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Right to Return
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Palestine's Qana
Wednesday, November 8
Another hideous massacre. All civilians. This one in the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun where the Israelis had already killed 63 people this week. The Israeli press is comparing it to Qana, the town in Lebanon where Israeli troops killed 100 civilians in '96 and another 50 or so this year.
Just like in Qana rescuers come into a scene of total gore. Artillery demolished seven homes ripping to shreds people in their beds. Body parts all over the place.
The first ambulance driver on the scene was the same one who arrived first at the beach massacre, the one that wiped out the Ghalia family. One woman said she lost four children in the shelling.
The victims were identified as Fatma Ahmed Athamna, 80, Sanaa
Ahmed Athamna, 35, Naima Ahmed Athamna, 55, Masoud Abdullah
Athamna, 55, Sabah Mohammed Athamna, 45, Samir Masoud Athamna,
23, Fatma Masoud Athamna, 16, Arafat Sa'ad Athamna, 16, Mahdi
Sa'ad Athamna, 13, Mohammed Sa'ad Athamna, 14, Sa'ad Majdi
Athamna, 8, Mahmoud Ahmed Athamna, 13, Malik Samir Athamna, 4,
Maisa Ramzi Athamna, 4, Nihad Mohammed Athamna, 33, Mohammed
Ramadan Athamna, 28, Minal Mohammed Athamna, 35, Saker
Mohammed Adwan, 45, and Sa'adi Abu Amsha.
The constant stream of killings is all supposedly in response to the shelling by Qassem rockets from Gaza. The rockets have killed a total of 5 people in 5 years, not one in the last year.
Thousands in Sommerville vote for Divestment and
Palestinian Right to Return
from John Spritzler
We have election results from nine of the eleven voting stations in
Somerville, Massachusetts.
****4,102 people (44% of the total who voted on the question) voted to affirm
the right of return of all refugees, including Palestinians.
*****2,841 people (31% of the total who voted on the question) voted to divest
from Israel.
Considering that every single newspaper and radio station serving
Somerville, and both major candidates for governor, and the Mayor, and
Somerville's Congressman all very visibly opposed our questions, and the
Zionist forces made it their number one campaign strategy to make sure that
Somervillians knew that all the politicians opposed our questions, it is
fair to say that those who voted for our questions did so knowing full well
that it was against the will of the entire American establishment.
Furthermore, they voted against decades of pro-Israel propaganda appealing
to their sympathy for victims of the Holocaust. They said that Israel should
let the refugees return, even though that means (as the Zionists constantly
pointed out with their "right of return is code for destroying the Jewish
state" propaganda) implicitly opposing the legitimacy of the "Jewish state"
idea.
There has never been an election in the United States before that allowed
people to vote against the heretofore unchallenged pro-Israel policy of our
government. Until today, Zionists felt confident that there was no
significant opposition among the American public to our government's
pro-Israel policy. Until today, most people were so afraid of being labeled
an anti-Semite for expressing any view that organized Jewry disagreed with
that there was no evidence that anybody except an ignorable fringe had a
problem with our country's pro-Israel policy. Until today the Zionists could
have assumed that virtually NOBODY in the United States would vote against
Israel--until today's vote in Somerville, that is.
The Zionists may gloat that they defeated the two questions, but I am quite
sure that, privately, they are extremely worried, because today, for the
first time, they have seen the handwriting on the wall. The pro-Israel votes
is only going one way in the future, and that is down. The vote against
Israel's ethnic cleansing and apartheid is also going only one way in the
future, and that is up. It was a good day in Somerville today.
Special Reports on Killings in
Oaxaca, Mexico
Israeli Cabinet Votes Bill for
Strongman Government
By one vote the Israeli Cabinet voted and sent to the full Knesset a bill to replace the parliamentary system it has now with a strong presidential system. It was done to bring in far rightist Avigdor Lieberman into the government. Lieberman wants every Arab out of Israel and the territories. Listen to veteran peace activist Uri Avnery in a telephone interview from Tel Aviv on October 22nd.
Hear Juliano Mer Khamis Now
October 16 Hear a brand new interview with Juliano Mer Khamis, director of "Arna's Children". He spoke in New York City after a screening of his film.
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