Do Not Waste Your Time in Palestine, Obama

Do Not Waste Your Time in Palestine, Obama

May 24th, 2009 by kawther.salam

As a Palestinian, I strongly support the establishment of an independent Palestinian State, however, a state with complete power and not under the Israeli occupation and the dictates of the US and foreign countries. As a journalist, I am obliged to carry the moral and ethical values of Journalism. To carry the voice of those Palestinians whose voices do not reach the international public opinion, of the majority of Palestinians who are tired of political lies and the liars who continue saying and repeating “the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian President, the Prime Minister, the Palestinian government, Hamas and Fatah …” and other invented and self-adjudicated names and titles which never fit the truth, the facts on the ground, and more important, to the will of the majority of Palestinians.

In Ramallah and Gaza there is nothing more than Israeli occupation and some Palestinian political parties who receive some support and bribes from foreign countries who only support the continuation of the Israeli occupation under varied pretexts. This is what we the Palestinians see, think and believe.

What President Yasser Arafat refused to sign, the next Palestinian Authority (actually, all dogs and swine of Americans and Israelis), have accepted. Finally, the illegal and illegitimate Palestinian “President” Mahmoud Abbas (his mandate was over in January 2009), but he is still there, because, since when do the jews, the Americans and their lackeys care for things like law or legitimacy), declared a new “ministerial government” designed by USA and Israel occupation (a “Karzai” government for Palestinians). This “New Palestinian Government” ^TM is under managed by a US citizen, “Prime Minister” Salam Fayyad. The parliamentary group of the Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Hamas all rejected this new “government” as illegitimate. Hamas stated that they will not recognize this “New Palestinian Government” ^TM of Salam Fayyad.

The member of the legislative council Mahmoud Aloul, a member of the Revolutionary Council of the Fatah, denounced the lack of consultation with the Fatah parliamentary group before establishing this so-called “New Government”. Fatah MP Ashraf Joma’a stated that the Fatah parliamentary group has decided to boycott this government of Salam Fayyad, and that they will not grant it legitimacy. He said that how Fayyad established his so-called “government” was illegal.

The Secretary of the Higher Committee for Palestinian National Conference, Khalid Abdul Majid, said that the Palestinian resistance groups consider the establishment of this so-called “government by Abbas and Fayyad as a step which fosters and perpetuates Palestinian divisions and may lead to the failure of national dialogue between the Palestinians parties (Fatah and Hamas) and nullify all attempts at unity. He added that this Fayyad “government” is responsive only to American and Israeli dictates.

Abbas is an Illegal and Illegitimate President

In the West Bank and even in Gaza, the Palestinian public opinion expressed their anger at the continued ignorance of illegal “President” Abbas. Everybody knows that President Abbas wants no reconciliation with Hamas, he does not want a Fatah conference to be held, he does not want Presidential, and Parliamentary elections. These are the demands by the US and Israel, which Abbas implements against the will of the majority of the Palestinians, but there is also another reason why Abbas and the useless eaters around him do not want any kind of Palestinian unity, any kind of legal process, a Fatah conference: it would show that these perhaps 20, 30 people are alone, completely isolated, standing against the will of millions of Palestinians at home and in the diaspora, with the only support of Jake Walles and the money he and his accomplices defalcate from the American taxpayers to finance this criminal charade.

What the Americans and their masters should understand is that they are wasting their time, as nothing which Abbas signs of decrees has a binding basis in law or custom. All decisions of his “government” are illegitimate, illegal and have no validity whatsoever. They represent no ones will, and as fruit and expression of criminal intent, they are null and void.

500 years ago Niccolo Machiavelli wrote in his famous advice to rulers and kings that no matter how powerful ones armies, in order to enter a country the good will of the inhabitants is needed. Sponsoring an assembly of criminal dunces does not change the will of the people or wash away the illegitimacy and criminality of an occupation, and having a big army does not help either, as the illegal Jewish invaders from Europe and the USA have found out in the past 60, 80, 120 years. It would be better and cheaper for everybody concerned if Europe and the USA take back their jews, but, as Machiavelli also states in his work, the commission of one error forces an invader commission of more errors.

The first error which the British and later the USA committed was to allow the European Zionists to establish their illegal occupation of my country, and since then, a stream of follow-up errors committed by Israel and all their supporters is costing not only the USA but the whole West its welfare, its standing in the world, its democracies, its social security, its culture, in short everything. Is it not time to take the only wise decision and cut all support to Israel, to recognize that Zionism is nothing but the ideology of criminal dunces no less disconnected from reality than this last “government”?

History tells us that wise counsel like that of Machiavelli is seldom followed, and future historians will in this point probably see in President Obama no exception to the succession of arrogant criminals who ignored wise consel, who fill the pages of human history. President Obama will probably succeed in destroying Palestine, but with equal probability he will bury his own country because of his inability or unwillingness to check the irrational insistence of the American establishment in putting all the wealth and power of the USA behind the crimes of worldwide zionism.

Diary From the Ruins of Gaza

Diary From the Ruins of Gaza

May 24th, 2009 by kawther.salam

In one of the most beautiful areas of Gaza, near the beach and the beautiful sea. The driver of our vehicle stopped in front of the ruins of a big house. Spontaneously I asked why we stopped near this particular house, said Austrian-Arab Dr. Tarek Afifi who was in Gaza with a delegation organized by the Federation of Austrian-Arab Doctor and the Austrian organization Saar, The “Society for Austro-Arab Relations”.

“This was Abu Ammar’s house, the house of President Arafat, who died under the Israeli siege in Ramallah.”

I turned my face toward Fritz Edlinger, one of the organizers of our trip to Gaza. Edlinger said that in the nineties he had been here, in this house, together with the former Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky. He remembered that they heard music when arriving at this house. “When we heard the music, I told myself that I know this music, but I did not know what it was exactly. Imagine Dr. Tarek, what music it was!! It was the national anthem of Austria”.
Edlinger ended his talk laughing hysterically, until his tears fall down.

“Fritz Edlinger is well known as a strong person; he never expressed his feelings before others. He always controlled that, but before that house he laughed in a hysterical way until he cried. I don’t know if he cried of laughing, or if he cried because of his own memories”, said Dr. Tarek Afifi.
The Poisoning of President Yasser Arafat

In July 1994, former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat returned to Gaza. That same year he received the Nobel Prize for Peace. On Monday 8/1/2001 he rejected the proposals submitted by then US President Bill Clinton to the Palestinians and the Israelis. The proposal was to renounce the Palestinian Right of Return.

The criminal Israeli occupation forces surrounded the presidential headquarters of Arafat in the late March 2002, and besieged him inside his office in Al-Moqata in Ramallah in West Bank. After 30 months of siege, the health of Arafat deteriorated suddenly. Some traitors who works in his office gave him poison in coordination with Israel and the US. On 27 October 2004, President Arafat was transferred to a hospital in France via Jordan. He died in a military hospital in Paris on November 11, 2004. His body was transferred to Ramallah for burial in Al-Moqata, near the place where he was besieged and poisoned. Until this day, the Palestinian Attorney General has not investigated, or arrested anybody from the group of criminals, the suspected Palestinian-Israeli traitors who poisoned the Palestinian President. They are all known by their first and last names, and their addresses are also known.

The Double Standards of Europe

The Double Standards of Europe

May 21st, 2009 by kawther.salam

In this photo you can see the Israeli Knesset member Michael Ben Ari (right) of the radical Israeli National Union party of the illegal settlers standing at the door of an illegal caravan, which he installed as his “parliament office” in the Palestinian Shu’fat refugee camp in East Jerusalem. Ben-Ari stated that he was in his mobile office as a declaration that Jerusalem is a Jewish capital of the Israeli state which will never be divided or given to others.

This is the criminal Israeli government, which Europe and the International community accepts and deals with. It is the same European countries and the same international community who boycotted the Palestinian government, and imposed starvation and genocide on all the Palestinian nation as a “protest” against the Islamic Hamas winning the previous legal election of 2006, elections which European observers declared to have been clean. Double standards and a shameful support for the most radical, criminal elements of the state of Israel who won their last election because of their clear advertisement for ethnic cleansing, saying that they would throw out all Arabs, even those with Israeli ID, from our homeland, and crushing the Palestinians after 61 years of Nakba (catastrophe) and 42 years of criminal occupation.

The Israeli Murderer Who Eats Chocolate While …

The Israeli Murderer Who Eats Chocolate While …

May 21st, 2009 by kawther.salam

After the return of the delegation of the Federation of Austrian-Arab Doctor from their visit to Gaza, where they could see the devastation and destruction left by the Israeli war machine during the so-called “Operation Cast Lead”, a meeting was held in Vienna where Dr. Tarek Afifi, who was in the delegation, told his colleagues about his observation in Gaza. He described his feelings during the visit in such awful words that they can not be described in an English language. He said, that he felt death inside him during his visit to Izbat Abed Rabbo, a small village of farmers near Beit Lahia in the north-east of Gaza Strip. He said that the smell of death was suffocating when he saw the ruins of a big house and the pieces of an ambulance buried under it. In the windows of ambulance he saw some pieces of clothes of the medical team which was killed inside the ambulance while trying to get out victims of the Israeli bombing.

Dr. Afifi then related the story of Abu Tareq, Mohammad Abed Rabbo, a volunteer worker in charge of the so-called camp which was established on the ruins of Izbat Abed Rabbo. Abu Tareq had told him how they murdered two of his children before his eyes, and also the story of the three young girls (Samer age of 9, Amal age of 7, and Sahar age of 4) who were murdered by an Israeli criminal while he was eating chocolate.

Abu Tarek said that when the ambulance came to evacuate the three young girls to the hospital, the Israeli criminal, the same soldier who had murdered the girls, shot a rocket on the house, which collapsed over the ambulance and everybody inside the house. Abu Tarek said that another Palestinian who was riding a carriage pulled by a horse passed by the victims and he tried to help get them out, but the jewish soldiers completed their massacre by shooting the horse and his owner.

Dr. Tarek also mentioned the medical situation in the hospitals of Gaza. He related that 500 kidneys patients face death because the filters for the kidney support equipment is over. He also mentioned the miserable situation at the Egyptian border at Rafah, and how the Egyptian workers at the border are unfriendly and humiliate the people who want to access Gaza. He said that the visit of his delegation to Gaza had been coordinated with the Egyptians at the Rafah border, but that after their arrival at 7AM, the Egyptians said that the intelligence officer in charge of opening the border had not arrived. But “soon” took hours: at 2PM they Egyptians said that the officer had arrived but the border was closed for the day, and invented that the Arab Doctors visit was not coordinated. Then they asked again, and they were finally allowed to cross the border after seven more hours of waiting. Dr. Afifi saw many people waiting at the Rafah border, among them a Christian Peace delegation praying while they waited for admission to Gaza. They told him that they had been praying there during the last four days.

Slaves Under The Inhuman Israeli Occupation

Slaves Under The Inhuman Israeli Occupation

May 19th, 2009 by kawther.salam

The Israeli military occupation under the criminal brigade of Lt. Col. Udi ben Muha has turned the Palestinians who live in the heart of Hebron into slaves who have no rights even in their own houses in the heart of the city where their families have lived for centuries. In Hebron, the Palestinians are not allowed to repair the doors, the windows, the electricity, the kitchen … even when the feces and the dirt overflow the toilets of Palestinian houses, it is not permissible for them to repair the defects in the toilet without asking the office of the criminal commander for permission.

This is a real, inhuman, farce, and part of the daily life which the Palestinians endure in the heart of the city of Hebron. This inhuman farce is unknown in the world and to the institutions  which defend human rights in Europe and America, simply because the international media never reports about these atrocious and criminal „policies” of Israel, and even the supposedly responsible Palestinian authorities help to cover up these violations of the most basic of human rights of the Palestinians living under the Israeli military occupation. Since 1967 and until now, each Israeli military commander who has served in Hebron is zionist war criminal who has subjected the Hebronite citizens to horrors and abuses beyond the imagination of normal human beings, and each one of these perverted, sick minds has been worse than the previous ones.

The story of the horrific behavior of the Israeli soldiers who invaded yesterday night Al- Mutahseb house in Hebron and destroyed everything came as a result of repairing the door of their house.
According to Paulette Schroeder, a member of the Christian Peace Maker Team in Hebron, at 8:45 pm May 17, the IDF invaded the Mutahseb family home near the Mosque in H2 area of Hebron.  The family had made a new doorway from one of their rooms to the next apartment they rented, but the Border Police Captain said they had not asked his permission. After confiscating all their ID’s, the Border Police ordered everyone together in one open space of their home. They pushed furniture around, then pulled out clothes and bedding from drawers, making general disorder throughout the house.

A family member called CPT at 9:00 pm requesting they document the home invasion. When Tarek Abuata and Paulette Schroeder arrived, the captain ordered them out of the area.  Abuata and Schroeder exited the Mosque checkpoint but stayed nearby to observe. The captain ordered the family out of their house. When Abuata and Schroeder returned inside the gate to be with the family, three soldiers grabbed Abuata and forcibly pushed both him and Schroeder back through the turnstiles and checkpoint gate.

The captain ordered the Mutahseb family to seal up the doorway, and if they did not do this within a short time, he himself would seal it.  He threatened that he would also keep the family on the other side of the gate, preventing them from reentering their home.  One of the family replied to the Captain’s command:  “I’ll not promise you that we will reseal it.  Maybe we will. Maybe we won’t.  This is our home.”

Hunger and Thirst in Hebron

Forty thousand Palestinians live in the heart of old city of Hebron under the Israeli occupation. 90% of the Palestinians suffer of thirst and the shortage of water. The Jewish squatters steal the water, irrigating their gardens and filling their swimming pools with the water stolen from us Palestinians while we depend on contaminated wells. The families collect the drinking water from the public toilets of the Abraham mosque. Each person shower once in the month. The children suffer anaemic scars, and their families suffer of poverty.

The Israeli occupation stole everything, and forced the Palestinians to leave their homes. It’s a criminal policy of ethnic cleansing and apartheid.

Palestinian Resources Diverted to the Foreign Countries

Palestinian Resources Diverted to the Foreign Countries

May 19th, 2009 by kawther.salam

“Israel stole a large part of the Palestinian cultural heritage during the Lebanon war in 1982, and 20 millions of Palestinian money had been smuggled to Italy” said Palestinian Attorney-General Ahmed Mghanni. He told me this during our interview after he participated in the United Nations Anti Corruption conference which took place between last 11 - 13 May, and the Asset Recovery Conference, which was held between 14 - 15 May 2009, both conferences took place in the Vienna International Center. Mghanni said that the UN Anti Corruption Conference “ACC” was to promote  cooperation among the countries which signed the agreement, and that it provided the opportunity for face-to-face dialogue and direct liaison between the representatives from the countries taking part.

AG Mghanni participated in these UN conferences for Palestine, which has not yet signed the UN Anti-Corruption agreement, as this is the responsibility of the Palestinian Justice. Mghanni said that we are interested in signing this agreement, but we must study it first. He stated that millions of Palestinian money and many other resources have been smuggled to other countries, and that the PA is interested to benefit from the exchange of experiences with other countries in their fight against corruption.

He pointed out that the Palestinians needs to know how to deal with the countries where our money has been smuggled to. We need to recover this money, or at least to have it frozen until it returns to us. The UN conference on asset recovery was held to strengthen the ability of developing countries to recover assets which have been stolen and hidden. We need this initiative to solve the problem of the millions from our estates, which have been smuggled abroad to many countries.

During his visit, an official meeting was held between Palestinian AG Ahmad Mghanni and Dimitri Vlassis, Chief of the Corruption and Economic Crime Office at the UN. They discussed various issues, among them how the United Nations can help the Palestinian Attorney General and the Palestinian Judiciary in the development of new legislation against corruption, and how the UN could help in training Palestinians in dealing with corruption cases.

Another meeting was held at the Palestinian Embassy in Vienna between the AG Mghanni and the representatives of the Palestinian and Arab communities. Mghanni stated that many corrupt Palestinians run away from the Palestinian Justice in the West Bank and Gaza. Some of them receive Israel help to escape justice. He mentioned the case of the former head of the Palestinian police of the PA in Gaza, Gazi Al-Jabali, who had been involved in corruption and who is a now assisting Khaled Mishal, the leader of Hamas in Syria. He also mentioned that many other corrupt Palestinians have established investment projects in the neighboring Arab and other countries, and that now these people are under the protection of these countries.

Palestinian Resources Diverted to the Foreign Countries

AG Mghanni said that the most dangerous corruption files which he had received were the files of the Palestinian diversion of real estate to many foreign countries, like Spain, or Italy, where alone 20 millions of Palestinian money had been smuggled. Another example mentioned were the files of the General Petroleum Corporation. He said that each one of the heads of the General Petroleum Corporation was corrupted more than the one before him. The last President of Petroleum Corporation diverted 165 thousand to his personal account during his first in six months in office alone, and this is one of the most complicated corruption issues according to the AG. While these sums do not compare to well-known cases of corruption and malfeasance like Enron, they are huge sums by Palestinian standards.

Palestinian Judiciary Achievements and Problems

Ahmed Mghanni described the Palestinian judiciary as an independent authority which is better than the judiciary system in many Arab countries. He added “our judiciary has achieved many positive goals in excess in terms of efficiency and work to eradicate corruption in other countries. We have 97 prosecutors, and 212 male and female judges, and we have achieved security in the Palestinian cities which are under PA control”. He denied the intervention of the legislative or executive authorities, as well as security, in the work of prosecutors. He said that they all respected the judiciary and the decisions which were issued. We had some problems with the Palestinian security before three years ago, but now everything works in the right way.

Mghanni said that they took judicial decisions requiring the release of some people illegally detainees by the Palestinian security. The security systems complied with their resolutions and actually released these prisoners.

A Huge Backlog of Cases

Mghanni clarified that the Palestinian judiciary is works normally, and that there are final decisions and a complete separation in the cases which reach the courts. But they also face a huge backlog of cases which date back to the years 2000 - 2005, when the Palestinian courts were not able to work due the Israeli military invasions and siege. The matter of these files is supposed to be resolved by the years 2010 - 2011 according to our plan.

The Palestinian judiciary works under several laws, among them the laws existing during the Ottoman empire, the British mandate, as well as the laws of the Egyptian, the Jordanian and Israeli military occupations. Since the establishment of the Palestinian Legislative Council, the first circle of the PLC enacted several new laws (about 43 laws), and other laws have been consolidated between Gaza and the West Bank. We have no integrated penal law, and no integrated law to deal with corruption cases. And there are still many laws which need to be amended - and this problem can’t be solved while the second circle of the Palestinian Legislative Council does not hold or discuss any issue or law. (In addition to what AG Mghanni said, I think that it is impossible to discuss about new legislation while more than half of the Palestinian Legislative Council is interned in the Israeli gulag).

Honor Killings In Palestine

What do you say about the increase number of honor killings and the murders of women in Palestine? Is this the right time to deal with this issue as a crime with premeditation and declare powerful laws which deter the perpetrators of these crimes?

Palestinian Attorney General Ahmad Mghanni: I can’t describe the honor killing as an organized crime. The prosecutors are dealing with this crime as a premeditation crime, but the punishment laws related to this crime and still implemented in Palestine are the Jordanian laws, which give lenient sentences to the criminals. In the new Penal Code which the Palestinian Legislative Council is supposed to adopt, and which was drawn up by the Palestinian Authority, there is severe punishment for honor killers, and we hope that this law applies. When, perhaps in the year 5000?

Israeli Penal Laws and Punishment

Recently, the Israeli court ruled that a Palestinian prisoner accused of killing Israelis in 2002 should pay nine million dollars. While the Israeli courts never rule or sentence the Israeli soldiers and the criminal settlers who are involved in thousands of murders of Palestinian civilians, of women, old men and of children. I asked Mghanny how the Palestinian judiciary will deal with the thousands of victims of the Israelis in the Palestinian cities?

Mghanny said that he heard about this issue, and that Israel decided to “deduct” the 9 million dollars from the PA tax money which are held by Israel (actually, which Israel stole). I think that we must do the same, that the prosecutors should accept all the Palestinian complaints against the Israeli murders. But how will we implement any rulings of our courts against Israel? We don’t have any power to do that. We are still living under the occupation. Gaza and the West bank cities are all under the occupation, and anybody who says anything else is a liar.

Palestinian Embassy in Vienna

On Friday 15 May 2009 at 7:00 PM, AG Ahmad Mghanni spoke to a group of Palestinians and Arabs at the Embassy of Palestine in Vienna. Mghanni accused Hamas leader and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council Youssef Acharabi of allowing Hamas members to use his home to carry out the assassination of Fatah leaders and Palestinian security officials before the bloody military coup in Gaza in Gaza. He accused Hamas of murdering 622 Palestinians during the bloody military coup in Gaza in 2006, and of shooting other 1222 persons in their legs, hands and eyes.

Mghanni asked rhetorically how many Israelis Hamas had killed by shooting missiles, and how many Palestinian they had killed, how many houses and organizations they had destroyed? He criticized the kidnapping the Israeli war criminal Gilad Shalit after he compared the results of  capturing him with the mass destruction in Gaza.

Mghanni accused Hamas, as a group, of being “hallucinating” drug dealers who led Gaza into a disaster. But he clarified that he does not mean in his statement the Al-Qassam resistance, who he described as following a good ideology and a positive manner in their fight against the Israeli occupation. He described them as brothers of Fatah the resistance. He said that 99% of the Palestinians in Gaza are suffering of psychological problems.

Cursing God By Hamas Interrogators

The AG Ahmad Mghanni himself was captured by Hamas some time ago and obliged to stop his work as Attorney General, and then thrown out of Gaza. The AG said that the Hamas members who captured him where cursing God with very obscene shameful words while interrogating him. He said that he was with open mouth to hear such curses getting out of the mouth of people who declared themselves as a representatives of Hamas, a religious muslim group.

Mghanni also described the Netanyahu and Lieberman government as better than the government of Olmert and Livni - he said that at least the current government is clear to us more than the previous one.

Arguments With AG Mghanni

The Palestinian presents argued with the AG. Among them, Mr. Abu Mohammad Shoshari protested against the description of Hamas as drugs dealers, he told Mghanni that “the people who you described as drugs dealers are the only ones who raised our heads” during the Gaza massacre last January.
Engineer Said Khadra said that did not expect to hear Mghanni in the role of AG, to make such statements in which he expressed his partiality to the PA. He said that everybody, from both Fatah and Hamas, made mistakes, and that these “useless rockets” were the only thing which has made the Israelis feel that they are an occupation who does not have a link to the illegally occupied Palestinian land. Khadra also said that the donor countries who pay the salaries of the Palestinian authority are doing so in support of Israel, and not in support of the PA itself.

The meeting was ended with an intervention of Mustafa Abbas, the President of the Association of Arab Culture in Vienna, who suggested that the Muslims and the Arabs in Vienna must make activities which promote Jerusalem as a capital for the Arab Culture. “Through these activities we can show the Austrians and the world the extent of the Israeli oppression in Palestine” he said. Mustafa Abbas is well known and respected person among the Austrians and Arabs in Vienna. He continues organizing cultural activities related to Arab Culture, and he helps the local Arab community to manage their affairs in a positive way in Vienna.

Honor Killings In Palestine

Honor Killings In Palestine

May 19th, 2009 by kawther.salam

Last Saturday 16 May 2009, Halimeh Ahmad Al-Sheikh from Qalqilyah was found dead near the Atara checkpoint north of Ramallah. She was the mother of 7 children, aged 30. Medical sources said that the Palestinian Red Crescent found the body after they received information. They found the corpse of Halimeh with many stab wounds in the back and dumped about 400 meters from the Atara checkpoint on the road to the Nabi Musa village. The body had been dumped 4 years before, it had been partially eaten by wild animal.

Two months ago the body of another woman was found in Ramallah. In March 2009 three women were found killed in Gaza. There is an increasing number of murders of women in Palestine. In 2009, so far 11 women have been killed, but this is not the real number of “honor killings”, because many women are murdered and the families declare their death as a “normal” after they invent cover stories to simulate or justify a normal death. They are all victims of the weak laws inherited from Jordan and implemented in Palestine, which guarantee impunity to men who murder their female relatives. Last year women organizations held a meeting with President Abbas about this horrific situation, and they asked him to declare a strong law against the criminal “honor killing”. Apparently, nothing has happened since.
What the Palestinian Attorney General say about the increase number of honor killings and the murders of women in Palestine? Is this the right time to deal with this issue as a crime with premeditation and declare powerful laws which deter the perpetrators of these crimes?

Palestinian Attorney General Ahmad Mghanni: I can’t describe the honor killing as an organized crime. The prosecutors are dealing with this crime as a premeditation crime, but the punishment laws related to this crime and still implemented in Palestine are the Jordanian laws, which give lenient sentences to the criminals. In the new Penal Code which the Palestinian Legislative Council is supposed to adopt, and which was drawn up by the Palestinian Authority, there is severe punishment for honor killers, and we hope that this law applies.

When, perhaps in the year 5000?

Dr. Finkelstein and the Rejection of the Vienna University

Dr. Finkelstein and the Rejection of the Vienna University

May 13th, 2009 by kawther.salam

Universities are the places where the intellectuals, scientists, politicians, professors,  engineers, doctors … of a society are formed, and where free speech and discussion should be allowed, unencumbered by politics, because a University can not function well without the possibility of the free exchange of ideas, and they should never be  permitted to fall under the sway of thought terrorists. At least this was what I learned at universities. But when Universities turn away from these their objective goals and principles and instead become the castles of suppression of the freedom of speech and expression, they only spread ideology, and ideologies are without exception, collections of ideas which only serve to further the goals and justify the activities of psychopaths. This is the point when staying at home, or on a mountain with the goats, but without education, becomes a much better alternative, to be preferred over education at University … (Kawther)

This all what I can say after Prof. Manuel Arispe, a professor from Peru, sent me the correspondence between him and the director of University of Vienna, explaining the purpose of inviting the intellectual Dr. Norman Finkelstein to give a speech on coming May 27 at the campus in the old AKH in Vienna. The invitation of Dr. Finkelstein came after an agreement to use a locality on the Uni Campus had already been signed with the organizers of the event, and after the University received 481 Euro in payment for the use of the premises (see documents below). But the University refused their permission to allow the Finkelstein lecture after somebody from a zionist organization sent a protest letter (quoted in part), consisting more of bullying and whining than the mention of facts which would warrant refusing the appearance of Dr. Finkelstein.

Dr. Norman Finkelstein was invited to speak about Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and not about his book “Holocaust Industry“, which the zionists in Vienna and everywhere else hate, apparently because the book will open the door to legitimate criticism of immoral and criminal policies of Israel, but, worse, it appears that the zionists know well that allowing dissenters from inside the Jewish communities like Dr. Finkelstein, but also others, puts clearly on display that there is a deep schism within jewish society which goes much deeper than the differences due to normal rivalries between factions within Judaism, namely the schism between zionists and some extremist religious groups on one side, and everybody else who thinks of themselves as Jews. So it appears that the problem of these people with Dr. Finkelstein is not so much about his (supposed) acceptance by certain non-Jewish political radicals and his unorthodox approach to the sensitive issue of the holocaust, but that in his books he makes evident how naked and delegitimized these groups are within the jewish communities worldwide.

To know more about the “real” democracy in Europe and the policy of silencing the intellectuals who do not conform to the narrow interests of zionism, please look at the documents below, and read the translation of the letter between Prof. Manuel Arispe and the director of Vienna University, also below.

As I could see, the problems and obstacles which the zionists cause wherever Dr. Finkelstein is invited to speak are nothing new. The shameful episode caused by them with the University of Vienna is neither the first nor the last one with respect to Dr. Finkelstein, but also in regards to other persons who speak out against their perceived interests. As I know from my experience with jews, what scares them most are persons who speak out the truth irrespective of what is considered “appropriate” by zionists.

Honestly, what follows is a weak translation, as weak as the German original, of a letter sent by a zionist lady to the rector of the University of Vienna. I prefer to leave the language similar to the original, in order to show the level of the writer which scared the Rector of the University of Vienna. Upon receiving this letter, the lecture of Dr. Finkelstein was cancelled in the University. It is interesting and revealing that one of the most prestigious universities in the German-speaking world would accept the diktat of somebody sending such a weak and childish rant. I have taken the liberty to mark the passages which appear to be recourse fear-mongering, emotive insinuation and smear.

See original in German as a PDF file.

---

Open Letter

Vienna, 7 May 2009

Subject.: Event with Norman Finkelstein: Israel-Palestine, Roots of Conflict, Prospects for Peace

We have learned that for 27 May 2009 delivered a lecture event with Norman Finkelstein on the University Campus (formerly AKH), lecture hall C1 is planned. He will speak about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and it is assumed that he once more will use his crude and dangerous idea that the “Zionists” would use the Holocaust to avoid any criticism of Israeli policy of silence to bring forward is.

Even if it is not academic or scientific event is expected to act, we are filled with concern and astonishment, that the Vienna University provides their premises for such a problematic person like Finkelstein and for such a one-sided propaganda event.

Finkelstein and his book “The Holocaust Industry” - an inflammatory title, whose authorship in significant ways both neo-Nazi David Irving history counterfeiters and Ernst Zündel claim for themselves - to relativize the Holocaust and spread of anti-Semitism contributed, not least by then the singularity of the Nazi crimes against humanity openly denies. This is just in Austria, which so long has difficulties with the acceptation of guilt has had on particularly fertile ground. Especially those almost 50% of Austrians who think that “the Jews of the Holocaust for their own purposes, exploit feel through such a mess to confirmed. Accordingly, the great reputation which Finkelstein has gained in extreme right-wing neo-Nazi circles. “A German Jew speaks freely,” so the euphoric headline of the neo-Nazi National Newspaper.

Alfred Schobert of the Duisburger the Institute of Language and Social Research (DISS) analyzed Finkelstein’s role in the discourse of the extreme right. His summary verdict on the significance of the anti-Zionist agitators for the transport of anti-Semitism: “Finkelstein is the son of Holocaust survivors , the surviving victims of the Nazis harm, he wants the memory of the true victims, but he undermines it. Finkelstein sees himself as the radical left, however, the (…) leads water to the mills of the extreme right. That is the factual background against which we call Finkelstein a “Jewish David Irving”.

The Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance (DÖW) writes about Finkelstein and others: “The fact that Finkelstein as a Jew can make attacks that would otherwise soon be identified as anti-Semitic, makes him so important for the right-wing extremist scene. When the revisionist history forgers David Irving in the early 90’s on the “Holocaust industry’ swaggered, he became so closely involved with the scene that he never got beyond it. Only Finkelstein made it to word not in the mainstream media discourse anchor. Although Finkelstein, the Holocaust does not deny in principle, it connects him with much of what he estimated Irving. The “revisionist” National Journal says some on his website about the two very different fighter against the “Holocaust industry ‘: Two Men - One result‘”.

Among these policy issues comes Finkelsteins repeatedly documented propensity for personal attacks against researchers, such as Alan Dershowitz, Benny Morris and others who did not share his views . This has ultimately led to him ultimately to permanent employment as a lecturer and he was denied the title of University Professor contributes to injustice. Also, the international association of scientists Scholars for Peace in the Middle East was some time ago by Finkelstein as a “Nazi PhDs” defamed.

The title of the event “Israel-Palestine, Roots of Conflict, Prospects for Peace” and the assumption that Israel uses “Nazi methods” in dealing with Palestinians, give grounds for concern that this event could be abused for anti-Semitic abuse.

Significantly, this event in both the extreme right as well as in the extreme left-wing scene advertised. But even given the importance Finkelstein for the fight against the memory of the Shoah and against Israel as a Jewish state can be assumed that on 27 Mai also neo-Nazis will deploy to one of their idols to listen.

We ask this in the context of the available space to position a university campus for the “Jewish David Irving” in mind.

For the Board of SPME Austria:
Dr. Ruth Contreras, HRätin i.R
Ruth.contreras @ wavenet.at
www.spme.net

---

The letter above is at once a pamphlet, deeply offensive, and testimony to a rather problematic relation with facts of its author(s). Not less important, the whole text, in German, could be legally actionable not only by Dr. Finkelstein, but also by the organizers - the Austrian penal code sanctions libel or defamation (”Üble Nachrede“), and some of the insinuations and asseverations in this open letter are certainly libellous - and I would suggest that the organizers speak with a lawyer about this letter from Ms. Contreras.

Beyond these considerations, the letter makes extensive use of indefinites like “could”, “perhaps” and “maybe”, fear mongering, citing people and situations which have no relation with what is at hand. The letter certainly appears to be based in the imagination and delusions of being persecuted of its author(s), who appear to not understand that there is a difference between ones own imagination and reality, like so often with individuals affected by paranoia.

The pictures which follow are scans of the correspondence and the organizers of the event, which show that, far from the asseverations of the speaker for the University, the approval of the event was not an “error”, but had been approved after going through the appropriate bureaucratic process. The University might want to explain why they retreated from a contract, apparently in bad faith, as there is no objective reason for their actions. The account statement showing the payment is at the beginning of this article.

Sun in Tel Aviv and Fire in Gaza

Sun in Tel Aviv and Fire in Gaza

May 12th, 2009 by kawther.salam

(Sun in Tel Aviv and Fire in Gaza) is a daily protest on the other side of the “Tel Aviv Beach ” farce at the Donau Kanal here in Vienna, which takes place under the auspices of Major Dr. Michael Häupl, who won the last election with the voices of the Arab and Muslim Communities. The protest is also in memory of the Palestinian victims who were murdered during the so-called “Operation Cast Lead” and their surviving families, who are still jailed in Gaza turned into a concentration camp after the world turned the back on them. The pro-Palestinian protest activities will continue on the Donau Kanal until the end of summer of 2009.

The aim of the pro-Palestinian protesters is to remind the Austrian authorities that after 42 years the Palestinians still live under Israeli occupation, and that we are the real victims of the European Holocaust since the illegal establishment of Israel in Palestine.

May 10, 2009 was the first day when Palestinians and pro-Palestinians protested on the Donau Kanal. Hundreds of Palestinians, and also Austrians, among them women and children, demonstrated in front of the so-called “Tel Aviv Beach”, on the Donau Kanal at 16 pm. The demonstrators released black balloons inscribed with the words (Freedom for Palestine) and linked with Palestinians flags both sides of the Donau Kanal in front of the “Tel Aviv Beach” where pro-Israelis, Jews, many Israeli were standing and sitting.

The demonstration was organized by several Austrian and slamic organizations. Among the organizers were professor Leo Gabriel (an Austrian Jew), coordinator of the platform “Gaza muss Leben”, Abdullah Adel, the Secretary General of the Palestinian Union, Fritz Edlinger, Secretary General of the “Society for Austro-Arab Relations” in Vienna, Paula Abrams, “Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East”,  Franz Sieder, a Catholic priest, Dr. Tammam Kelani, President of Arab-Austrian Federation of Doctors and Pharmacists, the Palestinian Engineer Said Khadra from Palestinian Forum, Jamal Morad from Islamic organization in Vienna, Oliver Jonischkeit, also from “Gaza muss Leben” and many others.

The demonstrators chanted and raised many signs, among them (Right of Return for Palestine, Gaza must live, Stop the occupation). The organizers also gave speeches about the history of Palestine and the Israeli crimes and massacres since 1948 until today.
As grateful as I am towards all these organizations and persons, I must confess that I am ashamed of my own people. Many well-known Palestinians who are always present at events with food and drink, at the UN or at the banquets of the various political parties, were conspicuously absent, like always, and the same must sadly be said about many others, who only appear when a lamb is roasted.

Gaza Blockade
Professor Leo Gabriel and Paula Abrams spoke over a loudspeaker and reminded the Israelis and the pro-Israeli people present on the other side of the Donau Kanal that one and a half million Palestinian are living in Gaza under a siege, blocked behind barbed wire and military tanks which have turned the city into a concentration camp and a real prison of life. Professor Gabriel said that the living conditions in Gaza are miserable, that there is a lack of food, medicines and clean water, that there is poverty, and restricted electricity supply. He added that the conditions in Gaza are deteriorating rapidly, the Israeli army cordons the Gaza Strip and bombs the city almost daily. He said that hundreds of sick people died because of the shortage of medicine, and at the Israeli borders at the entrances of Gaza.

An Israeli TV crews was seen filming on the side of the Palestinian demonstrators. They stopped a few meters behind the Austrian police, far away of the Palestinian demonstrators, scared as always.

Naked Foreigners in the Middle of the Conservative Austrians

On the other side of the Donau Kanal, in front of the demonstrators, there was “Tel Aviv Beach” written on a blue big tent which was being prepared for Jews, Israelis and a pro-Israel celebration. Along the so-called “Tel Aviv Beach” on the Donau Kanal, hundreds of Israelis were exposing themselves naked in the middle of the city and of the rather conservative Austrians, who themselves are never seen naked at in their own city - there exist places where bathing naked is permitted, and women are allowed topless into some public swimming pools and bathes. The Israelis were seen swimming in a swimming pool which is set on a ship close to the main street, and which is was not known to me to be a location for naked bathing.

Along the Donau, sand was seen spread everywhere, and Jew were sitting here and there in groups, the majority were stripped of cloths. Many coffees set up for them brought sand to the Donau Kanal. Many stands were selling different things which these people represent as “their” culture, but which in fact represent other cultures, like the stolen Hommus and Falafel meals, which from being traditional Palestinian food somehow became “typical” of these European invaders.

Israeli Security in Vienna Provokes the Public
At the Tel Aviv Beach and on the streets near the Donau Kanal, Israeli “security” thugs were busy nosing around and provoking passers by. Some of them were working among the Austrian Police and even with police uniforms from the police here, and others were working alone on the streets, exposing their Paranoia by chasing innocent people and scaring them. I saw and identified these Israeli thugs very easy. All of them running around in cheap civilian clothes, following anybody who called their attention at close-up distance, like street dogs in heat. Like this I saw them running behind young and old, men and women. They came here to treat the Austrians in the same abusive and obnoxious ways as they behave in the occupied territories.

Other Israeli thugs were among the Austrian Police. They were all nervous and obviously paranoid, as usual, and even more after the Palestinian demonstrators chanted against Israeli occupation. Two of these Israelis chased me and others in the street. One of them was wearing a black suit and glasses. He came next to me pushing me to the side of cars in the street, and he and his colleagues became very nervous after they saw some people photographing them from the side over the river of the blue tent. I looked very angry at the security man who came very close to me and he scurried away.

Another Israeli security man wearing civil clothes was standing near the U-Bahn station on near the Donau Kanal. He was chasing everybody and watching the movement in the streets, following some people, walking behind them until they left the area.

I wonder how the Austrian authorities allowed these paranoid freaks from Israel to work in “security” on the streets of Vienna, molesting and frightening the people in that way. The Austrian Police blocked the area from both sides near the tent. An Austrian police boat was seen in the Donau Kanal all the time, and many Austrian officials and Israeli criminals where supposed to come to the tent to share with the Israelis in the opening of their “Tel Aviv Beach”.

Why should the city of Vienna and and the Austrian taxpayers pay for the Israeli Paranoia and molestations?  Why should the Viennese public be disturbed by letting these less than professional but all the more paranoid thugs from Israeli loose in the streets? Vienna is a quite city and everybody respect the laws, and there is absolutely no need for these Israeli terrorists to export their paranoia to Vienna. The “security” paranoia and molesting the people is a well known tactic of the criminal Israeli occupation, who occupies all the rooftops of the Palestinian houses during the visits of the Israeli terrorists to the Jewish settlements.

More Photos,see here