IDF soldiers open fire on photojournalists Restricting photos in order to do as they please.

 IDF soldiers open fire on photojournalists

In an effort to deal with the continuing demonstrations, the IDF’s Central Command began to issue orders on an almost weekly basis declaring Nabi Saleh a closed military zone. This order is designed to prevent Palestinian and other activists from reinforcing local resident protesters and it also allows the military to control press coverage by blocking the media’s entry into the village.

With press cameras out of the way, army and Border Police forces operating in Nabi Saleh began to employ increasingly violent tactics against protesters and local residents – both during the weekly demonstrations and in arrest raids and incursions during the course of the week.

Incidents of physical and verbal intimidation of journalists by Border Police officers in Nabi Saleh have occurred periodically over the past 18 or so months, but a red line was crossed at the end of July when Israeli troops deliberately targeted media personnel with firearms.

Further, the IDF’s ongoing decision to declare Nabi Saleh a closed military zone on a weekly basis is a clear and unjustified move to suppress press freedom.

In the past, even when orders declared Nabi Saleh a closed military zone, commanders operating in the village have largely adhered to an unspoken agreement with the media: while not granting journalists easy entry into the village, accredited members of the press who did manage to infiltrate Nabi Saleh were largely ignored by troops and allowed to work freely and without restriction – as should be the case in any democratic state.

IDF soldiers open fire on photojournalists

Victory for Palestinians or NOT?

The Good News:

Israel's Supreme Court orders state to dismantle largest West Bank outpost

Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

Unprecedented ruling states that Migron must be razed by April 2012; Israeli government had admitted outpost was built on lands belonging to Palestinians, but has thus far failed to dismantle it. 

 The Bad News:

The decision to dismantle an outpost as large as Migron is likely to cause a political storm in the West Bank settlements. 

This has been going on for years will the military really force them out? We will have to wait and see. Will Israel just increase its land confiscation?  You know: "settlement natural growth," declaring more "state land" from an Ottoman law (LOL- I can't help but laugh at this one), and "purchasing" land from Palestinians but they can't show the paper work for fear of Palestinian aggression. All of this is sickening.

More Bad News:

Dozens of MKs to Netanyhu: Solve Israel housing crisis by building in West Bank

MKs, cabinet ministers call on Netanyahu to consider all possible options to solve housing crisis, including settling of 'tens of thousands of citizens in Judea and Samaria, as well as Jerusalem'.

IDF prevents Israeli activists from escorting Palestinians to their lands in West Bank that they have been cut off from for 10 yrs.

This article just says it all.

IDF - totally controls who goes where in the West Bank and Declares "Militarized Zones" when and where it wants.
Settlements - illegally built even according to Israel's Laws.
Land Possession - Israelis don't have to prove they bought land... they just say that for security reasons they can't show the purchase papers.

Must read to believe the injustices that go on and the lies and manipulations.
IDF prevents Israeli activists from escorting Palestinians to their lands in West Bank - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

Why did Tunisia and Egypt fall so fast and Libya, Yemen, & Syria are not?

I have wondered why Libya, Yemen, and Syria can't do what the Tunisians and Egyptians did. I am very afraid for the Syrians - I fear he may do what his father did and massacre over 100,000 people. God Forbid.

While the military sided against the dictators in Egypt and Tunisia, the situation in Libya, Yemen and Syria is complicated by the fact that their regimes' militia, special forces and republican guards have been better organised, better armed and better financed - and hence more potent and in control of their national armies.
These "mini armies" are headed by, and are loyal to, influential family members of the regimes that have long groomed them to fight in defence of the regime, not for state or society.
These soldiers' indoctrination and privilege blind them from noticing the changing reality. Instead, they continue to kill and destroy their countries to try to save their expired regimes.
As these ruling families monopolised security and business, they've emptied their countries of independent state agents capable of taking a neutral or mediating position. This has led to direct and ugly confrontations between people and the escalation of brute force.
Be that as it may, Libya, Yemen and Syria face complete economic shutdown, economic sanctions, and poor supplies. There is a limit to their resources.

Read full article by Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, answers questions about the current escalation - and what some see as setbacks - surrounding the uprisings in Libya, Syria, and Yemen.  A rude Arab awakening - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Encountering Peace: I should be a millionaire!

Some of the programs I have watched and articles I have read have stunned me at the way that the Israelis live with little awareness of the Palestinians that they oppress. I have seen programs where Palestinian youth have reached out to the Israelis who don't seem to have the time or will to continue a relationship.
I am a little surprised about these protests that the Israelis are having about the cost of Cottage Cheese.  Now it is more about housing and cost of living.  When I heard it was about housing - I sighed and said that they ought to do what the Palestinians are doing - living 2 to 3 or more families in one house. Netanyahu keeps talking about natural growth in the settlements and such but what about the Palestinians? They are not allowed to build houses next to one another much less get more land to expand for natural growth.  Israel is having such a hard time financially and that is with them receiving 3 or 4 BILLION dollars from the US. every single year! What are they doing with all of that money? They are not suppose to use it on settlements and there are other restrictions on it not being used against the Palestinians.


Mr. BASKIN, whom I follow on Twitter, writes very insightful articles and below is information he shares about these protests.

I remember a conversation I had with an Israeli Jew some 33 years ago, when I told him I was going to live in the Palestinian- Israeli village of Kafr Qara and do volunteer community work for two years. He asked why I would want to do that. I said: “I think there are a lot of things worth learning about our Arab neighbors,” to which he responded: “what could we possibly learn from them?” “There is nothing the Arabs can teach us!” he asserted.

As some of the speakers said on Saturday night, this is not about Left and Right, religious and secular, etc. etc. But, unfortunately, it really is. Israel will not meet its full potential until Jews and Arabs are equal here, and until Israel no longer rules over millions of Palestinians who reject that rule.

I was slightly encouraged when Aviv Geffen sang his most famous protest song “Until it is” with the words “let’s conquer the peace and not the territories,” and the crowd in Jerusalem cheered and applauded. Social justice will only be achieved when we achieve peace.

08/01/2011    The writer, GERSHON BASKIN, is founder and co-director of IPCRI, the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information. He hosts a weekly radio show in Hebrew on All for Peace radio, and is a voluntary columnist for The Jerusalem Post.

Read the full article:  Encountering Peace: I should be a... JPost - Opinion - Columnists

Somali women fleeing famine preyed on by rapists - USATODAY.com

This is such a heart wrenching story of strength, fear, helplessness, and struggle. I can't imagine life like this. I pray that all of the Aid gets to those in need and that help comes to bring peace that surmounts the war and pain.
Somali women fleeing famine preyed on by rapists - USATODAY.com

9/11 created a suspicion of Muslims based on the actions of a fanatical few, is this what it's like to walk a mile in the shoes of stereotype?

After Sept. 11, many of us Muslims felt isolated and afraid, I think esp. for those of us born in the US. I was mortified by what I had witnessed on TV, I was initially afraid to venture outside, and I found that I was afraid of every car and door that had the American Flag. I am part of the American Fabric, I have always been grateful for being born here in America, I used to even get stares and comments when at a ball game and the National Anthem played because I always cried, and I have always prayed for the whole world to have the kind of life that I enjoy.

It took about 2 years to get life a litlle bit back to the way it was before that dreadful day. During those 2 years, I couldn't get away from the TV without feeling a little panicky, at times I had to take sleeping pills in order to go to sleep, and one of the strange things that I regret the most that changed was I stopped reading to my kids at bedtime. I just couldn't seem to be able to sit down or focus or maybe it was staying away from the TV, I really don't know. I began to drink coffee throughout the day (I was never a coffee drinker before) and I was on defense mode outside (well, I still do this). Anyway, my main point is that people don't think that we (Muslims) were affected by what happened. Well, many of us were in ways that are understood and many ways that just don't make sense; but we were affected none-the-less.

MY country was attacked, I was mourning the loss of life, and I was as angry as the next woman. But MY religion was also attacked and in many ways is still being attacked.

I believe that this article can help others see a little of what we felt. Below is a snippet. READ the full article: 'Christian terrorist'? Norway case strikes debate | Latest National Headlines

When the "enemy" is different, an outsider, it's easier to draw quick conclusions, to develop stereotypes. It's simply human nature: There is "us," and there is "them." But what happens when the enemy looks like us - from the same tradition and belief system? That is the conundrum in the case of Norway and Anders Behring Brevik, who is being called a "Christian extremist" or "Christian terrorist."McVeigh and Breivik were both "good-looking young Caucasians, self-enlisted soldiers in an imagined cosmic war to save Christendom ... and both were Christian terrorists," Juergensmeyer wrote. In a column for Salon.com, Alex Pareene said Breivik is not an American-style evangelical, but he listed other connections to Christianity. "All of this says 'Christian terrorist,'" Pareene wrote. Such claims drew strong resistance. "Breivik is not a Christian. That's impossible. No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder," Bill O'Reilly said on his Fox News show. That makes sense to Joyce Dubensky, CEO of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding. She said it also makes sense that "millions of Muslims say Osama bin Laden is not a Muslim, that no one who believes in the prophet Muhammad commits mass murder." "We need to hear Bill O'Reilly, but we also need to hear and understand the voices of the overwhelming Muslim majority around the world who condemn those who are terrorists in the name of their faith," she said.