Ali La Pointe/ Zena's words on the New York streets/ NYC Protest info

My friend Zena's words chalked on a wall in NYC by Lauren Macdonald.

I was teaching students at a workshop yesterday. In the evening I showed them Battle of Algiers. Remember Ali la Pointe's head butt at the begining of the film? When the french racist tripped him?
ah it seems so so far away now

Zidane Zidane Zidane.
Zizou and that magnificant, elegant, animalistic, brilliant, poem of a headbutt.
what a strange prelude to this madness.
(oh by sheer coincidence an Irish friend sent me an email about a "belfast kiss" yesterday. love the irish!)
More on the workshop in a bit.

i have been feeling like i have my own war room going on. a headquarters of sorts with phone and email and sms etc. Recently i have started receiving messages in my inbox which start by saying "Dear Sirs" and then I am asked to find loved ones in Lebanon,...can you help me find so and so or so and so. Last I heard from the American consulate was such and such.....Here is the most recent from one hour ago:

"Sirs; can you give me any advice on where to get info about US citizens (Lebanese born) in ad D'way near Nabitayah. The US embassy is dealing with no. Lebanon only. I don'have my friend's passport no. or birthdate, but I have managed to get a registration through to the embassy. The State Dept is giving the same "guidance to So. Lebanese US citizens as it has for a week: register with embassy;listen to radio."

My inbox is also filled to the brim with endless petitions and "letters of condemnation" and in the midst of it all anjali k writes to me and says:
"-- i was struck a few days ago by something alex cockburn said on counterpunch about the left holed up in dark rooms on their computers --- mistaking a medium for a movement. it's hard ---"

Zena word's .......
Harrell Fletcher is the Artistic Director for a three-week, intensive program summer program, focusing on expanded ideas of art-making and creativity in relation to collaboration, community involvement, and activism. He invited me to teach there so yesterday I went. I gave a lecture in the morning and then in the afternoon I was asked to give the students an assignment that they could do in 2 hours. I decided to print emails from my inbox from the last two weeks. I also printed out the information about the Americans speed rushing bombs to Israel and spoke about the absurdity of the question Americans ask about wether to get involved or not when they are 100% involved! I gave each student a different email, and a copy of the article and told them to go out into the streets and do something in the public sphere based on their interaction, (or reaction) or whatever with the emails....

i wanted to share a few of the projects with you of the students who got Zena's emails.

Jennifer Delos Reyes was struck by Zena's description of her dog. Jennifer also had noticed how people in the Chelsea district all have dogs and LOVE their dogs so she subverted "lost dog" posters. She made a bunch of posters and underneath the dog she put Zena's description of her dog and how dogs can't be evacuated -- on another poster was the description Zena gave us about her friend's dog. I think I loved this so much because it reminded me of what we used to say in Palestine whenever we were attacked by Israel: "I wish we were animals, then at least the animal rights activists would do something to help us!" The contact number on Jennifer's lost dog posters was to a site that is taking donations to help Lebanese civilians that Zena wrote about in her email.



Lauren Macdonald took excerpts from Zena's email and wrote them all over Chelsea, for example, "Last night was probably the most frightful night of my entire life - Zena", and then she wrote the blogspot address.

Another girl re-wrote Zena's email over and over and over on white lined paper and then folded each one up and "accidentely" dropped them on the street. She did change the words on the first page, every time Zena said Beirut she changed it to "you" so that it would sound even more like a love letter. But aon the second page it said beirut and had the blogspot address. Capitalizing on peoples curiosity and nosiness on finding such a private letter in public on the street she subverted love letters to suck people in.

Elena walked around reading her email out loud in a pitch reminiscent of hysteria but with control, intensity and force. I actually cant describe how strong and powerful it was. How completely focused she was. Even while an African American fellow was yelling about how he hoped more bombs would drop, and that he loved christian zionists etc she just kept it up....She was unrelenting.

But the scariest of all. Oh god my stomach hurts when I think of it. One of the students was
sitting outside, and he was focusing on the information about the Americans speed ordering bombs....he saw a postal worker and asked him if it was possible to mail a bomb! Struck by the idea that the USA could mail bombs to people, he thought why can't he. He then went around the neighborhood interviewing other postal workers about this possiblity!!! And at the peak of this he actually went INTO the post office ( now with another student who had a camera hidden in his bag to record everything) to ask them directly!!!!! And might I mention that neither one of them is American - one from Puerto Rico and the other from Albania. How the hell he didn't get arrested is beyond me. This could have gone down so so SO BADLY! I can just see them getting arrested, and saying that their Palestinian teacher gave them these emails from Beirut and Gaza and and and....oh god! We would have all been locked up. And folks it is serious. Had I known he was going to do that I would have stopped him!
And as you know the FBI is stepping up "visits" to my people.....well of course we Palestinians are used to this, we been recorded, taped, watched, "visited" since 72....only after 911 a whole bunch of other folk ended up joining our plight....other Arabs, South Asians,...welcome to our world babes...
http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=2856

Lastly, there is a protest today in NYC and tomorrow in NYC so if you are here PLEASE COME!

FRIDAY PROTEST 28 JULY
Stop the war Stop the Killing
When: Friday 28 July, 3:30 to 6:30,
Where: Israeli Mission at the UN, 2nd Ave , between 42nd and 43rd Sts.
What: Join us in Saying NO to ISRAELI WAR of aggression against Civilians and Infrastructure in PALESTINE & LEBANON. We MUST continue the pressure.
Sponsored by: Arab Muslim American Federation, National Council Of Arab Americans, International Action Center, Troops Out Now Coalition , Alawda New York , Al-Khuli Islamic Center, ICNA N.Y, MAS New York.

SATURDAY PROTEST 29 JULY
March Across the Brooklyn Bridge
When: Saturday, July 29,
(MEETING AT 2 PM IN CADMAN PLAZA)
- Stop U.S.-Sponsored Israeli Terror
- End the occupation of Palestine
- Stop the invasion of Lebanon
- Stop U.S. Aid To Israel
- Free Arab Political Prisoners in Israel

*** MARCH ACROSS THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE ***
Saturday, July 29
2 PM
Gather at Cadman Plaza Park, Brooklyn

Called by the Ad-Hoc Coalition for Justice in the Middle East which was formed in response to Israel's attacks on the people of Palestine and Lebanon. We organized a petition, signed by more than 1000 organizations and individuals, that we delivered to the office of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. We have also organized several actions against Israel's brutal assaults, including, most recently, a demonstration of 1,500 people infront of the Israeli mission to the UN. Come help us organize!
For more information e-mail: protectpalestine@gmail.com
Called by the Ad-Hoc Coalition for Justice in the Middle East.

terrorist donkey killed, ohio professor detained in israel, Ramallah diary from my sister, and 10,000 palestinian prisoners

While the world focuses on Lebanon, the Israelis work work work away in Gaza and the West Bank...

24 Palestinians were killed in Gaza yesterday. 70 were wounded.
Israeli troops killed on twenty-four Palestinians, including three children, on Wednesday, and injured at least 70 residents in Al Sha'af in Al Shijaeeya neighborhood, east of Gaza City
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20380&Itemid=1

911 in Nablus
In Nablus last week 6 were killed and 80 wounded.
http://www.thecornerreport.com/index.php?p=644&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1#more644

IDF kills 4 Palestinians in Jenin and Gaza
(TODAY)
http://www.albawaba.com/en/news/201279

I heard that the Palestinians are going to release the Israeli soldier. The 1 Israeli (soldier!) who is being held prisoner by Palestinians, meanwhile 9,599 Palestinians (men, women, children, civilians, etc) are currently imprisoned by Israel. Oftentimes these prisoners are snatched from their
homes in the middle of the night, or while cultivating their fields etc., or they are taken by undercover Israeli squads who invade cities and usually kill a civilian or two while making the arrest.They are tortured in these Israeli detention and interrogation prisons.
There are currently 425 children behind bars currently.
Children as young as FIVE years old have been detained.
and as I write this the Israeli army is kidnapping people left and right....here is the ticker.....
Army takes a child as prisoner from Azaria, near Jerusalem 15:47
Army invades Beit Furiq and takes three prisoners 15:46
Army takes four prisoners from Yatta and Hebron 15:45
Army takes one prisoner from Al Khader village

Palestinian detainees tortured, facing bad mental and health conditions
http://sumoud.tao.ca/?q=node/view/691

I refused and he hit me about 14 year old Taher Ouda
http://www.dci-pal.org/english/display.cfm?DocId=458&CategoryId=3

There were so many stories about children detained and tortured from the Defense for Children International Website that you should just go yourself to the list: http://www.dci-pal.org/english/doclist.cfm?categoryid=3

Speaking of detainees Akron University professor Ghazi Falah has been held since July 8th!
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/9518934/detail.html?subid=10101081
The following website has just been set up to draw attention to the plight of Prof. Ghazi Falah (geography professor at the University of Akron and the editor of Arab World Geographer), who has been detained in an Israeli prison without access to his lawyer since July 8.
http://muehlenhaus.com/ghazi/
Please take a moment to send a letter to the US and Canadian embassy officials in Israel as well as to the Israeli authorities (click on "You can help Ghazi here") to help ensure his fair and humane treatment. His friends, colleagues and family are very worried about him.

Two things you should check out on Electronic Intifada:
Ramallah to Rice "Screw your new Middle East!"
Huge demo in Ramallah against that war monger Rice! Go to and you will see a picture of my sister!!! : )
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5250.shtml

Terrorist Donkey Joins Family in Death
Palestine, 25 July 2006
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5225.shtml

And lastly here is a diary entry from Ramallah.....

Hi all,

Keef kum? I am exhausted we had a protest today because Condi Rice came to Ramallah today. Can you fucking believe that? She has the nerve to show her face here after all this shit the US has unleashed on the world once again. But it was amazing, there were 1,000 people there from all the different factions, political groups PFLP, DFLP, Fateh, Hamas, independents, communists, women's organizations, al Haq, Mubadara, ISM, students, etc. Of course all the journalists ran like lemmings to the one woman there whose face was totally covered and holding a photo of Nasrallah.

The CIA took over Ramallah with their security and blocked us from coming anywhere near the Muqata where she was. The Palestinian police were there in their role as police-dogs. Things actually got somewhat violent... very depressing.

We went up to visit friends in Haifa a few days ago to see them, make sure they are ok, etc. It was so strange. Haifa is a ghost town, totally dead. Every Israeli has hit the road and gone away to Jerusalem, Aqaba, New York. We felt like the only people still left were our Palestinian friends there, and the Russian immigrants.

Several times, the air raid sirens went off and people went for cover. To us, it was somewhat ridiculous. I know that must sound funny, maybe even insensitive. But compared to what's happening in Lebanon and Gaza, it's goddamn paradise up there in Haifa. I mean, every now and then the sirens go off and a rocket will hit somewhere. And it's scary because someone will probably be injured or die from it but it's so minimal. I mean, it's so..so nothing..so exaggerated in the news. We'd hide for a few moments, and then come out again and continue as normal. Can you imagine anyone in Gaza or Lebanon having that privilege? It just didn't feel dangerous there or unsafe to us. Even Ramallah on any given day of the week, is scarier than that with the Army entering, shooting and blowing up things, or under-cover Israelis kidnapping people from the middle of town. And you know Ramallah is the best place to be in the West Bank people still have food here, fuel, work...

It' summer the time of film festivals. Good news this week a few of us were invited to the Locarno Film Festival. I noticed the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs listed as a co-sponsor. They are carpet bombing Gaza and Beirut and then go and sponsor film festivals in Europe as if everything is normal. We of course protested to Locarno and said we would pull our films out if they chose to work with a government organization the same government that is carrying out ethnic cleansing, and suffocating and massacring our friends and family. Thankfully, Locarno took our concerns seriously and dropped them.

Ramallah is more or less quiet. While all eyes (or at least some eyes) are on Lebanon, the land confiscations continue, the Wall comes to completion and the checkpoints only grow more permanent. Kalandia was closed several times this week. Emily, you won't recognize it when you come. Nablus is under attack. A Five year old girl and a nine-month old baby were just killed in Gaza. The land shrinks. People are really, really depressed. They have managed to squash us into the ground and most people no longer have the energy to hope anymore.

I love you all.
Emily everyone misses you and constantly asks about you. Ta alee!!!

xo,
a

ps. Just got a call from a friend. The Army was in town last night - I didn't even know! - they went to his families house and blew up the door to their neighbors house and then ran amok all over the camp shooting and harrassing everyone.

from me and from Zena and Rasha in Beirut

Hello friends
This will be my last forward from Zena as she now has her own blog and you can go yourself everyday as well as add your comments. Also Rasha's diary from day 8 of the siege is included below....she says that "writing has become increasingly difficult"....

My inbox is flooded with personal accounts from friends and loved ones in Lebanon and I don't know what to do. There is a kind of voyeurism that makes me extremely uncomfortable when I imagine lefties around the world sitting at home reading these accounts. I am aware of how quickly it has become "normal" what is happening in Lebanon. Perhaps most frustrating is the similarities between these accounts and all the accounts which came out (and are still coming out) of Palestine during this intifada including my own siege diaries...

I am sure there will be conferences organized, teach-ins and always the "hero" filmmaker who will risk life to make a documentary, the readings, the art exhibits, and the art world will eat the Lebanese artists like pieces of chocolate .......

And in the end nothing will have been changed or stopped. Is this all fodder for entertainment? Something for people to write about, make art about, make films about, cry about, complain about, shout about, and then go home and live while the bombs drop and entire countries are destroyed....

Last night I attended a crowded meeting of activists, artists, everyone planning protests, vigils, media campaigns, posters and graffiti, t-shirts......it felt like a re-play of meetings and ideas from organization meetings from the year 2001,.....how many times must we re-live this? Will our lives always be cyclical? How many generations have to live through these Israeli horrors. Can't we have one generation, just one that does not have an experience of being brutalized, bombed, shot at, imprisoned, exiled, home blown up?
Just one.
Watching the generation of my parents having to re-live all this yet again....how many times 1948? How many?

I walk around and there is a huge ball of pain deep within me that threatens to come up every once in awhile and flood everything around me with tears and there is a kind of deep inner scream from the depths of my belly that also threatens and when it does make its way out I am afraid it will have such a force that my body might rip open.

Please forgive my bitterness.
Please read my beloved Zena and my beloved Rasha's words...two beautiful and amazing women on this earth.....

Salamaat
Emily

Hi everyone,

I want to tell you that I have not stopped writing.

It has become difficult for me to email my writing to my mailing list.. I
also noticed a lot of people were receiving it in their junk boxes, because
I am mass emailing. Also, mass emailing could spread viruses and spam..i got
a weird email in my inbox today.

So, a friend set up a blog for me, and I have been posting there regularly.

I will not be mass emailing anymore, so please please check my blog daily.

http://beirutupdate.blogspot.com/

You can leave comments on it too.

We have heard that our writings from this end of the world are reaching
people globally. It is a great sign. We need to be heard. Keep writing. Keep
taking pictures. Keep filming... Keep on...!

Please don't forget about me because I am not appearing in your inbox. And
please, please pass the website around.

I can not thank you enough for all your love and support. Your good
wishes... You efforts in taking action. Your desire to spread the news. Your
unconditional faith in humanity.

As a people guided by love, we will get through this.

With love,
Always,
Zena el-Khalil

Dear All,

I have to confess that writing is becoming increasingly difficult. Writing, putting words together to make sentences to convey meaning, like the small gestures and rituals that make-up the commonplace acts of everyday life, has begun to lose its meaning and its cathartic power. I am consumed with grief, there is another me trapped inside me that cries all the time. And crying over the death of someone is a very particular cry. It has a different sound, a different music and feels different. I dare not cry out in the open, tears have flowed, time and time again, but I have repressed the release of pain and grief. My body feels like a container of tears and grief. I am sure it shows in the way I walk.
Writing is not pointless per se, but it is not longer an activity that gives me relief. The world outside this siege seems increasingly far, as if it had evacuated with the bi-national passport holders and foreigners.

The past few days have been MURDEROUS in the south and the Beqaa Valley. The death toll has been increasing in a horrific exponential envigorated with the White House giving a green light for the military assault to persist. Beirut has been spared so far, but not the southern suburbs. Today is Day 12 of the war, the Israeli military has conducted 3,000 air raids on Lebanon in 12 days. Out of the total deaths so far, which range close to 400 (numbers are not definitive), almost 170 are children. The numbers of the displaced are increasing by the hour. Have you seen the pictures of the deaths? The mourners in Tyre? Have you seen the coffins lined up? And the grieving mothers.
It is impossible not to grieve with them, it is impossible to shut one's ears to their wailing. It haunts me, it echoes the walls of the city, it bounces off the concrete of destroyed bridges and buildings. In trying to explain what drove Mohammad Atta to fly an airplane into one of the towers of the World Trade Center, someone (I forget whom- sorry facts-checkers) once said to me that Atta must have felt that "his scream was bigger than his chest". That description stayed with me, I don't know if I agree with it, or if that's how Atta felt in reality, but it comes back to me now because I feel that my grief is bigger than my chest and I have no idea how to dissipate it.

The Southern Suburbs
I accompanied journalists to Haret Hreyk two days ago. I suspect I am still shell-shocked from the sight of the destruction. I have never, ever seen destruction in that fashion. Western journalists kept talking about a "post-apocalyptic" landscape. The American journalists were reminded of Ground Zero. There are no gaping holes in the ground, just an entire neighborhood flattened into rubble. Mounds, and mounds of smoldering rubble. Blocks of concrete, metal rods, mixed with furnishings, and the stuff that made up the lives of residents: photographs, clothes, dishes, CD-roms, computer monitors, knives and forks, books, notebooks, tapes, alarm clocks. The contents of hundreds of families stacked amidst smoking rubble. A couple of buildings had been hit earlier that morning and were still smoking, buildings were still collapsing slowly.
I was frightened to death and I could hear my own wailing deep, deep within me.
I stopped in front of one of the buildings that housed clinics and offices that provide social services, there seemed to be a sea of CD-Roms and DVDs all over. I picked up one, expecting to find something that had to do with the Hezbollah propaganda machine (and it is pretty awesome). The first one read "Sahh el-Nom 1", the second "Sahh el-Nom 17". "Sahh el-Nom" was a very popular sit-com (way, way before the concept was even identified) produced by Syrian TV in the 1960s. It was centered on the character of "Ghawwar el-Tosheh", who has become a salient figure in popular Arab culture. I smiled mournfully, at the irony. Around the corner passport photos and film negatives covered the rubble.
Haret Hreyk was a residential area. The residents, I was told by our driver who lived a few blocks away, were evacuated by Hezbollah to other places before the shelling began. Those who refused to leave then, left after the first round of shelling. Haret Hreyk is eerily ghostly, there are practically no people left in that neighborhood. In the two hundred meters radius removed however, life is on-going. Residents testified that Hezbollah was securing food, electricity and medicines to all those who stayed.
Haret Hreyk is also where Hezbollah had a number of their offices. Al-Manar TV station is located in the block that has come to be known as the "security compound" (or "security square"), the office of their research and policy studies center, and other institutions attached the party. It is said that in that heavily inhabited square of blocks, more than 35 buildings were destroyed entirely.
Hezbollah had organized a visit for journalists that day, as they had the day before. They provided security cover for the area for the international media cameras to document the destruction. There was a spokesperson greeting journalists. A small rotund man, dressed in a track suit, fancy sunglasses, a two-day old stubble carrying two state of the art cell phones. He spoke in concise soundbites and was affable. There was nothing menacing about his demeanor, in fact were it not for the destruction around him he looked more like he would be an assistant to Scolari (similar dress code and portend) than part of the media team of a "terrorist organization".
The security apparatus of Hezbollah was also impressive, underscoring the identity of Hezbollah. They were all affable, welcoming, dressed casually and unarmed. They all held walkie-talkies, and when looming danger of another Israeli air strike seemed tangible, they all ushered the group of some 30 (and more) journalists to clear the area. They issued their warnings calmly and confidently.
One of the buildings was still burning. It had been shelled earlier that day at dawn. Clouds of smoke were exhaling from amidst the ravages. The rubble was very warm, as I stepped on concrete and metal, my feet felt the heat.

Israeli Warfare Mystery
Doctors in hospitals in the south have testified on television that they a number of bodies that have reached them have an unusual, unfamiliar skin color. Some of surviving injured exhibit a pattern of burns that doctors have also never seen before. The question is beginning to get attention for the world community of physicians and human rights organization. Israel is suspected of loading its missiles with toxic chemicals. The fear, in addition to their toxicity being immediately lethal on its victims, is that the waters and earth may now be poisoned. The inhabitants of the south may have to suffer from Israel's wrath for a very, very long time, in chilling cold blood.
The as-Safir newspaper, the second largest running daily in Lebanon, has taken up the task to investigate the question.
Beyond the crime of toxic poisoning, the type of shells and bombs used is also astounding. I met a woman who was displaced from the borderig village of Yater. She is a native American, blue blood and apple pie, but with a hijab. She, her husband, her three babies and her husband's family, a total of 14 people were trapped in one room in their house in Yater. On the 6th or 7th day of shelling, she cracked and her kids could not longer handle the violence. Risking their lives, they jumped into their car, and decided to take their chance. They drove straight without stopping, taking circuitous ways when the main roads were impossible to tread. They expected to die on the road. After 14 hours of driving they made their way to the US embassy in the northeastern suburbs of Beirut. They were not aware of evacuations. They were lost on the way, and someone stole her husband's wallet with the 400$ in cash they carried (the totality of their fortune), his green card and her US passport. I came across her at the US embassy compound. She was trembling. She could barely tell her story coherently. She repeated over and over that she had seen houses fly, that the shells made the houses fly in the air and then collapse on the ground. She repeated that she ought not to have gone to the window, but she could not help it, she was curious, and she saw the houses fly.
As a holder of US passport (and real native) she had been allowed into the embassy. Her husband, only a green card holder, was not. The US embassy changed their policy, I was later told by people and journalists, but at various stages in the evacuation, green-card holders were not included in the evacuations plan. Pardon me, in the plans for "assisted departures".
I don't know what happened to the American mother from Portland Oregon and Yater south Lebanon. I know her babies are lactose intolerant and their only food was the stock of soy milk she had with her. She was very young, a face earnest, her skin transluscent white. In her pale blue eyes there was despair and fright that she will not recover from for a very long time.

The Displaced
The displaced have been dispersed in the country. They have been placed in schools, universities, government owned buildings. Aid is arriving, but still in chaotic manner. Volunteers are beginning to get tired. However nothing compares to the distress of the displaced. They are in a state of complete emotional upheaval. Their presence has already changed the habits and rituals of the neighborhoods where they have been placed.
As the sun begins to set and the harshness of its rays begins to dim, you find families strolling on Hamra street (a main commercial thoroughfare in West Beirut). Shops are closed, sandwich shops are closed, cafes are intermittantly open, but the sidewalk provides an opportunity to escape the confinement from the shelter where they been relocated. You can see it in their walk, their body language. Their pace searches for peace of mind, not for a destination, their lungs expand drawing in oxygen to inspire quietude and calm, not for cardiovascular pressure. They have a deep, mournful, sorrowful gaze. They left behind their entire lives, maybe even their beloved.
In Ras Beirut, small backstreets have come to life. To escape the heat of indoor confinement, displaced families relocated to old homes or government-owned buildings, have grown in the habit of placing plastic chairs and their narguiles on small front porches or entrance hallways of buildings. I had to walk home after a long day of working with journalists, two nights ago, and as I zigzagged through these back streets, I was comforted by their gentle presence. They chatted, softly, quietly, huddled in groups, watching the night unfold, fearful of the sound of Israeli warplanes.
The ceaseless newscast from a radio kept everyone informed. It too sounded softly. It was a gentle summer night, and the families dispersed and uprooted surrendered to the gentleness of the night.
On the next block, three young woman stood in line, queuing for access to a public payphone. That too has become a familiar sight in Beirut. People lining at public payphones. They stood, clearly tired but resilient. To my "good evening", I was greeted back with smiles and another "good evening". I was relieved to see that they felt safe, that they roamed the city at night without qualms. How long can they afford to pay for these phone calls is another question. There is a definite need for a long term plan. This emergency solution will soon reach a crisis, and state structures need to be prepared to face the anger and frustration of nearly 500,000 people.
On the next block, a Mercedes car packed with people was parked at a corner, in front of the entrance of a building. The car's doors were flung open and the radio broadcast news. It was a visit. Two displaced families on a nightly visit. Everyone was gentle, and a soft breeze blew with clemency.

US Speeds Bomb Delivery

July 22, 2006
I am horrified and sick to my stomach.
I feel like throwing up.
The Israelis are massing on the border, all the foreigners are leaving and now the Americans are rushing in weapons.....I am so fucking scared....
what are they planning? what are they planning?
I can't even describe to you the dread and fear I feel inside me....

Over 300 Lebanese civilians have been killed. Air attacks have destroyed all parts of the civilian infrastructure and today targeted transmission towers for television stations and mobile phones in the north. 500,000 have been forced to leave their homes and what do the Americans do??
Send a peace envoy?
Support a cease-fire?
NO!
They send WEAPONS!
When will the American people take responsibility?
Do they not realize that their hands are dripping with blood?
They speak about it as if America is not involved.
I even just saw a poll on CNN where they asked the American people if they should get involved or not!!!???? How laughable is that?!!!!
AMERICA IS IN INVOLVED!

There truly are no words to describe this move by the American Administration.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/world/middleeast/22military.html

July 22, 2006

U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis

By DAVID S. CLOUD and HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON, July 21 The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of
precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment
last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in
Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with
relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials
said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others
because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the
Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Irans efforts
to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

The munitions that the United States is sending to Israel are part of a
multimillion-dollar arms sale package approved last year that Israel is
able to draw on as needed, the officials said. But Israels request for
expedited delivery of the satellite and laser-guided bombs was described
as unusual by some military officers, and as an indication that Israel
still had a long list of targets in Lebanon to strike.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday that she would head to
Israel on Sunday at the beginning of a round of Middle Eastern diplomacy.
The original plan was to include a stop to Cairo in her travels, but she
did not announce any stops in Arab capitals.

Instead, the meeting of Arab and European envoys planned for Cairo will
take place in Italy, Western diplomats said. While Arab governments
initially criticized Hezbollah for starting the fight with Israel in
Lebanon, discontent is rising in Arab countries over the number of
civilian casualties in Lebanon, and the governments have become wary of
playing host to Ms. Rice until a cease-fire package is put together.

To hold the meetings in an Arab capital before a diplomatic solution is
reached, said Martin S. Indyk, a former American ambassador to Israel,
would have identified the Arabs as the primary partner of the United
States in this project at a time where Hezbollah is accusing the Arab
leaders of providing cover for the continuation of Israels military
operation.

The decision to stay away from Arab countries for now is a markedly
different strategy from the shuttle diplomacy that previous
administrations used to mediate in the Middle East. I have no interest in
diplomacy for the sake of returning Lebanon and Israel to the status quo
ante, Ms. Rice said Friday. I could have gotten on a plane and rushed over
and started shuttling around, and it wouldnt have been clear what I was
shuttling to do.

Before Ms. Rice heads to Israel on Sunday, she will join President Bush at
the White House for discussions on the Middle East crisis with two Saudi
envoys, Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister, and Prince Bandar bin
Sultan, the secretary general of the National Security Council.

The new American arms shipment to Israel has not been announced publicly,
and the officials who described the administrations decision to rush the
munitions to Israel would discuss it only after being promised anonymity.
The officials included employees of two government agencies, and one
described the shipment as just one example of a broad array of armaments
that the United States has long provided Israel.

One American official said the shipment should not be compared to the kind
of an emergency resupply of dwindling Israeli stockpiles that was provided
during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, when an American military airlift helped
Israel recover from early Arab victories.

David Siegel, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said: We
have been using precision-guided munitions in order to neutralize the
military capabilities of Hezbollah and to minimize harm to civilians. As a
rule, however, we do not comment on Israels defense acquisitions.

Israels need for precision munitions is driven in part by its strategy in
Lebanon, which includes destroying hardened underground bunkers where
Hezbollah leaders are said to have taken refuge, as well as missile sites
and other targets that would be hard to hit without laser and
satellite-guided bombs.

Pentagon and military officials declined to describe in detail the size
and contents of the shipment to Israel, and they would not say whether the
munitions were being shipped by cargo aircraft or some other means. But an
arms-sale package approved last year provides authority for Israel to
purchase from the United States as many as 100 GBU-28s, which are
5,000-pound laser-guided bombs intended to destroy concrete bunkers. The
package also provides for selling satellite-guided munitions.

An announcement in 2005 that Israel was eligible to buy the bunker buster
weapons described the GBU-28 as a special weapon that was developed for
penetrating hardened command centers located deep underground. The
document added, The Israeli Air Force will use these GBU-28s on their F-15
aircraft.

American officials said that once a weapons purchase is approved, it is up
to the buyer nation to set up a timetable. But one American official said
normal procedures usually do not include rushing deliveries within days of
a request. That was done because Israel is a close ally in the midst of
hostilities, the official said.

Although Israel had some precision guided bombs in its stockpile when the
campaign in Lebanon began, the Israelis may not have taken delivery of all
the weapons they were entitled to under the 2005 sale.

Israel said its air force had dropped 23 tons of explosives Wednesday
night alone in Beirut, in an effort to penetrate what was believed to be a
bunker used by senior Hezbollah officials.

A senior Israeli official said Friday that the attacks to date had
degraded Hezbollahs military strength by roughly half, but that the
campaign could go on for two more weeks or longer. We will stay heavily
with the air campaign, he said. Theres no time limit. We will end when we
achieve our goals.

The Bush administration announced Thursday a military equipment sale to
Saudi Arabia, worth more than $6 billion, a move that may in part have
been aimed at deflecting inevitable Arab government anger at the decision
to supply Israel with munitions in the event that effort became public.

On Friday, Bush administration officials laid out their plans for the
diplomatic strategy that Ms. Rice will pursue. In Rome, the United States
will try to hammer out a diplomatic package that will offer Lebanon
incentives under the condition that a United Nations resolution, which
calls for the disarming of Hezbollah, is implemented.

Diplomats will also try to figure out the details around an eventual
international peacekeeping force, and which countries will contribute to
it. Germany and Russia have both indicated that they would be willing to
contribute forces; Ms. Rice said the United States was unlikely to.

Implicit in the eventual diplomatic package is a cease-fire. But a senior
American official said it remained unclear whether, under such a plan,
Hezbollah would be asked to retreat from southern Lebanon and commit to a
cease-fire, or whether American diplomats might depend on Israels
continued bombardment to make Hezbollahs acquiescence irrelevant.

Daniel Ayalon, Israels ambassador to Washington, said that Israel would
not rule out an international force to police the borders of Lebanon and
Syria and to patrol southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah has had a
stronghold. But he said that Israel was first determined to take out
Hezbollahs command and control centers and weapons stockpiles.

Thom Shanker contributed reporting for this article.



Yahoo! News
US speeds up bomb deliveries to Israel

Sat Jul 22, 5:51 AM ET

The United States is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel,
which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air
campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, citing unnamed US officials.

The decision to expedite the weapons to Israel was made with relatively
little debate within the administration of President George W. Bush, the officials
said Friday on condition of anonymity.

The New York Times reported Saturday the disclosure threatens to anger Arab
governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is
actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to
Irans efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

According to the officials, the munitions being sent are part of a
multimillion-dollar arms sale package approved last year that Israel is able to draw on
as needed.

But Israels request for rush delivery of the satellite- and laser-guided
bombs was described as unusual by some military officers, and as an indication
that Israel still had a long list of targets in Lebanon to strike, the newspaper
said.

The new US arms shipment to Israel has not been announced publicly, and the
officials who described the Bush administrations decision to rush the munitions
to Israel would discuss it only after being promised anonymity.

Pentagon officials declined to describe in detail the size and contents of
the shipment to Israel, and they would not say whether the munitions were being
shipped by cargo aircraft or some other means, the Times said.

An arms-sale package approved last year provides authority for Israel to
purchase from the United States as many as 100 GBU-28s, which are 5,000-pound
(2,268-kilogram) laser-guided bombs intended to destroy concrete bunkers. The
package also provides for selling satellite-guided munitions, the newspaper said.

One US official said normal procedures usually do not include rushing
deliveries within days of a request. That was done because Israel is a close ally in
the midst of hostilities, the official told the Times.

Letter From Israeli Filmmakers

a letter to Palestinian and Lebanese filmmakers
to coincide with the opening of the Arab Film Biennial in Paris July 22nd

(French follows)

We, the undersigned Israeli filmmakers, greet the Arab filmmakers who have gathered in Paris for the Arab Film Biennial. Through you, we wish to convey a message of camaraderie and solidarity with our Lebanese and Palestinian colleagues who are currently besieged and bombarded by our country’s army.

We unequivocally oppose the brutality and cruelty of Israeli policy, which has reached new heights in recent weeks. Nothing justifies the continued occupation, closure, and oppression in Palestine. Nothing justifies the bombing of civilians and the destruction of infrastructures in Lebanon and Gaza.

Allow us to tell you that your films, which we try to see and circulate among us, are extremely important in our eyes. They enable us to know and understand you better. Thanks to these films, the men, women, and children who suffer in Gaza, Beirut, and everywhere else our army exercises its violence - have names and faces. We would like to thank you and encourage you to keep on filming, despite the difficulties.

For our part, we will continue to express through our films, with our raised voices, and in our personal actions our vehement opposition to the occupation, and we will continue to express our desire for freedom, justice, and equality among all the peoples of the region.


Nurith Aviv / Ilil Alexander / Adi Arbel / Yael Bartana / Philippe Bellaiche / Simone Bitton / Michale Boganim / Amit Breuer / Shai Carmeli-Pollack / Sami S. Chetrit / Danae Elon / Anat Even / Jack Faber / Avner Fainguelernt / Ari Folman / Gali Gold / BZ Goldberg / Sharon Hamou / Amir Harel / Avraham Heffner / Rachel Leah Jones / Dalia Karpel / Avi Kleinberger / Elonor Kowarsky / Edna Kowarsky / Philippa Kowarsky / Ram Loevi / Avi Mograbi / Jud Neeman / David Ofek / Iris Rubin / Abraham Segal / Nurith Shareth / Julie Shlez / Eyal Sivan / Yael Shavit / Eran Torbiner / Osnat Trabelsi / Daniel Waxman / Keren Yedaya

Nous, cineastes israéliens , saluons tous les cineastes arabes réunis à Paris pour la Biennale du cinema arabe . A travers vous, nous voulons envoyer un message d'amitié et de solidarité à nos collegues Libanais et Palestiniens qui sont actuellement assiégés et bombardés par l'armée de notre pays.
Nous nous opposons categoriquement à la brutalité et à la cruauté de la politique israélienne, qui a atteint de nouveaux sommets au cours des dernières semaines. Rien ne peut justifier la poursuite de l'occupation , de l'enfermement et de la repression en Palestine. Rien ne peut justifier le bombardement de populations civiles et la destruction d'infrastuctures au Liban et dans la bande de Gaza.

Permettez nous de vous dire que vos films, que nous nous efforcons de voir et de faire circuler autour de nous, sont tres importants à nos yeux. Ils nous aident à vous connaître et à vous comprendre. Grace à ces films, les hommes, les femmes et les enfants qui souffrent à Gaza, à Beyrouth, et partout où notre armée déploie sa violence, ont pour nous des noms et des visages. Nous voulons vous en remercier, et vous encourager à continuer de filmer, malgré toutes les difficultés .

Quant à nous, nous nous engageons à continuer d'exprimer, par nos films, nos prises de paroles et nos actions personelles, notre opposition catégorique à l'occupation et notre désir de liberté, de justice et d'égalité pour tous les peuples de la région.

Nurith Aviv / Ilil Alexander / Adi Arbel / Yael Bartana / Philippe Bellaiche / Simone Bitton / Michale Boganim / Amit Breuer / Shai Carmeli-Pollack / Sami S. Chetrit / Danae Elon / Anat Even / Jack Faber / Avner Fainguelernt / Ari Folman / Gali Gold / BZ Goldberg / Sharon Hamou / Amir Harel / Avraham Heffner / Rachel Leah Jones / Dalia Karpel / Avi Kleinberger / Elonor Kowarsky / Edna Kowarsky / Philippa Kowarsky / Ram Loevi / Avi Mograbi / Jud Neeman / David Ofek / Iris Rubin / Abraham Segal / Nurith Shareth / Julie Shlez / Eyal Sivan / Yael Shavit / Eran Torbiner / Osnat Trabelsi / Daniel Waxman / Keren Yedaya

News From Haifa

July 22, 2006 9:57:24 AM EDT

emily
news from haifa
the rockets hit 50 meters from my mums house, the post
office in my neigborhood in haifa is smashed. and my
mum left for jaffa..my sister works in the hospital in
haifa.
mostly all the injured in haifa are palestinians...i am just
against war by default
and what does this do?..i didnt have any sleep for a
week.
my mum and sister and large family and friends are in
haifa..my deebi part, all my uncles are in bierut...
i call haifa and beirut ...
what realy makes me angry, is the Arab world, the have left
Lebanon and Palestine alone....
aissa


Friends -
The media is not covering the fact that Palestinians are under attack in their cities and towns...Nazareth, Haifa, Majd il Krum....their numbers are often included as "Israeli victims" or "Israeli deaths".....
There is a lack of bunkers, shelters and alarms for all the Arab villages inside Israel.
Palestinians inside the 1948 boundaries are citizens of the state of Israel. The Israelis like to call them "Israeli Arabs".
Many obviously have relatives throughout Lebanon due to the Israeli expulsion of Palestinians in 1948.
Often forgotten by the rest of the world, unable to travel or visit Arab countries because of their citizenship, they are completely abandoned...

Today I am including an excellent article at the end of this email by one of my FAVORITE Palestinian leaders writing from inside Israel.
- Azmi Bishara - Palestinian from Nazareth.
His article is entitled "Blackmail by Bombs"

Here are some links to websites of Palestinians on the inside....fil dakhil...

http://www.arabs48.com
http://www.aljabha.org
http://www.assennara.net
http://www.panet.co.il

We are one.
Salamaat
Emily


http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20200&Itemid=1
Palestinian Citizens of Israel Unprotected and Unwarned: 2 Children killed in Nazareth
Until the deaths of the children, the media had demonstrably ignored the bombs and missiles that have landed on Druze and Arab communities and the despair of those citizens has not been heard.
Home Front Command does not publish its announcements in Arabic, and the Palestinian towns themselves don’t qualify for government aid for being in the "line of fire.". At times of war the state deals only with the Jewish home front

Nazareth: No one told us, the Arabs, to take shelter
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3278550,00.html

Israel's Arab citizens caught in a war they never wanted
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1183353.ece


http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/804/op1.htm
Blackmail by bombs
Azmi Bishara.

Any comparison between Olmert's and Nasrallah's political rhetoric must
conclude that the latter is the more rational. His speeches are more consistent
with the facts and rely less than Olmert's on religious expressions and
allusions. Nasrallah would never dare seal a parliamentary speech with a lengthy
prayer, as Olmert did in his latest speech before the Knesset.

Israeli politicians have no cultural or moral edge over resistance leaders.
The latter are far less attached to Iran than the former are to the US, and
Hizbullah's constituency is less attached to Iran than the organised Jewish
community abroad is to Israel.
The people who unleashed the brutal war against Lebanon are neither
intelligent nor courageous. Quite the opposite; they are mediocrities, cowards and
opportunists, but they happen to have military superiority. And they possess the
keys to the machinery of a state, a real state, one that is secure in its
identity, that has clear national security goals and channels of national
mobilisation, as opposed to a long deferred project for statehood and a states built on
the fragmentation of national identity. On the other side is a resistance
movement operating in the context of a denominationally organised society, a
Lebanese government neutralised to everything but sectarianism, and an Arab order
parts of which are rooting for Israel to do what it is incapable, or too
embarrassed, to do itself, which is to deal with the resistance as a militia
because it foregrounds their own lack of national and popular legitimacy.

Israel has nothing to show for ten days of barbaric vandalism and the
deliberate targeting of civilians. It cannot claim a single military victory against
the Lebanese resistance. It can, though, point proudly to whole residential
quarters that have been reduced to rubble, to the burned out hulks and ruins of
countless wharfs, factories, bridges, roads, tunnels, electricity generators
and civil defence buildings. In terms of explosive and destructive power Israel
has thrown an atom bomb on Lebanon, it is the Israeli Hiroshima.
True, Israel suffers a paucity of intelligence on the whereabouts of
Hizbullah members, which is why it has been targeting the homes of their families. But
this does not justify the systematic bombardment of Lebanese society, and the
attempts to destroy its economy. This is the epitome of terrorism: the
incitement of terror in a civilian populace by unleashing massive violence and
destruction against it in an attempt to compel the people's political leaders to
act against the Lebanese resistance or to change their positions.

The current Israeli assault against Lebanon has nothing to do with freeing
two captured soldiers. That is a purely tangential concern, and Israel will
probably agree to a prisoner exchange when the time comes. Of prime concern, on
the other hand, is an agenda that has bearings on Lebanese domestic, as well as
American agenda for regional, politics.
The issue is not why the resistance chose this particular time for its
operation. Timing, here, becomes another pretext for vilifying the resistance and
justifying the aggression. The fact is that, over the past few months, the
resistance made several attempts to capture Israeli soldiers. The difference is
that its last attempt succeeded. Also, the Israeli soldiers that died in this
operation were not killed in combat, but rather because their tank rolled over a
landmine while pursuing the kidnappers. A more important question is why
Israel choose this time to launch a full scale attack?

The timing is an Israeli-American one. And the answer resides with the Arabs
and the US, and their inability to implement UN Security Council Resolution
1559 and dismantle the Lebanese resistance with Arab tools. So Israel stepped
forward. The only difference between today and the earlier bombardments -- the
"Day of Reckoning" and "Grapes of Wrath" between 1993 and 1996 -- is that
Syrian forces are no longer present in Lebanon. Instead there is an
American-sponsored project for the country, involving the rest of the Arab world, which was
to change the structure of government in Lebanon and transform it into an ally
of the US, a good neighbour to Israel and a participant in US- oriented
alliances in the region.

The project took off following the assassination of Al-Hariri, but in recent
months it had run aground as it became increasingly clear that the Arabs had
no practical means to keep it afloat. What kept discussions in Beirut from
collapsing completely was the fact that the only alternative was internal violence
and civil war. But while it was obvious that the talks were useful in keeping
violence at bay and, hence, good for the tourist season, they were not
helping to advance the American project in Lebanon. It was equally obvious,
therefore, that those who wanted to push this project were expecting something to
happen -- a US strike against Iran, for example, or an Israeli strike against
Lebanon. Given the Iranian option remains currently out of bounds Israel knew it
could count on a tacit green light from major Arab powers for its attack
against Lebanon, and they did not disappoint it. It was the scope and vehemence of
Israel's actions in Lebanon that came as the surprise.
This is neither an Iranian nor a Syrian war.The fist is just being involved
in dialogue with the Americans and the second has been trying to avoid a war
with Israel for decades.
Israel's aim is to change the rules of the game between Israel and Lebanon
and, therefore, within Lebanon itself. This is the only point of similarity
between the current campaign and the war of 1982. The major differences are that,
on the negative side, international and regional circumstances favour Israel,
while on the positive side the resistance, which is not Palestinian but
Lebanese this time, is much stronger and better organised. To these two we can add
another, which is that the Lebanese are not heading towards another 17 May;
that experience they have put firmly behind them and no one wants to rake it up
again. Even after the Syrian withdrawal the Lebanese society has much more
positive attitude towards the Lebanese resistance than it had towards the
Palestinian resistance, in those days of 1982 a part of the Lebanese people fought on
the side of the Israelis. The initiative now lies in the hands of the Lebanese
people and the resistance. They, alone, have the ability to thwart the
conspiracy.

International delegations will soon appear in Lebanon to reap the fruits of
the aggression. They will promise the Lebanese a ceasefire if they implement
1559, saying that there is no longer any excuse for delaying implementation now
that the Israeli army has demonstrated the consequences of non-
implementation.

Roed-Larsen's visit was not a fact-finding mission. Sending Roed-Larsen was
in itself a political statement. He is not only the Israeli Labour Party's man
on the conflict with the Palestinians, he is also the spokesman of the Israeli
position with respect to the Lebanese resistance. He is the one who is after
blood-money to compensate for Barak's loss of honour after withdrawing from
Lebanon and the one who was called in to supervise the implementation of
Resolution 1559. Larsen has not only drawn a red line at crossing the blue line, he
regards the Lebanese resistance as a local militia. He is also a foremost
exponent of that now old term, "the New Middle East", by which is meant, at best,
the normalisation of Arab relations, ie according inter-Arab relations no more
priority than bilateral relations between individual Arab states and Israel.
Larsen was the sworn enemy of Yasser Arafat, who spoiled the Oslo recipe and
refused to behave as he was supposed to. He is filled with a mixture of hatred
and bitterness against "Arab extremists" and harbours low expectations of, and
disappointment with, "Arab moderates" who should always demonstrate that they
are up to the Israeli establishment's expectations.
That's what it's all about; the rest is décor. We'll see Larsen in the garb
of mediator, which hardly suits him since he is not an arbitrator and nowhere
near the middle. And, we'll be inundated with details about ceasefires, truces,
and preparations for implementing 1559.
The resistance isn't playing the role of victim. It didn't ask for
international sympathy with the victims but for solidarity among freedom-seeking
peoples. These are the rules of another game, a language that Arab regimes have
forgotten, if they ever really knew it, though they owe their own existence to such
a discourse. I am speaking of the language of liberation movements that exact
a payment for colonisation from the coloniser. Resistance movements attempt
to exact a price that their adversaries cannot afford and that the societies of
their adversaries do not wish to pay, and they try to encumber their
adversaries in a manner that inhibits the full use of force. This is how resistance
movements try to neutralise military superiority.

The resistance was not being unduly reckless; it did not even select the
timing. It was Israel that chose to open a broad battlefront against the
resistance. It feared that putting off an inevitable battle with the Lebanese
resistance would only give the resistance time to grow stronger and increase its
arsenal. One reason why Israel chose this time in particular was that it already
knew how key Arab regimes would react. The situation, therefore, is the opposite
of what is being portrayed: the charge that the resistance has courted
disaster betrays the existence of an Arab camp that regards robust resistance in
Lebanon and Palestine as an adventure.

The US, meanwhile, is futilely trying to regulate Israel's cowardly assault
against civilians and its destruction of civilian infrastructure. It wants
Israel to target the resistance and the society that supports it without
jeopardising the American project in Lebanon. It wants Israel to bully and blackmail
America's allies without crushing them, alienating them completely or driving
their supporters into the arms of the resistance. The difference between the
Israel and the US, here, maybe tactical, but it is important. It is one of
degree, of pushing or not pushing people over the edge.

Whereas the US wants Israel to promote the American project in Lebanon rather
than throw out the baby with the bathwater, Israel wants the US, Washington's
allies and all the international agencies at their disposal, to negotiate
with the Lebanese government a ceasefire that fulfils several conditions. The
first is to disarm Hizbullah, the second to deploy the official Lebanese army in
the south and substitute the international force with a proper NATO force, the
third to release the Israeli captives. But it is the first condition that is
the one that counts; meeting this will be sufficient for Israel to agree to a
ceasefire. The political order that emerges from the rubble of Israel's
destruction in will see to the rest. Israel, in other words, has decided to settle
internal Lebanese dialogue by Israeli force of arms.

A Nato force accepted by the government without the consent of the people
will be considered an occupation force and will be the next target of the
resistance thus creating a new Iraq, a fragmented Lebanon. If the Lebanese government
agrees to the proposed settlement that includes dismantling Hizbullah a
process of attrition will start also from the inside aimed at getting Lebanese
society to pressure the resistance into conceding. This is how internal strife is
ignited and it is part of the plan.

Israel decided that this would not only be a good time to go on the offensive
but that the battle would be decisive. If the Israeli terrorist project and
military adventure is not to prevail, it is not just the resilience of the
resistance that matters but also the unity of the Lebanese against Israeli
aggression and its political aims.

Palestinian Citizens of Israel Unwarned and Unprotected + Azmi's excellent article

emily
news from haifa
the rockets hit 50 meters from my mums house, the post
office in my neigborhood in haifa is smashed. and my
mum left for jaffa..my sister works in the hospital in
haifa.
mostly all the injured in haifa are palestinians...i am just
against war by default
and what does this do?..i didnt have any sleep for a
week.
my mum and sister and large family and friends are in
haifa..my deebi part, all my uncles are in bierut...
i call haifa and beirut ...
what realy makes me angry, is the Arab world, the have left
Lebanon and Palestine alone....
aissa


Friends -
The media is not covering the fact that Palestinians are under attack in their cities and towns...Nazareth, Haifa, Majd il Krum....their numbers are often included as "Israeli victims" or "Israeli deaths".....
There is a lack of bunkers, shelters and alarms for all the Arab villages inside Israel.
Palestinians inside the 1948 boundaries are citizens of the state of Israel. The Israelis like to call them "Israeli Arabs".
Many obviously have relatives throughout Lebanon due to the Israeli expulsion of Palestinians in 1948.
Often forgotten by the rest of the world, unable to travel or visit Arab countries because of their citizenship, they are completely abandoned...

Today I am including an excellent article at the end of this email by one of my FAVORITE Palestinian leaders writing from inside Israel.
- Azmi Bishara - Palestinian from Nazareth.
His article is entitled "Blackmail by Bombs"

Here are some links to websites of Palestinians on the inside....fil dakhil...

http://www.arabs48.com
http://www.aljabha.org
http://www.assennara.net
http://www.panet.co.il

We are one.
Salamaat
Emily


http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20200&Itemid=1
Palestinian Citizens of Israel Unprotected and Unwarned: 2 Children killed in Nazareth
Until the deaths of the children, the media had demonstrably ignored the bombs and missiles that have landed on Druze and Arab communities and the despair of those citizens has not been heard.
Home Front Command does not publish its announcements in Arabic, and the Palestinian towns themselves don’t qualify for government aid for being in the "line of fire.". At times of war the state deals only with the Jewish home front

Nazareth: No one told us, the Arabs, to take shelter
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3278550,00.html

Israel's Arab citizens caught in a war they never wanted
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1183353.ece


http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/804/op1.htm
Blackmail by bombs
Azmi Bishara.

Any comparison between Olmert's and Nasrallah's political rhetoric must
conclude that the latter is the more rational. His speeches are more consistent
with the facts and rely less than Olmert's on religious expressions and
allusions. Nasrallah would never dare seal a parliamentary speech with a lengthy
prayer, as Olmert did in his latest speech before the Knesset.

Israeli politicians have no cultural or moral edge over resistance leaders.
The latter are far less attached to Iran than the former are to the US, and
Hizbullah's constituency is less attached to Iran than the organised Jewish
community abroad is to Israel.
The people who unleashed the brutal war against Lebanon are neither
intelligent nor courageous. Quite the opposite; they are mediocrities, cowards and
opportunists, but they happen to have military superiority. And they possess the
keys to the machinery of a state, a real state, one that is secure in its
identity, that has clear national security goals and channels of national
mobilisation, as opposed to a long deferred project for statehood and a states built on
the fragmentation of national identity. On the other side is a resistance
movement operating in the context of a denominationally organised society, a
Lebanese government neutralised to everything but sectarianism, and an Arab order
parts of which are rooting for Israel to do what it is incapable, or too
embarrassed, to do itself, which is to deal with the resistance as a militia
because it foregrounds their own lack of national and popular legitimacy.

Israel has nothing to show for ten days of barbaric vandalism and the
deliberate targeting of civilians. It cannot claim a single military victory against
the Lebanese resistance. It can, though, point proudly to whole residential
quarters that have been reduced to rubble, to the burned out hulks and ruins of
countless wharfs, factories, bridges, roads, tunnels, electricity generators
and civil defence buildings. In terms of explosive and destructive power Israel
has thrown an atom bomb on Lebanon, it is the Israeli Hiroshima.
True, Israel suffers a paucity of intelligence on the whereabouts of
Hizbullah members, which is why it has been targeting the homes of their families. But
this does not justify the systematic bombardment of Lebanese society, and the
attempts to destroy its economy. This is the epitome of terrorism: the
incitement of terror in a civilian populace by unleashing massive violence and
destruction against it in an attempt to compel the people's political leaders to
act against the Lebanese resistance or to change their positions.

The current Israeli assault against Lebanon has nothing to do with freeing
two captured soldiers. That is a purely tangential concern, and Israel will
probably agree to a prisoner exchange when the time comes. Of prime concern, on
the other hand, is an agenda that has bearings on Lebanese domestic, as well as
American agenda for regional, politics.
The issue is not why the resistance chose this particular time for its
operation. Timing, here, becomes another pretext for vilifying the resistance and
justifying the aggression. The fact is that, over the past few months, the
resistance made several attempts to capture Israeli soldiers. The difference is
that its last attempt succeeded. Also, the Israeli soldiers that died in this
operation were not killed in combat, but rather because their tank rolled over a
landmine while pursuing the kidnappers. A more important question is why
Israel choose this time to launch a full scale attack?

The timing is an Israeli-American one. And the answer resides with the Arabs
and the US, and their inability to implement UN Security Council Resolution
1559 and dismantle the Lebanese resistance with Arab tools. So Israel stepped
forward. The only difference between today and the earlier bombardments -- the
"Day of Reckoning" and "Grapes of Wrath" between 1993 and 1996 -- is that
Syrian forces are no longer present in Lebanon. Instead there is an
American-sponsored project for the country, involving the rest of the Arab world, which was
to change the structure of government in Lebanon and transform it into an ally
of the US, a good neighbour to Israel and a participant in US- oriented
alliances in the region.

The project took off following the assassination of Al-Hariri, but in recent
months it had run aground as it became increasingly clear that the Arabs had
no practical means to keep it afloat. What kept discussions in Beirut from
collapsing completely was the fact that the only alternative was internal violence
and civil war. But while it was obvious that the talks were useful in keeping
violence at bay and, hence, good for the tourist season, they were not
helping to advance the American project in Lebanon. It was equally obvious,
therefore, that those who wanted to push this project were expecting something to
happen -- a US strike against Iran, for example, or an Israeli strike against
Lebanon. Given the Iranian option remains currently out of bounds Israel knew it
could count on a tacit green light from major Arab powers for its attack
against Lebanon, and they did not disappoint it. It was the scope and vehemence of
Israel's actions in Lebanon that came as the surprise.
This is neither an Iranian nor a Syrian war.The fist is just being involved
in dialogue with the Americans and the second has been trying to avoid a war
with Israel for decades.
Israel's aim is to change the rules of the game between Israel and Lebanon
and, therefore, within Lebanon itself. This is the only point of similarity
between the current campaign and the war of 1982. The major differences are that,
on the negative side, international and regional circumstances favour Israel,
while on the positive side the resistance, which is not Palestinian but
Lebanese this time, is much stronger and better organised. To these two we can add
another, which is that the Lebanese are not heading towards another 17 May;
that experience they have put firmly behind them and no one wants to rake it up
again. Even after the Syrian withdrawal the Lebanese society has much more
positive attitude towards the Lebanese resistance than it had towards the
Palestinian resistance, in those days of 1982 a part of the Lebanese people fought on
the side of the Israelis. The initiative now lies in the hands of the Lebanese
people and the resistance. They, alone, have the ability to thwart the
conspiracy.

International delegations will soon appear in Lebanon to reap the fruits of
the aggression. They will promise the Lebanese a ceasefire if they implement
1559, saying that there is no longer any excuse for delaying implementation now
that the Israeli army has demonstrated the consequences of non-
implementation.

Roed-Larsen's visit was not a fact-finding mission. Sending Roed-Larsen was
in itself a political statement. He is not only the Israeli Labour Party's man
on the conflict with the Palestinians, he is also the spokesman of the Israeli
position with respect to the Lebanese resistance. He is the one who is after
blood-money to compensate for Barak's loss of honour after withdrawing from
Lebanon and the one who was called in to supervise the implementation of
Resolution 1559. Larsen has not only drawn a red line at crossing the blue line, he
regards the Lebanese resistance as a local militia. He is also a foremost
exponent of that now old term, "the New Middle East", by which is meant, at best,
the normalisation of Arab relations, ie according inter-Arab relations no more
priority than bilateral relations between individual Arab states and Israel.
Larsen was the sworn enemy of Yasser Arafat, who spoiled the Oslo recipe and
refused to behave as he was supposed to. He is filled with a mixture of hatred
and bitterness against "Arab extremists" and harbours low expectations of, and
disappointment with, "Arab moderates" who should always demonstrate that they
are up to the Israeli establishment's expectations.
That's what it's all about; the rest is décor. We'll see Larsen in the garb
of mediator, which hardly suits him since he is not an arbitrator and nowhere
near the middle. And, we'll be inundated with details about ceasefires, truces,
and preparations for implementing 1559.
The resistance isn't playing the role of victim. It didn't ask for
international sympathy with the victims but for solidarity among freedom-seeking
peoples. These are the rules of another game, a language that Arab regimes have
forgotten, if they ever really knew it, though they owe their own existence to such
a discourse. I am speaking of the language of liberation movements that exact
a payment for colonisation from the coloniser. Resistance movements attempt
to exact a price that their adversaries cannot afford and that the societies of
their adversaries do not wish to pay, and they try to encumber their
adversaries in a manner that inhibits the full use of force. This is how resistance
movements try to neutralise military superiority.

The resistance was not being unduly reckless; it did not even select the
timing. It was Israel that chose to open a broad battlefront against the
resistance. It feared that putting off an inevitable battle with the Lebanese
resistance would only give the resistance time to grow stronger and increase its
arsenal. One reason why Israel chose this time in particular was that it already
knew how key Arab regimes would react. The situation, therefore, is the opposite
of what is being portrayed: the charge that the resistance has courted
disaster betrays the existence of an Arab camp that regards robust resistance in
Lebanon and Palestine as an adventure.

The US, meanwhile, is futilely trying to regulate Israel's cowardly assault
against civilians and its destruction of civilian infrastructure. It wants
Israel to target the resistance and the society that supports it without
jeopardising the American project in Lebanon. It wants Israel to bully and blackmail
America's allies without crushing them, alienating them completely or driving
their supporters into the arms of the resistance. The difference between the
Israel and the US, here, maybe tactical, but it is important. It is one of
degree, of pushing or not pushing people over the edge.

Whereas the US wants Israel to promote the American project in Lebanon rather
than throw out the baby with the bathwater, Israel wants the US, Washington's
allies and all the international agencies at their disposal, to negotiate
with the Lebanese government a ceasefire that fulfils several conditions. The
first is to disarm Hizbullah, the second to deploy the official Lebanese army in
the south and substitute the international force with a proper NATO force, the
third to release the Israeli captives. But it is the first condition that is
the one that counts; meeting this will be sufficient for Israel to agree to a
ceasefire. The political order that emerges from the rubble of Israel's
destruction in will see to the rest. Israel, in other words, has decided to settle
internal Lebanese dialogue by Israeli force of arms.

A Nato force accepted by the government without the consent of the people
will be considered an occupation force and will be the next target of the
resistance thus creating a new Iraq, a fragmented Lebanon. If the Lebanese government
agrees to the proposed settlement that includes dismantling Hizbullah a
process of attrition will start also from the inside aimed at getting Lebanese
society to pressure the resistance into conceding. This is how internal strife is
ignited and it is part of the plan.

Israel decided that this would not only be a good time to go on the offensive
but that the battle would be decisive. If the Israeli terrorist project and
military adventure is not to prevail, it is not just the resilience of the
resistance that matters but also the unity of the Lebanese against Israeli
aggression and its political aims.

Importantant MEDIA Initiatives

Please do not build the wheel from scratch every time we have to deal with these situations and the media.
Today I am promoting the following group.
http://www.imagine-life.org/about.html
They are the first non-profit organization exclusively utilizing major U.S. media outlets to educate and empower communities about underrepresented human rights violations.
They are already active and in place and need our support.
You want to tell mainstream America the truth about what's going on??
Then support them in any way that you can.
THANK YOU DANNY GLOVER!!!
See his statement on the site!

And out of Britain, please check out Arab Media Watch for objective British coverage of Arab Issues. (see Victor Kattan's plea at the end of this e-mail)
(yes yes the British media are no better than the Americans in their coverage of the situation....)
http://www.arabmediawatch.com

Also check out the Institute for Middle East Understanding
Institute for Middle East Understanding provides journalists with quick access to information about Palestine and the Palestinians, as well as expert sources, both in the United States and in Palestine.
www.imeu.net

And from Electronic Intifada, two stories:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5152.shtml
Western Media Fail to Tell the Real Story in Lebanon

AND

Jonathan Cooks analysis of the subtext of the evacuation story though an unpacking of the BBC coverage pasted below.

Also what about the evacuation of the other nationals in Lebanon..... India has sent over 4 navy warships to evacuate their 12,000 nationals..., Turkey, 30,000 Sri Lankans, Dhaka has asked other countries to help as they have at least 10,000 Bangladeshis, also there are 30,000 Filipinos asking other countries to help get their people out.......

Salamaat
Emily Jacir

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5106.shtml
The racist subtext of the evacuation story
Jonathan Cook, Electronic Lebanon - Thursday, 20 July 2006, 04:36
Israel has opened "windows" for the foreign powers to evacuate their terrified nationals from Lebanon. Obligingly, the foreign media have turned these "windows" into an opportunity to avert their gaze further from the death and destruction in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.

On BBC World, for example, we have been following the progress of one 12-year-old British boy fleeing Beirut. When he observed that he was worried for the Lebanese family members he was leaving behind, reporter Clive Myrie noted his was a "very mature attitude".

If only the BBC was demonstrating such maturity.

I have to keep reminding myself that this is BBC World, not its domestic news service. You would hardly know it watching the coverage of the past couple of days.

On Tuesday, when at least 35 Lebanese were killed -- possibly many more as no one seems to know who is lying under the rubble or has been incinerated in their fleeing cars -- we had the BBC's Ben Brown in Beirut giving a blow-by-blow account of every facet of the evacuation of foreign nationals in general and British nationals in particular.

If anyone doubted the racism of our Western media, here it was proudly on display. The BBC apparently considers their Beirut reporter's first duty to find out what meals HMS Gloucester's chef will be preparing for the evacuees. Lebanese and Palestinian civilians die unnoticed by the Western media (though not by the Arab channels) while we learn of onboard sleeping arrangements on the ship bound for Cyprus.

Did we really need to hear a lengthy live speech from the commander of HMS Gloucester telling us how "delighted" he was to be in Beirut? With the long minutes of rolling news to fill this might have been justified had the other minutes been stuffed with reports from the areas where civilians are dying by the dozen each day. But such reports are the mean filling in the thick sandwich of the main story of the evacuees.

In the 4pm GMT broadcast, I watched 45 mins of coverage, most of it dedicated to "live" footage of the British warship's arrival and the relieved faces of the Brits about to leave.

Even so, the BBC still managed to squeeze in other bits of reporting in the lulls in the drama of evacuation. At different points there was a interview from Tel Aviv with former Israeli cabinet minister Yossi Beilin and a live link-up between Ben Brown and Lyse Doucet in Haifa. She informed us of the "barrage" of 50 Katyushas that had landed on northern Israel that day, killing one man. Supportively, Ben Brown, added that there was "shock" at the death and destruction spread by Hizbullah's rockets and opined that what the Israeli army was "really after" was Hizbullah's long-range missiles.

So we had the BBC in Haifa and Beirut speaking with one voice -- that of Israel.

Back in Beirut, Brown repeated with bafflement statements by the British ambassador that some British nationals preferred to stay put for the time being and would not be taking advantage of Israel's "window". It occurred to neither of them that many of these British nationals have loved ones in Beirut and may not want to leave them in the coming desperate hours.

Ben Brown also told us that it was "understandable" that the British evacuees were "pretty scared" because they were not accustomed to this kind of bombing. Not like, he added, war correspondents such as himself or the people of Beirut, who had grown used to such assaults.

The outrageous racism implicit in this comment was clear the moment one paused to consider its possible meanings. Did Brown mean that the Lebanese do not mind being bombed? Did he mean that Lebanese children understand from birth that it is their fate to be attacked by Israel, that they get used to the explosions around them? Did he mean that their parents are less terrified than a British mother and father by the thought that their family might be obliterated at any moment? Or did he mean that Lebanon's civilians will not be as traumatised by their experiences as other human beings would be?

This is the racist subtext of the foreign media's evacuations story. That once the foreigners have been moved to safety, we in the West can leave those who understand only the language violence -- the Israeli army and, apparently, the whole population of Lebanon -- to carry on with their unfinished business.

And we can be sure that this is exactly what will happen as soon as Israel's "window" is shut. When the foreign powers no longer have even a small vested interest in the safety of Beirut, can we expect the coverage to improve? Don't hold your breath.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A plea for solidarity from Victor Kattan:
Dear friends,

I am sure you are all watching the events unfolding in Lebanon which is teetering on the brink of destruction. Muslims and Christians of all sects are suffering from Israel's relentless bombardment of that country. Perhaps many of you feel helpless, that you cannot do anything to stop it? Perhaps you have even signed petitions or forwarded to your friends and colleagues articles written by Robert Fisk and Guardian correspondents? Perhaps you even think the media is doing a good job …?

Well, I have to disappoint you. Everyday I monitor the British tabloids and I can tell you that the coverage is by far pro-Israel. Yes, pro-Israel. Even though hundreds of Lebanese of all faiths are dying in this conflict, it is being justified by many British tabloid editors and columnists, with the noticeable exception of the Daily Mirror which is bucking the trend and reporting the conflict admirably. What really gets to me though are the letters from members of the public. Here we can all do more.

By a rough estimate I would say that the letters are 3-1 in favour of what Israel is doing. People are saying things like the Arabs want to "push the Jews into the sea", Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran want to "destroy Israel", that Israel's response is "proportionate", that the Arabs hate Israel because it is a "democracy". Comments like this are likely to make your blood boil. But there is simply no reason why we cannot change this. We can all write decent, polite and factual letters to the press.

This is important because newspaper editors are always curious to know what the general public thinks of their stance on a particular issue. Now some of you may think why bother with the tabloids. The simply answer is this: outreach. For example, the Sun sells more copies than all of the broadsheets combined. It is not by accident that Tony Blair bends over backwards to accommodate that newspaper. It can shape public opinion. Some of you may say there is no point engaging with the Sun because it is pro-Israel. But we have to start somewhere. Already Arab Media Watch have made contact with the editors. We even persuaded them to send a correspondent to Beirut, which they have done (I even helped him get a taxi).

All I ask is that you join AMW. It is free. Our website is www.arabmediawatch.com, and a sample of our media interactions is at:

http://www.arabmediawatch.com/amw/AboutUs/MediaInteractions/tabid/181/Default.aspx
Last year our website was hacked, so we lost a lot of members. In my opinion, we were hacked because we were having an impact. Our website is now more secure. But to make use of our features, such as action alerts, daily press reviews etc. you need to be a member. If you join, please remember to tick the appropriate boxes. We provide all the email addresses for individual journalists as well as the letters pages. If you really want to make an effective difference, this is a good way to do it.

Yesterday evening, Israel bombed Bourj al-Barajneh with 23 tons of explosive. No one mentioned that it is a Palestinian refugee camp. I was there exactly one year ago. It is sad and sickening to see this happen. Nobody is safe from Israel's bombs. But the only way we can change things is by pressuring our politicians to do something – and the best way to do this is through the media.

I would be extremely grateful if you could forward this email to your lists. The more people who join us, the bigger impact we can have on shaping and changing attitudes and prejudices. Now is not a time for bickering about strategies, politics and who started what. This is a time for solidarity.

With sincere regards,

Victor Kattan
Director, Arab Media Watch
www.arabmediawatch.com

American Evacuations in Lebanon

Dear all
I received the below email from my friend Lynn. I have a whole slew of similar emails from other friends who are American citizens in Lebanon.
American citizens are the least likely people to receive support or help from their government in conflict zones. Let it be known.

The American Government seems to have as little care for their citizens in Lebanon as they do for their citizens in West Bank and Gaza. Lynn's email reminded me of the invasions (... never-ending) in Palestine. An example: in Ramallah during the 2002 invasion, I also called the consulate and asked for help. What a joke that was!
While the Canadians, Swedes, Italians and everyone else was shuttled out of Bethlehem/Ramallah/Bayt Jalla the Americans were stuck. (OH! Important to note that dual nationals at that time were not allowed in the convoys by order of the Israelis - so Europe was happy to comply to leave Palestinian-Swedes, Palestinian-Italians etc under bombardment).
In my first phone call to the consulate I was told that there were 45,000 American citizens living in the West Bank so there was nothing they could do.

Two weeks later I called and was told that if I could get to Kalandia checkpoint they would pick me up on the other side. To which I responded the roads around my house have been blown up, there are snipers everywhere, we are under curfew, and there is an Apache overhead, IF I make it to Kalandia I wont need you on the other fucking side!

An American named C., who has been living and working in Ramallah since 1998 was called and told that the Americans had coordinated with the Israeli Military commander and they could send the Israelis in to pick her up in a tank! Imagine! Obviously, C stayed for the entire duration of the 40 day siege in which they destroyed, bombed and damaged our entire infrastructure, all we had built, our art institutions, civil society organizations, buildings, everything everyone had worked so hard to build throughout the 90's
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/gallery/gallery.html

Oh! now the Americans don't have to PAY their way out (if they can get out) see this:
The Arab American Institute applauds Arab American members of Congress for their leadership and advocacy on the issue of American evacuation from Lebanon. Senator John E. Sununu and Congressmen Nick Rahall (D-WV), Ray LaHood (R-IL), Darrell Issa (R-CA), and Charles Boustany (R-LA) met yesterday, July 17, with David Welch, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs. Among the issues raised with Welch was the reported evacuation fee charged to American citizens fleeing Lebanon. The next day, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice informed Sununu that the fees would be waived.

How kind of them.

From: lynn
Subject: Re: whats the word?
Date: July 19, 2006 2:48:18 AM EDT
To: ejacir

Dear Emily: I heard last night that the Amreicans evacuated students at AUB. This makes sense given their location and their political currency. Every single bit of gossip I have heard has it that Americans inside Lebanon are wildly frustrated. I haven't heard a single story of the American embassy actually being helpful in the past week. I heard that the French embassy started calling every registered national last Wednesday afternoon. They kept the embassy open 24 hours from Thursday and evacuated on Monday.

I'm not saying that I expected the U.S. embassy to open their doors and start serving me tea beginning last Wednesday. On the contrary. But basic courtesy and CONTACT once we registered would have been nice. Plus I already told you how humiliated I was when the American embassy official came on television here and completely ignored the fact that Lebanon itself was being systematically destroyed and (at the time) close to 100 civilians had been killed. No sensitivity whatsoever.

So our story is that I faxed our info to the embassy on Saturday, then on Sunday I registered us again via the state department's website. On Monday after dialing for over an hour, and being told by a rude embassy employee that there is no way to confirm that we are registered, he gave me an e-mail address at the embassy and suggested I try registering us again. I then e-mailed them our registration information directly. Each of those three transmissions included phone numbers and e-mail where they can contact us. I stated emphatically each time that we want to be evacuated. I've heard nothing. I also cc'd a woman called Juliet Wurr on the e-mail I sent on Monday. A Daily Star reporter here gave me her contact information. Wurr is the "spokeswoman" for the embassy. She is based either in NYC or D.C. Yesterday she was quoted in the LA Times to this effect: after saying that the U.S. embassy is doing the best it can do in Lebanon and that there will be an evacuation, she then said: "anyway, all of those Americans now in Lebanon did not heed the state department warning not to travel to Lebanon."

Hmm. So we deserve what we got? So we have no right to expect to be treated with basic courtesy and for the American administration here to respect the Lebanese? We have no right to expect an efficient, safe and responsible evacuation? There are 25,000 Americans here. What the fuck?

We heard from an NBC producer friend this morning that anchors of the major networks are being sent to Lebanon to emphasize the importance of the story. (!) Basically, I'm telling you this because it is ironic that the U.S. is going to start shipping a whole bunch more journalists in to the country but they can't get the Americans who want to leave out of the country.

xx
Lynn