The New Nation - Internet Edition

Top 5 lies about Israel's assault on Gaza

1.Israel is only targeting legitimate military sites and is seeking to protect innocent lives. Israel never targets civilians.

The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated pieces of property in the world. The presence of fighters within a civilian population does not, under international law, deprive that population of their protected status, and hence any assault upon that population under the guise of targeting fighters is, in fact, a war crime.

Moreover, the people Israel claims are legitimate targets are members of Hamas, which Israel says is a terrorist organization. Hamas has been responsible for firing rockets into Israel. These rockets are extremely inaccurate and thus, even if Hamas intended to hit military targets within Israel, are indiscriminate by nature. When rockets from Gaza kill Israeli civilians, it is a war crime.

Hamas has a military wing. However, it is not entirely a military organization, but a political one. Members of Hamas are the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people. Dozens of these elected leaders have been kidnapped and held in Israeli prisons without charge.

Others have been targeted for assassination, such as Nizar Rayan, a top Hamas official. To kill Rayan, Israel targeted a residential apartment building. The strike not only killed Rayan but two of his wives and four of his children, along with six others. There is no justification for such an attack under international law. This was a war crime.

Other of Israel's bombardment with protected status under international law have included a mosque, a prison, police stations, and a university, in addition to residential buildings.

Moreover, Israel has long held Gaza under siege, allowing only the most minimal amounts of humanitarian supplies to enter. Israel is bombing and killing Palestinian civilians. Countless more have been wounded, and cannot receive medical attention. Hospitals running on generators have little or no fuel. Doctors have no proper equipment or medical supplies to treat the injured. These people, too, are the victims of Israeli policies targeted not at Hamas or legitimate military targets, but directly designed to punish the civilian population.

2. Hamas violated the cease-fire. The Israeli bombardment is a response to Palestinian rocket fire and is designed to end such rocket attacks.

Israel never observed the cease-fire to begin with. From the beginning, it announced a "special security zone" within the Gaza Strip and announced that Palestinians who enter this zone will be fired upon. In other words, Israel announced its intention that Israeli soldiers would shoot at farmers and other individuals attempting to reach their own land in direct violation of not only the cease-fire but international law.

Despite shooting incidents, including ones resulting in Palestinians getting injured, Hamas still held to the cease-fire from the time it went into effect on June 19 until Israel effectively ended the truce on November 4 by launching an airstrike into Gaza that killed five and injured several others.

Israel's violation of the cease-fire predictably resulted in retaliation from militants in Gaza who fired rockets into Israel in response. The increased barrage of rocket fire at the end of December is being used as justification for the continued Israeli bombardment, but is a direct response to the Israeli attacks.

Israel's actions, including its violation of the cease-fire, predictably resulted in an escalation of rocket attacks against its own population.

3. Hamas is using human shields, a war crime.

There has been no evidence that Hamas has used human shields. The fact is, as previously noted, Gaza is a small piece of property that is densely populated. Israel engages in indiscriminate warfare such as the assassination of Nizar Rayan, in which members of his family were also murdered. It is victims like his dead children that Israel defines as "human shields" in its propaganda.

There is no legitimacy for this interpretation under international law. In circumstances such as these, Hamas is not using human shields, Israel is committing war crimes in violation of the Geneva Conventions and other applicable international law.

4. Arab nations have not condemned Israel's actions because they understand Israel's justification for its assault.

The populations of those Arab countries are outraged at Israel's actions and at their own governments for not condemning Israel's assault and acting to end the violence. Simply stated, the Arab governments do not represent their respective Arab populations. The populations of the Arab nations have staged mass protests in opposition to not only Israel's actions but also the inaction of their own governments and what they view as either complacency or complicity in Israel's crimes.

Moreover, the refusal of Arab nations to take action to come to the aid of the Palestinians is not because they agree with Israel's actions, but because they are submissive to the will of the US, which fully supports Israel. Egypt, for instance, which refused to open the border to allow Palestinians wounded in the attacks to get medical treatment in Egyptian hospitals, is heavily dependent upon US aid, and is being widely criticized within the population of the Arab countries for what is viewed as an absolute betrayal of the Gaza Palestinians.

Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been regarded as a traitor to his own people for blaming Hamas for the suffering of the people of Gaza. Palestinians are also well aware of Abbas' past perceived betrayals in conniving with Israel and the U.S. to sideline the democratically elected Hamas government, culminating in a counter-coup by Hamas in which it expelled Fatah (the military wing of Abbas' Palestine Authority) from the Gaza Strip. While his apparent goal was to weaken Hamas and strengthen his own position, the Palestinians and other Arabs in the Middle East are so outraged at Abbas that it is unlikely he will be able to govern effectively.

5. Israel is not responsible for civilian deaths because it warned the Palestinians of Gaza to flee areas that might be targeted.

Israel claims it sent radio and telephone text messages to residents of Gaza warning them to flee from the coming bombardment. But the people of Gaza have nowhere to flee to. They are trapped within the Gaza Strip. It is by Israeli design that they cannot escape across the border.

It is by Israeli design that they have no food, water, or fuel by which to survive. It is by Israeli design that hospitals in Gaza have no electricity and few medical supplies with which to treat the injured and save lives. And Israel has bombed vast areas of Gaza, targeting civilian infrastructure and other sites with protected status under international law. No place is safe within the Gaza Strip.

(http://english. aljazeera. com/news/ articles/ 39/Top_5_ lies_about_ Israel_s_ assault_on_ Gaza.html)

Christmas carols on Palestinian plight

Gill El Kaffash

Most people who grow up in England are familiar with Christmas carols - we sing them in school, hear them on radio, on television, in the supermarket. For those of us who know the situation in Palestine, singing the words has become rather painful, the picture of the Holy Land so different from the current realities. So a number of people began re-writing the words, such as: "O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie! A wall is laid where tourists stayed, and people can't go by," singing them in Trafalgar Square, in Whitehall, at railway stations and at other places.

But in this 60th anniversary year of the Naqba, a group decided to do something more ambitious. Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods booked St James's Church, Piccadilly, a beautiful, historic church in the centre of London.

The concert which developed was based quite closely on the traditional Christian festival of nine lessons and carols. Each of the nine alternative readings began with an extract from an official document, such as a UN resolution, followed by a piece of writing from the same period, most of them by Palestinians and all of them about Palestinian suffering. The first reading was preceded by a declaration from the League of Nations Mandate of 1922, the final one by a report from the UN Rapporteur, Richard Falk, on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The final writing itself was by a 16-year-old injured Gazan, describing their joy at the arrival of the Free Gaza boats in Gaza Harbour in August 2008. The Free Gaza Movement has broken the siege of Gaza by sailing boats from Cyprus with supplies and international witnesses of the horror of Gaza. The concert finished with a rendition from the whole audience, readers and singers of "Oh let's not ignore it. Tell the world."

Each piece conformed to two essential criteria: they had to be a Palestinian experience and to illustrate certain events or periods in the history of the continuing Naqba. Dr Swee Ang's contribution was the exception; she was an eyewitness of the Sabra and Shatilla massacres of 1982. She told about how this experience destroyed her support of Israel, and how God brought her to understand the suffering of Palestinians through her repentance.

Between the Mandate of 1922 and the Free Gaza boats of 2008, the readings covered the Partition Plan for Palestine of 1948 and the ethnic cleansing by which Israel was established. This included the Deir Yassin massacre of April 9 1948 and the 1967 seizure of the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai and the Golan Heights. The first and second intifadas were marked by UN Resolutions and relevant writings. The Apartheid Wall was dealt with by the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 2004 and accompanied by a poem by Arab poet Randa Hamwi.

For many of the 100 strong audience, the UN Resolutions were a revelation; though sympathetic to the Palestinians, they had not realised quite how far outside international law Israel is. The accounts of suffering and the illegality of Israel's actions gave even more poignancy to the forceful words of the carols. It was uplifting for those of us who were used to singing these carols unaccompanied by passers-by in the street to sing them in a beautiful building, accompanied by professional singers and an organ.

We were honoured to have some distinguished readers. They included Liberal Democrat Baroness Jenny Tonge, who is an object of hate for Zionists for her remarks some years ago that she could understand how some people felt driven by their oppression to become suicide bombers. Her participation in the concert provoked protests in her party offices in the House of Lords. A Darwish poem, "In Jerusalem", was read in Arabic by Mohammad Qeshta, a human rights activist from Gaza who witnessed the killing of Tom Hurndall, a young British photographer, by an Israeli Army sniper; the English version was read by Bruce Kent, Vice President of Pax Christi, a Christian organisation that has publicised the situation in Bethlehem for some years.

There was a reading was from Resolution 521, a very strong condemnation of the Christian Phalangist massacre in Lebanon, followed by Dr Swee Ang's account.

Jocelyn Hurndall, Tom's mother, gave a reading. His family persisted in forcing Israel to prosecute the sniper who killed him, despite strong resistance.

The church stood by their decision to host the concert, despite much abuse. The protests against the church took the line that it should not involve itself in politics. Some Christian and Jewish critics objected to Jewish involvement in a Christian church and Christian tradition.

Not only did the church resist this pressure, but the rector welcomed us to the event and one of the church priests gave the first reading. We are very grateful for their support.

Deborah Fink of J-BIG was the overall organiser, arranged the music and was the soprano singer.

Though the event was often described as a parody of the Christian service, the tone was deeply religious for most of us whether Christian, Muslim , Jewish or of no religious persuasion.

We are grateful to the generous audience who contributed to a collection for Medical Aid for Palestinians, Open Bethlehem and the Free Gaza Movement. The next boat to Gaza will carry baby food. Anyone wishing to contribute should visit www.freegaza.org.

(Gill El Kaffash is Secretary of the Camden Branch of Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.)

Women and Islamic resistance

Dr Maria Holt

Wafa works as a university lecturer in Beirut. She is also a supporter of the Islamic resistance. When I interviewed Wafa (not her real name) last year, she told me that she believes all Lebanese should respect the resistance because it protects the honour and dignity of Lebanon. She added that it is a woman's job to work as hard as she can to bridge the gap between women in different societies. In Wafa's opinion, Europeans know nothing about Muslim women in Lebanon; they think they are ignorant, confined women. But in Islam, women are very active, she said, in society, the economy, and also the jihad; women are the backbone of society. The testimonies of Wafa, and many other women in Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories, formed the starting point for a conference on women and Islamic resistance which took place at the University of Westminster on November 7.

The conference brought together a diversity of perspectives on the contentious question of how Muslim women confront situations of violent conflict.

Opening the conference, which was organised under the auspices of the Democracy and Islam Programme, Fadwa Al-Labadi from Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, spoke about Islamic feminism in Palestine. In her view, Palestinian Islamist feminists are seeking to transform "tradition" into a "modern" new language in order to make religious laws and doctrine accord with women's demands for liberty and equality. She referred to the Palestinian national elections of 2006 in which the Islamist party Hamas, to the surprise of many outsiders, won a resounding victory. Hamas, as Dr Al-Labadi explained, were able to attract widespread support by offering social welfare programmes to disadvantaged members of the community; many women responded positively to such activities. I then spoke about my own research project; in 2007, I interviewed a broad range of women in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories with a view to finding out how they have been affected by Islamic resistance movements. My research revealed that many women actively support the Islamist groups Hizbullah and Hamas in the sense that they provide feelings of dignity for populations who otherwise feel powerless against Israeli invasion and occupation.

Taking a somewhat broader perspective, Dina Melham from the Westminster Foundation for Democracy considered the question of women's rights and equality on an individual and national level. Dr Melham asked to what extent women, who are the victims of discriminatory practices, are able to transcend traditional obstacles in order to represent their national values. The final speaker in this panel, Elaheh Rostami-Povey from School of Oriental and African Studies, London, spoke movingly about the struggle of Afghan women during the Taliban period and the present invasion. She challenged the stereotype in the west of the Afghan woman as a passive victim awaiting liberation and argued that western perceptions of women's liberation, which advocate the adoption of "superior" western models, are inappropriate.

Based at the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, Omayma Abdel-Latif has carried out research into the experiences of women associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Many Islamist women, she argued, are pushing for greater representation and a wider role. In September 2007, the Muslim Brotherhood released its first political party draft, which included a ban on women becoming the head of state in Egypt; this has proved controversial and throws into question previous statements by the Brotherhood in relation to women. In order to gain a more complete picture of women's resistance in the Arab world, two speakers addressed the situation of women in Iraq. Haifaa Jawad from the University of Birmingham provided a historical overview of Iraqi women's struggles, arguing that, as early as the 1950s, the Iraqi state ensured that the constitution guaranteed not only the dignity of women but also their legal, social, economic, educational and political rights. These rights, she suggested, were regarded as progressive at the time and continued to be protected under successive regimes. The situation of women has changed drastically since the American-led invasion of 2003. This theme was taken up by Nadje Al-Ali from SOAS who discussed how Iraqi women's rights activists have been positioning themselves vis-à-vis the occupation, the Government and the Islamist resistance. By exploring the activities of the women's movement, she argued that, for women's rights activists, the militias linked to the resistance as well as Islamist militant groups pose an equal danger.

After lunch, Roschanack Shaeri-Eisenlohr from the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern world (ISIM) in the Netherlands discussed Shi'a radicalism in Lebanon and argued that scholars need to develop a more nuanced approach to the presentation and activities of Hizbullah, rather than romanticizing the group as a model of "modernity". The discussion then moved to Lina Khatib's presentation on women "as public diplomacy tools". Dr Khatib, who is based at Royal Holloway, examined the work of the Museum of Martyrs in Tehran and suggested that the Iranian regime uses women, including Lebanese and Palestinian women, as public diplomacy tools to promote a positive image of itself as an Islamic democracy. In the final paper of the conference, PhD candidate Sara Ababneh from Oxford University discussed the role of women in Hamas and argued that, through Islamic political work, women activists are able to use "the emancipatory language of the Qur'an" to challenge the oppressive conditions of their daily lives.

The conference was warmly received by an audience that included academics, journalists, diplomats and government officials. It provided a welcome contribution to the debate on the role of women in Islam and challenged western perceptions of female powerlessness in Muslim societies. There was an acknowledgement that the topic urgently needs more in-depth research.

(Source: Muslim News, UK. Dr Maria Holt is Lecturer in Democracy & Islam Programme, Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster.)