Today in Palestine! ~ Headlines November 7, 2008 ~

Today in Palestine! ~ Headlines November 7, 2008 ~
PCHR Weekly Report: 7 Palestinians killed, 21 injured by Israeli forces
In its weekly summary of Israeli human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights has reported that 7 Palestinian resistance fighters have been killed, 21 civilians have been wounded and 2 have been abducted by Israeli forces occupying the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
http://www.imemc.org/article/57584

OPT: Protection of civilians weekly report 29 Oct - 4 Nov 2008
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/ rwb.nsf/db900SID/VDUX-7L5PTX? OpenDocument&RSS20=02-P

Rafah closed after three days and 2,962 Gazans pass into Egypt
Thirty percent of Gazans who sought to cross into Egypt via Rafah were turned away last week, after Egypt opened the border point for three days. According to de facto Interior Minister Ehab Al-Ghussein the 1,276 individuals who were denied entry into Egypt were said to be missing the appropriate paperwork, from universities or hospitals to which they were travelling. There were also apparently rejections based on "security concerns."
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID= 33073

ISRAEL'S 'ENORMOUS WEB OF UNLAWFUL PRACTICES' DEVASTATING PALESTINIAN SOCIETY
Another report of the Secretary-General, on Applicability of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the other occupied Arab territories (document A/63/484), states that, on 4 September, the Secretary-General addressed a note verbale to the Government of Israel, requesting information on steps taken or envisaged concerning the implementation of the relevant resolution (62/107). No reply has been received, to that request.
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/gaspd415.doc.htm

Israeli soldiers beat civillians at Al-Ma'sara demonstration; settlers bring them juice
Two Palestinians were beaten by Israel soldiers during a demonstration against the separation wall in the West Bank village of Al-Ma'sara south of Bethlehem on Friday. About 200 demonstrators including international and Israeli peace activists marched between the villages of Juret Ash-Sham'a and Al-Ma'sara. As the protesters reached their destination Israeli troops attacked them with batons. Those injured were Ibrahim Ali Taqatqa and Nidal Mahmoud Zawahreh, who sustained light injuries after being struck repeatedly with wooden batons. The popular committee to resist the wall dedicated the day's march to the memory of former Palestinian Prime Minister Yasser Arafat, who died four years ago next week. Several demonstrators reported seeing dozens of settlers from the nearby Efrat settlement approach the area of the demonstration. They said the settlers yelled curses on the demonstrators and gave the soldiers food and juice.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID= 33074

Palestinian farmer seriously wounded in northern Gaza
Palestinian medical sources and eyewitnesses reported on Thursday that Israeli soldiers shot and wounded a Palestinian farmer after surrounding him in his own farm in Jabalia, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
http://www.imemc.org/article/57579

Danish woman injured by Israeli soldiers during Ni'lin protest
A Danish woman was shot with a tear-gas canister during the weekly anti-wall protest in the village of Ni'lin on Friday, and dozens of others suffered tear gas inhalation. The march proceeded as usual with protesters heading towards the site of the construction of the separation wall, and was accosted by Israeli soldiers who tried to prevent the protesters from accessing the confiscated village lands.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID= 33083

Israeli soldiers film themselves humiliating a bound Palestinian man
Israeli Television, Chanel 10, showed on Thursday a video footage taken by Israeli soldiers filming themselves humiliating a bound and blindfolded Palestinian man at a military roadblock in the occupied West Bank, Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported.
http://www.imemc.org/article/57585

Israel Troops Film Themselves Humiliating Palestinian
Israeli Channel 10 on Thursday released footage taken by Israeli occupation soldiers of themselves humiliating a bound and blindfolded Palestinian man at a West Bank checkpoint. The footage shows the Palestinian kneeling and repeating humiliating sentences given to him to say by the occupation soldiers, who belong to the Golani infantry brigade.
http://almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id= 62807&language=en

VIDEO: IDF troops film themselves humiliating bound Palestinian
Channel 10 on Thursday released footage taken by Israel Defense Forces soldiers of themselves humiliating a bound and blindfolded Palestinian man at a West Bank checkpoint.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035088.html

Fatah: Hamas arrests dozens of our activists in Gaza
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group said Hamas forces arrested dozens of its activists in the Gaza Strip on Thursday in an attempt to sabotage Egyptian efforts to reconcile the rival factions.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035074.html

Barghouthi slams Jum'ah arrest; demands immediate release
Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member and leader of the Palestinian National Initiative Mustafa Al-Barghouthi on Friday demanded that Hamas free Ashraf Juma'ah, a Fatah leader detained Thursday in the Gaza Strip. Barghouthi called his abduction "a violation of the laws of the parliament and political jurisdiction," and urged leaders to end political arrests in both Gaza and the West Bank.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID= 33081

Hamas says unlikely to attend Cairo unity meeting
The Islamist group Hamas is unlikely to take part in an Egyptian-sponsored Palestinian reconciliation conference on Sunday, a top Hamas official said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/OWE675972.htm

Fatah and Hamas in unity government talks
The rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah will meet in Cairo on Sunday for the first time in more than a year in an Egyptian-led effort to agree a unified government and end their divisions. Egyptian officials have prepared an outline deal that would include a "national reconciliation government", but it is short on details and could take weeks of negotiation. The last effort at a unity government, arranged by the Saudis in February 2007, collapsed and the factions reverted to a near civil war until Hamas seized full control of Gaza months later.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/07/israel- palestine-egypt

Egypt May Cancel Palestinian Talks
The Egyptians may postpone next week's "national reconciliation" conference for the Palestinian factions following threats by Hamas to boycott the gathering, Palestinian Authority officials said Thursday. The PA officials told Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post that Hamas has informed the Egyptians that the movement has many reservations regarding the Egyptian initiative for solving the crisis between Hamas and Fatah.
http://almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id= 62795&language=en

Status of 11 November Arafat commemoration in Gaza unclear; Hamas says no request for event received
An application to hold a commemoration festival for the former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was rejected by the de facto Gaza government, said Head of the committee organizing the event Abu Walid Az-Ziq. Spokesperson for the de facto Ministry of the Interior Ihab Al Ghusein, however, said the ministry has received no official applications for festival permits.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID= 33064

Jewish settlement growth damaging peace prospects-Rice
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cautioned Israel on Friday about continued building in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, saying it was hurting peace prospects.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L7585096.htm

Narratives under siege - The Israelis attack us every day
"I've been a fisherman for fifteen years now, ever since I was fifteen years old. My father was a fisherman and so was my grandfather. I have spent half my life at sea. But every day we face problems from the Israeli gunboats: they follow us, and then they start shooting at us because they want to force us to stop working."
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/ rwb.nsf/db900sid/FBUO-7L4JTD?OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=ACOS-635PFR

Palestinian youth unemployment rate soars
Palestine's labor force's highest rate of unemployment is among 15-to-29-year-olds, according to a recent survey released Thursday.
The report, published by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), found that the highest unemployment rate is concentrated among youth.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID= 33078

Political and international representatives join Bil'in in weekly protest
An increasing number of high-profile protesters have joined Bil'in residents in their weekly protest against the construction of the separation wall, organized by the local Popular Committee Against the Wall. On Friday Palestinian Minister of Traffic and Transport Mashour Abu Daqa member of the Palestinian Legislative Council Moheb Awad, Fatah member Walid Assaf, and Head of the Middle East Committee in the European Parliament, Aristotelis Pavlides attended the rally.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID= 33080

Palestinian courts open doors for citizens, media to observe judicial process
Special Report- The door of the Palestinian juridical system was opened to the public on Thursday in a response to recent accusations on shortcomings in the courtroom processes. The open courts were packed with media and concerned citizens, who are not permitted into courtrooms unless they are themselves going through legal proceedings.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID= 33067

Obama, Olmert agree on need to advance Mideast peace talks
Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday, and the two discussed the need to press ahead with the peace process with the Palestinians, Olmert's office said.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035129.html

Palestinians protest construction of museum over Islamic cemetery in Jerusalem
A rally to save the Ma'man Allah Islamic cemetery took to Jerusalem streets on Thursday in protest of the Israeli high court's decision to allow the building of a museum for tolerance on the historic Islamic cemetery in East Jerusalem.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID= 33066

Politics versus civic life in Gaza
As the rival Palestinian political parties are set to engage in serious national unity talks in Cairo shortly, they leave behind a series of division-based problems, primarily strikes of public services. For the past 16 months, the ruling Hamas party in Gaza and the Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have been at odds. While Hamas has taken measures against Fatah in Gaza, in the West Bank the reverse has occurred. EI correspondent in Gaza Rami Almeghari reports on the impact the political strife has had on the educational sector in occupied Gaza.
http://electronicintifada.net/ v2/article9943.shtml

"Dignity" ship sails from Cyprus to Gaza on Friday evening
On Friday, November 7, the DIGNITY leaves at 5:00 pm from Larnaca to Gaza. This time, thirteen European Parliamentarians (from England, Ireland, Italy, Turkey, Wales, Switzerland, and Scotland) are on board.
http://www.imemc.org/article/57578

British fund soccer pitch on Palestinian earth slated for separation wall construction
The British Consul General in Jerusalem, and the International aid foundation joined up with the municipality of the northern West Bank town of Az-Zawiah to open a community soccer field on an area of earth designated to run beneath the path of the Israeli separation wall.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID= 33062

London U. event likens Gaza to Ghetto
LONDON - The situation in Gaza will be compared to that in the Warsaw Ghetto under the Nazis, at a prestigious London university next week. The event is being organized by the Palestine Twinning Campaign, a student union group that won a vote last February to twin Goldsmiths with Al-Quds University's campus near Nablus and to offer scholarships to two Al-Quds students.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/satellite?cid=1225910058557& pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle% 2FShowFull

Palestinian rhythms of resistance
Jackie Reem Salloum, a film director and activist, has been one of the key players in the movement to increase global interest in Palestinian art. Born to Palestinian and Syrian parents in Dearborn, Michigan, her artwork was influenced by her experiences as a young woman in the Arab Diaspora. During her late teens, she studied at the renowned Steinhardt art school at New York University, where she learned to reinterpret traditional American cultural symbols like gum ball machines to include references to revolutionary figures like Musa Kazim Pasha al-Husseini, a mayor of Jerusalem who was ousted in the 1920s for his opposition to British pro-Jewish policies.
http://english.aljazeera.net/ focus/2008/11/ 20081167455110341.html

Twilight Zone / Child bride
The scent of aromatic candles wafted through the crammed, ornate pink-walled room. A painting of a naval battle covers most of the wall behind her. The furniture is very stylized. On her desk - near a laptop, a fax machine, a pack of thin Parliaments from which she pulls a cigarette, and a good deal more - sits a photograph of her between her two sons. These are her two boys: The one she had when she was 13, who was taken from her at birth and whom she did not see again for 18 years, and the one she raised by herself.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035015.html

Protecting Yanoun
I consider myself an immensely privileged person. While my friends back home spend the rainy British afternoons indoors, fretting about global financial meltdown and wondering if there's any chance of sunshine this year, I sit in the shade of an olive tree on a hillside overlooking a rust-red Mediterranean valley, and ponder. Compared to London, life in the northern West Bank village of Yanoun moves slowly. A boy of seven or eight stands near me with a plastic pipe and a bottle of detergent, blowing bubbles into the breeze. Lizards dart among the rocks and sparrows scrap noisily in the cracks of a barn wall. The only other sounds are cries from olive pickers in the valley, bleats of sheep and once every half an hour or so, the revs of a distant tractor. For Yanounis, the terms "credit crunch" and "financial crisis" are, like Tony Blair and the Icelandic Krona, largely irrelevant.
http://www.miftah.org/Display. cfm?DocId=18120&CategoryId=5

Gaza woman names quintuplets after Hamas leaders and militants
A woman from the Gaza Strip who recently gave birth to quintuplets named her babies after Hamas leaders and suicide bombers, a local Islamist website reported on Friday. The woman from the Al-Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip delivered three boys and two girls by caesarian section in a hospital in Gaza City.
http://en.rian.ru/world/ 20081107/118188037.html

'Syria will restrain Hezbollah and Hamas if Obama shifts U.S. policy'
Syria would be prepared to restrain the militant activities of Hezbollah and Hamas if a U.S. administration led by President-elect Barack Obama shifts its policy toward Damascus, according to a state analyst in Damascus.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035326.html

Thursday: 13 Iraqis Killed, 34 Wounded
Nov. 6, 2008 At least 13 Iraqis were killed and another 34 were wounded in the latest attacks. Baghdad saw another round of bombings, even as the U.S. and two other countries plan to reduce their troops or remove them completely.
http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=13727

Iraqis seek more 'withdrawal' talks, U.S. says they're over
McClatchy Newspapers - BAGHDAD — The United States delivered Thursday what it said was the final text of the controversial accord on the stationing of U.S. forces in Iraq, but Iraq said more talks are needed before the government can accept it.
http://News.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/ 20081106/wl_mcclatchy/3094184

Shiite preachers warn against Iraq-US troop deal
Several prominent Shiite preachers in Iraq gave fiery Friday sermons warning against the signing of a new security agreement which would keep US forces in the country for up to another three years. "Every Iraqi should read this agreement and decide for himself whether he agrees or disagrees with it," Sheikh Sattar al-Batat, a follower of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, said in the crowded slum of Sadr City.
http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=mideast&item=081107125826.wtzuw1dh.php

The Obama Administration, Iraq, and the Question of Leverage
With Barack Obama's victory in the American presidential elections there are expectations of changes in US policy in Iraq, involving a substantial reduction of force levels. The U.S. forces will withdraw in large numbers, but beyond that, and of interest to those who care for Iraq itself, can Obama realistically hope to achieve anything other than a unilateral withdrawal?
http://electroniciraq.net/News/opeds/The_Obama_ Administration_Iraq_and_the_ Question_of_Leverage-3442.shtml

Time to appoint a Middle East envoy
The US really is indispensable to the resolution of the region's most intractable problems – as long as it rediscovers the transformative power of hard-nosed diplomacy.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ 6fc2f97a-ac41-11dd-bf71- 000077b07658.html

After years of Bush, Arabs see hope in Obama
AP - An Arab news network blared U.S. election coverage in a Cairo hair salon, and the barbers and beauticians watched the images of Barack Obama's victory in amazement. Then it cut to scenes from the latest Israeli-Palestinian violence and the funeral of Gaza fighters.
http://News.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081106/ ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_mideast_ obama

A Palestinian refugee's open letter to Obama
Dear President-elect Barack Obama: I don't know if you will read these words or not, but I do hope that such words that come from my heart will reach yours, and you can find the hope and strength our people still have in them. I do hope that you will fulfill your promise of change, that your daughters will remain proud of their father and his achievements. Right is right, and justice is justice. All people are equal, and no race or color is superior above the others. EI contributor Abdelfattah Abusrour writes from occupied Ramallah.
http://electronicintifada.net/ v2/article9942.shtml

Ahmadinejad to Obama: Restore Palestinian rights
Iranian president sends congratulatory telegram to US president-elect Obama. 'We hope new government can fulfill its people's demand to distance itself from present statesmen's wrong approaches,' he says.
http://www.ynetnews.com/ articles/0,7340,L-3618948,00.html

Why Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, and Others Might Be Nervous About President Obama
John Pilger, Mahmood Mamdani, Raed Jarrar, Tariq Ali, Laura Carlsen, and more on Obama's troubling foreign policy ideas.
http://www.alternet.org/ columnists/story/106196/why_ iraqis%2C_afghans%2C_ palestinians%2C_and
_others_ might_be_nervous_about_ president_obama/

Detroit sends Palestinian Muslim to Legislature
Lawyer and community activist Rashida Tlaib, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants who never attended high school, becomes the first Muslim woman ever to serve in the Michigan Legislature. She said she wouldn't have run but for the repeated urging of her Jewish boss and predecessor, outgoing Democratic state Rep. Steve Tobocman.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/News/chi-ap-muslimwoman- lawmaker,0,2757415.story

A Plea from Israel: Come, Obama, Change My Life
Obama my dear, they tell me that you are going to change the world. Do me a favor, come and change my life personally. Come to Israel, grab its stupid leadership by the throat and take its foot off the neck of another people. Come and force us to do what is clear, and written, and fitting, and necessary, come and get us out of the Territories, if necessary do it with a smile that reveals million-dollar teeth. If necessary bare your teeth and force us to do it.
http://www.counterpunch.com/ canetti11062008.html

Rahm Emanuel's father: "What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House."
In an interview with Ma'ariv, Emanuel's father, Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, said he was convinced that his son's appointment would be good for Israel. "Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel," he was quoted as saying. "Why wouldn't he be? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/satellite?pagename=JPost/ JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1225910047157

U.S. Jews laud Obama pick of Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff
America's Jewish community welcomed U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's pick of Rep. Rahm Emanuel for the post of Chief of Staff, saying that the choice demonstrates that Obama has learned from the mistakes of previous Democratic presidents.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035128.html

Black Israeli Voices on Obama's Victory
The tag "extremist" is best to be avoided; being essentially relative, its main function is defamatory. "Extremists" are those who are on the farthest margin; but margins are relative and volatile. Many Israelis would say a person supporting full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines is an "extremist," just because this position – shared, in fact, by most states and people on the globe, as well as by international law and the United Nations – is marginalized within Israel. I guess in Saudi Arabia, supporters of women's right to drive a car are "extremists" too.
http://www.antiwar.com/ hacohen/?articleid=13730

ADL blasts Greek paper for branding Obama win `end of Jewish domination`
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Thursday blasted a mainstream Greak newspaper for running a headline declaring Barack Obama's election as "The end of Jewish domination."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035100.html

'Obama haters' attack black-Muslim youth in US
As celebrations of Barack Obama's historic victory broke out across the United States, a group of hooded white men brutally attacked a young black-Muslim immigrant while shouting "Obama," press reported Friday. Liberian immigrant Ali Kamara, 17, said he was on his way home on the Nov.
http://www.alarabiya.net/ articles/2008/11/07/59666.html

UK: Copy of Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty Four" Sent To Every MP
The books will be inscribed with the words, 'This book was a warning, not a blueprint', and will arrive at Parliament on or before November 5th -- a date of well known historical significance for that building.
http://thejournal.parker- joseph.co.uk/blog/_archives/ 2008/11/4/3962135.html

George Orwell - 1984 - The MovieVideo
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/ article15531.htm

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