For the last 15 months Bil'in has been hosting peaceful demonstrations against the wall and becoming the symbol of Palestinian-Israeli peaceful struggle. Every week demonstrators (between 100 and 300) gather at a section of the wall and every week they are met with Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) violence.
It is known, specially since the beginning of the second intifada, that the IOF has been killing people with rubber bullets. Rubber bullets are used to disband a demonstration but they can be quite offensive if they target sensible areas of the body like the head and if they are shot on a close range.
This week the IOF shot with rubber bullets two peace activists in the head. One of them was filming and got more than one minute of the incident which you can see at the ISM website.
Nobody in the western press will be covering the incident and those who rush to cover terror attacks in Israel will never cover the peaceful struggle of Palestinians, it goes against the image they want to project of the Palestinians. Those who rush to cover the least terror attack in Israel are cautious when it comes to covering the violence of the IOF against peace activists.
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Since March 29th 2006
5 comments:
Thanks for this. I've linked to it too.
Off-topic:
Have you heard anything about a Fench Ambassador saying:
Israel is a shitty little country?
I haven't and would like to expose this as a "French Hill" fabrication, assuming that's what it is, of course.
Gert,
I was able to retrieve the Le Monde article about this because it was all over the web ('Israel est un petit pays de merde' were my search words). I am inclined to trust Le Monde more than any other source. It seems that at a Gala dinner at Conrad Blacks londonian mansion, the French ambassador discussed the ME situation with Black. The discussion was then reported by Black to one of the guests present at the Gala who, in turn, reported to Ms Barabra Amiel, Black,s wife. The next day, in an editorial in the daily telegraph, Amiel said that a EU ambassador (without naming the country and the amabassador's name)said that Israel was 'un petit pays de merde'. The Guardian revealed the day after that it was the french ambassador (I don't know how they identified the french ambassador since the ambassador denied saying such a thing, may be they called Amiel).
Not only the french ambassador denied but also lady Powell who was present at the Gala sided by him. Therefore there was no official retraction because there was no official aknowledgment neither a corroboration of Ms Amiel's charge.
Le Monde article's insists on Ms Amiel's methods who at the time was raging a war against journals and countries whom she thought were supportive of the Palestinians.
I am surprised that an ambassador could say such a thing to Black knowing where his allegiance lies and I give very little credit to the honesty and ethics of the Daily Telegraph and the Blacks.
Gert,
Le Monde reproted this in his December, 21st, 2001, web edition.
Thanks very much, really useful.
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