The Associated Press, via EyePress
An algae bloom is choking large stretches of the coastline along the city of Qingdao in eastern China. The Olympic sailing competition, which is scheduled to be held in the area, is threatened by the growth.
Monthly Archive for June, 2008
This sewage pipe is adjacent to a Gaza city sea-front restaurant, and less than 100 metres from a popular beach.
“I think the sea probably is polluted. Sometimes I get strange white marks on my skin; but we come down to the beach every day because we have nowhere else to go.” Samer and his friends are hanging out on the beach in Gaza city, next to the old fishing harbour, and just about to jump into the sea. One of the boys holds a plastic bottle with several small fish and a tiny crab trapped inside. The fish are all dead. Less than a hundred metres away, a sewage pipe pours mucky water into streams of dark waste that flows towards the sea where Samer and his friends swim.
GAZA CITY, Jun 28 (IPS) – Mohammed Omer, the Gaza correspondent of IPS, and joint winner of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, was strip-searched at gunpoint, assaulted and abused by Israeli security officials at the Allenby border crossing between Jordan and the West Bank on Thursday as he tried to return home to Gaza.
Omer, a resident of Rafah in the south of Gaza, and previous recipient of the New America Media’s Best Youth Voice award several years ago, was returning from London where he had just collected his Gellhorn Prize, and from several European capitals where he had speaking engagements, including a meeting with Greek parliamentarians.
Omer’s trip was sponsored by The Washington Report, and the Dutch embassy in Tel Aviv was responsible for coordinating Omer’s travel plans and his security permit to leave Gaza with Israeli officials.
Israel controls the borders of Gaza and severely restricts the entrance and exit of Gazans allegedly on grounds of security. Human rights organisations accuse the Israelis of using security as a pretext to apply collective punishment indiscriminately.
B’Tselem
26.6.2008
On Friday, 20 June 2008, around 6:20 P.M., Nasser a-Nawaj’ah, coordinator of B’Tselem’s “Shooting Back” project in the Southern Hebron Hills, filmed three settlers abusing Palestinian shepherds, shouting at them and pushing them and trying to scatter their flock. The incident took place southwest of the Susiya settlement. A-Nawaj’ah also filmed soldiers in two army jeeps nearby who did not protect the shepherds from their assailants.
A few minutes after a-Nawaj’ah began to film the incident, the soldiers declared the area a closed military area and moved him away. He continued to film the incident from a distance. One of the soldiers followed him, cursed him and B’Tselem, and threatened that he would come to his house later. The soldier continued even after a-Nawaj’ah explained that he was permitted by law to film.
When a-Nawaj’ah tried to leave in his car, the two jeeps blocked his way. Three soldiers got out and came towards him, an officer among them. A-Nawaj’ah filmed the soldiers approaching and when they reached his car, one soldier grabbed the camera from his hands and passed it to another soldier. A third soldier removed the cassette from the camera. One of the soldiers then punched a-Nawaj’ah on the side of the head and several minutes later, the three drove off. A-Nawaj’ah searched the area and found the empty camera lying on the road behind his car.
The report doesn’t say if this is a first-time incident. One week earlier, on 12 June, BBC News published a video obtained from B’Tselem and the “Shooting Back” project. Were the soldiers issued new orders as a result?
Translation via Dorothy Naor – Click photos to enlarge
Dear All,
Yesterday (Monday) we went with Iyad to search for and photograph evidence to document the military waste and dangerous materials that the IOF leaves in the area of the Jahalin Bedouin in the south Hebron hills. Iyad took us to visit a family whose child’s leg was badly burnt a month ago when he was playing in the desert with ammunition remains left behind by the Israeli military. Nothing could have prepared us for our meeting with the boy, whose name is Jabar, even though he had received medical attention at Yata [a nearby city]. The condition of his leg is shocking, and it will be a miracle if he does not lose his leg.
This resulted from his playing with some sort of acid that resembles salt (who knows what the implications are). Jabar, who is 13 years old, is urgently in need of medical treatment.
According to Iyad and the family, the care that he received at Yata was typical of the attitude there towards the Bedouins who come there for medical care.
We contacted the Physicians for Human Rights and B’tselem, and as a result the child will go today to a hospital in Hebron, accompanied by Issa from B’tselem, and hopefully from there to a hospital in Israel.
Following our visit, we went to the dessert and found evidence of the controlled explosions that the Israeli military performs, and the salt-like waste that charred the youngster.
The military does not bother to in any way indicate the presence of the dangerous chemicals it leaves behind.
I attach pictures of the boy and of the evidence we found.
The photos were also sent to B’tselem.
Hopefully, the child will get to the hospital today, and not lose his leg.
Ofra
Saree Makdisi, The International Herald-Tribune, 24 June 2008
This article was originally published by the International Herald-Tribune and is republished with the author’s permission.
A cease-fire went into effect in Gaza last week, offering some respite from the violence that has killed hundreds of Palestinians and five Israelis in recent months. It will do nothing, however, to address the underlying cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Intermittent spectacular violence may draw the world’s attention to the occupied Palestinian territories, but our obsession with violence actually distracts us from the real nature of Israel’s occupation, which is its smothering bureaucratic control of everyday Palestinian life.
This is an occupation ultimately enforced by tanks and bombs, and through the omnipresent threat, if not application, of violence. But its primary instruments are application forms, residency permits, population registries and title deeds. On its own, no cease-fire will relieve the beleaguered Palestinians.
Continue reading ‘Saree Makdisi: Occupation by bureaucracy’
By Bill Fletcher Jr.
24 June 2008
This article was originally published by the San Jose Mercury News and is republished with the author’s permission.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict often inspires a sense of powerlessness. What can average Americans do to bring an end to this decades-old conflict when our leaders have failed so miserably?
And what good is speaking out about Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land as the primary obstacle to peace when even former President Jimmy Carter and Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu are condemned for their criticism of Israeli policies?
This month in San Jose, average Americans will have the opportunity to take a stand for peace and justice in the Middle East. The Presbyterian Church U.S.A.’s General Assembly began Saturday and runs through Sunday at the San Jose Convention Center. At the meeting, which takes place once every two years, delegates will make policy decisions for the 2.3 million-member denomination.
They will consider corporate engagement, up to divestment, with companies that profit from the obstacles to a just peace in Israel and Palestine. The church is considering approaches to Caterpillar, ITT Industries, Motorola and United Technologies.
Continue reading ‘Bill Fletcher Jr.: Tactics that ended apartheid in S. Africa can end it in Israel’
History has handed the Jewish people the fear of annihilation on a plate – but while the fear exists, what is feared may not
Seth Freedman, guardian.co.uk, 22 June 2008
This morning I was invited to speak to a group of senior aid workers who are keen to approach both the Israeli and diaspora Jewish communities with their latest campaign. They are, understandably, apprehensive about the best way to proceed, given the minefield that exists under the feet of anyone seeking to criticise elements of Israel’s policies.
We talked about the most effective way to open people’s eyes to the reality of the occupation, in order to bring home the truth of what is being perpetrated in the name of Israel’s security. Given the volte face that I’ve performed since moving to Israel four years ago, I was asked to describe my most influential experience thus far, in terms of providing a catalyst to the political journey upon which I’ve embarked.
By CELIA HASSAN, The Columbian, 23 June 2008
What’s a nice, Reed College sophomore doing in detention at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport? I ask myself this during the hours I am held. What do I have in common with these dozen or so suspected security threats: the gray-haired women who whisper about their treatment, the 8-year-old girl, tears dried on her face and fear in her eyes, the 18-year-old traveling to see family? We have little in common except that virtually all of us are Americans.
But unlike Jewish Americans who breeze through customs in seconds, we are Palestinian-Americans. In treatment reminiscent of the Jim Crow South, we stand in a separate line, are harassed and intimidated. In Israel, the principles we cherish as Americans disappear; we are suspect because we are not the “right” religion or ethnicity.
During my interrogation, an Israeli officer grills me about everything from what classes I took last semester to what my parents do for a living. Another shows me pictures of people — my cousin in California, and my great-grandmother — and asks if I know them. When she shows me a woman I don’t know, she yells at me: “Don’t lie!” When I am allowed to leave the airport, I am advised to make this my “last trip to Israel.”
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