Sisterhood is powerful

My friend Gladiola sends me this dispiriting post about sistership and solidarity in the bitterly divided Palestinian world.

The de facto government prevented more than 70 Women’s Union members en route to the West Bank from Gaza for a women’s conference, according to Palestinian Authority (PA)’s civil affairs chief Hussein Ash-Sheikh on Wednesday.

Member of the Women’s Union and one of those barred from exiting the Gaza Strip Nawal Zaqqut, said the group of women headed to the Erez crossing ahead of the fifth Palestinian women’s conference. As they approached the crossing, personnel at a de facto government security checkpoint stopped them, confiscated ID cards, papers to be presented at the conference and bags, and prevented the group from continuing toward the crossing. “We have not got back our things, and we were told to go to Gaza internal security next Sunday,” Zaqqut explained.

She added that police officers told the women that women affiliated to Fatah could not go to Ramallah, but others could. Thus, all participants insisted that they all travel, or go back to Gaza.

filed from Bethlehem – Ma’an

O Danny Boy, the press, the press are calling...all those spoiled Crybabies

Has this man been spending too much time with Joe the Plumber, the neophyte PJTV stringer? That neocon scribe's notion that the media has "no business in it" is echoed by the head of the Government Press Office and seems to be plunging the media here into despair.

"To be honest with ya, I don't think journalists should be (allowed) anywhere near . . . war," opined Joe in Sderot. "You guys report where our troops are at, what's happening day-to-day, you make a big deal out of it. I think it's asinine... well, you don't know the full story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it."

Hmmm. The Israeli government seconds that emotion, and would prefer to strand the press corps on the Hill of Shame, or else take them on a day trip to meet the settlers. Branding foreign journalists "spoiled crybabies" unwilling to make "a little effort" to get into Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, Government Press Office head Danny Seaman (pictured above) claims, astonishingly, that foreign reporters were not banned from visiting the Gaza Strip. It's just that the crossing was closed. (He may be burnishing his rightwing mythmaking skills in a bid to be a spokesman for Bibi Netanyahu, who many believe will be elected Prime Minister next month.)

Speaking to the Jerusalem Post, the Foreign Press Association Chairman Steve Gutkin disputed this, and said the association was pursuing a petition with the High Court of Justice to arrange regular access.

"There was no ban," Seaman declared, "Israel did not want to endanger the lives of the workers at the crossings so we didn't open them, not for humanitarian reasons and not for foreign journalists."

"Those spoiled crybabies just didn't want to put a little effort in [to getting into Gaza]," he said "We never arrested anyone who went in, nor are we running after them now," which proves that it wasn't an actual Israeli policy.

"In hindsight, next time we should make it an actual policy. This week proves it. All of the reporters have been let in and they are accepting everything everyone says at face value. Maybe 3% are calling and asking for an Israeli response, or talking to the IDF spokesman. They are a fig leaf for Hamas.

"Their coverage right now is a disgrace to the profession. Instead of reporting, they are settling scores. Reporting without both sides, without a context is an abuse of the profession," he declared.

Meanwhile, Steve Gutkin, AP bureau chief for Israel and the Palestinian Territories, said the Foreign Press Association was pursuing a court ruling.

"There were actually two petitions," he explained, "one for immediate access to Gaza during the operation and one for general access to Gaza even in peacetime."

"The ban began in November, even before the operation," he pointed out. "The ban constituted a severe restriction on information vital to the world."

Israel refused to open any of its crossings to allow foreign journalists into the Strip during the three-week-long operation, leading many broadcasts from international media to begin or end with a mention of the prohibition.

As a result, international viewers and media organizations were forced to rely on local Palestinian stringers, prompting concerns among Israel's supporters about objectivity.

"It was definitely the correct decision. If foreign journalists had been killed, and in such a close quarters urban combat environment that was inevitable, then Israel would have immediately been blamed," Zvi Mazel, former Israeli ambassador to Egypt and now a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) maintained.

"At the very least, the journalists would have interfered with IDF operations in ways which would have put at risk more soldiers' lives," he added.

Dr. Yariv Ben-Eliezer, director of Media Studies, The Lauder School of Government, IDC, was even more vociferous in his approval of the ban.

"In Lebanon, they let every journalist have whatever access he wanted and there was chaos, which interfered with the fighting. They changed the concept for this operation.

"I don't think the US took journalists into Grenada, or the British into the Falklands. It is our right to decide not to let them in if we believe it will help the operation," he said.

Neither Mazel nor Ben-Eliezer seemed in the least bit concerned with the negative press Israel has been receiving as reporters moved into Gaza.

Ben-Eliezer attributed the complaints about the ban to a general anti-Semitic attitude in the world.

"There is a tendency in many countries to view the Jews as the beaten, downtrodden ones. If the Jew does the beating, then that is deemed unacceptable. I would rather be accused and alive than be the favorite of the British and the others and be dead," he declared.

Spy or die! Shin Bet seeks ailing informers

Israeli group Physicians for Human Rights alleges that since last June — when Hamas took control of Gaza from its Fatah rivals loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas — at least 30 other patients seeking urgent medical help were denied passage by Shin Bet because they refused to act as informers. In the past, most collaborators worked from within Fatah, and when they were chased from Gaza last June, it was a blow to Israeli intelligence..."This violates all conventions against torture," says Miri Weingarten, spokeswoman for the Tel Aviv-based Physicians for Human Rights. Israeli authorities deny carrying out such practices at Erez and dismiss them as Palestinian propaganda.

According to Time Magazine reporters, who interviewed several patients who claim to have been denied urgent medical care by intelligence agents at the border, dozens of Gazans have been pressured to spy since last summer's coup by Hamas. If these accusations are true, this deplorable practice should be re-examined and an investigation launched.

Hamas and Israel seek each other's destruction, and the devastated landscape of blasted-out buildings and shell craters around Erez bears the scars of this conflict. As one Erez security official says: "We're the last line of defense against the suicide bomber coming into Israel."

Israelity bites.

Mass Demo planned at Erez crossing

In a fortnight, on Saturday, January 26th, private Israeli relief convoys will depart from Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Beer Sheva, bearing signs reading “GAZA: LIFT THE BLOCKADE!” Converging at Yad Mordechai at 12 noon, the protest convoy and rally will reach Erez Checkpoint at 13.00. On the other side hundreds of Gazans are expected to rally, organised by The Palestinian International Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza, including psychiatrist and human rights activist, Dr. Eyad Sarraj.
The convoy will carry vital supplies, particularly water filters, since the water of Gaza is an undrinkable cocktail of brine, sewage, pesticides and oil, with levels of nitrates ten times higher than those set by the WHO, and coliform eight times higher: denial of water filters to Gazans is an unacceptable violation of basic humanitarian standards. Demonstrators will insist that the military authorities allow these goods entry into Gaza, are prepared for prolonged sit-in near Erez, and a public/judicial campaign.
January 26, 2008 is an International Day of Action, when worldwide peace groups will hold protest actions against the danger of war in the Middle East.

Despite unilateral evacuation of 7,000 settlers, the Gaza Strip remains Occupied Territory. Israel continues to control its airspace, territorial waters, population registry, tax system, supply of goods, freedom of movement and access to healthcare. Last week, Israel strongly reprimanded Egypt for having dared to let a single group of Palestinians go in and out of the Strip without subjection to Israeli security checks. Moreover, recently Israel has re-established military control over more than a quarter of the Strip’s total territory as “border security zones”. Israelis are led to believe “We gave back Gaza” – but this is simply not true.
Israeli leftists sympathize with Sderot’s residents, exposed to traumatising years-long Qassam rockets, but suggest that siege and collective punishment are no answer: although 1.5 million men, women and children are denied basic necessities, driven to the edge of starvation, the Qassam attacks continue. Nor has the constant military offensive (1,000 Palestinians were killed in 2007, including many civilians), stopped the rockets. While Sderot suffers, few ask why several Palestinian ceasefire offers have been rejected out of hand by the Israeli government. Later this week, on Saturday, Israeli peace-seekers will go to the Gaza border, in co-operation with Palestinian partners inside Gaza, to show there’s a peaceful alternative to siege and rocketfire.

Participants in the demo will include Gush Shalom, Coalition of Women for Peace, New Profile, Combatants for Peace, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Physicians for Human Rights (Israel), Hadash, Balad, Adalah, Tarabut-Hithabrut, Bat Shalom, Bat Tzafon, Anarchists Against the Wall, Follow-up Committee of the Arab Population in Israel, Alternative Information Center, Psychoactive, ActiveStills and Student Coalition – Tel Aviv Univ.