When Richard Carleton Interviewed Ghassan Kanafani

Here is my transcription of the late Australian broadcast journalist Richard Carleton's 1970 interview with the Beirut-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) spokesman Ghassan Kanafani, as posted by the Lebanese-American academic Asad Abukhalil (otherwise known as The Angry Arab) on his Twitter feed on 25/6/19.

But first a word from Kanafani's Danish wife Anni to put you in the picture regarding what you are about to read:

"If none of the hundreds of foreign correspondents who filled the by then legendary office at Al-Hadaf [the PFLP's newspaper] were unable to put Ghassan down in a dialogue, it was because the answers he always gave were penetrating, sharp and accurate, the main reason being that the cause which he was defending - the Palestinian revolutionary struggle - is a just one." (Ghassan Kanafani, Palestine Research Center, 1973)

Note also that I have modified some of Kanafani's syntax for greater clarity of meaning:

Richard Carleton: Of the 11 Palestinian movements the most radical of all is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)... It was the Popular Front that hijacked and blew up 3 [sic] jet aircraft at Revolution Airport in the Jordanian desert... The Beirut leader of the Popular Front is Ghassan Kanafani. He was born in Palestine but fled in 1948, as he puts it from Zionist terror. Since then he's been plotting the destruction of both the Zionists and the reactionary Arabs.
Ghassan Kanafani: I know what I know really that the history of the world is always the history of weak people fighting strong people, of weak people, who have a correct case, fighting strong people, who use their strength to exploit the weak.
RC: Turn to the fighting that's been going on in Jordan in recent weeks.* It's your organisation that's been one side of the fight. What has it achieved?
GK:  One thing. That we had a case to fight for. That's a lot. This people, the Palestinian people, prefer to die standing than to lose its case. We proved that King [Hussein] is wrong. We proved that this Palestinian nation is going to continue fighting until victory. We proved that our people can never be defeated. We taught every single person in this world that we are a small, brave nation who are prepared to fight to the last drop of blood for justice for ourselves after the world failed to give it to us. This is what we achieved.
RC: It does seem that the war, the civil war, has been quite fruitless.
GK: It is not a civil war. It's a people defending themselves against a fascist government which you are defending simply because King Hussein has an Arafat problem. It's not a civil war.
RC: Well, the conflict...
GK:  It's not a conflict. It's a liberation movement fighting for justice.
RC: Well, whatever it might be best called...
GK:  Not whatever, because this is where the problem starts. Because this is what makes you ask all your questions. This is exactly where the problem starts. This is a people who are discriminated against fighting for their rights. This is the story. If you say it's a civil war, then your question will be justified. If you say it's a conflict, then, of course, it'll come as a surprise to know what's happening.
RC: Why won't your organisation engage in peace talks with the Israelis?
GK:  You don't mean peace talks exactly. You mean capitulation, surrender.
RC: Why not just talk?
GK: Talk to whom?
RC: Talk to the Israeli leaders.
GK: That kind of conversation is between the sword and the neck.
RC: Well, if there were no swords or guns in the room, you could still talk.
GK: No, I have never seen any talk between a colonialist case and a national liberation movement.
RC: But despite this, why not talk?
GK: Talk about what?
RC: Talk about the possibility of not fighting.
GK: Not fighting for what?
RC: Not fighting at all. No matter what for.
GK:  People usually fight for something, and they stop fighting for something. So tell me what is it we should speak about.
RC: Stop fighting...
GK: Or rather what is it we should stop fighting for to talk about?
RC: Talk to stop fighting, to stop the death, the misery, the destruction, the pain.
GK: Whose death, misery, destruction and pain?
RC: Of Palestinians, of Israelis, of Arabs.
GK:  Of the Palestinian people who are uprooted, forced into refugee camps, starved, murdered for 20 years, and forbidden even to call themselves Palestinians.
RC: Better that way than dead though.
GK: Maybe to you, but to us, no.To us, to liberate our country, to have dignity, to have respect, to have our basic human rights, is as essential as life itself.
RC: You call King Hussein a fascist. Who else among the Arab leaders are you totally opposed to?
GK: We consider the Arab governments to be of two kinds. Ones we call reactionaries who are tied to imperialism: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Tunisia. Then there are the other Arab governments, which we call the military placebos [?], such as Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Algeria and so on.
RC: Let me get back to the hijacking of the aircraft.** On reflection, do you think that was now a mistake?
GK: We didn't make a mistake in hijacking them. On the contrary, they were one of the most correct things we ever did.

***

Nothing so much as the manner of their lives and deaths, conferred only by an accident of birth, confirms the vast gulf separating the privileged, white colonial reporter from Australia, Richard Carleton (1943-2006), and the exiled Palestinian driven out of his ancestral homeland by Zionist terror gangs in 1948, Ghassan Kanafani (1936-1972).

While Carleton returned to Australia to do the kind of work he enjoyed doing, eventually ending up working for Channel 9 television's 60 Minutes program, and dying of a heart attack while on the job at the age of 62,  Kanafani, aged just 36 at time of his death, was cruelly incinerated along with his 17-year-old niece, Lamees, on July 8 1972 after Israel's Mossad had planted explosives on his car.

You will be interested to know that Richard Carleton is the father of James Carleton who runs ABC Radio National's God Forbid program. To give you the measure of the son, see my 16/7/13 post Our ABC Owned for a transcription of his interview with George Galloway.

[* Carleton here is referring to the period of fighting in Jordan between the armed Palestinian resistance movement, led by Yasser Arafat's Fatah, and allied Palestinian groups such as the PFLP. The fighting ran from 6/9/70 - 17/7/71; **Briefly, Carleton here is referring to the PFLP's hijacking of 5 planes from 6/9/70 to 9/9/70 to Dawson's Field in Jordan. In August 1969, Leila Khaled was one of a PFLP commando unit which hijacked a TWA flight. She ordered the pilot to fly over her ancestral city, Haifa, and land in Syria where the plane was blown up after its passengers were evacuated. In September 1970, she and Patrick Arguello, a Nicaraguan-American, hijacked Israeli EL AL flight 219 from Amsterdam, forcing it to land at Dawson's Field. Patrick was martyred by an Israeli security guard. Leila was captured and flown to a police lockup in Britain. Note that all planes hijacked to Jordan were blown up by PFLP commandos after they had evacuated the passengers.]

The Balancing Act 3

"Finally, the UN Report indicted Hamas for its 'extrajudicial executions' of suspected collaborators during Protective Edge. 'The fact that the majority of the victims had been arrested and detained before the conflict,' it observed, 'prompts concerns that they were executed in order to increase pressure on Gaza's population, with a view to preventing others from spying.' Most executions 'occurred a day after three [Hamas] commanders were killed by the IDF.' The Report also noted that because of the 'stigma' attached to collaboration, these executions had 'devastating' effects on family members, who had to cope with 'indelible stains' on their 'reputation and honor.' Inasmuch as the Report expressed sympathy for an alleged Israeli quandary (on releasing information), it might have paused to contemplate Hamas's quandary of resisting a brutal invasion while plagued by internal collaborators directly or indirectly on the payroll of the enemy. The Russian revolutionist Leon Trotsky cogently argued that in the midst of a foreign invasion, the threat of incarceration will not deter potential collaborators, because the very premise of aligning with the enemy is that its victory impends: '[T]hey cannot be terrorized by the threat of imprisonment, as [they do] not believe in its duration. It is just this simple but decisive fact that explains the widespread recourse to shooting.' It is in no way to extenuate Hamas executions to pose the inescapable question, How else was Hamas supposed to deter collaborators? The prohibition on executing collaborators would appear to fall into the same category as the prohibition on indiscriminate weapons: an insoluble dilemma. It might be recalled that a leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising expressed as 'our great guilt' that 'immediately from the first day, we didn't kill' the Jewish collaborators. 'If a few of them had been killed, others would have been afraid to join the police. They should have been hanged on lamp poles, to threaten them... I'm sure that whenever there is internal treason, war must begin by destroying it.' The Report determined that these Hamas executions, not 'may' but unquestionably did 'amount to a war crime,' and it exhorted, 'whoever is responsible for the killings... must be brought to justice.' Nowhere in its indictment of Israel did the Report use such unequivocal and emphatic language. It also called upon Hamas to 'combat the stigma faced by families of alleged collaborators.' Although it acknowledged that Hamas had already undertaken to 'support the families of persons accused of collaboration,' the Report concluded that 'the far-reaching effects of stigma call for a stronger response.' Was Hamas legally required to organize a Collaborator Pride parade? " (Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom, Norman Finkelstein, 2018, pp 322-323)

Finish.

The Balancing Act 2

"The UN Report [officially, Report of the Detailed Findings of the Independent Commission of Inquiry Established Pursuant to to Human Rights Council Resolution S21/1 (22 June 2015)] set the stage for its indictment of Hamas by citing directly or indirectly official Israeli sources depicting a formidable Hamas weapons arsenal. But the battlefield performance of these weapons strongly suggested that the bulk of them consisted of little more than enhanced fireworks. The Report also dutifully regurgitated Israeli claims regarding the dazzling performance of the Iron Dome antimissile defense system, even though recognized experts and the facts on the ground refuted them. In an unusual acknowledgment, the Report did observe that  according to 'security experts,' Hamas's 'declared official policy' during [Operation] Protective Edge [in 2014] was 'to focus on military or semi-military targets and to avoid other targets, especially civilians.' It went on to document instances in which Hamas appeared to be targeting Israeli combatants and military objectives, while Israel itself acknowledged that Hamas mortar shells killed ten IDF combatants positioned on the Israeli side of the border. The report also observed that Hamas attempted 'in a few instances' to warn Israeli civilians of impending attacks and, in fact, these Hamas alerts were more effective than those issued by Israel 'because - unlike in Gaza - residents could flee to other areas of Israel less exposed to threats.' However, the Report found that the 'vast majority' of Hamas projectiles targeted 'population centers in Israel.' It devoted fully 15 paragraphs in graphic detail the effects of these Hamas attacks, even though only six civilians in Israel were killed and property damage was negligible. It is often suggested (although not by the Report) that if so few civilians died it was only on account of Iron Dome... The argument is factually false - Iron Dome probably didn't save many and perhaps not any lives - and even if it were true, irrelevant: if additional civilians would have been killed absent Israel's civil defense/shelter system and structurally sound edifices, should the casualty account then tally how many Israelis would have died if they lived in sub-standard, Gaza-like conditions? If calculation were to be based on 'all things being equal,' it abstracts from the root injustice that Israel and Palestine are not equal.

"The UN Report found that Hamas's projectile attacks 'may' have constituted 'war crimes':

*Hamas rocket attacks - 'rockets cannot be directed at a specific military objective and therefore strikes employing these weapons constitute indiscriminate attacks'; 'statements... indicate intent to direct those attacks against civilians';
*Hamas mortar attacks - 'statements... indicate in some cases... intent to target civilian communities... if they were used to target civilians or civilian objects, this would be a violation of the principle of distinction'; '[in] the cases in which attacks were directed at military objectives located amidst or in close vicinity to civilians or civilian objects, mortars are not the most appropriate weapons. The imprecise nature of mortars makes it difficult for an attacking party using this weapon in an area in which there is a concentration of civilians to distinguish between civilians and civilian objects and and the military objective of the attack.'

"In its defense, Hamas pleaded that 'Palestinian rockets are 'primitive' and not very technologically advanced but nevertheless the factions attempted to direct their rockets at military targets in Israel.' The Report curtly and coldly rejoined: 'The military capacity of the parties to a conflict is irrelevant to their obligation to respect the prohibition against indiscriminate attacks.' The humanitarian rationale behind prohibiting use of indiscriminate weapons is self-evident. But (in)discriminateness is a relative notion. It varies according to the most sophisticated guidance system currently available for a particular line of weaponry. So it is equally self-evident that the prohibition against indiscriminate weapons discriminates against poor states or nonstate actors that cannot afford cutting-edge technology. In the instant case, the Report effectively criminalized nearly the whole of Hamas's primitive arsenal.. And thereby it denied Gaza the 'inherent' right (anchored in the UN Charter) of armed self-defense, and the right (effectively sanctioned by international law) of armed resistance in its self-determination struggle. Even if it is admitted that notwithstanding its discriminatory effects, cogent reasons might be adduced to preserve intact the prohibition, still it hardly befits a human rights document to peremptorily dismiss as 'irrelevant' a wholly reasonable (if debatable) objection. It also warrants attention how much more sensitive the Report was to Israeli concerns. For example, the Report 'recognizes the dilemma that Israel faces in releasing information that would disclose in detail the targets of military strikes, given that such information may be classified and jeopardize intelligence sources.' Although it still placed 'the onus... on Israel to provide sufficient details on its targeting decisions to allow an independent assessment of the legality of the attacks,' the Report not only evinced a sensitivity absent in its high-handed dismissal of Hamas, but it also credited the Israeli alibi that information was withheld out of security concerns, and not because its release may undercut official lies. The Report proceeded to infer a sinister motive lurking behind Hamas rocket attacks. If these projectiles couldn't accurately target military objectives, then the Report 'cannot exclude the possibility that the indiscriminate rocket attacks may may constitute acts of violence whose primary purpose is to spread terror amongst the civilian population.' Spreading terror might have been Hamas's motive, but other possible motives also leap to mind. The rocket attacks could have been 'belligerent reprisals' (which international law does not forbid) to compel Israel to cease and desist from its terroristic assault on Gazan society. The Report itself noted that Hamas 'issued a statement confirming [its] intention to target Israeli civilians in response to Israel's 'targeting of Palestinian civilians in their homes and shelters.' Or consider the motive professed by Hamas leader Khalid Mishal during Operation Cast Lead (2008-9): 'Our modest, home-made rockets are our cry of protest to the world.' One wonders why the Report did not entertain these more benign possibilities.

"International law requires all parties to a conflict to 'take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding... injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.' The UN Report alleged that despite substantial impediments to its investigation, it was able to divine 'patterns of behavior' by Hamas that breached this legal obligation. It cited a quartet of incidents where Hamas fired rockets in close proximity to civilians. As it happens, Amnesty pointed to the identical four incidents in its indictment of Hamas. The duplication suggests a paucity of corroborative evidence. The Report also cited a handful of instances where Hamas 'conducted 'military operations within or in close proximity to sites benefiting from special protection under international law' - in particular, the environs of two to three schools and a church. These incidents were also cited in earlier investigations. The Report further noted that 'official Israeli' sources repeatedly accused Hamas of violating the 'feasible precautions' obligation, but it 'was not able to independently verify' these allegations. The Report acknowledged that the 'feasible precautions' obligation 'is not absolute'; that 'even if there are areas that are not residential, Gaza's small size and its population density make it particularly difficult for armed groups always to comply' with the obligation; and that several signatories to the relevant international instrument stipulated that 'for densely populated countries, the requirement to avoid locating military objectives within densely populated areas would be difficult to apply.' Still, the Report concluded that in light of 'the number of cases' in which Hamas 'carried out military operations within or in the immediate vicinity of civilian objects and specifically protected objects, it does not appear that this behavior was simply a consequence of the normal course of military operations,' and, 'therefore,' the law 'was not always complied with.' Although this was a cautious and qualified finding, the question must nonetheless be posed, Did the Report substantiate it? It would have to show that the instances it documented gave proof of a deliberate Hamas choice not to avoid civilian and protected objects, and were not just random events consequent on 'the normal course of military operations' in a densely populated civilian terrain. But the handful of incidents recycled by the Report, during a 51-day armed conflict in which Hamas fired seven thousand projectiles and engaged an invading army with unprecedented combat losses on both sides, does not appear to reach the evidentiary threshold of a 'pattern.' The Report not only failed to substantiate its qualified assertion but also indulged in groundless speculation. For example, it stated that 'if it is confirmed that in using... locations to conduct military operations, armed groups did so with the intent to use the presence of civilians or persons hors de combat... to prevent their military assets from being attacked, this would constitute a violation of the customary law prohibition to use human shields' and 'would amount to a war crime.' But the Report didn't provide a scintilla of evidence demonstrating such 'intent.' What was the point of such baseless conjecture, of which this is just one example, except to plant a false image in the reader's mind, or to appease Israel, which repeatedly accused Hamas of human shielding, or both? In its most audacious - or outrageous - speculation, the report verged on criminalizing nonviolent civil resistance as it posited that Hamas might wrongly exploit it:

'In one case of the bombing of a residential building examined by the commission, information gathered indicates that following a specific warning by the IDF that the house was to be targeted, several people went to the roof of the house in order to 'protect' the house. Should they have been directed to do so by members of Palestinian armed groups, this would amount to the use of of the presence of civilians in an attempt to shield a military objective from attack, in violation of the customary law prohibition to use human shields. With regard to this incident, the commission is disturbed by the reported call by the spokesperson of Hamas to the people of Gaza to adopt the practice of of shielding their homes from attack by going up on their roofs. Although the call is directed to the residents of Gaza, it can be seen and understood as an encouragement to Palestinian groups to use human shields.'

"Instead of showing compassion for Gazans as they risked life and limb to protect their, and their neighbors', family homes, the Report zeroed in on Hamas in order to deny it, on purely conjectural grounds, one of the few means of nonviolent resistance available to it in the midst of an annihilative attack - even going so far as to brand the Islamic movement's encouragement of such self-willed, heartrending acts, whose spiritual lineage traces back to Gandhi, an embryonic war crime It is also cause for sheer bewilderment why the Report designated an unambiguously civilian dwelling as a 'military objective' - did it automatically lose its protective status once Israel decided to target it, or did the Report start from the premise that everyone and everything in Gaza was, if not aligned, than alloyed with terrorism?" (Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom, Norman Finkelstein, 2018, pp 315-22)

To be continued...

Remi Kanazi Denied Visa after ADC Intervention

The following Australian government outrage hasn't, to my knowledge, been covered in the mainstream Australian press. Here is the text of a petition circulating on the matter. (It may be found at www.megaphone.org.au/petitions/overturn-visa-ban-let-palestinian-poet-into-australia):

"World renowned American, Palestinian writer, poet and organiser Remi Kanazi has had his visa revoked. He was planning a speaking and performance tour of Australia. The organisers of his tour claim that the denial of his visa is an attack on free speech and the right of Palestinians to enter this country. Kanazi has been denied a visa after a campaign by the Anti-Defamation Commission to the minister for immigration.

"Marxism Conference organiser Vashti Kenway says that 'The denial of Kanazi's visa is a clear violation of the right of free speech in this country. This is the second time Palestinian speakers at our Marxism Conference have have had a visa denied them and the third to have major issues.'

"In 2016 Palestinian American journalist Ali Abunimah had to battle to get a visa into Australia and in 2017 Bassem Tamimi from the Palestinian Occupied Territories, father of political prisoner Ahed Tamimi, was denied entry. Prominent Palestinian spokesperson Nasser Mashni from Australians for Palestine says: 'This decision is an act of selective, politically-motivated censorship. It is clear the government is deliberately silencing and preventing human rights defenders and Palestinian voices for justice from being heard in Australia.'

"The Anti-Defamation Commission claim Kanazi is anti-semitic for his support for Palestinian resistance and have garnered support for their campaign from a number of MPs.

'The conflation of support for Palestinian resistance with anti-semitism is a common trope. Similar accusations have been levelled at British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and American senator Ilhan Omar in recent months. This is slander and operates to silence Palestinian voices. Standing up for the human right of Palestinians to resist their occupation and the war waged against them is entirely justified,' Kenway claims.

"Kanazi is a globally renowned and respected commentator on Palestinian issues. His political commentary has been featured by news outlets throughout the world including the New York Times, Salon, Al Jazeera English and BBC Radio. He has appeared in the Palestine Festival of Literature. this is the first time that he has ever been denied a visa anywhere in the world."

You click on the 'Remi Kanazi' label below to read his poem, The Dos & Don'ts of Palestine. And while we're at it, here's another from his 2011 collection, Poetic Injustice: Writings on Resistance & Palestine:

Only as Equals

every time I think of 9/11
I see burning flesh
dripping off the bones
of Iraqi children in Fallujah
now Gaza
I tend to memorialize the forgotten
the collateral damage
eclipsing America's unpunished crimes

maybe it's because I'm a numbers guy?
because if I had a dollar
for every time
an Iraqi died since 2003
I'd be a millionaire

and don't get me wrong
sometimes I don't know
who to hate more
the governments in the West
or the politicians in the East
who sell their souls
quicker than the oil they export
straw men who use Palestine
as a tool to line their pockets
and don't give a nickel
to their people
quisling governments
who stitch mouths shut for a check
from Washington and AIPAC
how can they be
Israel's prototypical anti-Semite
if they're signing peace accords
to oppress their own people?

then Orientalists and hypocrites
talk about how democracy
can't be allowed in the Middle East
because of what happened in Gaza
a Hamas bogeyman
wrapped in democratic elections
Rahm Emmanuel wants to educate me
and my people
about democracy gone wrong
why doesn't he try
implementing one in Israel first?
instead of bowing down to terrorists
like his father and the IDF
lauding a third-rate, racist, European society
that's imploding faster
than its moral standing in the world
enlightened like 1950s Afrikaners
and slave traders
just because the house is beautiful
doesn't mean the bones you built it on
have fully decomposed

the Israeli left
is about alive as Ariel Sharon
I'm sick and tired
of asking for permission to resist
from antiquated leftists and progressives
who care more about keeping it Kosher
than moving things forward

I put down my pen and waving fist
to resist with college kids
and Palestinians
boycott and divest
because who cares about
preserving a living
when governments
are killing civilians?

we'll boycott Elbit Systems
Caterpillar and your apartheid companies
we're taking back the right of return
and the keys to our country
because we never asked you
to go back to Europe
or sit in open-air prisons
I'm not asking for your advice
I'm explaining the decision

you can stay here
with us
but only as equals
it's not that you're Israeli
it's that you're wrong
that's why I fight for my people!

Martyrs of the Third Intifada

"One of the most enduring popular movements of 2018 has been the ongoing Great March of Return in the besieged Gaza Strip. Since 30 March, thousands of Palestinians in the small coastal territory have demonstrated along the boundary with Israel, demanding the implementation of Palestinian refugees' right of return and an end to the crippling 11-year siege of Gaza.

"But such high-scale mobilisation has come at a high cost: according to Middle East Eye's calculations, 190 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces within the scope of the demonstrations between 30 march and 30 November - equivalent to one Palestinian killed every 31 hours in eight months. The numbers exclude more than 50 victims of air strikes or other Israeli military actions when demonstrations were not taking place.The death toll peaked on 14 May - the day the US opened its embassy in Jerusalem - when 68 people were killed.

"During that same time frame, more than 25,000 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli forces in Gaza, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. One Israeli soldier was killed within the context of the March." (from Gaza: The Palestinians who died during the Great March of Return, Ahmad Nafi and Chloe Benoist, middleeasteye.net, 28/12/18)

Murders Most Foul

What a world we live in.

One where the murder most foul of Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi by a Saudi death squad has been universally - and quite correctly - condemned by Western pundits. Since we are all aware of the horrific details of Khashoggi's death I need not repeat them here.

Suffice it to say that when thinking of Khashoggi's appalling end, I cannot help but recall another murder most foul, that of Hamas resistance fighter Mahmoud al-Mabhouh by a  Mossad death squad in a Dubai hotel room on 19 January, 2010.

In case you've forgotten the details, according to the Dubai police report which followed his death, al-Mabhouh was held down in his hotel room and injected with a substance which paralysed him completely, but left him fully conscious of his murderers' next step - they placed a pillow over his head and suffocated him to death.

Al-Mabhouh's death, like Khashoggi's, is one of those that no one with even a shred of decency can contemplate with any degree of equanimity. Hence my term murder most foul. The sheer terror of al-Mabhouh's final moments on this planet, like those of Khashoggi's, is literally the stuff of horror stories. Just to reiterate al-Mabhouh's grisly end, try imagining what it must be like to be fully conscious of what your murderers are doing to you, but unable, in any way, shape, or form, to resist. You simply cannot.

But there's another dimension to these two murders most foul.

While today's Western pundits have, to a man and woman, rightly, as I have already indicated, condemned Khashoggi's Saudi murderers, back in 2010, the Mossad murderers of al-Mabhouh received only applause from the same crowd.

And al-Mabhouh, Palestinian resistance fighter? The Western pundits of 2010, one and all, simply wrote him off as a terrorist deserving of his fate.

The Great March of Return

"Israeli forces have killed 7 Palestinians, two of them children, and shot more than 90 others in one of the bloodiest days of a six-month protest movement along the frontier, the Gaza health ministry said." (Two children among seven people shot dead by Israel, say officials, Oliver Holmes, theguardian.com, 30/9/18)

"... one of the bloodiest days of a six-month protest... "

Think about that. Six months! 180 people dead so far. Thousands more maimed and wounded. And why? Because they simply want to exercise their inalienable right as refugees to return home.

If anyone can point me to a more sustained and heroic display of bodies-on-the-line under fire, I'd like to know about it.

Then there are their serial killers.

If anyone can point me to a more sustained, more mechanical response to unarmed protesters than that of Israel's snipers, I'd like to hear about it.

And while I'm at it, if anyone can point me to a more sustained silence on the subject of what have been weekly massacres of defenceless civilians in Gaza than that displayed by the Australian msm....

A Class of Their Own

"Israel is to build hundreds of new homes in a settlement in the occupied West Bank where a Palestinian stabbed three Israelis, one fatally, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said yesterday." (Israel to build 400 units to avenge knife attack, AFP/The Australian, 28/7/18)

So Israel wouldn't have expanded its settlement otherwise? Was there ever a more cruel and casuistical colonisation in the annals of settler-colonialism than the Israeli?

Another Zionist Attack on Australian Aid to Palestinians

You'll recall the case of World Vision's Gaza director Mohammed El-Halabi, seized by the Israelis in 2016 and falsely accused of diverting Australian aid money to Hamas, despite neither the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade nor World Vision Australia finding any evidence for the accusation. (See my 23/3/17 post The Halabi Affair.) (And incidentally, here it is, June 2018, and, search as I may on the Internet, I can find no reference to what has happened to El-Halabi.)

Now, another Australian aid organisation, the ACTU's Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA, has come under attack by the usual suspects for the heinous crime of helping dispossessed and colonised Palestinians.

'Venomous' doesn't begin to describe Murdoch's Daily Telegraph. "TERROR EXCLUSIVE" shrieked its front page yesterday, "Audit into jihadi links to Aussie aid - GAZA DRIP." (That final shriek, btw, gets my nomination for any 'Lamest MSM Pun of the Year' competition currently in contemplation.)

That was followed by this opener from "national political editor," Sharri Markson:

"An urgent investigation is under way after revelations millions of taxpayer dollars are being funnelled to a Palestinian aid organisation in the Middle East that employed a leader of a terrorist group. The Daily Telegraph can today reveal the money web that sees cash move from the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade through a Sydney-based charity to a Palestinian aid organisation which employed the leader of a vicious jihadi group known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The PFLP has masterminded plane hijackings and suicide bombings, and is on the official terror lists of the US, the European Union and Canada. In total, $21 million of DFAT funding has been given to a charity set up by the unions, Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA, which has funnelled millions through to the Ma'an Development Centre - whose project co-ordinator in Gaza was the recently killed PFLP leader Ahmed Abdullah Al Adine. He was hailed a martyr at his funeral, which was guarded by at least a dozen PFLP terrorists. Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop last night said a 'full audit of funding' to Union Aid Abroad had been ordered."

Describing the Marxist PFLP* as "a vicious jihadi group" is just the kind of cheap propaganda you'd expect from Markson, once described by former Labor politician, now Murdoch columnist for The Australian, Graham Richardson (in a model of understatement) as someone who can be "irritating and sometimes go too far."

Two things should always be kept in mind whenever Israelis, or their fifth columnists in places like Australia, start banging on about 'Palestinian terrorism'. 

The first is that the Palestinians, like all occupied people, have the legal right, in the words of UNGA resolution 37/43 of 1982, to resist occupying forces "by all available means, including armed struggle." 

The second is that for Zionists to bleat about 'Palestinian terrorism' is the very height of hypocrisy. Not only did they use terror in their ruthless, armed takeover of British Mandate Palestine, but they have continued using it on a daily basis against defenceless Palestinians and others ever since.

The Israelis have, of course, long been gunning for both APHEDA and World Vision Australia, as this propaganda piece from Jason Edelstein of NGO Monitor, published in Murdoch's Australian in 2012, indicates:

"In a new report, Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Centre) presents 'conclusive evidence' that a Gaza-based organisation supported by two Australian groups is linked to the Popular Front for the liberation of Palestine terror group. The report explains that the Australian Agency for International Development and World Vision Australia are 'providing financial aid and other forms of material support to the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, an agency of the proscribed terror organisation the PFLP... As NGO Monitor has shown, APHEDA... engages in activities that fuel the conflict and do not promote humanitarian objectives. APHEDA campaigns for a one-sided and immoral arms embargo that would impair Israeli defence against terror attacks, uses demonising 'apartheid' language, endorses the so-called Palestinian 'right of return' and partners with organisations promoting BDS and 'lawfare' tactics. Its Middle East tours have served as the basis for promoting BDS campaigns in Australia." (No peace in hidden agenda of aid agencies, 30/3/12)

[*For George Habash and the PFLP see my 6/5/18 post Gideon Levy: 'Habash Was Right'.]

AUJS is Joking, Right?

Hm....

"A female suicide bomber who killed dozens of Israeli soldiers has graced the front cover of a University of Sydney student newspaper, and Jewish students who complained about the cover have been 'condemned' for censorship. Hamida al-Taher killed more than 50 people, mainly Israeli military personnel, when she blew herself up in Southern Lebanon in 1985. The special edition of the University of Sydney's student newspaper Honi Soit, produced by the student women's collective a fortnight ago, put her on the cover and called her a 'martyr' in an issue dedicated to the struggle against 'Israeli colonisation'. The student queer collective's edition of Honi Soit on April 16 was criticised for having a picture of a petrol bomb on the cover and supporting a boycott of Israel. The Australasian Union of Students has called for an apology over the covers. 'They are particularly disturbing to Jewish students as they display a blatant disdain for Israeli victims of violence,' AUJS national political director Noa Bloch said." (Jewish students take aim at 'distressing' paper, Richard Ferguson, The Australian, 8/6/18)

WTF?

What is it that the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) just doesn't get here?

Maybe some capital letters will help:

A LEBANESE freedom fighter dies in an operation which kills ISRAELI troops occupying LEBANON, and is therefore hailed a martyr. But, for some strange reason, the AUSTRALASIAN Union of Jewish Students that's a no-no.

Now AUSTRALIAN troops have killed God knows how many TURKS, VIETNAMESE, AFGHANS and IRAQIS in TURKEY, VIETNAM, AFGHANISTAN and IRAQ respectively, and are honoured for their 'sacrifice' with an annual commemoration known as Anzac Day. But, presumably, the AUSTRALASIAN Union of Jewish Students has no problem with that.

Hope that helps.

Australia's Senate Hard at Work

So good to see our talent in the Senate hard at work serving Australia the state of Israel, and earning every cent of their near $200,000 p.a. salary.

Senator Leyonjelm, you'll remember, recently returned from the apartheid state, determined to put pressure on the Australian government to end our funding for the United Nations Relief & Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which, quite coincidentally of course, just happens to be on Israel's to-do list. (Parenthetically, given Evatt's role in the partition of Palestine in 1947, which gave the Zionists all the excuse they needed to go on the warpath and create the very problem UNRWA was set up to deal with, I'd say helping fund it is the least we can do for our part in this ongoing crime against humanity.)

But Leyonjelm's just an unproven, raw recruit in the ranks of those Australian senators who've got the hots for Israel. If you really want to see a master at work, check out Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz's latest (31/5) media release:

"Liberal Senator Eric Abetz has welcomed Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's letter to the Palestinian Authority asking them to explain whether Australian aid funding is creating space within their budget to fund the so-called Martyr's [sic] Fund. Senator Abetz, a Member of the Australian Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee, has long advocated for the Australian Government to use its influence in an effort to end the Martyr's [sic] Fund which rewards the families of Palestinian terrorists who kill or harm Israeli citizens, including civilians. In 2017-18, Australia is providing more than $43 million in aid to the Palestinian territories. 'The Palestinian Martyr Fund [?] not only encourages murder and terror attacks, it is a major barrier to peace in the Middle East. The 'please explain' issued by the Foreign Minister is a strong and very welcome action that will hopefully apply pressure to the Palestinian Authority to end this murderous programme,' Senator Abetz said. 'Australia's strong defence of Israel in the United Nations shows a clear determination by the Government to back Israel as the only free and democratic nation in the Middle East. I am very pleased that the Foreign Minister has taken on board the representations made by myself and colleagues on this important issue which goes to the heart of our Australian values. Should the Palestinian Authority continue to fund murder and attacks through this or other PA funds, I am hopeful that the Australian Government will take the further step of pausing all Aid until the programme is eliminated,' Senator Abetz concluded." (Government issues 'please explain' to Palestinian Authority, abetz.com.au)

Gideon Levy: 'Habash Was Right'

One of Gideon Levy's best essays: This biography makes it clear: The founder f the Palestinian Popular Front was right (Haaretz, 15/4/18):

"George Habash was Israel's absolute enemy for decades, the embodiment of evil, the devil incarnate. Even the title 'Dr.' before his name - he was a pediatrician - was considered blasphemous. Habash was plane hijackings, Habash was terror and terror alone. In a country that doesn't recognize the existence of Palestinian political parties (have you ever heard of a Palestinian political party? - there are only terror groups) knowledge about the man who headed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was close to zero. What's there to know about him? A terrorist. Subhuman. Should be killed. Enemy. The fact that he was an ideologue and a revolutionary, that his life was shaped by the expulsion from Lod, changed nothing. He remains the plane hijacker from Damascus, the man from the Rejectionist front who was no different from all the rest of the 'terrorists' from Yasser Arafat to Wadi Haddad to Nayef Hawatmeh.

"Now along comes Eli Galia's Hebrew-language book 'George Habash: A Political Biography.' It outlines the reality, far from the noise of propaganda, ignorance and brainwashing, for the Israeli reader who agrees to read a biography of the enemy. Presumably only a few will read it, but this work by Galia, a Middle East affairs expert, is very deserving of praise. It's a political biography, as noted in its subtitle, so it almost entirely lacks the personal, spiritual and psychological dimension; there's not even any gossip. So reading it requires a lot of stamina and specialized tastes. Still, it's fascinating.

"Galia has written a nonjudgmental and certainly non-propagandistic biography. Taking into consideration the Israeli mind today, this isn't to be taken for granted. Galia presents a wealth of information, with nearly a thousand footnotes, about the political path of Habash, a man who was considered dogmatic even though he underwent a number of ideological reversals in his life. If that's dogmatism, what's pragmatism? The dogmatic Habash went through more ideological changes than any Israeli who sticks to the Zionist narrative and doesn't budge an inch - and who of course isn't considered dogmatic.

"In the book, Habash is revealed as a person of many contradictions: a member of the Christian minority who was active in the midst of a large Muslim majority, a bourgeois who became a Marxist, a tough and inflexible leader who was once seen weeping in his room as he wrote an article about Israel's crimes against his people. He had to wander and flee for his life from place to place, sometimes more for fear of Arab regimes than of Israel. He was imprisoned in Syria and fled Jordan, he devoted his life to a revolution that never happened. It's impossible not to admire a person who devoted his life to his ideas, just as you have to admire the scholar who has devoted so much research for so few readers who will take an interest in the dead Habash, in an Israel that has lost any interest in the occupation and the Palestinian struggle.

"The book gives rise to the bleak conclusion that Habash was right. For most of his life he was a bitter enemy of compromises, and Arafat, the man of compromise, won the fascinating historical struggle between the two. They had a love-hate relationship, alternately admiring and scorning each other, and never completely breaking off their connection until Arafat won his Pyrrhic victory. What good have all of Arafat's compromises done for the Palestinian people? What came out of the recognition of Israel, of the settling for a Palestinian state on 22% of the territory, of the negotiations with Zionism and the United States? Nothing but the entrenchment of the Israeli occupation and the strengthening and massive development of the settlement project.

"In retrospect, it makes sense to think that if that's how things were, maybe it would have been better to follow the uncompromising path taken by Habash, who for most of his life didn't agree to any negotiations with Israel, who believed that with Israel it was only possible to negotiate by force, who thought Israel would only change its position if it paid a price, who dreamed of a single, democratic and secular state of equal rights and refused to discuss anything but that. Unfortunately, Habash was right. It's hard to know what would have happened had the Palestinians followed his path, but it's impossible not to admit that the alternative has been a resounding failure.

"Habash, who was born in 1926, wrote about his childhood: 'Our enemies are not the Jews but rather the British... The Jews' relations with the Palestinians were natural and sometimes even good' (p 16). He went to study medicine at the American University in Beirut; his worried mother and father wrote him that he should stay there; a war was on. But Habash returned to volunteer at a clinic in Lod; he returned and he saw. The sight of the Israeli soldiers who invaded the clinic in 1948 ignited in him the flame of violent resistance: 'I was gripped by an urge to shoot them with a pistol and kill them, and in the situation of having no weapons I used mute words. I watched them from the sidelines and said to myself: This is our land, you dogs, this is our land and not your land. We will stay here to kill you. You will not win this battle.' (p 22) On July 14 he was expelled from his home with the rest of his family. He never returned to the city he loved. He never forgot the scenes of Lod in 1948, nor did he forget the idea of violent resistance. Can the Israeli leader understand how he felt?

"Now based in Beirut, he took part in terror operations against Jewish and Western targets in Beirut, Amman and Damascus: 'I personally lobbed grenades and I participated in assassination attempts. I had endless enthusiasm when I was doing that. At the time, I considered my life worthless relative to what was happening in Palestine.' 'The Palestinian Che Guevara' - both of them were doctors - made up his mind to wreak vengeance for the Nakba upon the West and the leaders of the Arab regimes that had abandoned his people, even before taking vengeance on the Jews. He even planned to assassinate King Abdullah of Jordan. He founded a new student organization in Beirut called the Commune, completed his specialization in pediatrics and wrote: 'I took the diploma and said: Congratulations, Mother, your son is a doctor, so now let me do what I really want to do. And indeed, that's what happened.' (p 41)

"Habash was once asked whether he was the Che Guevara of the middle East and replied that he would prefer to be the Mao Zedong of the Arab masses. He was the first to raise the banner of return and and in the meantime he opened clinics for Palestinian refugees in Amman. For him, the road back to Lod passed through Amman, Beirut and Damascus. The idea of Pan-Arabism stayed with him for many years, until he despaired of that as well. He also had to leave medicine: 'I am a pediatrician, I have enjoyed this greatly. I believed that I had the best job in the world but I had to make the decision I have taken and I don't regret it... A person cannot split his emotions in that way: to heal on the one hand and kill on the other. This is the time when he must say to himself: one or the other.'

"This book isn't arrogant and it isn't Orientalist; it is respectful of the Palestinian national ideology and those who articulated and lived it, even if the author doesn't necessarily agree with that ideology or identify with it. This is something quite rare in the Israeli landscape when it comes to Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular. Nor does the author venerate what's not worthy of veneration, and he doesn't have any erroneous romantic or other illusions. Galia presents a bitter, tough, uncompromising, very much failed and sometimes exceedingly cruel struggle for freedom, self-respect and liberation. And this is what is said in the founding document of the PFLP, which Habash established in December 1967 after having despaired of Palestinian unity: 'The only weapon left to the masses in order to restore history and progress and truly defeat enemies and potential enemies in the long run is revolutionary violence... The only language that the enemy understands is the language of revolutionary violence.' (p 125)

"But this path too met with failure. 'The essential aim of hijacking airplanes,' wrote Habash, 'was to bring the Palestinian question out of anonymity and expose it to Western public opinion, because at that time it was unknown in Europe and in the United States. We wanted to undertake actions that would make an impression on the senses of the entire world... There was international ignorance regarding our suffering, in part due to the Zionist movement's monopoly on the mass media in the West.' (p 151) The PFLP plane hijackings in the early 1970s indeed achieved international recognition of the existence of the Palestinian problem, but so far this recognition hasn't led anywhere. The only practical outcome has been the security screenings at airports everywhere around the world - and thank you, George Habash. I read Galia's book on a number of flights, even though this isn't an airplane book, and I kept thinking that were it not for Habash my wanderings at airports would have been a lot shorter. In my heart I forgave him for that, for what other path was open to him and his defeated, humiliated and bleeding people?

"Not much is left of his ideas. What has come of the scientific idealism and the politicization of the masses, the class struggle and the anti-imperialism, the Maoism and of course the transformation of the struggle against Israel into an armed struggle, which according to the plans was supposed to develop from guerrilla warfare into a national war of liberation? Fifty years after the founding of the PFLP and 10 years after the death of its founder, what remains? Habash's successor, Abu Ali Mustafa, was assassinated by Israel in 2001; his successor's successor, Ahmad Saadat, has been in an Israeli prison since 2006 and very little remains of the PFLP.

"During all my decades covering the Israeli occupation, the most impressive figures I met belonged to the PFLP, but now not much remains except fragments of dreams. The PFLP is a negligible minority in intra-Palestinian politics, a movement that once thought to demand equal power with Fatah and its leader, Arafat. And the occupation? It's strong and thriving and its end looks further off than ever. If that isn't failure, what is?

"Yet Habash always knew how to draw lessons from failure after failure. How resonant today is his conclusion following the Naksa, the defeat in 1967 that broke his spirit, to the effect that 'the enemy of the Palestinians is colonialism, capitalism and the global monopolies... This is the enemy that gave rise to the Zionist movement, made a covenant with it, nurtured it, protected it and accompanied it until it brought about the establishment of the aggressive and fascistic State of Israel.' (p 179) From the Palestinian perspective, not much has changed. It used to be that this was read in Israel as hostile and shallow propaganda. Today it could be read otherwise.

"After the failure of 1967, Habash redefined the goal: the establishment of a democratic state in Palestine in which Arabs and Jews would live as citizens with equal rights. Today this idea, too, sounds a bit less strange and threatening than it did when Habash articulated it.

"On the 40th anniversary of Israel's founding, Habash wrote that Israel was galloping toward the Greater Land of Israel and that the differences between the right and the left in the country were becoming meaningless. How right he was about that, too. At the same time, he acknowledged Israel's success and the failure of the Palestinian national movement. And he was right about that, too.

"And one last correct prophecy, though a bitter one, that he made in 1981: 'The combination of loss of lives and economic damage has considerable influence on Israeli society, and when that happens there will be a political, social and ideological schism on the Israeli street and in the Zionist establishment between the moderate side that demands withdrawal from the occupied territories and the extremist side that continues to cling to Talmudic ideas and dreams. Given the hostility between these two sides, the Zionist entity will experience a real internal split.' (p 329)

"This has yet to happen.

"Imad Saba, a dear friend who was active in the PFLP and is in exile in Europe, urged me for years to try to meet with Habash and interview him for Haaretz. As far as is known, Habash never met with Israelis, except during the days of the Nakba. Many years ago in Amman I interviewed Hawatmeh, Habash's partner at the start and the leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which split off from the PFLP in 1969. At the time of the interview, Habash was also living in Amman and was old and sick. I kept postponing my approach - until he died. When reading the book, I felt very sorry that I had not met this man."

Who'd Be an Occupier These Days?

"The heavily armed soldiers do not respond in the face of what appears to be an attempt to provoke rather than harm them." (Women's 'assault aims to provoke Israeli soldiers', AFP, The Australian, 23/12/17)

The 50-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestine is unique in the annals of military occupations.

Up to now, military occupations were always thought to consist of an occupying force, lording it over an occupied people.

The former was a strutting brute, armed to the teeth. A potential thug, or even killer.

The occupied, on the other hand, were essentially at his mercy, although, when sufficiently provoked by the inherent injustice of the occupation or by specific incidences of brutality on the part of the occupier, sometimes lashed out at the occupier. (Up until the Israeli occupation of Palestine, these were known as acts of resistance, and every right-thinking person understood them as such and applauded them.)

Not any longer, however.

These days, none of this received wisdom applies. These days, in occupied Palestine at least, it's the occupying forces, not the occupied population, one has to feel sorry for. Just imagine: Israel's occupying forces, innocent bystanders really, must go about their pure-as-the-driven-snow business, never knowing when they may be provoked or - God forbid! - harmed.

Given this paradigmatic shift in our understanding of these matters, maybe its time historians revisited the subject of, say, the French resistance to the Nazi occupation. What say you, Agence France Presse?

Truly Vile Stuff!

What happens if Israel's occupation forces have just shot your 14-year-old cousin in the head and are hanging around your house like a bad smell?

What happens if you confront the bastards, and even slap their ugly faces?

Any decent human being would hail your courage and your spirit.

But not Ruth Eglash of the Washington Post:

"Israelis call her 'Shirley Temper' and say she epitomises 'Pallywood,' or Palestinian propaganda attempts to discredit Israel. Palestinians call her a hero, for fearlessly standing up to those who enforce the Israeli occupation of their land and those who terrorise her village. Her real name is Ahed Tamimi. And a video of her confronting or provoking Israeli soldiers - depending on how you look at it - has gone viral." (Israelis call her 'Shirley Temper.' Palestinians call her a hero, 19/12/17)

Truly vile stuff!

The Martyrdom of Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh 2

The Israel military first took his legs, then his life by Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 17/12/17

"The Israeli army sharpshooter couldn't target the lower part of his victim's body - Ibrahim Abu Thuraya didn't have one. The 29-year-old, who worked washing cars and who lived in Gaza City's Shati refugee camp, lost both legs from the hips down in an Israeli airstrike during Operation Cast Lead in 2008. He used a wheel chair to get around. On Friday the army finished the job: a sharpshooter aimed at his head and shot him dead.

"The images are horrific. Abu Thuraya in his wheelchair, pushed by friends, calling for protests against the US declaration recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital; Abu Thuraya on the ground, crawling toward the fence behind which the Gaza Strip is imprisoned; Abu Thuraya waving a Palestinian flag; Abu Thuraya holding up both arms in the victory sign; Abu Thuraya carried by his friends, bleeding to death: Abu Thuraya's corpse laid out on a stretcher: The End.

"The army sharpshooter couldn't aim at the lower part of his victim's body on Friday so he shot him in the head and killed him. It can be assumed that the soldier realized that he was shooting at a person in a wheelchair, unless he was shooting indiscriminately into the crowd of protesters.

"Abu Thuraya posed no danger to anyone: how much of a danger could a double amputee in a wheelchair, imprisoned behind a fence, constitute? How much evil and insensitivity does it take in order to shoot a handicapped person in a wheelchair? Abu Thuraya was not the first, nor will he be the last, Palestinian with disabilities to be killed by soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces - the most moral soldiers in the world, or not.

"The killing of the young disabled man passed almost without notice in Israel. He was one of three demonstrators killed Friday, just another humdrum day. One can easily imagine what would happen if Palestinians had killed an Israeli who used a wheelchair. What a furor would have erupted, with endless ink spilled on their cruelty and barbarism. How many arrests would have resulted, how much blood would have flowed in retaliation. But when soldiers behave barbarically, Israel is silent and shows no interest. No shock, no shame, no pity. An apology or expression of regret or remorse is the stuff of fantasy. The idea of holding those responsible for this criminal killing accountable is also delusional. Abu Thuraya was a dead man once he dared take part in his people's protest and his killing is of no interest to anyone, since he was a Palestinian.

"The Gaza Strip has been closed to Israeli journalists for 11 years, so one can only imagine the life of the car-washer from Shati before his death - how he recovered from his injuries in the absence of decent rehabilitation services in the besieged Strip, with no chance of obtaining prosthetic legs; how he rumbled along in an old wheelchair, not an electric one, in the sandy alleys of his camp; how he continued washing cars despite his disability, since there are no other choices in Shati, including for people with disabilities; and how he continued struggling with his friends, despite his disability.

"No Israeli could imagine life in that cage, the biggest in the world, the one called the Gaza Strip. It is part of a never-ending mass experiment on human beings.

"One should see the desperate young people who approached the fence in Friday's demonstration, armed with stones that couldn't reach anywhere, throwing them through the cracks in the bars behind which they are trapped. These young people have no hope in their lives even when they have two legs to walk on. Abu Thuraya had even less hope. There is something pathetic yet dignified in the photo of him raising the Palestinian flag, given his dual confinement - in his wheelchair and in his besieged country. The story of Abu Thuraya is  an accurate reflection of the circumstances of his people. Shortly after he was photographed, his tormented life came to an end. When people cry out every week: 'Netanyahu to Maasiyahu [prison]' someone should finally also start talking about The Hague."

The Martyrdom of Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh

Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh's dream was to break out of the Gaza Ghetto and walk free on the occupied Palestinian land which beckoned to him from the other side of the wire. So his Israeli prison guards hacked off his legs. Undaunted, he continued to defy them - on his stumps.

As long as he had a hand which could pick up a stone, and an arm to fling it at the enemy with, his resistance against those who would keep this lion in his cage would continue. However, since any act of resistance, no matter how small, was utterly intolerable to his jailers, they shot him in the head:

"The narrow streets of the 70 acres of Gaza City's densely crowded Beach refugee camp were never so quiet as today. The poor camp on the western side of the city is famous for starting life early every day, with the fuss of street vendors, donkey cart drivers and the vegetable market, which is filled with customers by 6:30 am.

"All of these faded away this morning, one day after Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh, 29, was shot dead during skirmishes with the Israeli army east if the city.

"In front of his old family home, Abu Thurayeh's friends began to set up a condolence tent for his relatives and neighbours. His 27-year-old cousin, Mahmoud Abu Thurayeh, was delivering the chairs shortly before mourners arrived. 'Ibrahim has always been the first to offer help to set up such tents for the martyrs of the camp,' Mahmoud said. 'But today it seems he will not, forever.'

"Ibrahim had lost his legs in an Israeli attack on Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. He was injured in 2008 by an Israeli helicopter that targeted him after he took down an Israeli flag along the border and raised a Palestinian one.

"Since that time, he has been active in the clashes - until he was killed with a bullet above his eye fired by an Israeli soldier.

"About 150 Palestinians were injured and four were killed near the border fence in Gaza on a day of clashes that erupted also in the West Bank in protest of the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

"In a video clip two days before his death, Ibrahim said he had come to participate in the clashes at Nahal Oz (east of Gaza) because he wanted to cross the occupied land on the other side of the barbed wire border just once in his life. But his dream ended with the fatal shot.

"'The Israeli army is cowardly and does not appear to fight except behind the concrete cubes,' he added in the video. 'We only have small stones that reach only 50 meters, and every day I come, crawling on my hands. I am here to deliver a message to those soldiers: 'This is our land and we will not give up. The United States should withdraw its declaration over Jerusalem'." (Ibrahim 'the half-bodied', an icon of Gaza skirmishes, loses his other half for Jerusalem, Ahmad Kabariti, mondoweiss.net, 16/12/17)

Marwan Barghouti: 'Palestinians Will Not Be an Exception'

Why we are on hunger strike inside Israel's prisons, by Marwan Barghouti (New York Times (International Edition), 16/4/17)

"Hadarim Prison - Israel - Having spent the last 15 years in an Israeli prison, I have been both a witness to and a victim of Israel's illegal system of mass arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners. After exhausting all other options, I decided there was no other choice but to resist these abuses by going on hunger strike. 

"Some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners have decided to take part in this hunger strike, which begins today, the day we observe here as Prisoners' Day. Hunger striking is the most peaceful form of resistance available. It inflicts pain solely on those who participate and on their loved ones, in the hopes that their empty stomachs and their sacrifice will help the message resonate beyond the confines of their dark cells.

"Decades of experience have proved that Israel's inhumane system of colonial and military occupation aims to break the spirit of prisoners and the nation to which they belong, by inflicting suffering on their bodies, separating them from their communities and communities, using humiliating measures to compel subjugation. In spite of such treatment, we will not surrender to it.

"Israel, the occupying power, has violated international law in multiple ways for nearly 70 years, and yet has been granted impunity for its actions. It has committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions against the Palestinian people; the prisoners, including men, women and children, are no exception.

"I was only 15 when I was first imprisoned. I was barely 18 when an Israeli interrogator forced me to spread my legs while I stood naked in the interrogation room, before hitting my genitals. I passed out from the pain, and the resulting fall left an everlasting scar on my forehead. The interrogator mocked me afterward, saying that I would never procreate because people like me give birth only to terrorists and murderers. 

"A few years later I was again in an Israeli prison, leading a hunger strike, when my first son was born. Instead of the sweets we usually distribute to celebrate such news, I handed out salt to the other prisoners. When he was barely 18, he in turn was arrested and spent four years in Israeli prisons.

"The eldest of my four children is now a man of 31. Yet here I still am, pursuing this struggle for freedom along with thousands of prisoners, millions of Palestinians and the support of so many around the world. What is it with the arrogance of the occupier and the oppressor and their backers that makes them deaf to this simple truth: Our chains will be broken before we are, because it is human nature to heed the call for freedom regardless of the cost.

"Israel has built nearly all of its prisons inside Israel rather than in the occupied territory. In doing so, it has unlawfully and forcibly transferred Palestinian civilians into captivity, and has used this situation to restrict family visits and to inflict suffering on prisoners through long transports under cruel conditions. It turned basic rights that should be guaranteed under international law - including some painfully secured through previous hunger strikes - into privileges its prison service decides to grant us or deprive us of.

"Palestinian prisoners and detainees have suffered from torture, inhumane and degrading treatment, and medical negligence. Some have been killed while in detention. According to the latest count from the Palestinian Prisoners Club, about 200 Palestinian prisoners have died since 1967 because of such actions. Palestinian prisoners and their families also remain a primary target of Israel's policy of imposing collective punishments.

"Through our hunger strike we seek an end to these abuses.

"Over the past five decades, according the human rights group Addameer, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned or detained by Israel - equivalent to about 40% of the Palestinian territory's male population. Today, about 6,500 are still imprisoned, among them some who have the dismal distinction of of holding world records for the longest periods in detention of political prisoners. There is hardly a single family in Palestine that has not endured the suffering caused by the imprisonment of one or several of its members.

"How to account for this unbelievable state of affairs?

"Israel has established a dual legal regime, a form of judicial apartheid, that provides virtual impunity for Israelis who commit crimes against Palestinians, while criminalizing Palestinian presence and resistance. Israel's courts are a charade of justice, clearly instruments of colonial, military occupation. According to the State Department, the conviction rate for Palestinians in the military courts is nearly. 90%.

"Among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians whom Israel has taken captive are children, women, parliamentarians, activists, journalists, human rights defenders, academics, political figures, militants, bystanders, and family members of prisoners. And all with one aim: to bury the legitimate aspirations of an entire nation.

"Instead, though, Israel's prisons have become the cradle of a lasting movement for Palestinian self-determination. This new hunger strike will demonstrate once more that the prisoners' movement is the compass that guides our struggle, the Struggle for Freedom and Dignity, the name we have chosen for this new step in our long walk to freedom.

"Israel has tried to brand us as terrorists to legitimize its violations, including mass arbitrary arrests, torture, punitive measures and severe restrictions. As part of Israel's effort to undermine the Palestinian struggle for freedom, an Israeli court sentenced me to 5 life sentences and 40 years in prison in a political show trial that was denounced by international observers.

"Israel is not the first occupying or colonial power to resort to such expedients. Every national liberation movement in history can recall similar practices. This is why so many people who have fought against oppression, colonialism and apartheid stand with us. The International Campaign to Free Marwan Barghouti and All Palestinian Prisoners that the anti-apartheid icon Ahmed Kathrada and my wife, Fadwa, inaugurated in 2013 from Nelson Mandela's former cell on Robben Island has enjoyed the support of eight Nobel Prize laureates, 120 governments and hundreds of leaders, parliamentarians, artists and academics around the world.

"Their solidarity exposes Israel's moral and political failure. Rights are not bestowed by an oppressor. Freedom and dignity are universal rights that are inherent in humanity, to be enjoyed by every nation and all human beings. Palestinians will not be an exception. Only ending occupation will end this injustice and mark the birth of peace."

***

The New York Times, of course, just had to add the following 'Editor's note: April 17, 2017': This article explained the writer's prison sentence but neglected to provide sufficient context by stating the offenses of which he was convicted. They were 5 counts of murder and membership in a terrorist organization. Mr. Barghouti declined to offer a defense at his trial and refused to recognize the Israeli court's jurisdiction and legitimacy. Marwan Barghouti is a Palestinian leader and parliamentarian.

***

The demands of the Freedom & Dignity campaign are:

1. Instal a public telephone for Palestinian detainees in all prisons and sections in order to communicate with their families.
2. Visits: a) Resume the second visit stopped by the Red Cross; b) Regularity of visits every two weeks without being disabled by any side; c) No relative of the first and second level shall be prevented from visiting a detainee; d) Increase the duration of the visit from 45 minutes to an hour-and-a-half; e) Allow detainees to take pictures with their families every 3 months; f) Construct facilities for the comfort of visiting families; g) Allow children and grandchildren under the age of 16 to visit detainees.
3. The medical file: a) Close the so-called Ramle prison hospital because it does not provide the necessary treatment; b) End the policy of medical negligence; c) Conduct periodic medical examinations; d) Perform surgeries whenever needed; e) Allow specialized physicians from outside the prison; f) Releasing sick detainees, especially those who have disabilities and incurable diseases; g) Medical treatment should not be at the expense of detainees.
4. Respond to the [special] needs and demands of Palestinian women detainees, whether by special transport or direct meeting without a barrier during visits.
5. Transportation: a) Accord humanitarian treatment for detainees during their transport; b) Return detainees to jails after attending clinics and courts and do not keep them waiting at crossings; c) Prepare crossings for human use and provide meals for detainees.
6. Add satellite channels that suit the needs of detainees.
7. Install air conditioners in prisons, especially in Megiddo and Gilboa.
8. Restore kitchens to all prisons and place them under the supervision of detainees.
9. Allow detainees books, newspapers, clothes and food.
10. End the policy of solitary confinement.
11. End the policy of administrative detention.
12. Allow detainees to study at the Hebrew Open University.
13. Allow detainees to take the Tawjihi matriculation exams in an official and agreed manner.

PS: "Tens of thousands of Palestinians from throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip marched and attended rallies to show their support for hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. Marwan Barghouti, who is leading the strike, was placed in solitary confinement." (Israel places Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti in solitary over prisoners' hunger strike, Jack Khoury, Haaretz, 17/4/17)

Israel is a Democracy & Other Fairy Tales

In reacting against the hypocrisy of Americans (and Australia's little Americans) over Fidel Castro's death, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Ruby Hamad argues, with the best of intentions, that:

"Israel is both a democracy (flawed but a democracy nonetheless) and an oppressive occupier that gets away with shocking human rights abuse. Yasser Arafat was indeed resisting this Israeli oppression and occupation, and in doing so he turned a blind eye to terrorism and the victimisation of innocent Israelis." (All heroes have their dark side, no matter what side they're on, 30/11/16)

However, these two sentences are more fairy tale than fact:

1) Israel is a democracy. Palestine had an indigenous majority and a non-indigenous settler minority up to 1948. The settler minority then drove out the indigenous majority and has refused to allow them back in ever since. Only when those driven out (and therefore disenfranchised) in 1948 are allowed back and given the vote, will Palestine/Israel be a democracy. All it is now is an ethnocracy, just like white South Africa before apartheid was consigned to the dustbin of history.

2) Arafat is a terrorist. You simply cannot place the reactive, retail violence of an occupied, oppressed, and colonised people on the same level as the wholesale violence of those who occupy, oppress, and colonise them. International law rightly recognises the right of an occupied, oppressed, and colonised people to resist occupation and colonisation by any means. It does not, however, recognise anyone's right to occupy or colonise another people's land. Arafat was not a terrorist. He was a freedom fighter. The settler-colonial apartheid state of Israel is the only terrorist here.

The Land of the Profoundly Blind

This is a most interesting development:

"Tel Aviv's mayor on Thursday blamed Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories for a deadly attack carried out by two Palestinian gunmen that left four Israelis dead in the Mediterranean city. Labour Mayor Ron Huldai, 71, told Israeli army radio that the occupation was to blame for Wednesday evenings attack when two armed Palestinian men from near Hebron in the southern West Bank walked into a popular cafe and opened fire on revellers. 'We might be the only country in the world where another nation is under occupation without civil rights,' he said. 'You can't hold people in a situation of occupation and hope they'll reach the conclusion everything is alright... There has been an occupation for 49 years, which I was part of and I know the reality... We have to show our neighbours that we have true intentions to return to a reality of a smaller Jewish state with a clear Jewish majority'." (Tel Aviv mayor blames Israeli occupation for deadly cafe attack, middleeasteye.net)

OK, so Ron Huldai's still wedded to the racist idea of a Jewish majority in the rest of occupied Palestine, but still, credit where credit's due. Maybe, in recognition of the mayor's incredible achievement in iterating the bleeding obvious, we should consider rephrasing Erasmus' famous dictum to: 'In the land of the blind known as Israel Ron Huldai should be king.'

The grim reality, however, is that in Israel it's the profoundly blind who have always ruled the roost, and who are responsible for the 49-year-old occupation and colonisation of the Palestinian territories. For example:

"I promise that all those involved in yesterday's deadly terrorist attack will not escape punishment." Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Lieberman: Israel will hunt down all behind the Tel Aviv attack, Tovah Lazaroff, The Jerusalem Post, 6/10/16)

Forgive Her Lord, She Knows Not What She Says

Another of Monday night's Q&A Christian panelists, Tiffany Sparks, is described as a "progressive Anglican minister."

Here is her response to the same question dealt with by John Haldane:

"I think for us, as Australians, it's (ie, our Middle East interventions) really exposed a rift in our inter-faith understanding. There's a real problem with us understanding each other's faith. I don't know, there's some sort of stumbling block."

Tiffany's clearly out of her depth here. She continues:

"I'm a pacifist. I'm a really proud daughter of a returned serviceman that did three tours of Vietnam and I think my father's a pretty amazing person. So I have a great respect for our military and for people who do have the courage to be able to do those sort of things, that I certainly couldn't do."

Let me get this straight. Although she's a pacifist, she's proud of her Dad because he just couldn't resist popping over to 'Nam and popping assorted Vietnamese Dads and Mums and...

"I mean all of that being said, I think it's probably an interesting thing to raise is that most Palestinian Christians are actually pacifists in this whole thing. We had a wonderful presenter, Reverend Dr Greg Jenks, who is now the dean of St George College over in Jerusalem and that was something that he took great pains to really point out, that that's where the birthplace of Christianity was and they, even in all of this, are still pacifists."

Better to have held her tongue than to have uttered such nonsense.

Baby steps for Tiffany Sparks:

1) Palestinians are Palestinians are Palestinians. Whether they're Christians or Muslims is irrelevant.

2) They're all in the same trench against Zionist colonisation and dispossession. (In fact, the very first organisational manifestation of Palestinian resistance to Zionist colonisation and dispossesion came in the form of Moslem-Christian Associations, which arose in 1918 and coalesced to formed a national body, the Palestinian Arab Congress, which called for immediate independence from the Britain, and opposed the Balfour Declaration and Jewish immigration.)

3) Palestinian resistance to Zionist colonisation and dispossession has oscillated between armed struggle and non-violent resistance. You never get to hear about the latter because, by and large, the mainstream media is simply NOT INTERESTED in reporting it.

4) Palestinians, moreover, have a right under international law to resist "by all available means, particularly armed struggle," (UNGA 33/24) and "by all available means, including armed struggle" (UNGA 3246).

Interesting, though, her mention of Dr Gregory Jenks. I looked up his website, gregoryjenks.com. While I have real problems with many of Jenks' concepts and statements, which I won't go into here, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by the relative sophistication of his analysis in the following paragraph:

"In the late nineteenth century, European material interests colluded with an emerging sense of nationalism among European Jewry, to cultivate the dream of the Zionist colonisation of Palestine. All of the people of Palestine, whether they identify as Arab or Jewish, continue to suffer from the tragic consequences of European colonialism; as do their neighbours in Iraq and Syria, where international borders drawn up by imperial bureaucrats in London and Paris continue to diminish the lives of people across the Middle East." (A Palestinian Jesus, 30/12/16)

Of course, he should have mentioned a) that Zionism at this time was very much a minority movement among Jews; b) that the interests and rights of the indigenous Palestinians (90% of the population of Palestine) were completely disregarded by the British and their Zionist collaborators; and c) that the odious and outrageous Balfour Declaration of 1917, which he inexplicably leaves out, constituted nothing less than a crime against the Palestinian people. Nonetheless, the general thrust of what he says is undeniably correct.