Israeli snipers' methodical shooting of boys at work in Gaza

I want to tell the world a story

A poem by Nahida the exiled Palestinian

London concert for Medical Aid for Palestinians

Benefit Concert not to be missed! Gilad Atzmon performs with his renowned quartet and with special guest Nigel Kennedy.

If that were not enough, someone we love and a true rising star, Sarah Gillespie, will be showcasing her highly-acclaimed debut release. Add to the mix the award winning singer composer Christine Tobin, the incredible accordionist Chico Chagas, multiple award-winning Caroline Bird and the exciting atmosphere of the 606 Club, and there are all the makings of a night to remember!

Thursday 30th April 2009 @ 606 Club 7.30 p.m. £15.00.
Call 0207 352 5953 to book a table for dinner.

Gilad Atzmon and the Orient House Ensemble with special guest Nigel Kennedy. "Gilad Atzmon, the expat Israeli Saxophonist/clarinetist, combines thrilling jazz musicianship with maverick political intelligence" (The Guardian). Featuring drums prodigy Eddie Hicks on drums, the quartet breaths a renewed spirit into their original repertoire of Arabic-infused bebop, performed with Atzmon's trademark mix of euphoric bluster and heartfelt fragility. With Yaron Stavi (bass), Frank Harrison (piano and electronics), Eddie Hicks (drums) and joined tonight by world famous violinist Nigel Kennedy.

Christine Tobin. "One of the country's finest musicians" (Time Out). Irish born jazz/folk songstress performs an intimate set of groundbreaking original material that won her the 2008 BBC Jazz award for Best Vocalist.

Sarah Gillespie."An incandescent new presence who matches her imposing delivery with superior lyrics” (The Guardian). Singer-songwriter Sarah Gillespie delivers a melting-pot mix of urban-folk and Middle-Eastern blues. Performing original songs from her new album Stalking Juliet, expect emotive ballads and raucous gypsy swing – all with her trademark lyricism that knits everyday banter with raw poetry.

Chico Chagas. Virtuoso accordionist from Brazil performs mesmerizing world jazz, joined here by dynamite Brazilian percussionist Adriano Adewale.

Caroline Bird. Multiple award-winning, critically acclaimed poet combines fairytale fantasy with domestic grit. The overwhelmingly talented prodigy was born in 1986 and is already compared to Dylan Thomas and TS Elliott.

Song for Gaza: We will not go down

An open letter to Nadine Gordimer

from the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine

Dear Nadine Gordimer,

Many of us who paid attention to, and valued, your writing during the dark days of apartheid are dismayed to see that you are participating in the International Writers' Festival in Israel in May.

It can only send a dispiriting message to the Palestinians that a writer of your moral standing and international renown is prepared to appear in a city at least half of which is under illegal military occupation by a state founded on ethnic cleansing. ("Ethnic cleansing" isn't just our term – it's what Israeli historian Ilan Pappe says he has finally accepted as the most accurate description for what Israeli forces did to the Palestinians in 1948.)

Think of a Palestinian villager in the occupied West Bank – hemmed in by Israeli army roadblocks, cut off from her fields by the Wall, the water in her wells drained by a nearby settlement, some of her sons and daughters in prison without charge or trial, her other children unable to leave the village to go to school. There are hundreds of thousands like her. In this context, isn't it a contradiction to be sitting in occupied Jerusalem, discussing the morality and responsibility of "the writer" with Amos Oz?

We take it as given that you still believe everything you said during apartheid times about the responsibility of the writer not to ignore injustice, and about your hatred of racism. But how does your visit square with this? By taking part in an event substantially funded by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, you will be lending credibility to the state that has for decades subjected Palestinian towns and villages to collective punishment, that boasts of its extrajudicial killings, that carpeted south Lebanon with cluster bombs in 2006 when the ceasefire had already been agreed (the list truly is endless).

In one of your essays you describe Professor John Dugard as a friend. You must know that in his capacity as UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, John Dugard unequivocally denounced the wrongs inflicted on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. His doing so has not brought Palestinian suffering to an end. But he did, to his great credit, unmask the systematic cruelty of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians.

The whole of Palestinian civil society has called for a cultural boycott of Israel. Please don't give the Israeli establishment, the Israeli press, the whole Israeli PR machine, the prize they want – your apparent condoning of their policies.

Your reputation as a figure of conscience is world-wide.

Your withdrawal from the May event will have a great impact on an Israeli public largely in denial about the cruelties it perpetrates. Please don't go.

Yours sincerely,
Professor Hilary Rose
Professor Steven Rose
Professor Jonathan Rosenhead

British Committee for the Universities of Palestine
BM BRICUP
London WC1N 3XX

An olive tree for solidarity

Manchester students reaffirm commitment to Palestinian right to education

On 14 November 2007 the University of Manchester Student Union (UMSU) held a General Meeting with attendance of over 1000 students and strengthened their commitment to the Palestinians' right to education and their twinning with Al-Najah University with almost a two-thirds majority.

A motion called "Peace through Education" had been proposed which aimed at undermining the twinning of UMSU with Al-Najah. It gave the Palestinian university the ultimatum of signing a statement condemning terrorism within two months or the twinning would be abandoned.

It was a racist motion that caused vast indignation amongst the student population by stereotyping Palestinians as terrorists and accusing Al-Najah University of actively supporting terrorism. The writers of the motion cited an unreliable website as a resource which included many inaccuracies and racist quotes.

The movement against the motion involved a very wide layer of groups and societies from different backgrounds and interests, who were unified by the will to defeat the racist motion and support UMSU's stance on solidarity with Palestinian students under occupation. One student who attended the meeting said: "The motion shows that the racism against the Palestinians is one of the last forms of acceptable racism. If we had been twinned with a black university during apartheid in South Africa and they had been given them the ultimatum asking them to condemn gun crime there would have been international outrage, and rightly so."

With over 16500 students enrolled in its 19 faculties and two colleges, Al-Najah is one of the largest universities in Palestine. It is located in the city of Nablus, part of the territories that, according to the United Nations, the state of Israel has been illegally occupying since 1967. On 11 November, members of the Right to Education Campaign at Al-Najah University published a response to the motion in question - through it, they stated: "Neither the university nor its Student Council is a terrorist organization, and the implication that they are is insulting" and, further, "The motion 'Peace Through Education' is defamatory because it repeatedly implies that ANU and it's Student Council promotes, facilitates or has links with terrorism".

It is a fact that the Israeli occupation and the apartheid policing tactics that they uphold cause great suffering to the Palestinian people. Moreover, the Palestinian youth's basic human right to education has been systematically denied by the state of Israel: Universities have been shelled, broken into and forced to close for large periods of time - not to mention the very practical difficulties students must face when trying to pursue their degrees against the backdrop of a military occupation.

The motivation for our Union's twinning with Al-Najah University was based around the ideal of showing solidarity with fellow students enduring acute hardship in Palestine and helping to break the isolation imposed on the Palestinian people. Also it highlights the importance of a right to education globally, and how it should be fought for. These beliefs are something that is part UMSU's long history of internationalism and it's excellent commitment to supporting just causes all across the world.

The motion resolved to accept the invitation made by Al-Najah University for an olive tree from the university to be planted on campus at Manchester as a gesture of peace and as a symbol of life, and allow for a fortnightly article from Al-Najah University students to be printed in Student Direct, the students' official news paper.

The reaction from Al-Najah after the new amended motion was passed was very positive. A statement from them included, "we are very pleased that the amended motion was passed. The solidarity from Manchester Students Union is something we are glad to have. We hope that this will help us to get more attention to our right to an education".

The strengthening of the twinning in Manchester is part of a nationwide movement for solidarity with Palestinians students. Many universities in the UK are now twinned with Palestinian Universities and many others are in the process of finding a twin. A student from Leeds University who was involved with the campaign to get Leeds University twinned with Berzeit University said, "This is an exceptionally significant victory, and can only help other forms of solidarity with Palestinian."

Action Palestine

Free Burhan Abu Zaid of Shefaamer - IDF military resister!

Dear Friends,

Israeli military courts continue to take a hard line against Palestinian Druze citizens of Israel who refuse military service on conscientious grounds. The most recent is Burhan Abu Zaid, of Shefaamer in the Galilee, who has been held for nearly 2 months after refusing to participate in the IDF induction process. His father said: “My son decided to refuse to serve in an army that occupies Palestinian lands, the army of a state that refuses to recognize the right of return.”

Among the many causes for complaint of the Druze Palestinian citizens of Israel, it is significant that these military resisters highlight recognition of the right of return.
See, in Hebrew: http://www.mahsom.org/article.php?id=6065

Recognize the right to, on grounds of conscience, refuse military service and to disobey military orders! Release all military resisters!

Regards,

Henry Lowi

Israel builds new apartheid road

New Israeli highway separates Palestinians

By Steven Erlanger

JERUSALEM: Israel is constructing a road through the West Bank, east of Jerusalem, that will allow both Israelis and Palestinians to travel along it - separately.

There are two pairs of lanes, one for each tribe, separated by a tall wall of concrete patterned to look like Jerusalem stone, an effort at beautification, indicating that the road is meant to be permanent. The Israeli side has various exits. The Palestinian side has few.

The point of the road, according to those who planned it under the previous prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is to permit Israel to build more settlements around east Jerusalem, cutting the city off from the West Bank but allowing Palestinians to travel unimpeded north and south through Israeli-held land.

"The Americans demanded from Sharon contiguity for a Palestinian state," said Shaul Arieli, a reserve colonel in the Israeli Army who participated in the 2000 Camp David negotiations and specializes in maps.

"This road was Sharon's answer, to build a road for Palestinians between Ramallah and Bethlehem but not to Jerusalem," Arieli said. "This was how to connect the West Bank while keeping Jerusalem united and not giving Palestinians any blanket permission to enter east Jerusalem."

Sharon talked of "transportational contiguity" for Palestinians in a future Palestinian state, meaning that although Israeli settlements would jut into the area, Palestinian cars on the road would pass unimpeded through Israeli-controlled territory and even cross through areas enclosed by the Israeli separation barrier.

The vast majority of Palestinians, unlike Israeli settlers, will not be able to exit in areas surrounded by the barrier or enter Jerusalem, even the eastern part, which Israel seized in 1967.

The road bars such stops by having Palestinian traffic continue through underpasses and over bridges, while Israeli traffic will have interchanges allowing turns onto access roads. Palestinians with Israeli identity cards or special permits for Jerusalem will be able to use the Israeli side of the road.

The government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has recently made conciliatory gestures to the Palestinians and says it wants to facilitate the creation of a Palestinian state. But Olmert, like Sharon, has said that Israel intends to keep the land east of Jerusalem.

To Daniel Seidemann, a lawyer who advises Ir Amim, an Israeli advocacy group that works for Israeli-Palestinian cooperation in Jerusalem, the road suggests an ominous map of the future, in which Israel keeps nearly all of east Jerusalem and a ring of Israeli settlements surrounding it, between largely Arab east Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, which would become part of a future Palestinian state.

In a final settlement, Israel is expected to offer the Palestinians land swaps elsewhere to compensate.

The road will allow Israeli settlers living in the northern West Bank, near Ramallah, to move quickly into Jerusalem, protected from the Palestinians who surround them. It also helps ensure that Maale Adumim, a suburban settlement of 32,000 east of Jerusalem, where most of its residents work, will remain under Israeli control, along with an empty area designated E1, between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem, that Israel also intends to keep.

For the Palestinians, the road will connect the northern and southern parts of the West Bank. In a future that may have fewer checkpoints, they could travel directly from Ramallah north of Jerusalem to Bethlehem south of it, while being forced to bypass Maale Adumim and Jerusalem.

"To me, this road is a move to create borders, to change final status," Seidemann said. "It's to allow Maale Adumim and E1 into Jerusalem but be able to say, 'See, we're treating the Palestinians well - there's geographical contiguity.' "

Measure it yourself, he said. "The Palestinian road is 16 meters wide. The Israeli theory of a contiguous Palestinian state is 16 meters wide."

Khalil Tufakji, a top Palestinian geographer, said the road "is part of Sharon's plan: two states in one state, so the Israelis and the Palestinians each have their own roads." The Palestinians, Tufakji said, "will have no connection with the Israelis, but travel through tunnels and over bridges, while the Israelis will travel through Palestinian land without seeing an Arab."

In the end, he said, "there is no Palestinian state, even though the Israelis speak of one." Instead, he said, "there will be a settler state and a Palestinian built-up area, divided into three sectors, cut by fingers of Israeli settlement and connected only by narrow roads."

Asked for comment, David Baker, an Israeli government spokesman, said: "The security arrangements on these roads are in place to protect the citizens of Israel. And they are not connected to any other matter."

Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, spokeswoman for the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, cited the Bush administration's policy that Palestinians should be allowed to travel more easily through the West Bank "consistent with the need to maintain security."

Asked if this road predetermines final status, she said: "The U.S. government has encouraged the parties to avoid any actions that would predetermine permanent status," but said she was not authorized to comment more specifically.

Tufakji says he has become cynical about the way Israel builds for the future it defines, no matter what it promises Washington. He sees a West Bank divided into three parts by Israeli settlement blocs, the most important of which is Maale Adumim and E1, around the capital that both peoples claim.

"Israel is building the infrastructure to keep E1, to surround Jerusalem," he said. "They are working to have an area of minimum Palestinians and maximum Israelis."

Source: International Herald Tribune

Liquidation of Hamas or termination of the right of return

From Henry Lowi, Toronto, Canada:

There is renewed hype about a “peace process”, promoted by the Right Honourable Tony Blair and his friends and the media. The focus is on the exercise of authority of “President” Mahmoud Abbas over ever-smaller bits of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

No one is talking about the leaders of Palestinian political movements (notably Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat) who are held in Israeli prisons, together with 10,000 other Palestinian prisoners.

No one is talking about stopping the construction of the Wall (aka “security fence”) despite the fact that the World Court declared the Wall’s illegality and required its removal.

No one is talking about Israeli legislation that grants privileges to Jewish citizens, recognized as “racist” and “apartheid” by some well- intentioned and outspoken Israelis.

No one is talking about Israeli persecution of pro-democracy activists like former Member of the Knesset Dr Azmi Bishara and anti-nuclear activists like Mordechai Vanunu.

And no one is talking about nearly 5 million Palestine refugees, exiles, “present absentees”, and their descendants, whose rights are at the heart of the conflict, and without whom no “peace process” has any chance of success.

With this in mind I am RE-SENDING Adel Samara's February 2006 article on "Liquidation of Hamas or termination of the right of return".

A call for freedom, justice and peace for the Palestinians

(This is also being translated to Arabic and other languages and distributed in Palestine and beyond. Please read and if you agree, email us your name, city, and state.)

We are Palestinians and others who believe in freedom, rights of refugees to return, and self-determination. We write to express our steadfastness, our unity, and to relay our vision for a just peace in Western Asia. We assert the following points:

* The Palestinian people endured incredible adversity and tragic historical confluence of events from colonization, ethnic cleansing, occupation, land confiscation, economic dedevelopment (and indeed also mistakes and collaboration). But there was also inspiring heroism, steadfastness, resilience, resistance, International solidarity, and more over the past 100 years.

* Some Palestinian leaders engaged in good faith negotiations with Israel hoping to end the occupation and achieve freedom and self-determination in the context of some division of land into two sovereign states. This led to signing of agreements including Oslo, Wye River, and Sharm El-Sheikh accords. Those hopes were dashed on the wall of Israeli intransigence supported by the US. Many agreements were violated and/or have expired without implementation (e.g. Oslo called for negotiations to be concluded in a five year interval and that expired in 1998). Israel's intention to consolidate its grip on the West Bank has become increasingly clearer. It is therefore incumbent on all Palestinians (whether in positions of leadership or not and whether they supported previous strategies or not) to contribute to a national rethinking of strategies to achieve our human and national rights. Each Palestinian (and our supporters) has rights and responsibilities in this regard.

* We condemn the US illegal invasion and continued occupation of Iraq that has caused the second largest refugee population in the world (second only to Palestinians) and resulted in the deaths of nearly a million Iraqis (and thousands of US troops). We believe that architects for that invasion are the same neoconservative Zionists in the Bush Administration who helped extend last summer's war on Lebanon and are now pushing for conflict with Iran. The lobby representing political Zionism is active in both major parties in the US and in mainstream media in such a way as to suppress open dialogue about US real interests and the suppression of constitutional rights for an endless "war on terrorism" that serves special interests (Zionists and the military-industrial complex). But we also believe that this debacle is now more and more recognized thanks to collective efforts. We believe we can effect real change in America and are inspired by the many new organizations formed and by the formation of coalitions bringing together many groups to coordinate and plan joint actions for peace with justice. We are also encouraged by the mobilization of Palestinians in exile and diaspora to work together regardless of their political leanings (e.g. see http://twww.palestineconference.org).

* Despite the challenges, we believe that there are many options and opportunities open to us in the coming stages of the struggle. There is now a greater international understanding of the Apartheid nature of Israel. The apartheid wall is the last stage of a reality becoming harder to ignore (including to people like President Carter who wrote a book titled "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid"). Apartheid also exists within the Green line. Apartheid in South Africa ended because of the local resistance and also because of the way the African National Congress rallied international support for a campaign of boycotts, divestments, and sanctions. We were thus inspired when Palestinian civil society called for similar actions until Israel complies with the basic Palestinian rights (which also are called Palestinian Constants "Al-thawabet Al Falastinya"): rights of return, freedom from occupation and colonization, equality, etc. See http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=66_0_1_10_M11

* Among options being increasingly discussed for political change are: working for equal citizenship in one state for all its people (Jews, Christian, Muslim, others), confederation, binationalism, and even using the two state scenario as an intermediate step towards achieving the border-less society that is being developed (e.g. in Europe). Many are now articulated in books and developed into associations and societies and even beginnings of political parties. We believe that discussions of these options are healthy and urge all to not limit their horizons of potential political solutions. It is the best measure of real democracy when people are empowered to think for themselves and develop the political structures needed. Yet, in all cases, the litmus test must be respect for basic and fundamental human rights as there can be no peace without basic rights.

* The Internet and other forms of communications gave us new tools to network, to educate others, and to work together to achieve our collective goals. In the coming and challenging stage of our struggle, older activists must redouble their efforts while making way for youth, women, and people with unique skills to step forward to take more leadership roles.

The Arabic saying is: "God does not change what is in a people (i.e. their destiny) unless they change what is within themselves." We are optimistic that we have within ourselves the tools and the resources to achieve freedom, justice, and peace which will be good for all people in Western Asia (what is referred to in Europe and America as "the Middle East") and people around the world. Thus we call for renewed and enhanced dialogue among all Palestinians (and our supporters) wherever we are to shape our future as a people.

(A list of signatories is in formation and will be initially sent by 20 July 2007.)

Mazin Qumsiyeh

Please send your endorsement of this call to support of Palestinians rights and for the necessity to protect and aid their struggle.

Oppressed Palestinians need our help!

From Henry Lowi:

Dear Friends,

Take a look at this short video. The farmers of Ertas, near Bethlehem, have an account to settle with Zionist settler-colonialism. They need our help. Down with the occupation!

A MEMRI (Israeli PR agency) clip from Qatar TV, showcases the class basis for the right of return movement, and the useless rhetoric of official Palestinian spokespeople.

It would be good if the ongoing siege and destruction of Nahr-al-Bared in northern Lebanon would elicit action inspired by the sentiment expressed in a recent letter to the editor printed in the Toronto Star. Let the refugees return home!

Here are two anecdotal incidents about the effort to maintain the State of Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state": click here for the first and here for the second.

Former MK Avraham Burg is having unorthodox thoughts about the "Jewish state" at and is taking the heat for his apostasy.

The ongoing IDF repression in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the focus for worldwide protests commemorating the June 1967 war. Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, the mindless Kassam squads ("I shoot therefore I am" is their only political message) provide valuable grist for the mill of Zionist PR and thus actually help strengthen the grip of Zionist settler-colonialism.

Palestinians need our help to end the occupation!

See below report by Yoav Bar about the recent court hearing of Ahmad Saadat, charged with being a member of the political organization which he leads, and on whose slate he was elected to the captive Palestinian Legislative Assembly. Free all the Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons and detention centers!

In June 2007, the Palestine refugees, farmers, and workers bear the brunt of the oppression, and wait patiently, stoically, for effective organization, effective leadership, and effective solidarity.

Regards,

Henry Lowi

--

Defiant Maluh refuses to testify against PFLP Secretary-General Sa'adat

Ramallah, 30 May 2007

The Israeli occupation's military court continues its hearing in the case against the Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Ahmad Sa'adat. Usually the hearings, held in the fortified Opher military base near Ramallah, are very one-sided: Sa'adat refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the court, and forbids his lawyers from playing by the court's rules. The lawyers ask the court to be reprieved from their impossible role, and are prevented by the court from resigning, but avoid any active defense. As a result, the sole manager of the court is the military prosecutor, a young and arrogant religious Jewish soldier-lawyer, and the 3 uniformed military judges follow his script to fill the trials files with "evidence"…

But this morning's hearing was some exception. The prosecutor chose to bring as his next "witness" 'Abed elRahim Maluh, the PFLP's deputy secretary general. The aged Maluh (67), which was arrested in June 2002 and sentenced to 7 years imprisonment, proudly refused to be a witness, and the meeting of the of the two leaders in the courtroom allowed their common defiant stance expose the court in all its ridiculous vanity.

Seven television crews were allowed in before the hearing started, but they were repeatedly warned by the Military public relations officer that they are not allowed to ask Mr. Sa'adat any questions, and anybody breaching this order will be promptly expelled. As he was allowed in, between military guards and prison officers, Sa'adat chose the moment, before the cameras, to give a well prepared declaration on the occasion of 40 years to the 1967 occupation and 59 years of the Palestinian Nakba. He called on all Palestinian parties, and particularly Fatah and Hamas, to stick to national unity against the occupation and avoid any internal clashes. He called on the international community to recognize the democratically elected Palestinian government and to defend the Palestinians against the continuing Israeli war crimes. Before he went on to call for an end to the occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestine, the TV crews were all expelled out of the courtroom.

Later, when the judges came in, Sa'adat refused to stand up, reinstating his rejection of his supposed role as 'defendant'. Than the guards brought in Maluh, just half the big man that he used to be before his arrest. Cuffed and in prisoner's clothes, Maluh started with protesting at being brought without his consent. He declared he is not a witness, and doesn't regard Ahmad Sa'adat as 'a defendant', and will say only what he finds fit. He said he was proud at his role as the deputy secretary general of the popular front for the liberation of Palestine, as he already declared in the military trial in which he was sentenced for this very 'crime'. He said his main role in the PFLP was as responsible to political relations, and representing the PFLP in the Palestinian Liberation Organization, serving as member of the PLO's executive committee. When asked who serves as secretary general of the PFLP, he said it was not his business to give such information to the court. At this stage Mr. Sa'adat from his bench intervened to ask the judges to stop this ridiculous show, as they know very well that he is the secretary general. Apparently, the judges changed tactics with Mr. Sa'adat, refusing to 'recognize' his declarations. One judge told Mr. Sa'adat that if he will stand in front of them they will write down his words…

An extra surrealistic flavor was added to the whole event by the incredible translator, a young Jewish soldier, which mixed almost every sentence. Apparently he couldn't catch the difference between the popular front for the liberation of Palestine and the PLO, and had no knowledge of basic terminology like "the executive committee". So the court was held in two separated worlds, the Arabic world of freedom fighters resisting the occupation, and the Hebrew occupation world where the resistance is posed as criminal activity. Any communication between these two worlds under Israeli Apartheid was based on misinterpretation, just as the Opher military camp is posed in the middle of the Apartheid walls, separating between "Israeli" and "Palestinian" spaces.

As the court was dispersed until 29/7, Maluh and Sa'adat were dragged back to the Hadarim prison, and we went out from the Apartheid court to the Apartheid world. Most Palestinian families are not allowed to go out of the "Israeli" side of the fence, even though it is well within the 1967 occupied West Bank, within densely populated Arab area, while Israelis are not allowed at the Palestinian side. One old lady was stuck between the fences. She came with a Red Cross bus full of families that came to visit at Opher prison about 200 meters in the blue side of the fence. But as she came to the court to see arrested relatives, she couldn't cross again to Israeli territory to catch her bus. As we went away the international community was still failing to protect the rights of one old Palestinian lady to go back home.

For more details: "Free Saadat" free.saadat@gmail.com

Please resend and post as widely as you find adequate.

"How can you give someone back only a part of a house he lived in?"

By Henry Lowi

When debating the rights of the Palestine refugees, one often hears the following from left-wing supporters of Zionist racism, purporting to be "pragmatists":

"What's done is done. One can't always be turning back the clock. Otherwise, there would be no end. We must make peace with the Palestinians, and the Palestinian refugees must give up their right to return. Maybe a few can return on humanitarian grounds, the rest will have to accept token compensation."

This is the position of all the wings of "left" Zionism (and left "non-Zionism"), and all those who support the so-called "two-state solution" i.e. those who uphold the discriminatory and anti-democratic state structures of the Israeli regime.

The preposterousness of this position is illustrated by the position that Jewish organizations take toward claims for restitution of property that was seized from Jews by the Nazi invaders, and then re-seized by the "Communist" liberators.

Can you imagine someone saying:

"The Jews of Poland abandoned their homes voluntarily, and sought refuge in the Eastern zone under Soviet protection, planning to return with the victorious Allied armies, and thus forfeited their property"? Or "The Jews of Poland, when they had the chance to return to liberated Poland, chose not to do so but settled in the capitalist West, and thus forfeited their property"?

No one would dare.

Recognition of the right of European Jews to return to their countries of origin in Europe is not in issue. No one in their right mind denies it. It is irrelevant that a minority of European Jews actually seek to exercise this right of return.

In Europe, the only issue is the right to restitution and compensation. And when offered compensation for 15 per cent of the seized property, Naftali Lavie rejected it and responded: "How can you give someone back only a part of a house he lived in," Lavie said. "I would not call this a compromise ... it is depriving people of their property and parts of their lives," he said."

Isn't what is gravy for the goose gravy for the gander?

What is gravy for the goose is gravy for the gander. (See "Holocaust survivors to press Poland for compensation".)