The Renewed Israeli Occupation
2 million Palestinians under curfew for 50 days!

Punishment by detail

In the West, however, there's been such repetitious and unedifying attention paid to Palestinian suicide bombing that a gross distortion in reality has completely obscured what is much worse: the official Israeli, and perhaps the uniquely Sharonian evil that has been visited so deliberately and so methodically on the Palestinian people. Suicide bombing is reprehensible but it is a direct and, in my opinion, a consciously programmed result of years of abuse, powerlessness and despair. It has as little to do with the Arab or Muslim supposed propensity for violence as the man in the moon. Sharon wants terrorism, not peace, and he does everything in his power to create the conditions for it. But for all its horror, Palestinian violence, the response of a desperate and horribly oppressed people, has been stripped of its context and the terrible suffering from which it arises: a failure to see that is a failure in humanity, which doesn't make it any less terrible but at least situates it in a real history and real geography. [read more]

thanks to also not found in nature

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Lest you think peaceful demonstrations are the answer...

Peaceful demonstrators to be deported

Today’s march in Huwwara was a peaceful civilian protest against siege, curfew, occupation and terror. Signs held by Palestinian children read, “Occupation is the worst kind of terror” and “Give us Freedom, We will bring the food and medicine.” Unarmed civilians, old and young were gassed, shot at, beaten and arrested by Israeli soldiers and police for protesting collective punishment and other grave violations of international law being committed by the Israeli military and government.

Unfortunately, Palestinians, who often try to protest alone and otherwise attempt to make their voices heard, are met with brutal, sometimes lethal violence, and international silence. The Israelis are not held accountable to anyone for the life and well-being of the Palestinian people – a people living under Israeli military and civilian occupation. Today, dozens of foreign civilians joined hands and voices with Palestinians to call for a lifting of siege and curfew and an end to the occupation. The Israeli military and police viciously attacked the peaceful demonstrators and the Israeli government is now deporting these international voices of freedom and conscience. Why? [read more]

Peaceful, joint Arab/Jewish demonstration organized by Ta'ayush violently turned away at Bethlehem roadblock

The Israeli Border Police and Army violently attacked a group of approximately 700 Arab and Jewish demonstrators who were attempting to enter Bethlehem from Jerusalem for a cooperative Palestinian and Israeli demonstration against the occupation outside of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem. The demonstration was organized by the joint Arab/Jewish organization Ta'ayush. [read more]