A
Annie Birdsong
Guest
Bush has just pledged $30 billion in aid to Israel over 10 years -- $3
billion per year in spite of the country's many human rights
violations.
----------------------------------------------
The Ethnic Cleansing of the Palestinians
By Annie Birdsong
"Palestine will be as Jewish as England is English"
-- Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel
In 1948, 11-year-old Fahimi Zaldan lived in a Palestinian village of
700 people called Deir Yasin. Some in the village made a living by
agriculture and keeping livestock while others worked in limestone
quarries or cut stone. They did a lot business with Jews and lively
relatively in peace with them.
Fahima's world changed on April 9th when Israeli soldiers carried out
an unprovoked massacre in her village. Telling about it, she later
wrote: "As soon as the sun rose, there was knocking at the door, but
we did not answer. They blew the door down, entered and started
searching the place; they got to the store room, and took us out one-
by-one. They shot the son-in-law, and when one of his daughters
screamed, they shot her too. They then called by brother Mahmoud and
shot him in our presence, and when my mother screamed and bent over my
brother, carrying my little sister who was still being breast fed,
they shot my mother too. We all started screaming and crying, but were
told if we did not stop, they would shoot us all. They then lined us
up, shot at us and left." Young Fahimi, her brother and two sisters
were not shot since they hid behind their parents.
All in all, about 254 Palestinian men, women and children in the
village were murdered.
Sometimes the Israeli soldiers would put dynamite around the stone
houses, soak the wooden doors and windows with gasoline, then open
fire with their guns causing an explosion and fire that killed the
inhabitants.
One of the survivers, Fuzziah Ahmed, said they entered homes, killed
the men and old people and plundered the gold, money, clothes and
food. "They even killed a 4-year-old. What does a 4-year-old
understand? They killed him," he said.
A Zionist terrorist organization was also spreading horror among the
Palestineans with radio broadcasts in Arabic saying that typhus,
cholera and similar diseases would break out heavily among them "in
April and May."
The terror tactics sparked a mass exodus of 750,000 Palestinians -- 70
percent of the population -- into neighboring Arab countries and
refugee camps. Many who wouldn't leave were forced out by the Israeli
military, according records declassified by the Israeli government.
About 400 Palestinian villages and towns were suddenly deserted.
Most Palestinians were never allowed to return, though "the right of
return" is guaranteed by international law and U.N. Resolution 194,
which Israel accepted as a condition of its entry into the U.N.
The Arab/Israeli conflict began in 1917 when Britain signed the
Balfour Agreement giving Jews a home in Palestine, though the
population was 80-90 percent Arab Palestinean after World War II.
The Jews were were escaping from virulent anti-semitism after clashes
with the ruling regimes in Russia, Germany, Lithuania and Italy and
other countries.
The Palestineans grew alarmed as more and more jews poured into their
country.
Years later, The U.N. decided to partition the land into two states,
Arab and Jewish, as well as an international zone in Jerusalem managed
by the United Nations, as this was a holy site with special
significance for Muslims, Jews and Christians.
The Jews danced in the streets at the petition plan, but the Arabs
were aghast! It gave the Jews 53 percent of the land -- the most
fertile land -- and the Palestinians 47 percent of the land, though
Jews only owned 6 percent of the land at that time and were only 30
percent of the population! The Palestinians didn't understand why ANY
of their land had to be given up. But many Jews wanted all of the
land.
As the Palestinians were being driven out of their homeland, troops
from Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq began pouring into
Palestine to defend their brethren. They made uncoordinated,
unsuccessful attempts to defeat the Jews after the Jews declared the
formation of a Jewish state, Israel, and after the Jews moved to
occupy more land than the partition plan had given them. This was the
first Middle East war.
Amidst the fighting, Israel came to control 78 percent of what was
once Palestine, while Jordan took former Palestine's West Bank and
Egypt took former Palestine's Gaza Strip. Israel also took the west
part of Jerusalem, a holy place of special importance to Muslims as
wells as Christians and Jews.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were living in makeshift tents
in bordering countries, needing food, water, medicines and clothing.
To prevent disaster, the U.N. formed the Relief and Works Agency for
Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
In December of 1948, the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 194
calling for Israel to allow the Palestinians to return to their homes
and pay compensation to those that choose not to return for the loss
or damage to property.
In fact, Israel was only to be admitted into the U.N. on the condition
that it abided by this resolution, as well as by Resolution 181, which
is the partition plan.
But in 1950, Israel passed laws that prevented the Palestinians from
returning and allowed their land to be used.
In 1967, there was another war where Israel confiscated the West Bank
and Gaza Strip, now called the occupied territories, in addition to
Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, Syria's Golan Heights and East Jerusalem.
This caused a second mass exodus where 350,000 Palestinian refugees
fled the Gaza Strip and West Bank and go to Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
The United Nations General Assembly responded by passing Resolution
237 saying Israel must make it easy for these refugees to return to
their homes in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Israel began transferring
Jewish citizens to the West Bank and Gaza Strip where they built
settlements.
The 13 member Security Council then adopted an important resolution in
1967 which is essential for peace in the Middle East, Resolution 242,
which asserts "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by
war" and emphasized that Israeli troops should withdraw from
territories occupied in the recent conflict.
This resolution also calls for parties to recognize the sovereignty
and political independence of every state in the area.
In 1975, the U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution 3236 reaffirming
the rights of the Palestinians to self-determination, the right to
national independence and sovereignty, and the right to return to
their homes and property.
This resolution also requested the Secretary-General to establish
contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization on all matters
concerning the question of Palestine.
In 1979, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 446,
which demands that Israel dismantle the settlements in the Occupied
Territories.
Realize that the peace process is endangered when the Labor party
loses the national elections in Israel and the Likud party takes
power. This is a right wing party aligned with right wing religious
parties and the militant settler's movement, which the majority
believe Palestinians have no place in what used to be Palestine.
The Likud party expands its borders by moving settlers into the
occupied territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, causing pent
up rage amongst the Palestinean people.
As you probably realize, the frustrated Palestinians are in a state of
war. During the intifada (uprising) from 1987 to 1993, many refused to
pay taxes, quit their jobs with Israeli employers or went on strike,
held mass demonstrations, scrawled grafetti, threw rocks, molatov
****tails and errected barricades to impeded the movements of the
Israeli military and burned tires.
Angry children would threw stones at Israeli soldiers occupying their
territory, though the soldiers sometimes shot to kill. Soldiers killed
about 159 children under age 16.
The Israeli government responds to outbursts by closing schools and
universities; demolishing houses; seizing the goods and furnishings
from stores, factories and homes; killing, imprisoning, torturing and
deporting young men; closing roads so that people can't gather their
crops, purchase food or get the sick to hospitals; and shooting on
sight anyone who is suspect.
By the end of the first year of this intifada, 318 Palestinians were
dead, 20,000 wounded, 15,000 arrested, 12,000 jailed and 34 deported.
The Zionists are learning that its not so easy to build a state on
other people's land.
---------------------------------------
KNOW THE MISERY OF THE PALESTINIANS
Below are selected quotes by Robert L. Stern, who presides over the
Pontifical Mission for Palestine:
In Gaza a large part of the population still lives in refugee
camps, administered by the United Nations. The camps are like a
completely disorganized old village.
The people live in cramped houses made of blocks of cement, there are
no proper streets, but pathways more or less uneven, and they all live
crammed together.
Up to twelve people even may live in one room, because the children
are numerous.
Freedom of movement is limited. They live off the contributions of the
United Nations.
There is no work. When one of these numerous children becomes an adult
and wants to marry, he must first have a place to go, and a wage. But
there is neither the one nor the other for those who live in the
camps. Only one extra room, brick-built can be added on to the
original house. A room that will again look out on to the usual dirty
streets, and the camps that have no easy access to drinkable water and
where there is never order. It is sad to live like that.
There are people who ask the rhetorical question as to why young
Palestinian boys and girls accept blowing themselves up as martyrs.
They can't study, they can't travel, they can't work, they can't have
a family, they live in the absurd, they have no other hope except to
annihilate themselves in a moment of glory for their religion.
The Palestinian refugees in Lebanon all live in camps run by the
United Nations.
.... The refugee camp is the only thing left for these poor people, to
live in prison that is. I dream of the day when there is a universally
recognized Palestinian State, and perhaps all of these poor people can
have a Palestinian passport, so as to obtain a residence visa to work
in Lebanon. Because, things being as they are, Lebanon will never
accept these people as proper citizens. Today more than two hundred
thousand Palestine
Muslims are refugees in the camps, armed, in complete isolation,
prevented from going to Palestine. It is an unbearable way of life,
that has made them nasty, with reason.
Read the entire interveiw at:
http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=10522
My website on the Middle East was removed. I thought that wouldn't
happen in the USA.
billion per year in spite of the country's many human rights
violations.
----------------------------------------------
The Ethnic Cleansing of the Palestinians
By Annie Birdsong
"Palestine will be as Jewish as England is English"
-- Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel
In 1948, 11-year-old Fahimi Zaldan lived in a Palestinian village of
700 people called Deir Yasin. Some in the village made a living by
agriculture and keeping livestock while others worked in limestone
quarries or cut stone. They did a lot business with Jews and lively
relatively in peace with them.
Fahima's world changed on April 9th when Israeli soldiers carried out
an unprovoked massacre in her village. Telling about it, she later
wrote: "As soon as the sun rose, there was knocking at the door, but
we did not answer. They blew the door down, entered and started
searching the place; they got to the store room, and took us out one-
by-one. They shot the son-in-law, and when one of his daughters
screamed, they shot her too. They then called by brother Mahmoud and
shot him in our presence, and when my mother screamed and bent over my
brother, carrying my little sister who was still being breast fed,
they shot my mother too. We all started screaming and crying, but were
told if we did not stop, they would shoot us all. They then lined us
up, shot at us and left." Young Fahimi, her brother and two sisters
were not shot since they hid behind their parents.
All in all, about 254 Palestinian men, women and children in the
village were murdered.
Sometimes the Israeli soldiers would put dynamite around the stone
houses, soak the wooden doors and windows with gasoline, then open
fire with their guns causing an explosion and fire that killed the
inhabitants.
One of the survivers, Fuzziah Ahmed, said they entered homes, killed
the men and old people and plundered the gold, money, clothes and
food. "They even killed a 4-year-old. What does a 4-year-old
understand? They killed him," he said.
A Zionist terrorist organization was also spreading horror among the
Palestineans with radio broadcasts in Arabic saying that typhus,
cholera and similar diseases would break out heavily among them "in
April and May."
The terror tactics sparked a mass exodus of 750,000 Palestinians -- 70
percent of the population -- into neighboring Arab countries and
refugee camps. Many who wouldn't leave were forced out by the Israeli
military, according records declassified by the Israeli government.
About 400 Palestinian villages and towns were suddenly deserted.
Most Palestinians were never allowed to return, though "the right of
return" is guaranteed by international law and U.N. Resolution 194,
which Israel accepted as a condition of its entry into the U.N.
The Arab/Israeli conflict began in 1917 when Britain signed the
Balfour Agreement giving Jews a home in Palestine, though the
population was 80-90 percent Arab Palestinean after World War II.
The Jews were were escaping from virulent anti-semitism after clashes
with the ruling regimes in Russia, Germany, Lithuania and Italy and
other countries.
The Palestineans grew alarmed as more and more jews poured into their
country.
Years later, The U.N. decided to partition the land into two states,
Arab and Jewish, as well as an international zone in Jerusalem managed
by the United Nations, as this was a holy site with special
significance for Muslims, Jews and Christians.
The Jews danced in the streets at the petition plan, but the Arabs
were aghast! It gave the Jews 53 percent of the land -- the most
fertile land -- and the Palestinians 47 percent of the land, though
Jews only owned 6 percent of the land at that time and were only 30
percent of the population! The Palestinians didn't understand why ANY
of their land had to be given up. But many Jews wanted all of the
land.
As the Palestinians were being driven out of their homeland, troops
from Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq began pouring into
Palestine to defend their brethren. They made uncoordinated,
unsuccessful attempts to defeat the Jews after the Jews declared the
formation of a Jewish state, Israel, and after the Jews moved to
occupy more land than the partition plan had given them. This was the
first Middle East war.
Amidst the fighting, Israel came to control 78 percent of what was
once Palestine, while Jordan took former Palestine's West Bank and
Egypt took former Palestine's Gaza Strip. Israel also took the west
part of Jerusalem, a holy place of special importance to Muslims as
wells as Christians and Jews.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were living in makeshift tents
in bordering countries, needing food, water, medicines and clothing.
To prevent disaster, the U.N. formed the Relief and Works Agency for
Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
In December of 1948, the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 194
calling for Israel to allow the Palestinians to return to their homes
and pay compensation to those that choose not to return for the loss
or damage to property.
In fact, Israel was only to be admitted into the U.N. on the condition
that it abided by this resolution, as well as by Resolution 181, which
is the partition plan.
But in 1950, Israel passed laws that prevented the Palestinians from
returning and allowed their land to be used.
In 1967, there was another war where Israel confiscated the West Bank
and Gaza Strip, now called the occupied territories, in addition to
Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, Syria's Golan Heights and East Jerusalem.
This caused a second mass exodus where 350,000 Palestinian refugees
fled the Gaza Strip and West Bank and go to Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
The United Nations General Assembly responded by passing Resolution
237 saying Israel must make it easy for these refugees to return to
their homes in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Israel began transferring
Jewish citizens to the West Bank and Gaza Strip where they built
settlements.
The 13 member Security Council then adopted an important resolution in
1967 which is essential for peace in the Middle East, Resolution 242,
which asserts "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by
war" and emphasized that Israeli troops should withdraw from
territories occupied in the recent conflict.
This resolution also calls for parties to recognize the sovereignty
and political independence of every state in the area.
In 1975, the U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution 3236 reaffirming
the rights of the Palestinians to self-determination, the right to
national independence and sovereignty, and the right to return to
their homes and property.
This resolution also requested the Secretary-General to establish
contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization on all matters
concerning the question of Palestine.
In 1979, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 446,
which demands that Israel dismantle the settlements in the Occupied
Territories.
Realize that the peace process is endangered when the Labor party
loses the national elections in Israel and the Likud party takes
power. This is a right wing party aligned with right wing religious
parties and the militant settler's movement, which the majority
believe Palestinians have no place in what used to be Palestine.
The Likud party expands its borders by moving settlers into the
occupied territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, causing pent
up rage amongst the Palestinean people.
As you probably realize, the frustrated Palestinians are in a state of
war. During the intifada (uprising) from 1987 to 1993, many refused to
pay taxes, quit their jobs with Israeli employers or went on strike,
held mass demonstrations, scrawled grafetti, threw rocks, molatov
****tails and errected barricades to impeded the movements of the
Israeli military and burned tires.
Angry children would threw stones at Israeli soldiers occupying their
territory, though the soldiers sometimes shot to kill. Soldiers killed
about 159 children under age 16.
The Israeli government responds to outbursts by closing schools and
universities; demolishing houses; seizing the goods and furnishings
from stores, factories and homes; killing, imprisoning, torturing and
deporting young men; closing roads so that people can't gather their
crops, purchase food or get the sick to hospitals; and shooting on
sight anyone who is suspect.
By the end of the first year of this intifada, 318 Palestinians were
dead, 20,000 wounded, 15,000 arrested, 12,000 jailed and 34 deported.
The Zionists are learning that its not so easy to build a state on
other people's land.
---------------------------------------
KNOW THE MISERY OF THE PALESTINIANS
Below are selected quotes by Robert L. Stern, who presides over the
Pontifical Mission for Palestine:
In Gaza a large part of the population still lives in refugee
camps, administered by the United Nations. The camps are like a
completely disorganized old village.
The people live in cramped houses made of blocks of cement, there are
no proper streets, but pathways more or less uneven, and they all live
crammed together.
Up to twelve people even may live in one room, because the children
are numerous.
Freedom of movement is limited. They live off the contributions of the
United Nations.
There is no work. When one of these numerous children becomes an adult
and wants to marry, he must first have a place to go, and a wage. But
there is neither the one nor the other for those who live in the
camps. Only one extra room, brick-built can be added on to the
original house. A room that will again look out on to the usual dirty
streets, and the camps that have no easy access to drinkable water and
where there is never order. It is sad to live like that.
There are people who ask the rhetorical question as to why young
Palestinian boys and girls accept blowing themselves up as martyrs.
They can't study, they can't travel, they can't work, they can't have
a family, they live in the absurd, they have no other hope except to
annihilate themselves in a moment of glory for their religion.
The Palestinian refugees in Lebanon all live in camps run by the
United Nations.
.... The refugee camp is the only thing left for these poor people, to
live in prison that is. I dream of the day when there is a universally
recognized Palestinian State, and perhaps all of these poor people can
have a Palestinian passport, so as to obtain a residence visa to work
in Lebanon. Because, things being as they are, Lebanon will never
accept these people as proper citizens. Today more than two hundred
thousand Palestine
Muslims are refugees in the camps, armed, in complete isolation,
prevented from going to Palestine. It is an unbearable way of life,
that has made them nasty, with reason.
Read the entire interveiw at:
http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=10522
My website on the Middle East was removed. I thought that wouldn't
happen in the USA.