françois yves le gal

"Jewish settler 'gets away' with murder
By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank
Tuesday 28 September 2004, 19:26 Makka Time, 16:26 GMT

A Jewish settler who killed a Palestinian driver has been freed from police
custody and placed under temporary house arrest, Israeli state-run radio has
reported.

His release, ordered by the Kfar Sava court on Tuesday, sheds light on the
stunning leniency adopted by the Israeli justice system toward Jews involved
in serious crimes against non-Jews.

The court, presided by a religious Jew, reportedly rejected a police request
to extend the remand of Yehosua Elitzur, from the West Bank settlement of
Itamar, until the end of the legal proceedings.

On Monday, Elitzur killed a Palestinian driver, claiming the victim tried to
run him off the road.

Eyewitness accounts

Palestinian eyewitnesses testified that Elitzur killed Salah Jebara, a
father of eight children, in cold blood and for no reason other than wanting
to kill a Palestinian.

"The settler parked his car on the right side…and stood in the middle of the
road. When Salah Jibara arrived and slowed down thinking that the settler
needed help, the settler aimed his M-16 at him, killing him on the spot,"
said Muhammed Shatiyya.

"Then the settler began praising God for killing him."

When a Palestinian passer-by asked why he shot him, the setttler said ..."It
doesn't matter, he is only a Palestinian," according to the Jerusalem-based
Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group which has investigated the
incident.

Murder

According to another Palestinian eyewitness Ahmad Shatiyya

"The settler simply was waiting for any Palestinian motorist to come so that
he could kill him…even if Jebara had not stopped, the settler would have
killed him claiming that he had tried to run him over…"

Settlers concoct pretext for attacking Palestinians

"The man was out to kill an Arab…it is as simple as that."

Shatiyya and other Palestinians in the area tried in vain to save Jebara's
life.

"He lost consciousness and we tried to resuscitate him. We shouted to the
settler to call an ambulance, but he said 'praise to God…he is dead'…and
left"

Ever since the start of the Intifada four years ago, Jewish settlers,
affiliated with the National-Zionist movement known as Gush Emunim, have
murdered dozens of Palestinians, including children.

Edicts

Earlier in September, several influential Orthodox rabbis and Talmudic sages
in Israel issued religious edicts allowing Jews to kill Palestinian
civilians and non-combatants even if they posed no threat to Jews.

"The man was out to kill an Arab…it is as simple as that"
Ahmad Shatiyya, eyewitness

The rabbis apparently relied on a Talmudic injunction stipulating that in
war time, Jews are enjoined to kill enemy civilians.

The settlers often concoct pretexts for the purpose of justifying or at
least extenuating the severity of their acts.

Normally, Israeli courts give them the benefit of the doubt and reduce the
severity of the charges against them from murder to manslaughter in which
case the killers spend a few months or a few weeks in jail before they are
freed.

Palestinians convicted of killing Jews, even by mistake, are usually
convicted for murder and imprisoned for life. Moreover, their family homes
are demolished and their belongings are destroyed by Israeli bulldozers."

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...5C40E80D39.htm

WHO ARE THE TERRORISTS?

michael corbett

If they are still waiting for the end of the legal proceedings
how can they say "settler 'gets away' with murder." Is this fortune
telling or journalism?

mc

françois yves le gal

The suspect should have been aringed and placed in custody, not released by
a racist court.

erichsk

Francois, Any reason that you bring this to our attention but never make
mention of the too numerous to mention suicide bombings?

françois yves le gal

Too numerous? 14 this year. 14 too many. 14 reported in the media.

How many articles on the hundreds of Palestinians murdered by Israelis in
the same timeframe? Did Salah Jebara, murdered in cold blood by a Jewish
extremist make the headlines? Was his name only mentioned in a newspaper?

And how many US publications report on the cruel and inhuman treatment of
Palestinians by the occupation forces?

Here's a recent example, from Ha'aretz, an Israel daily:

"One out of every nine
GIDEON LEVY
Ha'aretz, 26 September 2004

One out of every nine women gets breast cancer. There are doctors who say
that statistic has worsened lately and now stands at one out of every eight.
The disease is particularly violent in younger women and the primary growth
in the breast spreads rapidly to the liver, the lungs, the bones and the
brain. Is there anything worse than being a young woman with cancer whose
chances are slim? It turns out that there is - being a young Palestinian
woman with cancer whose chances are slim.

For 10 days now, F., a 28-year-old resident of Gaza, has been trying to get
to Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer for urgent chemotherapy in the
oncology department. The story of what has happened to her during these 10
awful days sounds unbelievable, even to someone who has already heard
horrible stories. The reality has succeeded in superseding even what the
sickest imagination could invent.

F. has been undergoing treatment at Sheba's oncology department for many
months: she has had surgery twice, radiation and chemotherapy. In Gaza,
there is not a single oncology department and F. is not allowed to go to
Egypt for treatment; she is one of the tens of thousands of Palestinians to
whom Israel has refused to issue identity cards because they were not in the
territories at the very beginning of the occupation. Without papers and
without treatment in Gaza, F. is totally dependent on Israel's good graces.

About two months ago, she was hospitalized at Sheba for several weeks and
she had the chemotherapeutic drug Taxol injected into her veins, which
reduced her suffering considerably. The attitude toward her at the hospital
was admirable. F. was liked by everyone around her.

Israel prevented members of her family from being at her side for most of
the time she was hospitalized, and she was left all by herself after the
operations and during the period of radiation treatments. A handful of
Israeli women, among them one of the activists of Physicians for Human
Rights-Israel, tried to relieve her loneliness and her suffering.

Each of her entrances into Israel was accompanied by hassles and
humiliations. One time they demanded of her father a deposit of NIS 30,000
so that he could accompany her.

F. was supposed to have returned to Sheba for treatment on September 14.
There was a closure and her application was refused. They promised her a
permit for September 19. In the meantime, her condition deteriorated, her
pain increased and her breathing became labored. She contacted the
physicians' association and begged to be allowed to return to the hospital.

At Sheba they said she should come as soon as possible. On September 14,
Physicians for Human Rights applied to the humanitarian hotline of the
Liaison and Coordination Administration with a request that she receive an
entry permit. The permit arrived only on the following day at 6 in the
evening, restricted to that same day and without an accompanying person. It
was evening and F. was no longer able to travel by herself. The following
day the validity of the permit had already expired.

At the association they decided to wait until Sunday, for which the permit
had already been promised. On Sunday, the permit did not arrive until
evening. In turns out that it was necessary to submit a renewed application.
On Monday there was a delay on the Palestinian side, which was late in
resubmitting her medical documents. Her changes of going out on Monday were
scotched, as well.

Last Tuesday, at 3:30 in the afternoon, the telephone call came with the
news that a permit had been given for the patient and her mother. F. set out
for the roadblock with her mother. For hours she sat debilitated on the
ground and waited. Finally she was called to go through the metal detector.
The soldiers shouted to her from a distance that she had "something in her
chest" and ordered her to strip in front of them. She stood there wearing
only an undergarment, her mother burst out crying at the sight of her sick,
humiliated daughter and the soldiers scolded her to shut up. Finally an
officer came, reprimanded the soldiers and ordered F. to get dressed
immediately.

F. has had a mastectomy. At 8 P.M. the Liaison and Coordination
Administration informed Physicians for Human Rights that there was "a
security problem" with F. The soldiers suspected her of carrying explosives
in her chest. For some reason they had not arrested her, but had sent her
home. Apparently it was the prosthetic breast that had set off the metal
detector.

From that moment a danse macabre began, the end of which is not in sight. MK
Yossi Sarid (Yahad), one of the few Knesset members who has taken an
interest and tried to help, contacted the defense minister's bureau that
same evening. At the bureau they asked for documents concerning F.'s
prosthesis. The minister's adviser phoned Dr. Danny Rosen, who knows F.
well, and asked about the kind of material on her body. At the bureau they
also asked for a guarantee in F.'s handwriting that she would come to the
roadblock without the prosthesis. This guarantee was given. Day followed
day, and yet another phone call and yet another request for a form, and F.
is still stuck in Gaza, her suffering increasing and her chances running
out.

The Israel Defense Forces spokesman says that, "in light of a number of
attempts by terrorists to enter Israel in the guise of needing medical
treatment, the IDF must be extra cautious with regard to anyone who does not
pass the security check, even if he has the appropriate medical documents in
his possession. The claim concerning inappropriate conduct by the soldiers
at the crossing point has been investigated and found to be without any
basis. However, the consideration of the request by the senior command
levels is still underway."

No danger of a suicide terrorist can justify such behavior. It is possible
to protect ourselves against female terrorists without losing our humanity.
F.'s story is not exceptional, even if part of it is particularly shocking;
there are hundreds of Palestinian patients in a similar condition and every
injustice always has a security excuse. There is terror, everyone is only
carrying out orders and they are going by the book. But a book that prevents
medical treatment to dying patients, hassles them and humiliates them, is a
wicked book, and a society in which only the metal detector speaks is a sick
society."

As long as Israel continues it's abject policy of ethnic cleansing and slow
extermination of Palestinains, there will be suicide bombers.

miss elaine eos

Actually, we're still waiting to hear back from him about the many
inquries made regarding France & Algeria.

--
Please take off your shoes before arriving at my in-box.
Lots of good cigar info, the ASC Birthday page, FAQs, vendors and more at
<http://www.ManyFriends.com/Cigars/>

mark l. fendrick

And as long as "people" such as you continue to spew their hateful venom ...
anti-semitism will always be with us.

Killfiled!

Mark

dhannes

Open your eyes, Mark...François is merely pointing out that members of the
Israeli government are treating Palestinians much the same way that the Nazi
party treated Jews in Germany.

D

françois yves le gal

There is no anti-semitism anywhere in my posts. I don't equate Jews - or
even most of Israelis - with Sharon and the neo Likud criminals, just as I
don't equate US citizens with Bush and his cronies.

françois yves le gal

"The Likudization of the World: The True Legacy of September 11
by Naomi Klein

Russian President Vladamir Putin is so fed up with being grilled over his
handling of the Beslan catastrophe that he lashed out at foreign journalists
on Monday. “Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to
the White House and engage in talks,” he demanded, adding that, “No one has
a moral right to tell us to talk to child-killers.”

Mr. Putin is not a man who likes to be second guessed. Fortunately for him,
there is still at least one place where he is shielded from all the critics:
Israel. On Monday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warmly welcomed Russian
Foreign Minister Sergie Lavrov for a meeting about strengthening ties in the
fight against terror. “Terror has no justification, and it is time for the
free, decent, humanistic world to unite and fight this terrible epidemic,”
Mr. Sharon said.

There is little to argue with there. The essence of terrorism is the
deliberate targeting of innocents to further political goals. Any claims its
perpetrators make to fighting for justice are morally bankrupt and lead
directly to the barbarity of Beslan: a carefully laid plan to slaughter
hundreds of children on their first day of school.

Yet sympathy alone does not explain the unqualified outpourings of
solidarity for Russia coming from Israeli politicians this week. In addition
to Mr. Sharon’s pronouncements, Israel’s Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom
commented that the massacre showed that “There is no difference between
terror in Beersheba and terror in Beslan.” And the Associated Press quoted
an unnamed Israeli official saying that Russians “understand now that what
they have is not a local terror problem but part of the global Islamic
terror threat. The Russians may listen to our suggestions this time.”

The underlying message is unequivocal: Russia and Israel are engaged in the
very same war, one not against Palestinians demanding their right to
statehood, or against Chechens demanding their independence, but against
“the global Islamic terror threat.”

Israel, as the elder-statesman, is claiming the right to set the rules of
war. Unsurprisingly, the rules are the same ones Sharon uses against the
Intifada in the occupied territories. His starting point is that
Palestinians, though they may make political demands, are actually only
interested in the annihilation of Israel. This goes beyond states’ standard
refusal to negotiate with terrorists — it is a conviction rooted in an
insistent pathologising, not just of extremists, but of the entire “Arab
mind”.

From this basic belief several others follow. First, all Israeli violence
against Palestinians is an act of self-defence, necessary to the country’s
very survival. Second, anyone who questions Israel’s absolute right to erase
the enemy, is themselves an enemy. This applies to the United Nation, other
world leaders, to journalists, to peaceniks. Putin has clearly been taking
notes, but it’s not the first time Israel has played this mentoring role.

Three years ago, on September 12, 2001, Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu was asked how the previous day’s terror attacks in New York and
Washington would affect relations between Israel and the United States.
“It's very good,” he said. “Well, not very good, but it will generate
immediate sympathy.” The attack, Mr. Netanyahu explained, would “strengthen
the bond between our two peoples, because we've experienced terror over so
many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive
haemorrhaging of terror.”

Common wisdom has it that after September 11, a new era of geo-politics was
ushered in, defined by what is usually called “the Bush Doctrine”:
pre-emptive wars, attacks on “terrorist infrastructure” (read: entire
countries), an insistence that all the enemy understands is force. In fact
it would be more accurate to call this rigid world-view “The Likud
Doctrine.”

What happened on September 11 2001 is that the Likud Doctrine, previously
targeted against Palestinians, was picked up by the most powerful nation on
Earth and applied on a global scale. Call it the Likudization of the world,
the real legacy of September 11.

Let me be absolutely clear: by Likudization, I do not mean that key members
of the Bush Administration are working for the interests of Israel at the
expense of U.S. interests — the increasingly popular “dual loyalty”
argument.

What I mean is that on September 11, George W Bush went looking for a
political philosophy to guide him in his new role as “War President,” a job
for which he was uniquely unqualified. He found that philosophy in the Likud
Doctrine, conveniently handed to him ready-made by the ardent Likudniks
already ensconced in the White House. No thinking required.

In the three years since, the Bush White House has applied this imported
logic with chilling consistency to its global “war on terror” — complete
with the pathologising and medicalising of the “Muslim mind”. It was the
guiding philosophy in Afghanistan and Iraq, and may well extend to Iran and
Syria. It’s not simply that Bush sees America’s role as protecting Israel
from a hostile Arab world. It’s that he has cast the United States in the
very same role in which Israel casts itself, facing the very same threat. In
this narrative, the U.S. is fighting a never ending battle for its very
survival against utterly irrational forces that seek nothing less than its
total extermination.

And now the Likudization narrative has spread to Russia. In that same
meeting with foreign journalists on Monday, The Guardian reports that
President Putin “made it clear he sees the drive for Chechen independence as
the spearhead of a strategy by Chechen Islamists, helped by foreign
fundamentalists, to undermine the whole of southern Russia and even stir up
trouble among Muslim communities in other parts of the country. ‘There are
Muslims along the Volga, in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan...This is all about
Russia's territorial integrity,’ he said.” It used to be just Israel that
was worried about being pushed into the sea.

There has indeed been a dramatic and dangerous rise in religious
fundamentalism in the Muslim world. The problem is that under the Likud
Doctrine, there is no space to ask why this is happening. We are not allowed
to point out that fundamentalism breeds in failed states, where warfare has
systematically targeted civilian infrastructure, allowing the mosques start
taking responsibility for everything from education to garbage collection.
It has happened in Gaza, in Grozny, in Sadr City. Mr. Sharon says terrorism
is an epidemic that “has no borders, no fences” but this is not the case.

Everywhere in the world, terrorism thrives within the illegitimate borders
of occupation and dictatorship; it festers behind “security walls” put up by
imperial powers; it crosses those borders and climbs over those fences to
explode inside the countries responsible for, or complicit in, occupation
and domination.

Ariel Sharon is not the commander in chief of the war on terror; that
dubious honour stays with George Bush. But on the third year anniversary of
September 11, he deserves to be recognized as this disastrous campaign’s
spiritual/intellectual guru, a kind of trigger-happy Yoda for all the
wannabe Luke Skywalkers out there, training for their epic battles in good
vs. evil.

If we want to see the future of where the Likud Doctrine leads, we need only
follow the guru home, to Israel — a country paralyzed by fear, embracing
pariah policies of extrajudicial assassination and illegal settlement, and
in furious denial about the brutality it commits daily. It is a nation
surrounded by enemies and desperate for friends, a category it narrowly
defines as those who ask no questions, while generously offering the same
moral amnesty in return. That glimpse at our collective future is the only
lesson the world needs to learn from Ariel Sharon.

Naomi Klein is the author of No Logo and Fences and Windows."

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0909-04.htm