Farmers shot at for trying to get to their lands

Palestinian farmer tilling the ground in a rocky field

October 7, 2006

Tulkarem - Ma'an - Israeli forces shot at Palestinian farmers on their farms in Tulkarem area on Saturday.

Local sources in the town of 'Attil stated that dozens of Palestinian farmers have returned home after being prevented from entering their farms, and lands located behind the separation wall.

Farmers stated that Israeli soldiers had shot toward the crowds of workers trying to enter their lands, but no casualties have yet been reported.

A Sinking Ship?

From left, President Bush, his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and Northrop Grumman's Mike Petters watch as Doro Bush Koch christens the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush in Newport News, Va., Saturday, Oct.. 7, 2006. Koch is the daughter of the former president. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - Spraying the bubbles from sparkling wine across the enormous gray bow of the USS George H.W. Bush, the Bush family on Saturday christened the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier named after the 82-year-old former president. Read More...

Under the Headlines: "Oddly Enough"

Hail Schoolboy Rescued After Falling in Manhole

Arab News

HAIL, 7 October 2006 — The Education Department opened an investigation after a sixth grade student in the village of Al-Mutareda, 100 kilometers south of Hail, fell in an open sewage hole and had to be rescued by a teacher who witnessed the fall, the daily Al-Riyadh reported yesterday.

School officials have pointed the finger at the maintenance department at the Education Ministry. The school principal, Khalaf ibn Abdul Muhsin, said that the school contacted the maintenance department to perform maintenance duties at the school after a construction project left behind debris and possibly the open manhole.

“During a football game, the student went to get the ball outside the bounds,” Abdul Muhsin told Al-Riyadh.

“The student did not see the sewage hole because it was covered with foliage. I have asked on numerous occasions that (the ministry’s) maintenance department to come and cover the hole properly but with no luck.”

The principal said teachers have temporarily covered the hole with a metal door, but did not explain why that had not been done before the accident occurred.

The newspaper cited an anonymous department source as saying that maintaining sewage works is not the responsibility of the Ministry of Education.

Story of Four People

This is a story of four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done and everybody was sure somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry with that because it was Everybody’s job.

Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it.

It ended that Everybody blamed Somebody, when Nobody did; what Anybody could have done.

Straw’s Remark Draws Ire

Veiled Muslim women shop in east London’s Whitechapel Market on Friday. (AFP)

Mushtak Parker & Hasan Hatrash, Arab News

LONDON/JEDDAH, 7 October 2006 — Comments made by former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw that it would be better if Muslims women didn’t cover their faces in a full veil has angered many Muslims.

Straw defended his comments yesterday that appeared in his regular column in Thursday’s edition of Lancashire Evening Telegraph, but he made it clear that those were his opinion and that he wasn’t advocating “prescriptive” measures in the UK.

Straw said he had asked Muslim women of his Blackburn constituency, which has a 30 percent Muslim population, to remove their face veils when they come to consult him. He said wearing of face-covering veils made community relations “more difficult” as they acted as “a visible statement of separation and difference.”

“I’m not talking about being prescriptive. But with all the caveats, yes I would rather (women did not wear full veils). Communities are bound together by informal chance relations between strangers. That is just made more difficult if people are wearing a veil,” he added.

Straw also made it clear that he was not referring to the hijab (hair covering), which is the predominant style among Muslim women. He also said he disagreed with the French government’s ban on the hijab in public schools — a ban that includes other religious expressions, such as the Jewish yarmulke and Christian iconography.

Reactions to Straw’s remarks in the Kingdom and the UK were mixed. The Muslim Public Affairs Committee said the comments were laughable, while the Islamic Human Rights Commission said Straw was selectively discriminating. However, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said Straw’s views were understandable.

Islam Farooq, a Jordanian employee at a Jeddah-based multimedia company, said what Jack Straw said was not insulting to Muslims as a whole because the niqab constitutes an oft-disputed minority practice within the Muslim community. “The niqab (veil) is an unresolved controversial issue in the Muslim world itself,” he said.

Farooq said that in his country most women do not wear face-covering veils. He added that in a non-Muslim, secular country or multicultural country it becomes hard to practice the more extreme cultural or religious practices that cause conflicts with community relations.

“Muslims who live abroad are bound to face misunderstanding and sometimes racism,” Farooq said.

Respect Party leader George Galloway called for Straw’s resignation. Galloway, formerly a colleague of Straw in the ruling Labour Party before he was ousted over his vehement opposition to the Iraq war, said Straw was effectively asking women to “wear less.” “It is not women choosing to wear what they want that is sowing division in our society,” he added. “It is poverty, racism and the despicable competition between the Tory and New Labor frontbenches over who can grab the headlines as the hammer of the Muslims.”

Straw’s comments come only a week after Ruth Kelly, secretary of state for communities, launched her Social Cohesion Policy Unit, aimed at promoting greater integration and cooperation of British Muslims in the wider community. Conservative Party leader David Cameron at his party’s annual conference last week warned that many communities were growing up living “parallel lives” and only better contact would overcome differences.

Cameron pledged that a future conservative government would not allow Muslim ghettos to be formed where communities are isolated and cut off from the rest of society. He also pledged that Muslim faith-based schools would be forced to take in at least 25 percent of students from other faith groups, as is the general practice of Church of England and Roman Catholic schools.

The MCB, in many respects the creation of Straw when he was home secretary and then foreign secretary, said through spokesman Daud Abdullah: “This veil does cause some discomfort to non-Muslims. One can understand this.”

Even within the Muslim community the scholars have different views on this. There are those who believe it is obligatory for the Muslim woman to cover her face. Others say she is not obliged to cover up. It’s up to the woman to make the choice.

The Qur’an makes several references to women dressing modestly, but doesn’t state that women must cover their faces.

Allah says in the Qur’an: “And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and guard their private parts and not show off their adornment except only that which is apparent, and draw their veils over their (necks and) adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or their slaves, or male servants who lack vigor, or small children who have no knowledge of women’s private parts. And let them not stamp their feet so as to reveal what they hide of their adornment. And turn you all to Allah in repentance, O believers, that you may be successful.” (Surat An-Noor 31).

Abu Dawood narrated that Aysha, wife of the Prophet (peace be upon him), specifically states that it is OK for women to show their faces and their hands: “O Asma, once a woman reaches the age of puberty no part of her body should be uncovered except her face and hands.”

“It is astonishing that someone as experienced and senior as Jack Straw does not realize that the job of an elected representative is to represent the interests of the constituency, not to selectively discriminate on the basis of religion,” said Islamic Human Rights Commission Chairman Massoud Shadjareh

But another Muslim human rights campaigner Ahlam Akram said Straw had “hit the nail on the head.”

“I stick to the argument that in this insecure world we are living today, I would rather prefer women coming to the UK, or even living in the UK, to respect the culture here as well,” said Akram.

“At the moment covering the face is a threat because I don’t know who is underneath that veil.”

Saleh Al-Ahmadi, a Saudi government employee, said that he’s not surprised to hear such a comment. “We hear a lot of things about Muslims especially from the West,” he said.

He noted that Straw is not a decision-maker and what he said was his personal opinion. “Instead of raging against comments, we should harness our energy in clarifying the image of Islam with peace and logic,” he said.

__________________

Blair, Prodi Back Straw in Veil Row

Mushtak Parker, Arab News

LONDON, 18 October 2006 — British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday entered the fray over the Muslim veil when he declared support for the Yorkshire school authority in suspending a Muslim teaching assistant, Aishah Azmi, for refusing to remove her veil, and warned that the garment represents “a mark of separation” from the rest of society.

At his monthly news conference at No. 10 Downing Street, Blair suggested that the country needs to debate the position of Muslims, but warned that Muslims also needed to decide how Islam comes to terms with modernity. “Difficult though these issues are, I think they have to be raised and confronted and dealt with. All I’m saying is that we need to have this debate on integration,” he said.

The prime minister suggested that the veil issue should be just one issue in a broader debate about “the relationship between our society and how the Muslim community integrates with our society. There’s a second issue which is about Islam itself, and how Islam comes to terms with and is comfortable with the modern world.” Similar debates, he said, were happening around Europe and in the Muslim world.

Former Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw two weeks ago precipitated the current debate when he revealed that he requested veiled women to reveal their faces when they come to meet him at his constituency office in Blackburn.

Straw said that he was not being prescriptive and merely made a suggestion. He reiterated that he was not against the hijab (head covering), but merely thought that the niqab (face covering) could be a symbol of division and separateness.

Straw got support from a bevy of Cabinet ministers.

Blair was emphatic in his view of the divisiveness of the veil, when asked at the news conference whether a woman who wore the veil could make a full contribution to society. “(The veil) is a mark of separation, and that’s why it makes other people from outside the community feel uncomfortable. Now no one wants to say that people don’t have the right to do it, I mean that’s to take it too far. But I think we need to confront this issue about how we integrate people properly into our society,” he stressed.

On the continuing row over British troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, Blair pledged his forces would not “walk away” from either conflict until their job is done. However, perhaps in a hint of things to come, he said it was important for British troops not “to overstay” in Iraq.

Meanwhile in an interview with Reuters, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said that Muslim immigrant women should not be completely “hidden” behind full veils if they want to integrate and become part of Italy’s future.

“You can’t cover your face. If you have a veil, fine, but you must be seen,” Prodi said, adding: “This is common sense I think, it is important for our society. It is not how you dress but if you are hidden or not.”

War or Rumors of War?

By Frida Berrigan

10/05/06 "FPIF" -- -- What's going on with the current bustle around U.S. naval stations? According to Time, the Navy has issued “Prepare to Deploy Orders” (PTDOs) to a strike group including minesweepers, a submarine, an Aegis class cruiser, and a mine hunter. Taken alongside disclosures that the chief of naval operations asked his planners for a rundown of how a blockade of Iranian oil ports would work, these military preparations led Time to conclude cautiously that the United States “may be preparing for war with Iran.”

Military officials downplay these recent moves as routine. But given the administration's recent history of manufacturing threat, misreading intelligence, and misrepresenting war plans, it is tempting to read between the lines—especially when increasingly hot rhetoric is coming from Washington.

Asked whether the United States will do anything to stop the Iranians from having a nuclear bomb, Vice President Dick Cheney paid lip service to diplomacy before emphasizing that “we think they should not have a nuclear bomb … the President has always emphasized no options have been taken off the table.” President Bush leveled some barbed criticism at Iran during his recent UN General Assembly address. Tehran continues to “fund terrorism, and fuel extremism, and pursue nuclear weapons,” he said. “Iran must abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions.”

What might push this combative rhetoric over the edge toward war? Iran's purported interest in nuclear weapons and its insistence on the right to enrich uranium have been portrayed as one and the same. And members of the administration have cited Tehran's hostility to Israel, its support of terrorism, and its alleged desire to control some of the world's richest oil regions as part of an apparent propaganda campaign to justify acts of war against Iran.

President Bush claims that the United States is “working toward a diplomatic solution to this crisis, and as we do, we look to the day when you can live in freedom, and America and Iran can be good friends and close partners in the cause of peace.” But U.S. military preparations belie this talk of peace. On September 17, speaking to a group of peace activists, former CIA official Ray McGovern offered a dire warning: “We have about seven weeks to try and stop this next war from happening.”

The Absurdity of War

Given the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the sheer cost of existing military commitments, it would seem that the last thing the United States can afford right now is another war. But as retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner observes, the Bush administration didn't apply the “making sense” filter over the past four years in Iraq. It is therefore unlikely to use common sense in evaluating whether to attack Iran.

In a report for the Century Foundation, Gardiner puts forward a hypothetical view of the “seven truths” about Iran shared by members of the Bush administration. Of these propositions, Gardiner sees two as true: that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and that sanctions aimed at stopping them will be ineffective. He also maintains that Bush policymakers mistakenly assume that the Iranian people support “regime change” and that Iran cannot be negotiated with. He further notes that U.S. and Israeli commandos have been exploring targets in Iran for some time. This combination of U.S. beliefs and real world actions, Gardiner believes, will lead to U.S. air strikes against Iran and even possibly a campaign for regime change.

Bombing Iran, however, is not an easy proposition. According to estimates quoted in Time, there are 1,500 different “aim points” (or viable targets) in Iran related to their nuclear development complex. Air strikes would require almost everything the Air Force has, and even then, a White House official admits, “we don't know where it all is … so we can't get it all.” Gardiner and most other analysts assume that air strikes would bring Iranian retaliation, from stepped up support for Hezbollah and a greater role in fostering attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq to efforts to block the straits of Hormuz, a main outlet for Persian Gulf oil. Less likely but not out of the question would be Iranian attacks on the oil pipelines of other major suppliers such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which would send world oil prices through the roof and make Iran's reserves worth all that much more.

In light of these potential counter moves, Anthony Zinni, former c ommander of U.S. troops in the Middle East, warns: “You've got to be prepared for the worst case, and the worst case in Iran is [U.S.] boots on the ground.”

Bluff or Chicken?

The administration may well be bluffing to demonstrate its “hard-nosed” diplomatic resolve. The U.S. military does not believe that air strikes on Iran are either workable or advisable, and, as noted above, an attack would not likely hit all major Iranian nuclear sites since U.S. intelligence doesn't know where they are.

Fred Kaplan, writing in Slate, argues that Iran policy may be moving along parallel tracks—one involving force as a form of pressure and the other involving plans for an actual military attack. He imagines the current situation as a dangerous game of highway chicken in which two drivers speed toward each other, head on. The winner is the one who doesn't veer off the road, and it's a tie if both drivers steer off the road. “If they both keep driving straight on, pedal to the metal, certain of victory, opposed on moral principle to backing down, the outcome is mutual catastrophe,” Kaplan writes. “And in this case, we're all sitting in those cars.”

The flaw in Kaplan's metaphor is that it implies two equal adversaries. Even with a nuclear weapon, Iran couldn't subject the United States to the kind of damage that Washington could inflict on it. But as we see every day in Iraq, the car that “veers off the road” can come back to fight another day, by other means that are just as deadly.

FPIF columnist Frida Berrigan is a senior research associate at the New School.

Gaza Clashes

The Struggle for Palestine's Soul

October 6, 2006

By JONATHAN COOK

Nazareth.

The message delivered to Condoleezza Rice this week by Israeli officials is that the humanitarian and economic disaster befalling Gaza has a single, reversible cause: the capture by Palestinian fighters of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in late June from a perimeter artillery position that had been shelling Gaza.

When Shalit is returned, negotiations can start, or so Rice was told by Israel's defence minister, Amir Peretz.

If Peretz and others are to be believed, the gunmen could have done themselves and the 1.4 million people of Gaza a favour and simply executed Shalit weeks ago. Israel doubtless would have inflicted terrible retribution, such as the bombing of the Strip's only power station -- except, of course, it had already done that to avenge Shalit's capture. But, with the Israeli soldier dead, there would have been no obstacle to sitting down and talking.

Yet, as we all know, there would have been. Because Israel's refusal to negotiate -- and its crushing of Gaza -- long predates the capture of Shalit.

The international community's economic blockade of the Strip, for example, has nothing to do with the seizing of the soldier; that was because Gazans had the temerity to cast their vote for the politicians of Hamas in March. The Palestinians' exercise of their democratic rights is also the reason why Palestinians with American and European passports are being torn from their families in the occupied territories and expelled.

The recent unremitting Palestinian death toll, of hundreds of civilians, is also unrelated to Shalit. That is apparently the necessary response to the homemade Qassam rockets fired from the Strip into Israel. As are the sonic booms of Israeli warplanes in the middle of the night that traumatise Gaza's children.

And what about Israel's refusal last year to coordinate its disengagement from Gaza with the Palestinian security forces? That was because Israel had "no partner for peace", even though the supine President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, was then in sole charge.

Israel's bulldozing of large sections of the densely crowded refugee camp of Rafah, making thousands homeless, had nothing to do with Shalit either. That was related to weapons smuggling tunnels. And the extra-judicial executions of Palestinian political and military leaders, with the inevitable "collateral damage" to bystanders, began before Shalit attended his first school. That is supposedly an essential component in the never-ending war against Palestinian terrorism.

In other words, Israel has always found reasons for oppressing, destroying and killing in Gaza, whatever the circumstances. Let us not forget that Israel's occupation began four decades ago, long before anyone had heard, or dreamt, of Hamas. Israel's rampages through Gaza have continued unabated, even though Hamas' military wing refrained from retaliating to Israeli provocations and maintained a ceasefire for more than a year and a half.

Shalit is the current pretext, but there are a host of others that can be adopted should the need arise. And that is because as far as Israel and its American patron are concerned, any Palestinian resistance to the illegal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is unacceptable. Whatever the Palestinians do -- apart from submitting willingly to occupation and permanently renouncing their right to statehood -- is justification for Israeli "retaliation".

Absolute political and military inactivity is the only approved option for the Palestinians, both because it implies acceptance of the occupation and because then the world can quietly forget about the suffering in Gaza and the West Bank. On the other hand, Palestinian activity of any kind -- and especially in pursuit of goals like national liberation -- must be punished.

Heads I win, tails you lose.

All this provides the context for decoding the latest events unfolding in Gaza, as rival fighters from Fatah and Hamas confront each other violently on the streets.

This is the moment Israel has long been waiting for, from the moment a Likud government that included Ariel Sharon began seriously meddling in internal Palestinian politics by helping to establish the Muslim Brotherhood organisation that later became Hamas. Israel hoped that an Islamist party would be a bulwark to the growing popularity of Yasser Arafat's exiled Fatah party and its secular Palestinian nationalism.

Things, of course, did not go quite to plan. In the first intifada that erupted in 1987, Hamas adopted the same assertive agenda of Palestinian national liberation (with added Islamic trimmings) as Fatah. The two groups' goals complemented each other rather than conflicted.

Later, after Israel finally allowed Arafat to return to the occupied territories under the terms of the Oslo accords, the Palestinian president avoided as far as possible carrying out Israeli demands to crack down on Hamas, understanding that this would risk a civil war that would damage Palestinian society and weaken the chances of eventual statehood.

Similarly, Arafat's successor, Mahmoud Abbas, resisted confronting Hamas almost as studiously as he has avoided challenging Israeli diktats. Instead, until recently at least, we saw fighters from Hamas and Fatah in Gaza cooperating on several attacks on military positions.

But this week's clashes in Gaza are the first signs that Israel may be succeeding in its designs to deflect the Palestinian resistance from its common goal of national liberation -- to achieve a state -- by redirecting its energies into fratricidal war.

Or as Zeev Schiff, a veteran Haaretz commentator with exceptional contacts in the military, observed: "Lesson number 1 is that the international financial and economic siege of the Hamas government, which is being led by the United States, is succeeding."

Certainly the economic blockade has nothing to do with securing the return of Shailt, as even a senior Israeli army officer and self-styled "counter-terrorism expert" warned this week. "Due to the disagreements between the two sides [Hamas and Fatah], the soldier's release is not in sight," Col Moshe Marzouk told the website of the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot.

Instead, the economic strangulation of Gaza has been the catalyst for internal Palestinian conflict. Inevitably, social bonds grow weak and fragile, even tear, when nearly half the population is unemployed and more than three-quarters are living in poverty. If children are hungry, parents will contemplate opposing their government -- even if they agree with its goals -- to put food on the table.

But the immiseration of Gaza does not, of itself, explain why the clashes are taking place, or what is motivating the factions. This is not just about who will get the scraps from the master's table, or even a struggle between two parties -- Hamas and Fatah -- for control of the government. It is now no less than a battle for the very soul of Palestinian nationalism.

It is no coincidence that the international community, at Israel's behest, has been making three demands of the Hamas government that supposedly justify the throttling of Gaza's economy. The conditions are now well-known: recognising Israel, renouncing violence, and abiding by previous agreements.

Let us put aside Israel's worse failure -- as the stronger party -- to honour any of these conditions. Observers rarely note that Israel has never recognised the Palestinians' right to statehood, not even in the Oslo accords, nor has it defined the extent of its own borders; it has not for one moment renounced violence against Palestinian resistance to occupation; and it has consistently broken its agreements, including by expanding its illegal settlement programme and by annexing Palestinian land under cover of building the West Bank wall.

But more strangely, observers have also failed to note both that Fatah, first under Arafat and then Abbas, agreed to all three conditions years ago and that Fatah's compliance to Israeli demands never helped advance the struggle for statehood by one inch.

Arafat and the PLO recognised Israel back in the late 1980s, and the Palestinian leader put his signature to this recognition again in the Oslo accords. In returning to the occupied territories as head of the Palestinian Authority, Arafat also renounced violence against Israel. He headed the new security forces whose job was to crack down on Palestinian dissent, not respond to Israel's many military provocations or fight the occupation. And of course, Arafat and Fatah, unlike Israel, had every reason to want previous agreements honoured: they mistakenly believed that they were their best hope of winning statehood. They did not factor in Israel's bad faith, and its continuation and intensification of the settlement project.

So the lesson learnt by Hamas from the Fatah years of rule is that these conditions were and are only a trap, and that they were imposed by Israel to win Palestinian obeisance to the occupation, not national liberation. During the Oslo years, the benefits of accepting Israeli conditions accrued not in a peace dividend that led to Palestinian statehood but in rewards that flowed from collaboration with the occupation, a stealthly corruption that enriched many of Fatah's leaders and kept its followers in the large government bureaucracy at a basic standard of living.

Following the outbreak of the second intifada, a majority of ordinary Palestinians voters began to understand how terminally damaging Fatah's complicity with the ocupation had become. For example, as Palestinian, Israeli and international activists tried to demonstrate against the building of Israel's wall across the West Bank, and the subsequent annexation of large swaths of Palestinian land to Israel, the protesters found obstacles placed in their way at every turn by the ruling Fatah party. Its leaders did not want to jeopardise their cement and building contracts with Israel by ending the wall's progress. Liberation was delayed for the more immediate prize of remuneration.

By signing up to the same conditions as Fatah, Hamas would be as good as abandoning its goal of national liberation, as well as forsaking the majority of voters who realised that Fatah's corrupt relationship with Israel had to end. Hamas would self-destruct, which is reason enough why Israel is making such strenuous demands of the international community to force Hamas to comply.

"The Palestinians need a government that can provide for their needs and meet the conditions of the Quartet," Rice said this week, adding that she wanted to strengthen the "moderates" like Abbas.

The struggle on the streets of Gaza is a defining moment, one that may eventually decide whether a real national unity government -- one seeking Palestinian statehood -- is possible.

The question is: will Fatah force Hamas to cave in to Israeli demands and co-opt it, or will Hamas force Fatah to abandon its collaboration and return to the original path of national liberation?

The stakes could not be higher. If Hamas wins, then the Palestinians will have the chance to re-energise the intifada, launch a proper, consensual fight to end the occupation, one that unites the secular and religious, and try to face down the bullying of the international community. As with most national liberation struggles, the price in lives and suffering is likely to be steep.

If Fatah wins and Hamas falls, we will be back to the Oslo process of official Palestinian collaboration with Israel and consent to the ghettoisation of the population -- this time behind walls. Such an arrangement may be done under Fatah rule or, more likely, under the favoured international option of government by Palestinian technocrats, presumably vetted by Israel and the United States.

The consequences are not difficult to divine. If the hopes of ordinary Palestinians for national liberation are dashed again, if Hamas falters just as Fatah did before it, these frustrated popular energies will resurface, finding a new release and one likely to have a different agenda from either Hamas or Fatah.

If the goal of establishing a Palestinian state cannot be realised, then the danger is that many Palestinians will look elsewhere for their liberation, not necessarily in national but in wider, regional and religious terms. The Islamic component of the struggle -- at the moment a gloss, even for Hamas, on what is still a national liberation movement -- will grow and deepen. National liberation will take a back seat to religious jihad.

Do Israel and the United States not understand this? Or maybe, like serial felons who cannot de diverted from the path of crime, they are simply incapable of changing their ways.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. He is the author of the forthcoming "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" published by Pluto Press, and available in the United States from the University of Michigan Press. His website is www.jkcook.net

Jesus Camp

October 7, 2006

by Housewife4Palestine

Jesus Camp training to be warriors for Jesus (PBUH) or a growing movement for Satanism…you decide?

They with us or against us idea originally came from Bush’s ideology on the War against Terror, I am wondering if this is just another idea yet, of what was once known as the Hitler Youth Movement during the reign of Hitler in Nazi Germany?

I will admit what I do know of the Christian religion and what is being taught to these children is nothing short of brainwashing to the point of fanaticism against people not like themselves and believe me this is not Christianity in it’s real form nor like a remark made by Pastor Becky Fischer; talking about what she says is akin to such places as Afghanistan for example; which has nothing to do with the Western interpretation of Islam.

This video is from originally an ABC news Report.

Bush's America?

16 arrests overnight across the West Bank

October 6, 2006

Bethlehem - Ma'an - Israeli forces arrested 16 Palestinian citizens from across the West Bank early on Friday morning, claiming that they are "wanted".

Israeli sources reported that Israeli troops arrested seven Palestinians affiliated to the Islamic Jihad movement, Fatah Movement and Hamas Movement from the city of Tulkarem, 6 from the city of Nablus and a further 3 from the city of Bethlehem.

The sources added that two explosive devices were thrown by Palestinian resistance fighters at the Israeli forces entering the city of Nablus, although no casualties were reported.

Who is this Ramadan?

From Sea to Sea...

Palestine will always be...Forever!

Gaza Strip Map

(Click map to enlarge for a better view.)

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter calls for restoring aid to Palestinians

Former United States President Jimmy Carter campaigning with his son in Nevada last month. (AP)

October 10, 2006

By The Associated Press

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Friday that a foreign policy aimed at punishing the Hamas-led Palestinian government through a seven-month aid freeze has failed, and called on the international community to seek other ways to resolve the conflict.

"The attempt to coerce Hamas leaders by starving the Palestinian people has failed, and it is time for the international community to alleviate their suffering and resort to diplomacy," Carter said in a statement.

The former president added that he is doubtful that Palestinian leaders will make any progress toward reconciliation with Israel "as long as the Palestinians are subjected to this kind of debasement and personal suffering."

Israel and the West imposed sanctions on the Hamas government after the group won legislative elections and took power in the Palestinian Authority last March. Israel, the U.S. and the European Union consider Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings, a terrorist group.

Israel has withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes collected on behalf of the Palestinians. It also has frequently closed the main cargo crossing into the Gaza Strip, preventing goods from moving in and out of the area, citing security concerns and planned attacks by Palestinian militants.

In June, gunmen linked to Hamas tunneled into Israel, attacked an army base and captured a soldier stationed along the Gaza border. Israel responded by launching a military offensive into the strip, where 1.4 million people live in 360 square kilometers of land.

Carter said the closing of Gaza's access points has led to a "stranglehold" on the territory.

"A strong peace effort has been absent for the past five years. It is long overdue," Carter said.

He also pushed for the U.S. or international community to negotiate the exchange of the Israeli soldier for the release of Palestinian prisoners.

Carter was among 135 former world leaders who signed a statement this week calling for "fresh thinking and the injection of new political will" to resolve the conflict between Arabs and Israelis."

As long as the conflict lasts, it will generate instability and violence in the region and beyond," it said.

Haniya: We will not recognise Israel

6 October 2006

Aljazeera

The Palestinian prime minister has vowed that Hamas will not be edged out of power or recognise Israel.


Ismail Haniya, the prime minister and Hamas leader, made the comments at a rally of tens of thousands of banner-waving supporters on Friday.

He told the crowd in a packed football stadium: "We will not recognise Israel, we will not recognise Israel, we will not recognise Israel."

He ruled out a proposal by members of his own Hamas movement to form a new government of technocrats as a way of winning international support and ending a seven-month aid freeze.
He said: "There are new scenarios, such as an emergency government, a technocrat government, or early elections.

"They all aim at one thing, getting Hamas out of the government."

Options

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has the authority to dissolve the Hamas cabinet and replace it with an emergency government or to call early elections.

"We say we will be in every government, we will stay in the government. We will not recognise Israel."Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister

However, Abbas aides say he is not considering either option at the moment, fearing such moves would not have popular support.

An emergency government would also require the approval of parliament, which is controlled by Hamas.

No concessions

Haniya said Hamas remains willing to invite other parties into a coalition, but that it would not soften its positions.

He said: "We say we will be in every government, we will stay in the government."

He accused others of trying to impose their will on the Palestinians.

"They want a government with American and Israeli dimensions that implements external dictates, the so-called Quartet demands," he said, referring to the group of Mideast peacemakers, the US, UN, EU and Russia.

Haniya said his best offer to Israel was a temporary truce in return for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with its capital in Jerusalem, over which Israel claims complete sovereignty.

He also repeated demands for the release of thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Tension

The rally came at a time of increasing tension between the Islamic group Hamas and Abbas' Fatah party.

The dispute between the two groups erupted into gun battles last week, fueling concerns it could escalate into a full-fledged civil war.

Haniya called for Abbas to come to Gaza from his West Bank headquarters for talks to defuse the crisis.

He said: "Come here to Gaza to resume dialogue to protect the unity of our people."

Hamas won a parliamentary election in January, bringing the party into direct confrontation with Abbas, who controls some of the security forces and backs peace talks with Israel.

Checkpoint incidents

In the West Bank on Friday, Israeli troops and Palestinians scuffled at a checkpoint south of Jerusalem when hundreds of Muslims tried to enter the Israeli-occupied city for Friday prayers, witnesses said.

The Palestinians had arrived at the checkpoint, seeking to reach the Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest site. When some 300 people began pushing forward, border police threw stun grenades to disperse the crowd.

A spokesman for the border police said nobody was injured in the incident.

During Ramadan, tens of thousands of Muslims attend prayers at the mosque.

Olbermann video: Bush would sell America out to preserve GOP power

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October 6, 2006

Keith Olbermann delivered a 'Special Comment' in his Thursday evening broadcast on the subject of lying, specifically that committed by members of the Administration, up to and including President Bush. His Thursday 'Special Comment' was among the longest he has produced on his MSNBC show Countdown. A full transcript is available here.

"It is startling enough that such things could be said out loud by any President at any time in this nation's history," Olbermann said. "Rhetorically, it is about an inch short of Mr. Bush accusing Democratic leaders, Democrats, the majority of Americans who disagree with his policies, of treason."

He concluded by addressing the President directly, saying "You want to preserve one political party’s power. And obviously you will sell this country out, to do it... [D]o not throw this country's principles away because your lies have made it such that you can no longer differentiate between the terrorists and the critics."

Source

The Five Secrets of a Perfect Relationship:

1. It's important to have a woman who helps at home, who cooks and cleans from time to time, and has a job.

2. It's important to have a woman who can make you laugh.

3. It's important to have a woman who you can trust and who doesn't lie to you.

4. It's important to have a woman who is great , and who likes to be with you.

5. It's very, very, very important that these four women don't know each other .

Sailor pleads guilty in war abuse case

Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson J. Bacos, center, is escorted into his court-martial hearing by his defense attorneys, Marine Corps Lt. Col. Scott Jack, left, civilian defense counsel Jeremiah Sullivan, right, and Navy Lt. Jonathan Stephens, back left, held at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, Calif. Friday, Oct. 6, 2006. Bacos, charged with killing an Iraqi civilian last April, was to give testimony Friday about the seven Marines' role in the incident in return for having charges against him dropped. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)

October 6, 2006

By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writer

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - A Navy corpsman testified at his court-martial Friday that he watched as Marines shot an Iraqi civilian in the head after taking him from his home in the town of Hamdania.

Petty Officer 3rd Class Melson J. Bacos, 21, said he saw two Marines fire at least 10 rounds into 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad.

Seven Marines and Bacos, a medic who had been on patrol with them that day, were charged in Awad's death. Bacos was the first to go to a court-martial. Friday morning, he pleaded guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy under a deal in which other charges were dropped and Bacos agreed to testify about what he saw.

Bacos testified that he asked the Marines to let Awad go, but he said Marine Cpl. Marshall L. Magincalda told him he was being weak and should stop protesting.

"I witnessed Sgt. (Lawrence) Hutchins dead check the man and fire three rounds into the man's head," Bacos testified. "Then Cpl. (Trent) Thomas fired seven to 10 rounds in to the man's head."

In return for his testimony, other counts of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy against Bacos were to be dropped, his civilian lawyer said before Friday's proceedings.

Bacos said "yes sir" when asked by Col. Steven Folsom, who presided over the hearing, if he agreed with the pleas.

According to charging documents, the troops had entered Hamdania on April 26th searching for an insurgent and, failing to find him, grabbed Awad from his home and shot him. An AK-47 and a shovel were left by Awad's body, apparently to make it look like the man had been digging a hole for a roadside bomb.

Bacos was accused of firing the AK-47 into the air as part of the cover-up.

Military prosecutors had charged him under the theory that he did nothing to stop the alleged crime.

All eight were charged with crimes including murder and kidnapping and were being held at Camp Pendleton. Bacos was recently transferred to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar for his own safety.

David Brahms, a defense attorney for one of the accused Marines, said Bacos will be subjected to intense cross-examination.

"This is just one guy who is going to tell the story as he sees it," Brahms said.

Former Army prosecutor Tom Umberg suggested that others might follow Bacos' lead and strike similar plea deals.

"You don't want to be the last guy standing. The first guy gets the best deal," he said.

Guantanamo Bay Guards Confess Beatings?

In this Sept. 19, 2006 file photo, reviewed by a US Department of Defense official, a detainee, left, walks laps around the excercise area as a guard walks nearby, at Camp 5 maximum security prison, at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba. Detainees held in Guantanamo Bay have gained an average of 20 pounds (9 kilograms) since arriving at the U.S. prison, where a high-calorie diet is available, an official said Monday. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

AP learns Gitmo guards brag of beatings

By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writer

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -Guards at Guantanamo Bay bragged about beating detainees and described it as common practice, a Marine sergeant said in a sworn statement obtained by The Associated Press.

The two-page statement was sent Wednesday to the Inspector General at the Department of Defense by a high-ranking Marine Corps defense lawyer.

The lawyer sent the statement on behalf of a paralegal who said men she met on Sept. 23 at a bar on the base identified themselves to her as guards. The woman, whose name was blacked out, said she spent about an hour talking with them. No one was in uniform, she said.

A 19-year-old sailor referred to only as Bo "told the other guards and me about him beating different detainees being held in the prison," the statement said.

"One such story Bo told involved him taking a detainee by the head and hitting the detainee's head into the cell door. Bo said that his actions were known by others," but that he was never punished, the statement said. The paralegal was identified in the affidavit as a sergeant working on an unidentified Guantanamo-related case.

The statement was provided to the AP on Thursday night by Lt. Col. Colby Vokey. He is the Marine Corps' defense coordinator for the western United States and based at Camp Pendleton.

A Guantanamo Bay spokesman said the base would cooperate with any Pentagon investigation. A Pentagon spokesman declined immediate comment. A call to the inspector general's office was not immediately returned.

Other guards "also told their own stories of abuse towards the detainees" that included hitting them, denying them water and "removing privileges for no reason.

"About 5 others in the group admitted hitting detainees" and that included "punching in the face," the affidavit said.

"From the whole conversation, I understood that striking detainees was a common practice," the sergeant wrote. "Everyone in the group laughed at the others stories of beating detainees.

Vokey called for an investigation, saying the abuse alleged in the affidavit "is offensive and violates United States and international law."

Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand condemned abuse or harassment of detainees and said he would cooperate fully with the inspector general.

"The mission of the Joint Task Force is the safe and humane care and custody of detained enemy combatants," he said.

Guantanamo was internationally condemned shortly after it opened more than four years ago when pictures captured prisoners kneeling, shackled and being herded into wire cages. That was followed by reports of prisoner abuse, heavy-handed interrogations, hunger strikes and suicides.

Military investigators said in July 2005 they confirmed abusive and degrading treatment of a suspected terrorist at Guantanamo Bay that included forcing him to wear a bra, dance with another man and behave like a dog.

However, the chief investigator, Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt, said "no torture occurred" during the interrogation of Mohamed al-Qahtani, a Saudi who was captured in December 2001 along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Last month, U.N. human rights investigators criticized the United States for failing to take steps to close Guantanamo Bay, home to 450 detainees, including 14 terrorist suspects who had been kept in secret CIA prisons around the world.

Described as the most dangerous of America's "war on terror" prisoners, fewer than a dozen inmates have been charged with crimes.

Note:

Talking of feed detainee’s a high calorie diet, brings to mind they are eating American style food, some I am sure is not geared towards dietary requirements that is acceptable for a Muslim, otherwise Halal foods.

It is a well know fact to Muslims in America that much of the usual American diet will make you fat; where a more Middle Eastern diet not only is healthy, but many people if eaten in moderation; will not look like Porky Pig needing to go to the Gym.

I think something such as this comes more foreward, since most Muslims are observing Ramadan.

Rice Pressures Israel Into Opening Rafah

Rice (L) met Abbas to show US support for the president

Hisham Abu Taha, Arab News

GAZA CITY, 6 October 2006 — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressured Israel yesterday into loosening restrictions at Gaza’s border crossing with Egypt. But the Jewish state did not make any long-term commitment to keep the frontier open.

In a statement after Rice left Jerusalem to continue a regional tour, the State Department said Israel agreed to open the Rafah crossing at “regular intervals” during Ramadan. The statement did not specify what those intervals would be or how long they would last.

“We are encouraged by this decision, the first step toward restoration of normal operations at the crossing,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

Rafah has been closed for much of this year, and has been open for only 12 days since an Israeli soldier was captured by Palestinians in a cross-border raid on June 25.

Rice, who personally brokered a deal with Israel in November last year to try to keep Gaza’s border crossings open, had pressed Israeli leaders on the issue during extensive talks yesterday.

American officials traveling with Rice said the United States has proposed a plan to beef up Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ elite security force and expand its authorities in the Gaza Strip.

The $20 million plan calls for training Abbas’ presidential guard and upgrading the main cargo crossing between Gaza and Israel. The presidential guard would oversee the Palestinian side of the crossing.

Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, the US security coordinator in the West Bank and Gaza, is working out the plan, which was discussed during Rice’s meeting with Abbas in the West Bank on Wednesday, the officials said.

While the plan is aimed at improving the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, it also is part of a broader US effort to shore up Abbas in his power struggle with Hamas. Hamas defeated Abbas’ Fatah party in legislative elections this year and formed a government that Israel and the West are boycotting because of its commitment to Israel’s destruction. Some branches of the security forces are under the Hamas government’s control, while others are under Abbas’.

The US plan would provide funding and training to Abbas’ presidential guard, considered the best-trained and most reliable of the security services.

Yesterday, Hamas called on Abbas to resume power-sharing talks, threatening to use all “open options” if the deadlock persists. Hamas issued its statement a day after Abbas said the negotiations had collapsed, raising concerns the standoff will lead to more factional fighting in the wake of deadly clashes early in the week.

“We remind the president that we have open options to deal with the ongoing crisis, but we prefer the national option, which is in harmony with our national unity,” Hamas said. The group also accused Abbas of “dictating” new conditions that have sabotaged efforts to reach a deal.

Late yesterday, a Fatah activist was shot dead while two members of Hamas were wounded in separate incidents across the Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources said.

Muhammad Suleiman Attiya was killed by unidentified gunmen after Isha prayers in Rafah. Shortly afterward, a Hamas member of the Interior Ministry security service was injured when unidentified men threw two hand grenades outside the Tel Sultan hospital in Rafah, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

A bystander was also wounded in the incident, the statement said.

Earlier, gunmen shot and wounded a Hamas member in the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza Strip.

__________

Commantary:

I do not believe Abbas’s Fateh guard is better equipped; unless it was with the weapon’s given to them a while back by Israel and yes these guns was supplied by the American’s to back Abbas because he is in cahoots with the Bush government and not legally elected Hamas government.

As it is well know the Bush government doesn’t back a legal democratic elected government, which puts them in a very poor position since one of the of the thing’s Bush keeps yelling is global democracy and he doesn’t even believe what he preaches?

As for keeping any of the crossings going in and out of Gaza this should be happening without a heavy hand, unless Israel and the American’s really enjoy watching people die?

Link:

Haniya brushes off Rice visit


"There is an elected Palestinian government which expresses the will of the Palestinian voter. However, we have said we do not have a problem to resume the dialogue to form a unity government".

Ismail Haniya,
Palestinian prime minister

“Most Soldiers Want To Withdraw”

October 01, 2006: Photo from Veterans For Peace, Greater Atlanta Chapter 125

“Soldiers Know What's Going On Over There, And They Are Not Happy About It”

Al-Qaeda Summit Featuring Two of the 9/11 Hijackers?

October 6, 2006

Video

by Housewife4Palestine

I know what has been broadcast as Osama Bin Laden ’s alleged motive for 9/11 and I will admit it is one that has been a pat reason for the atrocities that is occurring in the Middle East and yes not something that just happened yesterday like 9/11 still is, but well over 100 years ago in some instances.

This video is supposedly made before the 9/11 attacks and as a Muslim and like so many we had nothing to do with these attacks on the contrary, it made us ill just like it did for many American’s and I would go further to say that it only sparked what is further atrocities in lack of a better word Bush’s Agenda of horror towards the Middle East such as Iraq, Afghanistan and their backing like pet dog’s for Israel.

The following is information from the web site where I found the video to run it here:

Video tape shows Al-Qaeda summit featuring several of the 911 hijackers.

A video that was released on the internet shows what appears to be an Al-Qaeda summit featuring several of the September 11th hijackers and Osama Bin Laden presiding over the summit. The video dated January 8th 2000 was released before to few news outlets has been recently distributed around the internet. The video also shows Mohammed Atta and Ziad Jarrah sitting next to each other and laughing.

As-Sahab media which is the media wing of Al-Qaeda did not release this video and the video does not appear to have any of the editing styles of As-Sahab media. The sound is also absent from this video recording. This video has also appeared in the Docudrama Road To Guantanamo. Portions of the video, with audio, also has appeared in some of Al-Qaeda's previous documentaries including one called State of the Ummah.


I once again will say that in my opinion, Al-Qaeda is appearing more like a smoke screen to keep the global focus to the agenda that you are not really suppose to be paying attention to; which is the real truth.

I always found it ironic that 9/11 occurred and before Jack could really get out of his box, countries by the American’s where invaded without a reliable reason for the invasion’s, otherwise lies abound like super balls bouncing until most people have trouble seeing who the real player’s are anymore; which I am sure Israel and the Bush Administration with their boot licker’s really need.

Even the title of this article which I shortened from the original, sounds more like a review for a Hollywood movie then an atrocity? And I do have to admit from the beginning, every time Bush need’s to keep the American public scared or in check something like this video seems to pop into view and I am not the only one that feels this way, it is coming more foreword more then just something under peoples breath.

Bush’s tired cliché’s and things like this is wearing on the world and especially I am sure on the American public, and like most lies, the person who keeps telling them finally will get burned for them.

Glasgow Central Mosque

The front of the mosque

The Glasgow Central Mosque on the banks of the River Clyde is the largest mosque in Scotland, and one of the largest in the United Kingdom.

The Mosque was opened in 1984.

The Muslim population of Scotland is around 50,000 and comprises mainly Arabs, Pakistanis, Turks, African, Malayans and Indian Muslims.

The Mosque which can accommodate 2500 worshippers was built at a cost of around 3 million Pounds.

Iraq: Occupation or Liberation?

House Area Search in Southern Iraq 2003


Look at the older man’s face in the forefront of this picture which was taken in 2003, while Bush and many who are occupying Iraq would have you believe they are there as liberators instead of occupiers; the expression on this man as they search his home would speak 10,000 words, all “OCCUPATION!”

New Berlin Wall U.S. A.

President Bush speaks in Scottsdale, Ariz., Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2006 where he signed the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act. From left are, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, the president, Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., and Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

October 4, 2006

"Outgoing Mexican President Vicente Fox, who has spent his six-year term lobbying for a new guest worker program and an amnesty for the millions of Mexicans working illegally in the United States, has called the barrier "shameful." He compares it to the Berlin Wall."

Bush signs homeland security bill

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -President Bush on Wednesday signed a homeland security bill that includes an overhaul of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and $1.2 billion for fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration.

Standing before a mountainous backdrop in Arizona, a state that has been the center of much debate over secure borders, Bush signed into law a $35 billion homeland security spending bill that could bring hundreds of miles of fencing to the busiest illegal entry point on the U.S.-Mexican border.

Bush said enforcement alone will not stop illegal immigration, and urged Congress to pass his guest worker program to legally bring in new foreign workers and give some of the country's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants a shot at U.S. citizenship.

"The funds that Congress has appropriated are critical for our efforts to secure this border and enforce our laws, yet we must also recognize that enforcement alone is not going to work," Bush said at the bill-signing ceremony tucked into his three-day campaign fundraising trip to the West. "We need comprehensive reform that provides a legal way for people to work here on a temporary basis."

Among other things, Bush said the homeland security funding bill deploys nuclear detection equipment to points of entry, raises safety security standards at chemical plants, provides better tools to enforce immigration laws and provides vehicle barriers, lighting and infrared cameras to help catch illegals trying to cross the border.

"It's what the people in this country want," Bush said. "They want to know that we are modernizing the border so we can better secure the border."

Outgoing Mexican President Vicente Fox, who has spent his six-year term lobbying for a new guest worker program and an amnesty for the millions of Mexicans working illegally in the United States, has called the barrier "shameful." He compares it to the Berlin Wall.

Some Democrats criticized the homeland security spending bill as too meager.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., a senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the homeland security spending bill does not improve screening of cargo carried on passenger planes, does not provide money to buy and install advanced explosive-detection equipment and does not include strong enough security requirements to protect against a terrorist attack on chemical plants.

"There are nightclubs in New York City that are harder to get into than some of our chemical plants," Markey said.

Winds of Change?

by Housewife4Palestine

I have to admit after all the recent events of violence lately, I am a bit over taken with sadness; so it is hard to concentrate, and for one thing I have always been accused of having a very tender heart, along with being very loving and kind.

So every once in awhile with so much violence, sadness and hardships that people are having to needlessly face these day’s I must admit my heart is full of tears.

I do not think in any time in my life, have I ever seen so much chaos in the world and for it to be like this; is nothing short of a global disaster on its own.

I really wish everything to get better with the winds of peace and love, reaching all the shores of the world.

Also, I know of the bottom of my heart that Allah (God) would never wish the world to be like this.

Let’s Eat and Be Happy

Let’s eat and be happy with prosperity instead of what is going on now?

The Bedouin

Bedouin Man on horse - Jordan

Author Unknown

The air is still, the birds fly home
The sky has darkened, no animals roam
No trees, no plants, just the dunes and me,

The camels, the sheep, and my family
I love the desert and the starlit sky,
I sit on the sand and watch the clouds go by
I love the peace, it’s so quiet around,
Not a stranger in sight, no noise, no sound

From place to place I move with all that I own
This vast desert is my land, it is my home
My tent is my shelter from the heat and cold
I am a Bedouin, you know, a nomad, I’m told

I have no time for fancy clothes and toys
There’s no one to see me- no girls, no boys
I love being alone in this wide, open place
It’s like I’m in a special land, between earth and space

I don’t have many books, too heavy they’ll be
But the Quran I hold so very close to me
I meditate, I recite zikr, all my salaahs’ I pray
I am close to my Allah, throughout the day

I have no mansion, my home’s made of cloth,
No possessions I own, to earn Allah’s wrath
O Allah, please keep me forever this way
For to you, I shall come with nothing to pay
Dust unto dust – that’s what I’ll become
Till I meet You, my Lord, the Most Merciful One.

Rice Another Middle East Visit?

Rice seeks Saudi Arabia's help in stabilising Iraq

Did Rice eat a little too many persimmons, before the photo shoot?

Rice's trip to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories is her first journey to the region since a July visit.

October 3, 2006

Gulf News

Shannon, Ireland: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday she plans to ask Saudi Arabia to do more to help stabilise Iraq, encouraging it to influence Iraqi Sunnis to become more involved in the political process.

Speaking as she flew to the Middle East, Rice said she planned during her trip to talk to US allies in the region about how they can assist the Iraqi and Leb-anese governments as well as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Rice's trip to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories is her first journey to the region since a July visit at height of the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. During the trip, she plans to have a group meeting with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and the six Gulf Cooperation Council states.

"When Lebanon happened, I think [we] got in very stark relief a clear indication that there are extremist forces and moderate forces [in the Middle East]," she told reporters on the first leg of her trip.

"The countries that we are meeting ... is a group that you would expect to support the emerging moderate forces in Lebanon, in Iraq, and in the Palestinian territories," she added.

"I want the Saudis' involvement in the stabilisation of Iraq. I want the Saudis' involvement in the stabilisation of Lebanon through resources and political support," she said.

During the war, Saudi Arabia placed $1 billion in Lebanon's central bank to help prop up the Lebanese pound, and made a separate donation of $500 million to help rebuild the battered country. Saudi businessmen lead a group of Arab investors who are trying to raise $2 billion for reconstruction and aid.

"Saudi Arabia has a lot of standing with a number of the forces in Iraq and they have actually been very helpful in trying to get Sunnis involved in the election," Rice said. "So I think it would be very helpful if they were supportive of, and working toward, helping Prime Minister [Nouri] Al Maliki's national reconciliation plan," she added.

"They can rally people around the national reconciliation government. They have a lot of contacts among the tribes.

American School Violence: Another New Day

October 2, 2006

Introduction/ Conclusion

by Housewife4Palestine

Upon reading the following article which I find appalling, makes one think I sure wouldn’t wish to send my children through the American school system and for you people that wish facts; here they are:

List of Some Fatal U.S. School Shootings

By The Associated Press

A list of some fatal shootings at U.S. schools in recent years:

_ Oct. 2, 2006: A gunman took about a dozen girls hostage, killing at least three of them, at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, police said. The shooter was among the dead, and a number of people were injured.

"It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County's bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent."

4 dead in Amish school shooting in Pa.

This still image taken from video shows the scene of a schoolhouse (top) shooting in an Amish community school near rural Lancaster, Pennsylvania October 2, 2006. A gunman attacked the one-room Amish school in Pennsylvania shooting and killing three girls and wounding seven others before killing himself, police said. (Courtesy WCAU/Handout/Reuters)

Amish men listen Monday to Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Jeffrey Miller describe what happened at the schoolhouse near Nickel Mines, Pa.

The Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pa., where a gunman shot 10 girls last week, killing five of them, is demolished by private contractors before dawn Thursday, Oct. 12, 2006. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)


_ Sept. 29, 2006: 15-year-old Eric Hainstock brought two guns to a school in rural Cazenovia, Wis., and fatally shot the principal, a day after the principal gave him a disciplinary warning for having tobacco on school grounds, police said.

_ Sept. 27, 2006: Duane Morrison, 53, took six girls hostage at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo. Morrison, sexually assaulting them and using them as human shields for hours before fatally shooting one girl and killing himself.

_ Aug. 24, 2006: Christopher Williams, 27, went to an elementary school in Essex, Vermont, looking for his ex-girlfriend, a teacher. He couldn't find her and fatally shot one teacher and wounded another, police said. Williams also killed his ex-girlfriend's mother, according to authorities. He shot himself twice in the head after the rampage and was arrested.

_ March 21, 2005: Sixteen-year-old Jeff Weise shot and killed five schoolmates, a teacher and an unarmed guard at a high school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota before taking his own life. Weise had earlier killed his grandfather and his grandfather's companion.

_ Nov. 22, 2004: Sixteen-year-old Desmond Keels is accused of fatally shooting one student and wounding three others outside Strawberry Mansion High in Philadelphia. The attack apparently was over a $50 debt in a rap contest. Keels is set to stand trial on murder charges later this month.

_ April 24, 2003: 14-year-old James Sheets shot and killed the principal in the crowded cafeteria of a junior high school in south-central Pennsylvania, before killing himself.

_ May 26, 2000: 13-year-old Nathaniel Brazill killed his English teacher on the last day of classes in Lake Worth, Fla., after the teacher refused to let him talk with two girls in his classroom. He was convicted of second-degree murder and is serving a 28-year sentence.

_ April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 before killing themselves at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (the two students who carried out the rampage) caught on the high school's security cameras in the cafeteria shortly before committing suicide.

A sign in front of Columbine High School sets the tone for the fifth anniversary of the worst school shooting in U.S. history: "A Time to Remember, A Time to Hope."

_ May 21, 1998: Two teenagers were killed and more than 20 people hurt when a teenage boy opened fire at a high school in Springfield, Ore., after killing his parents. Kip Kinkel, 17, was sentenced to nearly 112 years in prison.

_ May 19, 1998: Three days before his graduation, an honor student opened fire at a high school in Fayetteville, Tenn., killing a classmate who was dating his ex-girlfriend. Jacob Davis, 18, was sentenced to life in prison.

_ March 24, 1998: Two boys, ages 11 and 13, fired on their Jonesboro, Ark., middle school from nearby woods, killing four girls and a teacher and wounding 10 others. Both boys were later convicted of murder and can be held until age 21.

_ Dec. 1, 1997: Three students were killed and five wounded at a high school in West Paducah, Ky. Michael Carneal, then 14, later pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murder and is serving life in prison.

_ Oct. 1, 1997: Sixteen-year-old Luke Woodham of Pearl, Miss., fatally shot two students and wounded seven others after stabbing his mother to death. He was sentenced the following year to three life sentences.


Conclusion

I am wondering how much violence is going on in the American school system that never ends up in the above manner.

From parents and teacher’s I have talked to, quite a lot and just think this is the future of America?

I am sad to say, this is not the world we should be living in!

The continuous trend of private schooling and home schools not only because of the violence, but the increase in immorality in American schools; I am sure is hurting the public school system.

The atmosphere of violence and immorality in the public school system, I am thinking has to affect the quality of education for the students attending.

______________________

October 3, 2006

5 girls dead in Amish school shooting

In condolence, to the Amish families that have wounded and have lost children to the recent tragic event that happened yesterday; I have had the privilege of knowing many Amish, both Old Order and Beachy.

They always was very nice and kind to me, even as far as opening their homes and welcoming me to an overnight stay or a meal; which I greatly appreciated while I was learning in depth about every facet of the Christian religion.

While my appearance may have been odd at times to them and to me theirs was nice, because of their ideas of modesty and in depth belief in God.

While we may have had differences in our belief system, it was never hampered in any way.

To the contrary, we both learned much from each other in appreciation; especially to the way many things are perceived in the Middle East, as well as European history, Christian and Islamic views.

To me it is a very tragic situation, that anyone of these people was every harmed in any way especially something this tragic.

While there is many Islamophobic’s that believe us as Palestinians have little care for our children, even events like this when parents loose a child it is heart breaking; no matter who you are or where you come from; because the lost of a child or any loved one can never be truly mended in the heart.

I have to admit most of these people I knew before 9/11, we never thought of such a tragedy like this occurring and even years later the same kindness was there, just the sadness that any people had to be divided.

Both the Amish I spoke with and my family wished that the division with misunderstandings would end between all the relgions.

For all the Martyrs, to many dead!

As for anyone bent on real violence not for a given reason except murder, the only punishment is death and their future is hell.