Discriminatory treatment of Palestinian children under Israeli law - infographic from @972mag #apartheid #Palestine goo.gl/kOCmN
— Gem (@whatgemmathinks) May 6, 2013
WE HATED:Well now fresh doubt is cast on the conviction by former senior Israeli police officer who is now a consultant psychologist, Dr. Zvi Sela in Ha'aretz. You have to scroll way down the article to find this:
“Now, if [Samir] Kuntar did what he was accused of, then he is no doubt a monster. But did he? The facts leave ample room for doubts. Kuntar maintains he did not kill either of his two alleged victims... i’ll believe it either way when the evidence is stronger than the say-so of israel’s racist, corrupt and cavalier court system.”
“GABRIEL”, JEWS SANS FRONTIERES BLOG, JULY 17
You also met with Samir Kuntar of the Palestine Liberation Front, who murdered members of the Haran family in Nahariya and was released as part of the deal with Hezbollah that brought back the bodies of the two abducted soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.And a blow to the Jewish Chronicle apparently.
"We turned Kuntar into God-knows-what - the murderer of Danny Haran and his daughter, Einat. The man who smashed in the girl's head. That's nonsense. A story. A fairy tale. He told me he didn't do it and I believe him. I investigated the event within the framework of the next book I am writing, about hostage-taking incidents. As far as I am concerned, it was no more than a newspaper report. I sat with him; he was very intelligent. He was a squad commander at 17. He told me that his motive for infiltrating Nahariya was to take hostages. He said [his organization] knew that would both humiliate Israel and get them media publicity.
"He told me: 'If I had wanted to kill Danny and his daughter, I would have shot them in the house. I took them to the boat because I wanted hostages. I had no interest in hurting them. After I got them into the boat, wild gunfire started and I went back to help my squad on the shore. Danny, the father, kept shouting, "Stop firing, you crazy people." He and his daughter were found shot in the boat. I was on a small rise, shooting at your forces, and the boat was 20 meters away in the water, with Danny and the girl.'"
So you say that Kuntar did not murder Haran and his daughter?
"That is what he says, and in my opinion there is support for the fact that they were killed by fire from the Israeli rescue forces. You can accuse him all you like, but it was obviously the rescue forces that opened fire. There were all kinds of legends about Kuntar. People also said that he would return to being a terrorist [after his release]. Nonsense. He told me then explicitly that he would not go back to terrorism, that he was too old to execute operations - and that's also clear. For the same reason, I see no problem in releasing terrorists with blood on their hands in return for [kidnapped soldier] Gilad Shalit. I get the feeling the country is waiting for his body.
"It is clear to me," Sela continues, "that there are some battles you have to back away from. There is no reason to kill that kid, to wait for his body. One way or the other, we will not come out the victors in the Shalit story. From my experience, most of the terrorists that we release do not return to terrorist activity. And the prisoners we are quarreling over in connection with Shalit's release do not constitute a strategic threat to Israel - only a blow to the ego of our leaders."
Zaidi's trial had begun on 19 February but was adjourned until yesterday as the judges considered a defence argument that the charge was not applicable because Bush was not in Baghdad on an official visit, having arrived unannounced without an invitation. Rubaie read a response from Maliki's office that said the visit had been official. Thus Zaidi would be tried under article 223 of the Iraqi penal code - dating from the Saddam era - which outlaws assaults on foreign leaders.I think that poll should be globalised.The chief defence lawyer, Dhia al-Saadi, demanded the charge be dismissed, saying that the case was one of insult not assault. His client's action "was an expression of freedom and does not constitute a crime". "It was an act of throwing a shoe and not a rocket," he said. "It was meant as an insult to the occupation."
Saadi cited the immediate reaction of the target of Zaidi's flying shoes, President Bush, as evidence of the lightness of the offence. After ducking behind a lectern, Bush had joked that he believed Zaidi wore a size 10, and added: "That's what people do in a free society, draw attention to themselves." He had not felt "in the least bit threatened", Bush had said. It was all to no avail.
After a 15-minute adjudication period, the court was cleared of all spectators, and Zaidi was handed a three-year prison sentence. His relatives erupted in anger, shouting that the decision was unjust and unfair. Some collapsed and had to be helped from the court. Others were forcibly removed by security forces as they shouted "down with Bush" and "long live Iraq".
"This judiciary is not just," Zaidi's brother Dargham said. Another brother, Uday, said the verdict was politically motivated. The journalist's sister, Ruqaiya, burst into tears, shouting: "Down with Maliki, the agent of the Americans." Zaidi's lawyers said he would appeal against the sentence.
If the Iraqi authorities were hoping to draw a line under the affair they are probably in for a shock. While some Iraqi officials regarded Zaidi's actions as an insult to the Iraqi state and he was criticised by fellow Iraqi journalists, who said he had allowed his emotions to overcome his professionalism, many ordinary Iraqis said he had already served his punishment and should be released. A poll released yesterday, commissioned by ABC News and the BBC, suggested 62% of Iraqis regard the shoe-thrower as a hero.
This is a blood libel against Palestinians. Hamas is not responsible for Israel's assault. Israel planned to destroy Gaza even before the cease-fire that Israel deliberately broke on Nov. 4 started. And even if Hamas were responsible, and it isn't, recommending starving children and preventing them for going to school as a punishment is reprehensible.The fundamental question that needs to be asked is, "What responsibility do the 1.5 million citizens of Gaza bear in what is now happening there?" Every day, they could see with their own eyes the rockets on their way to Israel or watch Al Jazeera and other networks comment on them. Yet how did they react? With total jubilation and joy.
Gazans like to boast of their courage in rising up against the corruption of the Palestinian Authority and throwing them out of office in a democratic election free of intimidation. Where was the display of that same courage in standing up to Hamas, whose ideology and culture have brought ruin to their community?
There is little doubt that if Gaza is not rebuilt, many civilians will suffer. There will be a shortage of schools, medical facilities and adequate housing. That is truly a tragedy. But the real tragedy is the failure of the world to get it right, to tell the Palestinians, "Never again." World leaders must vow that they are not going to rebuild Gaza again, there will be no Round 3.
There are tens of millions of people in jails around the world for committing crimes, and nobody asks what will happen to their families. The criminals leave nothing but devastation behind - young children with no direction, with no future, families with no breadwinners. But these are the hard consequences that families of murderers, kidnappers, robbers and thieves must endure. Nobody comes to bail them out. Just as no government steps in to double the checks of its welfare recipients.
Terrorists and those who support them are not entitled to receive VIP booty for their inhumanity, misdeeds and silence. (Der Stürmer, Daily News Edition)
Only an antisemitic paper would create the impression that a Jewish Rabbi holds such execrable opinions. We call on the real Rabbi Hier to sue the paper that published him for defamation.
There are tens of millions of people in jails around the world for committing crimes, and nobody asks what will happen to their families. The criminals leave nothing but devastation behind - young children with no direction, with no future, families with no breadwinners. But these are the hard consequences that families of murderers, kidnappers, robbers and thieves must endure. Nobody comes to bail them out. Just as no government steps in to double the checks of its welfare recipients.
Imprisonment has become the response of first resort to far too many of the social problems that burden people who are ensconced in poverty. These problems often are veiled by being conveniently grouped together under the category "crime" and by the automatic attribution of criminal behavior to people of color. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages....But prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings. And the practice of disappearing vast numbers of people from poor, immigrant, and racially marginalized communities has literally become big business. (Davis, 1998 )
