quote:

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Neighbors report that Israeli soldiers had been beating her husband because he wasn't answering their questions. Foolishly or valiantly, how is one to say, the 35-year-old woman had interfered. She tried to explain that her husband was deaf, screamed at the soldiers that her husband couldn't hear them and attempted to stop them from hitting him. So they shot her. Several times.

Her name was Itemad Ismail Abu Mo'ammar.

She didn't die, though. That took longer. It required her life to flow out of her in the form of blood for several hours, as Israeli soldiers refused to allow an ambulance to transport her to help. Her husband and children could do nothing to save her.

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One of the brothers told Haaretz on Sunday that after five hours in the cell, human rights activists threw a bottle of water into the cell.

The brother said they attempted to remove their blindfolds at which point two soldiers entered the cell and retied the blindfolds over their eyes.

The soldiers then began to beat the two bound and blind-folded brothers with their assault rifles.

"They hit us all over - our back, our waist, our chest - until we lost consciousness. They were not human. They were wild animals," one of the brothers said.

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During these pleasure tours over the holidays, participants will get a chance to see to what extent settlements and outposts have expanded (some illegally) in recent years.

What participants will not hear from organizers is how the settlements were expanded; the methods by which lands were expropriated from Palestinian Arabs; the expansion orders given by the Israeli civilian administration and the seizing of private Palestinian land by settlers in the dark of night.

But they will not see the olive groves and the vines of the village of Hussan uprooted by bulldozers so that Beitar Elite could be expanded. They won't see the private plots of land belonging to the residents of Bethlehem and Beit Jala that were fenced off by settlers. Because the organizers aren't interested in showing their guests from Tel Aviv the dark side of Israeli existence in Gush Etzion.

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As Dahm al-Az lay in her mother's embrace, the beam smashed into her frail body and tore it to pieces. Now this long-impoverished and newly bereaved family sits dumbstruck in its tin house in the Brazil refugee camp, at the edge of Rafah. The tin ceiling of the bedroom is still in tatters, the remains of the beam still lie on the floor, while sitting in the plastic chair in the shabby living room, Basama the mother sits and weeps silently. Her wheelchair was also destroyed in the bombing. There is no longer anyone to nurse her, no longer an iota of hope in the home that was suddenly rendered childless. The pilot pressed a button and two powerful bombs, amazingly smart and precise, landed one after the other, sending the beam flying into the air and inflicting a horrific tragedy on the Hamad family, which was already a victim of fate. Regards to the pilot.

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My sympathies to the survivors, and my curses to the IDF for these despicable acts.

[ 12 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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The number of Palestinian children who have already been killed this year in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, almost double the number for the whole of 2005, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

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End the occupation, dismantle ALL the racist West Bank settlements end the checkpoints, take down the fascist wall, stop cutting off the water supply and stop cutting down the olive trees.

If the Israeli government did THOSE things, there'd be little if any violence.

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If it weren't for the Occupation, 95% of Palestinian violence wouldn't be happening.
End the occupation, dismantle ALL the racist West Bank settlements end the checkpoints, take down the fascist wall, stop cutting off the water supply and stop cutting down the olive trees.

If the Israeli government did THOSE things, there'd be little if any violence.

Israelis aren't the principle victims, Stockholm.

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If it weren't for the constant actsw of terrorism and refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist, 100% of Israeli violence wouldn't be happening.
Dissolve Hamas, end all acts of terrorism against Israel, dismantle all terrorist training camps, stop teaching Arab children to hate Jews, extend a hand of friendship to Israel, apologize for the mass expulsion of Jews from Arab countries, apologize for the desecration of Jewish religious sites during the 1948-1967 period.

If the Palestinian authority and its benefactors did THOSE things, there'd be little if any violence.

Israelis have been the principle victims every step of the way.

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Israelis have been the principle victims every step of the way.

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Not in the year of al-Nakba, they weren't. There was no reason to make 750,000 Palestinians leave.

Both sides did a lot of horrible things, but even you would have to admit that, since 1967, Israel has had the upper hand and the Israeli government has been murderously oppressive in the West Bank and Gaza.

And also, since that time, the Israeli government has abandoned any pretense of having a progressive or humane character and placed its emphasis on militarization to the expense of all else. It really isn't "Jewish" in any recognizable sense anymore. Certainly the settlements aren't "Jewish" in any sense, being mainly about territorial conquest and racism.

The Jewish tradition is a progressive tradition committed to the liberation of all peoples from injustice. Not all peoples EXCEPT the inhabitants of the Mandate before 1948.

Really, even though we know Israel has the military upper hand and will always survive in name, you have to wonder if that state is worth preserving if it's going to be as ugly and repressive as any goyishche state.

The place will clearly never again be "a light unto the nations".

[ 15 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 15 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 15 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

It's a shame that, for decades, the Israeli state refused to admit that there was a large population of people living in the Mandate who had as much right to live there as anyone else.

It's a shame that Golda Meir, a socialist and humanist who should have been above this kind of lie, insisted until the end of her days that "There's no such thing as a Palestinian".

It's a shame that the Israeli government spent decades demonizing ANYONE who supported a two-state solution as "anti-Israel" or antisemitic. Neither was true and Ben-Gurion and Begin both knew it.

The point is, there is no way that Israelis can continue to claim to be the "victims" and paint the Palestinians as the villains.

There needs to be change on both sides and Israel, the side that holds all the real power, needs to start making the change. Otherwise, what started as a liberation movement will continue its degeneration into just another form of colonialism.

Two peoples, two states. It's time for the Israeli government to stop using trickery to prevent the Palestians from having a state.

[ 15 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:

It's a shame that the Israeli government spent decades demonizing ANYONE who supported a two-state solution as "anti-Israel" or antisemitic. Neither was true and Ben-Gurion and Begin both knew it.

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Actually, the two state solution was the original Israeli position officially under Be-Gurion, not that they gave it much of a chance mind you. The secular one state solution was the traditional Arab position, right from 1948. The PLO confirmed this position in its 1964 charter, calling for a single secular democratic state.

In 1994, the PLO and Yasser Arafat gave in to the Israeli position and acceded to all fo the Israel demands, giving the Isreali everything they said they wanted.

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Why even talk of binationalism when you know perfectly well that Israel will never accept being formally put out of existence?

Also, why dismiss the two-state proposal as "the original Israeli position" when you attacked it in an exchange with Stockholm by saying that Israel didn't actually MEAN a two-state solution?

And when the present Israeli government is doing everything it can to prevent a Palestinian state ever being established?

A Palestinian state in all of the West Bank and Gaza IS achievable. Binationalism, at least for a number of decades to come, is not. Why pretend otherwise? Why fight for the impossible?

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
Why will nothing short of binationalism be acceptable to you, Cueball?

Why even talk of binationalism when you know perfectly well that Israel will never accept being formally put out of existence?

Also, why dismiss the two-state proposal as "the original Israeli position" when you attacked it in an exchange with Stockholm by saying that Israel didn't actually MEAN a two-state solution?

And when the present Israeli government is doing everything it can to prevent a Palestinian state ever being established?

A Palestinian state in all of the West Bank and Gaza IS achievable. Binationalism, at least for a number of decades to come, is not. Why pretend otherwise? Why fight for the impossible?

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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When will you stop telling people what they are saying.

Here I am simply correcting your history, which is again wrong. For some reason you are conflating being factual with stating an opinion. All I pointed out was that the two state solution, was the initial deal. What do you think "partition" meant?

Ben-Gurion officially supported partition therefore he supported the two states. You are wrong on that point.

Furthermore, Oslo was acceptance of the two state solution, but that right wing fanatic Ehud Barak inisted on putting the kaibosh to the deal by trying to scratch another 3% off the Palestinian claim, when Oslo explicitly accepted the existance of Israel and meant that the Palestinian leadership had agreed to give up 70% of their original claim.

In other words the Palestinians had agreed to give Israel everything Ben-Gurion wanted and more.

Those are the facts. I am sorry if they don't fit your preconcieved notions of what you would like history to be like so that you can maintain this fantasy in your head about Palestinian intransigence.

And just so you know, when it seemed that a two state solutioin might be viable, I supported it. partly because it was the officially acceptable Palestinian position, although its seems that E. Said's critique of the Oslo process seems to be pretty spot on, and the process of collapse seems as inevitable now, as he thought back then, because of the reasons he cited all those many years ago before the suicide bombers got your attention and you decided to take an interest in the issue.

Now I see that Oslo was mistake, Israel was insincere, or at best unable to coble together a effective political consensus to make the deal stick (that is being very polite about it.) But it doesn't really matter from a Palestinian point of view, whether it was insincerity or merely political lassitude that prevented Israel from presenting an reasonable and workable "final status" deal because one way or the other it was evident that none of the successive Labour govenrments were able to deliver anything that Yasser Arafat could accept.

Seriously, you think Yasser Arafat was supposed to accept a "final status" deal, which included and IDF presence on 50% of the West Bank, until such a time as Israel decided that it was unessesary?

You would call that sovereignty, I suppose?

So, I supported the two state solution. I now see that it is impposible for Israel to deliver, and so I don't support the impossible, as you see, because it is in fact "the two state solution," which is impossible, Israel wont allows it (or the Knesset can't deliver it... take your pick) as had been proven with the denouement of Oslo.

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

You know perfectly well that Israelis would never accept it and would fight to the death to prevent it. And if they won't accept it, you know that "binationalism" WOULD effectively mean kicking every Jew out of the land of the Mandate.
Which even you would have to admit would be just as unjust as the Occupation.

Please explain.

Let me explain something to you. I havce very good friends and numerous aquantainces who are former IDF soldiers and Israelis. There opinions vary, and go from the extreme of "we have to hit them (Palestinians) hard," to, I left the IDF because "I was tired of fighting for ultra-orthodox Jewish settlers who use their status as justification for avoiding national service." They are my friends.

I also have a whole number of Palestinian and Arab friends, and not one of them has ever broached the idea of evicting every single last Jew from Israel. That is largely Zionist propoganda and hyperbole supported by racist jingoism about Arab people, (which apparently you ascribe too) who for the most part are reasonable people who just want to get along with their lives... and that is the primary reason that Palestinians accepted Oslo, even though it was clearly an unfair deal that ignored the historical circumstances of Israeli actions that screwed the Palestinian Arabs.

So, no, I do not agree, that a binational state requires the eviction of every Jew from Israel. That is not the mainstream Arab position. The whole point is to create a just and workable political agreement while Israel still has a nominal superiority in political and military strength, so as to avoid a future ethnic cleansing, when conditions are less favourable.

My actual belief is that continued Israeli intransigence will lead to the very ethnic cleansing you are talking about, because continued polarization will lead to an even more unforgiving attitude within the Arab community.

In fact, the arrogant and racist hubris wich underlay Israels recent military debacle in Lebanon is a very distrubing portent as far as I am concerned, and I believe Israelis should wake up and smell the coffee. No country ever, has enjoyed everlasting military supremacy, if this were not the case, we would be living in the Byzantine empire, or under SPQR.

To argue that fanatic Israeli opposition to binationalism would generate and ethnic cleansing because of Israel intransigence *fighting to the death," as you put it) is to once again place the entire onus of reasonable behaviour upon the Palestinian people.

To you fanatic Palestinian resistance to the occupation, through suicide bombings and whatever, is unconciounable and unrealistic, however you persist in asserting that it is more or less just all well and fine for Israelis to "never accept it (binationalism) and... fight to the death to prevent it," as simply a fait acompli, without condemnation.

The point is to create a joint Palestinian and Israeli social and economic enterprise, which makes both parties indispensible to the other, that is the only real vision of hope for Israel.

If you knew better you would no that the Arab members of the Knesset, such as Azim Bishra, have been asking for this for years, not calling for ethnic cleansing: even suggesting that Israel would keep its flag and still be called Israel.

For a guy who spends a lot of time protesting that you support the Palestinian cause, you spend a lot of time ignoring Israeli fanatacism, while condeming wholeheartedly those Palestinians who are equally fanatic.

To you, apparently it is normal and reasonable on some level for Israelis to oppose a reasonable secular solution to the issue (I actually disagree that they do btw) but completely unthinkable that any Palestinians should be likewise obtuse.

It would also help it your vision of Arabs and Arab politicians was not so blighted with comic book pastiche.

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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In fact, the non-fulfillment of the latter expectation led to the rise of non-democratic movements; indeed, to anti-modernist fundamentalism, often in conjunction with the ruralisation of cities incapable of absorbing the vast influx of migrants into urban mass culture.

But even if frustrated, the aspirations raised by the populist movements of the 1950s and 1960s have become ingrained in mass culture, and today's advocates of democracy can draw on this and, simultaneously, draw inspiration from the fact that those pioneering freedom fighters were at least sincere in their belief in freedom, equality and the power of the people.

Certainly, the more repugnant manifestations of the way in which universal suffrage in the West has blended with mass communications and mass culture have driven many of today's youth to despair of politics and seek meaning for their lives in other domains. Politics in democratic societies has become associated with images of political party intrigue, dirty tricks and backstabbing, rabid opportunism, shifting political positions before and after the elections and before and after entering coalitions.

Electoral campaigns have turned into carnivals and parliament into a circus; spectacle, showmanship and hogging the camera are unchecked by any moral constraints; indeed, it seems now virtually imperative to have one's moral backbone extracted before entering the world of politics, a world divorced from morals and ethics and a world in which private morals are divorced from public morals.

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And I never said that Arabs were obsessed with killing Jews. I was talking about the fact that a lot of Israelis, even progressive Israelis, oppose binationalism because they are convinced that they would face severe retribution in such a state.

My problem is, I can't say to such people, with a clear conscience, that they have nothing to worry about.

I don't know how you can, Cueball.

You really haven't shown anything to me that demonstrates that, were binationalism to be put in place, that there wouldn't be payback.

While Israelis aren't the victims in the present-day situation, the historical victimhood of those who founded the state is always going to inform how Israelis interpret events.

It isn't surrender to address that.

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

quote:

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While Israelis aren't the victims in the present-day situation, the historical victimhood of those who founded the state is always going to inform how Israelis interpret events.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:

My problem is, I can't say to such people, with a clear conscience, that they have nothing to worry about.

I don't know how you can, Cueball.

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I am not going to shed a whole lot of tears if someone accidentally on purpose disconnects Areil Sharon from life support. To be truthful.

There was a lot of such whining about retribution from white South Africans, and none of it came true. People said the same thing about the Vietnmase communists, and while not pleasant, they didn't commit mass pogroms such as those of Pol Pot.

So, in summary if Israeli's are really concerned about being made to pay for war crimes, they should stop commiting them.

quote:

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While Israelis aren't the victims in the present-day situation, the historical victimhood of those who founded the state is always going to inform how Israelis interpret events.

It isn't surrender to address that.

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And yes, I am addressing that from the personal position. Parts of my family had a choice, contribute to the disenfranchisement and persecution of another people, or mvoe to North America. They made the right choice. Those that are there are at no fault really if their families made the wrong choice, but they can not appeal to the legacy as a justification, when the result is so obviously immoral.

It is not the Palestinians who need to address the issue of the Holocaust, it is Europeans, I don't see why you are bringing that up at all.

Somehow it seems exteremely callow to transfer the guilt of Europeans to the Palestinians, but your insistance on this point is a perfect example of the colonial attitutde which created this problem in the first place. It was the Arabs who were made to pay for European crimes, and now you are continuing the tradition, in a typically paternalistic manner.

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

What I meant is that the memory of that is going to play a big role in the trust level that Israelis would have towards Palestinians and thus their willingness to accept a binational solution.

I still don't understand why you appear(and if I'm reading this wrong, I'm sorry)to be saying that a person can't claim to be pro-Palestinian unless that person advocates binationalism.

quote:

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While Israelis aren't the victims in the present-day situation, the historical victimhood of those who founded the state is always going to inform how Israelis interpret events.

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Just so we're clear - you are here admitting that some present day Israelis are delusional and picture themselves as "victims" in spite of political realities?

[ 17 October 2006: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
I wasn't blaming Palestinians in the Holocaust(and if you'd been reading all of posts in this and the other recent Israel/Palestine threads, you'd see that I was specifically rejecting the idea that Palestinians should suffer because of the sins of Christian Europe.)

What I meant is that the memory of that is going to play a big role in the trust level that Israelis would have towards Palestinians and thus their willingness to accept a binational solution.

I still don't understand why you appear(and if I'm reading this wrong, I'm sorry)to be saying that a person can't claim to be pro-Palestinian unless that person advocates binationalism.

Your absolutism on the point is frustrating and pointless, Cueball.

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no what I am trying to get across to you, if you would like it in so many words, you can not really be pro-Israel unless you support the binational state. The present route leads to destruction, or as one of my former IDF friends put it, face the eventuallity of "ceasing to exist as a people" in the middle east sometime in the next fifty years.

The whole illusion of the complete supremacy of the west, and by extension Israel in the Mid-east, is fading fast, and what is a occuring is a transformation of the Arab sense that they have some control ove events again.

In my view, now is the time to seek a new path of conciliation, while Israel is strong, as opposed to the endless brinksmanship, which is leading to even more polarization. Insisting, as you do that least powerful partner in the process bears the burden of responsibility for a conciliatory stance, (the side with the least control over the situation) and not the most powerful, (the side with the most ability to give) is merely a formula for maintaining the status quo, which is repression, violence and fear.

[ 17 October 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Just so we're clear - you are here admitting that some present day Israelis are delusional and picture themselves as "victims" in spite of political realities?

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To a degree yes, Zeebub. And what I've also been trying to point out is the degree to which right-wing Israeli politicians, those most committed to a hardline approach, have been able to use the memory of past victimization to manipulate the Israeli electorate into electing hardline governments.

[ 17 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 17 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 17 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
They never had a right to damand sweet fuck all from the Palestinians.

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quote:

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In his statement to lawmakers, Edery added that the army maintains that phosphorus shells are a legitimate weapon and not forbidden by international law.

‘The IDF used this type of munitions according to the rules of international law,’ Edery reportedly said.

White phosphorus munitions cause severe burns and agonizing deaths. The chemical seeps into the bloodstream and causes respiratory problems and other ailments in victims, which has lead many to demand it be classified as a chemical weapon.

The International Red Cross and other human rights groups have long argued that phosphorus weapons should be banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention.US leaders went on the defensive after reports surfaced last year that American troops in Iraq had used phosphorus in the battle for Fallujah in 2004.

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So why are Israel’s politicians, of the left and right, so comfortable sitting with Lieberman, the leader of Israel’s only unquestionably fascist party? Because, in truth, Lieberman is not the maverick politician of popular imagination, even if he is every bit the racist -- a Jewish Jorg Haider or Jean Marie Le Pen.

In reality, Lieberman is entirely a creature of the Israeli political establishment, his policies sinister reflections of the principles and ideas he learnt in the inner sanctums of the Likud party, a young hopeful immigrant rubbing shoulders with the likes of Ariel Sharon, Binyamin Netanyahu and, of course, Ehud Olmert.

From their political infancy, the latter three were schooled in the minor arts of Israeli diplomacy: feel free to speak plainly in the womb of the party; speak firmly but cautiously in Hebrew to other Israelis; and speak in another tongue entirely when using English, the language of the goyim, the non-Jews.

But Lieberman, who arrived in Israel as a 21-year-old immigrant, was not around for those lessons. He imbibed nothing of the principles of “hasbara”, the “advocacy for Israel” industry that has its unpaid battalions of propagandists regularly assaulting the phone lines and email inboxes of the Western media. He tells it exactly as he sees it, even if mostly in Russian.

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In 2002, Lieberman declared, "I would not hesitate to send the Israeli army into all of Area A [the area of the West Bank ostensibly under Palestinian Authority control] for 48 hours. Destroy the foundation of all the authority's military infrastructure, all of the police buildings, the arsenals, all the posts of the security forces... not leave one stone on another. Destroy everything." He also suggested to the Israeli cabinet that the air force systematically bomb all the commercial centers, gas stations and banks in the occupied territories (The Independent, March 7, 2002). And, he has proposed bombing Egypt's Aswan Dam, despite that country's peace treaty with Israel since 1979. What will he propose to do to Iran?

Hebrew University professor Ze'ev Sternhell, a leading Israeli academic specialist on fascism and totalitarianism, was quoted by the Scotsman newspaper as terming Lieberman "perhaps the most dangerous politician in the history of the state of Israel."

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With her retiring manner, Sawsan Salameh seems an unlikely person to challenge the Israeli security authorities.

But after she was refused entry to Israel to pursue a doctorate at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Salameh, 29, went to court in a case that has focused attention on a ban that bars new Palestinian students from Israeli universities.

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We know that the Israelis used American "bunker-buster" bombs on Hizbollah's Beirut headquarters. We know that they drenched southern Lebanon with cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the war, leaving tens of thousands of bomblets which are still killing Lebanese civilians every week. And we now know - after it first categorically denied using such munitions - that the Israeli army also used phosphorous bombs, weapons which are supposed to be restricted under the third protocol of the Geneva Conventions, which neither Israel nor the United States have signed.

But scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons inventory - and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures". Both have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry - used by the Ministry of Defence - which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples.

Dr Busby's initial report states that there are two possible reasons for the contamination. "The first is that the weapon was some novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash ... The second is that the weapon was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium." A photograph of the explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that might result from burning uranium.

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From his rooftop, Mohammad Ibrahim can see from one end to the other of the narrow valley that contains the village of Wadi Fukin. Beyond houses bunched around the tall minaret of the mosque is terraced farmland, most of it covered with olive trees or planted deep in cabbage, cucumber, radish, lettuce and squash, irrigated by dozens of small reservoir pools linked to the valley's 11 ancient springs.

It is this view of Wadi Fukin, a village of 1,200 Palestinians just inside the occupied West Bank, that has long attracted Israeli tourists, who hike and swim in the reservoirs. The ancient farming practices have created a "unique cultural landscape" deserving of world heritage status, says Gidon Bromberg, Israeli director of Friends of the Earth Middle East.

But this is no longer all Mr Ibrahim sees. On the hills to the south and east of the village is a rapidly expanding ultra-orthodox Jewish settlement built on Palestinian land seized by the Israeli government and declared "state land".

...

In September, tenders were issued for 342 new houses in the settlement and now homes are being built, with truck-loads of rubble dumped down the hillsides every few minutes. Overflow pipes regularly eject raw sewage on to some of the village fields, forcing farmers to stop growing crops.

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[ 05 November 2006: Message edited by: Richard MacKinnon ]

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You cannot smile at all. You are in Beit Hanoun: Sunday 5th Nov. 2006 Beit Hanoun is a crowded residential area. It is located a few kilometers to the north of Gaza city. It’s easy to reach there by car. It is also a few kilometers to the south of Sederot town in Israel. Historically speaking, in 1948 Sedrot was established on the remains and land of the Palestinian village of Semsem. It is worth noting that Beit Hanoun contains the Gaza Strip's most fertile land. Is that why it had to be wiped out?

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In an interview with Israel's Army Radio, Lieberman said there was no hope for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, so physically separating the two peoples was the best solution.

He said Israel should give Israeli Arab villages near the West Bank to the Palestinians _ stripping many of the residents of their citizenship in the process _ in exchange for Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The Arabs remaining in Israel would be allowed to keep their citizenship if they passed a loyalty test. Arabs make up roughly one-fifth of Israel's population.

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On Friday morning, scores of women marched through Beit Hanoun in a spontaneous rush to aid friends and loved ones after hearing their pleas. Unarmed, they were shot at by Israeli soldiers from their tanks; two women were left dead and others severely injured. These women were said to have been heading to a mosque to free armed men who took refuge there. Television footage and interviews with witnesses show these women posed no military threat, but they were treated as such by the Israeli army without warning.

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