Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Israel shocked by image of soldiers forcing violinist to play at roadblock: Chris McGreal in Jerusalem | Monday November 29, 2004 | The Guardian

Of all the revelations that have rocked the Israeli army over the past week, perhaps none disturbed the public so much as the video footage of soldiers forcing a Palestinian man to play his violin.

The incident was not as shocking as the recording of an Israeli officer pumping the body of a 13-year-old girl full of bullets and then saying he would have shot her even if she had been three years old.

Nor was it as nauseating as the pictures in an Israeli newspaper of ultra-orthodox soldiers mocking Palestinian corpses by impaling a man's head on a pole and sticking a cigarette in his mouth.
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But after the incident was videotaped by Jewish women peace activists, it prompted revulsion among Israelis not normally perturbed about the treatment of Arabs.
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Israelis put great store in a belief that their army is "the most moral in the world" because it says it adheres to a code of "the purity of arms". There is rarely much public questioning of the army's routine explanation that Palestinian civilians who have been killed had been "caught in crossfire", or that children are shot because they are used as cover by fighters.
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One Israeli peace group, the Arik Institute, took out large newspaper adverts to plead for "Jewish patriots" to "open your eyes and look around" at the suffering of Palestinians.
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While the officer responsible for killing Iman al-Hams has been charged with relatively minor offences, and the soldiers who forced the violinist to play were ticked off for being "insensitive", the only troops who were swiftly punished for violating regulations last week were some who posed naked in the snow for a photograph. They were dismissed from their unit.

Last week the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem criticised what it described as a "culture of impunity" within the army. The group says at least 1,656 Palestinian non-combatants have been killed during the intifada, including 529 children.

"To date, one soldier has been convicted of causing the death of a Palestinian," it said.

"The combination of rules of engagement that encourage a trigger-happy attitude among soldiers together with the climate of impunity results in a clear and very troubling message about the value the Israeli military places on Palestinian life."
- posted by Editor @ 8:57 AM

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Israeli officer: I was right to shoot 13-year-old child: "Radio exchange contradicts army version of Gaza killing | Chris McGreal in Jerusalem | Wednesday November 24, 2004 | The Guardian

An Israeli army officer who repeatedly shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza dismissed a warning from another soldier that she was a child by saying he would have killed her even if she was three years old.
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But the tape recording of the radio conversation between soldiers at the scene reveals that, from the beginning, she was identified as a child and at no point was a bomb spoken about nor was she described as a threat. Iman was also at least 100 yards from any soldier.

Instead, the tape shows that the soldiers swiftly identified her as a "girl of about 10" who was "scared to death".

The tape also reveals that the soldiers said Iman was headed eastwards, away from the army post and back into the refugee camp, when she was shot.

At that point, Captain R took the unusual decision to leave the post in pursuit of the girl. He shot her dead and then "confirmed the kill" by emptying his magazine into her body.
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Captain R: "I and another soldier ... are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill ... Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her ... I also confirmed the kill. Over."
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On the tape, the company commander then "clarifies" why he killed Iman: "This is commander. Anything that's mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over."
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A subsequent investigation by the officer responsible for the Gaza strip, Major General Dan Harel, concluded that the captain had "not acted unethically".
- posted by Editor @ 7:09 AM

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Israeli officer: I was right to shoot 13-year-old child: "Radio exchange contradicts army version of Gaza killing | Chris McGreal in Jerusalem | Wednesday November 24, 2004 | The Guardian

An Israeli army officer who repeatedly shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza dismissed a warning from another soldier that she was a child by saying he would have killed her even if she was three years old.
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But the tape recording of the radio conversation between soldiers at the scene reveals that, from the beginning, she was identified as a child and at no point was a bomb spoken about nor was she described as a threat. Iman was also at least 100 yards from any soldier.

Instead, the tape shows that the soldiers swiftly identified her as a "girl of about 10" who was "scared to death".

The tape also reveals that the soldiers said Iman was headed eastwards, away from the army post and back into the refugee camp, when she was shot.

At that point, Captain R took the unusual decision to leave the post in pursuit of the girl. He shot her dead and then "confirmed the kill" by emptying his magazine into her body.
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Captain R: "I and another soldier ... are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill ... Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her ... I also confirmed the kill. Over."
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On the tape, the company commander then "clarifies" why he killed Iman: "This is commander. Anything that's mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over."
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A subsequent investigation by the officer responsible for the Gaza strip, Major General Dan Harel, concluded that the captain had "not acted unethically".
- posted by Editor @ 7:08 AM

News: "Israelis fired on girl 'having identified her as a 10-year-old', military tape shows | By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem | 24 November 2004

Israeli soldiers continued firing at a Palestinian girl killed in Gaza last month well after she had been identified as a frightened child, a military communications tape has revealed.

The tape is likely to be crucial in the prosecution case against the men's company commander, who faces five charges arising from the killing of Iman al-Hams, 13, in the southern border town of Rafah on 6 October.

It shows that troops firing with light weapons and machine guns on a figure moving in a "no entry zone" close to an army outpost near the border with Egypt had swiftly discovered that she was a girl.

In the recorded exchanges someone in the operations room asks: "Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?" The observation post, housed in a watchtower, replies: "It's a little girl. She's running defensively eastwards, a girl of about 10. She's behind the embankment, scared to death."

Not until four minutes later was it reported that the girl had been hit and had fallen. The observation post reports: "Receive, I think that one of the positions took her out." ... Operations room: "What, she fell?" Observation post: "She's not moving right now."
- posted by Editor @ 7:39 AM

The New York Times > International > Middle East > Israel Charges Captain in Killing: "By GREG MYRE
Published: November 23, 2004

JERUSALEM, Nov. 22 - Military prosecutors on Monday charged an army captain with five separate offenses after fellow soldiers accused him of repeatedly shooting a 13-year-old Palestinian schoolgirl to make sure she was dead.

The case has received widespread attention in Israel, where the military is generally held in high regard and such serious charges against soldiers are extremely rare. But Palestinians and human rights groups say allegations of abuse by the security forces have seldom been fully investigated in four years of fighting.

The girl, Iman al-Hams, was killed in the southern part of the Gaza Strip on Oct. 5 as she approached an Israeli military outpost. The captain, who has not been publicly identified, was initially cleared of wrongdoing by an internal army investigation, but he was arrested about three weeks ago as part of a separate inquiry by the military police.
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Soldiers at the outpost have spoken to the Israeli news media, saying the girl was initially shot from some distance while carrying a bag suspected of containing explosives, though it held only books. Afterward, the captain approached and shot her a number of times as she lay on the ground, the soldiers said. Palestinian doctors say she was hit at least 15 times.

The indictment says the captain walked up to her and fired two shots from close range. He began to walk away but then returned to fire an additional 10 bullets until his magazine was empty, the indictment says.

- posted by Editor @ 5:54 AM

Haaretz - Israel News: "Court rejects petition against bill for Jews-only communities | By Yair Ettinger, Haaretz Correspondent

The High Court of Justice dismissed on Tuesday a petition seeking to prevent the Knesset from voting on a bill that would allow the establishment of communities for Jews only.
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The petitioners say the Knesset presidium exceeded its authority in October, when it permitted the bill to reach the Knesset plenum. Knesset regulations explicitly prevent the presidium from approving a private member's bill that is "racist in nature."

The petitioners criticize the Knesset's legal adviser for not clarifying to the presidium what they call the "racist nature of the bill," and for advising Hendel "how to phrase things in a way that will hide and cover up the racist objective of the bill without changing its racist contents and ramifications."

The petition refers to a change in the wording of the bill since it was submitted by the National Union during the previous Knesset term. The previous bill explicitly called for communities intended for the "Jewish sector," saying that "whoever was not Jewish could not buy land in [such communities] or live there." Those words have been deleted, leaving a more generic bill calling for neighborhoods that preserve a "unique community character."

- posted by Editor @ 11:32 AM

Haaretz - Israel News: "NII report: 1.5 million were below poverty line in 2003 | November 23, 2004 | By Ruth Sinai and Zvi Zrahiya, Haaretz Correspondent

There were 1,427,000 people living below the poverty line in Israel in 2003 - some 22.4 percent of the population, according to the National Insurance Institute annual report on poverty published Tuesday.

"Israel is becoming poorer and poorer," said NII Director General Dr. Yigal Ben Shalom during the presentation of the report.
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The data also shows that around 652,000 children in Israel can be defined as poor, a total of 30.8 percent of the children in the country. Almost 83,000 of the poor are elderly.
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Poverty hit over 360,000 families, or 19.3 percent of the households in Israel. This constitutes a substantial worsening from the 18.1 percent in 2002.

Among Arab households the poverty rate reached in 2003 48.4 percent. 27.6 percent of single parent families are below poverty line.
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By comparison, only 12.5 percent of individuals and 10 percent of families are under the poverty line in the United States, and children comprise only 17.6 percent of the impoverished there.
- posted by Editor @ 11:29 AM

Aljazeera.Net - Full transcript of bin Ladin's speech: "Monday 01 November 2004, 16:01 Makka Time, 13:01 GMT

Praise be to Allah who created the creation for his worship and commanded them to be just and permitted the wronged one to retaliate against the oppressor in kind. To proceed:

Peace be upon he who follows the guidance: People of America this talk of mine is for you and concerns the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan, and deals with the war and its causes and results.

Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom.

If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike for example - Sweden? And we know that freedom-haters don't possess defiant spirits like those of the 19 - may Allah have mercy on them.

No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.

No one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then makes himself believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it happening again.

But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred.

So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken, for you to consider.

I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind.

The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorised and displaced.

I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy.

The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn't include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn't respond.

In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.

And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.

And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.

This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children - also in Iraq - as Bush Jr did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages.

So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?

Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.

This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.

And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998.

You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan, as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk.

The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral. So are the pretenders of freedom at the White House and the channels controlled by them able to run an interview with him? So that he may relay to the American people what he has understood from us to be the reasons for our fight against you?

If you were to avoid these reasons, you will have taken the correct path that will lead America to the security that it was in before September 11th. This concerned the causes of the war.

As for it's results, they have been, by the grace of Allah, positive and enormous, and have, by all standards, exceeded all expectations. This is due to many factors, chief among them, that we have found it difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.

Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with those who are characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr to the region.

At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.

So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region's presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.

All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.

This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.

All Praise is due to Allah.

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.

That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinises the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains.

Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations - whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction - has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results.

And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and us are playing as one team towards the economic goals of the United States, even if the intentions differ.

And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. [When they pointed out that] for example, al-Qaida spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost - according to the lowest estimate - more than $500 billion.

Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.

As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.

And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the mujahidin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission.

It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other hand, it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something of which anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the real loser is ... you.

It is the American people and their economy. And for the record, we had agreed with the Commander-General Muhammad Ataa, Allah have mercy on him, that all the operations should be carried out within 20 minutes, before Bush and his administration notice.

It never occurred to us that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces would abandon 50,000 of his citizens in the twin towers to face those great horrors alone, the time when they most needed him.

But because it seemed to him that occupying himself by talking to the little girl about the goat and its butting was more important than occupying himself with the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers, we were given three times the period required to execute the operations - all praise is due to Allah.

And it's no secret to you that the thinkers and perceptive ones from among the Americans warned Bush before the war and told him: "All that you want for securing America and removing the weapons of mass destruction - assuming they exist - is available to you, and the nations of the world are with you in the inspections, and it is in the interest of America that it not be thrust into an unjustified war with an unknown outcome."

But the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.

So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future. He fits the saying "like the naughty she-goat who used her hoof to dig up a knife from under the earth".

So I say to you, over 15,000 of our people have been killed and tens of thousands injured, while more than a thousand of you have been killed and more than 10,000 injured. And Bush's hands are stained with the blood of all those killed from both sides, all for the sake of oil and keeping their private companies in business.

Be aware that it is the nation who punishes the weak man when he causes the killing of one of its citizens for money, while letting the powerful one get off, when he causes the killing of more than 1000 of its sons, also for money.

And the same goes for your allies in Palestine. They terrorise the women and children, and kill and capture the men as they lie sleeping with their families on the mattresses, that you may recall that for every action, there is a reaction.

Finally, it behoves you to reflect on the last wills and testaments of the thousands who left you on the 11th as they gestured in despair. They are important testaments, which should be studied and researched.

Among the most important of what I read in them was some prose in their gestures before the collapse, where they say: "How mistaken we were to have allowed the White House to implement its aggressive foreign policies against the weak without supervision."

It is as if they were telling you, the people of America: "Hold to account those who have caused us to be killed, and happy is he who learns from others' mistakes."

And among that which I read in their gestures is a verse of poetry. "Injustice chases its people, and how unhealthy the bed of tyranny."

As has been said: "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure."

And know that: "It is better to return to the truth than persist in error." And that the wise man doesn't squander his security, wealth and children for the sake of the liar in the White House.

In conclusion, I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qaida. No.

Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn't play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.

And Allah is our Guardian and Helper, while you have no Guardian or Helper. All peace be upon he who follows the Guidance.


Aljazeera
- posted by Editor @ 3:37 PM

Haaretz - Israel News: "01/11/2004 19:37 | Settlers assaults bar Palestinian children from attending school | By Yuli Khromchenko and Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondents

Some 20 Palestinian children from the south Hebron hills area cannot attend school due to continuing harassment and assaults by residents of the nearby outpost of Havat Maon.

The case was revealed in a probe conducted by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Doctors Without Borders and the Ta?ayush group for Arab Jewish partnership. The study will be presented to the Knesset committee for the Advancement of the Status of the Child on Wednesday.

The case involves 25 grade-school children who walk two kilometers daily in order to reach their school in the village of Tawany. Their path also passes by the outpost of Havat Maon.

Since the start of the year, the kids have been physically assaulted on several occasions. According to the report, the settlers also threw rocks at the kids and sicced dogs on them. ,,,
- posted by Editor @ 9:50 AM