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The silent ethnic and religious cleansing of Christians and Muslims

Palestinian kills 3 in Jerusalem bulldozer attack

By Jeffrey Heller and Avida Landau

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian rammed a bulldozer into Israeli buses, cars and pedestrians on one of Jerusalem's busiest streets on Wednesday, killing three people and wounding more than 40, emergency services said.

Police said the driver of the 20-tonne earthmoving vehicle was shot dead by a civilian and a policeman who climbed onto its cab as it careered for 500 meters (yards) along Jaffa Road.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility from militant groups and police said they were trying to establish if the dead man, a 30-year-old from Arab East Jerusalem, acted alone.

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Call from Jerusalem: Stop the Expulsion of Christians

Mona (a Jerusalemite) tells about the silent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land

By Mary Rizzo • Jun 28th, 2008

This is the story of all Palestinians

Message from Mona (a Jerusalemite):

Dear Friends and Family,

I am writing to share a little about what is happening in my life lately. As most of you know, I have been in Jerusalem since March 18 with Ramzi who at the time had barely turned 5 months. We left Habib and made the sacrifice to be apart for the coming 4 months for the sake of preserving my Jerusalem ID, to keep my residency status. I know this might sound strange, but as a Palestinian who has lived her whole life in Jerusalem, and despite the fact that my family has lived in Jerusalem and Palestine for centuries, according to the Israeli law, Palestinians living in Jerusalem are only residents but not necessarily permanent residents, and therefore are at risk all the time of losing their residency rights.

For the past 3 years, I have been married to Habib, a Palestinian by blood but an American by citizenship, because Habib’s Jerusalem residency was revoked in 2004- although Habib was born in Jerusalem, and has lived there until his adult life. Anyways, now it was my turn to renew my entry visa to “Israel” (yes, I needed a visa in my own country)- I met with a lawyer who asked for a substantial amount to help me renew my entry visa, which would preserve my residency until the next time I have to renew (a maximum of 3 years), but this time the Israelis refused to renew it and instead told me that since I made the decision to marry an “American”, who can’t reside in Jerusalem, I have made a decision to seek residency in a foreign country and am therefore “choosing” to abandon my residency rights in Jerusalem. (Palestinians are not allowed to have dual residency or citizenship, a law that is not applicable to Israelis who are able to hold dual or multiple citizenships.) To make a long story short, I lost my residency rights in my own country!!!! I can only go back to visit as a tourist, and have to acquire a tourist visa from the Israeli embassy!! The ironic thing is that all my family still live there!! But I can never join them, I don’t have a choice in the matter. We, the people of the land are being thrown out(!!!) Don’t e surprised, if you look into your dictionary for the synonym of Zionism that would, in one way and another, what it is!

On my way back from the lawyer’s office, I was stopped by Israeli soldiers who asked to see my papers- they spoke Russian- I thought to myself, these immigrants know nothing of this land they are serving and protecting- they don’t even know the language- They come from Russia, Europe, Africa, the US, and other places and choose to reside in my country- and they can!!!! Not only that but they can limit my movement in my country, and even kick me out of it! When I complained to my lawyer about this injustice he simply answered, “Mona, this is occupation!!!” Not at all the legal answer I was looking for at- there is no human law that can protect me, or preserve my rights. Needless to say, I have lost my right to return, to my country…..to the only country I ever belonged to, the only place I ever called home.

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Israel's encaging of Gaza aims to achieve separation and ethnic cleansing.


Zionist dreams of clearing "Greater Israel" of all Palestinians continue to be played out via insidious and violent means, but they won't be realised, writes Jonathan Cook*


In 1895, Theodor Herzl, Zionism's chief prophet, confided in his diary that he did not favour sharing Palestine with the natives. Better, he wrote, to "try to spirit the penniless [Palestinian] population across the border by denying it any employment in our own country... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."

He was proposing a programme of Palestinian emigration enforced through a policy of strict separation between Jewish immigrants and the indigenous population. In simple terms, he hoped that, once Zionist organisations had bought up large areas of Palestine and owned the main sectors of the economy, Palestinians could be made to leave by denying them rights to work the land or labour in the Jewish-run economy. His vision was one of transfer, or ethnic cleansing, through ethnic separation.

Herzl was suggesting that two possible Zionist solutions to the problem of a Palestinian majority living in Palestine -- separation and transfer -- were not necessarily alternatives but rather could be mutually reinforcing. Not only that: he believed, if they were used together, the process of ethnic cleansing could be made to appear voluntary, the choice of the victims. It may be that this was both his most enduring legacy and his major innovation to settler colonialism. 

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A Hidden Agenda: John McCain and the IRI and Haiti

1 month ago: A Haitian woman bakes clay 'biscuits' under the Sun May 9, 2008 in the Port-au-Prince slum of Cite Soleil. As the food crisis continues in Haiti, rice and bean prices have increased by some 100 percent according to officials, forcing many to turn to the clay 'biscuits' as a source of food. The clay is mixed with salt and vegetable fat and dried in the sun. AFFP PHOTO/Thony BELIZAIRE.

 

Bush Administration Accused of Withholding "Lifesaving" Aid to Haiti

Written by Cyril Mychalejko

Wednesday, 25 June 2008

The report, “Wòch nan Soley: The Denial of the Right to Water in Haiti,” also takes aim at the international community for its role in politicizing aid while standing idly by as people suffer and die. “The international community is able to turn a blind eye to the impact of its policies because it is not forced to confront the human faces of those who die or become ill through its action or inaction," said Loune Viaud, Director of Operations for Zanmi Lasante. "This report shows the devastating human rights impacts of its policies.” --MORE--   Children Collecting Water in Haiti Human rights groups released a report on June 23 accusing the Bush Administration of blocking "potentially lifesaving" aid to Haiti in order to meddle in the impoverished nation's political affairs.

Saturday June 21, 2008 06:55 by Translated & Edited by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC

Black burn spots covered vast areas of farmlands that belong to residents of Boreen and Aseera Al Qibliyya villages, south of the northern West Bank city o Nablus; hours after Israeli settlers burnt their lands and uprooted hundreds of trees.

Feature Story by Amin Abu Warda - Nablus

The residents managed to enter their lands several hours after the settlers, who came from Yitzhar settlement, return to their colony after vandalizing the Palestinian lands while the Israeli army watched and listened without any intervention.

The soldiers were there, and eyewitnesses said that the army just stood there and watched the settlers burning the lands. They even bared for several hours Palestinian fire-trucks and civil defense teams from entering the area in an attempt to distinguish the fire .

After the firefighters were allowed through , they started fighting the blaze which already ate most of the lands that became a daily target for those extremist settlers. 

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Call from Jerusalem: Stop the Expulsion of Christians 

 

Saturday, June 21st, 2008 

 

“The Jerusalem master plan for 2020 aims for 40,000 homes, mainly for Jews in Jerusalem. There will be some development for Palestinians, but the aim of the master plan is to make Jerusalem the capital of Israel, and minimize the number of Palestinians in the city. So far this year, there have been 7000 tenders for settlement housing units in Jerusalem, so we can see that the Israeli municipality is now implementing this plan.”

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America is standing still while Jerusalem's 2,000-year-old Christian community is exterminated  

 Excellent information from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. Bethlehem / Najib Farrag - After last week ’s announcement to destroy a dozen Bethlehem and Hebron homes, water tanks and places of business, Israeli forces just dolled out 10 more demolition orders in Bethlehem. 

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Saturday, June 21, 2008

Call from Jerusalem: Stop the Expulsion of Christians 

Related
Entire Palestinian village threatened with expulsion


22.06.2008 

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel

New Report by PCATI - No Defense: Soldier Violence against Palestinian Detainees

A report by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) published this morning reveals the widespread phenomenon of violence against bound Palestinian detainees by IDF soldiers and the almost absolute indifference of the IDF, the Ministry of Defense and the Knesset towards the existence of this phenomenon and the need to take action in order to eradicate it completely.

The report titled “No Defense: Soldier Violence against Palestinian Detainees” focuses on a large number of incidents of violence against detainees after they had been arrested, bound, and no longer present a danger to the soldiers. Abuse occurs at various junctions - immediately following arrest, in the vehicle transporting the detainees, and during the time they are held in IDF military camps prior to their transfer to interrogation and detention facilities. At times abusive practices involve dogs that are employed by the military forces during arrest operations and transported in vehicles along with Palestinian detainees. On certain occasions, the ill treatment of Palestinian detainees is highly violent resulting in serious injury. At other times, abuse manifests itself in a routine of beating, degradation and additional abuse. Minors, who must be granted special protection under both Israeli and International Law, are also victims of abuse. The soldiers who carry out arrests do not treat minors with special care and at times – as revealed by various testimonies – exploit their weakness.

The report reveals that although the phenomenon of violence against Palestinian detainees by soldiers is blatantly illegal, it is reinforced by a weak legal system which conducts only a small number of investigations and legal proceedings that concern cases of abuse by soldiers. Particularly prominent is the almost absolute indifference to the phenomenon of the authorities, including the military hierarchy, the Minister and Ministry of Defense, the Knesset and the State Comptroller. The report also discloses that the IDF has no directives which regulate the treatment of Palestinian detainees in the period of time between their arrest and their placement in detention and interrogation authorities.

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http://www.stoptorture.org.il/

 

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Israeli Christians: Police indifferent to threats against us
Israel Deporting Christians

Call from occupied Jerusalem: Stop the Expulsion

Latest News, , June 21st, 2008

A network of seventeen Palestinian human rights NGOs, including Stop the Wall, today launched a campaign to mobilize the international community to end the expulsion of Palestinians from Jerusalem by the Israeli occupation.

The Civic Coalition for Jerusalem is calling for a ‘blacklist’ of corporations supporting the occupation of Jerusalem, and is asking activists all over the world to research companies in their own countries to go on the list:

“We call on international solidarity to mobilise to support Jerusalemite Palestinians, by naming and shaming the companies and governments that support the occupation and who stand idly by while the occupying power rides roughshod over Palestinian rights. We call on solidarity to put Jerusalem at the heart of the campaign against the occupation. We call on the international community to answer the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel to support Palestinian rights in Jerusalem.”

Companies can be blacklisted in seconds using the online reporting system on the Coalition website, www.ccdprj.ps/stopexpulsion. The Coalition will then contact the company concerned to get clarification on their policy. If the company insists that they will support the occupation regardless of Palestinian rights, they will be blacklisted and details distributed to activists.

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Related
Israeli forces terrorize Deheisheh refugee camp
Call from occupied Jerusalem: Stop the Expulsion of Christians
Strike on Iran could turn Mideast into fireball, official says


"Unfathomed hatred and jealousy can also lead to terrorizing the 'other' people. In this regard, the statement of Rabbi David Batzri, head of the Magen David Yeshiva in Jerusalem, is quite revealing. He said, "The nation of Israel is pure and the Arabs are a nation of donkeys. They are an evil disaster, an evil devil, and a nasty affliction. The Arabs are donkeys and beasts. They want to take our girls. They are endowed with true filthiness. There is pure and there is impure and they are impure." [Haaretz, March 21, 2006] With such a hateful mindset it becomes so kosher to practice the worst form of terrorism against the foe, something that we have also witnessed before in Hitler's Germany. Not surprisingly, a case by case analysis would show that terrorism of Hamas and Hizballah pales in comparison to those practiced by the Jewish state."

Related
Israeli Christians: Police indifferent to threats against us

19  Jun 2008

Author: Laity Committee in the Holy Land

info@holylandchristians.com

Tel: 054 779 7719 -050 5545 179

Fax: +972 2 6271574

P.O.Box: 19055

Jerusalem

Hundreds of Jerusalem Christians are loosing residency rights in their City due to policies of the Israeli Ministry of Interior. The policy that aims to reduce the number of non-Jews in the City takes its toll on families and individuals who hold residency permits at foreign countries. No matter how long they travel abroad, no matter if they were born in Jerusalem before or after Israel occupied East Jerusalem, they are considered visitors in their own city.

Palestinian Christians who make today not more than 9,000 will lose 15% of their population as a result of this policy. While Jews from all over the world and even converts to Judaism are allowed to immigrate to Israel under the Israeli Law of Return, the indigenous Jerusalemites are considered temporary residents. Originally, Seven years of being out of Jerusalem was the deadline for losing one's right to live in his own city. Now, only a proof of residency in another country is enough for Israel to consider Jerusalem as not "the center of life" for this person or family and thus deny them the right of living in their home town once they travel abroad.

In addition to this particular policy, the Israeli authorities are still implementing other regulations aiming at further decreasing the numbers of Palestinian, Christians and Moslems, in Jerusalem. From freezing the law of family reunion to impossible requirements for building in the city, to the Separation Wall that separated hundreds from the center of Jerusalem. Palestinian Christians of the city will soon lose half of their population. 

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Here's how McCain would get rid of the Palestinians

By Peter Chamberlin

It seems that the “cat has been let out of the bag” over the past couple of days, concerning the “Jordanian option,” allegedly revealed recently by McCain neocon advisor Robert Kagan, then just as quickly shot down. In a controversy started by Jordan Watch, “McCain will declare Jordan as a Palestinian state, and the Jordanians love him!”

http://www.jordanwatch.net/archive/2008/6/595196.html if McCain gets elected, he will support the total ethnic cleansing of Palestine, “transferring” all of them to Jordan.

“McCain's trusted neo-con political advisor Robert Kagan has stated in a lecture in New York that the natural state for the Palestinians will be Jordan.”

The next day, the same source retracted the charge, “Kagan Statement: Have we been Fooled?” http://www.jordanwatch.net/archive/2008/6/598062.html

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Related 
Israel Committing 'Ethnic Cleansing': Indonesia 

Islamic Movement in Jordan warns of "Jordanian option" idea raised by McCain

[ 18/06/2008 - 10:45 AM ]

AMMAN, (PIC)-- The Islamic Movement in Jordan warned of the gravity of what was stated by John McCain, the republican candidate for the US presidential elections, about adopting the Jordanian option to get rid of the burden placed by the Palestinian cause on the public policy of his country in the Middle East. An advisor to McCain said that the latter adopts a strategy to resolve the conflict in the Middle East based on the Jordanian option which states that Jordan is the natural home for millions of Palestinians and the best solution to the issue of the Palestinian refugees. Irheel Gharaibah, the secretary-general of the Islamic action front party in Jordan, underlined that such statements reflect a very serious juncture in the American official discourse and an inauguration of a new stage calling for disengaging from any commitments to international laws regarding the Palestinian land and refugees.

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BBC's Pro-Israeli Bias

w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Last update - 12:36 13/06/2008

By Bradley Burston

Imagine, if you will, a Jewish state founded as a refuge and last resort, that one day declares the act of seeking refuge a felony.

Imagine, if you can, a law that would allow the expulsion, without any judicial process, of refugees so desperate to reach that state, that they would hazard their very lives and those of their children to do so. Imagine, impossible as it may be, that a Jewish state that is home to hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors, could decide not only to imprison African refugees for five years, but to make those fleeing genocide in Sudan subject to prison sentences of at least seven years.

Such are the outlines of a bill that has already sailed through a preliminary Knesset vote. So callous is the language of the bill, so cruel its provisions toward Africans now fleeing a host of dangers, that the Prevention of Infiltration Act of 2008 may be said to constitute a whole new form of Holocaust denial. It is a denial grounded in the belief of many Israeli Jews that we are so well versed in the lessons of the Holocaust - and so often ingenuously compared to the Nazis - that we are incapable of treating others the way the wartime world acted toward its doomed Jews.

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