí äîåáìéí àìéäï äí ôòåìåú çã-öããéåú éùøàìéåú, äðòùåú áëôéä åáëåç, åîòåããåú àìéîåú ðâãéú. äéåí âí áøåø, ëé ääúðçìåéåú äï îôâò áèçåðé, äîñëï àú çéé äçééìéí äîâðéí òìéäï.

ëãé ìäåëéç øöåï ëï ìäú÷ãí ìäñãø òí äôìñèéðéí, àðå ÷åøàéí ìê:

1. ìòöåø îéã àú ëì äáðéä áäúðçìåéåú áùèçéí.

2. ìä÷ôéà àú áðéúï ùì ùëåðåú ôøåáå÷èéáéåú áîæøç é-í, ëîå øàñ-àì-òîåã åäø çåîä.

3. ìôø÷ òëùéå äúðçìåéåú äðîöàåú áìá àåëìåñééä ôìñèéðéú öôåôä åîîùéëåú ìâáåú îçéø ãîéí ðåøà, ëîå ðöøéí, ëôø ãøåí, ôñâåú, éöäø, àéúîø, åääúðçìåú áìá çáøåï.

4. ìáèì àú ääèáåú äëñôéåú äîôìéâåú ìäúðçìåéåú.

àúä, ùäëøú áäëøç ä÷îúä ùì îãéðä ôìñèéðéú áòìú øöéôåú èøéèåøéàìéú ìöã îãéðú éùøàì, îáéï, ùàéï ìäúðçìåéåú úåçìú åæëåú ÷éåí, àìà àí éåñëí òì çéìåôé ùèçéí. âí àúä îáéï äéåí ëé äñëí éäéä àôùøé ø÷ òì áñéñ ä÷å äéøå÷ ùì 67' òí úé÷åðé âáåì äããééí åñéãåøé áèçåï îåñëîéí.

áëáåã øá,

ùìåí òëùéå

ãåàø àì÷èøåðé: peacenow@...
àúø àéðèøðè: www.peace-now.org

úøåîåú: ú"ã 29828, ú"à 61297

----- Original Message -----
From: Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc) <info@...>
To: Peace Press <otherisr@...>
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2000 2:07 PM
Subject: 1) actions which we support and 2) our success with General Motors


GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - http://www.gush-shalom.org/

Our  General Motors campaign was successfull - see end of this message - but
first read the info about actions in the coming days.

1a) Continuous presence of Israeli and Foreign citizens at Hares village

The village of Hares is located near the Ariel junction, in the
center of a "Settlement Block" intended for annexation. The village has
been under a military blockade for weeks and the farmers can but watch how
their olives  rotting on the trees.

On Sunday security forces entered the village and  beat up many of
the residents,  arresting 1 person. A 14-year-old boy was severely wounded
but
the army prevented an ambulance from entering the village. As a result of
these
events many residents fled the village and now the army is preventing them
from
returning (does this sound familiar to anyone?!)

A shipment of food was collected to help the villagers and a second
one is being collected.

Right now, we are organizing a continuous presence of Israeli and Foreign
citizens in the village for the purpose of supporting, protecting and
helping
the villagers in any way possible.


During previous presence at the village we managed to persuade the
military to open one of the access roads and while we were on site,
there were no injuries. A day after we left one 14-year-old child
was killed.


The roads are currently closed to Palestinian vehicles but
Israelis can still get through. This might not be the case tomorrow if
events escalate. For this reason it is important to mobilize as soon as
possible.

The first group is leaving for Hares today at 11:00 from the New
Gate. A second group is organizing for later today.

CONTACT:
Neta 050-757-504, Noam 054-218-518

1b)  Racists Out!

   On Thursday, November 16th at 19:00 supporters of Meir Kahane are
   gathering in the area between the old Central Bus Station and Binyanei
   Hauma in Jerusalem with their racist slogans in order to commemorate his
   death day.

   We call upon all those forces of peace who reject racism, to come and
   oppose them and not  allow them to voice their racist words.

   Our strength lies in our numbers. Join us and bring along signs reading
   "NO TO RACISM". More information: EranT@...

1c) Mothers and Women for Peace demonstrate in Tel-Aviv next Monday calling
for
immediate dismantling of settlements in "hot spots'.

phone them at 04-9991001 (Atalia) or 09-7603016 (Yona) about exact time and
place.

2) After a few days of campaigning the American auto manufacturer General
Motors cancelled its sponsorship of the conference at the West Bank
settlement
of Ariel. Gush Shalom launched the campaign last Friday, when we found an
ad,
in Ha'aretz by the "Judea and Samaria College", of the Ariel settlement,
according to which General Motors was one of the sponsors..

Among the many hundreds who who approached General Motors by phone, fax and
email was Peter Weiss, an American Jewish lawyer who owns 500 shares of the
General Motors company, and who as a specialist in International Law made
clear
what settlement in occupied territory is about.

Peace groups world-wide, and such organizations as the American-Arab Anti-
Discrimination Committee took up the issue as well, resulting in further
floods
of messages to GM. Palestinian spokesperson Hanan Ashrawi also appealed to
General Motors not to involve itself with a West Bank settlement.

So far, GM officials failed to answer the messages sent to their offices.
Indeed, email addresses and fax numbers to which messages were sent had been
suddenly blocked off. However, from an official statement of the settlers
themselves it turns out that GM  did  cancel its sponsorshipof the
settlement
conference. In a press release  issued via, the right-wing media service
IMRA,
Professor Dan Mayerstein, President of The "Judea and Samaria College"
confirmed that GM has cancelled its sponsorship of the conference.



=============================================================
               JERUSALEM CAPITAL OF TWO STATES
                   Add this to all your mail
           (and suggest to your friends to do the same)
=============================================================
=============================================================
          Sign the "Our Jerusalem, Capital of Two States" petition
             full text in Hebrew, Arabic and English at
                http://www.gush-shalom.org/jerusalem

=============================================================
Sign also The Hunger Site Petition, which will be delivered to the U.N.
in October 2000 - for "globalization" of the fight against hunger:
http://www.thehungersite.com/rbt/THSPetition/h061322
=============================================================

If you want to support our activities you can send a check to:
pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 or, with credit card, click:
https://www.givetocharity.com/cgi-bin/give.pl?CODE=11505
NB: Please, email us that you did so!

If you do (not) want our action alerts and updates (un)subscribe to:
<info@...>
============================================================

From Bernard Misrahi of the Jewish Socialist'sGroup. Yes, its a great idea.
The point is that all interested people should know the information
depository is there. People have been asking the JSG what resistance is
going on. We can tell the a bit - mainly what we've picked up on email
ourselves. Oh yes, as far as I know, the Saturday Palestinian protest at
High st Ken isn't happening for time being. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Cohen" <rony@...>
To: "JustPeaceUK" <JustPeaceUK@egroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2000 12:45 PM
Subject: [JustPeaceUK] A Bounced Message to justPeaceUk


> Hi all,
>
> Do any of you thinks this is a good idea and we should join in (as soon as
> something real takes off the ground) and/or can benifit from it?
>
> tirza
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Avraham Oz <avitaloz@...>
> To: List Alef <alef@...>
> Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 6:01 AM
> Subject: ALEF: A Bounced Message to alef
>
>
> Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 02:11:47 -0800 (PST)
> From: Yael Oren Kahn <yael.oren.kahn@...>
> To: alef@...
> Subject: Depository of information of all solidarity activities
> Reply-To: yael.oren.kahn@...
>
> Hi*,
>
> I would like to suggest the creation of depository of information on all
> solidarity activities with the Palestinian people. It would be a
> one-stop-shop for details on any solidarity activity.
>
> Objectives:
> 1) To facilitate international co-ordination of solidarity activities with
> the Palestinian people.
> 2) To enable us to inform all our contacts of activities in their
respective
> regions. Thus, we could forward the URL to any interested organisation and
> individuals or search the website and forward them the details of
activities
> in their region.
> 3) To contain archive and future activities, with contact details.
> Preferably with the text of petitions and leaflets, which are disseminated
> in these activities.
> 4) To give activists and supporters a sense of our strength.  Knowing that
> there are hundreds of other actions around the world (especially next
door)
> is very encouraging and would be even more important if Israeli spin would
> succeed in silencing the media (such as after suicide bombs or agreements
> with Arafat).
> 5) To give the Palestinian people the real extend of solidarity they
enjoy.
> It would communicate to the Palestinian people, that though they are
facing
> alone the brutal Israeli military machine (including settlers), they are
not
> alone and many are campaigning to mobilise pressure on Israel to end the
> slaughter.
> 6) To economise on efforts, such as one group could be inspired by another
> on what activities to adopt and/or the text of
> petitions/leaflets/press-releases.
> 7) To promote all websites which are promoting Solidarity with the
> Palestinian people.
>
> It should be noted that this depository would be selective and would weed
> out messages of activities that are not promoting Solidarity with the
> Palestinian people.  In particular, it would decline endorsing
anti-Semitic
> activities and those which are aimed at assisting Israel in its campaign
> against the Palestinians.
>
> This is not a trivial project and would require a lot of commitment.  I
will
> co-ordinating with all those who are interested in assisting with building
> this depository, so if you are interested please don't hesitate to contact
> me.
>
> As an example I enclose below a list of a few of the activities in the UK.
>
> *This email was BCC to numerous recipients.
>
> Looking forward to hearing from you.
>
> Yael Oren Kahn.
> Yael.Oren.Kahn@...
>
> ~~~~~~~~~
>
> Demo at Queen Victoria Square, Hull at 2PM on 11th November. There will be
> speakers from the new local Asylum Seekers Federation, the Trades Council
> and a Palestinian from the PFLP.  Please inform anyone who might be
> interested in the northeast of UK (York, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester).
> Contact: Guy Cheverton from the Hull Trades Council.
>
> A Palestine stall in Durham 11th November, at a Racial, Equality show in
the
> Town Hall.  Contact: Thea_Khamis@...
>
> West Midlands PSC is having a public meeting in solidarity with the
> Palestinian People on 28 November (8pm) 2000, in Birmingham at the Council
> House.
> Contact: psc_midlands@...
> Related material: invitation leaflet
>
> Birmingham: leafleting and petitioning every Saturday from 3 to 5 pm at
> Victoria Square. Contact: ChrisKhamis@...
> Related material: leaflet  & petition to the Israeli Ambassador and Robin
> Cook
>
> Coventry: leafleting and petitioning every Saturday from 11 to 1pm by the
> fountain opposite M&S in the Precinct (at the crossroad of Market Way,
> Smithford Way, Upper Precinct and Lower Precinct).
> Contact: hwk@...
> Related material: leaflet  & petition to the Israeli Ambassador and Robin
> Cook
>
> Meeting at Coventry University.
> Contact: phunt@...
>
> Various activities at University of Warwick.
> Contact: lauog@...
>
>
> _____________________________________________________________
> Inspiration, creativity, and heartfelt humor abound at Femail Creations.
> Find hundreds of unique gifts created by, for and about women @
> http://femailcreations.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> JustPeaceUK-unsubscribe@egroups.com
>
>
>

Hi all,

Do any of you thinks this is a good idea and we should join in (as soon as
something real takes off the ground) and/or can benifit from it?

tirza

----- Original Message -----
From: Avraham Oz <avitaloz@...>
To: List Alef <alef@...>
Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 6:01 AM
Subject: ALEF: A Bounced Message to alef


Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 02:11:47 -0800 (PST)
From: Yael Oren Kahn <yael.oren.kahn@...>
To: alef@...
Subject: Depository of information of all solidarity activities
Reply-To: yael.oren.kahn@...

Hi*,

I would like to suggest the creation of depository of information on all
solidarity activities with the Palestinian people. It would be a
one-stop-shop for details on any solidarity activity.

Objectives:
1) To facilitate international co-ordination of solidarity activities with
the Palestinian people.
2) To enable us to inform all our contacts of activities in their respective
regions. Thus, we could forward the URL to any interested organisation and
individuals or search the website and forward them the details of activities
in their region.
3) To contain archive and future activities, with contact details.
Preferably with the text of petitions and leaflets, which are disseminated
in these activities.
4) To give activists and supporters a sense of our strength.  Knowing that
there are hundreds of other actions around the world (especially next door)
is very encouraging and would be even more important if Israeli spin would
succeed in silencing the media (such as after suicide bombs or agreements
with Arafat).
5) To give the Palestinian people the real extend of solidarity they enjoy.
It would communicate to the Palestinian people, that though they are facing
alone the brutal Israeli military machine (including settlers), they are not
alone and many are campaigning to mobilise pressure on Israel to end the
slaughter.
6) To economise on efforts, such as one group could be inspired by another
on what activities to adopt and/or the text of
petitions/leaflets/press-releases.
7) To promote all websites which are promoting Solidarity with the
Palestinian people.

It should be noted that this depository would be selective and would weed
out messages of activities that are not promoting Solidarity with the
Palestinian people.  In particular, it would decline endorsing anti-Semitic
activities and those which are aimed at assisting Israel in its campaign
against the Palestinians.

This is not a trivial project and would require a lot of commitment.  I will
co-ordinating with all those who are interested in assisting with building
this depository, so if you are interested please don't hesitate to contact
me.

As an example I enclose below a list of a few of the activities in the UK.

*This email was BCC to numerous recipients.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Yael Oren Kahn.
Yael.Oren.Kahn@...

~~~~~~~~~

Demo at Queen Victoria Square, Hull at 2PM on 11th November. There will be
speakers from the new local Asylum Seekers Federation, the Trades Council
and a Palestinian from the PFLP.  Please inform anyone who might be
interested in the northeast of UK (York, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester).
Contact: Guy Cheverton from the Hull Trades Council.

A Palestine stall in Durham 11th November, at a Racial, Equality show in the
Town Hall.  Contact: Thea_Khamis@...

West Midlands PSC is having a public meeting in solidarity with the
Palestinian People on 28 November (8pm) 2000, in Birmingham at the Council
House.
Contact: psc_midlands@...
Related material: invitation leaflet

Birmingham: leafleting and petitioning every Saturday from 3 to 5 pm at
Victoria Square. Contact: ChrisKhamis@...
Related material: leaflet  & petition to the Israeli Ambassador and Robin
Cook

Coventry: leafleting and petitioning every Saturday from 11 to 1pm by the
fountain opposite M&S in the Precinct (at the crossroad of Market Way,
Smithford Way, Upper Precinct and Lower Precinct).
Contact: hwk@...
Related material: leaflet  & petition to the Israeli Ambassador and Robin
Cook

Meeting at Coventry University.
Contact: phunt@...

Various activities at University of Warwick.
Contact: lauog@...


_____________________________________________________________
Inspiration, creativity, and heartfelt humor abound at Femail Creations.
Find hundreds of unique gifts created by, for and about women @
http://femailcreations.com

----- Original Message -----
From: Susi Mordechay <susim@...>
To: <susim@...>
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2000 11:04 AM
Subject: ALEF: FWD: PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES FACING LONG-TERM RUIN



           BARAK TRIES ECONOMIC WAR TO BEAT THE INTIFADA

           PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES FACING LONG-TERM RUIN
           as Israeli blockade puts stranglehold on jobs,
               foodstuffs and other vital supplies

                  By Eric Silver in Jerusalem

[The Independent - 7 November]:  The Jericho casino, the Holy Land's only
legal
gaming house, closed last week.  Since it opened two years ago, 2,500
punters
have lost (and occasionally won) hundreds of thousands of dollars every day
at its roulette wheels and fruit machines. Most were Israelis, driving
through
the bare, scarred canyons of the Judean wilderness across an unmarked border
into the Palestinian state-in-the-making.

A month ago, when the Palestinians launched their second intifada, an
uprising this time with guns as well as stones and petrol bombs, gamblers
played safe and stayed at home. The tables were deserted, the 184 rooms in
the luxurious hotel next door empty.

The Austrian company which manages the casino will not say how much it is
losing. Nor will Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, which takes 30 per
cent of the profits in taxes. The 2,000 employees, mostly Palestinian, do
not
know whether they will keep their jobs. As the violence escalates, it looks
as if it will be a long time before the punters return.

The Austrians can afford to sit out the mayhem. The Palestinians, whose
economy is being held to ransom by their Israeli foes, cannot.

The closure Ehud Barak imposed at the end of September prevents 125,000 day
labourers getting to their jobs in Israeli building sites, farms, hotels and
factories. It blocks the export and import of materials and produce. At its
most severe, it prevents movement of goods and services between Palestinian
communities.

Salam Fayyad, an economist who represents the International Monetary Fund in
the West Bank and Gaza, is predicting a recession, which could set the
Palestinian economy back for years. "The crisis," he said, "is having a
dramatic impact on a very small economy for which an open-trade system is
essential. The closure isplacing a stranglehold on the economy and on its
future prospects."

The Palestinian Economy and Trade Ministry estimates that the siege cost at
least $346m (£239m) in its first month. United Nations economists in Gaza
put
it at $250m.

Either way, it blew a huge hole in an economy that was finally starting to
take off. Unemployment tripled overnight to 30 per cent. Farmers and
manufacturers are losing almost $2m a day in exports, to Israel and the Arab
world.

Mohammed Hassan Shamlay, a chicken farmer from the West Bank village of
Haris, lost $10,000 during October. He was trapped in a double bind. He
couldn't get the feed he buys from Israel, and he couldn't send his fowl to
market in neighbouring Arab towns. "If it goes on like this," said Mr
Shamlay, a burly man in his late forties, "I'll go out of business."

He will not be alone. The Palestinian economy has few natural resources,
apart from its manpower, brainpower and a fragment of a land which is not
exactly flowing with milk and honey. Most of its firms are small-scale
family
enterprises. They manufacture furniture and textiles, but not machinery.
They
process foodstuff, much of it imported.

Bethlehem and Jericho make money from hotels and restaurants, especially
beforeChristmas, but the tourists are not coming. "All our groups have
cancelled," said Olof Jurva, manager of Bethlehem's Jacir Palace, a
five-star
InterContinental. He expected 60 per cent occupancy this autumn, but all 250
rooms are empty. His 200 local staff are working two-weeks-on,
two-weeks-off..
Seven bars and three of the hotel's four restaurants are closed.

Labourers who work in Israel take home an average of $28 a day. That is
double what they would earn in the West Bank or Gaza but it still leaves
them
precious little to save for a rainy day.

Businesses may be better off but their cushion is limited too. And the
Palestinian banks cut off credit two weeks ago,to individuals and to
compa-nies, for fear that loans might never be repaid.

Soon, consumers will stop buying more than staple necessities. Firms will
lay
off workers. Shops will have to slash prices to tempt people back. The
recession will gather pace. "The demand effect is very likely to be
devastating," warned the IMF economist, Salam Fayyad. "It won't be long
before you'll see shops closed or working shorter hours."

Israeli bureaucracy is not making things easier. More than 900 truckloads
for
Palestinian territories, are stuck at the Israeli ports of Haifa and Ashdod.
So are 1,000 new and used cars. At the same time, Israel is delaying the
monthly transfer of about $30m in tax revenue paid by Palestinian workers or
importers. Saeb Bamya, director-general of the Economy and Trade Ministry,
accuses Israel of trying to bring the Palestinian Authority and the
Palestinian people to their knees. "They are ready to use any instrument in
their hands," he said. "They want to put us in a very critical situation for
political reasons."

The Israelis do not deny wielding the economic weapon. "We are not trying to
starve them out," said a government spokesman, "but we are using any means
to
convince the Palestinians to stop the violence. There is a struggle going
on,
Palestinians versus Israelis, and Israel is entitled to take every measure
to
defend itself."

----- Original Message -----
From: tamar peleg <tamarpel@...>
To: <alef@...>
Cc: <mail@...>
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2000 2:03 PM
Subject: ALEF: UN Commissioner for Human Rights Meeting


>Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2000 21:50:53 +0200
>From: pchr <pchr@...>
>Reply-To: pchr@...
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (Win98; I)
>X-Accept-Language: en,arabic
>To: pchr@...
>Subject: UN Commissioner for Human Rights Meeting
>
>Ref: 164/2000
>Date: November 12, 2000
>
>The UN Commissioner for Human Rights:
>
>"I will call with all my authority and moral power for international
>protection for the Palestinian people.  I have visited the occupied
>Palestinian territories in implementation, word and spirit, of the UN
>Commission on Human Rights Resolution 1322."
>
>Saturday, November 11, representatives of NGOs and civil society in the
>Gaza Strip met with Mrs. Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner for
>Human Rights, and Dr. Amin Mekki Madani, her advisor in the occupied
>Palestinian territories.
>
>Mrs. Robinson was welcomed here and given respect and appreciation by
>the Palestinian civil society for whom she is a symbol and a moral power
>for human rights.  She was thanked for the interest she has shown since
>she assumed her post in the situation of the Palestinian people in the
>occupied Palestinian territories.  Furthermore, it was mentioned that
>she had added a moral dimension to her work through her credibility and
>adherence to fundamental human rights issues.
>
>The situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories
>was reviewed before Mrs. Robinson.  Representatives of human rights
>organizations and civil society asserted that the major victim of "the
>peace process" and the Oslo Accords was Palestinian human rights.  The
>harvest of seven years was de facto apartheid and economic and social
>strangulation directed at the Palestinian people.
>
>The representatives asserted that the conference of the High Contracting
>Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, held on July 15, 1999,
>proved the position of Palestinian human rights organizations that the
>United States sought to politicize international humanitarian law by
>having a meaningless conference.  They praised the honorable stance of
>Mrs. Robinson then, which was in accordance with the spirit and word of
>the Fourth Geneva Convention, for her calls on Israel, as an occupying
>military force, to implement de jure the Convention in the occupied
>Palestinian territories.
>
>These organizations reviewed the Israeli actions since the outbreak of
>Al-Aqsa Intifada and mentioned the blatant and grave breaches by the
>Israeli occupation forces of the Fourth Geneva Convention.  They
>mentioned willful killing, the excessive use of force, and the lack of
>necessity and proportionality in the use of force.  They referred to the
>use of US weaponry, including helicopters, directed missiles, tanks and
>heavy weapons against Palestinian civilian targets.  This has resulted
>in victims, including children and women, and the destruction of houses,
>offices and agricultural land.  The attending organizations asserted the
>following demands with the expectation that the UN High Commissioner
>will work to achieve them with all the authority and moral power she
>has:
>
>1. There is a need to provide international protection for the
>Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories in light of
>the crimes that have been perpetrated and are still being perpetrated by
>the Israeli occupation forces.   Analysis of the Israeli approach
>indicates that the worst has not yet come even though Israel has already
>fired shells at Palestinian demonstrators, cities and villages from
>tanks and helicopters.  The Palestinian people will not wait for a new
>Kosovo or Sabra and Shatila in order for the world to be convinced of
>the necessity for international protection.  They also called on Europe
>to stop the conspiracy of silence regarding what is transpiring in the
>occupied Palestinian territories.
>2. There is a need to call on the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth
>Geneva Convention to convene a conference to address how to obligate
>Israel to implement the Convention, de jure, in the occupied Palestinian
>territories.  They asserted that the conference was cut short on July
>15, 1999, through pressure from the United States.  Furthermore, it was
>stated that Europe surrendered to pressure or colluded with the US call
>to convene the conference formally for a mere 10 minutes before putting
>it off to an unnamed future date due to the expectation that the Barak
>government would be a government of peace.  But in light of the serious
>and grave breaches of the Convention, the High Contracting Parties have
>no choice except to reconvene the hastily adjourned conference in order
>to adopt deterrent measures and positions against Israel, including
>economic and diplomatic sanctions.
>3. Establishing an international investigation committee according to
>the resolution of the UN General Assembly and the resolution of the UN
>High Commission on Human Rights of October 19, 2000.
>4. Immediately implementing in word and spirit the full resolution of
>the UN High Commission on Human Rights of October 19, 2000.
>
>
>Mrs. Robinson asserted that she is with the Palestinian people in their
>right to international protection and that what she herself saw confirms
>the necessity and need for such protection.  She also added that she
>would use all her authority and moral power to raise the issue in a
>forceful manner.
>
>She said that she started to implement the resolution of the UN High
>Commission on Human Rights of October 19, 2000, although it had not yet
>been ratified by ECOSOC.  Nevertheless, she used her authority and the
>spirit and wording of the resolution in order to make this visit.  She
>also asserted that she had started the procedure for the visit of the UN
>special rapporteurs to investigate the grave breaches of the Fourth
>Geneva Convention and other crimes.
>
>Mrs. Robinson emphasized the need for calling on the High Contracting
>Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to reconvene their hastily
>adjourned conference of July 15, 1999.  She asserted that she would work
>on this.
>
>Finally, she talked about the deep impression made on her during her
>field visit to Shifa' hospital, to the houses and greenhouses shelled by
>the Israeli occupation forces, and to the schools attacked during this
>Israeli aggression.  She asserted the moral and legal responsibility to
>halt such aggression immediately.
>
>
>
>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Deborah Maccoby
> Sent: Monday, November 13, 2000 4:41 PM
> To: 'rony@...'
> Subject: FURTHER IDEAS ABOUT PETITION
>
> Dear Tirza,
>
> Another idea for the petition: John Strawson made an extremely imporrtant
> point in his letter in last week's Jewish Chronicle, that it is the duty
> of Diaspora Jews to remind Israel about Jewish values.  If we stress this
> - respect for the other, universalism, peace, justice - as Jewish values,
> this will help to undercut the religious right.  So is there some way we
> can emphasise this in the petition?
>
>
> Deborah


This e-mail, and any attachment, is confidential. If you have received
it in error, please delete it from your system, do not use or disclose
the information in any way, and notify me immediately. The contents of
this message may contain personal views which are not the views of the
BBC, unless specifically stated.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Deborah Maccoby
> Sent: Monday, November 13, 2000 11:32 AM
> To: 'Ron Cohen'
> Subject: RE: petition draft
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ron Cohen [SMTP:rony@...]
> Sent: Monday, November 13, 2000 12:31 AM
> To: deborah.maccoby@...
> Subject: Fw: petition draft
>
> Dear Tirza,
>
> I think the draft petition is very good.  Just two spelling corrections -
> hideous and independent. First ideas for additions - I think we should
> also say that we are very concerned about Israel's survival and that we
> feel that Israel won't survive if it continues on its present course.
> (This will help to refute the inevitable accusations from the right of
> being self-haters).  Maybe also we could criticise the Camp David Israeli
> offer for being inadequate, as so many people are saying Arafat should
> have accepted it.  We could call on Israel to be open to solutions such as
> giving sovereignty over East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount to the
> Palestinians.  I'm not sure what other peoplw feel about this - I suppose
> it might put some people off signing it.
>
> Will e-mail further ideas as and when they come to me.  Just wanted to
> ensure you stop feeling you are just sending e-mails into limbo!
>
> Deborah
>
>
>
>
> Dear Debbie,
>
> This is the petition draft - and I will be grateful if you can respond on
> it.
> Thanks
> tirza
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ron Cohen <rony@...>
> To: <bcohen8195@...>
> Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 11:24 PM
> Subject: Fw: petition draft
>
>
> Dear Barry,
>
> Thanks for taking the bother to help with this petition.
> I'm enclosing both my e-mail to Tony & his reply.
> As for the good points he's making in his reply, I think we should discuss
> them with the others in the forum of the e-group and get to an agreed
> decision. My personal opinion is that this can be done after we have a
> draft
> which we can circulate among the others. I don't think  the contents of
> the
> petition will be influenced a lot by the audience.
>
> Thanks again
> Tirza
>
> ***
>
> Dear Tony,
>
> I'm very sorry to be so late with the promised draft. we, both my daughter
> and i were ill all week long and i really couldn't work properly. i hope
> to
> get it moving now.
>
> I came across your letter to the Jewish Chronicle from last week, and as
> both of us (rony & me) agree with most of it, I took the liberty to use it
> as a basis for the petition. You will notice the changes, though.
>
> *
>
> We, the undersigned, are deeply disturbed by the whirlwind of violence and
> hatred that has engulfed the long-suffering Israeli and Palestinian
> peoples.
> The situation threatens to damage all prospects of future peaceful
> accommodation in the region, as well as to jeopardise relations between
> the
> Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities worldwide, including the UK.
>
> We call on Israel, as the occupying force, with much the greater
> firepower,
> to de-escalate the tension at once:
> * It should immediately stop the use of live ammunition and other forms of
> excessive force against civilian protesters, which have caused a hideaous
> number of Palestinian fatalities.
> * It should urgently withdraw its troops from the vicinity of all
> Palestinian population centres, thereby removing them as targets and as
> principal source of provocation.
> * It should prevent the Jewish settlers in the occupied territories, being
> an aggressive, provocative and terrorizing factor, from any contact with
> the
> Palestinian population.
>
> We call on the Israeli government to take these measures without further
> delay, and thus renew the lost confidence it its sincere search for peace.
> We call on Israel to follow these immediate steps with a declaration of
> the
> imminent end of the occupation and its full withdrawal from all the
> territories occupied in 1967, so that the Palestinian right for
> self-determination will be fullfilled in an independant state alongside
> the
> State of Israel.
> We call on Israel to go back to a sincere and respectful negotiation with
> the Palestinians, and to be open for various potential solutions to the
> core
> issues of Jerusalem and the refugees right to return. It should realize
> that
> any peace treaty will have to include an Israeli recognition of the rights
> of the Palestinian refugees as well as whatever action is necessary to
> effect the safe return to Israel of the Jewish settlers.
>
> To the British government we call to take an active part in ensuring this
> process and to provide an international protection for the Palestinians in
> the occupied territories in the interim period.
>
> A respectful and dignified peace treaty will be the only guarantee for
> security and peaceful life for both the Israeli and the Palestinian
> people.
> *
>
> ------------------
> tirza
> 020-83499259
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Tony Klug <TonyKlug@...>
> To: Ron Cohen <rony@...>
> Cc: Frank Fisher <frank@...>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 1:43 AM
> Subject: petition draft
>
>
> Dear Tirza,
>
> I am sorry to hear you and your child were unwell and hope you both feel
> fine now.
>
> Alas, I have only just managed to pick up your draft (1 am Wednesday) and
> am unlikely to get a chance to look at it properly before the end of the
> week as I shall be leaving London first thing in the morning for a few
> days
> on a business trip. May I suggest that you consult Barry Cohen about it
> instead of me? He is a former journalist, a good writer and a sound
> thinker. If you can agree a draft with him, it will probably be in a
> fairly
> acceptable form for most of the others.
>
> Just one or two quick statements of the obvious, though, that you may want
> to contemplate at this stage:
>
> # It might be helpful to consider in advance who the main audience is for
> the statement, what is its principal purpose, where to try to place it and
> in what form. Are we aiming for a letter or a paid ad? Are we asking
> readers to do anything? These questions may in different ways influence
> the
> content of the statement. It might even be worth considering involving the
> 'e-mail discussion group' in these questions before deciding on the
> wording
> (strategy before action!).
>
> # I would try not to make too many points, both because each of them
> individually might get a bit lost and because this could unnecessarily
> increase the areas of  disagreement among the potential signatories. It's
> a
> matter of judgement of course as to what constitutes 'too many'.
>
> # I would suggest it is worth compromising on wording to forge the widest
> consensus, as long as the essential principles are not lost (we are not
> trying to write the final peace treaty!).
>
> # If some people are clearly outside the broad consensus, it is probably
> best that they do not sign the statement. They can always do their own
> statement. For example, I personally don't feel that an 'even-handed'
> criticism of Palestinian behaviour has a place in this sort of statement,
> whereas I think that one or two people who attended last week's meeting
> may
> feel differently.
>
> If you do not have an agreed draft to circulate by the weekend, I could
> try
> to spend a little time on it then. Otherwise, I could comment like
> everyone
> else once the draft is circulated.
>
> Sorry that the timing of this has made it difficult for me to be more
> helpful.
>
> In haste and best wishes,
>
> Tony
>
>
>
>


This e-mail, and any attachment, is confidential. If you have received
it in error, please delete it from your system, do not use or disclose
the information in any way, and notify me immediately. The contents of
this message may contain personal views which are not the views of the
BBC, unless specifically stated.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: letter from Tel Aviv: circulate as you see fit ( Avi Ehrlich)
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2000 13:05:40 +0000
From: "i.bruegel@..." <i.bruegel@...>
To: feldmar@...

Hi friends.
How are you?
Things here are interesting but not pleasant. We on the Left think
that we are into a long period of unrest which, if it lasts, will
convince the Israelis that the UN 242 Resolution means 'Halha
Hakibush' ('Down with occupation') and that means the dismantling of
the settlements. It has not sunk in yet. But as the Israelis
understood Lebanon so they will, in due course, understand this. The
real fight will be within Israel as the settlers will not go down
without first doing all they can to prevent the process. Will the
lessons of Rabin help? I do not know. My pessimistic nature tells me
that at the moment there is no majority in Israel for peace-I mean for
the things that needed to be done to achieve a 'reasonably just
peace'- not a dictated Peace. It does not follow from this that the
Palestinians should therefore take what a weak Israeli leader offers
them (And most likely cannot even deliver this little bit!) When
Israelis talk about Arafat not being ripe or not having the courage I
wonder whether they are blind to see that Barak is not ripe or does
not have the courage to face the Settlers and their supporters and
tell Israel what the conflict is really about. The mist started to
clear up in Camp David when,for the first time the Israelis learnt, in
their papers and TV that Jerusalem is part of the conflict and that
their unilateral annexation in 1967 is not agreed upon. For many years
the Israelis talked with themselves and made peace with themselves,
they now wake up with a shock to find out that there is someone there,
the Palestinians, who have their own views about the 'generosity' that
asks them to be reasonable and further compromise on the 20% of
Palestine that is still negotiable. They do not understand why the
Palestinians will not agree to a system of Bantustans - enclaves
criss-crossed by settlements which separate them and control their
movement and the road system. They do not want the system that will
prevent their economic development and will fix them for generations
as the cheap labour of Israel which comes early in the morning and
disappears before sunset back to their 'Ghettos' and enables the
Israelis to be a 'good place to live in'. Even better then Europe
where the immigrants settled in and 'are a burden' on the welfare
system. The shock is even bigger to wake up one day and find that our
'own Arabs' (the Palestinian second-class citizens of Israel) are not
'with us' and see themselves as Palestinians (rather than 'minorities'
as we called them). When they dared to raise their protest by
demonstrations or, God forbid, throw stones on passing cars (Which, as
you know, is only the privilege of the Ultraorthodox Jews on the
Sabbath!) we shot them 13 of them dead and several hundred wounded. We
did the same in 1956 in Kfar Kasem and in 1976 during the 'Day of the
Land' protests over confiscation of land for more Jewish settlements
in the Galilee. They demand now a Judicial commission of inquiry to
investigate police behaviour. How dare they? Human rights
organisations in Israel claim that many of the Israeli Palestinians
detained were beaten up and mistreated-this raises, again, the spectre
of 'torture' which has haunted Israel for so many years. How dare they
not be thankful for the Humus we eat in their villages, the physical
exercise which we allow them when they do all that we do not like to
do. In any case, we brought them progress and they should be thankful.
We thought we have tamed them-but you never know. We better recruit
another 500 policeman and increase the budget of 'internal security'
ministry with its enlightened Minister Ben-Ami who is a professor of
History at our Tel Aviv university and a real social democrat. We
started the academic year end of October (after the Jewish Holidays,
not because of the events) with a ban on all political activities on
the campuses in Israel. Silence is the reaction of the universities to
what has happened. The excuse, of course, was the fear of fighting and
scuffles among students. My friends in the West Bank and Gaza tell me
that they are not teaching (their academic year started two months
ago, September). They are involved in the uprising and the Israeli
Army has closed the movement between villages and towns. In the
meantime life in Israel is 'semi-normal'. People are afraid to take
busses, in case of bombs, or to go to markets and shopping- malls
-ditto, or to congregate in large numbers. They do not go anymore to
buy cheaply at the markets on the seamline between the Occupied
Territories and Israel. The markets in East Jerusalem are empty, there
are no tourists and no Israelis dare to come, save armed settlers and
Religious Jews escorted by armed border gourds on their way to the
wailing Wall (but only on days when there is no stone throwing from
above,from the El-Aqssa mosque). On Friday police sorts the Muslims
going to prayer on the Mosque according to age. If the previous Friday
caused rioting the next week's age threshold will go up: Only older
people will be allowed in as they are less prone to rioting. We do not
deny old Muslims the right to religious practice, as to the young we
are for modernisation. The Via Dolorosa, Jesus's 13 stations, the
churches, are empty in this annus horribilis of the millennium.
Beit-Lechem, not long ago visited by the Pope, is under curfew and the
Jewish suburbs of Jerusalem - settlement built after 1967, which are
just opposite, are under fire every night for 15 minutes, just before
the main news broadcast of the evening(7:30 P. M). We have a full TV
crew stationed there every evening to show it 'live' on the news.
Nazareth is empty, many of the hotels and restaurants have fired part
of their staff. there is tension there also between Muslims and
Christians(Arabs) not only between Jews and the Arabs. Many Christians
have left the city. We do not go to Jaffa - a part of Tel-Aviv since
1948, where many of the good Middle-Eastern restaurants are. We do not
do it because there were riots there in October. Some do not go
because they are afraid, some to teach 'them' a lesson. We do not go
to Akre,in the north, where every year on 'Sukkot' we have the best
fringe theatre festival of the year in the Walled city and in the
Crusaders underground grotto's. The winter season has not yet started
and there is no snow on Mount Hermon in the Golan Heights. Due to
threats of hostilities by the Hizbullah from Lebanon the army has
strengthened its forces there and we are advised not to go-well, we
will go to Switzerland to ski-if we have the money. It was a good year
to the economy until October, we were looking forward to a 6% growth
with no inflation-alas. The Hi-Tech industries wonder whether to stay
or go (80% of Israel's export is Hi-tech). The Americans have told
their citizens not to travel to Israel. For the short term our young
Hi-tech whiz kids travel monthly to the US instead. What will happen
in the longer term? All together we are talking about 85,000 high
level personnel. They are young,speak English, very motivated and
mobile. Many start-ups in which Israel is so good, have been bought by
Americans. Why be here? Each Hi-level engineer gives work to about 3
more people in the hi-tech industry. Their salaries are the highest in
the country and they all spend. Many of these kids are reservists in
the army. The army has called in more reservists and we are thinking
about possible disruptions to the academic year as both teachers and
students may be called up. Last Saturday on Rabin Square at the
memorial, it is already five years since his murder, there was the
biggest police operation I can remember. The square was fenced,
thousands of policeman, helicopters, police snipers on roof tops, all
the roads leading to the square closed and everyone who came to the
rally was checked with metal detectors as they do when you board a
plane (in Israel, not in your place. ). There were about a 100,000. A
good exercise in mass surveillance. I was thinking that Israel has
wasted the main lesson of Rabin's murder. Rather then use the event to
clamp on the settlers (200 Rabbis, mainly settlers, signed a petition
not long ago before his murder calling him 'Mosser'-which in Jewish
religious code means a traitor who's blood is free. ) Instead Israel's
leaders deluded themselves in a campaign of unity and appeasement. I
have given you a short sketch. Life here is really not bad. As good
old Marx said: ' An oppressing people cannot be free'. We console
ourselves, in the good old Jewish tradition, that It can get worse.
Which usually, in the Jewish tradition, it does! Others console
themselves that it is much worse for the Palestinians-Which is a fact.
With the exception of a Palestinian friend who, after being for many
years in an Israeli prison, and a being a clairvoyant, opened,
sometime ago, an agency to help foreign TV crews. He supplies
everything they need to film and send. ( some Israelis say he supplies
even the events)Is he a war profiteer? He never had it so good. The
Idea came to him years ago as he was in prison in Ansar- a detention
and interrogation centre set by Israel in Gaza. I really could develop
the theme. We have here, to all who are interested in Political
Science, an example of Low intensity fighting and counter-fighting.
The scale is much bigger then Ireland. I also cannot supply the answer
as to what will be? A lot depends on the USA, some on the EU and some
on us. I am not optimistic in the short run. The Palestinians have a
very small chance-If they loose it will be a terrible loss. It will
not be good for the Israelis or for the world. Best Avishai

Dear friends!

Its been almost 2 weeks since we had the meeting at Friends International
House, where we agreed to try and organize activities to contribute to
stopping the violence between Israel & the Palestinians and to achieving a
just  peace there.

In the mean time things had continued to deteriorate in the occupied
territories.
As for our promise to start organizing, we created this e-group, which is
meant to be a discussion and information group, in order that it will be a
tool for communication among us. It is an open e-group, e.g. everyone can
join in, and everyone can send anything to all the others. It is registered
under "society-peace-activism".

The reports we get from Israel are not getting less horrible. The shootings
and casualties go on, and now shelling towns and shootings into
Palestinians' homes at nights [Kalkylia, Beit-Jalla, Rafah] (in order to
frighten them out of their houses?) are taking place too, as well as strict
closure of  towns and villages up till starvation of the population,
terrorizing (and killings) by the settlers, destruction of agricultural
land, including uprooting of ripe olive trees and flattening of
Palestinians' fields and more.
The reports we receive come mainly from "Alef"*, a discussion group
(e-group) of the Israeli academic left. This serves also as a channel for
reports originated in personal connections of some of its members with
Palestinians in the occupied territories, and in reports from organizations
like Gush Shalom, Amnesty and B'Tzelem, as well as in Palestinian Human
Rights organizations and information centres.
We, Rony and I, have been forwarding some of them to you. Some of you may
think we have been flooding you, and at that I feel I have to explain. The
technical reason for that is that while creating this e-group we wanted to
"start the engines" and make sure this tool is up and running. The political
(and emotional) reason is that those reports are so shocking (their sources
are undoubtedly credible), and the silence around all these atrocities in
the general media is so thick - that we feel it is our obligation to spread
this information as far and wide as possible, hoping that more concerned
people will feel horror and anger and frustration like we do, until they,
we, will get up and  DO whatever we can to stop it.
In the mean time, as far as I know, there are only the weekly demonstrations
by the Palestinians infront of the Israeli embassy. They take place every
Saturday between 3-5 PM.
If anyone knows on anything else, can you please e-mail the information?
The petition we are drafting will be circulated within a few days.

* Anyone can join "alef"'s mailing list by e-mailing them directly at
alef@... <alef@...>.

**************
INVITATION TO DISCUSSION

I enclose here 2 items, regarding a sort of international pressure on Israel
I think needed. My opinion is that these are demands we can join our voice
to, and this is a kind of political work we can do from London. Please
respond.

The first is a petition to the UN General Secretary initiated by Global
Exchange about 3 weeks ago, and the second is part of a press release from a
Palestinian organization based in Gaza, sent today, 10.11.00.

1.
>> From: Eman Desouky <eman@...>
>> To: <eman@...>
>> Sent: Monday, October 23, 2000 7:19 PM
>> Subject: Urgent Action: Fax-Away
>>
>Dear Friends,
>
>Global Exchange, a human rights organization based in San
Francisco, has
>launched an instant fax-away that demands justice for the people
of occupied
>Palestine.  Go to the link below, enter the required
information, and hit
>"send."  Your fax will then be instantly sent to the U.N.
Secretary General
>Kofi Anan's office in New York.  Please forward this email to
your networks
>so that together we can flood Mr. Anan's fax machine with
thousands of
>letters calling for international protection for the
Palestinians!  The
>international community has been silent long enough!
>No justice = No peace!
>
>
http://www.globalexchange.org/getInvolved/palestinefax.html
>
>
>

2.
...PCHR calls in particular for:  1. Establishing without delay an
>independent commission of inquiry, in accordance with UN Security Council
>resolution 1322 (2000), to carry out a thorough and comprehensive
>investigation into the abuses and killings perpetrated by the Israeli
>occupation forces against Palestinian civilians.
> 2. Visits to the occupied Palestinian territories by the special
>rapporteurs of the UN High Commission on Human Rights in order to
>investigate the blatant violations by the Israeli occupation forces.
> 3. Convening a conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth
>Geneva Convention of 1949 to ensure Israel's compliance with its
>obligations under the Convention.
> 4. Immediately providing international protection for Palestinian
>civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories in the face of the
>killings and criminal acts perpetrated by the Israeli occupation forces and
>groups of Jewish settlers who move under the protection of these forces.
> 5. Use by the EU of effective political and economic measures with
>reference to Article 2 of the Euro-Israel Association Agreement which calls
>for the respect of human rights.
> 6. Providing humanitarian and medical assistance for the Palestinian
>people whose living conditions are increasingly deteriorating because of
>the continued total siege imposed by the Israeli occupation forces on the
>entire occupied Palestinian territories.
>  *** "End" For more information on Al-Aqsa Intifada visit:
>www.pchrgaza.org

------------------
tirza

----- Original Message -----
From: tamar peleg <tamarpel@...>
To: <alef@...>
Sent: Friday, November 10, 2000 9:16 AM
Subject: ALEF: Beth Sahour


Dear All
Full information and pictures of yesterdays killing from the air in Beth
Sahour,   can be found at  www.rapprochement.org of the Rapprochement
Center based in Beth Sahour.
Tamar

----- Original Message -----
From: Irit Katriel <iritka@...>
To: neah <neah@egroups.com>; Alef <alef@...>
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 4:28 PM
Subject: ALEF: !!! Emergency Refugee Camp in Beit Sahour



-----Original Message-----
From: Beit Sahour Medical Center [mailto:bsmc@...]
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2000 5:56 PM
To: muna@...
Subject: Emergency Refugee Camp


"Shepherds' Emergency Refugee Camp - 2000"
Beit Sahour

An emergency camp has been set up in Beit Sahour in order to provide
shelter for families whose homes have been destroyed or damaged by the
Israeli occupation forces since the beginning of Al-Aqsa Intifada.
The present situation for these families in Beit Sahour is yet one more
traumatic event in the history of the Palestinian people since the
catastrophe of 1948.   In 1948, over one million Palestinians were
made refugees who were dispersed into various camps in West Bank,
Gaza, and abroad.   Again, and as a result of the 1967 war, an
additional half million Palestinians were made refugees.  Today,
after more than half a century since the catastrophe, Israel
continues its occupation and terror over Palestinian cities,
villages, and camps throughout the West Bank and Gaza.

In order to confront this aggression, the Palestinian resistance
movement has been active in all areas and countries where
Palestinians are living. The Intifada of Al-Aqsa, which began over
one month ago, has brought together Palestinians in the West Bank,
Gaza, Galilee, and the Triangle, and reveals the cruel reality
of the Israeli occupation and its crimes.

Al-Aqsa Intifada is an affirmation of Palestinian national
rights: the right of refugees to return, the right to
self-determination, the right to establish a sovereign Palestinian
state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Admittedly, freedom and independence for the Palestinian people
come at a high price.  Since the beginning of Al-Aqsa Intifada,
the occupation forces have continuously stepped up their assaults
on the people of Beit Sahour, using combat helicopters, rockets,
heavy machine guns, and banned ammunition.   To date, eight homes
have been completely destroyed, over 100 homes have been damaged
in various ways, and over 130 families have been displaced. Those
who have not been able to stay with relatives or friends now live
in this emergency camp.

The policy of Israel in destroying homes, confiscating land, and
uprooting trees is well-known and has been experienced by
thousands of families since the emergence of Israel.  The process
of displacement causes not only financial hardship, but more
importantly, serves to destroy the social, familial, and
psychological well-being of Palestinians, especially children.

These facts serve to remind the international community in general,
and the United Nations' Security Council and General Assembly in
particular, that they have a direct responsibility to act
immediately to put an end to Israeli terror against our people
and to provide Palestinians with international protection as a
step toward ending the occupation.

In addition to providing shelter for homeless families, the
goals of this emergency refugee camp are the following:

a. To facilitate lobbying and advocacy on behalf of the
traumatized people of Beit Sahour

b. To strengthen the ties of solidarity among the people
of Beit Sahour

c. To enhance the solidarity movement with our displaced
brothers and sisters throughout our cities, villages,
and camps

d. to reaffirm the core of our cause, namely that there
are four million Palestinian refugees who, after 52 years,
are still fighting for and waiting for their right to
return to their homes and homeland

The resistance will continue until our aims are reached.
Let us work together so that depression does not conquer
our minds and the minds of our children and families.
There is no alternative to freedom and independence, no
matter how vicious the reaction of the occupation.

Emergency Committee of Beit Sahour, 6 November 2000

----- Original Message -----
From: tamar peleg <tamarpel@...>
To: yitshac <yitshac@...>
Cc: <alef@...>
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 4:27 PM
Subject: ALEF: Re: qalqilya last night



Shalom Itsik and all,
I have just spoken to a friend - a retired physician who lives in Qalqilya,
Dr. Feisal Sabi.Tha is what he told me about the last night:
Between 23:45 and 06:00 shooting of what the Palestiniand call  "bullets
500" was going on, intermittently, in four waves. It was a machine gun
shooting (tsrorot ), very loud.It came from 3 sides: north,west and south.
Dr. Sabi lives in the north. No bullet penatrated his house. However he
knows first hand about several cases in which the bullets penetrated hoses.
No bodily harm was cause by the bullet that penetrated his uncles house. It
hit the cupboard and the bed from which the uncle was  accidentally
absent.In another case known personally to him, a woman was less fortunate:
she was shot in he thigh while asleep in her bed.Many houses have  marks of
bullets. He does not know if anybody investigated how many and what damages
was caused. People don't know why all this shooting was going on. He does
not know whether the Palestinians were also shooting or not. He knows that
everybody including himself had a bad nights sleep, waking up every now and
then with each shootong wave. He lives alone and has no chilkdren.
Answering my question based on Itsik's  suggestion about the purpose of the
shooting , dr. Sabi said that people will never leave their house, they
have had their experience as to what happens to those who do.
I expect Addameer and others will report.
Tamar

>        6/11/2000     Yael     Last night, between 1 and 5 am the IDF
>attacked the town of Qalqilyeh.      I don't know anything about
>casualties. I know the heroic army switched off electricity in that poor
>town, helicopters were used, machineguns etc. There was a lot of damage to
>property. I guess it was another traumatic night for the children of that
>poor town. No media reported of that attack so far. Amira Hass from HaAretz
>has just told me she didn't know about it, but she promised to try and
>check for more details.      Is it the new "plan" to clear the "green line"
>of its neighbouring Palestinian towns? I don't know. For those who don't
>know, this town is surrounded by settlements, non-"idological" but mainly
>"middle-calss" villas settlements. Usually it is under siege or siege-like,
>surrounded with fence, so they can go out and come it their little town
>only trough the check point to work in their fields which are under Israeli
>control.      People on all lists should not wait for the media. It is
>across our safe homes that the heroic IDF ruin lives, torture towns and
>villages, lynch populations, cripple little kids, physically and/or
>emotionally.  Could you find out for more details?      Yitzhak Laor

----- Original Message -----
From: Susi Mordechay <susim@...>
To: <alef@...>
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 2:24 PM
Subject: ALEF: Fwd: A NIGHT OF HORROR IN BEIT JALA & R.Fisk in B"J


(1)
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 04:13:37 +0300
Reply-To: iritka@...
Subject: [neah] Fwd: More horror!!!

Forwarded message, Marina from Beit Jala

Dear Friends,

I do not know how to start or what to say, but I was
wrong, Wednesday the 1 of November was not the most
horrific night of my life and my family's, it was
last night and maybe not, may be there will be
worse??!!

The night started with the bombing of Beit Jala from
the Israeli settlement of Gilo began, immediately I
heard the screaming of my brother at his wife trying
to get the phone number of his daughter's God Father
Mitri, who took my nieces; Renata (three years old)
and Cilina (20 months old) for a drive in Bethlehem,
because the infants did not go out for so long and
he wanted them to feel better. I immediately jumped
on my broken foot outside the house to see what was
happening to realize that my brother and his wife are
there, but not their babies. My brother took his car
and drove like a crazy man under the shelling to try
and find his daughters, he did not care what happens
to him he just flew. While my sister-in-law Maritta
continued crying non stop, and started having pain in
her left hand and left side of her chest. Her face
turned very pale and she became very cold. We all
started calling Mitri to see where he was, but the
phones would not work. After ten trials we got
through to him, he said the girls are fine, but he is
in the middle of the road in Bethlehem and he could
not come back to Beit Jala under the bombing. All the
family was in a state of panic, we did not think of
anything, but the two little babies in the car. We
could not tell my brother where to go, because he did
not have a mobile phone with him, we were panicking
more for him, driving through the shelling looking
for his two daughters.
The bombing continued more fiercely, and Maritta became
worse. We called the first doctor who said he could
not get to our house under the shelling, but said to
give her something to calm her down. He advised that
if the pain persists, we should call an ambulance to
take her to the hospital. We got the news after more
than half an hour, which felt like a life time, that
Mitri was able to get Renata and Cilina to my aunt's
house in Bethlehem. We felt better knowing that the
girls were OK, but we panicked more about my brother
who was still driving around looking for the car that
Mitri was driving, not caring about his life. After
an hour my brother called us in a crazy state, having
not found them anywhere, to check if we managed to get
any news about the kids and their whereabouts. We told
him the girls were fine and waiting for him in Bethlehem
at my aunt's place.

I called another doctor for Maritta, as the pain in her
left arm and chest persisted, but this time the doctor
told me that we should call an ambulance. We dismissed
such an idea, because we knew that it would be more
dangerous for her in an ambulance car, than at home.
Most ambulance vehicles were hit by Israeli missiles
when spotted during a shelling. We kept calming her
down, but she was getting worse. After more than three
hours of continuous shelling, my brother and his
daughters came home, when the shelling stopped. When
my nieces were brought in we immediately jumped to hug
them and tried to show their mother that they were Ok.
Renata who is three sensed that her mother was frightened
and looked ill. She told her mom, that when the shelling
stopped they came to see her, and that they were Ok. The
little girl tried to calm her mom. But, immediately we
needed to take her to hospital. My mom and my brother
went with her while my sister, the rest of the family and
myself tried to calm the babies down, because they started
crying when their mother had to leave their side. What
do you tell the little girls? There mother is having a
heart attack? You try to convince them that she will be
Ok! But you do not want to lie in-case she wasn't and you
are not sure anyway.

WE all waited for a phone call to tell us what was going
on in the hospital? Then we called to be told that the
hospital was full of people, because there were eight
injuries from the shells. The doctors where very busy.
They had to take her to a different hospital which was
a bit of a drive. We called again after half an hour,
and we were told that she had symptoms of a heart attack,
and what she had experienced was muscle strain and spasims
that did affect her blood pressure and heart beat, but not
an actual heart attack. Because she is young they gave
her an injection and some medicine, which would make her
feel better. All her body was aching, her bones and her
muscles were frozen, because of the fear.

She was brought back after an hour or so, and we tried to
put her to bed with her babies in our house to make her
feel safe.

Meanwhile, we started calling friends to make sure they
were ok, but to hear that over a hundred houses were
affected and fully or partially damaged. The names of
three girls who are trainees of drama and Ballet at Inad
Theatre, Lian five, Natalie six and Meral eight yeas
old, suddenly appeared on the local TV screen. We were
told that their parents were appealing in their names
to all human beings to stop the shelling of their house.
I immediately called them to make sure they were safe.
Their father answered the phone with a panicking voice,
and kept saying to me, Thank God, Thank God! I asked
what had happened and he said again Thank God we have
been saved by a miracle, but my wife and the girls are
in a state of shock. I asked if I can help in any way,
but he kept repeating, Thank God again and again. So I
bid him greetings of peace and safety and hung up, he
seemed to be in a state of shock as well.

I called Manal from Inad Theatre and she said that there
is nothing not damaged in the neighborhood. The water
tanks, the walls, the cars, the windows and everything
else. She said that the two next door houses were damaged
beyond repair. Her voice seemed full of despair and fear.
I tried to calm her down, but there was no use.

Then we heard the news that a family house just next to
our theatre was hit and burnt. I called the neighbors
near the theatre to ask and they said they do not dare
look. They said, they think that the theatre might have
been hit too, but they cannot confirm that.

It is three in the morning, and we still cannot sleep.
My two nieces, Renata and Cilina slept on top of their
mother because they were so scared. My seventeen year
old cousin slept on my bed , next to me, because she
was in such a state of fear that she could not go back
to her house, which is on the second floor of my house.

This was a horrific night, I cannot tell anybody in my
family that, but I could have killed myself if anything
happened to my nieces! I pretended to be calm and help
my sister-in-law calm down, but deep inside I was torn.
I was on fire. I did not hear the bombs which were so
close, because my brains was concentrating on my beloved
nieces.

I cannot tell you in any words, our feelings last night,
because there are no words to describe it. I leave it
to your humanity to feel or to know how we felt.

Have a safe night sleep, even if we don't.

Tomorrow will see the results of the Israeli bombardment
of Beit Jala and Aida Refugee camp. I do hope that people's
homes can be repaired. Some would say what for, they will
bomb again? It is cold, we need roofs over our heads and
glass on our windows.

Marina
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(2)
Is there a plot to drive out the Jewish settlers?
By Robert Fisk in Beit Jala
30 October 2000

The missiles smashed into the corner of the Ksiyeh family home just after
dark on Friday.
The first blasted a cavity in the wall and the second flew right through a
hole, punching through the corridor floor before exploding in a neighbour's
kitchen.
Israel and the United States are blamed for obvious reasons. An Israeli
helicopter gunship fired both missiles; and the missiles were made in the
United States. The Ksiyeh children have collected the shrapnel in a wooden
box and the evidence is there for all to see. One of the missiles - probably
the first to hit the house, on the edge of the Palestinian village of Beit
Jala - was an AGM 144-C air-to-ground rocket made by Boeing and
Lockheed-Martin in the US states of Georgia and Florida.
The second was a more modern projectile, carrying the US designation number
93835C4286 and manufactured in June, 1988. It is not hard, looking at the
metal computer strips with their tell-tale factory markings, to see why the
people of Beit Jala do not weep over the American dead of the USS Cole.
Yet the villagers here - 60 per cent are Christian - are not vengeful people
and the Palestinian gunmen firing across the valley at the Jewish settlement
of Gilo, are not from Beit Jala.
The little Palestinian hamlet with its sign dressed in stone, Orthodox
churches, frescoes of St George and the Dragon and massive, thick-furred
street cats is not exactly a battlefield. Not yet. But it now stands on a
new West Bank frontline, regularly punished by Israel for the bullets that
smack through the windows of the Jewish settlers across the Wadi.
A week ago, gunmen - almost certainly a "Tanzim" Militia unit - fired first
at the Israelis. In return, a Merkava tank - you can see it sleeping under a
blue tarpaulin on the opposite hillside - put three shells into one of Beit
Jala's narrow streets. One blasted into Margot Zidan's garage, destroying
her brand-new VW Golf and crushing the ancient stone gateway above. War and
the hand of God exclude insurance payments. Another shell blew a hole in the
second floor of Jamil Mislet's home down the road.
And the Plot - so essential an ingredient of any Middle East folly - now
engulfs this village.
The local Palestinian version goes like this: true, some Tanzim men fired
rifles from between the houses, but Israel had also sent Palestinian
collaborators with guns into the village to fire at the settlement, and thus
provide the Israelis with an excuse to deploy four Merkava tanks on the
other hill. The Israeli version of the Plot is even more ingenious: The
Palestinian Authority deliberately provoked Israeli gunfire into Christian
homes, in the hope of bringing the Vatican onto the Palestinian side in the
new intifada.
The truth seems more prosaic. The settlement of Gilo, on the heights above
Beit Jala -"Gilo" is the Hebrew version of "ala" - and the Jewish land was
confiscated from local villagers. It is in sight of Jerusalem and by
targeting its houses, the Palestinians are most definitely sending a message
to the Israeli government: settlements are part of the new war. Indeed, the
attacks may even prove to be the embryo for a still unconceived plan to
drive settlers from the occupied territories.
However, the Christian and Muslim villagers also claim that the most recent
attack - the double-missile strike on the Ksiyah family - was unprovoked;
there had been no shooting from the town prior to the assault, which is why
they are taking no chances. Three workmen were yesterday building a parapet
of concrete blocks around the local telephone switching box at one end of
Beit Jala. Pasted to a telegraph pole next to it is a photograph of
13-year-old schoolboy Mrayad Jawaresh, who died while returning home from
school to the neighbouring refugee camp last week. He is another child
"martyr" - killed by gunfire, provenance unknown - to support the
Palestinian cause.
But did the villagers support the Palestinians who fired into Gilo? They
would shrug when I ask this question. "These men have silly little guns and
they fire from between our homes," one said. "What can we do? But how can we
stop the Israelis? They know it's not us that's shooting at them."

----- Original Message -----
From: tamar peleg <tamarpel@...>
To: <alef@...>
Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2000 6:12 PM
Subject: ALEF: More houses are shelled and more areas of agricultural land
is swept:


>Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2000 18:54:51 +0200
>From: pchr <pchr@...>
>Reply-To: pchr@...
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (Win98; I)
>X-Accept-Language: en,arabic
>To: pchr@...
>Subject: More houses are shelled and more areas of agricultural land is
swept:
>
>   Press Release
>  More houses are shelled and more areas of agricultural land is swept:
>Two martyrs in Bethlehem and Rafah
>
> Ref: 158/2000
>Date: November 7, 2000
>Time: 16:30 GMT
>           18:30 Palestine Time         The past 24 hours have witnessed
>more shelling of houses in Hebron and Rafah, and more sweeping of
>agricultural land.    Additionally, dozens of civilians suffered from
>suffocation due to inhaling tear gas.   These forces shot at Palestinian
>demonstrators from a distance of about 150m, wounding 12 civilians with
>live ammunition, and another two with rubber-coated metal bullets.     He
>was evacuated to Shifa' hospital in Gaza.      A large number of Jewish
>settlers were also seen below a bridge connecting the two parts of the
>mentioned settlement.    The Israeli occupation forces shot at Palestinian
>demonstrators, wounding one with live ammunition.    Additionally, dozens
>of civilians suffered from suffocation due to inhaling tear gas.     The
>martyr Abu Khatleh was wounded with a live bullet in the abdomen shot by
>the Israeli occupation forces on November 3, 2000.    It is worth
>mentioning that the family living in the mentioned house and other families
>in the area left their houses because of the frequent shelling of houses in
>the area by the Israeli occupation forces.       This particular area of
>land is owned by:
> 1. Jadallah Ahmed Jarad Dhuheir (ten donums);
> 2. Mohammed Hamad Abu Jazar (five donums); and
> 3. Abdel-Ghani Hassan Abu Jazar (one donum).
>  ***   PCHR calls in particular for:  1. Establishing without delay an
>independent commission of inquiry, in accordance with UN Security Council
>resolution 1322 (2000), to carry out a thorough and comprehensive
>investigation into the abuses and killings perpetrated by the Israeli
>occupation forces against Palestinian civilians.
> 2. Convening a conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth
>Geneva Convention of 1949 to ensure Israel's compliance with its
>obligations under the Convention.
> 3. Immediately providing international protection for Palestinian
>civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories in the face of the
>killings and criminal acts perpetrated by the Israeli occupation forces and
>groups of Jewish settlers who move under the protection of these forces.
> 4. Use by the EU of effective political and economic means with reference
>to Article 2 of the Euro-Israel Association Agreement, which calls for the
>respect of human rights.
> 5. Providing humanitarian and medical assistance for the Palestinian
>people whose living conditions are increasingly deteriorating because of
>the continued total siege imposed by the Israeli occupation forces on the
>entire occupied Palestinian territories.
>  *** "End" For more information on Al-Aqsa Intifada visit:
>www.pchrgaza.org

Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2000 10:30:29 +0300
Reply-To: iritka@...
Subject: [neah] T. Reinhart // DON'T SAY YOU DIDN'T KNOW.

November 6, 2000.

DON'T SAY YOU DIDN'T KNOW.

Tanya Reinhart

As the media keeps us busy with reports on cease-fire, peace
initiatives, and 'reduction of violence', Israeli crimes in the
occupied territories continue undisturbed. To understand the extent
of these daily crimes we should look at the injuries, not just at
the rapidly growing number of dead. On Friday, November 3rd, CNN
reported a 'relative calm' in the territories. By afternoon that day
there were 276 people injured (LAW report, Nov 3), and by the final
count "Up to 452 Palestinians were hurt on Friday across the
territories, according to the Red Crescent" ('ha'aretz', Nov 5). On
Saturday, October 4th, as the the media covers in great length of
Barak's "plea to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to return to the
negotiating table and stop the Palestinian-Israeli bloodshed for the
sake of peace" (AP), "another 153 were treated for injuries sustained
in clashes with Israeli troops" ('ha'aretz', there), including "5
school children from Sa'ir (near Hebron) who are in extremely critical
condition" (Addameer - Prisoners' Support and Human Rights
Association, Report, Nov 4.).

More than 7000 Palestinians are reported injured so far. Several
Palestinian medical sources report that an alarming number of them
are injured in the head or legs (knees), with carefully aimed shots,
and, increasingly, live ammunition. (Dr. Jumana Odeh, Director,
Palestinian Happy Child Center, Oct 24 report; LAW, November 2
report.) Many will not recover, or will be disabled for life.

This pattern of injuries cannot be accidental. Dan Ephron, Boston
Globe correspondent in Jerusalem reports (Nov 4) on the findings of
the Physicians for Human Rights delegation: "American doctors who
examined Israel's use of force in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have
concluded that Israeli soldiers appeared to be deliberately targeting
the heads and legs of Palestinian protestors, even in
non-life-threatening situations." Medical School doctors in the
delegation explained that law enforcement officials worldwide are
trained to aim at the chest in dangerous situations (since it is the
largest target), and the fact that Palestinians were hit in the head
and legs suggests that there was no life-threatening situation,
soldiers had ample time, and were deliberately trying to harm unarmed
people.

In fact, the Israelis are not even trying to conceal their shooting
strategies. Interviews like the following can be easily found in the
Israeli media:

Nahshon battalion ready for urban warfare
By Arieh O'Sullivan

JERUSALEM (October 27) - "I shot two people...
in their knees. It's supposed to break their bones
and neutralize them but not kill them," says
Sgt. Raz, a sharpshooter from the Nahshon
battalion.

"How did I feel? ...Well actually, I felt pretty
satisfied with myself," the 20-year-old soldier
confides. "I felt I could do what I was trained to
do, and it gave me a lot of self-confidence to
think that if we get into a real war situation I'd
be able to defend my comrades and myself."

A common practice is shooting a rubber coated metal bullet straight
in the eye - a little game of well trained soldiers, which requires
maximum precision. Reports on eye injuries keep coming daily. "On
October 11, El Mizan Diagnostic Hospital in Hebron reported
treating 11 Palestinians for eye injuries, including 3 children. El
Nasir Ophthalmic Hospital in Gaza has treated 16 people for eye
injuries, including 13 children. Nine of them lost one of their eyes".
(LAW report, Oct 19). "From 29 September to 25 October 2000,
Jerusalem's St. John Eye Hospital has treated 50 patients for
eye-injuries".(LAW, Nov 2, '...Eye Injuries').

Contrary to the standard 'clashes' reports the victims are not just
demonstrators. Here is just one story, investigated by LAW (there):
Maha Awad, a 36 years old woman lives with her family in Al Bireh
(near Ramallah) in a flat that faces the Jewish settlement of Psagot.
"On Wednesday night, 4 October 2000, she was at home... She recalls
that: 'At about 9 pm, we heard shooting in our neighborhood; it was
intensive random shooting. We did not know what was going on but we
were very scared.I closed my room and went to the balcony in order
to shut the door. At that moment I was hit in my right eye by a bullet,
which entered through the glass door of the balcony'." "Maha was,
however, not the only person of the family to be seriously injured
that night. After taking her to hospital, her 54-year-old brother,
who was visiting from the United States, went back to their home to
get some clothes for Maha. When he went to see the spot where Maha
had been shot, he himself was shot in the stomach." It is hard to
avoid the feeling of some sort of a hunting game, played cold bloodily,
by well trained sharpshooters with advanced equipment.


Stray bullets do not hit so many people precisely in the eye head,
or knee. The Israeli army prepared carefully for the present events:
"Established just over a year ago specifically to deal with unrest
in the West Bank...The IDF has trained four battalions for
low-intensity conflict, and Nahshon is the one specializing in urban
warfare. Its troops train in mock Palestinian villages constructed
in two IDF bases." (Jerusalem Post, Arieh O'Sullivan,Oct 27.00).
Specially trained Israeli units, then, aim, shoot and hit the target
in a calculated manner: Cripple, but keep the statistics of dead low.
This is reported openly (and quite proudly) in the Israeli media.
The same Jerusalem Post article explains that "the overall IDF strategy
is to deprive the Palestinians of the massive number of casualties
the army maintains Palestinians want in order to win world support
and consolidate their fight for independence. 'We are very much trying
not to kill them...' says Lt.-Col. Yoram Loredo, commander and founder
of the Nahshon battalion."

The reason is clear enough: Massive numbers of dead Palestinians every
day cannot go unnoticed even by the most cooperative Western media
and governments. Barak was explicit about this. "The prime minister
said that, were there not 140 Palestinian casualties at this point,
but rather 400 or 1,000, this... would perhaps damage Israel a great
deal." (Jerusalem Post, Oct 30). With a stable average of five
casualties a day, they believe that Israel can continue 'undamaged'
for many more months. In a world so used to horrors, many feel that
180 dead in a month is sad and upsetting, but it is not yet an atrocity
that the world should unite to stop.

The 'injured' are hardly reported; they 'do not count' in the dry
statistics of tragedy. Who will pay attention to their fate after
the injury, in overcrowded and underequipped hospitals? Who will stop
to think how many of them will die slowly, from their wounds, or
remiain disabled, blind or maimed for life? Or to think about their
chances to survive the siege and starvation inflicted on their people?.

Never did Israel dare to respond daily with such brutal massive force
to demonstrators throwing stones. In the whole six years of the
previous Intifada (87-93), there were 18.000 Palestinian injuries.
Now in one month we are already at 7000. What we witness is a new
phase. Israel started launching a systematic and preplanned destruction
of the Palestinian infra-structure, towns, and life

The Israeli army provoked and enlarged the escalation into firearms,
by its massive offensive against angry demonstrators. Under the
circumstances of fire (and often with no fire pretext at all),
residential neighborhoods are bombarded almost every night from
helicopters and tanks, using missiles, machine guns and 'precision'
weapons, while the army calls on residents to evacuate "for their
own protection". The settlers are given free hand to attack, shoot
people and destroy property. In Hebron, a particularly massive Israeli
attack has been launched in what looks like an attempt to enlarge
the Jewish quarters. All combined, there is an enormous pressure on
residents of many areas bordering with Israeli settlements to evacuate,
enabling enlargement of the land seized already by Israel. Indeed,
appropriation of land takes place every day, bit by bit (See Katriel,
Indymedia/Israel Oct 30). Desperate Palestinian reports on all this
and much more keep coming every day. It is up to us to choose to know.

Not long ago, the Western world was shocked and angered at Milosevic
atrocities against the Kosovo Albanians, which were described as ethnic
cleansing. But What Israel has started executing is incomparably worse.
When faced with terrorist attacks (by KLA) on Serbian institutes and
civilians in Kosovo, Milosevic did retaliate brutally, using, no doubt,
'excessive force'. His acts were criminal. But he did not send Apache
helicopters to bombard residential areas, as does Israel. He did not
put the Kosovar towns under siege; he did not use missiles from tanks,
and he did not send snipers to wound and kill en-mass.

Israel should be sanctioned.

A copy of this article with links to some of the
references used can be found on IndyMedia/Israel at

http://www.indymedia.org.il

Dear friends,

A bit late (appologies, we had been ill), but - as promised - here's the
e-mail addresses of those who were present at the meeting on 29.10.00.

Also, if you get this e-mail and you haven't done nothing yet since
recieving the invitation message to the  e-group 'justPeaceUK' - note that
you don't have to reply it if you wish to remain in it. Replying the
invitation message will remove you from the list.

We will be sending you information we recieve from Israel & the occupied
territories, as well as activity plans for here and now. We will look
forward to your replies STARTING FROM THIS E-MAIL ON, and hopefully, with
your suggestions, remarks, discussion - this will prove to be an efficient
tool.

So here's the list, in case you want to correspond without involving the
whole group:
bcohen8195@... Barry Cohen
misrahi.intersect@... Bernard Misrahi
colsh@... Colin Shindler
deborah.maccoby@... Deborah Maccoby
glasherson@... Geoffrey Asherson
mikheart@... Mika Hadar
pcollins@... Paul Collins
ronmarx54@... Ron Marx
tonyklug@... Tony Klug
tirza@... Tirza Waisel
rony@... rony cohen
frank@... Frank Fisher
r.feldman@... Rayah Feldman
vivienaviva@... Vivien Lichtenstein

***

We were asked to circulate the  following information, about a meeting
organized by Meretz (?) :
When: 12.11.00, 8PM
Where: HaShomer House, 37a Broadhurst Gdns. London NW6
Who: Shalom Lappin
What: speaking about The New Intifada and The Israeli Left
------------------
Ron & Tirza

We were asked to circulate the following:

When: Sunday, 12/11/00 8PM
Where: 37a Broadhurst Gdns. London, NW6
Speaker: Shalom Lappin

------------------
Ron Cohen

X-MDMailing-List: lawlist@...
X-MDSend-Notifications-To: [trash]
Reply-To: law@...

DAY 37
14 YEAR-OLD GIRL SHOT ON THE WAY HOME FROM SCHOOL
NOVEMBER 4, 2000  7:10 PM GMT+2





Last night, an unidentified man was shot and killed by Israeli forces in the
village of Hizma outside Jerusalem. In Gaza, 7 Palestinians were injured by
live ammunition at the Karni crossing and 4 were injured by live ammunition
in Rafa.

This afternoon, Ghazala Jradat, 14, was critically injured after being shot
by Israeli forces in the head with a rubber-coated metal bullet near Beit
Hanoun Erez. She was on her way home from school.

Today's clashes resulted in 86 other injuries. Two Palestinians were shot by
Israeli forces in Toulkarem, 12 in Hebron, 8 in Bethlehem, 10 in Ramallah,
and 3 were shot in Jenin. All were shot with rubber-coated metal bullets. In
Qalkilya, 5 Palestinians were shot, 3 of them with live ammunition.

In Gaza 46 were injured, 33 of them with live ammunition. Fifteen of those
injured were from Breij Camp, 12 of these were hit with live ammunition. In
Erez, 20 were injured, 13 of them by live ammunition. At Karni, 6
Palestinians were injured and At the Salah eh Din Gate, 5 were injured by
live ammunition.


_________________________________________________________

LAW - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the
Environment is a non-governmental organisation dedicated to preserving human
rights through legal advocacy.

PO Box 20873, Jerusalem
Tel: + (972) (2) 583 3530 / 3537 / 3430
Fax: + (972) (2) 583 3317
e-mail: law@...
website: http://www.lawsociety.org

LAW is affiliate to the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ),
Fédération Internationale des Ligues de Droits de l'Homme (FIDH), World
Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and Member of the Euro- Mediterranean
Human Rights Network

>
>How the CIA tried to bully Arafat
>By Robert Fisk in Gaza
>
>The independent
>
>4 November 2000
>
>Gaza is physically so tiny that it has to be a place of contrasts. At
>midday, I was sitting amid long grass, amid lemon and fig trees, and bushes
>of pomegranates and gardenia, listening to one of Yasser Arafat's most
>trusted lieutenants telling me of George Tenet's threats. Indeed, the head
>of the CIA, so frequent a visitor to Gaza, seemed strangely present because
>my host knows the CIA boys well.
>
>A couple of hours later, I watched an Israeli soldier run from the border
>fence and squat in the muddy dunes of Karni to take aim at a boy holding a
>sling-shot. There was a high-pitched crack, the thwack of a bullet hitting
>something and the youth was on the ground, two men running towards him with
>a stretcher.
>
>The rifle cracked again and, just once, I heard the bulletwhizz through the
>air to my right. Yes, Mr Arafat's man had told me in his orchard, the CIA
>knew the Israelis were deliberately trying to kill stone-throwers. "We have
>shown them the statistics and taken them to watch these unequal battles,"
he
>said. "Personally, they agree with us that the Israelis are shooting at the
>upper part of the body."
>
>>From the orchard, with its fruit flies and sparrows, to the mud of Karni
was
>perhaps only a mile. And it was odd how the threats and anger of the talks
>at Camp David fitted in so naturally with the blood and tyre-shrieking
>ambulances down the road. Mr Arafat's officer did not mince his words.
>
>The story had come to him from Mr Arafat, at the very end of the Camp David
>talks which had brought us all, within weeks, to the catastrophe that now
>embraces "Palestine" and, some would say, Israel as well. "Tenet had gone
to
>Arafat warning: 'We can make new borders, we can make peoples, we can make
>new regimes'," he said.
>
>This is what the CIA boss told Mr Arafat at Camp David. And when the
>Palestinian leader would not make the capitulation that Bill Clinton and
the
>Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, wanted, Mr Tenet threatened Mr Arafat.
>He said: "So you will go back to the Middle East alone." He meant that he
>would not have the support of the CIA. And Mr Arafat replied: "If this is
>the case, you are most welcome to come to my funeral but I won't accept
your
>offers."
>
>Around us, the flies and birds moved through the hot trees. Mr Arafat's
>grey-headed factotum chewed through a mandarin, the juice dribbling down
his
>chin, occasionally taking calls on his mobile phone as his two sons picked
>olives off a tree behind us.
>
>"You have to understand that what has happened between Shimon Peres [former
>Israeli prime minister] and Arafat is just an armistice," he said. "The
>worst is yet to come. We may have a few days of less trouble. But that is
>all. We know how to start things and we don't know where it will end. But
we
>believe that if it lasts longer,
>the results will be better. Nobody knows how the mechanism of war
develops."
>
>At Karni, Arafat's officer had ordered restraint. A clutch of police
>captains swept their arms in front of the crowd of youths halfway down the
>road. "Go back up there," they shouted. There was a momentary movement in
>the crowd; then the policemen were ignored. Perhaps 400 youths stood on the
>narrow road and advanced in a mass, almost falling off the edge of the
road,
>offering the Israelis a target they could not miss, seeking the "martyrdom"
>that the Israelis and most of us cannot understand. It was an extraordinary
>scene. A group had unified without a word of command for an understood
goal.
>They wanted to be targets. The Israelis obliged.
>
>A cluster of tear-gas canisters failed to shift the crowd; a single live
>round did the trick. There were shouts and a stretcher bobbing through the
>screaming youths and an ambulance driving through the dust for the Shifa
>Hospital.
>
>Before dusk, an armoured Israeli convoy thundered down the road from the
>Jewish settlement of Nitzarim, ordering motorists at gunpoint to turn
round.
>The road runs through Palestinian Gaza and the Israelis note, they must not
>be called "occupiers" were trying to force a passage down to the border
>through Karni. Under the terms of the Oslo Agreement, the Israelis can use
>this route with a Palestinian escort. But there was no Oslo, and no escort.
>
>But then they stopped and I realised that they were waiting for Palestinian
>Authority guarantees of safety before daring to move down the road to the
>Israeli border. And I knew that Mr Arafat's man in the orchard would be on
>his mobile phone, deciding whether or not it was safe for the occupiers to
>go home. George Tenet should have been with us at that hour.
>

Subject: Special MERIP Primer: Uprising in Palestine
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 18:19:27 -0500
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3

The Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) has published a
special primer on the ongoing Palestinian uprising, to provide historical
context for current events and offer answers for some recurring questions
about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. MERIP encourages distribution of the
primer for educational purposes. A fuller version of the primer, with
graphics and links to other useful information, is posted at the MERIP
website: http://www.merip.org. The primer will be updated periodically to
keep pace with events, and MERIP will continue to cover the uprising through
Press Information Notes. The winter issue of Middle East Report (MER 217)
will focus exclusively on the intifada and its likely regional impact. To
order individual copies or subscribe to Middle East Report, please call
Blackwell Publishers at 1-800-835-6770.

------

MERIP Primer on the Uprising in Palestine

published October 28, 2000

INTRODUCTION

Not so long ago, US President Bill Clinton hosted Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to discuss final
arrangements for peace in Palestine and Israel. In late October 2000, peace
seems very far away. Since September 28, 147 people--all but ten of them
Palestinians--have died, and thousands more Palestinians have been wounded,
as a popular uprising rages against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank
and the Gaza Strip. What is the history of the conflict over Palestine? Why
did Ariel Sharon's visit to a mosque in Jerusalem provoke Palestinian public
opinion? Is Israel right to blame Arafat for the numerous Palestinian deaths
and injuries? Can US mediation help to stop the violence? Does the US media
do a good job educating Americans about what's happening in Israel and
Palestine?

THE CONFLICT OVER PALESTINE

At the start of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire ruled much of the Arab
world, including the lands that now constitute Israel and the Occupied
Territories. With the Allied victory in World War I, the area came under the
control of the British who made contradictory promises to Arab and Zionist
leaders about how--and by whom--the Mandate of Palestine was to be governed.
At the time, 90 percent of the population was Arab; the Jewish community
included long-time residents and new immigrants fleeing persecution in
Russia and, later, other parts of Europe. A three-year uprising in the late
1930s against British rule and increased Jewish immigration resulted in a
British proposal to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. UN
General Assembly Resolution 181 reaffirmed partition in 1947.

The war that followed led to the establishment of the State of Israel;
Israel, Egypt and Jordan each claimed sovereignty over parts of the
territory designated for a Palestinian state, displacing some 750,000
Palestinians. Less than 20 years later, in the June 1967 War, Israel gained
control of the rest of the former Mandate of Palestine (the Gaza Strip and
the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in 1980), the
Egyptian Sinai (since returned to Egypt), and the Syrian Golan Heights. UN
Security Council Resolution 242, never implemented, affirmed "the
inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" and called upon
Israel to withdraw "from territories occupied in the recent conflict." The
1970s and 1980s saw Arab-Israeli wars in 1973 and 1982, the 1978 Camp David
Accords between Israel and Egypt, the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada
in December 1987, and Yasser Arafat's condemnation of terrorism and
recognition of the state of Israel in December 1988.

The Madrid peace conference followed the Gulf war in October 1991. A year
later, secret Israeli-Palestinian talks began in Oslo, Norway, culminating
in the September 1993 Declaration of Principles (DoP) on interim Palestinian
self-government, signed by Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
The DoP set out a process for transforming the nature of the Israeli
occupation but left numerous issues unresolved, including the status of
Jerusalem, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, the disposition of
Israeli settlements (whose expansion continues until today) and final
borders between Israel and a Palestinian state.

Under the DoP, Israel relinquished day-to-day authority over parts of the
Gaza Strip and West Bank to the Palestinian Authority, headed by Arafat who
returned to Gaza in 1994. However, ultimate power remained with Israel,
which exercised its control by frequently sealing off the
Palestinian-governed areas from the rest of the Occupied Territories and
from Israel. Subsequent agreements in 1995, 1998 and 1999 failed to resolve
these issues. With Palestinian-Israeli negotiations stalled, US President
Bill Clinton called a summit at Camp David in July 2000. After two weeks of
intensive negotiation, the talks ended without a deal. (For background, see
MERIP Press Information Note 26: "Camp David II:
http://www.merip.org/pins/pin26.html)

WHO IS ARIEL SHARON?

A retired army general, Ariel Sharon, 72, has been a major figure in Israeli
politics for decades. In 1971, he led a systematic campaign to quell
opposition in Gaza through massive repression, expulsions and arrests. He
was first elected to the Knesset in 1977 and, as defense minister in 1982,
he led the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. An Israeli tribunal found Sharon
indirectly responsible for the massacre (by Lebanese militias under Israeli
control) of thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians living in the
Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. In the aftermath, he was removed as defense
minister but retained a role in the Cabinet as "minister without portfolio."

In the early 1990s, Sharon served as housing minister and promoted a massive
construction drive to increase Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank
and Gaza Strip. In 1998, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu named Sharon
foreign minister. As current head of the Likud party, Sharon has
vociferously criticized Prime Minister Ehud Barak for negotiating with the
Palestinians. He maintains a residence in Jerusalem's Old City (draped in an
Israeli flag) and his provocative visit to al-Haram al-Sharif on Sept. 28,
and the harsh Israeli response to the protests that followed, helped ignite
the current uprising.

WHO CONTROLS THE PALESTINIAN STREET?

Since 1994, portions of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have been
administered by Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA). The PA is not a
fully sovereign state like Israel or the United States, but it does provide
municipal services and attempts to maintain order in the areas under its
control. The PA's top ranks, including Arafat, mostly belong to Fatah, the
largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). But Fatah is
independent of the PA, and Arafat does not control the entire organization.
The current uprising in the Occupied Territories has pushed militant local
leaders of Fatah to the forefront, and Fatah units have coordinated much of
the street fighting.

Above all, the ongoing intifada expresses cumulative popular anger at both
the violence of the Israeli occupation and the compromises Arafat seems
willing to make on basic Palestinian national rights-such as the
establishment of a viable sovereign state, the right of return for
Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948 and 1967 and Palestinian sovereignty
in East Jerusalem. Fatah has, to a limited extent, been able to channel this
anger in street protests. When Ariel Sharon visited the Haram al-Sharif on
September 28, the ensuing Palestinian protests were spearheaded by Islamists
and students--the sectors of the population that are most militant in their
criticisms of the Oslo process, and among whom Fatah enjoys little
influence. Since the initial protests, Arafat's moves to contain the
violence have been unpopular on the Palestinian street. Huge crowds in the
West Bank and Gaza demonstrated against Arafat's presence at the October 17
Sharm al-Sheikh summit, and the failure of Arab leaders to agree on concrete
action against the Israeli occupation at the October 21-22 Cairo summit.
(For background, see MERIP Press Information Note 34: After the Sharm
al-Sheikh Summit: An Armed and Temporary Truce:
http://www.merip.org/pins/pin34.html)

The PA security forces whom Arafat does control directly have only rarely
intervened in armed clashes. Arafat does not control the armed Fatah cadres,
nor the stone-throwing students and youths who constitute a disproportionate
number of the dead and wounded. He could crack down on the uprising, but to
do so would strengthen the voices that describe the PA as a proxy police
force for the Israeli occupation, and endanger his status as leader of the
Palestinian cause.

THE "HONEST BROKER" AND THE UN

Since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem,
there has been a nearly unanimous international consensus on how to resolve
the crisis: an international conference based on international law and
United Nations resolutions. But Israel disagreed, and the US backed Israel's
rejection.

After the Cold War, the US has often relied on the UN to negotiate
agreements and provide peacekeepers to end regional wars and crises: in
Cambodia, Angola and Guatemala and more recently in East Timor, Sierra Leone
and elsewhere.

But the US, while mentioning one or two UN resolutions in passing, kept
Israel-Palestine diplomacy under its own control. Washington--Israel's major
financial, diplomatic and military backer--claimed the role of the "honest
broker." The actual requirements of international law (like Israel's
obligations as an occupying power to protect civilians and to prohibit
settling Israeli citizens in occupied territory) and existing UN resolutions
(such as 194, ensuring the right of Palestinian refugees to return and
receive compensation) were sidelined in favor of US-brokered talks between
Israel, the strongest military power in the Middle East and the 17th
wealthiest country in the world, and the stateless Palestinians living under
occupation or in exile.

In the 1991 Madrid talks, the US-Israeli Memorandum of Understanding stated
explicitly that the UN would have no role. In the 1993 Oslo process, the UN
was ignored. In 1999 when over 100 signatories of the Geneva Conventions met
to assess Israeli compliance with the Conventions, the meeting lasted only
ten minutes in order to "avert friction" with Israel. The failed 2000 Camp
David summit ignored the UN altogether.

In October 2000, as Palestinians continued to die, Tel Aviv insisted that
any UN fact-finding commission would be nothing but a "kangaroo court," and
that it would accept only separate Israeli and Palestinian investigations
under overall US authority. When 14 out of 15 members of the UN Security
Council voted to condemn Israel's excessive force against civilians, it was
the US alone that abstained. US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke threatened to
veto any further resolution, stating that the virtually unanimous current
resolution had taken the UN "out of the running" to play a role in
negotiations.

The September-October 2000 occupation crisis ushered in an unprecedented,
albeit significantly limited, role for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

A special session of the UN's High Commission for Human Rights passed a
strong resolution condemning the "grave and massive violations of the human
rights of the Palestinian people by Israel," and establishing a "human
rights inquiry commission." An enormous US lobbying campaign resulted in
Washington's Western allies opposing the vote, and many non-aligned
countries abstaining. When the General Assembly convened, US diplomats again
went into high gear to dampen the language of the resolution. Only six
countries--the US, Israel and four Polynesian island states--voted no,
though nearly a third of the General Assembly abstained.

On October 25, the US House of Representatives voted 365-30 to call on
Arafat to stop the violence. Congressional leaders said the House felt
compelled to pass the resolution to counter the UN resolutions that are
"biased against Israel." The same day, the House passed a new foreign aid
bill. Israel will receive $2.82 billion in the next fiscal year--18.9
percent of the total and the largest aid amount of any country.

After almost a month of clashes, over 140 Palestinians and ten Israelis
dead, and a military occupation and siege tighter than ever, the best hope
for peace is a return to UN resolutions, international law and direct UN
involvement in Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. Providing international
protection to Palestinians and putting Secretary-General Kofi Annan in
charge of negotiations instead of President Bill Clinton would certainly
raise at least a glimmer of such hope.

FIVE QUESTIONS THE US MEDIA SHOULD ASK ABOUT THE VIOLENCE IN THE MIDDLE
EAST, BUT DON'T

1. Why didn't Ehud Barak prevent Ariel Sharon from visiting the Haram
al-Sharif?

2. Why do news accounts refer to Palestinian citizens of Israel as "Israeli
Arabs," when they call themselves Palestinians?

3. What were the Israeli soldiers who were "lynched" on October 12 doing in
Palestinian-controlled Ramallah?

4. Do peoples under military occupation have a right to resist the
occupation?

5. Why should the US have a "special relationship" with Israel?

----- Original Message -----
From: tamar peleg <tamarpel@...>
To: <alef@...>
Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2000 12:01 PM
Subject: ALEF: Mime-Version: 1.0


APPEL


Citoyens du pays dans lequel nous vivons et citoyens de la planète, nous
n'avons pas de raisons ni pour habitude de nous exprimer en qualité de
juifs.
Nous combattons le racisme dont bien sûr l'antisémitisme sous toutes ses
formes. Nous condamnons les attentats contre les synagogues et les écoles
juives qui visant une communauté en tant que telle et ses lieux de culte,
internationalisent le conflit du Moyen-Orient. Nous refusons
l'internationalisation d'une logique communautaire qui se traduit, ici
même, par des affrontements entre jeunes d'une même école ou d'un même
quartier.
Mais, en prétendant parler au nom de tous les juifs du monde, en
s'appropriant la mémoire commune, en s'érigeant en représentants de toutes
les victimes juives passées, les dirigeants de l'Etat d'Israël s'arrogent
le droit de parler aussi malgré nous en notre nom. Personne n'a le monopole
du judéocide nazi. Nos familles ont eu leur part de déportés, de disparus,
de résistants. Aussi le chantage à la solidarité communautaire, servant à
légitimer la politique d'union sacrée des gouvernants israéliens, nous
est-il intolérable.
Dans l'escalade de la violence, des actes inadmissibles sont commis des
deux côtés. C'est hélas le lot de toute logique de guerre. Mais les
responsabilités politiques ne sont pas également partagées. L'Etat d'Israël
  dispose d'un territoire et d'une armée. Les Palestiniens des territoires
occupés et des camps de réfugiés, sont condamnés à vivre sous tutelle d'une
économie mutilée et dépendante, dans une société estropiée, sur un
territoire en lambeaux, lacéré de routes stratégiques et semé de colonies
juives.
Si la provocation calculée d'Ariel Sharon sur l'esplanade des mosquées,
avec l'accord et le soutien d'Ehud Barak,  a pu mettre le feu aux poudres,
c'est que la situation était déjà explosive du fait des manoeuvres
dilatoires dans l'application des accords d'Oslo, de la poursuite de la
colonisation juive des territoires, du refus de reconnaître un Etat
palestinien dont la proclamation est sans cesse différée. Il n'est pas
surprenant que ces humiliations et ces frustrations accumulées aboutissent
à la révolte d'un peuple Un pas peut-être irréversible est en train d'être
franchi. La provocation symbolique d'Ariel Sharon, en accentuant le
caractère confessionnel des affrontements au détriment de son contenu
politique, favorise la montée en puissance de forces religieuses extrêmes
au détriment des partisans de la paix et d'une Palestine et d'un Israël
laïcs. Une course au désastre est engagée. Une guerre civile se profile en
Israël même entre juifs et arabes israéliens.
Ce n'est donc pas bien que juifs, mais parce que juifs que nous nous
opposons à cette logique suicidaire des paniques identitaires. Nous
refusons la spirale mortelle de l'ethnicisation et de la
confessionnalisation du conflit. Partisans de la fraternité judéo-arabe,
nous réclamons la relance d'un processus de paix qui passe nécessairement
par l'application des résolutions de l'Onu, par la reconnaissance d'un Etat
palestinien souverain et du droit au retour des Palestiniens chassés de
leur terre.
C'est par là que la coexistence pacifiée de différentes communautés
culturelles et linguistiques sur un même territoire peut devenir possible.

Premiers signataires: Daniel Bensaïd, Marcel-Francis Kahn, Stanislas
Tomkiewicz, Pierre Vidal-Naquet.

Réponses à adresser d'urgence -avec soutien financier si possible- à
Marcel-Francis Kahn, 18 Juliette Lamber, 75017 Paris
Répondeur-fax: 01. 44.40.05.27.

----- Original Message -----
From: Ron Kuzar <kuzar@...>
To: Friends of Noam <roni@...>
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2000 8:50 AM
Subject: ALEF: Noam Kuzar: a report


Dear friends and colleagues,
By now this letter goes out to hundreds of supporters. Having been
added to this list, please consider this an acknowledgement of the
arrival of your letter and a thank you note from Noam and his family.
------------------------------
A week ago, on Friday 27 October 2000, Noam Kuzar was released from
jail. Noam is still at a stage of figuring out how to deal with the
new situation, which is best described in the following translation
of this morning's (3 Nov. 2000) article in the local newspaper of
Jerusalem, Kol Ha'ir, by its correspondent Uri Blau:
--------------------------
TWO CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS SENT TO PRISON 4
Meanwhile the commander of the Nakhal Brigade has decided that the
soldier who refused to go to the territories will become [sanitary]
worker under the sergeant major's command. IDF spokesman: he must not
be cherished for his acts.

Two IDF soldiers were imprisoned for two weeks in Prison 4, after
having refused to undergo the process of conscription for reasons of
conscience. The two were recently drafted to the IDF, but already at
the Initial Processing Base they proclaimed that they refused to
serve in the army. One of them is Druse. Noam Kuzar had met the two
soldiers before he was release from jail after 28 days of
imprisonment due to his refusal to serve in the territories. IDF
spokesman says that the army is not aware of these cases, and that in
recent months there have been no cases of conscientious objection.
Ishai Menuhin from Yesh Gvul, the movement that encourages
refusal to serve in the territories, is in fact aware of these cases.
According to Menuhin, most Druse draft resisters act out of
identification with the Palestinians. He adds that recently he has
been receiving many phone calls from reservists who consult him about
their future actions. "I have also been contacted by one regular
serviceman who is considering together with another friend to refuase
to go to the territories" he added.
Today Yesh Gvul is starting to hand out leaflets to soldiers
calling on them to refuse to serve in the territories. "We, soldiers
of the IDF, state hereby that we will not participate in the
continuing oppression of the Palestinian people in the occupied
territories and will not take part in policing and in guarding the
settlements, which enhance this oppression" this is the text of a
tear-off attachment which the soldiers are asked to sign.
Kuzar will not continue his service as a combat soldier. This
week he recieved his new placement as worker under the seargent
major's command. He says that his platoon commander, Lieutenant
Nathan Kaminsky, who visited him in jail, promised him he would
personally contact the Nakhal Brigade commander, Colonel Sharon
Davidovitz, to make sure that Kuzar would get "the shittiest job
possible".
In a conversation Kuzar had with the administration officer
of of the Nakhal's basic training base, the latter confirmed that
Davidovitz had decided to turn Kuzar into a worker under the sergeant
majors command. IDF spokesman confirms: "the commander of the base,
who is in charge of placement, has placed the soldiers in accordance
with his qualifications and the needs of the base. The soldier must
not be cherished for his acts".
--------End of article---------
Indeed, during the past few days Noam was cleaning toilets, sweeping
floors and weeding. When Noam makes a decision on how to handle the
new situation, and if we think that public intervention will be
useful here, in light of this illegal continuation of punishment
after he has served his term, we will let you know.
As for the other conscientious objector, the Jewish one whom
we know, we respect his request to handle his struggle privately.
In light of the fact that the IDF does not provide for
alternative community service, our principled position is that any
way of evading service in the occupied territories, whether through
direct political confrontation, personal private struggle, requests
to be declared unfit for service, attempts to exhibit true or fake
medical or mental conditions, or any other way - are all equally
dignified and in the long run weaken Israel's ability to continue its
atrocious acts.
----------------------
Despite publication of Noam's case on the two local papers of
Jerusalem, Kol Ha'ir and Kol Hazman, the major national media
continue their silence. That this is not incidental can be learned
from the following story. On Monday I was contacted by researchers of
the prime time TV program Politika, with the popular host Dan
Margalit. They were planning an item for Tuesday about Israel's
ability to be involved in a long struggle with the Palestinians. They
thought that Noam's case was relevant to this question, and asked me
to appear on the show with some journalists, Knesset members, and IDF
ex-officers. On Tuesday morning I was informed that I would not sit
at the table with all the others, but rather get a microphone in the
front row of the audience. Two hours before the show I was informed
that my participation was cancelled due to time constraints.
---------------------
If anybody wishes to be removed from this notification list please
let me know.
Best to you all, and thanks for your support
Roni




=========================================
Dr. Ron Kuzar
Home: 17/6 Harakefet St.
IL-96505 Jerusalem, Israel
Office: Department of English Language and Literature
University of Haifa
IL-31905 Haifa, Israel
Office phone: +972-4-824-9826
Office fax: +972-4-824-9711
Home phones: +972-2-641-4780, +972-2-641-5037
Cellular phone: +972-54-819-676
E-mail: kuzar@...
http://research.haifa.ac.il/~kuzar
=========================================

----- Original Message -----
From: Ran Ever-Hadani <RanE@...>
To: 'tamar peleg' <tamarpel@...>; Gila Svirsky
<gsvirsky@...>; <dcipal@...>;
<alef@...>; <neah@egroups.com>
Cc: 'Thameen Derbi' <thameen@...>
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2000 7:03 PM
Subject: RE: ALEF: Re: TOTAL OF CHILDREN MARTYRS REACHES 51


From the Encyclopaedia Britannica:

http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/9/0,5716,52459+1+51195,00.html?kw=
martyr

{quote)
martyr

one who voluntarily suffers death rather than deny his religion by words or
deeds; such action is afforded special, institutionalized recognition in
most major religions of the world. The term may also refer to anyone who
sacrifices his life or something of great value for the sake of principle.

...

The Islamic designation shahid (Arabic: "witness") is equivalent to and in a
sense derivative of the Judaeo-Christian concept of martyr. The full sense
of "witness unto death" does not appear in the Qur'an but receives explicit
treatment in the subsequent Hadith literature, in which it is stated that
martyrs, among the host of heaven, stand nearest the throne of God.

(end of quote)

It seems quite obvious that the use of the term shahid/martyr indeed
glorifies death and encourages other children to endanger their lives, as
Gila suggests below.

Israel Shahak told me of phone conversations he had with friends in
Ramallah, a week into the new Intifada.  They told him of Tanthim operatives
going into schools, and taking whole classes with them.  They walk with the
children to the Army checkpoints, which are kilometers away, where the
children throw stones at the soldiers.  The children are, of course, quite
enthusiastic about the adventure.  Upper and middle class parents get word
of this, and they go down to the road to kidnap their children from the
procession before they get to the roadblocks.  The word "kidnap" here is a
direct quote (Shahak talks to his Ramallah friends in English).

I must say that had I not heard this from Israel Shahak, a man of impeccable
anti-Zionist activist credentials, I would have considered it Zionist
propaganda.  I am still not sure whether these reports reflect true events.
All sorts of rumors get started in times of crisis, and a story like this
may be making the rounds in Ramallah even if it is not true.

And lest I be accused again of being a clone of Golda Meir, I would state
the obvious: even if this *is* true, it does not alleviate the resposibility
of the Israeli army for killing those children.

-- Ran

-----Original Message-----
From: tamar peleg [mailto:tamarpel@...]
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2000 5:31 AM
To: Gila Svirsky
Cc: alef@...; dcipal@...
Subject: ALEF: Re: TOTAL OF CHILDREN MARTYRS REACHES 51


Gila,
In hebrew  translation it is "halal", which sounds different.I cannot say
what connotations has the original, arabic "shahid".
"Martyr" has become the accepted English word. Is there a  better,  true to
the original term, translation?
Tamar

  My feeling of the Arabict 22:52 02/11/00 +0200, you wrote:
>Tamar,
>
>I think "martyr" is not a word that should be applied to children who are
>killed in the struggle for Palestinian independence.  Especially for DCI,
>which seeks to protect children.  The use of "martyr" glorifies death and
>encourages other children to endanger their lives.
>Gila
>(I don't like it for adults either, but that's another story)
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "tamar peleg" <tamarpel@...>
>To: <alef@...>
>Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2000 7:39 PM
>Subject: ALEF: TOTAL OF CHILDREN MARTYRS REACHES 51
>
>
>> >X-Sender: dcipal@... (Unverified)
>> >X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.6 (32)
>> >Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 03:49:31 +0200
>> >To: dcipal@...
>> >From: DCI/PS <dcipal@...>
>> >Subject: TOTAL OF CHILDREN MARTYRS REACHES 51
>> >
>> >Defence for Children International/Palestine Section
>> >For immediate release
>> >2 November 2000
>> >
>> >ref: 003400
>> >
>> >
>> >TOTAL OF CHILDREN MARTYRS REACHES 51 ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF ENTRY INTO
>FORCE
>> >OF THE UN CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD IN ISRAEL
>> >
>> >Nine years ago today, on 2 November 1991, the UN Convention on the
Rights
>> >of the Child (CRC) entered into force in Israel.  The CRC, the most
>widely
>> >ratified human rights treaty in history, was adopted by the UN General
>> >Assembly in resolution 44/25 on 20 November 1989.  Article 4 of the
>> >Convention obliges States Parties to take "all appropriate legislative,
>> >administrative, and other measures for the implementation of the rights
>> >recognized" in the Convention.  These rights include, among others, the
>> >right to life (article 6), the right to education (article 28), the
right
>> >to be free from torture and other inhumane treatment (article 37), the
>> >right to due process (article 37), the right to health care (article
24),
>> >the right to an adequate standard of living (article 27), and the right
>to
>> >recreation and leisure (article 31). Of  particular importance to
>> >Palestinian children, article 38 of the CRC requires that States Parties
>> >ensure the protection of children who are affected by armed conflict.
>> >
>> >As a States Party to the Convention, Israel is bound by article 2 to
>ensure
>> >the rights contained therein, both in the territory of the state itself,
>> >and in areas under its control. To date, Israel has not only failed to
>> >implement the CRC in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, it has also
>> >failed to submit the required country report to the UN Committee on the
>> >Rights of the Child, required within 2 years of the date of entry into
>> >force by article 44.  Israel's report is now 7 years past due.
>> >
>> >This past month, we have seen the tragic consequences of Israel's
failure
>> >to comply with its obligations under international law, both those it
has
>> >willingly assumed, and those to which it is bound under customary
>> >international law. In a little over one month, 51 Palestinian children
>have
>> >been killed and an additional 3 have been declared clinically dead.
>These
>> >children ranged in age from 18 months to 18 years old.   According to
>> >DCI/PS fieldwork, 44 died after being shot in the upper body by Israeli
>> >military forces, including 23 shot in the head, 17 in the chest, and 1
in
>> >the neck with live ammunition, as well as 3 shot in the head with rubber
>> >coated steel bullets. In addition, around 1,700 Palestinian children
have
>> >been injured. Moreover, there are literally thousands of Palestinian
>> >children who have been traumatized by the daily exposure to extreme
>violence.
>> >
>> >Since the beginning of October 2000, thousands of Palestinian children
in
>> >the Israeli controlled H2 area of Hebron have been virtual prisoners in
>> >their own homes as a result of the continuous curfew imposed on the
area,
>a
>> >curfew that does not apply to the illegal Israeli settlers residing in
>the
>> >area.  As a result, over 30 Palestinian schools have been closed,
>including
>> >3 that have been taken over by the Israeli military and transformed into
>> >military installations.  As such, approximately 20,000 children are
>denied
>> >their right to education.  In addition are around 13,000 Palestinian
>> >children that are currently unable to travel to school as a result of
the
>> >closure imposed on Palestinian areas.  With respect to children's right
>to
>> >due process, tens of Palestinian children have been arrested, subjected
>to
>> >physical abuse, including torture, and are currently being detained
>without
>> >trial. One less obvious ramification of the current crisis is the
>negative
>> >psycho-social affects such violence will have on thousands of
Palestinian
>> >children.  Professionals participating in DCI/PS's crisis intervention
>> >project note that symptoms diagnosed thus far are: bedwetting, under
>> >eating, over eating, moderate depression, intense attachment to parents,
>> >and fear of leaving home.
>> >
>> >While the entire civilian population has suffered as a result of the
>> >Israeli attack, the affects on Palestinian children are most severe.
What
>> >we have seen in the past month is an intensification of ongoing and
>> >systematic violations of Palestinian children's rights by the Israeli
>> >occupation authorities and demonstrates both Israel's failure to abide
by
>> >international human rights and humanitarian law and the international
>> >community's failure to insist that it do so. These events not only
>> >constitute individual violations of the CRC, taken as a whole, they
>> >constitute a betrayal of the spirit and intent of the Convention itself.
>> >The extent and nature of the Israeli violations, along with the
>> >international community's failure to ensure respect for the treaty, set
a
>> >dangerous precedent that threaten the protection of children's rights
>> >globally.  In light of this situation, there is an urgent need for
>> >immediate intervention by the international community in order to
>guarantee
>> >protection of Palestinian children.
>> >
>> >-END-
>> >
>> >
>> >**Please note DCI/PS's new office location:
>> >
>> >DCI/PS
>> >Al-Bireh/Ramallah,
>> >Sateh Marhaba, Al-Khulafa' Street
>> >Al-Sartawi Building, 2nd floor
>> >Tel:   +972 2 240 7530
>> >Fax:   +972 2 240 7018
>> >(Note: please try and use +970, if the above country code does not work)
>> >Email:   dcipal@...
>> >Website:  www.dci-pal.org (click on 'new' for updated information)
>> >Mail:   P.O. Box 55201
>> >   Jerusalem
>> >
>> >Directions to New Office:
>> >
>> >Our new office is located in Sateh Marhaba, just off the main road
>between
>> >Jerusalem and Ramallah.  When coming from Jerusalem, after passing Orabi
>> >rental car and the PNA checkpoint, take the first street to the right,
>just
>> >past the checkpoint.  Then, take the first left and then an immediate
>right
>> >onto Al-Khulafa' street.  The new office is one block up Al-Khulafa'
>> >street, in the Al-Sartawi Building, 2nd Floor.  There are signs posted,
>> >starting at the main road, indicating the direction to the new office.
>> >
>> >
>> >Defence for Children International/Palestine Section
>> >is an independent, Palestinian non-governmental
>> >organization, established in 1992 to promote and
>> >protect the rights of Palestinian children as articulated
>> >in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as well
>> >as in other international instruments.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>
>
>
>

----- Original Message -----
From: tamar peleg <tamarpel@...>
To: <alef@...>
Cc: <mail@...>
Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2000 11:55 AM
Subject: ALEF: Latest Developments No. 47 - Wednesday 1 November 2000


>From: "Addameer" <addameer@...>
>Organization: Addameer Association
>To: Addameer.Mailings.4@...
>Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 02:02:13 +0200
>X-Distribution: Moderate
>Subject: Latest Developments No. 47 - Wednesday 1 November 2000
>Reply-to: addameer@...
>Priority: normal
>X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c)
>
>Latest Developments No. 47 - Wednesday 1 November 2000
>Web posted 11:45pm (GMT+2), Ramallah, West Bank
>September 2000 Clashes Information Center
>Palestine:  http://www.addameer.org/september20000/
>North America:  http://www.nigelparry.com/september2000/
>
>Late this evening, the Israeli military attacked with tanks, heavy
>machine gun fire and linked automatic 40mm 'launched' grenades
>residential areas in Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Al Khader, Tulkarem,
>Mentar Crossing in Gaza, Jericho, Al Bireh and Betunia. Israeli
>attack helicopters also attacked the cities of Jericho, Al Khader.
>and Beit Jala with LAW rockets.
>
>A strict Israeli imposed closure remains in place throughout the
>West Bank and Gaza Strip.  Clashes erupted in a number of areas
>this afternoon, with 6 Palestinians killed and 170 injured .
>Intensified Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian residents either
>travelling on major roads, attempting to harvest olive orchards, or in
>residential areas have become a daily and nightly occurrence.
>More alarmingly, Israeli settlers shooting at protesters alongside
>the Israeli military has become a common phenomena.
>
>Ahmad Salman Tayeh, 15 years old from Shate' (Beach) Refugee
>Camp, was shot and killed today by live ammunition to his head at
>Mentar Crossing, Gaza.
>
>Ibrahim Riziq Marzouk Omar, 15 years old from Shate' (Beach)
>Refugee Camp, was shot and killed today by live ammunition to his
>chest at Mentar Crossing, Gaza.
>
>Mohammad Ibrahim Hajaj, 17 years old from Shuja'iyeh, Gaza City,
>was shot and killed today by 50mm ammunition to his face at
>Mentar Crossing, Gaza.
>
>Mohammad Mahmoud Al Hroub, 27 years old an officer from the
>Palestinian Force 17, from Deir Samet, Hebron was killed this
>afternoon in Al Khader, Bethlehem.
>
>Wa'el Mohammad Shu'aib Ghneim, 28 years old from Al Khader,
>was killed today after being shot in the chest by an Israeli attack
>helicopter while standing in front of his home.
>
>Marwan Tay'eh Joum'a Assaf, 21 years old from Wadi Kofin,
>Bethlehem, was killed this evening in Al Khader.
>
>Ramallah
>Clashes erupted this afternoon at the northern entrance of Al Bireh,
>at the entrance of Jalazoune Refugee Camp and in the village of
>Deir Nitham, after the funeral of 17 year old Tha'er Ibrahim Zaid from
>Jalazoune Refugee Camp, who was shot and killed yesterday as a
>result of live ammunition to his abdomen.  At least 40 Palestinians
>were injured in the clashes.  Late this evening, heavy machine gun
>fire and linked automatic 40mm 'launched' grenades were randomly
>directed at residential areas of Al Bireh, near the Pisgot
>settlement.
>
>At the time of writing, Israeli attacks from the nearby military base
>of Ofra on residential areas of Betunia continue from heavy
>machine gun fire and linked automatic 40mm 'launched' grenades.
>Israeli attack helicopters continue to hover over the city of
>Ramallah.
>
>At approximately 8:30 PM, Israeli settlers from Bet El and soldiers
>surrounded the Jalazoune Refugee Camp and attacked residents.
>
>
>Gaza
>Clashes erupted this afternoon at the Mentar Crossing following the
>funerals for Mahmoud Ahmad Ghali Abu Al Khair, Mohammad
>Hillis, Hazem Moussa Abu Daf, Shadi Awwad Odeh, all killed
>yesterday.   Three Palestinians were killed this afternoon as a
>result of the clashes.  Ahmad Salman Tayeh, 15 years old from
>Shate' (Beach) Refugee Camp, was shot and killed by live
>ammunition to his head.  Ibrahim Riziq Marzouk Omar, 15 years
>old from Shate' (Beach) Refugee Camp, was shot and killed by live
>ammunition to his chest.  Mohammad Ibrahim Hajaj, 17 years old
>from Shuja'iyeh, Gaza City, was shot and killed by 50mm
>ammunition to his face.  At least 40 Palestinians were injured, 8 of
>which are in extremely critical condition.  Brief exchange of fire
>occurred afterwards at Mentar Crossing, followed by tank and
>artillery shelling of the area by the Israeli military.
>
>In Rafah, clashes erupted during the day, with several Palestinians
>injured, including 13 year old Abdel Aziz Ali Shaheen, who was
>shot twice by rubber coated steel bullets to his chest.  After being
>shot, Abdel Aziz was abducted by Israeli soldiers and held for
>several hours, before being handed over to the International
>Committee of the Red Cross.  No medical care was administered
>while he was taken by the Israeli authorities, leaving him in critical
>condition.
>
>In Deir Al Balah, near the Israeli settlement of Kfar Darom, a
>Palestinian pedestrian was shot by Israeli soldiers with live
>ammunition and remains in critical condition.  No clashes occurred
>in the area.
>
>Clashes erupted this evening at the Tufah Junction in Khan Younis,
>with at least 8 Palestinians injured from live ammunition, and 8
>from rubber coated steel bullets.
>
>Nablus
>No clashes were reported today in Nablus.  Israeli settlers attacked
>Palestinian farmers in the villages of Orif, Deir Al Hattab, Salem
>and Huwarra, which remains under Israeli imposed curfew for the
>25th day. In Huwarra, 18 year old Sa'id Al Safadi and 37 year old
>Saleh Al Safadi were shot by Israeli settlers, both in extremely
>critical condition.  Sa'id was shot in the neck by live ammunition
>and Saleh was shot in the chest by live ammunition.  At least 8
>Palestinians were injured while driving in their cars as a result of
>Israeli settler attacks outside of the village of Huwarra, on the main
>Ramallah-Nablus road.
>
>In the villages of Orif, Deir Al Hattab and Salem, Israeli settlers
>chased and shot at Palestinian farmers harvesting olives in their
>olive orchards.  The farmers were subsequently prevented from
>entering the orchards.  Residents in the area report that the
>settlers gathered the olives picked by the farmers and then
>proceeded to destroy all the olive trees.
>
>Bethlehem area
>Clashes erupted this afternoon near Al Bilal Mosque in Bethlehem,
>resulting in the injury of 5 Palestinians.  In the morning, Israeli
>settlers alongside Israeli soldiers, attacked the village of Al Khader.
>Four schools were closed down as Israeli settlers prevented
>children from reaching their schools. Mohammad Mahmoud Al
>Hroub, 27 years old and an officer in the Palestinian Force 17, was
>killed this afternoon in Al Khader, and 12 Palestinians injured, after
>which exchange of fire was reported between Palestinian police
>and Israeli soldiers.  An Israeli officer and a soldier were killed in
>the confrontation, with four Israeli soldiers lightly wounded.  The
>Israeli military then used tanks and heavy artillery fire in random
>attacks against the village, destroying at least 10 homes and
>injuring 20 Palestinians.  Later in the afternoon, at least 2 Israeli
>attack helicopters randomly shelled residential areas in the village,
>killing Wa'el Mohammad Shu'aib Ghneim, 26 years old from Al
>Khader, who was shot in the chest by an Israeli attack helicopter
>while standing in front of his home.  At least 10 other homes were
>damaged, and 2 homes burnt completely.  Attacks continued for
>several hours. Ambulances were also subjected to direct heavy
>machine gun fire, preventing them from reaching the village to reach
>those injured, forcing residents to use private vehicles to transport
>the injured. At least 7 Palestinians are reported to be in extremely
>critical condition.  Late this evening, Marwan Tay'eh Joum'a Assaf,
>21 years old from Wadi Kofin, Bethlehem, was reported killed as a
>result of the attacks.
>
>Early in the evening, heavy artillery, tanks and attack helicopters
>were used by the Israeli military to shell the towns of Beit Jala, Beit
>Sahour and Aida Refugee Camp.  Several homes were damaged
>and many residents reported injured.  Attacks continued late into
>the evening.
>
>Jenin
>Beginning at 3AM this morning, the villages of Silt Al Thaher and Al
>Fandoukomiyeh were raided by hundreds of Israeli soldiers, with
>tanks, armored cars and heavy artillery deployed throughout the
>area. An Israeli imposed curfew was placed on the area, houses
>were raided, and tens of residents were arrested and transferred by
>bus to the nearby settlement of Hormish.  Later on in the day, the
>Israeli military ordered residents over the age of 30 to gather at the
>schools in the area.  The Girl's school of Silt Al Thaher was
>converted into an Israeli military base, with tanks and armored cars
>deployed in the area, along with bulldozers which placed cement
>blocks throughout the road, closing off all streets in the area of
>both villages.  Palestinian residents refused to abide by the orders
>to gather in the schools and the curfew imposed on the area, with a
>number of Palestinian youth attempting to flee the area to avoid
>arrest.  Residents of Al Fandoukomiyeh made emergency calls to
>Jenin for ambulances to be sent to the area as there are no
>ambulances in the village.  However, any ambulance attempting to
>approach the two villages was subjected to Israeli military fire, and
>prevented from reaching either of the villages.
>
>Hebron
>At approximately 11:30 PM this evening, the Israeli military called
>on residents of the Sheikh and Abu Sneineh neighborhoods to
>evacuate the area immediately. No further information is available.
>At least 13 Palestinians were injured earlier this evening, with one
>in critical condition.
>
>Salfit
>Clashes erupted in Salfit late this evening, with Israeli soldiers and
>settlers shooting at residents.  No further information is available.
>
>Tulkarem
>Israeli settlers attacked this afternoon the villages of Qabalan and
>Nazlit Issa, causing damage to property and shooting at residents.
>Later, the Israeli military raided the two villages, launching an arrest
>campaign, searching homes and damaging property in the
>process. Outside the city of Tulkarem, near Khadoureh College,
>the Israeli military shot from a nearby military post with heavy
>machine gun fire and linked automatic 40mm 'launched' grenades
>into the area and in the direction of the college, which only
>resumed classes two days ago after previous Israeli attacks.  Fires
>started around the college as a result of the assault.  Heavy
>artillery and tanks also shelled residential areas in the city of
>Tulkarem, causing damage to tens of houses and one school, with
>electricity and phone lines subsequently cut.  Fires were also
>reported at
>the Fadliyeh School and the office of the Regional Agricultural Affairs,
>affiliated to the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture, after being
>subjected to direct heavy machine gun fire.  Tawfik Hassan Abu
>Thareef, a Palestinian in his late 40s, was directly hit by heavy
>machine gun fire while attempting to evacuate a family from their
>nearby home. He is reported to be in extremely critical condition
>and is presently undergoing surgery.  The total number of
>Palestinians injured in Tulkarem is not known as of yet.
>
>Jericho
>Armed confrontations took place this afternoon in Jericho, with one
>Israeli officer killed.  The Israeli military shelled late in the evening
>Aqbat Jaber Refugee Camp with heavy artillery, tanks and at least
>two LAW missiles from attack helicopters.  No information on
>injuries and damage is available.
>
>Jerusalem
>Clashes erupted this afternoon in Qalandia Refugee Camp, Al Ram
>and Shufat.  No information on injuries is available.  An intense
>arrest campaign by the Israeli authorities continues throughout
>areas in Jerusalem.
>______________________________________________________________________
>ADDAMEER - Prisoners' Support and Human Rights Association
>PO Box: 17338, Jerusalem.
>Ramallah, West Bank.
>Tel: +972-2-2960446 Fax: +972-2-2960447
>E-mail: addameer@...
>URL: http://www.addameer.org/
>______________________________________________________________________
>
>