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| Truth Will Set You Free |
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| jannah |
| 04/14/02 at 03:22:39 |
| Take a couple of minutes and please read the following. The news we never hear. Truth Will Set You Free Copyright: http://www.iviews.com Published Friday April 12, 2002 By May Khodr In 1948, my parents, Christian Palestinians, from the Palestinian village of Kfir Birem were given only moments by the Jewish army to abandon their homes and land, to make room for Jewish immigrants. My parents joined the entire inhabitants of the two Christian villages of Kfir Birem and Ikrit who were forcefully evicted and driven out of their homes, lands, and their ancestral history to begin a long foot march toward southern Lebanon with only the clothes on their backs, their children, and the keys to their homes. Such was their beginning and the beginning of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians whose future of poverty, neglect, denial, and refugee status still continues to this day. Their names, faces, stories, and dignity have been forgotten by a world obsessed by the Jewish story of World War II and not by the Palestinian victims of the Holocaust victims who deliberately committed genocide and ethnically cleansed my parents and the entire Palestinian people. Unlike my parents who died in a strange cold land away from the soil they loved and tilled, the Jews demanded the world "Never Forget" their suffering while denying all of us Palestinians the story of our suffering. The cruel, unexpected and shocking irony of both people's history is that the long history of Jewish persecution in Europe ending with the Holocaust sadly did not soften the Jewish heart or fill it with compassion, but rather turned their hearts to stone allowing them to become the persecutors of Palestinians. Israeli historians have called the founding of Israel at the expense of the entire Palestinian population Israel's "Original Sin". My parents were told by Jewish soldiers they could return in 15 days. Fifteen days and 53 years later my family and millions of Palestinians are still living in refugee camps, in poverty, despair, and total neglect by a world intimidated by "Anti-Semitism" and America's pandering to Israel. Initially the Arabs in 1948 refused the U.N. partition of Palestine into a larger Jewish State and smaller Palestinian State, who wouldn't, but in 1949 they did accept the plan but Israel refused. There would be no Israel if it weren't for American money, weapons, United Nations Vetoes, and total media bias. Truman's recognition of Israel against the advice of his cabinet to gain Jewish votes decided the fate of millions of Palestinians. Where is the outrage of Christian America when Christians in the Holy Land are facing death, destruction of their homes, immigration out of the Holy Land, and most outrageously, Israel's attack upon Bethlehem and upon the Church of the Nativity? Tragically, even the Christian Bell ringer of the Nativity church was shot dead by an Israeli sniper. Since Israel's founding in 1948 Christians went from twenty percent of the population to less than two percent due to Israeli occupation and injustice. Sadly, most Americans don't even know that Palestinian Christians live in Palestine under Israel's occupation. Read what Chris Hedges, former New York Times Mid East Bureau Chief wrote in Harper's Magazine, October 2001 issue, page 59: "I have seen children shot in El Salvador, Algeria, Guatemala, Sarajevo, but I have NEVER before watched soldiers (Israeli) entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for SPORT". (Seven Days in a Palestinian Refugee Camp). Due to our media bias only America supports Israel's occupation while the entire world recognizes the Palestinians as the victims of Israel's founding and demands an end to occupation. As an occupied people Palestinians have the legitimate right as declared by International law to resist occupation. While Israel has the fourth largest army in the world, Palestinians only have rifles, pistols, and their bodies to fight for their independence. Our media focuses only on "Palestinian suicide bombers" but ignore Israel's long history of terrorism against the Palestinians, the British, other Arabs, and even Jews, such as committing murder, assassinations, house demolitions, burning of farm lands, uprooting olive trees, evicting families to make room for wider roads and swimming pools for new Jewish settlers, destruction of hospitals, orphanages, elderly homes, and even bombing the only United Nations run school for blind children who couldn't run to escape the bombs. In this Intifada, 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians with a third being children, with 30,000 injured compared to 400 Israeli dead, mostly military, with 250 injured. While Israeli victims are shown on TV grieving for their loss, Palestinian victims are simply statistics with no face and no names. The United Nations has passed over 60 Security Council Resolutions that Israel ignores due to America's support demanding an end to occupation and human rights abuses against the Palestinians. For 53 years Israel has said NO. For 53 years Israel has told the world including us, the American taxpayer, who've given Israel $134 Billion since 1949 (about $17 million a day), to go to hell. While Bush demanded Israel withdraw its invasion of Palestinian cities, Sharon's response was to invade Hebron. So far and for four days, Sharon has told our President and nation to go to hell. No other nation has such control over our government and national interest. For 53 years, Palestinians have been forgotten, neglected, and demonized by our Pro-Israel government and media. Israel has been the wedge between us and the rest of the world, especially the 1.3 billion Muslims who before Israel's establishment never harmed any American. People don't hate Americans; they hate American policy that is run by powerful special interest groups, like the powerful Jewish lobby in Washington that ensures we support Israel right or wrong. I was in Beirut in 1982 working in the American Hospital's emergency room when Sharon surrounded the city, turned off its electricity and water, and destroyed everything in site. Daily for 3 months I saw Sharon's victims, from fathers looking for their wives, mothers looking for their children, a child with his guts out laying on an a stretcher alone, and a man's foot that dropped when I touched it. For his allowing the slaughter of 2000 Palestinian men, women, and children over 3 days in Palestinian refugee camps, even Israel condemned Sharon while now in Belgium he's being tried for war crimes. Sharon's invasions have more to do with protecting the illegal Jewish settlements than protecting Israel's security. Israel's history of terrorism includes using the first car bomb to kill civilians and hijacking the first plane in the region. Israel is the only nuclear power in the region. Israel is the only occupier of another people in the region. Our government and media protect Israel even when it attacked our navy ship, the USS Liberty, in 1967 killing 34 Americans and wounding 171. Our tax dollars are paying for the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. while not one cent of our taxes was given to build a memorial for our brave World War II Veterans. The silence of American Christian toward Israel's policy against Palestinian Christians is shameful. Christians can't even enter Jerusalem to pray in their churches. Why are our politicians, clergy, media, and citizens silent about the plight of Christians in Palestine? Are we afraid or simply don't care? Jesus taught us to face truth and injustice anywhere, but obviously not if it goes against Israel. I grieve for Israeli and Palestinian mothers who bury their children because of the impotence of politicians and the silence of the world. Americans in due time will learn the truth and injustice Palestinians have endured for 53 years. As Christ said: "Truth will set you free". Even thousands of Israeli soldiers and commanders are discovering the "truth" about Israel's illegal settlements and occupation and prefer going to jail rather than killing one ,more Palestinian. I ask all Christians to awaken from their silence and be free from fear and guilt. Abraham's children are dying because of our government's fear of Pro-Israeli votes, money, and media power. Let's all pray for God's guidance and mercy that we may stop the shedding of blood in the land of Christ's birth. Please tell our President and Congress to stop our billions of dollars in aid to Israel until it seeks peace and withdraws from all occupied territories it captured by force in 1967. The entire Arab League and Arafat have accepted this solution. It's time Israel abided by international law and respect Christian and Muslim lives and sanctuaries. |
| Re: Truth Will Set You Free |
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| jannah |
| 04/14/02 at 03:23:33 |
| Barbara Acosta wrote: > This message was submitted by "Barbara Acosta" <bacosta@telocity.com> to list > ICAR@GMU.EDU. If you forward it back to the list, it will be distributed > without the paragraphs above the dashed line. You may edit the Subject: line > and the text of the message before forwarding it back. > > If you edit the messages you receive into a digest, you will need to remove > these paragraphs and the dashed line before mailing the result to the list. > Finally, if you need more information from the author of this message, you > should be able to do so by simply replying to this note. > > ----------------------- Message requiring your approval ---------------------- > Sender: "Barbara Acosta" <bacosta@telocity.com> > Subject: FW: When A Jew for Justice writes from Ramllah > > ---------- > From: Sadie Moinzadeh <smoinzadeh@antioch-college.edu> > Reply-To: alumni-chat@antioch-college.edu > Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 16:34:46 -0400 > To: faculty@college.antioch-college.edu, staff@college.antioch-college.edu, > students@college.antioch-college.edu > Subject: When A Jew for Justice writes from Ramllah > > This report from a Jewish-American woman was distributed by a group called > Jews-for-Justice..... We will not learn these things in the US media. And, > if this doesn't move us, nothing will........ S.M. > ********************************************************** > > >From Ramallah, Occupied Palestine: > > My name is Tzaporah Ryter. I am an American student from the University of > Minnesota. I currently am in Ramallah. We are under a terrible siege and > people are being massacred by both the Israeli army and armed militia > groups of Israeli settlers. They are shooting outside at anything that > moves. I am urgently pleading for as much outside help as possible to > help save lives here. I arrived in Ramallah last Thursday. I had come > back for a visit to the Palestinian city where I had been previously > living and studying. On Thursday afternoon, the Israeli army began sealing > off each entrance to Ramallah and there were rumors that they planned to > invade. People were rushing back home from across checkpoints and also > people were trying to flee. People were not allowed to go out and many > working people -- with homes and children to return to -- were not allowed > in, everyone was trying to take cover. Those traveling in began desperately > searching for alternative ways and traveling in groups, but the Israelis > were firing upon them and everyone was running and screaming. Women > carrying their children were trying desperately to flee from Ramallah, > carrying infants and toddlers, and their young children were running along > in the rain through the fields, slipping and falling on the rocks, trying > to reach safety. Israeli jeeps were speeding across the terrain pulling up > from every direction and shooting at the women and children, and also at > me, as we ran in opposite directions. They were chasing down people, > hunting them like that in the fields. When I reached Ramallah, people > were panicking and trying to buy bread, rice and milk from corner stores, > but most supplies were already gone. We bought what we could and went > inside to wait for what was coming. When night fell, Israeli tanks began > to invade and also we saw Israeli troops coming on foot from the valley, > and surrounding our house. I could hear them calling to each other in > Hebrew. They were against our door and all around. They were firing > everywhere a barrage of bullets and there was tank fire. We had to lay on > the floor and keep silent. We stayed there, on the floor, for nearly four > days in the darkness. We knew that our circumstances were better than > others because old people or infants or people with medical emergency needs > had no help. It was very cold, with most families packed all in one room. > Some people are without life sustaining medicines like insulin, and they > are altering their doses dangerously if they have any medicine left to > take. People are becoming dangerously sick from lack of food and water and > heat. The fear and terror only makes things worse, but it cannot be > avoided. In the daytime, we heard them shooting people in the streets, > and could hear them screaming and screaming. No ambulance was allowed > through. Then their screams stopped and there was just silence. We had a > telephone and would receive calls from all over telling us what was > happening. Everyone is in grave danger and Israeli soldiers were killing > people everywhere. They are arresting medics and ambulance drivers, > including foreign volunteer medical workers. They keep taking doctors and > medics, just now another call. Again, this time the wife of a doctor > telling us her husband has been taken from the ambulance. Large groups > of people have been found in rooms, shot dead, there are blood marks where > they have lined people up on their knees and shot them, with their ID cards > laying on top of them. They are taking people from their homes, > blindfolding them, removing their clothes, taking them away or lining them > up and shooting them against the wall. People are making phone calls and > saying that these soldiers and militia have come in and are shooting people > and then the line cuts off. The numbers of these killings I fear are much > greater than the numbers confirmed in the press, because the human rights > offices and the media centers have been stormed, and everything is shut > down. No one can move without almost certain chance of being shot by the > Isreali snipers, who are everywhere. The Israelis are demanding that all > journalists leave Ramallah and today another foreign journalist was shot. > They do not want any more internationals here and are deporting people. It > seems quite clear that they do not want eyewitnesses which is only > heightening my own fears. The hospitals have also been surrounded and > invaded and Israeli troops are taking the injured people and interrogating > them. Today a woman, a patient, tried to walk out from hospital. The &ct; Israelis shot her in the neck and killed her. The Palestinian Ministry > of Health is saying that they fear the spread of diseases because of the > number of unburied corpses. The numbers are only growing in reports of > the mass killings here and Israeli troops continue to round up people. > People are calling frantically, missing a relative and we do not know > where they have been taken, including children. The numbers we have now > exceed 600, and we are estimating between 700 and 800. All human rights > groups and legal advocates are being denied any information of where the > detained are being held. From what we know confirmed is that 10% of those > taken so far have been children under age 18. On the fourth day I decided > to try to move. People were running out of supplies and I also was so > worried about people, and had to check to see if they were okay. If I > didn't, I feared panic would overtake me so badly that I really had no > other choice but to try and go. It was not safe where I was in any case > and at least if I left I would still have my sanity. It was really > terrifying as there are some internationals here, usually traveling in > groups, and the Israelis are saying on the radio that they will arrest or > shoot the internationals. They did shoot some yesterday and regardless, > it's not as if snipers differentiate and they are everywhere. My friends > told me not to go, and were really scared for me, but I had to go. When I > went outside, there were cars all shot up and hit by multiple bullets and > shells in the middle of the road, unparked. There must have been people in > them but I don't know where their bodies are. There are no reports of them, > but they must exist. I got to the corner trying to go to the bakery for > bread and food for people. Some people were calling and calling with only > one cup of rice left. I made it to the corner but they opened fire on my > first try, and shot at me, so I had to turn back. After that I tried > again and it took me one day to make it a block because I had to start > over again and again. I had to climb through the valley, and as I passed > house by house, people were warning me and pointing out what path seemed > safest for these two minutes. In the next two minutes, it would be > something different. They really helped to keep my path safe. Today is > Day Five and they are still rounding up people like this and we hear them > shooting all day long. This afternoon the Israelis suddenly lifted the > curfew, suddenly announcing that everyone had two hours to go out to get > food. However, the Israeli soldiers also took food from many of the > stores, looted, and there is no bread or things. People went to get > whatever they could. Even though the Israeli army said it had lifted the > closure for two hours -- in which we still were not able to transfer > medical supplies and still was not long enough to everything that was > badly needed -- the Israelis continued shooting people in the streets > indiscriminately on their way, so people were running around trying to make > it to the store or find a safe route only to have to run back home again. > It was an added cruelty and terror tactic in this macabre situation, a sick > joke: starve people and then shoot them when they try to find food with > your permission. In an apartment building in Beitunia neighborhood where > I used to live, they took 60 people who were my neighbors, including > several familes, and pushed them into one room since last night. The > Israelis told them that they are to be used as "human shields", as the > apartment building is across from a building that they were invading. One > child needs to go to the hospital since last night and, initially, the > families were able to call outside. Now, the Israelis have taken their > phones. There are reports that they are rounding up men between the ages > of 14 and 45 in that neighborhood, and these civilians, from these same > Palestinian families trapped in that building, were just used to walk in > front of an Israeli tank as it invaded the Preventative Security Compound. > Reports also have alleged that the Israelis were saying that some could > leave but shot them when they attempted to leave. The buildings there are > burning, and people are trapped inside. We keep calling to try to find > people but there has been no electricity and most people's phones are dead > now. I do not know what is happening to many people. The only solution to > this is to try to brave the deadly streets in order to check, but its > almost impossible and terrifying to leave the house at all. Each place I > come to, I am afraid to leave not only for myself but for everyone else in > this horrifying position. Israeli death squads have been yanking people > into the street. I also hear only shooting and shooting, with no return > fire. This suggest that unarmed civilians are being gunned down > mercilessly everywhere and I am so scared for everyone. I feel like maybe > if I leave one place, one area or neighborhood I will never see the people > again alive. There are more explosions outside now and more shooting. > Another explosion. More firing, it just doesn't stop. This is a massacre. > The foreign delegations tried to get in but were turned back, the > International Committee of the Red Cross is trying to help but they are > being ignored. Please help. I am not only scared for myself and for > people here, but if this cannot be stopped, I am truly scared for all of > humanity, for a world in which we send men to the moon but cannot stop > ethnic cleansing. On the news in America, we see hardly anything of > demonstrations. What are you doing over there? There do not seem to be > any reports of what is happening. In truth, its got to stop. Please go out > to the streets, please demand a response from your representatives. Be > loud, march up to the capitals, refuse to leave until the Israelis > withdraw. Act now! Tell them the Israelis are murdering innocent people > whose only crime is being born in their own homeland, a Palestinian under > a military occupation. Demand international protection for the > Palestinian people, scream that this is an affront to humanity and that it > is time that the US not only stop supporting Israel, but that the US stop > its abuse of human rights within its own borders. This is about all of our > struggles. For the love of God, please stop this slaughter. Please help. > > Sadie Moinzadeh > Institutional Research, Dir. > Antioch College > 795 Livermore Street > Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387-1607 > Phone: (937) 769-1291 > FAX: (937) 769-1155 > E-Mail: smoinzadeh@antioch-college.edu > |
| Re: Truth Will Set You Free |
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| jannah |
| 04/14/02 at 03:25:36 |
| Hello everyone, Have any of you seen the movie "Face/Off"? There's this part in the movie when this little kid has headphones on and is listening to, i think, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" while all this crap is going on around him. I absolutely adore that part in the movie and I think it's genius. So the other day sitting around listening to Aha's "Take on Me" (a favorite for my best friends and me) and that song has always been very special to me and always made me feel good. Well, we can throw that out the window now. All around me were the sounds of gunfire and tanks crushing cars and ruining buildings. Just thought I would share that...yes, I am bitter. Israelis have been going house to house searching for men, or as they call them "Palestinian militants". Yeah, while they search for these militants they happen to steal food, gold and money from the houses. They have been searching my neighborhood for the past few nights, so I was glad I got to go home for 2 nights just in case they came so my mom wouldn't be alone. Every night I would hide the money in my pockets and we would try to find somewhere in the house to hide the gold. We'd sit there waiting for them to come in, but they haven't as of yet. What sucks is that I am now back at work and my mother is once again alone at home. I've started to notice myself changing. I no longer think of the Palestinians who die as people. They've become a number to me. We get hundreds of phone calls a day, mainly from inside Jenin, about all the destruction that is happening around them. One woman called screaming that the Israelis had trapped her and her kids in her house and we're beginning to demolish the house with them in it. She asked for help but there was nothing I could do. There was one when a woman said the Israelis put a gun on her shoulder and shot her nephew. There was another phone call that I thank God I didn't answer because I know I would have gone insane. A young man calls telling us he'd been shot. He kept yelling I am dying over and over again. Then the phone went dead. We didn't hear his voice but we could hear the gunshots around him. We knew he'd died. I stood there for a minute and then had to go about my work as though nothing had happened. Today they lifted the curfew for a few hours. Everytime they do that I feel like an animal. Like I'm in a zoo and they, my keepers, have allowed me to run around for a few hours. I hate it. i feel so low. The tanks and soldiers stand there staring at us while we quickly buy food (for some alcohol). What's weird, is that they are my age and some are even younger than me. I know if we were in the states, because many of the soldiers are american-jews, we could be friends. What is the worst to think about is that things will never be the same again. Maybe the buildings and streets can be re-built, but I know I will never be the same again and that hurts more than anything. And I love the act that america is pulling, by telling israel they "must withdraw now." Nice acting Bush. If he really wanted them to pullout, he would have sent Powell directly here, not taken a week to send him and then have him go to Morocco then Egypt then Spain then Jordan then finally here. Yeah let them finish us off like you did in Bosnia. Thanks for the support Georgie. You make me real proud to be an american. OK, I think I'm done complaining. Thanks for everything you guys and I'm sorry if I couldn't send this email directly to all those who sent me emails. I am counting on my friends and their friends to forward this. Stay safe. Dania |
| Re: Truth Will Set You Free |
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| jannah |
| 04/15/02 at 05:12:40 |
| I found this kind of amusing: A forward of an interview by the Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S., Mr. Farid Abboud. If you didn't see the interview, then THIS IS A MUST READ !!! Fox Interviewer: Mr. Ambassador, do you consider Hizbollah a terrorist organization ? Abboud: Yes, Sharon is a terrorist ! Fox: Mr. Ambassador, this was not my question. I asked you about the operations of Hizbollah in the targeting and killing of innocent civilians. How do you view Hizbollah ? Abboud: Yes, Sharon the terrorist has killed thousands upon thousands of civilians. He is the biggest terrorist out there ! Fox: Mr. Ambassador. Please answer my question. Do you consider Hizbollah a terrorist organization or not ??? Are you against the killing of innocent civilians ?! Abboud: Of course I am against the killing of innocent civilians. You have to define who the innocent civilians are. Sharon, the terrorist has killed many thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians and he is continuing to do so ! Fox: But what about Hizbollah ? Are you telling us that Hizbollah never killed any civilians or plotted to kill any innocent civilians ? Abboud: Hizbollah is a resistance movement. They have a place in the Lebanese parliament and they are fighting for justice and for a good cause. If there were innocent civilians hurt in the process, they are a casualty of war. Hizbollah does not target civilians on purpose, unlike the war monger, Sharon, whose only targets have been civilians, including children !!! Fox: Mr. Ambassador, does this mean you condone the suicide bombers ?! Abboud: I do not condone the actions of the war criminal Sharon !!! Fox interviewer (with apparent frustration): Mr. Ambassador, please stop evading my questions and answer them directly ! Do you condone the suicide bombers ?! Abboud: I do not condone the killing of innocent civilians, but we have to define who is an innocent civilian and who is not !!! If a Palestinian suicide bomber kills a bunch of Israeli soldiers who are committing atrocities against the defenseless Palestinian population, do you consider these soldiers as innocent civilians ??? Fox interviewer (sighing): Mr. Abboud, do you recognize Israel's right to exist ? Abboud: Yes, I recognize PALESTINE'S right to exist !!! Fox interviewer (no words to describe his face): Mr. Ambassador. Please stop this aversion in answering, and answer our specific questions !!! Do you recognize Israel's right to exist or not ?! Abboud: Israel already exists sir. It does not need my recognition. It is the recognition of Palestine to exist that should be addressed !!! Fox: Mr. Ambassador, why are you so one sided and biased in answering our questions ??? Abboud: Sir, it is you who is very one-sided and biased in your questioning !!! Fox interviewer (totally at a loss of words): Mr. Abboud, Lebanese Ambassador to the United States, thank you sir for your time and the interview !!! |
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