[wvns] Israeli Soldiers Beat Palestinian Child's Testicles
bismi-lLahi- rRahmani- rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Footage of Israeli Soldiers Beating Palestinian Children
Fadi, KABOBfest
The Israeli Apartheid Force is undoubtedly the most cowardly army in
the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bdbA2Ka3Bo
Ramallah: Footage captured by an independent American
filmmaker showing Israeli soldiers beating, spitting on and throwing
stones at three Palestinian children offers yet further proof that
Israel's 543 permanent and 610 'flying' checkpoints "are sites of
systematic torture and human rights violations against Palestinian
civilians", said veteran human rights activist, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi
MP at a press conference held in Ramallah today.
The footage was captured at the Ras at-Tira checkpoint in the
Qalqiliya District, and shows the three children attempting to cross
the checkpoint in a horse cart when they are stopped by two Israeli
soldiers. The female soldier is clearly shown beating the boys before
spitting on them and sending them back the way they came. Her male
colleague is then seen picking up stones from the ground and throwing
them at the children as they drive away.
Dr. Barghouthi said the beatings were reminiscent of the physical
assault of 18-year old university student Mohammad Jabali by Israeli
soldiers near the notorious Huwwara checkpoint in Nablus on 18 March
2007. Four Israeli soldiers punched and kicked Jabali in the face,
head and genitals, causing bleeding and a blood clot in his right
testicle. Jabali was forced to undergo surgery and to have part of
the testicle removed.
===
Israeli Democracy: Arabs Need Not Apply
Ellen Davidson
December 9, 2007
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m39046&hd=&size=1&l=e
NAZARETH— Israel is frequently cited as "the only democracy in the
Middle East." The 1.2 million Palestinians living inside Israel's
borders, would beg to differ.
Beginning with the founding of Israel as a Jewish state in 1948,
Palestinians have been treated as second-class citizens and enemies
from within. Each of the "Basic Laws," the foundation of the Israeli
legal system, begins with a statement that Israel is a Jewish state.
For example, the purpose of the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom
is "to establish the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and
democratic state."
From 1948 until 1966, Palestinians inside Israel were subject to
military law, while Jews lived under civilian law. During that time,
66 percent of Arab-owned land was confiscated. In 1947, Jews owned 6.7
percent while Palestinians held the rest. Today, Israeli Palestinians,
20 percent of the population, own 2.5 percent of the land.
Discrimination inside Israel falls broadly into four categories,
according to Mohammad Zeidan, general director of the Nazareth- based
Arab Association for Human Rights (AHR): laws that give different
privileges and rights to Jews and non-Jews; indirect discrimination
not specifically linked to religion; institutional discrimination,
such as allocation of municipal funds; and racism in public life,
including cultural discrimination.
The legal discrimination can be seen explicitly in laws that offer
automatic Israeli citizenship to Jews from anywhere in the world,
while non-Jews who are married to Israeli citizens face a difficult
process for acquiring citizenship.
In order to be elected to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament,
political parties must formally recognize Israel as a Jewish state, so
even advocating complete equality for Palestinians inside Israel would
disqualify a party from running candidates.
Legal discrimination also plays a role in land allocation. Nearly 20
percent of Israeli land is controlled by the Jewish National Fund,
which is legally mandated to use the land only to benefit Jews. Much
of this land was confiscated from its Palestinian owners by the
military or taken away under the "absentee" laws of 1950, which
declared that landowners who were not occupying their land in the
years 1948 to 1952 forfeited their rights to it. Having been made
refugees during the war of 1948, many Palestinians were robbed of
their lands by these laws. In addition, many Palestinian villages had
been declared "military zones" by the Israeli army. The owners
frequently were living a few miles away, waiting for the military to
allow them access to their land, only to have the title stripped from
them.
Indirect discrimination is equally insidious: Many social services
such as student and housing loans are predicated on having a military
service number. Since Palestinians are exempt from military service,
few Israeli Arabs have this number. Orthodox Jews are also exempt from
military service, but they can go to the military service office and
get assigned a number, giving them the same access to the privileges
associated with military service. Many help-wanted ads specify that
the position is open to candidates "after military service," another
way of saying, "Arabs need not apply."
Institutional discrimination crops up in community development plans,
where Palestinian neighborhoods are held to existing land allocations,
while Jewish neighborhoods grow unchecked. In the Arab city of
Nazareth, for example, the population of 13,000 Palestinians in 1947
lived on 3,000 acres. In 2007, with a population of 70,000, the city
occupies only 3,100 acres, with strict limitations on any expansion.
On the hilltops surrounding it, the mainly Jewish city of Nazareth
Illit (built on confiscated Palestinian land) with a population of
50,000, sprawls across 11,250 acres. When the original Palestinian
owners of the land went to court to protest the confiscation of their
property for "public" purposes, arguing that they were also the
public, the court ruled that absorption of immigration was the main
"public purpose" of the time.
In 1965, the Israeli parliament adopted the Planning and Construction
Law governing development in the country. Dozens of villages were
declared "unrecognized" and the land classified as non-residential
agricultural land. Some 100,000 Israeli Palestinians live in these
villages, which Zeidan says are more aptly called "dis-recognized,"
They receive no government services such as electricity, water and
sewage, although they pay the same taxes as other citizens, and all
structures are considered illegal and subject to demolition.
Municipal funding is also plagued by inequity. In Jerusalem, for
example, the population of approximately 700,000 includes 270,000
Palestinians. Social services in mainly Palestinian East Jerusalem
receive 12 percent of the city budget. Education in East Jerusalem
gets 15 percent of the budget. Per capita income in East Jerusalem is
1,311 shekels per month (or $341), versus 5,968 (or $1,520) in West
Jerusalem.
Israel maintains two educational systems, one in Hebrew for Jews and
one in Arabic for Palestinians. According to Ittijah, the Union of
Arab Community-Based Organizations, 75 percent of Jewish schools have
career and vocational guidance services, while only one-quarter of
Arab schools do. Government-funded preschools do not operate in Arab
towns.
Cultural discrimination flows from the other three forms of
discrimination, says the AHR's Zeidan. Israeli culture is steeped in
racism, he says. More than half the population believes that political
rights such as voting should be withdrawn from Palestinians living
inside Israel. The Ysrael B'tenah Party, which with 12 seats is the
fourth largest party in the Knesset, openly speaks of "transfer" of
the Palestinian population. "The space that we can act inside Israel
is getting smaller and smaller," says Zeidan.
While Israel is legally a bilingual state — Hebrew and Arabic — you
are more likely to encounter signage in Russian or English than in
Arabic. ATMs, for instance, are mostly in Hebrew, English and
sometimes Russian. Many government offices refuse to conduct business
in Arabic.
"Israel is a democratic state for Jews and Jews only," says Fida
Ibrahim Abu Ata, public relations director of Ittijah. "And that is
how it should be stated, as plain and vivid as this."
Ellen Davidson is a longtime Jewish- American peace activist from New
York who traveled to Palestine on a delegation with the Middle East
Children's Alliance, mecaforpeace.org.
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