The Palestine thread

[seafoid]

That last load of bdb shite came from a site called jewishpress.com. Judaism is going to sustain serious pr damage when zionism collapses.  There aren't enough decent jews able to stand up to the thugs who run israel.

[give her dixie]

Snapshot: Home from (demolished) home

It is neither Isaac nor Samson nor Ashurbanipal who is seen in this AP picture; it is a Palestinian boy crying out to the heavens.

One hand holds a construction rod that protrudes from a destroyed wall, the other clutches the wooden leg of an overturned piece of red furniture. Amid thickly woven textiles and curved table legs that thrust skyward, this boy binds himself to the ruins. Odd ruins they are, a pile of objects, among them a light brown towel, on the right on the low wall, which still hangs there, tied to a clothes dryer that is shut up like a clam. Embedded within this image, shot by AP photographer Bernat Armangue on February 5 in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, is every representation of the bound Isaac: not so much tied up ahead of sacrifice as lying willingly in wait. And it also contains Samson, bringing down the pillars and going to his death with the Philistines; and "The Destroyed Room," Jeff Wall's important photograph from 1978, itself based on an agitated painting done in1827 by Delacroix, "The Death of Sardanapalus," depicting the ruins of the palace at Nineveh and King Sardanapalus ‏(Ashurbanipal‏) observing the catastrophe.

But it's neither Isaac nor Samson nor Ashurbanipal who is seen here; it is a boy crying out to the heavens. Here is the point at which the devastation and the boy merge and become one. It is the moment when he lies as in a hammock, connecting with and attached to the components of his house, which, when they stood in their proper places that morning, made a "home." Now, dislodged from their natural places, they are fragments of memory, remains. This is the moment when it dawns on him that he will not be able to reassemble what has been lost. He grasps the possibility of entropy. He is very young − too young − and he is grief-stricken.

Possibly his parents knew that the Jerusalem Municipality would demolish their house that morning, after he went off to school, but nevertheless allowed him to see what he saw on his return. Should a parent whose home has been burned or destroyed by force of nature or, worse, by force of government, show or not show his child what happened to his home? Allow him to see that his bed no longer exists? That the places where he kept the card with the picture of his favorite soccer player and the fossil he found and the candy he hid, no longer exist? How, exactly, does one go about understanding the absence of a house? People, after all, can't abide losing even one small item of their property. Think about losing your keys, having your phone taken from you. Think about having it all taken away.

According to the municipality, the boy's home was built without permits − as though there is nothing easier for East Jerusalem Palestinians than to obtain building permits. It was said to be without foundations − as though it were impossible to order its reinforcement or offer a permit in return for a plan of safe construction. What can the boy do − but cry? A thick, gray square mattress lies below the mattress of gray sky above the ruins of the house in an open area of East Jerusalem. Some of the family's possessions reman intact and the photograph − an extraordinarily effective news shot − leads the eye from one object to the next, from picture frames to the large round food tray next to the towel, and from the palace at Nineveh to Wall's destroyed room, in which the mattress is ripped, slashed, split and gutted, and to the face of this boy, his head arched back and his mouth agape.

But in this news image − its composition and perspective so proportional and so unrelated to palaces − the mattress remains whole, vast and pristine, and the carpets are rolled up neatly. Why are they rolled up? When were they rolled up? One to the right of the large mattress; the other, a hollow cylinder above the boy's head, under the overturned table. Next to the three-legged object that points to the sky is a red armchair, and next to it, to the right, lies a folded wooden ladder over a red blanket.

And precisely because it will perhaps be possible to place the ladder elsewhere, and precisely because the house was not gutted − rather, the belongings of the 33 people who lived in it were piled up − and precisely because it might be possible to salvage something, it is heartbreaking to look at the boy from East Jerusalem. For, in his striped sweatshirt and matching striped shoelaces, as he caresses the rough, perforated construction grating, and as he cries, this boy understands deeply and for all time, in the most melancholy way, the essence of where he is and the essence of an unforgivable act.


http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/tal-niv/snapshot-home-from-demolished-home.premium-1.503545

[Ball DeBeaver]

HYPOCRITE

Why won't you condemn the destruction of palestinian homes by your mates in Hamas? Demolished for the exact same reason Israel demolishes homes built without permits.


Op-Ed: FIFA's Double-Standard Against Israel


Published: Friday, February 15, 2013 10:59 AM

Two incidents of racism, one by a small group of fans and one an official position - and who gets the negative publicity, do you think? and why?




Ronn Torossian, CEO of 5WPR
The author is CEO of 5WPR, 1 of the 25 largest PR Agencies in the US.
► More from this writer





Ze’ev Jabotinsky said, “It is not the anti-Semitism of men; it is, above all, the anti-Semitism of things, the inherent xenophobia of the body social or the body economic under which we suffer.”

And indeed today, 75 years after Jabotinsky uttered those words in Europe, they still ring true.

Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the media and so many others simply employ an anti-Semitic double standard.

It could be funny if it wasn’t sickening. Just days after a slew of worldwide media coverage about racism in Israeli soccer surrounding the new Muslim players at Betar Jerusalem, there’s been a state sponsored act of racism in the Middle East and it has barely received any media coverage.

A simple review of the facts: A handful of fans of the only Israeli soccer team which didn’t have a Muslim player protested and yelled about the new Muslim players as the media reported these activities as racist. The highest echelons of the Israeli government made clear these were unsanctioned acts. The Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat ,said police would take "a heavy hand to put an end to this issue” and indeed multiple fans have been arrested.

None other than Prime Minister Netanyahu said: “We must not tolerate racism of this kind. The Jewish people specifically, who suffered boycotts and ostracism, must serve as a light unto the nations."

These are isolated incidents which have been absurdly blown out of proportion. The New York Times ran two major stories on this issue – and countless other media outlets used it as their latest opportunity to bash Israel.

Meanwhile, this week there’s a deafening silence - excepting  Arutz Sheva -  as Israeli soccer star Itay Schechter, who plays for Swansea City, wasn’t allowed entry to Dubai for a training session as the United Arab Emirates does not recognize the state of Israel’s right to exist. Were he to enter the country, he would have been arrested and deported.

The UAE government is silent and so too is the media.

And as the media ignores the issue, so too does the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the International governing body of soccer. Reviewing FIFA’s website, one can read:

"FIFA recognizes its responsibility to lead the way in abolishing all forms of discrimination in football."

Article 3 of the FIFA Statutes states: “Discrimination of any kind against a country, private person or group of people on account of ethnic origin, gender, language, religion, politics or any other reason is strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion.”

Of course, it’s a complete farce, as Qatar will host the 2022 World Cup where Israelis also aren’t permitted to enter.

Meanwhile, Israeli media reported that the Israel Football Association (IFA) said FIFA had requested clarification following racist chanting by fans at a league fixture last month against the Chechen players. FIFA has been silent on the state-sanctioned racist Arab governments – there’s no need for them to comment if indeed they honored what they claim it’s a black and white case.

As CEO of a leading PR Firm, it’s quite clear tto me that this is a simple double standard. Since this is a clear case of discrimination, perhaps an “impartial” third-party like the United Nations can help Israel.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/12881

If this was any other soccer player, from any other nation, then there would be uproar. If UAE wre to ban an Irishman from playing in a friendly in their country for no other reason than his religion, there would be all sorts of sanctions handed out by FIFA. But because it's only a jew, who cares?

[seafoid]

Netanyahu says Jewish people should serve as a light unto the nations. Israel is doing a great job. Torture, ethnic cleansing, death squads. But is Israel really a Jewish country?

[Ball DeBeaver]

All I see is a load of the usual old bullshit rhetoric, but still no condemnation.

Maybe GHD can organise a convoy to bring much needed tents to the poor people made homeless by his mates in Hamas.

[seafoid]

All I see is a load of the usual old bullshit rhetoric, but still no condemnation.

Maybe GHD can organise a convoy to bring much needed tents to the poor people made homeless by his mates in Hamas.

Maybe nobody is listening to you any more , BDB.
Why don't you tell us how Israel is a light unto the nations ?
And what is it that makes Jews in Israel so special? 


I wish I was special

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkzRNyygfk

[Ball DeBeaver]

Oh, you're special alright. 

[seafoid]

Former US diplomat Chas Freeman on the problem that is Israel

http://www.mepc.org/hill-forums/us-grand-strategy-middle-east-0?transcript

"There has been no American-led peace process worthy of the name for nearly two decades. There is no prospect of such a process resuming. No one in the international community now accepts the pretense of a "peace process" as an excuse for American protection of Israel. Eleven years on, the Arab and Islamic peace offer has exceeded its shelf life. On the Israel-Palestine issue, American diplomacy has been running on fumes for some time. It is now totally out of gas and universally perceived to be going nowhere.

Sadly, barrng fundamental changes in Israeli politics, policies, and behavior, the longstanding American strategic objective of achieving acceptance for the state of Israel to stabilize the region where British colonialism and Jewish nationalism implanted it is now infeasible

In practice, the United States has abandoned the effort. U.S. policy currently consists of ad hoc actions to fortify Israel against Palestinian resistance and military threats from its neighbors, while shielding it from increasingly adverse international reaction to its worsening deportment. In essence, the United States now has no objective with respect to Israel beyond sheltering it from the need to deal with the unpalatable realities its own choices have created.

Israel has had more than forty-five years to trade land for peace, implementing its Camp David commitments and complying with international law. It has consistently demonstrated that it craves land more than peace, international reputation, good will, or legitimacy. As a result, Israel remains isolated from its neighbors, with no prospect of reversing this. It is now rapidly forfeiting international acceptability. There is nothing the United States can do to cure either situation despite the adverse consequences of both for American standing in the region and the world.

For a considerable time to come, Israel can rely on its US-provided "qualitative edge" to sustain its military hegemony over others in its region. But, as the "crusader states" established and sustained by previous Western interventions in the region illustrate, such supremacy – especially when dependent on external support – is inevitably ephemeral – and those who live exclusively by the sword are more likely than others to perish by it. Meanwhile, as the struggle for Palestinian Arab rights becomes a struggle for human and civil rights within the single sovereignty that Israel has de facto imposed on Palestine, Israel's internal evolution is rapidly alienating Jews of conscience both there and abroad. Israelis do not have to live in Palestine; they can and do increasingly withdraw from it to live in diaspora. Jews outside contemporary Israel are coming to see it less as a sanctuary or guarantor of Jewish security and well-being than as a menace to both.

The United States has made an enormous commitment to the success of the Jewish state. Yet it has no strategy to cope with the tragic existential challenges Zionist hubris and overweening territorial ambition have now forged for Israel. The hammerlock the Israeli right has on American discourse about the Middle East assures that, despite the huge U.S. political and economic investment in Israel, Washington will not discuss or develop effective policy options for sustaining the Jewish state over the long term. The outlook is therefore for continuing deterioration in Israel's international moral standing and the concomitant isolation of the United States in the region and around the globe."

[Ball DeBeaver]

Former US diplomat Chas Freeman on the problem that is Israel

http://www.mepc.org/hill-forums/us-grand-strategy-middle-east-0?transcript

"There has been no American-led peace process worthy of the name for nearly two decades. There is no prospect of such a process resuming. No one in the international community now accepts the pretense of a "peace process" as an excuse for American protection of Israel. Eleven years on, the Arab and Islamic peace offer has exceeded its shelf life. On the Israel-Palestine issue, American diplomacy has been running on fumes for some time. It is now totally out of gas and universally perceived to be going nowhere.

Sadly, barrng fundamental changes in Israeli politics, policies, and behavior, the longstanding American strategic objective of achieving acceptance for the state of Israel to stabilize the region where British colonialism and Jewish nationalism implanted it is now infeasible

In practice, the United States has abandoned the effort. U.S. policy currently consists of ad hoc actions to fortify Israel against Palestinian resistance and military threats from its neighbors, while shielding it from increasingly adverse international reaction to its worsening deportment. In essence, the United States now has no objective with respect to Israel beyond sheltering it from the need to deal with the unpalatable realities its own choices have created.

Israel has had more than forty-five years to trade land for peace, implementing its Camp David commitments and complying with international law. It has consistently demonstrated that it craves land more than peace, international reputation, good will, or legitimacy. As a result, Israel remains isolated from its neighbors, with no prospect of reversing this. It is now rapidly forfeiting international acceptability. There is nothing the United States can do to cure either situation despite the adverse consequences of both for American standing in the region and the world.

For a considerable time to come, Israel can rely on its US-provided "qualitative edge" to sustain its military hegemony over others in its region. But, as the "crusader states" established and sustained by previous Western interventions in the region illustrate, such supremacy – especially when dependent on external support – is inevitably ephemeral – and those who live exclusively by the sword are more likely than others to perish by it. Meanwhile, as the struggle for Palestinian Arab rights becomes a struggle for human and civil rights within the single sovereignty that Israel has de facto imposed on Palestine, Israel's internal evolution is rapidly alienating Jews of conscience both there and abroad. Israelis do not have to live in Palestine; they can and do increasingly withdraw from it to live in diaspora. Jews outside contemporary Israel are coming to see it less as a sanctuary or guarantor of Jewish security and well-being than as a menace to both.

The United States has made an enormous commitment to the success of the Jewish state. Yet it has no strategy to cope with the tragic existential challenges Zionist hubris and overweening territorial ambition have now forged for Israel. The hammerlock the Israeli right has on American discourse about the Middle East assures that, despite the huge U.S. political and economic investment in Israel, Washington will not discuss or develop effective policy options for sustaining the Jewish state over the long term. The outlook is therefore for continuing deterioration in Israel's international moral standing and the concomitant isolation of the United States in the region and around the globe."

Without even getting into the fact that going back to UN res 194 would completely render UN resolutions 242 and 338  useless , do you want to know why it was never going to work............

                                      UNITED NATIONS
      


Distr.
GENERAL

E/CN.4/Sub.2/2002/NGO/25
29 July 2002

   ENGLISH ONLY



COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS   
Sub-Commission on the Promotion
  and Protection of Human Rights
Fifty-fourth session
Item 6 (c) of the provisional agenda
                                                                                     

OTHER HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES:
OTHER ISSUES


Written statement* submitted by the World Union for Progressive Judaism, a non-governmental organization on the Roster



The Secretary-General has received the following written statement which is circulated in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31.

                                                                                                               [10 July 2002]







______________

*This written statement is issued, unedited, in the language(s) received from the submitting non-governmental organization(s).   


GE.02-14118


The Genocidal Charter of Hamas

1.     Recognizing that the right to life is a right from which all other rights flow, the worst crime against humanity is premeditated GENOCIDE! Article III (a) (b) and (c) of the 1948 Genocide Convention state that the following acts are punishable: Genocide; Conspiracy to commit genocide; and Direct and public incitement to commit genocide. 

2.   The premeditated terrorist massacre by Hamas on the Jewish Passover of 2002 needs to be seen in its true context. The current Islamist "jihad ideology" is part and parcel of the 1988 Charter of Hamas, inspired by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, its founder and spiritual leader.

3.   Just after his return to Gaza to a rapturous reception in October 1997, Sheikh Yassin declared that Israel must "disappear from the map." He also said: "We have an aim and an enemy, and we shall continue our jihad against the enemy. A nation without jihad is a nation without a purpose."  (AP, 22 October 1997). In February 1998, Sheikh Yassin toured the Gulf region for three months, visiting over a dozen Arab countries. Everywhere he went he preached in mosques, while his official audiences were broadcast on television. Since then, he has repeated his politicidal/genocidal goal.

4.   Last year, an alliance was declared between Chairman Arafat's Palestinian Authority and Hamas that resulted in the freeing of all convicted Hamas terrorists. In March 2002, Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades recently joined Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas on the U.S. list of world terrorist groups. It immediately sent a girl jihadist-bomber to kill and maim on a Sabbath eve in Jerusalem, followed 24 hours later by a male jihadist-bomber in Tel Aviv. The families of jihadist-bombers receive a cheque of $25,000 from Saddam Hussein.

5.   Hamas is the acronym for "Islamic Resistance Movement", whose meaning, is "fanaticism". The Hamas Charter offers stereotype images, perpetuated in a Culture of Hate. Aside from the usual mad gibberage inspired by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, it is committed to a genocidal jihad ideology against "the Jews," and this Culture of Hate is repeated again and again in official sermons at mosques in Gaza and elsewhere, which are shown on the official television of the Palestinian Authority.

6.   Religious justification is provided for this genocidal ideology by a controversial hadith - now a commonplace slogan with Islamists worldwide - which is the conclusion to article 7 of the Charter: "...The Prophet, Allah bless and grant him salvation has said: 'The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews, until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! O Abdullah! (Slave of Allah!) there is a Jew behind me come on and kill him..."

7.   Article 8 is the slogan of the Hamas Movement, inducing its adepts to kill infidels in the name of Allah when called upon: "Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Qur'an its Charter, jihad its path, and death for the cause of Allah its most sublime belief.

8.   Article 13 states: "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad. All initiatives, proposals and international conferences are a waste of time and vain endeavours." The message in Article 28 illustrates vividly the genocidal terror aim of the jihadist bombings: "Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Muslim people: 'May the cowards never sleep'!"
   
9.   Article 2 of the Charter insists that Hamas is a wing of the international Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1922. On 18 March 2002, a Muslim Brotherhood event assembled 1'000 fanatics at Egypt's Al-Azhar University - "different than all previous demonstrations". They heard Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin's voice calling on them to take the jihad path. An Egyptian candidate was reported as saying that he was "one of the first of the martyrs [jihadist-bombers] to choose to die in order to defend the Muslim Palestinian people." (Al-Mustaqbal, Beirut, 19 March 2002, English trans. by MEMRI Special Dispatch-Egypt/Jihad and Terrorism Studies N° 358, 22 March 2002: www.memri.org).
   
10.   On 4 April 2002, the highest Sunni spiritual leader issued a religious ruling from Al-Azhar:   
"The great Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, demanded that the Palestinian people, of all factions, intensify the martyrdom operations against the Zionist enemy, and described their martyrdom as the highest form of jihad. He says that the young people executing them have granted Allah the most precious thing. He emphasized that every martyrdom operation against any Israeli, including women, children and teenagers, is a legitimate act according to religious law, and an Islamic commandment..." (www.lailatalqadr.com/stories/n040401.shtml (4 April 2002); English trans. in MEMRI report of 8 April 2002. Special Dispatch-Egypt/Jihad & Terrorism Studies, 7 April, N° 363/www.memri.org)

11.   A written Charter or Constitution cannot simply be ignored. Hitler understood this when he wrote in the 1924 preface to Mein Kampf: "The unity and uniformity of a doctrine can only be safeguarded if it has been fixed forever in a written text." Few people bothered to read Mein Kampf then and fewer still have bothered to read the Hamas Charter. It is high time that this be done now. 

12.    In a Report last year (E/CN.4/2001/114, §24), the High Commissioner for Human Rights referred to "hate speech and incitement. She was shocked by calls, broadcast on Palestinian television and radio, urging the killing of all Jews." At Durban, she identified personally with "Jews", who were being vilified en bloc (as in the 1930s), an act that has tarnished the United Nations indelibly.
   
13.   The World Union for Progressive Judaism again calls on the High Commissioner for Human Rights - and this Sub-Commission - to address a solemn appeal to Muslim spiritual and secular leaders to condemn this jihad ideology. Such a condemnation should include the Hamas genocidal Charter.

14.   The current policy of silence - on such a grave religious issue - by Muslim spiritual and secular leaders from the Member States of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), as well as from the international community, on this "Ideology of Jihad" implicitly condones as normative a great evil of our time, thereby encouraging future jihadist-bombers, whose actions should be considered by Muslims and non-Muslims alike as a defamation of Islam.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&ved=0CFUQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unhchr.ch%2FHuridocda%2FHuridoca.nsf%2F0%2F0e289719c48eaf3ec1256c080037a638%2F%24FILE%2FG0214418.doc&ei=YpshUefbBbGP4gT0tIC4Bg&usg=AFQjCNFqhGSH_dJi8WvsG8dLy9Em57YbPw   (pdf word doc)


I see plenty of crap on this thread about Israeli "ethnic cleansing", but have yet to read anything to criticise Hamas' genocidal actions. Until that happens, nothing you, or the Hamas poster boy say, will have any validity.

If even the UN call Hamas "genocidal," then what hope would any peace agreement, that didn't even include Hamas, have of working? Now, owing to the fact that Hamas are by and large the biggest single threat to Israel's citizens, just how do you think Israel could ever agree to it? Blame Hamas for that peace initiative not coming to anything.

[Syferus]

Sup lads, heard this was a good place for some good-natured banter!

Just send Cake to fix this craic, sure he's done everything else at this stage anyways.

[seafoid]

As a result, Israel remains isolated from its neighbors, with no prospect of reversing this. It is now rapidly forfeiting international acceptability

And you talk about "Hamas genocide". FFS. It's as if you warned Kerry footballers about Kilkenny football hatchetmen.
But you don't know anything about GAA, do you ?

[seafoid]

The well known Nazi and antisemite  Rabbi Eric H Yoffie
on Israel's settlement problem :

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/pro-israel-group-s-primer-on-west-bank-settlements-shows-just-how-disastrous-they-are.premium-1.504232

A meaningful defense of Israel cannot be made without real answers on the settlement question. On campus, evasions don't work ("the real problem is Palestinian rejectionism"), religious arguments don't work ("we are talking about the spiritual and historical homeland of the Jewish people"), and emotional appeals don't work ("stop scapegoating Israeli settlements"). There are simply too many well-prepared people who know the uncomfortable facts about settlement activity and demand that the subject be confronted head-on.

[give her dixie]

This week, Emad Burnat, the director of "5 Broken Cameras" was detained by immigration officials at LA airport as he arrived in the US for the Oscars. His film is up for best documentary, and hopefully he will win. This is his story about been detained and how it feels to be up for the award.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emad-burnat/5-broken-cameras-oscars_b_2744545.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

My Journey from Palestine to Hollywood


My wife and I had seen that look before -- on the faces of our kids, mostly. After all, like all Palestinian children living in the West Bank, ours have grown accustomed to the humiliation of ID checks and interrogations.

But we had never seen our youngest son, Gibreel, as disappointed as he was on Tuesday, when American immigration officials threatened to deny us entry to the United States and to the 85th Academy Awards for which we had traveled two days to attend.

As my friend and fellow filmmaker Michael Moore, who intervened to help secure my entry, tweeted after the episode: "Apparently the Immigration & Customs officers couldn't understand how a Palestinian could be an Oscar nominee."

Well, I am an Oscar nominee. But more to the point, my film, 5 Broken Cameras -- which chronicles my village Bil'in's nonviolent struggle to resist Israeli occupation -- is about precisely the kind of humiliation my family and I experienced at Los Angeles International Airport. The only difference is that the victims where I come from number in the millions, and our stories have become so routine that what happened to my family and me yesterday pales by comparison.

That's because, on any given day, there are more than 500 Israeli checkpoints, roadblocks, and other obstacles to movement throughout the West Bank -- an area less than 2 percent the size of California on which some 2.5 million Palestinians live under a ubiquitous system of repression.

In my film, which I co-directed with Israeli Guy Davidi, you can see this repression up close.

You can see construction of what leaders of conscience (like Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu) have called an "apartheid" wall -- separating us from our land and providing cover for Jewish-only colonies to steal our resources. You can see my village's children shoved around by grown men in fatigues and armor. You can see unarmed civilians, including Israeli peace activists, being shot by occupation soldiers. And you can see that our response -- the Palestinian response -- has been dignified, nonviolent, and determined.

Above all, though, you can see just how ordinary these scenes have become for Palestinians. That ordinariness is why so many of us from Bil'in have been shocked by the film's success. People I never imagined I would ever meet -- actors, politicians, legendary musicians -- have told me how moved they were by it and, inevitably, how they "had no idea things were that bad" for Palestinians.

The truth is, they're far worse. Don't take it from me. Listen to Americans like former President Jimmy Carter or author of The Color Purple Alice Walker, who have spoken out about the injustices they have seen firsthand in Palestine.

Like them, the Americans who have seen my film and witnessed the effects of Israel's occupation have been moved to stand with us. Not against Israel, but on the side of Israelis and Palestinians who understand that the true meaning of peace, as the great American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote, is not the absence of tension, but the presence of justice.

As I was being questioned at LAX, members of the Academy were gathering for an event organized in honor of this year's nominees for best documentary. I had been invited, and when word got around that I had been detained, the group insisted on foregoing dinner until I arrived. Their solidarity reminded me of another King quote -- that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Acting on that principle, my dinner companions that night held fast for a farmer and his family from a little village in Palestine. Such acts of decency and moral courage, more than the pronouncements of politicians or pundits -- or the fear-driven acts of immigration officials -- are what will bring true peace to the Holy Land.

[give her dixie]

This is the official trailer for the film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRL7rvGuApM

And you can watch the full movie through this link. If you can spare 90 minutes, you will not be disappointed.

http://viooz.eu/movies/15366-5-broken-cameras-2011.html

[give her dixie]

http://mondoweiss.net/2013/02/documents-execution-american.html

Sabra and Shatila documents revealed: Ariel Sharon feared indictment for genocide over Israel's role

After observing a moratorium of 30 years, Israel released on Thursday records and minutes of secret meetings held on the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre. The documents show that the Minister of Defence at that time, Ariel Sharon, feared indictment for the crime of genocide if Israeli officials' recognized prior knowledge of the massacre in the Palestinian refugee camps, Sabra and Shatila, in Lebanon.

Sharon initially refused to resign from his post in accord with the recommendation of the Kahan Commission of Inquiry into the massacre. He warned that according to his interpretation of the 1950 statute on genocide all the ministers of government at the time could be considered accomplices to the massacre.

At a cabinet meeting, convened on February 10, 1983, Sharon outlined his response to the Commission's report saying;

"We all urged this, we all enabled it, by asking them (the Phalangist Christian militias) to enter the camps. We were present, we lit up the area and we evacuated casualties. It is common knowledge that we were in the area to keep the opposition away, and we did not isolate it from other areas. We kept forces in the area to ensure the mission was carried out, and in case they ran into trouble and needed help getting out."

The cabinet ultimately adopted the Kahan commission's report against Sharon's recommendation, and he was sacked from his position as minister of defence