A-Infos (en) Israel-Palestine, alt. media*, m 6405 8 Mar, 2003 - The Palestinians don't even have weather by Tanya Reinhart

[Worker <a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>]

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To the extent that the recent military acts in the 
territories are debated in Israel at all, the debate 
almost solely revolves around the question 
whether or not it is possible to end the 
Palestinian terror this way.  The Palestinians, as 
human beings, simply do not exist.

A few days ago it snowed in Jerusalem.  On 
Tuesday, Ferbruary 25th, the cold wave featured 
in all Israeli papers as the main news.  Even in my 
heated home in Tel Aviv it was cold.  My 
thoughts wandered to my Palestinian friends - 
colleagues from Bir Zeit University. How does the 
snow fare with a family that still has a home, but 
not that much money to heat it? And what's with 
those who no longer have a home?  It snowed in 
Jenin as well. How did the Jenin refugees survive 
the cold, and those who were recently made to 
flee from Hebron? And what about the old people, 
for whom the cold is particularly dangerous?  
Where did the new homeless of Gaza spend the 
night - those whose homes were destroyed that 
same day?  Is UNRWA still able to provide them 
with blankets and tents?  At the beginning of 
February, the United Nations Relief and Works 
Agency for Palestinians in the Near East 
(UNRWA), renewed its emergency appeal to the 
international community for urgent contributions 
for the first half of 2003.  They stated that 
without these contributions, which have 
decreased lately, their budget would end in 
March(1). 

The heart seeks answers, but the papers tell you 
nothing about that. Across the fence, outside the 
media, outside of consciousness, the Palestinians 
don't even have weather.

That same day, however, Ha'aretz reported a new 
campaign, launched by the Israeli security 
echelons, to confiscate funds that are transmitted 
to the Palestinians through Israeli banks - "tens 
of millions of dollars a year...mainly from charity 
organizations in the Arab countries and in 
Europe". (Amos Har'el, Hebrew edition only).  
While UNRWA is on the verge of collapse, the 
Palestinians should be deprived also of the 
charity funds that help them survive.  

This is not an isolated incident, but one more 
step in a systematic Israeli policy of economic 
strangulation. Already in June 2002,"internal 
conclusions of the security echelons, following 
operation 'Defensive Shield', assessed that...the 
financial reserves of the Palestinian authority are 
reaching the bottom... In a future not far off, the 
majority of Palestinians will only be able to 
maintain a reasonable life through the help of 
international aid." (Amos Har'el, Ha'aretz, 
Hebrew edition, June 23, 2002).  At the same 
time, Israel, aided by the Jewish Lobby in the US 
congress, opened a campaign to restrict 
international aid, and demanded a 
"reconsideration" of UNRWA's operations in the 
occupied territories:

"Israel has begun a campaign in the United States 
and the United Nations to urge a reconsideration 
of the way the UN Relief and Works Agency, 
which runs the Palestinian refugee camps in the 
West Bank and Gaza, operates. Israel charges 
that UNRWA workers simply ignored the fact 
that Palestinian organizations were turning the 
camps into terrorist bases and it is demanding 
the agency start reporting all military or terrorist 
actions within the camps to the UN.... Meanwhile, 
Jewish and pro-Israeli lobbyists in the U.S. are 
waging a parallel campaign ... American Jewish 
lobbyists are basing their efforts on the fact that 
the U.S. currently contributes some 30 percent of 
UNRWA's $400 million a year budget, and is 
therefore in a position to influence the agency: A 
congressional refusal to approve UNRWA's 
funding could seriously disrupt its operations." 
(Nathan Guttman, Ha'aretz, June 29, 2002).

Malnutrition of Palestinian children in the 
occupied territories already equals that of Congo 
and Zimbabwe (2), but Israel "launches a 
campaign" to prevent even the little left to keep 
them nourished.

Genocide is associated in our minds with mass 
graves, or convoys of population transfer. The 
slow death inflicted on the Palestinian people 
has, perhaps, no name yet, but still, how does it 
happen that the Israeli society seals its heart and 
its eyes from seeing it?  Part of the answer is that 
evil is wrapped in words about "war against 
terror". The security sources announce that 
UNRWA "ignores" terrorist activities (as if 
UNRWA is a police force), or that the charity 
funds to the Palestinians are "millions of dollars 
to terror" and the media just circulates their 
prophecy. No further proof is ever needed.  
Following the confiscation of charity funds, which 
started in East Jerusalem banks, "the region 
commander, Levi, refused to disclose precise 
details concerning the terrorist activities in 
Jerusalem that were funded with these 
[confiscated] funds" (Arnon Regular and Amos 
Har'el, Ha'aretz, February 28, 2003).  The primal 
Israeli instinct to believe that the IDF (army) 
never lies, will do the rest.

Israel's persecution of the Palestinian people is 
not war against terror.  The Palestinian suicidal 
terror has a simple solution - get out of the 
territories and give the Palestinians reasons to 
live. The war against the Palestinians is over the 
'Promised Land' of Sharon, the army and the 
settlers. In this kind of war, one needs to lie 
constantly, because (according to the polls) most 
Israelis don't care about the territories and they 
are willing to get out of there tomorrow.  Left to 
themselves, people won't seek out ways to starve, 
torture and abandon in the cold millions of other 
people. To get them to accept that, one has to 
cultivate their fears.  In the same way, the half of 
the American people that supports the war on 
Iraq believes that if they don't immediately 
eliminate the Iraqi people, Saddam Hussein will 
eliminate the US. 

(1) The text of the UNRWA Emergency Appeal 
for 2003 can be found at 
http://www.un.org/unrwa/emergency/pdf/5th-appeal.pdf
(2) Chris McGreal, The Guardian Feb 11, 200Ë

*[Ed. Note: Taken from: 
http://www.indymedia.org.il/imc/israel/webcast/index.php?language=en
The only post from a declared anarchist (which has a collumn
in the Israeli main daily "Yediot Aharonot") in the whole Israeli
indymedia - which is flooded by texts of fellow travelers of the
communist party, Trotskists, and Zionist leftists....]

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