Category: 2018
YOUNG MAN WOUNDED DURING THE GREAT RETURN MARCH PASSES AWAY
ELDERLY MAN BURIED 44 DAYS AFTER HE WAS KILLED BY ISRAEL
Occupied Palestine saw the funerals of four victims of the occupation during the weekend. Alongside the funerals of Ihab Abed(25) and Ayman Hamed(18) who were killed on Friday, and Hamdi Na’san(38) who was killed on Saturday, there was the funeral of Hamdan Arda(60) on Saturday January 26th.
Arda was also killed by the Israeli occupation, but his death took place on December 13th in al-Bireh on the occupied West Bank, after which Israel’s regime kept his remains for 43 days before handing them over on Friday January 25th.
Israeli occupation had been raiding a storehouse and factory area in al-Bireh where Arda’s aluminium company was located. As he saw the occupation soldiers while driving, he tried to turn his car away from them but they opened fire on him, hitting him in head and killing him instantly.
Although Israeli occupation already on the same was ready to accept that Arda had not tried to commit ‘a car ramming attack’ which it had in the immediate aftermath claimed, it kept Arda’s body for one-and-a-half months before finally returning it.
Hamdan Arda was given a military funeral in his home town of Arraba near Jenin. His body was completely covered by the Palestinian flag, as his head had been shattered by the Israeli occupation forces’ bullets. Videos show that pieces of his brain and skull had to be gathered from the inside of his car.
PHOTOS: Uday Da’eb as-Saher / WAFA News Agency.
SOURCES:
ISRAEL KILLS AN ELDERLY DRIVER IN AL-BIREH – AND LIES ABOUT THE SHOOTING
Palestinians bid farewell to 3 martyrs in Gaza, West Bank
Two Palestinians killed by Israeli forces laid to rest
#Israel #Palestine #WestBank
UN RELEASES GAZA CASUALTY NUMBERS FOR THE GREAT RETURN MARCH PERIOD
PALESTINE IN HERODOTUS I: THE TRANSLATION OF AUBREY DE SÉLINCOURT
This is the first of two articles quoting and briefly putting in context mentions of Palestine in two modern translations of “The Histories” of Herodotus of Halicarnassus(c. 484 – c. 425 BCE), ‘The father of history’.
The five mentions are mostly geographical, but include mythical and historical material. As is typical with Herodotus, the closer he is to his own time, the more firm is his grasp. Yet unlike with the Greek historians who followed him and were mostly concerned with the history of their own lifetimes, Herodotus’ historical reach at best extends to about 650 BCE. Before that time history gives way to mythology in his writing.
In this article we are using a revised edition of Aubrey de Sélincourt’s(1896-1962) translation from 1954, published by Penguin in 2003. The revision was done by John Marincola(b. 1954).
The first mention of Palestine in this translation comes up in the context of the invasion of Asia Minor by the nomadic Scythians from the Pontic Steppe in pursuit of their foes the Cimmerians, during the reign of Psamtik I (655-610 BCE) of the 26th dynasty of Egypt, who were met by him in Palestine:
The Scythians next turned their attention to Egypt, but were met in Palestine by Psammetichus the Egyptian king, who by earnest entreaties supported by bribery managed to prevent their further advance. They withdrew by way of Ascalon in Syria. The bulk of the army passed the town of without doing any damage, but a small number of men got left behind and robbec the temple of Aphrodite Urania – the most ancient, I am told, of all the temples of this goddess. The one in Cyprus the Cyprians themselves admit was derived from it, and the one in Cythera was built by the Phoenicians, who belong to this part of Syria. The Scythians who robbed the temple of Ascalon were punished by the goddess with the infliction of what is called ‘the female disease’, and their descendants still suffer from it. This is the reason the Scythians give for this mysterious complaint, and travellers to the country can see what it is like. The Scythians call those who suffer from it ‘Enarees’. (49)
Palestine comes up next in the description of the conquests of the mythical, composite figure of king Sesostris of Egypt who is likely based on two historical kings separated from each other by a gulf of six centuries – Senusret III(1878-1839 BCE) of the 12th dynasty and Ramses II(1279-1213 BCE) of the 19th dynasty:
Whenever he encountered a courageous enemy who fought valiantly for freedon, he erected pillars on the spot inscribed with his own name and country, and a sentence to indicate that by the might of his armed forced he had won a victory; of however, a town fell easily into his hands without a struggle, he made an addition to the inscription on the pillar – for not only did he record upon it the same facts as before, but added a picture of a woman’s genitals, meaning to show that the people of that town were no braver than women…
Most of the memorial pillars which King Sesostris erected in the conquered territories have disappeared, but I have seen some myself in Palestine, with the inscription I mentioned, and the drawing of a woman’s genitals. (134-135)
Palestine comes up again in the list of new satrapies and their taxation during the re-organization of the Persian Empire by Darius I(521-486 BCE):
Fifth: from the town of Posideiium, which was founded by Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus, on the border between Cilicia and Syria, a far as Egypt – omitting Arabian territory, which was free of tax – came 350 talents. This province contains the whole of Phoenicia and the part of Syria which is called Palestine, and Cyprus. (212)
In Herodotus’ geographical description of Asia and Europe Palestine comes up very briefly:
Between Persia and Phoenicia lies a very large area of country; and from Phoenicia the branch I am speaking of runs along the Mediterranean coast through Palestine-Syria to Egypt, where it ends. It contains three nations only. Such is Asia from Persia westward…
The final time Palestine comes up in de Sélincourt’s translation is in the list of troops Xerxes I of Persia(486-465 BCE) gathered for his invasion of Greece in 480 BCE, which would end with failure after the battles of Salamis(480 BCE) and Plataea(479 BCE):
The Phoenicians, with the Syrians of Palestine, contributed 300. The crews wore helmets very like the Greek ones, and linen corslets; they were armed with rimless shields and javelins. These people have a tradition that in ancient times they lived on the Persian Gulf, but migrated to the Syrian coast, where they are found today. This part of Syria, together with the country which extends southward to Egypt, is all known as Palestine. (445)
SOURCE:
Herodotus: The Histories. Translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt. Revised with an Introduction and Notes by John Marincola. London: Penguin Books 2003.
PHOTO: Fragments of thr eight-meter tall colossi of Psamtik I excavated from Matariya neighbourhood of Cairo, ancient Heliopolis, in 2017.
BLAMING THE VICTIM: LIBERAL ZIONIST JOURNALISM AND ISRAELI OCCUPATION VIOLENCE AGAINST PALESTINIANS
The ‘Western’ media has a hallowed, Liberal Zionist tradition of excusing Israel’s violence against Palestinians by claiming that the occupier, which has kept up a brutal military occupation for 51 years, is only ‘reacting’ to supposed violence by the Palestinians.
For the ‘Western’ media to be ready to acknowledge Israeli violence and to mildly criticize it, the ultimate blame must be projected onto its victims. All Israeli violence against Palestinians must be traced to violence by Palestinians – and the violence by the occupied against the occupation and its representatives must be portrayed as the fount of all violence; it can’t be portrayed as a response or revenge.
The guilt for political violence in ‘Western’ journalism must ultimate lay with those who experience most of it; if the slave wouldn’t rebel and try to harm the kindly slave master, but would be a happy and obedient slave living in a bantustan, the colonist occupier wouldn’t attack them. This is the fable Liberal Zionist press offers to their audiences.
This is how The Guardian, representative of that liberal ‘far middle’ in the British press which, operating in that Liberal Zionist tradition, excuses greatly increased violence against Palestinians by illegal Israeli settlers, claiming that illegal Israeli settler attacks would come in the aftermath of Palestinian attacks against ‘Israelis’.
The killing of Aisha al-Rabi(47), a mother of eight children, by illegal Israeli settler stone-throwers on Friday October 12th is portrayed as ‘a revenge attack’ by The Guardian’s Oliver Holmes in his article “‘It was terror’: Palestinians decry rise in attacks by Israeli settlers” on December 30th.
The killing of two illegal Israeli settlers’ in an illegal colony on October October 7th is used by Holmes as a starting point, the cause for a spiral of violence, because in Liberal Zionist narrative Israel and its illegal settlers can’t be the ultimate cause of violence. Even when for each killed illegal Israeli settler and occupation soldier Israel has killed this year 22 Palestinians.
In this The Guardian tries to put the old ‘Israel is just defending itself’ cliché in use for the defence of the illegal Israeli settlers’ violence and their murder of a woman before the eyes of her young daughter. These armed extremists kill and wound people, destroy property and steal land and homes, poison and shoot domestic animals but to Liberal Zionists in the corridors of journalism the guilt must lie with the victims: If only they wouldn’t oppose the occupation, then the good, cuddly colonizers wouldn’t have to stone their cars, burn their houses, uproot their orchards and poison their wells from the safety of armed Israeli occupation forces’ escort.
The comparison to slavery above is not made flippantly, as the Palestinians live in a state of oppression from generation to generation which is slavery in all but name: Unfree people used as a cheap labour pool and killed whenever the enslaver wishes. The way this state of enslavement is represented by media has very old roots, just the garb the excuses wear have been modernized.
The white-washing and ‘justifying’ of violence by oppressors and the expectation, spelled out directly or not, that oppressors are ‘defending themselves’ and a justified order and society – in this case Apartheid Israel and its colonial empire over East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank (and the Golan Heights) – is as old as the liberal press. To Edmund Burke(1729-1797) slave-owners were the greatest lovers of freedom, and by oppressing the slaves they were fighting for liberty. This language that turns concepts upside down and whch we would connect with works of modern authors like George Orwell(1903-1950) is much older and runs in the figurative veins of the ‘Western’ press.
Because of this, the capability of illegal Israeli settlers to instigate violence is passed quickly, when it is a very deliberate tactic to make lives unbearable and force Palestinians leave their occupied land – which Holmes is forced to admit. Spiral of violence is not followed to its real traceable beginning, but cut whenever it fits the Liberal Zionist narrative of an armed colonizer in an illegal colony outpost as the victim who reacts to the threat made manifest by the blood shed by the Caliban-like violent native.
The truth can’t be faced by Liberal Zionist press where Israel holds, in the words of US journalist Thomas Friedman, ‘the moral high ground’ no matter what it does. When the moral high ground is clearly nowhere to be seen, it is the job of the Liberal Zionist journalist and publisher to built one, no matter the facts. (Conservative press, catering to its own audience, is more open in its celebration of Israeli war crimes and dismissive of any rights Palestinians could have to life, land or property. ‘Might is right’, and the moral high ground can be left unbuilt.)
Truth is replaced by a lie that is fed to the audience to give them a distorted view so that they wouldn’t turn against the occupier and support effective action for peace. To make sure of this, a feeling of apathy and impotence is used by the Liberal Zionist press to sing consciences to sleep, in the style of ‘the poor will always be with us’, in this case presenting the Israeli occupation and its crimes something beyond mere human capability to affect.
This tactic, so often used by The Guardian as we have previously noted in the work of their staff members like Jonathan Freedland, is for those who don’t buy the excuses and tends to come at the end of articles, where it can be read as ‘So you feel bad, but guess what? Neither you nor anyone else can do anything about it, this is just how it is.’ Holmes, as expected from a journalist of The Guardian, uses this tactic.
So the occupation goes on, with the help of the ‘Western’ media and Palestinian blood keeps flowing while illegal Israeli settler attacks and theft of Palestinian land and property increase – just because for ideological reasons blame can’t be truly put to where it belongs, the Israeli regime and its representatives which have kept up brutal occupation and committed ethnic cleansing and illegal colonization since 1948.
SOURCES:
ILLEGAL ISRAELI SETTLER STONE-THROWER KILLS WOMAN
‘It was terror’: Palestinians decry rise in attacks by Israeli settlers
SHOOTING IN ILLEGAL ISRAELI COLONY ON OCCUPIED WEST BANKS LEADS TO 2 DEATHS
THE HERALDS OF APATHY: “THE OCCUPATION WILL ALWAYS BE WITH US”
PHOTO: The funeral of Aisha al-Rabi held on October 13th by Ayman Nobani via Xinhua.
YOUNG MAN BURIED 75 DAYS AFTER HE WAS KILLED BY THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION
Elias Saleh Yassin(22) was buried on Saturday December 29th in his home town of Bidya in the occupied West Bank’s Salfit district after the Israeli occupation returned his body the day before.
Yassin’s mortal remains had been kept in freezer by Israel’s regime for two months and thirteen days (75 days) after he had been killed.
Elias Yassin was shot dead on October 15th by Israel’s occupation forces soldiers and Israeli occupation claimed that the construction worker had ‘tried to stab a soldier’ near the illegal Israeli mega-colony of Ariel, at a crossroads in the town of Haris.
Two days earlier Elias Yassin had taken part in carrying the stretcher on which the body of Aisha al-Rabi(47) rested in her funeral and if Yassin did try to attack occupation soldiers, her death would have been the likely motivation behind it.
Aisha al-Rabi was killed in a stone-throwing attack by illegal Israeli settlers on Friday October 12th. Her husband was wounded and her young daughter witnessed her mother’s death from the back seat of their car.
Israeli occupation has not arrested any illegal Israeli settlers in connection of her killing.
SOURCES:
ILLEGAL ISRAELI SETTLER STONE-THROWER KILLS WOMAN
In video – Slain Palestinian youth laid to rest in Salfit
Israel to return body of slain Palestinian in Salfit
YOUNG MAN KILLED BY ISRAELI OCCUPATION FORCES IN WEST BANK ON MONDAY
#Palestine #Salfit #WestBank
ISRAEL KILLS ONE, WOUNDS 18 IN BESIEGED GAZA DURING THE GREAT RETURN MARCH
One person has been killed and 18 wounded by Israel’s occupation forces during the 40th Great Return March Friday demonstration in the besieged Gaza Strip on December 28th.
Karam Mohamed No’man Fayyad(26) was shot in head east of Khan Younis in the southern part of the small coastal enclave around 16:00 pm local Palestine time. He was standing 150 meters from the border with ethnically cleansed Palestine 1948 when he was shot. Fayyad died in hospital before 18:00, when his death was announced.
According to his family, he suffered from ‘a mental disorder’. He is the eight physically or mentally handicapped person who has been killed by Israeli troops during the Great Return March, which started on March 30th.
Among the 18 wounded are 4 children and 2 paramedics, one male and one female, and one journalist. One of the children was shot in neck by Israeli sniper. Two of the wounded suffered ‘life-threatening injuries’.
Beyond the people directly physically wounded, hundreds of people suffered from effects of tear gas inhalation.
SOURCES:
Five Gazans injured by Israeli gunfire in March of Return rallies
IOF shoots, kills disabled Palestinian on Gaza border
Israeli forces kill Palestinian youth at Gaza border
Israeli Soldiers Kill A Disabled Palestinian, Injure Eight In Gaza
#GazaReturnMarch #GreatReturnMarch
ISRAEL KILLS TEENAGER IN AL-BIREH [Updated]
TEENAGER’S DEATH BRINGS FRIDAY’S DEATH TOLL AT ISRAEL’S HANDS TO FOUR
The death of a teenager on the morning of Saturday December 22nd brought the death toll from Israel’s occupation forces’ attack on Friday’s Great Return March to four.
18-year-old Ayman Munir Shbeir from Deir al-Balah was shot in abdomen east of al-Bureij refugee camp by an Israeli sniper and after surviving a surgery on Friday evening, remained in a critical condition until he succumbed to his wounds.
According to a source in the social media, Shbeir came from a ‘very poor family’ and had left school to sell coffee and tea on the roadside for drivers.
The other casualties from Friday are Mohammed Mo’in Khalil Jahjouh(16) from Shati(Beach) refugee camp who was shot in neck; Maher Atiyah Mohammed Yasin(40) from Nuseirat refugee camp who was shot in head and had been an invalid from birth and Abdel-Aziz Ibrahim Abdel-Aziz Abu Sharia(28) from Gaza City, who was shot in abdomen.
The funerals of all four victims took place on Saturday, attracting large crowds.
At least 114 other people were injured, of whom at least 30 were shot with live ammunition. Among the injured are 21 children, 3-4 medics and 2 journalists.
SOURCES:
Gaza – 4 Palestinians killed, dozens injured including journalists, paramedics
Palestinian Dies From Serious Wounds Suffered Friday
Palestinian teenager dies of wounds sustained during Gaza border protests
Palestinian teen shot at Gaza protest pronounced dead
PCHR: “Israeli Forces Kill 3 Palestinian Civilians, including 1 Child and 1 Man with Mobility Impairment, and Wound 115 Civilians” PCHR: “Israeli Forces Kill 3 Palestinian Civilians, including 1 Child and 1 Man with Mobility Impairment, and Wound 115 Civilians”
TEENAGER AMONG 3 KILLED DURING GREAT RETURN MARCH BY ISRAEL
Three Palestinians killed in Gaza March of Return
#GazaReturnMarch #GreatReturnMarch #NoWayToTreatAChild
FEATURED PHOTO via @yahia_hawajry.