Israel to Build Separation Wall on the Lebanese Border

Once upon a time, Gilad Atzmon before leaving PTT hasbara site and joining UP’s site, wrote:

“The Pls are at the forefront of a clash between 2 totalities. between 2 symbolic orders. It is not a political debate and it is not an issue of local tactics or strategy. As Israeli intelligence generals have been predicting for 2 decades, all Pls need in order to win is to survive.If you look at Israel and Zionism from that very perspective,  you would realise that the ‘Wall’ is actually the biggest Pls victory. They dismantled the Zionist project and made the Israeli into a ‘diaspora ghetto Jew’. The Pls have managed to push the Jew back to the ghetto, and this ghetto will shrink as Pls ballistic capability grows. The Jewish state is a matter for Historians, its future is doomed. “

Mary Rizzo, the Anti-Zionist-Zionist queen of PPT, until Haitham Sabbah kicked her ass wrote to me:

“you claim along with Gilad that the Separation Wall is a “great Palestinian achievement”. Can you please respond to the two people, including another Palestinian like yourself, who challenge this statement that Zionist oppression instruments are “Palestinian achievements”. I am not the only one who looked at this and was aghast, there were others in public and private. I would like to hear your defence of this.”

I replied:
“I am obliged, on reading term defense to DEFEND myself as follows:
Your HONER, I admit, I did that, but forgive me your Honor, to say, you failed to understand what Gilad and me meant by saying that the Wall is a “great Palestinian achievement”. Both of us are aware that its Sharon’s achievement, I would add its Ahmad Quraa Achievement, being the cement supplier. Your honor, Gillad and me are against that wall and all walls.

Your Honor, we expected free minded thinker would understand what we meant. We know, that Israel wanted to steal more Land and water recourses, but your honor, Israel, the 4th military power in the world, wanted also to stop Palestinian freedom fighter operations, especially the so-called suicide bomber….

….Your honor, IDF occupied Beirut, and its the Great Lebanese resistance that forced the IDF to withdraw to Awaly river, north of Saida, and gradually to the so-called security zone, and Its Hezbollah who comlpeted the Job, and forced Israel to leave without conditions….

…..Your honor, inspired, by Hezbollah, the Palestinian launched the second Intifada, that brought Sharon to Power with a promise to finish the Intifada in 100 days, and you know what happened. Sharon failed and followed the steps of Barak, pulled out of Gaza, without conditions, but he and puppet Mubarak kept the keys…..

“…Your Honor, Gilad and me are talking about the collapse of Zionism, building the wall is and index for the shrinkage of the zionist goal from greatest Israel from Nile to Furat, to a Jewish Ghetto surrounded by the separation wall.”

Two year after:

Netanyahu: Security fence to be built along Jordan border Israel to Build Separation Wall on the Lebanese Border Israel to Shut Down Nuclear Reactors for Fear of Missile Attacks

Local Editor

‘Israeli’ daily Yedioth Ahronoth said the Zionist army is to build a separation wall between the Lebanese village of Kfar Kila and the Mtella settlement in the occupied Palestine. “The wall is the first of its kind between Lebanon and Israel, and it may be expanded in the future towards some other points,” the newspaper quoted an ‘Israeli’ officer in the Northern Command as saying, noting that the wall construction comes after the borders became an area of contact and drugs smuggling. The officer believed the process of construction will be in coordination with UNIFIL in order to increase the level of security in the region.

Source: Al-Manar Website

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The Wall of Hate

Monday, December 26, 2011 at 2:20PM Gilad Atzmon

Gilad Atzmon’s New Book: The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish Identity Politics is available on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

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The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Palestinian ‘ghosts’ keep the Israeli economy moving

Mona Issa

Jul 29, 2011



Palestinian workers enter Israel via a check point in Bethlehem Men must be over 35, marries with children and have a clean security to get an Israeli work permit.



Palestinian illegal workers sleep on a building site in Israel

“We built Israel,” says Abbas, a young migrant worker from Salem. A decade ago, he began travelling illegally from the northern West Bank to Tel Aviv to work in construction. “We have no jobs, so the only option is to work in Israel.”



Bethlehem’s taps run dry as illegal settlers continue to fill their swimming pools.

With Israel maintaining a tight grip on supplies, a thriving black market in water has grown up as West Bank Palestinians run so short they are unable to bathe or wash their clothes.

More from the Middle East

Years ago, between 1948 and 1967, Palestinians sneaked across borders to work in their former fields in Israel. Those borders were erased after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, when Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and Sinai. After 1967, Palestinians both from Gaza and the West Bank began working on Israeli construction sites. Now, with the building of the separation wall in the West Bank, those borders exist again.

Although men over 35 years of age can obtain security clearance to enter Israel for work, the younger generation have no choice but to travel via the paths their fathers and grandfathers used to walk legally. They are, in effect, the ghost workers of the Israeli economy.

Israel began erecting the wall in 2002. It has since slithered deep into Palestinian land, and its checkpoints and restrictions have crippled the Palestinian economy. All the while, ghost workers – those who cross the border illegally – continue to be the bedrock of Israel’s economy. Indeed, its central bureau of statistics says about half of the approximately 220,000 foreign workers in Israel are illegal, while the Palestinian Workers’ Union estimates there are between 35,000 and 40,000 illegal workers in Israel.

***

Deir Al-Hatab is a village near the settlement of Elon Moreh in the northern West Bank. It was once the scene of violent clashes between Palestinians and Israeli settlers. The villagers who fought the occupation now grow olives, but everywhere there is a sense of aftermath. Many of the villagers were sent to jail, many were militants, and today, many are blacklisted or forbidden from working in Israel.

At a small house in the village, a mother looks with pride more than grief at the posters of her son that cover a corner of the family’s small living room. In the picture, Jalal, her son, stands in front of a mosque, the word shaheed(martyr) printed beneath his name. Tall, skinny, with high cheekbones, Jalal died in 2006, at age 26. He was shot by the Israeli army when the driver of the taxi he was travelling in tried to race away from soldiers at Hawara checkpoint.

“The driver took the settlement road to save time,” Umm Jalal remembers. “When he saw that the soldiers had stopped two vans [full of] illegal workers he tried to escape; the boys asked him to stop, but he didn’t.” Jalal was killed outright and two other workers were wounded. There were mild protests from human rights organisations, but nothing has changed. “People will not stop going to work in Israel,” says Ramzy Ouda, Jalal’s brother.

They will not stop because Palestinians employed by Israeli contractors to build settlements earn three times more than those working for equivalent Palestinian employers, yet for Israelis this is still considered cheap labour.

***
In Wadi Fukin, eight kilometres from Bethlehem, the night is calm. The village is sandwiched between the Green Line and the separation wall. The village was destroyed in 1948 during fighting between the Israelis and Jordanians, which ended with a UN-backed ceasefire that became the Green Line on contemporary maps.

Wadi Fukin was the only Arab village permitted to be rebuilt after the 1967 war. The lights from settlements glitter across the valley, surrounding it on three sides.

Crawling with border police and monitored by Apache helicopters, thorny mountains stretch from the other side, providing a 35km secret route for illegal workers. Each morning, hundreds of workers cram into a narrow, fenced walkway, waiting under the wall’s floodlights for Israeli border police to slowly let them in. The impatient ones squeeze through holes in the outer fence.

Before the wall went up, no permits were required and Palestinians travelled in relative freedom to work in Israel.

On the other side, Jerusalem is just starting to wake. It is 4am; the men – there are 21,600 Palestinians with legal permits according to official sources – need to be at work by 7am. At the end of their shift, they are required to leave at 3pm. Sleeping over in Israel is illegal, although some do.

***

Geha junction in Tel Aviv is busy in the mornings and afternoons, when Palestinians travel to and from work. Several minibuses queue and wait. The route is a gold mine for their young drivers. They are at the top of the underground hierarchy.

“You know how much I make in one month? Over US$4,000 [Dh14,692]!” Khalil, a Druze Arab Israeli, says smugly. Beside him several other young men wait. They shuffle workers around like vegetables, giving them bargain rides from the city to the checkpoints.

“Do you have a permit? Yes? Hop in!” says another driver, Khaled, 21.
The drivers charge illegal workers around $55 for the ride from the West Bank to Israel. Legal workers pay less.

“We do not argue with the drivers as they can report us to the police,” says Abbas.

The hierarchy is based on where you were after 1948 and 1967.
Palestinians whose families stayed in Israel after the 1948 war (the drivers are among them) were given Israeli papers and are called Arab Israelis by Israelis. Palestinians who came under Israeli administration when Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 have only Palestinian papers.

Abbas says he and other workers from Salem travel first to Nablus, then to Ramallah and on to Bethlehem, where they cross the wall. Then they start their walk of up to four hours and arrive in Israel, where they are picked up by Arab Israeli drivers and taken to Geha junction.

Abbas makes about $800 a month, working five days a week, while squatting at the building site. He goes home at weekends via the same secret route.

A fake Arab Israeli ID costs between $400 and $800, according to Ibrahim, or Joseph as it says on his fake ID. One still uses secret routes to enter Israel, but you can get a job in the service industry, which pays double the rate for construction workers, says Morad, who works in a restaurant.

Those illegal documents allow people to exist within the skilfully woven Israeli security system – as long as the police do not run the ID through their database and find a mismatch between the photo on the screen and the person in front of them. For those who are apprehended, a prison term is as likely as deportation.

Both Ibrahim and Abbas, who are from the same village in the northern West Bank, now live undercover, enjoying the opportunities provided by their fake IDs.

But Israel is teeming with patrols and CCTV cameras are everywhere, so both young men know they cannot continue this double life indefinitely.
“You cannot live like this forever,” says Morad. He will eventually return to settle down in his homeland, to open his own business after 15 years working in Israel.

Mona Issa is a documentary journalist and filmmaker who specialises in the Middle East. She currently lives in Egypt.

Posted by End Israeli Apartheid at 8:08 PM

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Israel to build wall on occupied Golan

[ 20/06/2011 – 10:31 AM ]

 

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– The Israeli government agreed on Sunday to build a wall along the borders of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to block infiltration of Palestinians through the border town of Majdal Shams.

The second Israeli TV channel revealed that work would start soon in the border wall that would be eight meters high along an area of four kilometers near Majdal Shams.

It said that Benny Gantz, the chief of general staff, ordered conclusion of work at the wall by September that is before the UN vote on recognizing a Palestinian state.

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From Nasser to Mubarak

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Posted on March 2, 2011 by Ikhras

“The Difference…Dignity”

[Ikhras Note] An excellent article on the development of the Mubarak regime, its relationship with the US and Israel, and the role it played in the region.

SocialistWorker.org journalist Eric Ruder explains how the repressive regime that Hosni Mubarak presides over arose out of a history of nationalist rebellion. This article was written for the March-April 2010 issue of the International Socialist Review.

How did Egypt, once considered a leader of progressive Arab nationalism and a defender of Palestinian national rights, become an open collaborator with the United States and Israel in imposing a siege that defies international law as well as justice to a fellow Arab nation? This collaboration has today made Egypt into an object of scorn, in particular because it seems that the United States has managed to buy its services so cheaply…Egypt’s role in maintaining the siege of Gaza is an extension of its subservience to the overall agenda of the United States. But despite broad support of the Egyptian populace to the national rights of the Palestinian people, the Egyptian regime has always exhibited ambivalence toward the Palestinian cause.

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The majority of the minorities.

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Frustrated Arab’s Diary

 

Non-Arabs !!

(but they have Oil)

the Christians of Sudan were the minority

next month , with the separation ,

there will be a new-South-Soudan

in which the Muslims shall be the minority.

Imperial-UK has drown the borders of Soudan

and the today’s-Imperial-democracies

shall draw the borders of the New-South-Soudan.

Once upon a time , the Imperial-France has

cut off Lebanon out from Syria

to create a country in which the Christians

shall be the majority.

Now and 60 years later , the Muslems have made

more children than the Christians

and France’s dream is shrinking.

Indeed , and elsewhere ,

the Palestinians inside Israel (and under Israel)

have more children born, than Israel could kill,

and even more children than the Israelis could bear.

Imperial-Israel has build a wall to suffocate them

while Palestinians now breath via the tunnels of Gaza.

Back to Soudan ,

remind me , please ,  in April 2023 to check out

whether the Muslims of South-Soudan are still alive ??

and if so , should we not also create another separate state

called :

“the Muslim-State-within the Christian-State of the new-South-Soudan which once belonged to the British-invention-of-a Soudan – cut-off from the historical-Egypt “

Having said all that ,

I shall not miss the South of Soudan ,

nor shall I miss Kurdistan and surely not the Sate of Israel

all of them are not Arabs !! 

Raja Chemayel

an Arab

Posted by Tlaxcala at 11:31 PM  

Who Remembered Gaza in Wikileaks?

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Source

By Yousef

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If you are one of the 1.5 million Palestinians who for years have been trapped inside the world’s largest open-air prison, Gaza, you likely feel that the world and the leaders of the Arab states have forgotten about you. Well, unfortunately, revelations from diplomatic cables that were “wikileaked” recently give the people of Gaza little reason to feel otherwise.

The situation in Gaza is, despite some claims about easing of the siege, still very cruel. This piece published by Amnesty International’s UK Director Kate Allen does a good job of explaining why “six months of a less-oppressive blockade regime has made only a minimal difference to the lives of Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants.”

So it should come as no surprise that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is one of the most salient issues in the Arab public sphere and has been for years. It is seen as the worst-bleeding yet resilient wound in the conflict over Palestine, and a tightening Israeli siege, horrific bombardments and civilians casualties and the most recent flotilla voyages have put Gaza at the center of the Arab public’s attention. One might think that because of this, the plight of Palestinians in Gaza would be featured significantly in discussion between regional leaders and the U.S.

So what of Gaza in the leaked diplomatic chatter?

Well, of nearly 1000 cables leaked thus far only 57 of them even mention Gaza. (379 mention Iran, 142 mention Israel, 136 mention Saudi Arabia.) There is no telling how representative the thus far leaked cables are of the 250,000 that are due to be leaked, or even how representative that 250,000 is of all diplomatic cables. But, in the 57 cables that do mention Gaza there is an opportunity to see how this issue has been discussed between leaders and officials, and what priority it is given. Many Arab and Muslim states have donated significant humanitarian relief to Gaza, but this is not what is at question here. What are they doing diplomatically to change the situation, i.e. press to lift the siege, so that Gaza doesn’t have to live on perpetual handouts? That is the real question. It’s also important to emphasize that more cables may paint a different picture, but overall at this moment, the results are disappointing.

As far as I can tell Moroccan and Turkish government officials are the only ones in the Arab and Muslim world to have expressed genuine concern for the humanitarian situation in Gaza. In a 2008 meeting between Assistant Secretary David Welch and Morocco’s king, the king expressed “deep concern about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.” For their part, the Turks who are often portrayed in a number of these cables of taking a public stance on Gaza for “domestic consumption only” or to reach over Arab regimes to the “Arab Street”, also conveyed concerns about the humanitarian situation in private meetings. In a meeting between Undersecretary Burns and his Turkish counterpart Feridun Sinirlioglu the Turkish official “contended the ‘humanitarian situation in Gaza,’ which is not a punishment of Hamas, but of the Gazan people, fed Turkish popular anger against Israel“

Raising the issue in bilateral diplomatic meetings suggests that the issue is one of actual concern to the government of Turkey, and not simply a ploy for domestic consumption or the manipulation of Arab publics.

Other than Morocco, the Arab states, whose publics “reacted strongly to the Israeli offensive on Gaza, creating intense pressure on Arab governments to act” do not appear to take as principled a stance as the Turks. In fact, there is little of any discussion about the humanitarian situation in Gaza at all in these cables. If anything, the discussions usually focus on Gaza being coldly perceived as an Iranian pawn with little regard to the population there. If there is concern about Gaza’s humanitarian situation it is often from a security perspective.

One cable said Egypt “views a well-armed and powerful Hamas as a national security threat, a point driven home in dramatic fashion by the January 2008 border breach when Hamas bulldozed the old border fence and more than half a million Palestinians poured into Egypt, unchecked and hungry.”

Yet, the leaders are keenly aware of the image problem they’d have for ignoring Gaza. Egypt’s Security Chief said “‘We do not want incidents like Gaza to inflame public anger,’ he added ‘the Gaza conflict put ‘moderate (Arab) regimes’ in a corner.'”

For his part, the Egyptian security chief Omar Soliman is reported to have told General Patraeus that “Egypt worked closely with Israel to coordinate humanitarian assistance shipments and was encouraging the Israelis to allow more assistance into Gaza.” He also stated that Egypt’s primary objectives were to “maintain calm in Gaza, undermine Hamas, and build popular support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.”

This passage also captured what Soliman conveyed to Admiral Mullen :

Stability in Gaza also depends on giving people a more ‘normal’ life, Soliman continued, saying Israel must be convinced to regularly open the border crossings for legitimate commercial activity. The current system – where Egypt informs Israel of a humanitarian shipment and Israel waits two days before accepting or rejecting the shipment for transfer to Gaza – does not adequately meet people’s needs.

Yet, another passage from a cable highlights the game Egypt is playing in Gaza by showing one face publicly and another privately:

Egypt will not take any action that could be perceived as collaboration in Israel’s siege of Gaza, and they have been hyper-sensitive to any suggestion that foreigners are assisting them or overseeing their efforts to counter smuggling. Aboul Gheit publicly distanced Egypt from our January MOU with Israel to combat arms smuggling into Gaza, although he knew about it in advance and consulted with Secretary Rice and me about its contents. The Egyptians do not want to be stuck holding the Gaza bag, and must be able to point the finger of blame at Israel for the plight of the Palestinians. At the same time, Egypt has withstood scathing and widespread criticism in the Arab world for refusing to open the Rafah border crossing to supply Gaza.

This excerpt from a recently released cable probably won’t help Egypt’s case much: “Soliman noted that in six months, MOD will have completed the construction of a subterranean steel wall along the Egypt-Gaza border to prevent smuggling.”

Qatar’s prime minister told Senator John Kerry that Gaza’s needs are acute and Kerry replied that the PM “was preaching to the converted and told the PM he was ‘shocked by what [he] saw in Gaza.‘” But in a meeting Kerry held with Qatar’s Amir a day earlier, the Qatari ruler seemed to suggest that the plight of Palestinians in Gaza was not only exaggerated, but intended to be exaggerated by the Egyptians:

The Amir remarked that he has a feeling he knows which capital (Cairo) is the source of reports that Gaza is under pressure. He said the economic pressure in Gaza on families is not what it was. He offered as an example that Qatar Charity recently offered a family in Gaza 500 USD, but the family declined the gift saying its members had enough to get by and suggested another family that was in more dire need of assistance. The Amir said the notion that a family would turn down money is new.

As for other Arab states, the Syrians noted concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and for Palestinians elsewhere including refugees. The only mention of Gaza from Amman thus far came from an officer in the prime minister’s office who noted to U.S. Embassy officials that “the Gaza crisis had allowed Iranian interference in inter-Arab relations to reach unprecedented levels.” Out of Abu Dhabi, Gaza is only mentioned as part of a slew of Iranian “emirates” as understood by Crown Prince Mohmamad bin Zayed (MbZ) who comes off as the most paranoid character in all the cables released thus far.

So for the people of Gaza, there is good reason to feel neglected by their own government (HAMAS), by Palestinian leaders elsewhere and by most regional leaders as well. Regardless of the depressing humanitarian and economic situation in Gaza, regional leaders depart once again from their publics in the way they view Gaza. For the average Arab – Palestinian or otherwise – Gaza has an emotional connotation of sympathy for a besieged people. For most leaders and officials, Gaza is seen through a self-interested prism of security and/or regional hegemony; everything else is secondary.

Of course there is no doubt that this is a small number of cables that might not be representative and the cables themselves are written from the perspective of individuals who have a bias. It’s my hope that a slew of new cables appear indicating that Arab leaders raised the issue of lifting the siege and each and every encounter they had with U.S. Representatives. Nonetheless, the content of the cables we have thus far should create serious questions in the minds of an Arab public whose leaders seem to be on a different page when it comes to Gaza.

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Palestinians fear more serious stage of Egyptian steel wall

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[ 21/10/2010 – 09:00 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)– A giant crane in Egypt near the Salahuddin Gate on the Gaza-Egypt border is steadily embedding giant steel plates into the earth, even though Palestinians can penetrate the plates. But authorities have a hidden agenda behind the massive sheets.

The Egyptian steel wall project funded by the U.S. has neared its end as five centimeter thick, 20 meter deep, and 11 km long steel plates split the Egyptian city of Rafah from its sister city in Palestine.

Rafah mayor Issa Al Nashar said Egyptian authorities have been working night and day since early October to plant the steel plates under the Salahuddin area, the only region where the steel wall has not yet been erected.

Nashar told Quds Press: “When Egypt began building the steel wall, the border was divided into three stages, and it is now in the last stage, and we believe they will finish at the end of the year at the latest.”

Expressing concern over another stage to come after the wall is posted, the mayor said: “If they carry out the project to pump Mediterranean Sea water under ground on the border, it will have disastrous effects not only on the tunnels, but on the underground water and life in the Gaza Strip in general.”

As the last stage of the wall approaches, Palestinian experts fear Egyptian authorities will pump water from the Mediterranean through horizontal plastic pipes which will transport the water to perforated metal pipes stretching more than ten meters into the earth, where the water will be irrigated to loosened soil, and tens or possibly hundreds of tunnels will collapse.

The pipes have been embedded in parallel with the steel wall which will acts as a buffer to prevent the salt water from leaking into the Egyptian side of the border, according to one Palestinian security official and several tunnel owners.

A Palestinian official, preferring anonymity, told Quds Press: “ The danger is not in the wall’s construction, but in the stages that follow that.”

“The project to pump the Mediterranean Sea water is more serious, because it will cause destruction to most of the tunnels,” he added.

The official went on to say that Egyptian authorities are expected to kick off the water pumping project early next year.

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"No other options:" Gaza’s tunnel industry

Eva Bartlett, The Electronic Intifada, 1 June 2010

At work in a tunnel (Eva Bartlett/IPS)

GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) – Life can be hard working in these tunnels, and it is always at risk. But many have no choice but to work in them, particularly since mid-2007, when Israel and Egypt, with the help of the international community, imposed a siege of staggering severity on the 1.5 million humans in the Gaza Strip.

More than 1,000 tunnels running from Egypt to Gaza employ upwards of 20,000 people, and allow in what is banned by Israel and closed borders: foodstuffs, oil, cooking gas, car parts, medicines, appliances, clothing and shoes, building materials, livestock, school materials, cola, milk formula, cigarettes — and people.

But the UN reports that since January 2008 alone, at least 135 Palestinians have been killed and over 200 injured. They have been crushed or suffocated, or they have been killed by Israeli bombings, gas poisoning by Egyptian authorities, electrocution, and fuel spills.

In August 2009, three young men from the Lahham family were killed while working in a tunnel.

Majed Lahham, 27, from Deir al-Balah, and cousins Jaber, 20, and Saber, 22, from Khan Younis were killed when Egyptian soldiers pumped poisonous gas into the tunnel they were working in, says Majed’s family. Bahari Lahham, 23, was blinded.

“Majed didn’t want to work in the tunnels,” says Mahmoud, one of his five brothers, “but he had no other options. He wanted to make an apartment on the top floor of our house, get married and start a family.”

Majed worked every day but Friday, from 5pm to 3am.

“He had quit working in tunnels, but friends persuaded him to return,” Majed’s father says. “The day he was killed, I told him to rest, it was Friday, he needed a break. But Majed said he needed to work.”

Nassim, 25, holds a university degree in electronic engineering and had opened his own clothing store prior to the 2008-2009 Israeli assault on Gaza. The store was destroyed during the Israeli attacks.

Even before the 23-day Israeli assault on Gaza, Nassim had begun tunnel work. “I needed the money to pay the bills until my business took off,” he says.

Living with his aunt, uncle and their children, and hoping to marry soon, Nassim is the only provider in the family. “There’s no work, no other possibilities, so I chose the tunnels.”

For over a year, Nassim worked 24 hours on, 12 hours off, in a 1,200 meter long tunnel that was 31 meters deep.

At 3:30am on 7 December 2009, Israeli warplanes twice bombed the tunnels, causing Nassim’s tunnel to collapse on two sides. A 23-year-old man was killed immediately. Nassim and two others waited to be dug out.

“We were trapped down there for three days, because roughly 70 meters of tunnel had collapsed with the strikes.”

The men survived off sugar water fed through the steel pipes that provides air to tunnels.

Nassim and one of the other men suffered broken bones from the tunnel collapse. The third survivor lost both legs.

“Tunnels are always extremely hot, but because ours had been blocked on two sides, it was unbearably hot inside,” says Nassim. “But the worst was when I reached the outside and the cold winter air. Then I really started to feel the pain.”

A.B. has not worked for the last two years. He is married with six children and has two years left to receive his law degree. “I knew people worked in the tunnels, but I never thought I would. I thought it was work for the crazy.”

The meager income A.B. had from renting an apartment in his home was not enough to cover the costs of his family and the 500 dollars per term university fee.

“I tried to get a simple job, even as a taxi driver, but couldn’t find anything. I felt isolated from my relatives and wanted to avoid social interaction. “Finally, I accepted a job from a friend working in the tunnels. I knew the job was dangerous, but I had no choice.”

At 12 noon on a March afternoon, A.B. went for his first and last day of work. He was lowered 24 meters via a harness and pulley into a brightly lit tunnel.

“It was very hot and very humid. With the stink of rotting wood and sweat and the heat, it was suffocating,” he recalls.

Given a simple tunnel wall repair job, A.B. was caught when the tunnel suddenly collapsed, burying four workers, including A.B. who convalesced for two weeks after. “I was so desperate. My wife is seven months pregnant now. I couldn’t just sit and complain, I had to solve our financial problem.”

Abu S., 40, works to support his seven children, wife, father and mother. “I used to work in construction and earned two dollars a day, which is very little. But there’s not even that work now.”

“Actually, everyone is afraid. I want people outside Gaza to understand our situation, why we take this work. What would you do if you had a family to support and there was no work?”

Abu M., 40, owns a tunnel. He started at the bottom, as a digger.

“People who have job security and are living well, they’d never risk their lives and endure this hell. But tunnel workers are desperate.”

When the borders were open and there was work, there was no need for the tunnels, he says. “But with the siege, we resorted to them, to bring in the food and everything Israel is denying us.

“Every family in Gaza needs the tunnels,” says Abu M. “Diapers, milk, medicine, paper, pens, gas … Everyone uses something that comes through the tunnels.”

Israel, with the help of Egypt, the US and other nations, has made attempts at stopping the tunnels.

Last year, Egypt began construction of a fortified underground wall meant to cut off the tunnels. Despite the reportedly bomb-proof steel, Palestinian tunnel workers have been able to cut through the steel using blow torches — – and patience. They have had to.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service (2010). Total or partial publication, retransmission or sale forbidden.

Gaza and Lebanon: Beware the Iron Wall, the Coming War

Link

Wednesday 03th of February 2010 09:44:38 PM

Will it be Gaza or Lebanon first? Israel is sending mixed messages, and deliberately so.

By RAMZY BAROUD

The Israeli military may be much less effective in winning wars than it was in the past, thanks to the stiffness of Arab resistance. But its military strategists are as shrewd and unpredictable as ever. The recent rhetoric that has escalated from Israel suggests that a future war in Lebanon will most likely target Syria as well. While this doesn’t necessarily mean that Israel actually intends on targeting either of these countries in the near future, it is certainly the type or language that often precedes Israeli military maneuvers.

Deciphering the available clues regarding the nature of Israel’s immediate military objectives is not always easy, but it is possible. One indicator that could serve as a foundation for any serious prediction of Israel’s actions is Israel’s historical tendency to seek a perpetual state of war. Peace, real peace, has never been a long-term policy.

“Unlike many others, I consider that peace is not a goal in itself but only a means to guarantee our existence,” claimed Yossi Peled, a former army general and current Cabinet Minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government.

Israeli official policy – military or otherwise – is governed by the same Zionist diktats that long preceded the establishment of the state of Israel. If anything has changed since early Zionists outlined their vision, it was the interpretation of those directives. The substance has remained intact.

For example, Zionist visionary, Vladimir Jabotinsky stated in 1923 that Zionist “colonization can…continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population – an iron wall which the native population cannot break through.” He was not then referring to an actual wall. While his vision took on various manifestations throughout the years, in 2002 it was translated into a real wall aimed at prejudicing any just solution with the Palestinians. Now, most unfortunately, Egypt has also started building its own steel wall along its border with the war-devastated and impoverished Gaza Strip.

One thing we all know by now is that Israel is a highly militarized country. Its definition of ‘existence’ can only be ensured by its uncontested military dominance at all fronts, thus the devastating link between Palestine and Lebanon. This link makes any analysis of Israel’s military intents in Gaza, that excludes Lebanon – and in fact, Syria – seriously lacking.

Consider, for example, the unprecedented Israeli crackdown on the Second Palestinian Uprising which started in September 2000. How is that linked to Lebanon? Israel had been freshly defeated by the Lebanese resistance, led by Hizbullah, and was forced to end its occupation of most of South Lebanon in May 2000. Israel wanted to send an unmistakable message to Palestinians that this defeat was in fact not a defeat at all, and that any attempt at duplicating the Lebanese resistance model in Palestine would be ruthlessly suppressed. Israel’s exaggeration in the use of its highly sophisticated military to stifle a largely popular revolution was extremely costly to Palestinians in terms of human toll.

Israel’s 34-day war on Lebanon in July 2006 was an Israeli attempt at destroying Arab resistance, and restoring its metaphorical iron wall. It backfired, resulting in a real – not figurative – Israeli defeat. Israel, then, did what it does best. It used its superior air force, destroyed much of Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure and killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The resistance, with humble means, killed more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers during combat.

Not only did Hizbullah had penetrated the Israeli iron wall, it had also filled it with holes. It challenged, like never before, the Israeli army’s notion of invincibility and illusion of security. Something went horribly wrong in Lebanon.

Since then, the Israeli army, intelligence, propagandists and politicians have been in constant preparation for another showdown. But before such pending battle, the nation needed to renew its faith in its army and government intelligence; thus the war in Gaza late December 2008.

As appalling as it was for Israeli families to gather en masse near the Israeli Gaza border, and watch giddily as Gaza and Gazans were blown to smithereens, the act was most rational. The victims of the war may have been Palestinians in Gaza, but the target audience was Israelis. The brutal and largely one-sided war united Israelis, including their self-proclaimed leftist parties in one rare moment of solidarity. Here was proof that the IDF still had enough strength to report military achievements.

Of course, Israel’s military strategists knew well that their war crimes in Gaza were a clumsy attempt at regaining national confidence. The tightly lipped politicians and army generals wanted to give the impression that all was working according to plan. But the total media blackout, and the orchestrated footage of Israeli soldiers flashing military signs and waving flags on their way back to Israel were clear indications of an attempt to improve a problematic image.

Thus Yossi Peled’s calculated comments on January 23: “In my estimation, understanding and knowledge it is almost clear to me that it is a matter of time before there is a military clash in the north.” Further, he claimed that “We are heading toward a new confrontation, but I don’t know when it will happen, just as we did not know when the second Lebanon war would erupt.”

Peled is of course right. There will be a new confrontation. New strategies will be employed. Israel will raise the stakes, and will try to draw Syria in, and push for a regional war. A Lebanon that defines itself based on the terms of resistance – following the failure to politically co-opt Hizbullah – is utterly unacceptable from the Israeli viewpoint. That said, Peled might be creating a measured distraction from efforts aimed at igniting yet another war – against the besieged resistance in Gaza, or something entirely different. (Hamas’ recent announcement that its senior military leader Mahmoud al- Mabhouh was killed late January in Dubai at the hands of Israeli intelligence is also an indication of the involved efforts of Israel that goes much further than specific boundaries.)

Will it be Gaza or Lebanon first? Israel is sending mixed messages, and deliberately so. Hamas, Hizbullah and their supporters understand well the Israeli tactic and must be preparing for the various possibilities. They know Israel cannot live without its iron walls, and are determined to prevent any more from being built at their expense.

– Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.

River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian

Worshipers in the West Bank revolt against PA-Dayton Imams

Worshipers in the West Bank revolt against PA-Dayton Imams

[ 15/01/2010 – 02:49 PM ]

WEST BANK, (PIC)– Worshipers in tens of West Bank mosques rejected attacks on the great Islamic scholar, Sheikh Yousuf al-Qardawi, for his patriotic stands against the Israeli aggression and siege on the Gaza Strip.

Local sources in the southern West Bank city of al-Beireh said that worshipers at the main mosque in the city rejected the Imam’s attack on Qardawi and refused to pray behind him after he read an official sermon prepared by the PA’s ministry of awkaf and religious affairs in which it launches a scathing attack on Qardawi.

The sources added that PA security elements stormed the mosque and assaulted the worshipers who started shouting “Allah Akbar” to protest the Imam’s attack on Qardawi. The security forces also arrested a number of worshipers.

Meanwhile, worshipers in the Ibrahimi mosque, in the southern West Bank city of al-Khalil, forced the PA-Dayton Imam to get down from the pulpit when he started to attack sheikh Qardawi, as they interrupted his sermon with cries of “Allahu Akbar” to protest his impertinent attack on such a respectful Islamic figure who always stood by the Palestinian cause.

Local sources in the northern West Bank city of Nablus also reported that worshipers at the Salahi Grand Mosque also protested the Imam’s attack on Qardawi and he was forced to get off the pulpit.

There are reports that worshipers in tens of other West Bank mosques protested at the sermon which was distributed the PA-Dayton ministry of awkaf lead by Mahmoud al-Habbash.

It is also important to point out that many free imams refused to read the official sermon, despite risking being sacked.

The PA in Ramallah instruct imams to assail Sheikh Qardawi

[ 15/01/2010 – 01:18 PM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)– The ministry of awkaf and religious affairs in Ramallah distributed a Friday sermon to Imams around the West Bank. The sermon launches a scathing attack on Sheikh Yusuf al-Qardawi.

Media outlets associated with the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah has been attacking Sheikh Qardawi, who heads the International Association of Islamic Scholars, since he called on the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Arab League to open an investigation into who was behind postponing the vote on the Goldstone Report at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

At the time Qardawi was asked if it was proved that any of the PA leaders was involved in this postponement and actually supported and encouraged the Israeli war on Gaza would he deserve the death penalty, he said he would even deserve to be stoned.

During his visit to Qatar last week, Mahmoud Abbas, gave interviews to Qatari news papers in which he attacked Sheikh Qardawi saying that Qardawi gave a fatwa permitting the stoning of Abbas.

Qardawi answered him in last Friday’s sermon, saying that he never gave this fatwa against Abbas, but what he actually said, at the time, was that if it was proved that any PA official helped the Israeli occupation in its war against Gaza he would not only deserve to be executed for high treason, but even deserves to be stoned, like Arabs stoned the tomb of Abu Rughal, who guided Abraha’s army to Kaaba in Makkah to destroy it about 15 centuries ago.

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

SALT: Sacrosanct state and complacent West

Via Australians For Palestine

January 15, 2010

by Jeremy Salt  –  The Palestine Chronicle –  20 January 2009

‘Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided.’ – Barrack Obama ‘I’ve been to Gilo and seen the security fence protecting Israeli families from attacks in their own homes.’ – Hillary Clinton ‘When I heard about the rocket fire at Israel I felt it was a danger to Italy and to the entire West.’ – Silvio Berlusconi ‘While we speak here today thousands of people are living in fear and dread of missile attacks and acts of terror by Hamas.’ – Angela Merkel These quotes are chosen at random from a script written in the theatre of the absurd known as ‘the west’. Does Barrack Obama, the Harvard law graduate, not know that Jerusalem is an occupied city? Does Hillary Clinton not know that the Israeli ‘families’ living at Gilo have built their homes on land belonging to someone else? Does Silvio Berlusconi seriously regard Hamas rocket attacks as a threat to Italy and even the ‘entire West’? Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton were speaking at the AIPAC conference in Washington last June, Angela Merkel in the Knesset in March and Silvio Berlusconi at Sharm al Shaikh this week. He and other European ‘leaders’, as they are called, Merkel, Sarkozy and Gordon Brown among them, had gathered in Egypt to ‘discuss’ Gaza with Husni Mubarak and Mahmud Abbas, i.e to tell them what their part would be in the European plan to bring peace to Gaza.

Remember that during the three weeks of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza close to 500 children were amongst the 1300 people killed. More than 85 per cent of them were civilians. As bodies are still being pulled out of the rubble it will be some time before the final civilian death toll is known. Banned weapons were used. Whole families were massacred and whole streets destroyed with bunker buster bombs. The living was left for days alongside the dead because Israeli soldiers prevented ambulances and medics from reaching them. Trapped between the sea and the fences erected by Egypt and Israel the Gazans were simply shot down like animals in a game reserve. Then the killers were hauled off so that Barack Obama’s inauguration would not be ruined by the spectacle of children still being killed.

Remember the scenes of absolute horror coming out of Gaza when you consider what the European ‘leaders’ meeting in Sharm al Sheikh decided to do in the wake of the Israeli attack. Their priority was to prevent Hamas from rearming. They offered to cooperate with the US and Israel to prevent arms and ‘terrorists’ from being smuggled into Gaza. They called for an end to the firing of rockets into ’southern Israel’. Merkel said Israel had the right to live at peace and not under the threat of rocket attacks. Gordon Brown offered the services of the Royal Navy to prevent weapons being smuggled into Gaza by sea. Sarkozy declared that the European Union would never do anything to harm Israel’s security. Berlusconi went a step further and said he would work for the admission of Israel into the EU. At a meeting with Ehud Olmert, one of the three architects of the slaughter of Gazans they were told: ‘We did not want to hurt them or their children. They are the victims of Hamas’. No one protested. As Haaretz newspaper reported: ‘None of the European leaders condemned Israel for these casualties’

There is a moral sickness in the ‘west’.It does not apply to people but their governments, most of which, it should be remembered, ‘cooperated’ with the United States in the launching of two massively destructive genocidal wars on Iraq and a third on Afghanistan. The lesson from Sharm al Shaikh is that the ‘west’ is again up to its old tricks. Since the invasion of Egypt by France in 1798 it has postured as the defender of civilized values while engaging in acts of theft and slaughter. The French occupation of Algeria (1830-1962) was the first step on the long road that led to Palestine. In his time William Gladstone ordered the British invasion of Egypt in 1882, which was followed by the invasion of Sudan and the slaughter of thousands of protonational Sudanese warriors at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898. The civilian population of Omdurman were terrorized into submission through the British shelling of their city. Bodies lay everywhere. In his time another British Prime Minister, David Lloyd-George, directed the Greek invasion of western Anatolia in 1919, described by a commission of inquiry, with Arnold Toynbee agreeing, as a ‘war of extermination’ of Turkish Muslims in the occupied territory.

Only a few years before the Greek invasion, hundreds of thousands of Muslims had been massacred or herded out of their homeland in south-eastern Europe by the armies of four Balkan states during the Balkan War of 1912-13. The same powers that were to determine the future of the Middle East in Paris and San Remo after the First World War did nothing to stop them. In 1917 a British army marched into Baghdad, its commander declaring that ‘our armies do not come into your lands as conquerors of enemies but as liberators’. ‘Iraq’, a country which did not then exist, was immediately subjected to land and air attack to make sure that its people received the full benefits of their ‘liberation’. From that time until and beyond that day in April 2004 when graduating Iraqi police were told by Jerry L. Bremer, the ‘head’ of the ‘Coalition Provisional Authority’, that ‘once again the Land of the Two Rivers is the focal point of the clash between the forces of darkness and the light of civilisation’, Iraq has never recovered from the shock of the ‘impact of the west’. In Tony Blair, Britain found a late 20th reincarnation of William Gladstone and David Lloyd-George, all of them enthusiastic for war, all of them profoundly sanctimonious, deeply hypocritical and totally ignorant of the countries and cultures they were destroying. Gladstone and Lloyd-George were completely hostile to Islam. Tony Blair, on the other hand, is such a narcissist it is difficult to say that he stands for any fixed truth.
In 1917 Arthur James Balfour ‘gave’ Palestine to the Zionists. Of course it was not his or his government’s to give but rightful ownership was hardly a consideration at the high point of imperialism. Balfour’s gift was cloaked in the rhetoric of high morality and noble purpose. The reality was seedy. For its own imperial purposes Britain needed a loyal minority on the ground in Palestine, something like France’s Maronite protgs in Lebanon, but did not have one. On the assumption that the Zionists would fill such a role the British government decided that they should have Palestine, and that Britain should protect them, should build up the ‘national home’ and should close the door to the future until they had built up some viable demographic base. For their own purposes the Zionists never talked openly of establishing a state in Palestine. They hid their ambitions and tailored their aspirations and their rhetoric to meet British interests. They talked of bringing civilization and progress to the ‘primitive people of Asia’, as Moses Hess wrote. They were loyal but only for as long as loyalty served their purposes. When Britain was exhausted as an imperial power they turned immediately to the United States, the only ‘western’ power that could replace Britain and France in the Middle East and further their interests.

From 1917 the ‘west’ has never budged in its support for the Zionist project in Palestine. Influential voices of protest have been raised from time to time (i.e. Ernest Bevin’s in 1948) but until the present, right up to the summit conference at Sharm al Shaikh, Israel apparently can commit no crime that cannot be overlooked, explained away or justified by ‘western’ leaders. Hands will be wrung at the ‘disproportionality’ of its actions but never is it subjected to punishment for the worst of the crimes committed by ‘defence forces’ acting on the orders of the government of Israel. Never once has it been suggested by anyone outside the Arab or Muslim worlds that Israel should be made to pay reparations for the loss of life and destruction of property. Even now someone else is going to have to pay for the reconstruction of Gaza which, because the ‘west’ refuses to restrain or punish what Norman Finkelstein has called a ‘lunatic’ state, a state Yitzhak Laor describes as being engaged in ‘a long war of annihilation against Palestinian society’, will remain vulnerable to destruction again whenever the government of Israel decides. Israel has plunged the Middle East into war after war, and many more could have started as the result of its provocations had Arab states felt able to respond.

No state in the Middle East has treated international law and the United Nations with greater contempt yet no other state in the world has been so indulged. There is apparently nothing Israel can do that warrants punishment. It can invade, occupy and settle; it can assassinate; it can send death squads into Palestinians towns; it can massacre; it can use banned weapons; it can reduce the suburbs of Beirut, the towns of southern Lebanon, the refugee camps of the West Bank and Gaza to an urban wasteland; it can set bomb hospitals so that patients have to be evacuated in the middle of the night; it can bomb orphanages, schools, mosques, bridges, roads, power plants, fuel depots, anything it wants to bomb and anywhere it wants to bomb; it can create wave after wave of refugees; it can turn them into refugees twice or three times and still bomb them wherever they find shelter; it can uproot olive groves and orange orchards; it can declare any kind of war it wants, topographical, hydrographical, demographical, without the ‘west’ intervening except to declare that it will stand by Israel. So the question has to be asked – is there anything Israel can do that the governments of the ‘west’ will not allow beforehand or indulge afterwards? If the murder of hundreds of children does not make a difference, what will? Is the ‘west’ still so mesmerized by the Nazi holocaust of the Jewish people that Israel has the licence to do whatever it wants?

In its sleepwalking state the ‘west’ does not seem to realise what it is standing by, and what it should be standing for, because its refusal to deal rationally with Israel, through the application of international law, and through the application of sanctions, isolation and ejection from the United Nationsif it does not respond to warnings, threatens to end in a collision of terrifying proportions.

The point is being made by an increasing number of commentators that Israel cannot survive in its present state. The reason may be demographic, because in two or three decades there will be far more Palestinians between the Mediterranean and the Jordan than Jewish Israelis. The reason may also be that people across the Middle East and elsewhere have reached the conclusion in the wake of Gaza that Israel in its present state and peace are permanently incompatible. Israel’s depredations have certainly bred anti-Semitism but basically Israel is reviled for what it is and what it has done. It is in a region where it has made itself hated through its own actions.

The spectacle of religious Jews watching the destruction of Gaza from afar and dancing in celebration, the anti-Arab graffiti written on the walls of Hebron and Gaza might not speak for all Israelis but certainly speaks for a large number. The triumphalist rhetoric in the Israeli media, the indifference of the Israeli mainstream to death and destruction in Gaza and Lebanon is proof that nothing is going to change until Israel is made to pay for its savage, atavistic and deeply uncivilized behavior. There is no two state solution on the horizon. There is no one state solution on the horizon. There is no principled involvement by the United States or European governments on the horizon, so what else can there be on the horizon but more war and finally, perhaps inevitably, one aggressive war that Israel cannot win without the direct involvement of those ‘western’ states committed to its ‘defence’. This is the dark, bleak future boiling over the horizon in the wake of Gaza.
– Jeremy Salt is associate professor in Middle Eastern History and Politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. Previously, he taught at Bosporus University in Istanbul and the University of Melbourne in the Departments of Middle Eastern Studies and Political Science. Professor Salt has written many articles on Middle East issues, particularly Palestine, and was a journalist for The Age newspaper when he lived in Melbourne. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

Wall of Sham: "The next war will be fought in Sinai, This is exactly what Israel wants."

The Electronic Intifada,

Lina Attalah, The Electronic Intifada, 8 January 2010

Equipment used to construct the wall on the Egyptian border with Gaza. (Lina Attalah)

Driving parallel to the borderline between Egypt and Gaza, one can spot the machinery behind the conspicuous wall construction project meant to stop ongoing smuggling through underground tunnels.

Some 80 meters away from the borderline, there were two cranes and a spiral driller. Four trucks loaded with sand and two with iron panels had just arrived on site. The usual silence of the borderland is broken by the sounds of this equipment and the few workers around them. People in the area say the wall will be dug between 18 and 25 meters deep and will extend all the way between the Egyptian-controlled Rafah and the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom border crossings with Gaza.

The wall is meant to hack the tunnel structures, which extend from the Egyptian side of the border to the Gaza’s side for distances that range between 400 meters and 1,700 meters. With many prohibitions on the ground, the tunnels have become a lucrative underground alternative. The wall construction portrays the depth of this underground urbanism, bringing the conflict between smugglers and the security to the forefront.

According to smugglers in the area, the process kicked off 25 days ago, when workers came to uproot the few olive trees lined up on the construction site. The wall basically consists of a series of iron panels placed along the 13.8-kilometer borderline. The panels are overlapping and held together with molded steel connections. Smugglers said the panels will also include sensors to detect any movement. A faint hope for smugglers remained as they thought they could still run their tunnels underneath this 20-meter wall.

However, the water element is what has convinced many that the wall will be invincible.

No happy ending

Seated together around the fire in a traditional Bedouin maqad (get-together), a group of smugglers in the Mahdeya village, near Rafah, spoke about water extension of the wall and its perils. “We saw the pipes in the past few days,” said one of them. “Each is around six inches, 30 meters deep, and they will be placed at around a 20-centimeter distance from each other. They will be connected to a horizontal pipe which will pump water from the sea.” Such construction makes it impossible to dig tunnels underneath the iron panels.

In a coffeehouse in the Masoura district, two kilometers away from the borderline, smugglers also shared their thoughts about an ominous post-wall future. One of them who partially owns a tunnel, also foresaw the perils of the water. “Not only will our business be hurt, but the underground water of the area will be disrupted as well, with salt water being pumped into it. This is our sole source of agricultural and drinking water,” he said. The area lives on an underground fresh water canal that extends from the Sheikh Zuyawid town to Rafah in the northern Egyptian Sinai.

The implementers of the wall project have never been officially disclosed. Local sources say that it’s the Arab Contractors, a leading Egypt-based construction firm in the Middle East and Africa, that is handling the operation. Attempts to get verification from the company were to no avail. Smugglers said that the iron bars in use are imported and transferred via the Alexandria port. Trucks seen transferring the panels to the construction site had Alexandria license plates on them.

Some press reports state that there is official American technical assistance in the wall construction. Embassy officials have previously told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm that at the request of the Egyptian government, the US has been sharing its technical expertise and knowledge in tunnel detection since late 2007. When asked about the wall proper, a US Embassy spokesman told Al-Masry Al-Youm, “We are not involved in the construction of any barrier on the Egyptian border, however, we do recognize Egypt’s right to protect its border.”

Self-protection is the argument in use by the Egyptian government in explaining the wall construction, besides reaffirmations that the wall is built on Egyptian land, and hence it is a sovereign act. Minister of State for Legal Affairs Moufid Shehab said in a report published this week in the local media that the wall was a legitimate national defense mechanism against arms smuggling and terrorism. The official religious establishment has also voiced its support for the move, amid protests from the opposition.

But smugglers in Rafah do not think of the wall as the happy ending of the border turmoil. “Remember when Gazans flooded the border in January 2008? The same will happen when this wall is complete,” said the smuggler in the maqad. In January 2008, gunmen in Gaza shot at positions on the borderline, breaking it open before hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, an incident that Egypt considered a threat to its national security. “The next war will be fought in Sinai,” said the smuggler, warning of a possible conflict between Egyptian security and Hamas fighters. “This is exactly what Israel wants.”
The smuggler in the coffee shop who runs a tunnel foresaw the collapse of his business. “When I learned about the water pipes, I knew that this puts an end to our business. There are no alternatives,” he said. According to him, before the tunnel business flourished during the total closure of the Gaza Strip with Hamas’ takeover in 2007, people in the area used to live on loans for agricultural projects in the nearby Egyptian city of Ismailiya. But nothing beat the lucrative tunnel business.

He estimated thousands of tons of goods moving through the tunnels every month. A ton of cement costs its trader $500 to cross, and a sac of 35 kilos of food items costs $15 on average. Digging a tunnel costs around $60,000 and many tunnels from the Gaza end fork into more than one end on the Egyptian side. Everyone on the Egyptian side is involved in this underground economy, from owning tunnels, to trading goods through them and transferring commodities and money. Even women get paid for packaging sacks of goods and sewing them. “Tunnels have become our streets,” said the smuggler. In a previous encounter, another smuggler said, “tunnels are underground supermarkets.”

“This wall will make no one happy,” said Youssef, seated behind an olive tree he planted in front of his house, facing the construction site of the iron wall, dubbed “the wall of shame” by Egyptian opposition and Gaza activists.

Lina Attalah is a senior reporter for Al-Masry Al-Youm English, where this article was originally published. It is republished on The Electronic Intifada with permission.

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

Ramullah Traitor, Neopatriots of Rizzostine On: Viva Palestina, Siege and the Wall of Shame

Hamas is the Enemy.
Galloway crossed the limits of Soliderity.
Long Live Pharaoh and his WALL. until the return  to controll Rafah.  
Let Egypt build its Iron Wall mile deep, and let Israel build its Cement Wall mile high and let. Operate Gaza Sea Port under a joint US/NATO. Virtually placing Gaza under an international custody.

Take it from their own mounths:

“Contrary to expectations in Turkey, he (Abass) did not allow Egypt to be blamed here, placing the blame squarely on Hamas’ shoulders.”

“Egypt, as a sovereign state, had a right to guard and protect its borders as it wants. … it was Egypt that was the key player in the region,” [ABBAS]

Contrary to the expectation of readers in Rizzostine, Hiatham Sabbah did not allow Egypt to be blamed here, placing the blame squarely on Galloway’s and Hamas’ shoulders.

“this turned to no more than smearing Egyptians, which have done to Gaza more than any other Arabian or Western country did.”
“why would Egypt open the boarders? At the end of the day they have the right to protect their citizens”
“Why in the world any country open its borders without any regulations?
“We all know who controls the tunnels, and what they are used for. Who can dig a tunnel and who can’t. What can be brought from Egyptian Rafah and what should not. And we all know that the tunnels are not used ONLY for food. In fact food is just a cover to many other businesses and even worse a passage for terrorist groups such as Al-Qaedaa and their likes which Gaza are full with these days. If this is not enough reason for Egypt to construct this iron wall, I don’t know what can be a good reason. That not to mention the drugs business. Guess who is doing the trading and were the money goes. definitely not to buy food for the palestinians in Gaza. ”  [Neopatriot Haitham]

“Hamas had taken the steps that ended with the closing of the Rafah border gate,…. Hamas was trying to force open the Rafah gate under its control…. President Abbas made it clear, however, that as the legitimate Palestinian administration, they would never accept this.” [ABBAS]

“without any international guarantees that Palestine is going to be autonomous in controlling its own borders for the good of the people in Palestine and not to serve factions whose agendas are not acceptable to any patriot.“ [Neopatriot Haitham]

 “Thanks Haitham… you speak the truth, the goals and objectives of the solidarity movement with Palestine but be the same as Palestinians; ending the siege of Gaza, ending the Israeli/Jewish Occupation and of course the right of return for Palestinians.

However the immediate goal is opening the sea port of Gaza for international shipping, and let Egypt build its Iron Wall mile deep, and let Israel build its Cement Wall mile high and let Ramallah partner with Israel in keeping the gates closed… Opening the Gaza Sea Port will end the siege of Gaza once and for all… it will allow the free flow of goods, and people to and from Gaza… of course this could not happens without the support of the US.

That is why I called for the operation of Gaza Sea Port under a joint US/NATO with both organizations taking total operational and security control free and independent from Israel, Egypt, Hamas and certainly Fatah and Ramallah….Virtually placing Gaza under an international custody… to allow people to rebuild what Israel destroyed and what Ramallah corrupted.” [sami jamil jadallah]

President Abbas defends Egypt against Turkish vilification

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Thursday, January 7, 2010
Semih Idiz

There is anger and indignation in Turkey directed at Egypt because it would not initially let an aid convoy go through the Rafah border gate to Gaza earlier this week. Turkish public opinion was quick off the mark with its gut reaction against Cairo, after clashes between Egyptian police and members of the convoy – during which one Egyptian soldier was killed by a shot fired from the Hamas controlled Gaza.

We had a similar situation last year following the events in the Xinjiang province of China. Overnight China became an object of hate for Turkish Islamists and nationalists. Ironically China was for the same groups a country to be admired a week before these events for the way it was standing up to the West, and competing with it in every sphere.

Fickle as ever, those Turks who turned on China overnight did not bother to question the reasons for what was happening in Urumchi. It was again an instant gut reaction, with Islamic and nationalist sympathies coming to the surface in an automatic and Pavlovian manner.

We had to opportunity on Thursday to ask Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a few questions about all this, during his visit to Ankara for high-level talks about the latest developments in the Middle East. Their papers having carried the anger against Egypt to their main headlines, some of the reporters in attendance were curious about what the Palestinian president had to say about the events at Rafah.

His answer indicated that he too will become an object of hatred in Turkey, where Hamas – regardless of all its terrorism – is the better-loved side of the Palestinian divide. The reason why he will become so is clear. Contrary to expectations in Turkey, he did not allow Egypt to be blamed here, placing the blame squarely on Hamas’ shoulders.

Indicating that like all sovereign countries, Egypt too had a right to protect its borders, President Abbas also reminded that many aid convoys to Gaza had gone over this country in the past. Abbas said that the latest problem arose when those in the convoy – headed by the maverick British politician and former Labour MP George Galloway – insisted on going into Gaza over Egypt through a route they selected themselves, refusing to use the route Cairo had determined for them.

Abbas said that Egypt, as a sovereign state, had a right to guard and protect its borders as it wants. He also indicated in so many words that it was Egypt that was the key player in the region, not just in terms of the Middle East peace process, but also in terms of the attempts to bring about a rapprochement between estranged Palestinians.

Abbas pointed out that it was Hamas, after all, that had taken the steps that ended with the closing of the Rafah border gate, and the imposition of an embargo on the region. He also agreed that Hamas was trying to force open the Rafah gate under its control with a view to gaining some kind of international recognition a separate independent entity.

President Abbas made it clear, however, that as the legitimate Palestinian administration, they would never accept this. The Palestinian leader also made it clear that their principle priority at the present time was to get Hamas to accept general elections in Palestine.

Abbas said that while Hamas was elected democratically in 2006, it seemed now that it did not want to leave power by democratic means and so was opposing the holding of elections, which it had initially agreed on under Egyptian auspices.

He also made it clear that this was the point at which he wants Turkey to intervene, in order to use its ties with Hamas to convince this organization to accept the holding of general elections.

Put in perspective, the grand role that Turkey sees itself playing in the Middle East peace process was not exactly reflected in Abbas’ remarks.

 According to him, it is Egypt that is up front in this respect, and that is the way they want it to stay, no matter what Turkey or Turks may feel about that country at the present time.

We found Abbas’ remarks useful in terms of shattering some illusions that the Turkish public has because of being generally ill-informed about the intricacies of Middle East politics. It was also telling that the convoy that caused so much trouble at the Rafah border gate, had at least four deputies from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP.

This alone was enough to show where the government’s real sympathies lie when it comes to the divide between the Palestinians. Behind all of this, of course, Prime Minister Erdoğan’s by now famous reprimand of Israeli President Shimon Peres at Davos last year.

That made Erdoğan an instant hero, not just in Turkey but also in the streets of the Middle East – and especially in Gaza.

Even George Galloway complimented Erdoğan during the incident at the Rafah crossing this week. He said his wish was that all Arab countries, and his country the United Kingdom, would one day have leaders like Erdoğan.

Given his fondness for populism, these remarks were undoubtedly music to Erdoğan’s ears. However, that is about all they represent. Because the Middle East being the place it is, Erdoğan’s interlocutors are not the masses that admire him today, but the leaders of the various countries that look on some of his behavior with misgivings.

The simple fact is that most of these leaders today are against Hamas, a fact that Turkish public opinion is not fully aware of until something like the incident at Rafah happens. Now that portraits of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak are being burned across Turkey, and Egypt is being vilified nationwide alongside Israel, it is unlikely that these leaders, starting from Mubarak, are going to be very pleased.

President Abbas’ strong endorsement of Egypt as the key player in the region goes to show that the Erdoğan government is not fully in tune with the established “powers that be” in the Middle East. Neither is his strong endorsement of Iran enamoring him much to some of these regional powers, since they too have serious concerns about Tehran’s efforts to enrich uranium.

Turkey has alienated Israel and lost its chance, for all intents and purposes, to mediate between that country and Syria. Turkey is now in the process of alienating the other key regional power, namely Egypt. From President Abbas’ remarks it is also clear that there is little role for Turkey in trying to mediate between Hamas and the PLO.

Put another way, all that is expected from Ankara in this respect is to try and convince Hamas, with whom it enjoys good ties, to accept general elections in Palestine. This appears, however, to be no more than a messenger’s role, and does not provide the image of “proactivity” that Ankara is trying to project concerning its involvement in the Middle East.

The fact that the government did nothing to calm Turkish public opinion this week against Egypt – by trying to explain what was going on in Rafah – and instead allowed the reputation of an important country like Egypt, a traditional friend, to be dragged in the gutter will clearly not be forgotten easily in some quarters in the Middle East.

Related Posts:

• So your job is smearing Haitham and his sites and work? Thus Said Mary Rizzo

• Bilal said… My comment was not published, can’t imagine why??

• LONG LIVE PHARAOH LONG LIVE THE SIEGE
• “So, UP site has become the Tony Greenstein site”..”Now, the Queen will say a few things”

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

Rabbi Tantawi and Leading Egypt Rabbies Back Gaza Tunnel Barrier

Almanar
Readers Number : 521

01/01/2010 A council of leading Muslim clerics has supported the Egyptian government’s construction of an underground barrier along the border with Gaza to impede tunneling by smugglers, a report said on Friday.

The Islamic Research Council of Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning, said that the tunnels were used to smuggle drugs and threatened Egypt’s security, the Al-Masri Al-Yawm newspaper reported.

“It is one of Egypt’s legitimate rights to place a barrier that prevents the harm from the tunnels under Rafah, which are used to smuggle drugs and other (contraband) that threaten Egypt’s stability,” the paper quoted the clerics as saying.

“Those who oppose building this wall are violating the commands of Islamic law,” they added, after a meeting attended by Egypt’s top cleric Sheikh Mohammed Said Tantawi, who is a government appointee.

Hamdi Hassan, an Islamic member of the Egyptian parliament, has filed a lawsuit against President Hosni Mubarak demanding a halt to construction of the barrier, the newspaper reported.

Earlier this week, the chairman of the International Union for Muslim Scholars Sheikh Yousuf al-Qaradawi slammed the barrier as an “unjustified crime” and as such was banned by Islam.

Sheikh Qaradawi said, in a statement, that the barrier Egypt had begun constructing was meant to “pressure the Palestinians in Gaza to surrender to Israel.”

“What Egypt is building these days on its border with Gaza is a prohibited act from the Islamic perspective,” the prominent Islamic scholar said. “It aims to close off Gaza and tighten the siege imposed on it people so that they give in to the Israeli demands,” Sheikh Qaradawi added.

Sheikh Qaradawi also called on the Egyptian government to open its Rafah border crossing point with Gaza, noting that opening the border point was a “religious and legal duty” of Egypt toward the Gazan people. “Rafah is the only lifeline for the people of Gaza. Egypt should open it rather than suffocating the Palestinians and collaborating with others to kill them.”

The scholar also appealed to both the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) to pressure Egypt to stop the construction of the Wall. “The Wall is one hundred percent against the Palestinians and playing into the hands of the Israeli enemy one hundred percent,” he concluded.

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

So your job is smearing Haitham and his sites and work? Thus Said Mary Rizzo

Mary Rizzo is an art restorer, translator and writer living in Italy. Editor and co-founder of Palestine Think Tank, co-founder of Tlaxcala translations collective. Her personal blog is Peacepalestine.

mary said…

So your job is smearing Haitham and his sites and work? It is easy to do from anonymity in California, is it not? Haitham may have ideas or thoughts that are mistaken, and all who disagree with him can and should express that, and they should not be put on trial – but his good faith, his total devotion to his people and their total liberation is beyond doubt and your seeking to foment wars between activists and Palestinians who are against Jewish Occupation of Palestine and against all client regimes of the USA/Israel, including Egypt’s I find negative. But, you can’t argue with UP, he will turn it into a public smear war to discredit other activists. At any rate, his work, which you seem to want to in one fell swoop berate, has allowed the Palestinian voice to go viral over the web, and that includes yours. I think you are the only person I know who has doubted his integrity and his commitment to his people. It does not look nice on you, however much Haitham may write things that could be wrong on some counts, Haitham is not doing Pharaoh’s work, and shame on you.

As you may have not noted, Stuart Littlewood, after reading Haitham’s report, amended his own report, and he is in agreement with Haitham’s questioning. You can see it all on Redress: http://www.redress.cc/palestine/slittlewood20091229
and now you can attack Redress and Littlewood, for the sake of consistency.

Littlewood takes direct suggestions from Haitham, that no one should ever have had been put in a condition to be begging or bargaining with Egypt. If you do it, then be prepared to do it. If you don’t want to do it, say so and don’t pretend, and if you want to break the siege, you break the siege, as Free Gaza was able to do, without genuflecting to anyone.

Awaiting your attack of Redress or Littlewood, for consistency’s sake.



Reaching the Gates of Hell is not so easy

---

Egyptian ruler Mubarak torpedoes international voluntary aid to Gaza

By Stuart Littlewood
29 December 2009

Stuart Littlewood considers the predicament of the Viva Palestina international humanitarian convoy – the culmination of voluntary work by thousands of supporters, fund-raisers and donors in the UK, Europe and internationally – whose journey to besieged Gaza was thwarted by Egypt’s ruler, Husni Mubarak, just four hours before it reached its destination.

The Viva Palestina convoy is being given the run-around by Egypt’s President Husni Mubarak and his “Awkward Squad”.

My heart goes out to the 500 or so dedicated people from 17 different countries who brought their convoy of 200 vehicles almost to the gates of Gaza, only to be stranded at Aqaba just four hours short of their destination.

And not only the 500 driving with the Viva Palestina convoy but the thousands of supporters, fund-raisers and donors back home who have worked for months to provide the medical supplies, the food, the transport and the countless other humanitarian items.

These 500 “salt of the earth” were kicking their heels in Aqaba, and threatening a hunger strike while their precious cargoes spoiled in the heat, because the Egyptian authorities wouldn’t allow them to enter Egypt through the port of Nuweiba. The reason appeared to be that the road across the Sinai from Nuweiba to Rafah ran close to the Israeli border and the 250 trucks and ambulances of the convoy might have caused “a big infiltration problem”.

Why the Egyptian army couldn’t have provided an escort to ensure that no trucks left the column, wasn’t explained. The convoy had already taken great trouble and gone many hundreds of extra miles to avoid Israel.

To have come so far and given so much – in time, effort, money and other resources – and to be thwarted at the last minute, was very hard to take.


However, Egypt is perfectly entitled to lay down rules and its Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying: “The Egyptian government welcomes the passage of the convoy into the Gaza Strip on 27 December, on condition that it abides by the mechanisms in place for humanitarian aid convoys to the Palestinian people, including most importantly the entry of convoys through the port of El-Arish.”


In February 2006 the British MP George Galloway, who leads today’s convoy, was refused entry into Egypt. The last Viva Palestina convoy was pelted with stones and vandalised at El-Arish, which is about 28 miles from the Rafah border crossing into Gaza, after Galloway reportedly called President Mubarak uncomplimentary names and urged the country’s armed forces to overthrow him.

We all know what Mubarak is, but how sensible was it for Galloway to broadcast his opinion to the world when he wanted easy passage for his convoy through the guy’s territory?
There’s clearly no love lost here, and I heard the Egyptians had imposed three conditions if the convoy wished to reach Gaza through Egypt:

1. It must hand all its vehicles and aid over to UNWRA.
2. It must drive 500 miles back to Syria, then take ship from Latakia to the port of El-Arish.
3. It must ask Israel’s permission to cross from Egypt to Gaza.

This information came from members of the convoy, not the organizers. Conditions number 1 and 3 are unthinkable, surely. But this evening the organizers announced that the convoy, after mediation by Turkey, would indeed turn around and head back to Syria and embark from Latakia to El-Arish. Nothing has been said about complying with the other two conditions.

The voyage should take them under the noses of the trigger-happy and piratical Israeli gunboats who think nothing of opening fire on Gazan fishermen. Will the Royal Navy be dispatched to provide an armed escort?

The question remains: did the organizers know all this beforehand – especially the El-Arish stipulation – or was it suddenly sprung on them? Was clearance given for the southern route via Aqaba, then rescinded, or was it left to chance?

The convoy’s organizers are not answering basic questions and the full picture has still not emerged.

“This is a very determined convoy and we’re not going anywhere except to Gaza,” says George Galloway.

God speed you to the Gates of Hell then, George. But next time you should maybe consider going by sea, sailing 200 boats though international waters and demanding that the Western powers guarantee the freedom of the high seas. That way you don’t need to bow to the likes of Mubarak.

And you could become an admiral.

---

Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.

Comment:

Mary
I was expecting your visit earlier, to vent. You could have done it there at your site. 
A look at the majority of comments of your reader tells why you prefered to do it here, and explains your accusation. Moreover, you are angry fore something else and you found a chance to vent your anger.
Your are welcome, and free. Therefore I moved you comment up here.

“Haitham is not doing Pharaoh’s work,”

With full respect to his history and good intentions, he didn’t just called Viva Palalestinia to apologize to Pharaoh, he called viva palestina to put pressure on Pharaoh and to “put the blame and the pressure on US, Western Power and the occupation, Israel. Then they will allow PA (Dahlan) to run Rafah border, which in turn will make Egyptians opens it.” Period.

As for attacking Redress and Littlewood, for the sake of consistency. Why should I attack him, at least he is not a Palestinian, and you said he “af’ter reading Haitham’s report, amended his own report, and he is in agreement with Haitham’s questioning.’ I shall disapoint you by saying Littlewood spoiled his own report. Thanks to Admeral Haitham.

Littlewood claimed that the viva palestina organizers said “‘Nothing has been said about complying with the other two conditions.” – the unthinkable Conditions number 1 and 3.

HERE, MARY.
TAKE IT FORM THE MOUTH OF Galloway: I refuse any kind of coordination with Israel

Viva Palestina may fail to deliver the Aid, even so, it did a great work in exposing the TRAITORS, and your guy is paving the way to blaim Viva Palestina for that failure. 

Hopfully, Littlewood, haven’t read Haitham’s “Truth” about the food smuggling used as a “cover to many other businesses”, and a “passage for terrorist groups such as Al-Qaedaa and their likes which Gaza are full with these days.” and party doing “the trading and were the money goes. Definitely not to buy food for the Palestinians in Gaza”I am not working to smear your Guy, his Sites and History. He is doing that to himselve and his sites. I am trying to stop his attempt to smear both missions of the International Freedom Fighters, and speading Abu Alghaitth propaganda about the wall of shame??

Yes we all do mistakes, and non of us holds the ultimate truth. We have to learn the vitue of admitting our mistakes, instaed of storming our minds to justfy it. Finally, why the mistakes of your guys can be forgiven, and the “mistake” of Galloway is not tolerable??


River to Sea
  Uprooted Palestinian

Rap…rap , all the Arap…….my first Rap-poem !

Link

When will that acrobat from Rabat
stop pretending to having a piece from Oslo
instead of having any Peace ,
in spite of Oslo.

All is well , 
that does  end up in Hell
therefore let us not believe in what says Israel
and rather watch the miseries in series
of the deprivations of the a nation.

I tell you , Hamas got class
and M. Abbas ,
may anytime, kiss my ass.

Rap , rap and a double-rap
we all shall resist
and face those fascists–Zionists

Rap , rap and a triple rap
let us lean on Jennin
to close the truth- gap

Rap , rap and another rap
let us all , recall ,
what happened to the other wall.

Rap , rap and no more crap
we are the indigenous, the notorious,
the genuine and the religious
and they are not !!.

Lyrics by :
Raja Chemayel,
rappist and not rapist .
Music by :
Sherlock Hommos , PhD
The Bhamdoun Philarmonic Orchestra
Vocalist :
Moustafa Roosenbloom , Tenor

Posted by Тлакскала at 8:19 PM

Uprooted Palestinian