Israel's Back Yard

I owe this post to one brave woman who gives her testimonials in Israel's Back Yard.

She's an Israeli PhD student, and an activist of MachsomWatch – Women against the Occupation and for Human Rights. She writes in Hebrew and then one of her friend, Aryeh, translating for her in English. Her first post was Checkpoint 101:with photos.

I still can't express how i felt when i read it...

The About page really gives me a true meaning of the word 'courage'.

Why?
I didn’t always think the way I think today. I was, what I label today as a “couch-leftist”. I sided with the Left, but thought they tend to exaggerate and above all tend to conspiracies and paranoia. I can’t recall exactly how I got up from my couch. I only know it was a slow process, burdened with excuses. For years I wanted to join the olive harvest. Every November I asked a good friend of mine to come with me. And when he didn’t show up, I had a great excuse: I have no one to go with.

But eventually I got up from the couch. It happened about four years ago (2005). I joined the demonstrations in Bil’in. A harsh dissonance, familiar to any Israeli peace activist. When the Palestinians started shouting Allāhu Akbar, I wanted to go stand by the soldiers, to ask for their protection.

Bil’in was too violent an experience for me. In one of the demonstrations – when I was no longer straddling at the back of the procession – as we were approaching the Wall, a shrapnel of a smoke grenade went in my eye. When I came home I knew I was not going to give up, but that I was going to look for something else. I thought of MachsomWatch. I didn’t believe I could fit in, they seemed much older, “a bunch of grandmothers”, but the checkpoints intrigued me. A few weeks went by. One Friday morning on Ben-Zion Blvd. I spoke with a group of Women in Black. I asked them about MachsomWatch. That’s how I met Alex. I arranged to meet her on Sunday.

Alex and Susan picked me up by Hassan Bek Mosque in Tel Aviv. At the time I was living in Kerem ha-Teimanim. We started at Jubara, from there went to Anabta (Tul Karm). It was December, I was shivering. A group of some twenty Palestinians was waiting at the side for the car check to finish, and the soldiers will signal them – a small gesture of “come here”. I went to stand by them. Even today, always when it’s possible, I stand with them. But ultimately they remain in the corrals, and I leave, return to Tel Aviv, to my comfortable life in a sunnier side of the world.

We moved in to Beit Iba, west of Nablus. We stood for three hours behind the carousels. From there we went to Jit Junction, and from there to Za’tara at Tapuah Junction. In the evening, after saying goodbye to Susan I went walking in the alleys of the Kerem. It was cold and it was late, but I didn’t want to go home. I was living alone at the time. I went to the Mitbahon for dinner. Then a shower, and I went to sleep.

A few weeks ago I called Susan. I was at Beit Iba checkpoint. A Palestinian who caught a ride with her forgot his cellphone in her car. She told me – she says this often – “I didn’t think you would come again. You were really trembling”.

It’s hard to describe the process I’ve been through. It’s a complex, sad, painful and aging process of sobering. I don’t always fully understand it. But today I know that the Left wasn’t exaggerating. These are activists, who went to see things for themselves, and were exposed to Israel’s back yard, and returned from there with some insights. It’s worth listening to them. We have seen something which you haven’t.

This is my comment for her:

Here in Indonesia I saw the picture and heard about checkpoints in Israel and occupied territories. But never like this. Not the details. Thank you for your courage to tell the real story for us on the other side of the world.

And this is what she wrote for me:

Hello Nina, Thank you for your comment. Please refer your friends to our blog, if possible.

So, here I am, telling you my friends, to please read her honest and painful-to-read story...

Quote Of The Day

I found this quote in this site

What do the colors of the Palestinian flag represent?

Green is for the land of Palestine,
White is for the peace in which the Palestinian people lived before they were made refugees,
Red is for their blood spilled trying to liberate their land, and
Black is for their life under occupation.

We will eat salt, but we will not bow our heads for anybody other than God, because we are faithful to the rights of our people and our nation. We will not betray it.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh

(picture from www.sott.net)

To Gaza, With Love

It's an article, written by Medea Benjamin. She's a peace activists, a co-founder of the feminist anti-war group Code Pink: Women for Peace, and involved with the anti-war organization United for Peace and Justice.
For Los Angeles Times she's "one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement". But of course, for some she's a terrorist supporter.

For me, she's a brave and courageous woman.


This is what she wrote in common dreams

When I traveled to Gaza last week, everywhere I went, a photo haunted me. I saw it in a brochure called "Gaza will not die" that Hamas gives out to visitors at the border crossing. A poster-sized version was posted outside a makeshift memorial at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. And now that I am back home, the image comes to me when I look at children playing in the park, when I glance at the school across the street, when I go to sleep at night.

It is a photo of a young Palestinian girl who is literally buried alive in the rubble from a bomb blast, with just her head protruding from the ruins. Her eyes are closed, her mouth partially open, as if she were in a deep sleep. Dried blood covers her lips, her cheeks, her hair. Someone with a glove is reaching down to touch her forehead, showing one final gesture of kindness in the midst of such inhumanity.

What was this little girl's name, I wonder. How old was she? Was she sleeping when the bomb hit her home? Did she die a quick death or a slow, agonizing one? Where are her parents, her siblings? How are they faring?

Of the 1,330 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military during the 22-day invasion of Gaza, 437 were children. Let me repeat that: 437 children-each as beautiful and precious as our own.

As a Jew, an American and a mother, I felt compelled to witness, firsthand, what my people and my taxdollars had done during this invasion. Visiting Gaza filled me with unbearable sadness. Unlike the primitive weapons of Hamas, the Israelis had so many sophisticated ways to murder, maim and destroy-unmanned drones, F-16s dropping "smart bombs" that miss, Apache helicopters launching missiles, tanks firing from the ground, ships shelling Gaza from the sea. So many horrific weapons stamped with Made in the USA. While Hamas' attacks on Israeli villages are deplorable, Israel's disproportionate response is unconscionable, with 1,330 Palestinians dead vs. 13 Israelis.

At the end of her article she wrote that On March 7, she will return to Gaza with a large international delegation, bringing aid but more importantly, pressuring the Israeli, U.S. and Egyptian governments to open the borders and lift the siege.

Many members of the delegation are Jews. We will travel in the spirit of tikkun olam, repairing the world, but with a heavy sense of responsibility, shame and yes, compassion. We will never be able to bring back to life the little girl buried in the rubble. But we can-and will--hold her in our hearts as we bring a message from America and a growing number of American Jews: To Gaza, With Love.

What impressed me most were the comments posted by common dreamers, the readers.

dakinirise February 17th, 2009 3:22 pm
Thank you, Medea, for your truth-telling, your passion, committment and compassion. I am honored to be a part of CODEPINK. May your words of heart and humanity reach out and help to mightily transform peoples thinking, beliefs and actions. May the Great Goddesss of Compassion look after you all on your journey to Gaza -- and always. Blessed Be.

IzakFriend February 17th, 2009 3:22 pm
I always assume that Jews who confess that we are really Nazis and that the Arabs have the righteous duty to kill us, are creations of Arab agit-prop.

Jim Glover February 17th, 2009 6:36 pm
Izak,
You are full of false assumptions and need Help.

Daga February 18th, 2009 12:55 am
It is a sad fact that persecuted people often becomes persecutors, the same way a molested child becomes a child molestor. The psychological mechanism behind this paradox transformation is, I believe, self-justification.

The "Blut und Boden" ideologies in Nazism and Zionism are identical, and the difference between Avigdor Liebermann and Julius Streicher miniscule.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Streicher.

Instead of criticizing people like Medea Benjamin ,Uri Averny , Norman Finkelstein , Noam Chomsky etc, you should support them. When the zionist locust swarm has been removed from Palestine, and their mad philosophy but a bad dream. All that stands between the jews and the unison condemnation from the rest of the world are those "Self-hating Jews"

npwr.luv February 17th, 2009 3:35 pm
M E D E A,

Bless you for your stalwart conviction and daily movement toward creating a humane world and alleviating the onerous pathological warmongering of the US & Israel -- and foremost for those generations of innocent children.

You are a heroine of epic proportion, and although the bleak realities so often must cloud your horizon, please be assured that millions of us stand alongside you in ALL of this.

My hope is that you are sustained to continue evermore and in alignment with ever larger numbers of shared souls that are seeking the PEACE and tolerance that is our birthright.

Namaste

Siouxrose February 17th, 2009 5:46 pm
Sioux Rose

NAMASTE: Wonderful words that I totally agree with, and I stand with you and Medea. I love what she had to say about the over-arching power of compassion, and who should be and should have been moved most by it.

m156 February 17th, 2009 3:44 pm
I always assume that Jews who confess that we are really Nazis and that the Arabs have the righteous duty to kill us, are creations of Arab agit-prop.

Gilad Atzmon's take on the canard of "self-hating Jew" is always interesting:

When it comes to criticism raised by a "Jew," Zionists get into a real problem. Because Zionism is supposed to be the "final solution" for all Jews, wherever they are, any criticism made by a Jew must be eradicated..."self-hating" is basically a form of psychotic mode. The Zionists actually admit that something went wrong in the process of Jewish reproduction. A member of the community "lost his mind". First, it saved the Zionists, themselves, from taking any criticism from a "mad man". Second, it warns the rest of the world not to take the criticism seriously, the man is apparently "mad"...With Israeli atrocities on the TV screen night after night, people start to realize that the "mad," "self hating Jew" might have something crucial to say. We better listen to him.

And it was getting better and better.

Susan Schwartz February 17th, 2009 4:55 pm
Mrs. Benjamin, I'm sorry you feel the death toll of only 13 Israelis is too low, so please add the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust to your total count.

Horrified February 17th, 2009 5:12 pm
and what has the six million holocaust victims got to do with the bloodshed Israel unleash on the Palestinians today.. Please do not pull the holocaust card to gain sympathy for Israel aggression. It is so overused that no one is falling for it anymore.

opeluboy February 17th, 2009 5:19 pm
Horrified, I make it a point not to respond to Zionist propagandists on this site, but thanks for doing so yourself. That was one of the most illogical, idiotic and smugly putrid responses I have seen here. I can only imagine her reaction to the little girl buried alive. Probably said something like "Nits make lice." God damn these people.

Susan Schwartz February 17th, 2009 5:22 pm
Perhaps so that the State of Israel lives and is not washed away by anti Semitism again! NEVER AGAIN!!!

Horrified February 17th, 2009 5:28 pm
the only antisemitism that is happening is by non semitic Khazar Jews on semitic Palestinians. Now go take your holocaust whining/ramblings to some other forums!!

Jonah February 17th, 2009 5:53 pm
Where can I find, in person, degenerates such as IzakFriend and the Schwartz? I hate the Israeli and Jewish people ten times more than I ever did due to their posts on CD. And you can call me bigot, anti-semite or any name you want to call me, I will own up to all the epitaphs GLADLY!! I could never wage war on defenseless people. So go screw yourselves. I shall make a 1000 copies of this picture and the article and their posts to put on every car in as many church parking lots this coming Sunday. All Folks should at least pass out the article and picture.

I can copy and paste every single comment there, since they were so refreshing.
Not for IzakFriend and the Schwartz, of course.

Dead Cell February 17th, 2009 11:01 pm
Izak and Scwartz, or whatever the hell your names are:
You people are pathetic. Keep being smug and coy about what's really going on over there. You people are a pain in the ass of the world-and from what I see, you always have been. The day will come when all your self congratulation will come to a very abrupt end. Every day that passes shows israel becoming more and more unrecognizable to the world. Your people are becoming more and more savage-it's becoming normal. It seems that one half of the israelis are being held hostage by the israeli Zionist baboon government. Go ahead and declare war on 7 billion non-jews and see what happens-you'll be chosen all right...
To the rest of you good Jews and Arabs out there who are working for peace no matter what, I salute you!! Keep fighting the good fight. The rest of those Zionist bastards can swim and drown in their own shit for all I care. Go ahead and kill each other already-so we can go about living again. You people are just not worth the effort.
cheers!

freespeechlover February 17th, 2009 11:20 pm
Susan, it won't work anymore. Regardless of 6 million European Jews being killed during the Holocaust, this does not justify the slaughtering of over 1300 Palestinians. It's ye olde "two wrongs do not make a right." And besides. I know you are one of the many trolls sent to sites like this. So this is my last comment regarding your post.

Thanks Medea for a great account. Very moving and accurate.

Yes, thank you Medea Benjamin.
And yes, the hasbara handbook, the propaganda (or whatsoever they call it) has expired. But they'll find another. Like Gilad Shalit.

Kids Can Be Cruel

Yup. Itu Damar. Ketiga dari bawah.
Happy as it seems.

Tapi kemarin, ketika nemenin Damar main di taman, aku mendengar dua orang anak laki-laki cowok di kompleks (5 dan 6 tahun) berkata: "Ah, ngga mau ah, maen sama kamu! Kamu aneh!", dengan tampang se-you're-nerd-stay-away, mungkin.
Saat itu Damar sedang ngeliatin anak-anak yang lagi maen sambil pura-pura motret pake mainan kalengnya.
Waktu damar bilang, "Say cheese!" sambil 'motret', anak-anak itu ngetawain lagi, "Aneh! Aneh!"

Damar? As usual cuma diam. Ngga terlihat tertekan atau sedih atau marah.
Lima menit kemudian dia sibuk motret-motret lagi.

Well, kids.

By the way, akhir-akhir aku sering nulis tentang Palestina. Bukan kenapa-kenapa sih, memang itulah yang ada di kepalaku. Dan karena ada beberapa teman blogger di luar Indonesia, jadi sedikit banyak kucoba nulis dengan bahasa Inggris.
Beberapa tulisan tentang agama, satu tulisan tentang orang-orang Rohingya (sangat-sangat berempati sama mereka...), satu dua tulisan tentang Pemilu dan korupsi.

Wew, ternyata banyak sekali yang bisa ditulis...PRku banyak juga ^^

Semacam kliping buat Damar dan Dimas nantinya.

And for now, I guess I want to read my dynamic duo this poem:


I'm Glad I'm Me
by Phil Bolsta

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don’t understand why everyone stares
When I take off my clothes and dance down the stairs.
Or when I stick carrots in both of my ears,
Then dye my hair green and go shopping at Sears.
I just love to dress up and do goofy things.
If I were an angel, I’d tie-dye my wings!
Why can’t folks accept me the way that I am?
So what if I’m different and don’t act like them?
I’m not going to change and be someone I’m not.
I like who I am, and I’m all that I’ve got!



(http://www.gigglepoetry.com)

Stealing The Land

If they thought the conflict in Holy Land was all about Gaza and Hamas, think again. This is what happens on a daily basis in Occupied Territories.



This is the story.

Thanks to International Solidarity Movement.

Prior to 1979, most Palestinian land was expropriated under the rubric "for military purposes." While the land may have been initially used for the billeting of military units, in many cases the area was quickly turned over to civilian settlement.
This method of land acquisition fell into abeyance following an Israeli High Court ruling prohibiting the seizure of land for military purposes when it was, in fact, intended for civilian settlement.
Following the High Court ruling, the military government relied in part on Military Order 59 (Order Concerning Government Property) to declare unregistered land state property.
As the military government had suspended the registration of land in 1968, it was relatively easy for the Israeli authorities to expropriate vast amounts of land under this procedure.

Rja Shehadeh, a Palestinian lawyer and writer who lives in Ramallah wrote about this systematic land grabbing by Israel in his book, Palestinian Walks (Jalan-Jalan di Palestina : Catatan Atas Negeri Yang Menghilang, penerbit Gramedia).
A touching, honest and beautiful story.

A sad story...
_______________________________________
update from Haaretz:

Some 1,700 dunams of land in the northern part of Efrat were declared state land last week, paving the way for the West Bank settlement to start the process of seeking government approval to build there.

The Civil Administration issued the declaration after rejecting eight appeals by Palestinians against the move. A ninth appeal was accepted, and the land covered by this appeal was consequently removed from Efrat's jurisdiction

With such actions, you can’t tell the world that Israel wants peace.

Reflections

Another great programmme by Al Jazeera English, Reflections of War.

Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) for Palestine.
Because Indonesia doesn't have any diplomatic relationships with Israel, I need to learn more about this movement.
And also, In Yuli Ahmada's blog I found this interesting post about IIPAC (Indonesia-Israel Public Affairs Committee).
Here's IIPAC's blog.This site is in Hebrew and English.

Gaza convoy leaves London.
This convoy will travel 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometres) through France, Spain and North Africa, crossing from Egypt into Gaza at Rafah in early March.

Will write more about these topics.
Now, family time!

Atheist Bus

And this is the bus driver's thought.

This game of theological ping-pong looks set to continue for some time, and should remain not only harmless but also irrelevant, just so long as the Jews, Muslims and Hindus don't join in.

Harmless and irrelevant are not words I'd use to describe another bus that's appeared on the scene during the past few months. This newcomer depicts the actor Daniel Craig in his guise as James Bond. Fourteen feet high he stands, at the rear end of a double-decker, looking immaculate as he loads new bullets into his handgun. He seems laid-back and nonchalant, emptying the spent cartridges on to the ground.

Obviously any driver who objects to being the purveyor of such messages is in the wrong job. Bus drivers aren't meant to have feelings. I've been driving buses in London on and off for 20 years and I don't particularly like the glorification of guns and weapons in ads for movies. But if I refused to drive a bus I'd be failing in my duties. After all, that's what we're paid for.

Bayangkan kalau ini terjadi di Indonesia...sudah bakar-bakaran bis kayaknya.
>,<

Free Palestine!

Thanks Chet, for mentioning this.


(picture from haaretz.com)

Banner hanging over the Bronx Expressway reading 'Free Palestine'
(Jews Against the Occupation)
Another banner was spotted over New York's entrance to the Cross Bronx Expressway, at 179th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan on Wednesday morning.

"We know from our own history what being sealed behind barbed wire and checkpoints is like, and we know that 'Never Again' means not anyone, not anywhere - or it means nothing at all," he said.

Strong Words

JEWISH SOCIALISTS SAY:

stop the bombing and the siege
end the occupation
and give peace a chance!


Jewish Socialists condemn the Israeli siege and bombing of the Palestinian people in Gaza. We express our solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza, and in the occupied territories, and with those Israelis who oppose their government and its war.

We support those young Israelis who would rather go to jail than serve in the armed forces of occupation and war.

We call upon our own and other governments to cease supporting Israel's aggression, and put pressure on Israel's leaders to halt this war, lift the blockade, and end the occupation of Palestinian lands.

The Jewish Socialists' Group has many differences with the politics of Hamas. This war, on a largely defenceless people, is not about Hamas. It was Israeli forces that broke a four-month long ceasefire with a raid killing six Palestinians on November 4. This attack was launched as Hamas and Fatah were agreeing a unified approach. On November 5, Israel stepped up its siege of Gaza, on land and sea, which has brought warnings of human and environmental disaster.

Even so, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told a European parliamentary delegation that Hamas was prepared to declare a long-term truce with Israel, and negotiate for a Palestinian state within 1967 borders. (Amira Hass, Haaretz (November 15 2008)


Evidently, Israeli leaders, including Labour Defence Minister Ehud Barak, were not interested. They had already planned this war. A couple of days after Haniyeh's spech the Israeli navy seized Palestinian fishing boats and crews.

Israel's military-political elite don't care about poorer Israelis, mainly from Arab countries, whom they shoved out to exposed places like Sderot. They have not even evacuated the children. They did not care about captured soldier Gilad Shalit, whose release they could have negotiated long ago, had they and their US backers not preferred a pretext for war, in Gaza and then Lebanon, where Washington wanted to test its latest bombs.

Every people has the right to resist occupation. But the tactic of hitting civilian targets like Sderot is wrong, and the Israeli government has used it to raise public support for war against the Palestinian people. Even so,

500 Sderot residents petitioned asking the government not to escalate the conflict but to seek peace.
A majority of Israelis thought their government should negotiate with Hamas or whoever else the Palestuinian people elected.
A majority of people on both sides wanted the cease fire to continue, and would be prepared to share this land in a just peace.

But 40 years of occupation have so poisoned Israeli politics that Barak and Olmert are competing with the far-right Benyamin Netanyahu to show who is best at waging war. The Israeli Right has been encouraged by neo-cons and right-wing Christian fundamentalists in the United States, who want Israel to spearhead a major Middle East war.

The majority of Americans, including more than 75% of American Jews, voted for Barack Obama and change. Obama's wooing of the unrepresentative Zionist lobbyists AIPAC, and Hillary Clinton's pledge that if Israel was attacked, America would "obliterate" Iran, suggest change is yet to come. The Israeli forces may have timed their attack before Obama takes office, but he has said only that he "understands" them. EU leaders have urged a ceasefire, but Israel continues to enjoy EU trade privileges and a promised closer relationship".

If we want to help the Palestinian people and those Israelis who want a genuine peace, we have to change our own government's policies. Jewish Socialists, together with our friends in European Jews for Just Peace, and similar bodies in the United States and Canada, are campaigning for this.

Alongside solidarity with the Palestinian people, we have a special job - to challenge leaders who claim to speak for the Jewish community, but subordinate its interests to Israeli policy and its reactionary allies. We say politicians must stop listening to the Zionist Lobby - and stop using it as an excuse!

Jewish Socialists stand for peace, freedom and equality in the Middle East, and for unity to fight antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism and every other kind of prejudice here and now.

source : jewist socialists' group

He's Free

From facebook :

LATEST UPDATE FROM THE RIZK FAMILY

Wednesday February 11th, 4:00am

Philip is out, he is safe and home with his family.
He requests that all upcoming planned protests and marches still take place to end siege on Gaza.