THE HANDSTAND

FEBRUARY 2003

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you got it made. - Groucho Marx

..INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT

Nablus:  Terror and Resistance   Today is the fourth day of the Israeli Army's campaign of terror against the Old City of Nablus, during which ISM activists based in the city worked with Palestinian UPMRC (first aid) volunteers in the delivery of food and medicine to stranded households, rescuing the injured, evacuating families from occupied houses and monitoring the activities of Israeli troops. 

  In their rescue operations they were frequently hindered by Israeli soldiers who denied them access to areas where wounded people were stranded. 

  On two occasions yesterday they were able to rescue families who called out to them from the top floors of their occupied houses.  With the ISM activists looking on, the families were able to escape from the houses without interference from the soldiers occupying the house. 

..However, today they were unable to rescue a woman, her ten year old son and new baby from a house under occupation by Israeli special forces.  The woman's husband has been taken into detention by the Israelis and the soldiers denied that the woman wanted to leave her home.  When the activists insisted on talking to her the soldiers took her to window while keeping her children in another room.  With the soldiers standing behind her the visibly terrified woman, whose arm had been injured, told the activists that she didn't want to leave.  Later the soldiers vacated the house for the house across the road.  They had been there only an hour when the activists arrived with a doctor who had come to give a tranquilising injection to a hysterical  teenage girl who was traumatised by the soldiers' behaviour but already that house had been thoroughly vandalised.  The family of eight were all being kept in a small room.


 
Last night the activists were fired upon by Arab mercenaries who were holding prisoner an ambulance driver, and four UPMRC volunteers in the Hammam Shifeh bathhouse.  This time the mercenaries shot to kill rather than shooting over their heads or at the ground as it their usual practice and the activists heard the bullets whistling past their heads.  The ISM then contacted Miri Weingarten of the human rights organisation, Physicians for Human Rights, who contacted the Israeli Army at 8.15 pm, informing them that medical workers were being held as prisoners in violation of international law.  The Army spokesperson calmly informed her that they were aware of this and they would be released in 10 to 15 minutes.  At 10 pm the activists were told by the troops that they could retrieve the female UPMRC volunteer from the bathhouse.   When they did so the rest of the medical workers were led away to the interrogation centre at Jamal Abd Nasser School.  They were finally released from there at 2 am last night.

  It seems that it is the Israeli Army's strategy to round up for interrogation as many men as possible in the hope of recruiting them as informers.   
  This morning the Army expanded the focus of their operations from the east to the west of the Old City but their tactics remained the same:  human shields were made to walk before the soldiers as they conducted their house to house searches and made their captives stand in front of the buildings as they ransacked homes, took away the men, occupied houses and confined their occupants in single rooms.

 

A new feature of the operation was that tanks based in the suburb of Ras El-Ain fired their shells into the Old City.  Their targets were not apparent to those who witnessed the assault since there were no resistance fighters in the area.   This afternoon Tommy,  a Danish journalist working with the ISM, and 15 UPMRC volunteers were bringing food to families living near the Jamal Abd Nasser School in the Ras el-Ain suburb.  The entire school has been turned into a military base by the occupying army who are being billeted in occupied houses surrounding the school. 

The families of these houses have not been allowed out to buy food since the invasion commenced.  They found the streets around the school full of tanks, armoured personnel carriers (APCs) and soldiers.  At 4.40 pm they saw that four other UPMRC volunteers were being held next to an APC so they approached to investigate.  When they arrived at the APC its commander immediately demanded to see Tommy's passport.  When Tommy handed it over, the APC's commander, Ariel Ze'ev emerged from the vehicle.
  "Do you remember me fat-arse?" he asked.  "You're in big trouble now."  

Ariel Ze'ev headbutted Tommy at Azmut checkpoint two weeks ago and.  He and his men are renown in Nablus as among the most sadistic soldiers in the area.  He has boasted to ISM activists that he is not human and enjoys making people suffer, has been seen by the activists beating women at Azmut checkpoint and has been known to roam the streets around his occupied house in search of Palestinian children to take back and beat up.  

The soldiers then took one of the UPMRC volunteers into the APC as a prisoner and then began to taunt Tommy.
  "Am I getting my passport back?" the journalist asked.   "No no no!"  Ariel replied.  "When I get asked about this I will say it was all a misunderstanding.  Anyhow I've been missing you.  I need something ugly to look at."   "I haven't seen you for a long time either," replied Tommy.  "I was beginning to think that Israeli soldiers weren't that bad."   "You never know when I'll be back," replied Ariel.  "By the way, where's Maria?  I've been missing Maria."  (Maria is another member of the ISM.)

Gradually, all of the prisoners were released except Tommy and Jaber Jowbreh, the UPMRC worker held in the APC.   When darkness fell Ariel told Tommy he could leave but that he would keep his passport.  Unwilling to spend the night in such unwholesome company, Tommy left and is working with the Danish consulate to recover his passport.   After Tommy left Jaber Jowbreh remained unaccounted for several hours but, after a coordinated campaign by the ISM and the Israeli human rights group, Hamoked, to discover his location, he was released from prison at around midnight.  

Two Palestinians were killed yesterday (a man and his grandson who were crossing the road together) and two more killed today.  One was killed trying to cross the street with his wife (who was injured in the same attack and is now in hospital).  The other was shot dead by soldiers when they saw him trying to close the door of his store, which had been damaged when the soldiers forced their way into the store on a previous occasion. 

The ISM are unable to determine the number people wounded over the past two days as they have been too busy to visit the hospital.
  The Army claims that its operation in Nablus is intended to destroy the infrastructure of terrorist (Palestinian resistance) groups operating in Nablus but, "because the Old City was not sealed off before it was invaded, the resistance fighters were easily able to escape to other parts of the city ."  A more likely explanation for the operation is that it was intended to terrorise the city's population into submission. 

  If this is the case then it seems to have been totally unsuccessful.  Yesterday, 1,500 people gathered at a rally outside of the Old City organised by the Political Coalition (an alliance of Nablus community associations).  This evening the Political Coalition coordinated a protest involving the entire population of Nablus.  At 8.30 the people of the city all came out onto their rooftops and to their windows and began to cry Allah Akhbar (God is Great), whistle and bang their pots and pans together.    The more daring then began to gather in the streets, in spite of the pouring rain, to shake hands light fires and march to the city centre as they were cheered from the windows and rooftops of Nablus.  Tommy, accompanied the crowd which and reported that he felt carried along by the tremendous civic pride of the people of Nablus.   Though physically exhausted from their labours of the past four days and shocked by the savagery of the violence that they have witnessed against defenseless civilians, the spirits of the ISM activists have been raised by this display of resistance by a city that is occupied but nevertheless unconquered.   The picture was taken today of a soldier in Nablus guarding two of his human shields.  
..20 22 February 2003 22:52


Canadian Weapons Inspection Team!!!

http://www.rootingoutevil.org

MISSION USA: UPDATE: February 17, 2003

With only five days left before our trip to the
U.S.A., final arrangements are now being made for our
first weapons inspection.

Today we sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld serving notice that we will be sending
an international team of weapons inspectors to
Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Maryland on
Sunday, February 23, 2003 to investigate U.S.
involvement in the development and storage of chemical
and biological weapons. Read the letter here.

The delegation that will be performing the inspection
at Edgewood includes: Libby Davies, Member of
Parliament (Canada - NDP); Alan Simpson, Member of
Parliament (United Kingdom - Labour) and head of
Labour Against the War; Christy Ferguson, Organizer
and Spokesperson, Rooting Out Evil; Deborah Bourque,
National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers;
Steven Staples, Defense Analyst, Polaris Institute;
Mel Watkins, Professor Emeritus - Economics and
Political Science, University of Toronto; Samaa
Elibyari, Representative, Canadian Islamic Congress;
Ed Hammond, Director, Sunshine Project; Peter Shorett,
Director of Programmes, Council for Responsible
Genetics; Francesco Martone, Senator (Italy - Green
Party; Graziella Mascia, Member of Parliament (Italy -
Rifondazione Communista); and Pernille Rosenkrantz,
Member of Parliament (Denmark - Red-Green Alliance).

Supporters and the general public are invited to join
the team at a public forum in Washington D.C. at
7:30pm, Saturday, February 22nd at the First
Congregational Church, 945 G Street NW (corner at 10th
and G, next to the library).

We would like to extend our sincerest appreciation to
all of our honorary inspectors for the financial and
moral support that has made this project possible.

We have selected the US as our first priority based on
criteria provided by the Bush administration.
According to those criteria, the most dangerous states
are those run by leaders who:

1) have massive stockpiles of chemical, biological,
and nuclear weapons;
2) ignore due process at the United Nations;
3) refuse to sign and honour international treaties;
and
4) have come to power through illegitimate means.

The current US administration fulfills all these
criteria. And so, again following Bush's guidelines,
Rooting Out Evil is demanding that his administration
allow immediate and unfettered access to international
weapons inspectors to search out their caches of
chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.

On the weekend of February 22/23, the team will
attempt to cross into the United States on a mission
of peace, and will be greeted on the US side by
Americans who favour true global cooperation, an end
to weapons of mass destruction, and a regime change in
the US at the next election. The team will then
attempt to inspect a US site suspected of housing
weapons of mass destruction.


JOURNALISTS SACKED BY BBC

Matt Wells(The Guardian)
Friday February 21, 2003

The two journalists sacked by the BBC World Service after an alleged "breakdown of trust" today said they had been victims of character assassination.

Adli Hawwari and Dr Abdul-Hadi Jiad, producers in the BBC's Arabic Service at Bush House in London, held a press conference at the headquarters of the National Union of Journalists, saying they had been victims of malicious briefing by the BBC press office.

The pair were marched out of Bush House on Wednesday, after their dismissal - without right of appeal - was approved by the director general, Greg Dyke.

The BBC accused them of making "malicious and vexatious" complaints. The two men were involved in 17 employment tribunals and 20 appeals over five years.

Today, Dr Jiad maintained he had been dismissed partly because of his Iraqi descent: "It is certainly linked to my origin, and they want to clear the place of Iraqis before war."

The BBC has said there are six other Iraqis working for the World Service. But Dr Jiad countered that none work in the current affairs department of the Arabic service, but for the online section.

He maintained that his professional record was clean. "There has never been any disciplinary action against me throughout my life at all. On the day of my dismissal, I was the day editor, in charge of all current affairs programmes."

Mr Hawwari, who is a member of the NUJ national executive, said a year had passed since his last tribunal against the BBC. He had offered to be moved to another department to defuse tensions, but claims all offers of reconciliation were rejected.

"When people get sacked it's usually a quiet affair, but this was unprecedented. We were producers. In the hierarchy of the BBC, we were very very low.

"But our dismissal was very well publicised, a press release was issued and there was briefing against us. It was malicious.

"For an organisation that is meant to be broadcasting accurate news, this was a disgraceful action.

"This is to scare people at the World Service, to give the message: 'Don't open your mouth, if you open your mouth, you are going to get it'."

He attacked the BBC for the manner in which it publicised the sackings.

"To leak it to the media, there is an element of character assassination involved," he said.

The NUJ pointed out that the BBC's Arabic Service had a long history of problems with employee relations.

NUJ spokesman Tim Gopsill said: "We have professors and poets here who are put to work as translators of material prepared by English people in the World Service newsroom who don't understand what is going on in their country."

Mr Hawwari pointed out that the department's head, Gamon McLellan, cannot speak Arabic to a level at which he could understand the programmes being put out.

"The fact that the Arabic Service is headed by someone who doesn't speak the language speaks for itself," he said.

The television branch of the NUJ's London section passed a motion in support of the pair last night, saying: "This branch is appalled that the BBC tries to ride roughshod over British industrial law in such a reckless matter. It urges the BBC to reconsider."

The BBC maintained it had acted properly.

A spokesman said: "We felt these were quite exceptional circumstances.

"For the past five years, these ex-employees, under the cloak of legal privilege, have made the most malicous and untrue allegations against the BBC and its staff, and continued to make these on the day they were dismissed.

"It was important that the BBC's side was put."


tony Blair refuses,Feb.6th 2003, to rule out war on Iraq "without a new UN mandate",  if there is an "unreasonable veto" in the Security Council.

(This means that no veto re. Israel from America against observers or a peace keeping force, for which Palestine has pleaded for years,was ever unreasonable ??

England, therefore, is prepared  to and is party to, and has always condoned the murder of Palestinian civilians, school-children and the aged, pregnant women and the new-born and thousands of men - England is really also at war for Jewish and Bankers financial interests in the Middle East ??)

Dossier on Iraq.


THE
UK DOSSIER LIFTED EVIDENCE - 10 OF 19 PAGES  PLUS DOCUMENT DETAILS ON OTHER PAGES BY WHITEHALL OFFICIALS, NOT "INTELLIGENCE SERVICE" MATERIAL: 

The latest English Gov. dossier on Iraq - allegedly drawn on "intelligence material" is plagiarised right down to original grammatic errors from internet material from the Middle East Review, Sept.2002, by Ibrahim al-Marashi, and draws heavily from Jane's Intelligence Review 1997 and Nov.2002.


Colin Powell,U.S.Secretary of State calls this a "fine paper" of "exquisite detail".

Four Whitehall officials working on the rest of the document are named - which indicates that the English do not have any independent sources of information, drawing on publicly available data.

Electronic cut and paste that fails to acknowledge its sources - but was recognised for what it is by a lecturer in politics at Cambridge University.
Guardian,7.1.2003, Illustration Steve Bell.

Popular referendums are no guarantee of direct democracy, just as little as parliamentary elections prove that democracy is alive and well. That is why the quality and effectiveness of popular rights depends on the precise procedures put in place. The forthcoming EU-accession referenda present a great opportunity of overcoming some of these procedural failings, writes BRUNO KAUFMANN
Link to article 
http://www.euobserver.com/index.phtml?aid=9227


.POLITICAL ANALYST NORMAN SOLOMON WRITES:


There's no doubt about it: Colin Powell is a great performer, as he showed yet again at the U.N. Security Council the other day. On television, he exudes confidence and authoritative judgment. But Powell owes much of his touted credibility to the fact that he's functioning inside a media bubble that protects him from direct challenge.

     Powell doesn't face basic questions like these:

     *  You cite Iraq's violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions to justify the U.S. launching an all-out war. But you're well aware that American allies like Turkey, Israel and Morocco continue to violate dozens of Security Council resolutions. Why couldn't other nations claim the right to militarily "enforce" the Security Council's resolutions against countries that they'd prefer to bomb?

     *  You insist that Iraq is a grave threat to the other nations of the Middle East. But, with the exception of Israel, no country in the region has made such a claim or expressed any enthusiasm for a war on Iraq. If Iraq is a serious threat to the region, why doesn't the region feel threatened?

Tacit erasure of inconvenient history -- including his own -- is integral to the warm relationship between Powell and U.S. news media.

The Gulf War catapulted Powell to the apex of American political stardom in early 1991. When he was asked about the Iraqi death toll from that war, Powell said that such numbers didn't interest him.

At this point it seems that only a miracle could prevent the Bush administration from going ahead with its plans for a horrific attack on Iraq, sure to kill many thousands of civilians. The U.S. leaders will demonstrate their evident belief that -- in Colin Powell's apt words -- "with the destruction of buildings, with the murder of people, they can somehow achieve a political purpose."

For an in-depth analysis of Colin Powell's role in setting the media agenda for a war on Iraq in 2003, go to
www.accuracy.org/unilateral.pdf -- an excerpt from "Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You," a new book by Norman Solomon and Reese Erlich, just published as a paperback original by Context Books. For the prologue to the book and information on how to order, go to: http://www.contextbooks.com/newF.html

Due to the pressure of events this Diary will be updated during the month.THE MOST RECENT MAILS BEING AT THE TOP OF THE COLUMN

BACKGROUND : A KRAUZE, CARTOON: STEVE BELL