31.8.06


Trucks loaded with rubble queue on a coastal road south of Beirut, Lebanon. They are transporting the remains of buildings destroyed in the southern suburb of Ouzai (BBC).

30.8.06

The Worst Kind of Terror

Murder on Rucarb Street

By ELIZA ERNSHIRE

Ramallah.

August 29, Pre-dawn.

It is only now that the gun-fire saluting the killed young man has become sporadic and no longer constant, and that the verses of the Koran, chanted in farewell to him, has ceased. But the streets are full; and full too are the hearts of all who had to witness an attack that should only have been imaginable in the darkest back alleys of some underworld city.

At 9 pm, the 28th, undercover Israeli Special Forces walked down the main street of Ramallah. They wore civilian clothes and Palestinian police-caps. They carried M-16s as all the police force does. No one looked at them twice. They walked straight past us where we stood at Al-Minara discussing work with a third colleague.

They walked straight passed the Palestinian Police Force as well who is always stationed there.

They continued walking straight down Rucarb Street until they were opposite the famous Rucarb Ice-cream shop where families gather every evening in the summertime.

Then they opened fire.

They opened fire after they failed to catch two 'wanted' men who were also in Rucarb Street along with half the population of Ramallah. The two men wouldn't come when called and so the undercover Israeli Officers opened fire.

It is not easy to explain the horror of seeing the cold-blooded murder of the young man who had turned to escape on realizing the situation.

It is not easy to explain the horror of hearing the name of the killed youth spreading from mouth to mouth until the whole of Ramallah knows that the young man killed was A. from the village of Deir Ghassan. Nor is it easy to explain the horror of rushing with everybody else who knows an A. from that village or a nearby one to the hospital.

The relief if the body pulled from the fridge is not your A.

The anguish if it is.

Grown men falling on the ground to beat at the dirt and cry.

The parents of the killed man stumbled into the hospital at midnight. The father could not even see his son because he was temporarily blinded by the shock and the screams of the mother could be heard from the street.

Young men were also in shock, wandering around and wondering why they had not even had a chance to fight back. There was an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness.

Palestine has been so reduced and so humiliated that it is now a country where the Occupying force can walk into a main city on nightfall, can walk down the main street of that city and kill a man and then walk away again as if that is a damn right of theirs and no one is going to blink an eye at it.

It is not their damn right to come and terrorize the people of a city night after night after night on some hyped up 'security' reason! This is no human being's right.

I have been accused of not understanding how people are feeling on the other side of the Wall. People have written to me 'You don't know what it is like to be driving behind a bus when it explodes' and I say this is true. But I do know what it is like to see fifteen thugs walk down a main street of a city at nightfall and murder in cold-blood outside a family restaurant and then walk away again.

I call that the worst kind of terror.

The boy they killed was just a village boy, and the children who witnessed this killing were just children. As in all parts of the world, children who had begged their parents for an ice-cream before going to bed.

Nhow they must live with this violation of their sensitivity forever.

And the thugs could just walk away! They did not even need jeeps to perform their action of terror.

These men were not desperate. Not one of them would tie an explosive belt around his waist.What I am most afraid of is that they enjoy what they do. To them and to too many others, the lives of Palestinians are, at most, only countable.

There was a three-second coverage of this news item on BBC. 'Three militants killed in the West Bank. One in Ramallah and two in Nablus; all were from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.'

One second for each man killed.

I won't begin a discussion on why, by naming the Martyrs Brigade, the West is somehow justifying the deaths, because the purpose of this article is only to register horror at the nighttime terror that came in so particularly a disgusting way to the streets of Ramallah four hours ago.And also to say that now the city is angry.

The young men who have been gathering for hours in groups on street corners are angry. Some have been crying, and all have been voicing their disbelief at how on earth Israel can continue to get away with their inhuman actions; not only nightly midnight raids and arrests but also this gangster plot that has left the main street of their city stained with blood again.

In the past two weeks Israeli forces have come to Ramallah every single night. There is now a vigil in the dark hours of these nights; from 2am till 5am half the city is awake watching and wondering where Israel's eyes are turned and what neighborhood they are targeting.

In the past week Israel has made daily incursions into Nablus and has destroyed houses and killed 16-year old boys in broad daylight, and has raided the city every night. For the past month the whole village district of Ramallah and Nablus have been enduring invasions and raids, house-searches and arrests.

While Olmert is taking a few blows about his conduct of the war in Lebanon, the Palestinians are having to endure being his 'dog-under-the-table'.

How on earth is he and Israel getting away with it?
Did you know that Salim El Hoss was part of the Axis For Peace conference last year?
well, he was one of the main panelists...

Salim Al-Hoss stated: “Any person who takes up arms to defend the freedom of his people is considered a “terrorist”. In turn, we must clearly state that when the sovereignty of a State is violated, it is then a terrorist act”.

Former German Minister Andreas von Bülow detailed the staging of the September 11 attacks in 2001. He explained how they took place in the very United States in order to legitimize the current military operations. U.S. journalist Webster Tarpley indicated that “it is impossible to understand the current U.S. policy if the real scope of September 11 is underestimated. The attacks perpetrated at that moment were a coup d’état. The war on terror is based on a myth and has become a compulsory state religion since such developments took place. The only way to fight against neoconservatives is by destroying this myth.”

The implication of the Anglo-Saxon secret services in the creation and use of Islamic terrorism was presented by the former agent David Shayler. “I resigned from the British secret services when the MI6 decided to finance Osama bin Laden’s associates”, he said in an outstanding speech. “I tried to warn them but it was me who went to prison”, regretted Shayler, who explained that “this terrorism is coordinated by the MI6 and CIA”.

The chief-editor of Brecha, the major weekly newspaper of the Uruguayan left wing, Yvonne Trías, expressed her indignation about the accusations of anti-Semitism against intellectuals who oppose Israeli policy. “They put me on the black list of people who are considered as “anti-Semitists” by a Jewish intellectual”, she regretted. “My newspaper has been accused of anti-Semitism because it has criticized the Israeli policy. It has been the object of a major humiliating campaign. We have been treated as “anti-Semites” and even as “negationists”. When the campaign started, we received pressures from everywhere. There was an avalanche of e-mails. There were readers who said they would cancel their subscription. Left wing people came to suggest that we should give up our criticisms”.

During the round table on Syria, participants compared the accusations made against this country regarding the assassination of Rafik Hariri to the “evidences” of the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction presented by Colin Powell to the UN Security Council. In the Final Declaration, participants denounced that “France, which had opposed the invasion on Iraq, had backed the threats against new preys” and welcomed Russia’s mediation which defends the implementation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and presumption of innocence in international relations”.

and their final declaration...

29.8.06

A certain Sadness...


"...Now the rain has gone,
but something lingers on...
There's certain sadness here,
now that the sky is clear..
And it's so clear;
yes, it's all so clear
to me now...
And I can't help but feel..
That certain sadness's here
to stay..."

28.8.06

"When independent, thinking people (and here I do not include the corporate media) begin to rally under flags, when writers, painters, musicians, film-makers suspend their judgment and blindly yoke their art to the service of the 'Nation', it's time for all of us to sit up and worry." Arundhati Roy (Come Septembre)

TRIPLE CROSS
Bin Laden's Spy in America (Link to preview on National Geographic Channel)

25.8.06



A cat in Beirut with its legs covered in oil from a slick which has spread 150m (93 miles) along the Lebanese coast, after an Israeli air strike on a power station during the recent war. (The BBC)
do you see where I'm heading with this?
Russia rejects sanctions against Iran

22.8.06

Ask bombed-out residents in Lebanon
(They will be answering your questions throughout the day on Wednesday 23 August via a LIVE laptop link-up.)
(Requiem)


I learned to say your name again, with two vowels again…

I heard the soprano whispers coming from deep into the stage, what a world they created! Like some mystical chatter coming from a cave; relentless whispers… would they stop? How riveting, and ceaseless… like little fairies moving in the darkness… “O la mortelle injure… et c’est toujours de même, et c’est ainsi toujours”… I know every inflection in their voice now, I know all their cadences, and look for them to.. fall.

And I fall.

I heard your name again on the news today, and I learned to say it again… with two vowels.. the ‘I’ took me down a fall, and then the ‘A’ elevated me to heaven… I giggled like a child on a rollercoaster ride. What a strange name you’ve got!

The whispers… I love the way they say their ‘S’s! like the rustling of dead leaves… (SSSsss) is that what they’ve become again? dead? I know they go to Limbo if they died elsewhere.. or to heaven… in you they go whisper in the dark. They haunt the living for eternity.. as they always have… perhaps that’s why hearts flutter when hearing tender whispers in the dark… and what’s better than carrying innocent laughter in your heart…

I love your children as they die…
you give them fairy wings,
elf ears and send them whisper in the dark…
and all I hear from your side
is the ever fading sound
of a playground…

10.8.06

G.W. learned a new word: Kleptocrats.
How cheaply they manipulate the public opinion...


"they want to destroy us and harm us... because they hate our values".
(downright we do! as if he has any values!)

It was not enough with Zarkawi's enchanting speech (which was almost cartoonish - I still believe that Bush bought both Bin Laden and Zarkawi in the same media package, and that Al-Qaida is the best PR company a western leader could get), timed after the war on Lebanon started, just to 'put things into perspective'.. because Lieberman DID lose the elections, and people ARE talking about the israeli attrocities... let alone Iraq.. and of course, Gaza. so they needed another reminder of the terrorists, naturally to refresh people's memory about why all these wars are being fought, as it were...

I could picture Hillary calling Bush earlier this week saying "Georgie do something! they might wake up to the truth if we go on like this!"; so of course the best way to do it is to make the general public directly affected... and what's more atrocious than having to 'volunteer' your shampoo and perfume at the security checks in airports.. so the public would eventually feel involved in these wars:
- I had to give away my bulgari perfume bottle at JFK today! and carry my stuff in... a PLASTIC bag! Ah, the horror... but it's for a good cause, of course: we are fighting terrorism, you know!
- oh! darling, they almost wanted to take away my saline implants today.. but I told them terrorist women don't have breasts like us!

I read all the news to yet find anything tangible about this 'conspiracy theory' that took place today.. nothing. only that they arrested 21 people from around the UK (and of course they didn't fail to mention that this is most probably a plot 'a la Osama', and that all the terrorists are British muslims)... now how did all this unravel only today? no one knows or even asks! why did they wait till the same day (the day before they are supposed to vote on a UN resolution to stop the massacres in the middle east - which coincidentally falls a whole month after the war started - as if any UN resolution is of any value untill Israel is good and ready) to stop air traffic and go around arresting people..
They terrorize their own nations... 'into oblivion'; all the same policy since September 11... all the same.

Meanwhile people are still dying in Lebanon, and I still go from paper to paper looking for some hope, contemplating what would be the shock to find someone I know on the news.. among the rubble. (just like I found my friend's family house in the south on Reuters)...

So please, stop this charade, it's become disgusting!

(pic: courtesy of the BBC)

7.8.06

From Beirut... to those who love us.
notes of mine. stashed in a drawer. from 10 years ago.

"J'arrive dans le noir et ils me donnent de lumiere... Je vois leurs epees qui me niaient l'existence."

"ils representent une vraie incarnation de leur decadence."

"weapons that denied me Existence... I gave back my light and shut my face from humanity."

1.8.06

RECLUSION...