Rami Zurayk article

A large scale humanitarian crisis is silently unfolding as the Lebanese army is systematically destroying the Palestinian camp with artillery shelling.

How convenient!

In a statement Thursday, Lahoud urged all sides to form a unity cabinet in order "to save the country and confront any attempt to settle Palestinians in Lebanon and drive Lebanon into anarchy."

Heiligendamm, peacefully, for a change

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon

Excellent and easy-to-read backgrounder on the situtation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon 1948-present.

Day 17 of the current madness, and counting

"We can't reach people and we can't gain access to where the wounded are," said Igor Ramazzotti, a delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross. "There's a lot of rubble in the street. That's made it almost impossible to drive into the camp."

More Rostock

Burning cars with Black Block flags....



But we still kind of thought it would end peacefully...



...until the water cannon trucks came forging into the crowds...

40 Years of Occupation

Dear readers. (If you are out there). Forty years ago today, on June 5, 1967, the so-called Six-Day-War between Israel and several Arab states (Syria, Egypt, Jordan) started. Six days later, the newly founded (in 1948) state of Israel had gained enormous amounts of territory from its opposing states, more than its own original state territory: the Sinai peninsula from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan, as well as the Gaza Strip.

While the Sinai was returned to Egypt when a peace accord between the two countries was signed in 1979, Israel today, as you know, still holds the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as the Golan. The latter was simply annexed in 1981 and declared Israeli territory (in violation of international law, just for the record). The West Bank and Gaza Strip were initially directly ruled by Israel. As in the Golan Heights, many Israeli settlements were established there. New waves of refugees from the West Bank and Gaza fled to neighbouring states (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan) to swell the already significant refugee populations created when Israel was first established in 1948.

After the first Intifada (a civil disobedience campaign directed against the occupation) had started in 1987 and could not be quelled by military means, at the beginning of the 1990s negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians were begun and led to the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1996. The PLO led by Yasser Arafat, the main Palestinian interlocutor in negotiations with Israel, recognised Israel's right to exist; the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was created as a proto-state agency, and given some (limited) power to rule things in the West Bank and Gaza. The goal of this exercise, it was declared, was to set up two independent states, Israel and Palestine, living in peace side by side.

Did it work? Obviously not. Although an independent Palestinian state was the declared goal in lofty speeches and negotiations, things on the ground looked very different. The West Bank was now divided into A-, B-, and C-type areas, where the PNA had control over area A, area B meant "shared" control, and C meant Israeli security control. In practice, the set-up of the different areas, the Israeli settlements on large and strategically located swaths of West Bank land, the system of "Israelis-only" roads and tunnels meant that the West Bank remained divided into small enclaves, under Israel's control at any time, and deprived of other criteria of stateness (control of its airspace; control of important water resources being used by Israeli settlements). Jeff Halper has called this the 'matrix of control'.Politically, the achievement of Palestinian statehood remained conditional on the resolution of the most contentious issues (control of Jerusalem; the return of Palestinian refugees; ...) that were supposed to be tackled in "final status negotiations".

So the situation on the ground was contradictory of the Oslo Accords' stated goals, and the proposed final status talks were never begun. Efforts to do this were made at Sharm el Sheikh and at Taba in 2001; but they collapsed (the Palestinians blame the Israelis for this, because the "state" they were being offered could never have lived and breathed for a single day, it was unviable; the Israelis, on the other hand, blame Arafat for rejecting their famous "generous offer" - for a debunking of this myth, see this.). Shortly afterwards, Ariel Sharon triggered the so-called Second Intifada with his visit to the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem... and the rest of the story (or, rather, the bits that reach our mainstream media) we all know from watching and reading the news. It keeps going from bad to worse....

....but let's not be fooled. Although one of the most long-running and seemingly intractable conflicts, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is actually fairly easy to solve. Solutions for all difficult problems have been proposed (at Taba, Sharm el Sheikh...) and need only be put into practice. "Only" being of course somewhat of an understatement. But still. The solutions are known. As time is ticking by, the situation is getting ever more explosive, people continue dying, and the Arab-Israeli conflict remains one of the most important mobilising and rallying causes for international terrorism.... we need to solve it. Two states living side by side in peace, as even the most unknowledgeable person will concede, is needed right now!

Lebanon is burning

Taken from Remarkz

Riot control

For those of you who read German, this is an excerpt of an interview with the head of Germany's police union (hat tip Tobi). His message: after this weekend's riots in Rostock, it's obvious that German riot police need rubber-coated bullets. After all, he says, these are successfully used in other countries.

By the way, at the demo in Rostock I met an Israeli from Anarchists Against the Wall who had lost an eye after being shot with a rubber coated bullet.

sueddeutsche.de: Sie fordern nun den Einsatz von Gummigeschossen gegen militante Demonstranten. Wann genau soll damit denn geschossen werden dürfen?

Wendt: Die Bilder im Fernsehen haben ja ganz deutlich gezeigt, dass die Polizisten nicht in der Lage sind, aus einer Distanz von 30 bis 40 Metern auf Störer einzuwirken, wenn sie mit Steinen und Molotowcocktails beworfen werden. Wir haben den viel zu kurzen Schlagstock und wir haben die Pistole. Der Schlagstock ist wirkungslos, den brauchen wir nicht einzusetzen. Und die Pistole will ja wohl keiner einsetzen.

Um zu verhindern, dass unsere Kolleginnen und Kollegen möglicherweise einmal in Panik zur Waffe greifen, sagen wir: Die Polizei braucht wirkungsvolle Distanzwaffen. Das sind Gummiwucht- und Gummischrotgeschosse. Damit müssen unsere Hundertschaften jetzt ausgestattet werden, um in Situationen, bei denen Steine geworfen werden, auf die Störer einwirken zu können.

sueddeutsche.de: Ein Schlagstock ist wirkungslos? Das überrascht...

Wendt: Über eine Entfernung von 40 Metern ist er wirkungslos. Da kann man mit dem Ding werfen, mehr aber auch nicht.

sueddeutsche.de: Wieso geht die Polizei dann eben nicht näher ran?

Wendt: Wissen Sie, unsere Einsatzkräfte schleppen 15 Kilo mit sich rum. So schwer ist die Sicherheitsausrüstung. Stellen Sie sich mal vor, Sie würden mit eineinhalb Kisten Bier auf den Rücken geschnallt hinter Störern herlaufen. Da haben Sie keine Chance.

sueddeutsche.de: Weil die Störer schneller und wendiger sind?

Wendt: Genau. Wir operieren aus taktischen Gründen nur in geschlossenen Verbänden, nicht mit einzelnen Leuten. Und geschlossene Verbände bewegen sich langsamer als Einzelpersonen. Deshalb brauchen wir auch die Distanzwaffen, damit wir nicht länger dieses Katz-und-Maus-Spiel haben.

sueddeutsche.de: Können Gummigeschosse töten?

Wendt: Gummigeschosse können vor allem sehr weh tun und auch Verletzungen hervorrufen. Aber Waffen, die wirken sollen, müssen auch weh tun dürfen.

sueddeutsche.de: Noch einmal: Kann ein Gummigeschoss, das einen Demonstranten am Kopf trifft, diesen töten?

Wendt: Nein. Ein solcher Fall ist nicht bekannt. Diese Waffen werden in vielen anderen Ländern sehr erfolgreich erprobt. Im Übrigen ist ja auch niemand dazu verpflichtet, Pflastersteine und Molotowcocktails auf Polizisten zu werfen. Wenn er das unterlässt, kommt er nicht mal in die Reichweite der Gummigeschosse.

Interesting connections

From the Daily Star, June 1, Lebanon politics section:

Separately, international talks are being held behind closed doors over the possibility of deploying UNIFIL troops along the Lebanese-Syrian border, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Thursday.
"This issue will be a priority after the UN Security Council approved the creation of an international tribunal," the report said. "Due to the current security developments in Lebanon, firm measures need to be implemented to monitor the border in a more efficient way."
Meanwhile, the UN's Lebanon Independent Border Assessment Team started its evaluation of bordermonitoring capacities along the Lebanese-Syrian border. The team's work should be completed in two weeks, the CNA report said. The team arrived on Monday to evaluate reports of arms smuggling across the Syrian border in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. It was dispatched following the council's presidential statement of April 17, in which the council asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to send an independent group to assess security measures along the Lebanese-Syrian border.
The team is led by Lasse Christensen of Denmark and is composed of experts from
Algeria, Germany, Jamaica and Switzerland.

Bad news is back in the news

Well, all of this seems like a re-run of last summer's bad news alerts. But different. On top of the ongoing crisis at the Nahr al Bared camp, where the Lebanese army is still shelling big-time and people are still dying, there are now clashes at Ain al Hilweh camp in Saida (South Lebanon), too. This is really bad news, although it had been expected. A roundup of informed sources includes "Anecdotes from a Banana Republic", which has this video of Nahr al Bared fighting.

(If you put the caption "Lebanese civil war, shelling of Palestinian camps" nobody would notice by the way). And this bit of reporting:

A Swedish woman, a "child safety consultant," according to her business card, briefed us on the latest developments. "We are receiving pictures of the dead-- children, the disabled and elderly. Most of the people who remained are very old; others stayed because they fear not being allowed to return to their homes and being re-located to temporary encampments." "How are you receiving the photos?" I asked. "People are sending them in over their phones. I just received one of a sixty-year old woman, her head blown off. Just now they say a large building near the marketplace, in the densest area of the camp, collapsed from continuous shelling. The situation is bad. Bad. Very bad," she said, and returned to her computer. "Oh and the Lebanese press are denying there are still as many people in the camp," she continued. "There are at least 5,000 who remain inside. They keep reporting that only the Fatah al Islam remain. It's simply not true."

Land and people has more shocking news on the racist fallout of this crisis:

SB was asked for his ID, and when they found out that he is Palestinian, they forced him to lie on the gound for half an hour after which they beat him and kicked him and then told him to go. Just like that, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the busiest district in Beirut. His crime: he is Palestinian.

Rostock

Don't tell me they weren't looking for trouble...





....and that all of this...



...couldn't have been avoided. would have been a much stronger message too, if despite the 10,000 police people wouldn't have taken the bait and things would have stayed peaceful...

it all makes me very angry because this type of violence has no goal, no political demand (at least none that i can recognise), no room for shades of grey, and worst of all, it takes all the coverage and attention away from the real messages people were trying to send...



excuse the shitty images. i was taking pictures with my camera. should get better ones from my flatmate soon.