[Mb-civic] On suicide bombing

Tue Apr 18 19:03:39 PDT 2006

"'So, there will be a retaliation, and the
Palestinians will retaliate to the retaliation, and we
will retaliate again, and then what?" No answer was
forthcoming."'  - Israeli Defense Minister Mofaz

Comment on the day of the suicide bombing

From: Adam Keller of "Gush Shalom"

Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 1:04 AM

We had just heard about the explosion and were busy
making phonecalls: "Wanted just to know you are okay.
You heard about the bombing, did you?" Then we saw an
email coming from overseas to the Gush Shalom mailbox,
a very short one: "Any comment on the latest terror
attack assholes?" As a matter of fact - yes.

One o'clock. In the noon news magazine on the radio,
the commentator speaks in a rather bored way of the
ongoing army raid into Nablus, words nearly identical
to the reports of yesterday and of last week: "The
Palestinians claim that the boy shot in central Nablus
was unarmed... The soldiers assert that they had shot
only at armed militants, as per orders... This is part
of a continuing operation to root out terrorists in
Nablus and Jenin, which is already going on for several
weeks... When soldiers arrive, dozens of youngsters
start throwing stones, which complicates the detention
of wanted terrorists..."

Suddenly: "We interrupt this report. A large explosion
just occurred at the Old Central Bus Station in
Tel-Aviv. Dozens of casualties. Stand by for further
details"

The Old Central Bus Station. The least fashionable part
of Tel-Aviv. The lively dirty streets which are the
haunt of migrant workers one jump ahead of the
notorious Immigration Police and the most poor and
disadvantaged among Israel's own citizens. The place
where people have again and again to endure suicide
bombings, too. Today, once again.

As always, the dilemma: Should we go there, to the
scene where six people have just perished and forty
others wounded, a place which is just a short bus ride
away and where we just a few days ago went to buy
sandals? Go there, as Israelis and human beings and
peace activists - but to do what? To say what?

Sure, we are horrified by the senseless random killing.
But we have also something to say about why it
happened, how it might have been prevented, how the
next one can still be prevented. But how to say it on
this day and in that location? How to make
comprehensible, to shocked and angry and traumatized
people, that the occupation is the root cause of our
suffering as well as the Palestinians'? How to explain
convincingly that we must dry at source the oppression
which makes young Palestinians don explosive belts and
throw away their lives together with those of others?

In the end, we don't do anything except stay tuned to
the non-stop broadcasts on radio and TV. At least the
extreme-right people, who in past years used to rush to
such scenes with their hate placards, are not there
either today. It seems that they no longer find the
public so receptive to their simplistic "solutions".

The flood of news reports continues. The number of
fatalities has grown to nine, and doctors at Ichilov
Hospital are still fighting to save the life of a very
severely wounded sixteen year-old boy. At least two of
the women killed were foreign migrant workers, and the
Israeli consulate in Romania is trying to locate the
family of one of them. Responsibility was claimed by
the Islamic Jihad, and the perpetrator was a young man
from the West Bank town of Quabatiya. In the Gaza
Strip, a Palestinian boy (age not mentioned) was killed
in an Israeli artillery bombardment (probably, somebody
again instructed the artillery to decrease the range to
the Palestinian inhabited areas...)

The bombing had targeted the very same cheap restaurant
which was attacked in the previous Tel-Aviv bombing,
three and a half months ago. Three and a half months
ago. Nobody seems to remember the time when suicide
bombings were taking place every week, or also several
times each week. Nobody mentions that that had been
when Hamas was the main initiator of suicide bombings.
Nobody mentions that Hamas has been carefully keeping
their one-side truce for more than a year now, that
Jihad is a small organization with limited resources,
that the Hamas self-restraint has saved the lives of
quite a few Israelis in the past year.

A TV, reporter speaks smugly from the scene of the
bombing: "The police had carried out massive detentions
of Palestinian workers. Illegal Palestinians were found
in all the restaurants and workshops around the site of
the bombing. Why couldn't the police arrest them before
it happened? (Because they had absolutely nothing to do
with the bombing, because they came to Tel-Aviv for no
other reason than to feed their families - but nobody
says this on the air...)

In Jerusalem, the swearing-in ceremony of the
newly-elected Knesset goes ahead as scheduled, and is
broadcast live. The eternal Shimon Peres is Acting
Speaker. Not always our favourite among politicians.
But in his speech today, he at least admits that the
Palestinians are not solely to blame for the absence of
peace, and that some Israeli mistakes also have
something to do with it. This is not nothing,
especially on such a day.

The late night news is sometimes less tightly
controlled than the prime time. The commentator reports
about Defense Minister Mofaz holding consultations with
his generals on the coming military response, and
remarks: "So, there will be a retaliation, and the
Palestinians will retaliate to the retaliation, and we
will retaliate again, and then what?" No answer was
forthcoming.

Adam Keller April 17, Tel-Aviv
_______________________________________________________

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***

Bulletin on Suicide Bombing

Contact: If Americans Knew:  310.441.8580 / cell 415.847.1782

In the last two and a half weeks (since the previous suicide bombing)
Israeli forces have killed at least 26 Palestinians -- at least 5 of them
children -- and injured 161 Palestinian men, women and children. A college
student lost her right eye today after being shot by an Israeli sniper
last week.

There have been 369 raids by Israeli forces, mostly into the West Bank.
Gaza has undergone sustained shelling by Israeli forces and continued
closures, resulting in increasing lack of food and medical supplies.
According to UN reports, between March 30 and April 12th, Israeli forces
launched 2300 artillery and tank shells and 34 missiles into Gaza.

Since the current Palestinian uprising against Israeli military occupation
and confiscation of Palestinian land began in fall 2000, approximately
3,863 Palestinians  and 1,084 Israelis and have been killed. Among these
have been approximately 720 Palestinian children and 124 Israeli children.

Today, in separate actions, several Palestinian youths were shot, one in
the neck. Israeli forces are continuing their ongoing invasions of Nablus
and other West Bank cities.

Today is Palestinian Prisoners Day. 9,400 Palestinian men, women, and
children are in prison. According to numerous human rights reports,
Palestinian prisoners are frequently tortured. Defense for Children
International reports that 4,000 Palestinian children have been arrested
in the past five years, 400 of them currently in prison, including a
fifteen-year-old girl, who has been in prison for over a year after being
shot in the stomach by Israeli soldiers. DCI reports that the arrests are
increasing.

Additional Information from Defense for Children International:

According to DCI: "The process of arrest and detention of Palestinian
children is a process of systematic abuse and mistreatment which flouts
international legal standards and denies the basic human rights of
detainees first as children and secondly as prisoners...[children are]
handcuffed and blindfolded, humiliated and threatened and often beaten and
kicked from the moment they are arrested up to and often throughout their
interrogation and detention. They are deprived of sleep, food and access
to the bathroom until so-called confessions are coerced out of them..."

At 5.30pm on Monday 10 April 2006, at least six artillery shells fired by
the Israeli military fell on the family house of Mohammed Rabe'eya Ghaban
in Beit Lahiya, in the north of the Gaza Strip. Shrapnel from the shells
pierced the skull of Mohammed's eight-year old daughter Hadeel, killing
her instantly. The shelling also resulted in the injury of eight other
family members, including Hadeel's brothers and sisters:

Rawan Ghaban 1 and a half years old
Rana Ghaban 3 years old
Munir Ghaban 4 years old
Amneh Ghaban 9 years old
Ghassan Ghaban 11 years old
Bassam Ghaban 15 years old
Tahrir Ghaban 17 years old

The children's mother, 35-year old Sofia, was the eighth family member
wounded in the attack.

Several neighbours were also injured including:

Jaqueline Mo'ein Maarouf 11 years old
Mariam Maher Al-'Assi 15 years old

For more information:

http://www.imemc.org/

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

http://www.nad-plo.org/main.php?view=pmg_daily-reports

http://www.dci-pal.org/english/display.cfm?DocId=484&CategoryId=1

http://www.dci-pal.org/english/display.cfm?DocId=483&CategoryId=1

http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/

Alison Weir
Executive Director
www.IfAmericansKnew.org
310-441-8580
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