2014-10-26_orwa_hammad_.jpg
Palestinians carry the body of 14-year old Orwa Hammad at his funeral in the West Bank village of Silwad, 26 October.
Israeli occupation forces shot and killed the US citizen on 24 October. (Oren Ziv / ActiveStills)
Posts Tagged ‘Nadim Nuwara’
Can you Spot The Difference? Modern Israel versus Nazi Germany
The genocidal public discourse against Palestinians and non-Jews in Israel is reaching fever pitch.
If we’ve learned anything from the horrors of the 20th century it is that fascism doesn’t stop: We must stop it.
We need to call time on Israeli fascism.
Kerry-Anne posted this November 21, 2014
Independent Israeli journalist David Sheen brought this image to my attention, with this tweet:
You may find this image shocking, eerily reminiscent of the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany, African Americans through the era of the Jim Crow segregation laws, or the UK hotel signs of the 1950’s reading ‘No Blacks, no dogs, no Irish’.
I do not make these comparisons for kicks, hype or wanton disregard for these past horrors. It is because of those disgraceful periods in our history that we must not stand by while it happens again.
Here are just some samples of the sort of sentiments now acceptable to air in public in Israel today.
These are public figures, many on the public payroll, calling for the expulsion, harassment, torture and murder of civilians purely because of the ethnic group to which they belong.
And if you feel uncomfortable by the similarity between these pronouncement and those of Hitler, Goebbels and co, then just look what happened when 327 Jewish holocaust survivors and their descendents published an open letter calling on Israel to end it’s genocide against the Palestinians this Summer.
These people, who survived the worst of the Nazi regime, say clearly:
“Genocide begins with the silence of the world.
‘Never again’ must mean NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE!”
So how did Israelis react to this letter? Here are just a sample of the responses from Jewish Israelis on Facebook:
Translation:
Katy Morali: Holocaust survivors who think like this are invited to go die in the gas chambers.
Shmulik Halphon: He’s invited to go back to Auschwitz.
Meir Dahan: No wonder Hitler murdered 6 million Jews because of people like you you’re not even Jews you’re disgusting people a disgrace to humanity and so are your offspring you are trash.
Asher Solomon: It’s a shame Hitler didn’t finish the job.
This level of dehumanization and demonization of ‘Arabs’ does not remain confined to incitement and hate-speech, but spills over into street-level violence.
In recent days, Israelis publicly lynched a Palestinian-Israeli bus driver, just hours after Jewish-Israeli hate mob JSIL changed their profile picture to this:
The body of Palestinian-Israeli bus driver Yusuf Hasan al-Ramouni, 32, from al-Tur in East Jerusalem was found hanging from a steel bar in the middle of his bus.
Palestinians claim six Israelis attacked al-Ramouni while he worked on his vehicle, while Israeli authorities argue suicide.
These same authorities claimed the murder of Palestinian-Israeli teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir was an ‘honor killing’ committed by family member over his sexuality. Mohammed was kidnapped from outside his parents home, beaten, had gasoline poured down his throat and was burnt alive from the inside out in July. It was later found that Jewish-Israeli settlers had committed the act.
But western media outlets continue to air Israeli propaganda as if the state were a credible source. One example would be when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer aired Israel’s Liar-in-Chief Michael Oren claiming the 2 teens killed on Nakba day, Nadim Nuwara and Mahmoud Salameh, was a staged event and they might not even be dead. Never mind that local CCTV clearly shows the murders were real.
Whenever a Palestinian is murdered by Israelis, the Hasbara machine of Israeli PR kicks in to confuse and mislead.
Conversely, any act of violence against Israelis by Palestinians is amplified, and escalated to Al-Qaeda, War on Terror levels of significance.
Just this week, myself and other journalists close to the Israel-Palestine issue called to task CNN’s Washington Chief Jake Tapper for retweeting this image:
The whole situation brings to mind that famous quote from Malcolm X:
If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.
While Palestinians, either side of Israel’s Apartheid Wall continue to face daily threats to their homes, livelihoods, and lives – they are treated by Israeli and Western media as the aggressors.
It is almost beyond belief that such a clearly asymmetrical scenario can be recast into a ‘conflict’ – it is not a conflict. It is an illegal military occupation of one people over another, it is a racial Apartheid, it is a slowly unfolding genocide. It must end.
The harsh truth is this: those people turning their heads and disowning the rights of Palestinians today, would have done exactly the same to Europe’s Jews during the holocaust.
They would have believed the propaganda, they would have absorbed and espoused the same bigotry, they would have tacitly or overtly gifted their complicity. “Never again” means never again for anyone, or it means nothing.
Impunity? Will US persist in demanding truth about Israeli sniper killing of Palestinian-American child?
Posted on: November 3, 2014
Impunity? Will US persist in demanding truth about Israeli sniper killing of Palestinian-American child?
Thousands attended the 26 October funeral of Orwa Hammad, the 14-year-old Palestinian-American boy who was shot dead by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank village of Silwad two days earlier.
Israeli occupation forces claimed Orwa had been about to throw a molotov cocktail, a justification frequently given for the killings of children.
Local residents told The New York Times that “Palestinians throwing stones clashed with Israeli soldiers in the village after Friday Prayer, but that Orwa was apparently killed hours later.”
Ali Abunimah submitted to Electronic Intifada this Thu, Oct. 30/2014 – 10:54
The US State Department expressed “condolences” for Orwa’s death but failed to condemn it, in contrast to the killing of an Israeli-American baby in Jerusalem days earlier when a Palestinian driver crashed a car into a group of pedestrians in eastern occupied Jerusalem.
The US called for “a speedy and transparent investigation” into Orwa’s death.
What no one disputes, however, is that Orwa was killed by Israeli bullets.
Losing a brother and a son
Thousands of miles from where Orwa died and was buried, Shukri Abu Baker sits in a maximum security US federal prison in Beaumont, Texas, serving out a 65-year sentence.
He is one of the “Holy Land 5” – the founder of the Holy Land Foundation, and one of five of the charity’s officials convicted in a travesty of a trial in 2008 for raising funds to help Palestinians.
It turns out he has a connection to Orwa and light to shed on the tragedy his family has lived through under occupation.
Using the authorized prison email system, Abu Baker sent this message to his family and friends.
His daughter Nida Abu Baker shared it with The Electronic Intifada:
From: SHUKRI ABU BAKER (32589-177)
Date: 10/27/2014 5:21:14 PM
Subject: Bullets That Kill Message:Family and friends,
On Friday, October 24, Israeli soldiers swarmed the northern West Bank village of Silwad to quell a protest by dozens of frustrated youngster. Upon arriving, the heavily armed soldiers opened fire at 14-year-old, Orwa Hammad, aiming at his head and neck.
The boy fell to the ground and bled to death before the soldiers called an ambulance. Six others were wounded.
In summer 1992, during a visit to my home village, Silwad, I met Nabil Qaddorah, 19, handsome, full of energy and optimism, and excited about his planned engagement to the love of his life.
The Israeli soldiers raided the village with their military jeeps and started shooting at a crowd of youngsters who had started to throw stones at the military vehicles.
Nabil received multiple wounds in his chest. As he fell to the ground an Israeli soldier started to jump up and down pounding on his chest. They carried him inside a jeep and took off.
After dark, two days later, his family claimed his body and brought him home for his elderly parents, relatives, and friends to view before he was put to grave in the same night. I viewed his body, kissed him on the forehead, and said goodbye.
Nabil’s sister is Orwa’s mother [Ikhlas Hammad].
In a span of 22 years she has lost a brother and a son. Orwa’s father, Abdelwahab, is my wife’s maternal cousin who was in New Orleans, Louisiana when his son was murdered. He asked that the burial of his son be put off for three days to allow him to make it back in Silwad and attend the burial. Orwa was an American citizen by birth.
His family is expecting a statement from the State Department demanding answers from the Israelis, and I say, it won’t happen because we already know that it was the soldiers who shot Orwa, but where did the bullets that killed him come from?
Impunity
Now cut across to Monday’s State Department press briefing where AP correspondent Matt Lee challenged US officials on what they were going to do to get answers in Orwa’s case and others.
“Several months ago, there was a shooting – there was an incident involving a shooting of some Palestinian youths. They weren’t Americans, but you called at that time for an [investigation],” Lee said, “this was the video, the one that was captured on videotape. Are you aware of the results of that Israeli investigation?”
Lee was referring to the cold-blooded shootings by snipers of Palestinian teens Nadim Nuwara and Muhammad Abu al-Thahir in the occupied West Bank village of Beitunia on 15 May.
Despite plenty of video evidence and the US request for an investigation, Israel has made no arrests and issued no report.
This is the standard impunity that Israeli killers of Palestinians receive.
State Department spokesperson Jennifer Psaki’s answered Lee: “I would encourage you to ask the Israeli authorities for any outcomes they would like to share with you.”
In other words, there will be no follow up from the US government, not for Nadim and Muhammad, not for Orwa – an American – and not for thousands of Palestinians killed by Israel with weapons provided or paid for by the United States.
The total impunity the Obama administration continues to afford Israel is just as lethal to Palestinian children as the weapons the US gives Israel in order to kill them.
Tags: adonis49, Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada, Holy Land 5, Ikhlas Hammad, Impunity, Israeli Occupation Forces, Israeli sniper killing of Palestinian-American child, Jennifer Psaki, Matt Lee, Muhammad Abu al-Thahir, Nabil Qaddorah, Nadim Nuwara, Oren Ziv, Orwa Hammad, Shukri Abu Baker, village of Silwad, Will US persist in demanding truth
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