Sections on today's Signs Page:
Signs Editorials
Editorial: Dispatch from Palestine: Israel uses chemical/radioactive weapons in Gaza
Silvia Cattori interviews a Palestinian doctor
11 July 2006
Interview with Doctor Juma al-Saqqa of the Hospital Shifa in Gaza
Q: It seems that you are receiving people with wounds that are very difficult to treat. Do you know what kind of arms are being used?
A: We dont know exactly what kind of weapon it was but we suggest it was a chemical weapon or a weapon with radiation [inaudible] they also had a very strong explosion. There was shrapnel trapped in the bodies.
Q: When did they use this weapon for the first time?
A: They started with Operation Summer Rain two weeks ago.
Q: Were these weapons being used from tanks or planes?
A: From the planes.
Q: And did many people die from these attacks?
A: Yes, many of them died and many are going to die because they are completely injured. Many of them have cuts that are haemorrhaging...
Q: How many died?
A: 50 killed, 200 injured.
Q: Israeli did not allow me to enter Gaza.
A: They dont want you to see what is happening here. This is the worst situation we have had since '48. We have Arab people dying day after day...We are in lack of everything. Bad water supply, bad sewage management, lack of food lack of supplies, they....[Phone line cut off.]
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: Aggression Under False Pretenses
By Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh
07/11/06 "Washington Post" -- -- GAZA, Palestine -- As Americans commemorated their annual celebration of independence from colonial occupation, rejoicing in their democratic institutions, we Palestinians were yet again besieged by our occupiers, who destroy our roads and buildings, our power stations and water plants, and who attack our very means of civil administration. Our homes and government offices are shelled, our parliamentarians taken prisoner and threatened with prosecution.
The current Gaza invasion is only the latest effort to destroy the results of fair and free elections held early this year. It is the explosive follow-up to a five-month campaign of economic and diplomatic warfare directed by the United States and Israel. The stated intention of that strategy was to force the average Palestinian to "reconsider" her vote when faced with deepening hardship; its failure was predictable, and the new overt military aggression and collective punishment are its logical fulfillment. The "kidnapped" Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit is only a pretext for a job scheduled months ago.
In addition to removing our democratically elected government, Israel wants to sow dissent among Palestinians by claiming that there is a serious leadership rivalry among us. I am compelled to dispel this notion definitively. The Palestinian leadership is firmly embedded in the concept of Islamic shura , or mutual consultation; suffice it to say that while we may have differing opinions, we are united in mutual respect and focused on the goal of serving our people. Furthermore, the invasion of Gaza and the kidnapping of our leaders and government officials are meant to undermine the recent accords reached between the government party and our brothers and sisters in Fatah and other factions, on achieving consensus for resolving the conflict. Yet Israeli collective punishment only strengthens our collective resolve to work together.
As I inspect the ruins of our infrastructure -- the largess of donor nations and international efforts all turned to rubble once more by F-16s and American-made missiles -- my thoughts again turn to the minds of Americans. What do they think of this?
They think, doubtless, of the hostage soldier, taken in battle -- yet thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children, remain in Israeli jails for resisting the illegal, ongoing occupation that is condemned by international law. They think of the pluck and "toughness" of Israel, "standing up" to "terrorists." Yet a nuclear Israel possesses the
13th-largest military force on the planet, one that is used to rule an area about the size of New Jersey and whose adversaries there have no conventional armed forces. Who is the underdog, supposedly America's traditional favorite, in this case?
I hope that Americans will give careful and well-informed thought to root causes and historical realities, in which case I think they will question why a supposedly "legitimate" state such as Israel has had to conduct decades of war against a subject refugee population without ever achieving its goals.
Israel's unilateral movements of the past year will not lead to peace. These acts -- the temporary withdrawal of forces from Gaza, the walling off of the West Bank -- are not strides toward resolution but empty, symbolic acts that fail to address the underlying conflict. Israel's nearly complete control over the lives of Palestinians is never in doubt, as confirmed by the humanitarian and economic suffering of the Palestinians since the January elections. Israel's ongoing policies of expansion, military control and assassination mock any notion of sovereignty or bilateralism. Its "separation barrier," running across our land, is hardly a good-faith gesture toward future coexistence.
But there is a remedy, and while it is not easy it is consistent with our long-held beliefs. Palestinian priorities include recognition of the core dispute over the land of historical Palestine and the rights of all its people; resolution of the refugee issue from 1948; reclaiming all lands occupied in 1967; and stopping Israeli attacks, assassinations and military expansion. Contrary to popular depictions of the crisis in the American media, the dispute is not only about Gaza and the West Bank; it is a wider national conflict that can be resolved only by addressing the full dimensions of Palestinian national rights in an integrated manner. This means statehood for the West Bank and Gaza, a capital in Arab East Jerusalem, and resolving the 1948 Palestinian refugee issue fairly, on the basis of international legitimacy and established law. Meaningful negotiations with a non-expansionist, law-abiding Israel can proceed only after this tremendous labor has begun.
Surely the American people grow weary of this folly, after 50 years and $160 billion in taxpayer support for Israel's war-making capacity -- its "defense." Some Americans, I believe, must be asking themselves if all this blood and treasure could not have bought more tangible results for Palestine if only U.S. policies had been predicated from the start on historical truth, equity and justice.
However, we do not want to live on international welfare and American handouts. We want what Americans enjoy -- democratic rights, economic sovereignty and justice. We thought our pride in conducting the fairest elections in the Arab world might resonate with the United States and its citizens. Instead, our new government was met from the very beginning by acts of explicit, declared sabotage by the White House. Now this aggression continues against 3.9 million civilians living in the world's largest prison camps. America's complacency in the face of these war crimes is, as usual, embedded in the coded rhetorical green light: "Israel has a right to defend itself." Was Israel defending itself when it killed eight family members on a Gaza beach last month or three members of the Hajjaj family on Saturday, among them 6-year-old Rawan? I refuse to believe that such inhumanity sits well with the American public.
We present this clear message: If Israel will not allow Palestinians to live in peace, dignity and national integrity, Israelis themselves will not be able to enjoy those same rights. Meanwhile, our right to defend ourselves from occupying soldiers and aggression is a matter of law, as settled in the Fourth Geneva Convention. If Israel is prepared to negotiate seriously and fairly, and resolve the core 1948 issues, rather than the secondary ones from 1967, a fair and permanent peace is possible. Based on a hudna (comprehensive cessation of hostilities for an agreed time), the Holy Land still has an opportunity to be a peaceful and stable economic powerhouse for all the Semitic people of the region. If Americans only knew the truth, possibility might become reality.
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: Israel's Latest Bureaucratic Obscenity
By JONATHAN COOK
July 12, 2006
The same malign intent from Israel towards the Palestinians is stamped through its history like the lettering in a children's stick of seaside rock. But despite the consistent aim of Israeli policy, generation after generation of Western politicians, diplomats and journalists has shown a repeated inability to grasp what is happening before its very eyes.
The Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi once noted that the first goal of Israel's founders as they prepared to establish their Jewish state on a large swath of the Palestinian homeland in 1948 was to empty Palestine's urban heartlands of their educated elites.
Even before Israel's Declaration of Independence on 15 May 1948, most Palestinians had been terrified away from the two wealthiest cities in coastal Palestine, Jaffa and Haifa. Other Palestinian cities soon fell during the war of 1948: Israeli forces mostly cleansed Lydda, Ramle, Acre, Safad, Tiberias, Baysan and Bir Saba of their native populations. Today all these cities have been repopulated with Jews -- as well as renamed.
Khalidi has written: "These refugees from the urban areas of the country generally tended to be those Palestinians with the highest levels of literacy, skills, wealth, and education". Or, in other words, the small number of Palestinians allowed to remain in their homeland by Israel were peasant families living in isolated rural communities.
These Palestinians posed little threat to the new Jewish state: they lacked the education and tools to resist both the wholesale dispossession of their people and their own personal loss as their farm lands were expropriated by the state to establish the Jewish farming communes of the kibbutz and moshav movements.
And so history repeats itself. As Israel's violent siege of Gaza continues, the Associated Press reported this week that dozens of Palestinians with American passports have left Gaza, escorted out of the Strip in a convoy of United Nations vehicles. One Palestinian American mother said she and her children could no longer stand the terrifying sonic booms produced by Israeli aircraft flying overhead during the night.
These fleeing Palestinians have two things that most of their kin in Gaza lack: they have lots of money that they might have invested in rebuilding Gaza's economy were Israel not intent on destroying it; and they are familiar with a language and ideas that might have conveyed very effectively to Western audiences the horror currently being endured by Gaza's civilian population.
They are also among the least radicalised elements of Gaza's population and might have been the ones most willing to start a dialogue with Israel -- had Israel shown any interest in negotiating.
But of course their absence from Gaza, and flight to America, will not be mourned by Israel.
How much Israel fears the presence in the occupied territories of Palestinians who have lived in the West -- those who have money and influence, and speak in a language the non-Arab world can understand -- was highlighted in another piece of news this week that went mostly unnoticed.
According to the Haaretz newspaper, Israel's interior ministry has been quietly implementing a new rule since April that allows it to refuse entry to Palestinians holding foreign passports to Israel and the occupied territories. Most of those affected are Palestinians who today have citizenship in America or Europe.
Israel has this power over these Palestinians' lives because, since its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, it has usurped control of the borders of the Palestinian territories. In another sign of how mistaken Western observers are in believing that the occupation of Gaza somehow ended with the withdrawal of Jewish settlers last year, Israel is still able to prevent Palestinians with a foreign passport (as well as those from the West Bank) from entering Gaza.
This new policy of exclusion affects thousands of the wealthiest and most educated Palestinians, some of whom have been living in the occupied territories for a decade or more investing in the economy as entrepreneurs, teaching in the universities or establishing desperately needed civil society organisations.
In another irony, many of these Palestinians have a foreign passport only because Israel stripped them of their rights to residency in the occupied territories in violation of international law. Using its control of the area's borders since 1967, Israel revoked the residency of these Palestinians while they were studying or working abroad.
As the Israeli journalist Amira Hass documented in a recent dispatch, some of these Palestinians eventually came back to the occupied territories after marrying a local Palestinian resident but were refused rights of residency they should be entitled to according to the normal principles of family unification.
Instead most Palestinians with foreign passports have remained in the occupied territories at Israel's discretion: as long as they renewed their tourist visa every three months by crossing the border into Jordan or Egypt, they were left in relative peace.
But Israel is now unilaterally changing the rules (as it always does), even if it has been too embarrassed to declare the fact openly. Apparently the US embassy has been aware of the change for some time but does not think it should intervene in the "sovereign decisions" of another country -- or, more accurately, in the decisions of a sovereign country, Israel, in violating the rights of an occupied people, the Palestinians.
Palestinians with US passports have been told by Israel that, when their three-month visas expire, they will no longer be entitled to enter the occupied territories to visit their families -- except in rare "humanitarian cases" such as a close relative dying. Some will be separated from their spouse and children, while others will lose their businesses and everything they have invested in them.
With these foreign passport holders forced to leave the occupied territories, the pressure is sure to grow on their families left behind in Gaza and the West Bank to seek ways to emigrate abroad to be with them again.
The purpose of Israel's current bureaucratic obscenity is the same as it was in 1948 when its highest priority was the clearing of the Palestinian cities of their elites to make way for the establishment of the Jewish state.
This time Israel needs to empty the ghettoes it is crafting for the Palestinians of the most educated and well-connected of their number so that it can more credibly claim that there is no one "moderate" to talk to. Any Palestinian with a stake in an Israeli-imposed peace, even one that damages Palestinian national interests, will have been forced out by Israel's policies long before.
Those who remain behind, trapped by walls of concrete and steel, will be powerless to resist the unilateral and illegal expansion of Israel's borders explicit in Ehud Olmert's convergence plan.
When the only noise heard from the Palestinians in their cages is the occasional whine of a home-made Qassam rocket flying out of the ghetto into the Jewish state, we will be told by Israel and its US ally that terror is the only language the Palestinians know.
But, in truth, it may well be the only language we have left the Palestinians to speak.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. He is the author of the forthcoming "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" published by Pluto Press, and available in the United States from the University of Michigan Press. His website is www.jkcook.net
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: Why You Should Think That The War On Terror Is A Sick Joke
Joe Quinn
Signs of the Times
12/07/2006
The big question, and one that has caused serious arguments in families around the country is:
Is the War On Terror real?
By that I mean, is there, as the US government claims, a very real "Islamic terror threat" to the United States and civilised societies everywhere?
This question needs answering, because much of the world has been turned on its head as a result of the 9/11 attacks and the war on terror, and many hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed, and that, it seems, is just for starters. So before we go any futher, we really need to know if this thing is for serious, or if it is just one really big and bad joke.
But how to answer this question definitively? Well, there is of course the evidence pointing to US Government complicity in the 9/11 attacks. There is also the fact that, while it is claimed that the goal of the Iraq invasion was to "spread freedom and democracy" or "defeat Islamic terrorism" in the Middle East, it is clear for all to see that little progress has been made on either. Indeed, the only clearly discernible result of the Iraq invasion is 200,000 dead Iraqis and a massive increase in the net profits of many US corporations with close ties to the US government.
But with the government and mainstream media repeatedly ridiculing any allegations that diverge from the official story as "crazy conspiracy theories", the average Joe is still left more than a little confused about what is really going on. It would greatly help, therefore, if we could turn up something official, a government report perhaps, that proves to us all that the US government is right along side the American people in taking the threat from "Islamic terror" very, very seriously. Or alternatively, a similarly official report that shows that, depsite its public propaganda, in private, the US government assigns no more reality to the "Islamic terrorism" than you or I do to the tooth fairy.
Well, guess what? Today's our lucky day:
Security funding list: Bean fest, but not Times Square?
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Homeland Security database of vulnerable terror targets in the United States, which includes an insect zoo but not the Statue of Liberty, is too flawed to determine allocation of federal security funds, the department's internal watchdog found.
Much of the study by Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner appears to have been done before the department announced in May it would cut security grants to New York and Washington by 40 percent this year.
The report, which was released Tuesday, affirmed the fury of those two cities -- the two targets of the September 11, 2001, attacks -- which claimed the department did not accurately assess their risks.
Instead, the department's database of vulnerable critical infrastructure and key resources included an insect zoo, a bourbon festival, a bean fest and a kangaroo conservation center. They represent examples of key assets identified in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, and Maryland.
New York had 5,687 listed. It did not detail which ones, but the Homeland Security assessment of New York this year failed to include Times Square, the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge or the Statue of Liberty as a national icon or monument.
Now seriously folks, how do you square the public fear-mongering and alarm bell-ringing over "possible Islamic terror attacks" that the US government and its agencies have periodically engaged in over the past 5 years, with the fact that a Homeland Security study has identified an insect zoo, a bean festival, a bourbon festival and a Kangaroo conservation center as main terrorists targets, while ignoring major monuments?
Are these guys really just having a good laugh? Having served under Nikon, Ford and Bush senior, is it possible that Dick Cheney was horrified at the thought of having to spend the twilight years of his political life engaging in the same old flying around the country, giving speeches and cussing out congressmen, and decided to make George W's term a little more interesting?
Maybe that's it. You know, I think it is.
Silly old CNN actually tried to call a Homeland Security representative to ask about the insect farm business, but, unsurprisingly, no one wanted to comment. Probably because they were too busy laughing their socks off at the gullible American public.
However:
In an April 13 response to a draft of the report, department [of Homeland Security] Undersecretary George Foresman said the database represented a range of national assets that could face different levels of threats at different times.
Indeed. However, a little known fact, that I can exclusively reveal today, is that the Kangaroo conservation center was determined to be a prime possible target for a very good reason. You see, intelligence information revealed a deadly plot by "al-Qaeda" to first train the Kangaroos in Jihad or "Holy War against the infidel", equip them with a pair of boxing gloves each, and then combine the Kangaroo's Islamic fervor with the bean festival and the bourbon festival! At that point, woe betide the American people as they faced a wild-eyed hoard of drunk Islamic Kangaroo devils carrying a deadly payload of noxious gas.
The Undersecretary of Homeland Security added:
"The data have been and are currently being utilized to support allocation decision-making processes for the department".
I hope that clears things up for you.
As an aside, I have it on good faith that reporters at the press conference where the Undersecretary gave the above address claimed to have heard raucous laughter from behind the screen just after the Undersecretary left the podium. Afterwards, they all sat down to decide how they were going to con the American people into accepting a US military invasion of Iran, finally deciding that "scaring them" with a few fake terror threats should do the trick.
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: Exposing the 9/11 Conspiracy Wingnuts
William Douglas
findtruth40@hotmail.com
July 11, 2006
I began researching the mainstream media coverage of the controversy regarding the attacks of 9/11/2001, when reading an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Newspaper, dated June 29th, 2006. It was titled, "Sept. 11 claim stirs UW probe -- Instructor says U.S. planned the attacks to provoke war." This led to my discovery of some wild conspiracy theorists that endanger our government and media establishments, with quite frankly insane assertions. I'll address this in full in the final paragraph.
Then by using a "google video 9/11" search, I recently viewed a FOX News interview on Hannity and Colmes with an Arab Studies teacher from the University of Wisconsin named Kevin Barrett. I had earlier seen an interview with another, a professor named James Fetzer, University of Minnesota Duluth. A few weeks earlier I had seen an interview on MSNBC Scarborough country interviewing a Mike Berger representing 911Truth.org.
Some of these guests referred to an organization called "Scholars for 9/11 Truth" with a website www.st911.org, which offered a physics research paper questioning the official explanation of the events of 9/11/2001. While visiting this site, I read that they pointed to the temperatures of the fires in the WTC buildings, and construction of the buildings, and the speed they fell, as evidence they claimed proved that what we saw on 9/11/2001 when the towers fell had to have been the result of a controlled demolition. Like the ones we've seen with Las Vegas hotels being brought down. Their claim was that the WTC buildings could not have been caused solely by the aircraft hitting the WTC buildings that day.
Then, I contacted the office of a Wisconsin State Legislator, Rep. Stephen Nass (R-Whitewater), and asked to speak to someone in the office who could speak on this issue. I asked if he was familiar with the Scholars for 9/11 Truth website, and he replied they had learned of it this week. I asked him if he and the Representative could comment on the charge that the fires on 9/11/2001 in the WTC buildings did not burn hot enough to bring down the buildings, and if he'd read the scholars organization's charge that thermate traces had been found on debris from the fallen towers (thermate indicating demolition type explosives were involved). The gentleman responded that no, they had not looked at this information, and this would not be something they would look at, further indicating that anyone who made such charges was blinded by their hatred of President Bush.
Which leads back to the interviews of guests on the three television news programs. The main theme of all three of the guests on these programs appeared to be concern of the physical evidence of 9/11/2001, mentioned above and particularly regarding the collapse of three of the World Trade Center buildings on that day.
The main themes of the interviewers on these programs appeared to be two-fold:
1) The guests were representing a fringe movement, and most Americans do not dispute the official 9/11 explanation of the 19 hijackers defeating US military and intelligence forces on 9/11/2001.
2) The guests and those they speak for, who question the official 9/11/2001 account, are of questionable sanity
This motivated me to do some research. First I looked at the fringe movement issue that the majority of Americans disagreed with the programs guests and accept the official explanation, and secondly, the sanity and expertise of people like their guests who question the official story of 9/11/2001.
First, regarding the fringe issue, asserting that the guests questioning the events of 9/11 reflected a small minority of American opinion. I looked at the only polls I could find on these questions, and the results were surprising. A CNN viewers poll, which is not scientific, held Wednesday, November 10th, 2005, asked, "Do you believe there is a U.S. government cover-up surrounding 9/11?" 89% replied "Yes," they did believe there was a cover-up by the U.S. Government (9,441 votes), while only 12% felt there was no cover-up. In a national Zogby poll, of May 2006, found that 45%, of the American public felt a new 9/11 investigation should be launched because "so many unanswered questions about 9/11 remain that Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success." An earlier Zogby poll of New York City residents, from August of 2004, found that Half (49.3%) of New Yorkers felt that U.S. government officials "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act." While 66% of New Yorkers called for a new probe of Unanswered Questions by Congress or New York’s Attorney General.
Now to the second issue the television media interviewers were most concerned with, which was the expertise and sanity of the people demanding a new 9/11 investigation, and some even suggesting possible U.S. government complicity in the attacks of 9/11/2001. Again, a simple google "video 9/11" search, provided a wealth of information. This too yielded some surprising results.
One of the loudest advocates of the most damning charge that "members of the U.S. government actually orchestrated the events of 9/11 to fool the nation into unpopular wars", was not a tree-hugging Green Party activist, but rather a prominent Republican, in fact a Former Chief Economist under George Bush, and professor at Texas A&M, Morgan Reynolds. [Link]
Google research of the growing list of other 9/11 skeptics of the official story, some "convinced of U.S. government involvement," while others not going that far, but pointing out that"the official story is highly questionable and demands further investigation," yielded surprising results. Including a host of high level Republican administration officials, defense experts, intelligence experts, and respected scholars, as well as well known celebrities who are now adding the spotlight of their names to the issue of 9/11. Among them were:
Former Director of Advanced Space Programs Development for the U.S. Air Force, under President Reagan, and combat fighter pilot Col. Robert Bowman (Caltech Phd in aeronautics and nuclear engineering). [Link]
Former CIA Intelligence Advisor to Reagan and George HW Bush and founder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Ray McGovern [Link]
Kevin Ryan, former department head at UL (Underwriter Laboratories) the company which certified the steel which went into the WTCs upon their construction, and inspected it after the WTC collapses in 2001. [Link]
Former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Research Fellow at Stanford's Independent Institute, and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, Paul Craig Roberts [Link]
Canadian National Defense Minister, the Honourable Paul Hellyer [Link]
Minister for the Environment, and Member of Parliament (United Kingdom) Michael Meacher [Link]
National Minister of Defense (Germany). Also, served as Minister of Technology Andreas Von Bulow [Link]
Former Chief of Staff of the Russian armed forces, and chief of the department for General affairs in the Soviet Union 's ministry of Defense, General Leonid Ivashov [Link]
Former MI6 British Counter Intelligence Officer, David Shayler [Link]
Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota, former Marine Corps officer, author or editor of more than 20 books, and co-chair of Scholars For 9/11 Truth, James Fetzer [Link]
Professor of Physics, Brigham Young University, and co-chair of Scholars For 9/11 Truth, Steven Jones [Link]
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Religion & Theology, Claremont Graduate University, and author or editor of some 30 books, including "The New Pearl Harbor" and "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions" David Ray Griffin [Link]
Professor of mathematics, University of Western Ontario, and founder of the Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-Eleven (SPINE), A.K Dewdney [Link] [Link]
Aircraft crash investigation authority, USAF Col. (Ret) George Nelson [Link]
Former chief Pentagon arms negotiator for the Middle East, USAF Col. (Ret) Don de Grand-Pre [Link]
Actor Charlie Sheen (Platoon, Wall Street, etc.) [Link]
Actor, Ed Asner [Link]
Actor, Ed Begley, Jr [Link]
So, now that we've examined the two main issues of concern for the television news interviewers, which was the "fringe" aspect of the questioners, and the "sanity/expertise" issue, it appears those arguments are very weak arguments, really with no merit at all. Obviously tens of millions of Americans, according to polls, want a new investigation into 9/11/2001 and have a strong suspicion of U.S. government involvement at some level. Obviously not all of the national defense, intelligence, aeronautics, physics and engineering experts questioning the official story of 9/11 are insane or unqualified to comment.
This begs the question, in the face of such obvious facts, why do our media personalities continue to attempt to throw out accusations that are patently untrue regarding those who question the official story? When a television news interviewer continues to ask questions and make assertions that he or she knows to be untrue, this would challenge the expertise and sanity, not of their guests, but of the television news interviewer.
The 9/11 truth movement appears to be growing rapidly, and involving people of substantial credentials and expertise. As television and some radio personalities continue to behave in what obviously is an insane behavior, what do we do? Can we get our national media any psychological help? If not, it would be wise to relieve them of their positions at least. I feel increasingly uneasy about millions of young minds being exposed night after night to comments and opinions by people who increasingly appear to be insane, yet in positions of authority.
Of course the concern here is larger. If there is any possibility or doubt about whether the events of 9/11/2001 were participated in by members of our own government, then our entire democracy and world peace would be strengthened by getting to the bottom of the true facts of this pinnacle event of our time. It would be unhealthy to leave a cloud of doubt hanging over such assertions. There should be a full fledged national debate, experts from all sides should be interviewed on national media to get to the bottom of this once and for all. Our Congress should launch investigations into the physics questions that are causing so many to doubt the official story. No matter where anyone stands on this issue, this is obviously the only path to national healing and trust.
However, this debate on national media cannot occur if the interviewers hired by national media continue to behave in an insane irrational behavior, like "conspiracy theory wing-nuts." You see, too many of our media spokespersons on television and radio adhere to a wild conspiracy theory. Their theory is that anyone who looks into the facts of the events of one of the most important issues in history is alone, and insane, but yet somehow organized in some united conspiratorial effort. Of course, the facts fly in the face of this conspiracy theory, but these media personalities appear unable to grasp reality even when it is pointed out to them.
For media reading this article, time will tell whether you are an insane conspiracy theorist or not. If you too, are among the insane in our media, the public will likely eventually demand your resignation. As one who writes sometimes on parental issues, I believe it is unhealthy to have insane people in charge of the national information highways our children are taught to watch. We need sane media people who look at facts regarding issues, not ones who launch into insane screeds of paranoia to avoid reality.
Also, you may recall that when I contacted State Representative, Stephen Nass' office, his aid stated that they were aware of but not interested in and would not look at the physics facts provided by the website Scholars for 9/11 Truth, www.st911.org. However, they did want to fire a university teacher for presenting facts, many of which were available on that site. To fire someone for presenting facts, facts that you dispute, yet have no idea what those facts are, and are unwilling to look at them to find out what they are . . . is also insane. Again, as someone who writes on parenting issues, as a concerned parent as well, America should also consider retiring our insane government officials who fire people for facts they aren't aware of and are unwilling to look at. These politicians apparently assert some wild conspiracy theory that millions of Americans are questioning the events of 9/11 because they are "Bush haters" according to the aid at Nass' office. This kind of delusional paranoia by our elected officials is of particular concern. Such wild eyed conspiratorialists should not be allowed in government.
Bill Douglas, author of "The Amateur Parent - A Book on Life, Death, War & Peace, and Everything Else in the Universe"
findtruth40@hotmail.com July, 11, 2006
Comment on this Editorial
Israel Plans Genocide - Part 1
Israeli army enters Lebanon
Staff and agencies
Wednesday July 12, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
- Two soldiers reported kidnapped by Hizbullah
- Gaza bomb kills nine overnight
- Palestinian president 'threatens to quit'
Israeli troops reportedly entered southern Lebanon today after at least two Israeli troops went missing during border clashes with Hizbullah and were reported captured by the militant group.
Israeli government officials said the army had crossed into Lebanon to search for the soldiers and prevent them being taken further inside Lebanon. An emergency cabinet meeting would be held at 7pm (1700 BST).
The defence minister, Amir Peretz, warned Lebanon against allowing Hizbullah to operate from its territory.
"The Lebanese government, which allows Hizbullah to operate freely against Israel from its sovereign territory, will bear responsibility for the consequences and ramifications (of the cross-border attack)," he said in a statement. "Israel sees itself as being free to employ any means it deems fit, and the army has been instructed accordingly," he said, seeming to suggest a broad Israeli military response to the abduction.
Guerrillas from the Lebanese militant group claimed on Hizbullah Television to have captured the soldiers in a cross-border raid.
But the Israeli military would only officially confirm that two soldiers were missing, while a source told Reuters that troops were thought to have been killed.
Other Hizbullah reports suggested that three Israelis had been killed in the fighting and the broadcaster al-Jazeera said that seven Israelis had been killed. If confirmed, the deaths would be the first Israeli combat fatalities since the start of the Gaza campaign on June 28.
The fighting occurred as Israel killed nine members of a family, including two children, during an overnight bomb strike on a house in Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces have pounded Gaza since a group of Palestinian militants kidnapped the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit on June 25 and demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for him.
But the overnight bombing was the most serious single attack of the campaign, which has so far killed more than 60 Palestinians, including at least 12 civilians.
The capture of Israeli troops would be a major coup for Hizbullah, which has engaged in sporadic fighting with Israeli forces along the Lebanese border since they withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000.
Hizbullah said that it had seized the soldiers in an attempt to secure the release of some of the 9,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails under military laws.
"Fulfilling its pledge to liberate the prisoners and detainees, the Islamic Resistance ... captured two Israeli soldiers at the border with occupied Palestine," the group said in a statement. "The two captives were transferred to a safe place."
If the reported captures are confirmed, they would heighten tit-for-tat tensions in the Middle East. The capture of Corporal Shalit has sparked the biggest Israeli incursion into Gaza Strip since settlers and security forces were withdrawn from the territory in August 2005.
Immediately after the reported capture, Hamas' top Lebanon official, Osama Hamdan, said the situation improved the position of his group over the prisoner exchange issue.
"What happened has strengthened the issue of the captives, and the enemy will submit to our choice, which is the exchange of the captives in return for the release of the soldiers," he said.
Israel has rejected a prisoner exchange to secure the release of Cpl Shalit, although senior political figures have hinted that such a tactic might eventually be inevitable.
The Israeli military has insisted that the Palestinian authorities hand over the kidnapped soldier, although there are questions over how much control the Palestinian leadership has over Gaza.
The London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat today reported that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, had threatened to quit his position and leave the Palestinian territories in a phone conversation with the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.
Israeli officials linked the overnight bombing in Gaza to the campaign to track down the people who ordered Cpl Shalit's kidnapping.
The quarter-tonne bomb hit the home of the Hamas activist Nabil Abu Salmiyeh, a lecturer at Gaza City's Islamic University, but Israeli officials said it was intended for Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas' military wing. Members of Hamas' military wing were among three factions that took part in the capture of Cpl Shalit.
Hamas officials said that the intended targets had escaped the scene of the 2.30am bombing, but later confirmed that one of their Gaza commanders, Raad Saed, had been wounded.
Israeli forces claimed that Mr Deif had been wounded along with Ahmed Ghandour, a commander reportedly involved in the June 25 kidnap.
Palestinians said that Israel had also fired a rocket at a car driving away from the scene, but added that the two occupants had managed to get away.
The two-storey house was reduced to rubble and rescue teams frantically searched through the wreckage for survivors while a neighbouring house was close to collapse. The force of the blast had shattered nearby windows and flying masonry had blown holes in the walls of other buildings.
Witnesses reported that the body of a child had been pulled from the wreckage of the house.
Israel defended the attack, saying that members of the Hamas military wing had been meeting in the house.
"Israel is compelled to take action against those planning to unleash lethal terror attacks against Israeli citizens," said David Baker, an official in the office of the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert. "Palestinian terrorist leaders continue to take refuge amongst and hide behind their own civilians."
But the strike is likely to heighten international condemnation of Israel's reoccupation of Gaza Strip. Last week the EU and UN criticised Israel for "disproportionate use of force" against Palestinians in the territory, while the Swiss government alluded to the Geneva conventions on the laws of war in stating that the Israeli campaign amounted to "collective punishment".
The crackdown in Gaza has included the cutting off of water and power supplies, the destruction of bridges and damaged sanitation for local Palestinians.
Yesterday, Israeli troops pushed into the former Gush Katif Jewish settlement and tanks occupied Gaza's main north-south road, effectively cutting Gaza Strip in two.
Comment: The Israeli government is following a carefully planned operation to escalate the violence and spread it to the wider Middle East. Such an escalation would surely be the beginning of something big, a display of psychopathy for all the world to see, if they can only recognise it as such. It may also be the beginning of the end for Israel. Things may soon get really ugly, many innocent would be murdered, and all of it consciously planned and implemented by the state of Israel. If the "crisis" is simply about the captured Israeli soldier Shalit, as Olmert claims, why will Israel not simply swap women and children for him as Hamas has requested?
Comment on this Article
Hezbollah captures two Israeli soldiers
Wednesday 12 July 2006, 12:34 Makka Time, 9:34 GMT
Hezbollah has captured two Israeli soldiers in attacks from Lebanon on enemy border posts, prompting Israel to launch a ground and air assaults.
The Lebanese group said on Wednesday that it had captured the pair to secure the release of detainees held in Israeli prisons.
"In order to fulfil a promise to free the prisoners and detainees, the Islamic Resistance captured at 9:05am [0605 GMT] two Israeli soldiers at the borders with occupied Palestine," Hezbollah said referring to its military wing.
"The two prisoners were moved to a safe place," it said.
The Israeli defense ministry confirmed the kidnapping and said it held the Lebanese government "directly responsible" for their fate and safe return.
Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, has convened an emergency meeting of cabinet ministers. He warned that those who try to test Israel's resolve would "pay a heavy price."
Separately, an Israeli security source said two Israelis had been killed in cross-border attacks by Hezbollah fighters.
The identities of the casualties were not immediately known.
Israel retaliates
Lebanese security sources said Israeli aircraft retaliated by bombing three bridges in southern Lebanon.
Two Lebanese civilians were killed and a Lebanese soldier was wounded in the air raid, Lebanese security sources said.
The Lebanese casualties occurred in the raid on the coastal Qasmiyeh bridge.
Meanwhile, Israel's army radio reported that ground forces had enterned Lebanon to search for the missing soldiers.
Hezbollah earlier fired dozens of Katyusha rockets and mortar bombs at Israeli border posts and a town, wounding four civilians, according to Israeli and Lebanese security sources.
Israeli gunners retaliated, firing salvoes of artillery shells into the outskirts of four Lebanese border villages while Israeli soldiers exchanged gunfire with guerrillas in the area.
The fighting apparently began when at least two rockets fired from south Lebanon exploded near Shlomi, an Israeli frontier town about 15km east of the Mediterranean coast.
Hezbollah fighters also attacked Israeli posts in the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms area to the east, Lebanese security sources said.
The Hezbollah attack coincided with the Israeli invasion in Gaza, ordered partly in retaliation for the abduction by Palestinian fighters earlier this month of a soldier from a border post.
Comment on this Article
Israel launches three airstrikes on Gaza Strip
www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-12 05:38:12
GAZA, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Israel launched Tuesday night three airstrikes on targets in northern and central Gaza Strip, wounding one militant, security sources and witnesses said.
The sources said that two Apache attack helicopters fired two air-to-ground rockets at an empty field in central Gaza Strip, the site of a former Jewish settlement evacuated last September.
Shortly before the airstrike, two Israeli drones fired two rockets at the same time at a training camp, which belongs to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah movement, in northern Gaza Strip.
Palestinian witnesses said that a group of militants in the camp managed to escape from the area without injury.
Earlier, an Israeli pilotless drone attacked a group of militants who were launching a homemade rocket from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza Strip near the border with Israel.
The militants are members of an armed group called "Al-Fateh al-Mubein."
The group said in a leaflet that its militants launched a homemade rocket at Israel, and the Israeli attack lightly wounded one militant.
In the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian residents of the village of Aseera al-Shamaleya said that the Israeli army stormed the village and detained three Palestinians.
The residents said that Israeli soldiers discovered an explosive device in one of houses and blew it up, adding that the house was destroyed.
In the West Bank city of Ramallah, two Jewish settlers were lightly injured after Palestinian youth threw stones at their car, Israel Radio reported.
Comment on this Article
Israeli PM calls Hizbollah attack "act of war"
www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-12 19:40:09
JERUSALEM, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday called the Lebanese Hizbollah's attack on the northern Israeli border "an act of war."
"It is an act of war by the state of Lebanon against the state of Israel in its sovereign territory," Olmert said at a news conference.
"We are already responding with great strength ... The cabinet will convene tonight to decide on a further military response by the Israel Defense Forces," he added.
The Israeli prime minister also vowed a "very painful and far-reaching" response, adding that Israel would not negotiate over the fate of two soldiers who went missing during the border violence.
Earlier, Hizbollah claimed that it had kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, demanding Israel release prisoners held in Israeli jails in exchange for the two soldiers.
Comment: Is Olmert stupid, or is he just ignoring the fact that Israel started shelling towns within Lebanon which prompted Hizbullah to REACT! The act of war was on Israel's part.
Comment on this Article
Israel intensifies Gaza action
Tuesday 11 July 2006, 14:38 Makka Time, 11:38 GMT
Chemical weapons?
In Shifa hospital, Dr al-Saqqa said most of the dead bodies taken to the facility were torn apart and completely burnt.
"Even bodies of the injured have been almost completely burnt. They have been deformed in a very ugly way that we have never seen before," he told Aljazeera channel.
Al-Saqaa, who heads the hospital's emergency service, said relatives had been unable to identify the dead victims.
"When we try to X-ray dead bodies, we find no trace of the shrapnel that hit the person killed," he said, adding that the bodies seemed to have been chemically burnt.
"We are sure that Israel is using a new chemical or radioactive weapon in the new operation. More than 25% of the injured are children, aged under 16."
Israel has begun fresh air strikes in the Gaza Strip after pledging to intensify its military offensive on the territory that has killed 51 Palestinians in two weeks.
One Palestinian was killed and four others wounded in a series of Israeli air strikes in the northern industrial zone of Bait Hanun, medics said on Tuesday.
The Israeli military confirmed an air raid in the Bait Hanun area of northern Gaza, the site of two earlier strikes on Tuesday.
The dead man was named Ahmed Shahid, who was struck by a missile fired towards a car, the sources said.
Israeli aircraft also carried out two overnight air strikes against a bridge in the northern Gaza Strip and against a "gunman" west of the Karni transit point for goods entering and leaving the Palestinian territory, a spokesman said.
Ground troops are massed on the eastern and northern border of the impoverished territory - one of the most densely populated areas on earth - and are also stationed east of Gaza City and in the south near a defunct airport.
Israel says the massive operation is to secure the release of a captured soldier on June 25, and halting Palestinian rocket attacks.
Palestinian medics said on Tuesday that patients treated in Shifa hospital in Gaza and bodies at the mortuary presented unusual burns, raising concerns that Israel was using chemical weapons.
Meanwhile, Israeli defence sources said the government had given the military the green light to continue and, if necessary, intensify the so-called Summer Rain offensive with infantry and armour poised to carry out "in depth" incursions.
The approval was granted during consultations late on Monday between Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, and the defence minister, Amir Peretz, who faced their biggest test since the new Israeli government took office on May 4.
Olmert is due to hold talks with military commanders on Tuesday with a view to continuing the offensive, the largest operation since Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in September.
Chemical weapons?
In Shifa hospital, Dr al-Saqqa said most of the dead bodies taken to the facility were torn apart and completely burnt.
"Even bodies of the injured have been almost completely burnt. They have been deformed in a very ugly way that we have never seen before," he told Aljazeera channel.
Al-Saqaa, who heads the hospital's emergency service, said relatives had been unable to identify the dead victims.
"When we try to X-ray dead bodies, we find no trace of the shrapnel that hit the person killed," he said, adding that the bodies seemed to have been chemically burnt.
"We are sure that Israel is using a new chemical or radioactive weapon in the new operation. More than 25% of the injured are children, aged under 16."
Four teenagers playing football were among the dead on Monday.
At least 51 Palestinians have been killed since the operation started two weeks ago. An Israeli soldier also died as a result of "friendly fire", according to the Israeli military.
No end in sight
On Monday, Khaled Meshaal, the political leader of Hamas, demanded a prisoner swap for freeing the captured soldier but Olmert said that would be a "major mistake".
Hamas's armed wing - along with two other militant groups, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Army of Islam -claims to be holding the soldier.
Olmert has rejected international accusations that the response to the soldier's capture was disproportionate, saying that Israel's pullout from Gaza after 38 years of occupation has been followed only by continued violence.
Aid groups have expressed concern about the difficulties of providing assistance to 1.4 million people living in Gaza after months of financial difficulties and the suspension of direct Western aid to the Hamas-led government.
Junichiro Koizumi, the Japanese prime minister, is due to arrive in the region on Tuesday for separate talks with Olmert and the Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, on a trip he hopes will help to calm the situation.
Comment on this Article
Israeli Army Drops 1/4 Ton Bomb On Family Home, Kills 9
Washington Post
12 July 2006
Just as an addendum to the wonderful fight that the Israeli army is engaged in, the Washington Post saw fit to mention as a final paragraph to an article buried deep within the paper's pages:
Israel's air force dropped a quarter-ton bomb on a residential building in Gaza earlier Wednesday, killing at least six people, including two children. The target of the airstrike had been top Hamas militants meeting in the building, but Hamas said its top fugitive got away.
Nothing to see here.
Comment on this Article
Palestinian injuries suggest Israel is using chemical weapons in Gaza
Date: 10 / 07 / 2006 Time: 22:07
MAAN NEWS AGENCY
Salfit- Gaza- Ma'an- The Palestinian ministry of health revealed on Monday that the Israeli army has used a new type of explosive in its offensive on the Gaza Strip. These explosives contain toxics and radioactive materials which burn and tear the victim's body from the inside and leave long term deformations.
The ministry called upon the international community and the humanitarian organizations to send an international medical community to examine the victims and confirm the truth about these banned weapons that Israel appears to be using.
The ministry showed that most of the injuries which the hospitals receive result from huge explosions which cause burning and severing of limbs, including the inner parts of the body. This causes long term deformations.
It is added that doctors in Gaza have been forced to amputate limbs of at least 12 injured Palestinians as a result of injuries sustained in the current Israeli offensive on the Strip.
Comment on this Article
Israeli army denies using prohibited weapons
Date: 11 / 07 / 2006 Time: 19:37
MAAN NEWS AGENCY
Jerusalem-Ma'an- The Israeli army denied Palestinian accusations that it is using prohibited weapons in its attack on Gaza.
The army spokesman, Avichia Auz'i refused to tell our correspondent in Jerusalem whether Israel actually started to use a new type of missiles. He said: "When the army uses such missiles, it won't reveal it simply because armies do not reveal the weapons they use. Yet, we are always developing our weapons in order to avoid hitting civilians"
He added: "I just want to confirm that we are using traditional weapons only, regardless of the Palestinian allegations."
In regard to Olmert's endorsement of a comprehensive incursion of Gaza, he answered that the army is performing a major operation "Summer Rain" and every thing is a part of that operation. In addition, he said, "we don't intend to stay in Gaza."
Comment: Of course, and we should all believe the words of the IDF, a bunch of cut-throats who, in the past, have claimed that they accidentally shot Palestinian children, you know, the one's found with 20 bullets in their bodies.
Comment on this Article
Israel Plans Genocide - Part 2
Israel's Chemical Weapons
July 8, 2004
by James Brooks
AntiWar.com
On June 10th, 2004, the two clinics in Al-Zawiya treated 130 patients for gas inhalation. The patients were children, women, old people and young men. Dr. Abu Madi related that there was a high number of cases of [tetany], spasm in legs and hands, connected to the nervous system. Pupils were dilated. ... Other symptoms included shock, semi-consciousness, hyperventilation, irritation and sweating."
Thus reads a report by medical units serving the West Bank village of Al-Zawiya, where nonviolent resistance to Israel's impending wall has been extraordinarily resolute. According to the medical report (procured by the International Middle East Media Center [IMEMC]), "the gas used against the protestors is not tear gas but possibly a nerve gas."
The following day, Israel's "Peace Bloc," Gush Shalom, began a press release with the following quote from Al-Zawiya:
"What the army used here yesterday was not tear gas. We know what tear gas is, what it feels like. That was something totally different. ... When we were still a long way off from where the bulldozers were working, they started shooting things like this one (holding up a dark green metal tube with the inscription "Hand and rifle grenade no.400" - in English). Black smoke came out. Anyone who breathed it lost consciousness immediately, more than a hundred people. They remained unconscious for nearly 24 hours. One is still unconscious, at Rapidiya Hospital in Nablus. They had high fever and their muscles became rigid. Some needed urgent blood transfusion. Now, is this a way of dispersing a demonstration, or is it chemical warfare?"
The incident in Al-Zawiya appears to be the tenth attack by Israeli soldiers using an "unknown gas" against Palestinian civilians since early 2001. We have photographs of the canisters. We have film of victims suffering in the hospital. We have interviews with Palestinian and European doctors who have treated the victims. And we presumably have hundreds, perhaps thousands, of survivors. But we know nothing of their fate. Despite the evidence, we have not inquired.
Though it is a state secret, Israel's development of chemical and biological weapons has been known and analyzed for decades. From the typhoid poisoning of Palestinian wells and water supplies in 1948 to the conversion of F-16s into nerve gas "crop dusters" in 1998, Israel has always demonstrated a strong interest in developing CBW agents and methods for their dispersal.
In 1992 an El Al 747 flying nerve gas ingredients from the U.S. to Israel crashed into an Amsterdam apartment building. According to Salman Abu-Sitta, president of the Palestine Land Society, the respected Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad followed up the crash with an in-depth investigation of the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), Israel's CBW complex in Nes Ziona. The paper reportedly found "strong links" with several U.S. CBW and medical research centers, "close cooperation between IIBR and the British-American biological warfare program," and "extensive collaboration on BW research with Germany and Holland."
At IIBR, doctors publish world-class research in acetylcholine, the mother lode of nerve gas design. The Nes Ziona complex is reputed to have invented an "undetectable" poison-needle gun for "clean" assassinations. In September 1997, two days after Jordan's King Hussein told Israeli PM Netanyahu that Hamas was seeking negotiations, Mossad agents in Jordan attempted to kill Hamas leader Khaled Misha'al with a lethal dose of fentanyl.
For years, rumors persisted that Israel was using or testing unknown chemical agents on Palestinian civilians. The rumors began to reveal their substance February 12, 2001, when Israel began a six-week campaign of "novel gas" attacks in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. By chance, American filmmaker James Longley arrived in Khan Younis, Gaza in the middle of the first attack. That afternoon he began filming the victims. His award-winning film, Gaza Strip, documents the naked reality of Israel's chemical weaponry - the canisters, the doctors, the eyewitnesses, and the hideous suffering of the victims, many of whom remained hospitalized for days or weeks.
The February 12 gassing of neighborhoods in Khan Younis presaged the attacks that followed. When the gas canisters landed, they began to billow clouds of either white or black, sooty smoke. The gas was non-irritating and initially odorless, changing to a sweet, minty fragrance after a few minutes. One victim recalled, "the smell was good. You want to breathe more. You feel good when you inhale it." The smoke often shifted to a "rainbow" of changing colors.
From five to thirty minutes after breathing the gas, victims began to feel sick and have difficulty breathing. A searing pain began to wrench their gut, followed by vomiting, sometimes of blood, then complete hysteria and extremely violent convulsions. Many victims suffered a relentless syndrome for days or weeks afterward, alternating between convulsions and periods of conscious, twitching, vomiting agony. Palestinians agreed: "This is like nothing we've ever seen before."
Forty people were admitted to Al-Nasser Hospital "in an odd state of hysteria and nervous breakdown," suffering from "fainting and spasms." Sixteen gas patients had to be transferred to the intensive care unit. Doctors "reported the Israeli use of gas that appeared to cause convulsions."
At the Gharbi refugee camp, thirty-two people "were treated for serious injuries" following exposure to the gas. Dr. Salakh Shami at Al-Amal Hospital reported the hospital receiving "about 130 patients suffering from gas inhalation from February 12."
Bewildered medical personnel had "never seen anything ... like the gas at Tufa." Victims were "jumping up and down, left and right ... thrashing limbs around," suffering "convulsions ... a kind of hysteria. They were all shaking." Others were already unconscious. An hour or two later, they would come to. And the convulsions and the vomiting and disorientation and pain would return.
The following day, February 13, Israeli forces again deployed the strange new gas canisters in Khan Younis. Over forty new gas victims, "including a number of children ... from 1 to 5-years-old," arrived at Al-Nasser Hospital and the hospital of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.
The news began to trickle out. "Palestinian security services have accused the Israeli army of using nerve gas during a gunbattle yesterday," reported AFX News Limited, noting "the army has strongly denied the charges." The Voice of Palestine reported that "specialists believe that this is an internationally banned nerve gas." Those who inhaled the gas "suffered a nervous breakdown and vomited blood."
The next day, Deutsche Presse-Agentur quoted Dr. Yasser Sheikh Ali from Al-Nasser Hospital: "Israel has been using a powerful type of tear gas against the Palestinians that causes convulsions and spasms." According to DPA, more than 80 Palestinians...reported that Israeli soldiers had used the white smoky gas, but Israel denied doing so."
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported that on February 15 three more canisters of the poison gas were fired at houses in the Khan Younis camp, and "another 11 Palestinian civilians, mostly children, suffered from suffocation and spasms due to gas inhalation." British journalist Graham Usher wrote that Khan Younis civilians were "incapacitated" by "a 'new' form of toxic gas."
PA President Yasser Arafat publicly "accused Israel of using poison gas." The IDF issued a second denial. Israeli Communications Minister Ben-Eliezer called reports of gas casualties in Khan Younis "incorrect and false." Senior PA minister Nabil Shaath said that a sample of the gas would be sent to "an international center for analysis." The results, if any, were never divulged.
On February 18, Israeli soldiers near the Neve Dekalim settlement reportedly fired four poison gas canisters at Palestinian houses in Khan Younis. Later that afternoon, more canisters were fired, forcing Palestinians to flee their homes. PCHR reported that "41 Palestinian civilians, mostly children and women, suffered from suffocation and spasms." By PCHR's count, 238 Palestinians were affected by poison gas attacks between February 12 and February 20. Twenty-seven of the victims were still hospitalized on the 22nd.
On March 2, an unknown gas was used against civilians in the West Bank town of Al-Bireh. Israeli soldiers reportedly fired "canisters of a highly effective black gas similar to the one used in Khan Yunis three weeks ago."
Twenty-four days later, Israeli forces east of Gaza City used a gas that "left symptoms different from those of the ... gas used first ... in Khan Yunis starting from February 12," although several similarities also appeared. In this attack the onset of abdominal pain seemed to be delayed.
On March 30, medical professionals in Nablus reported Israeli soldiers using the new poison gas against Palestinian demonstrators.
British journalist Jonathan Cook reported a March gas attack on the schoolyard of Al-Khader village, near Bethlehem. Thirteen year-old Sliman Salah was playing when a gas canister landed next to him, "enveloping him in a cloud of gas described by witnesses as an unfamiliar, yellow colour." Large doses of anti-convulsants were required to control the boy's seizures and maintain consciousness. His symptoms "were finally brought under control five days after his exposure to the gas. But Salah's father says the boy is still suffering from stomach pains, vomiting, dizziness and breathing problems."
In its March, 2003 special report, Israel's Secret Weapon, BBC Television reviewed this series of gas attacks, noting, "The Israeli army has used new unidentified weapons. In February 2001 a new gas was used in Gaza. A hundred and eighty patients were admitted to hospitals with severe convulsions. ... Israel is outside chemical and biological weapons treaties and still refuses to say what the new gas was."
In my amateur analysis of the reported comments of victims, eyewitnesses and medical professionals regarding this series of attacks, I identified thirty-three distinct symptoms attributed to the unidentified gas. All but three of these symptoms appear to be typical of nerve gas poisoning. Tareg Bey, a chemical warfare expert at the University of California-Irvine, told the Chicago Reader that the symptoms described to him "all fit really well to nerve gas," though he was puzzled by the reported fragrance and skin rashes.
In an October 9, 2003, article, Jennifer Loewenstein and Angela Gaff asked, "What gas is Israel using?" They reported the story of Mukhles Burgal, a Palestinian prisoner caught in a brutal attack inside Israel's Ashkelon prison. The "guards forced their way into the crowded cell, spraying two canisters of some type of gas. Some of the 14 prisoners passed out. ... The effects of the gas were severe muscle spasms and an overwhelming sensation of not being able to breathe."
Two days later, Palestine Monitor reported that Israeli forces in Rafah were allegedly "firing gas grenades containing a black gas believed to be adamatite [adamsite?] - the use of which is forbidden according to international law. Medical authorities urged people to avoid the gas at all costs, as it not only causes difficulty in breathing but seriously affects the nervous system." For some reason, PCHR's press release from the same day, an apparent source of these reports, is no longer available. On the 14th, eyewitness Laura Gordon wrote, "The army used some kind of nerve gas for the first time in Rafah, leaving people in convulsions for days."
Following the recent gas attack in Al-Zawiya, town officials reportedly told Al Ayyam newspaper, "the Israeli occupation troops were using an illegal substance that caused nerve spasms and that several cases had been transferred to Nablus hospitals."
The PA's International Press Center reported that "official and public sources in ... Al-Zawya ... asserted that those who have inhaled the tear gas IOF troops fired at them four days ago are still suffering from the effects of the gas ... a number of those citizens have already had amnesias or partial memory loss, in addition to cramps ... in addition to strange cramps every three hours ... those who inhaled the gas are still suffering severe pains in the joints and nausea for four days now. Eyewitnesses recalled that the Israeli soldiers were keen on picking the empty tear gas canisters." Journalists told IPC "that the gas was in different colors they have never seen coming out of a tear gas canister before, and that some gases had an unrecalled smell."
According to IMEMC, "[T]ens of demonstrators who inhaled this gas had partial memory loss. Dr. Bassam Abu Madi told IMEMC that the some of those who inhaled the gas had severe choking and some contraction in their feet and arm muscles. Eyewitnesses said the gas has a strange smell and a reddish-brownish color." In a follow up story, IMEMC concluded that "protesters were attacked with gas that is not like the tear gas. Those who inhaled the gas suffered some memory loss while others had other symptoms of a nerve gas. Yet this was not medically confirmed for lack of laboratories to inspect the gas canisters collected from the scene."
Al-Jazeera reported the opinion of Awni Khatib, a professor of chemistry at Hebron University:
"The new symptoms - particularly the violent convulsions experienced by some Palestinian protesters outside the village of Sawiya [Zawiya], southwest of Nablus - suggest ... that the Israeli army may be using a new class of chemicals that lie somewhere between normal tear gas and chemical weapons."
Israel's repeated use of highly toxic unknown chemicals against Palestinian civilians is now an open secret. We can expect these attacks to continue until a concerted effort is made to determine the facts and hold Israel accountable. So far, the international human rights community has steadfastly ignored the mounting evidence.
When will professional investigators begin to retrieve and test the gas canisters? Why has no one but James Longley bothered to document interviews with victims, doctors, and other eyewitnesses? In a world in which one country's mere possession of chemical weapons can be an excuse for international retribution, how can another country's use of chemical weapons against civilians be dismissed as a "regrettably excessive" tactic of crowd control?
Our silence is poisoning Palestine.
Comment on this Article
Flashback: Is The Israeli Military Using Depleted-Uranium Weapons Against The Palestinians?
By John Catalinotto and Sara Flounders,
International Action Center
International Action Center calls for an investigation
27 Nov 2000-- The International Action Center calls upon international organizations, NGOs, environmental and health organizations to investigate the Israeli military's use of prohibited weapons in the West Bank and Gaza, and to mobilize to stop it. These weapons include dumdum bullets and CS gas. The IAC believes it also includes depleted- uranium weapons.
The effect of dumdum bullets and CS gas is immediate, easily shown and obvious. Using radioactive and toxic depleted-uranium weapons is an additional crime that has an insidious long-term effect, not only on combatants and civilians in the vicinity, but over a broad area and to the general environment, as has been shown by the Pentagon's massive use of DU weapons in Yugoslavia and especially in Iraq.
The International Action Center's own investigative team on Nov. 1 and 2 saw Israeli helicopter gun ships firing into densely populated areas. According to international law these attacks on civilian areas are war crimes--as is the long-term destruction of the environment from DU contamination.
Mobilizing investigations, public challenges and mass protests against the use of DU weapons can stop this crime against humanity.
The aim of this paper is to show with supporting data that it is credible that the Israeli military is using DU weapons in the Occupied Territories. We know that Israel is DU-armed and capable, and shielding on Israeli tanks is DU-reinforced. The IAC urges scientists, doctors and soldiers who know of the use of DU shells to come forward with definitive proof that the Israeli military has at least tested DU weapons in its attacks on Palestinian offices and homes. In addition, we urge environmental and other organizations to demand an accounting from these authorities.
It will also show how following similar Pentagon or U.S. government denials regarding test-firing DU weapons in Puerto Rico, Okinawa Panama and south Korea, revelations and public pressure have forced admissions and in some cases have won pledges to stop firing DU weapons. In Kosovo, Yugoslavia, and in the Persian/Arabian Gulf region this pressure has led to international investigations and legal actions against DU use.
DU IS PART OF ISRAELI ARSENAL
U.S. arms make up the major part of the Israeli arsenal and Israel has been the number one recipient of U.S. arms aid for decades. These U.S. weapons include the M1 Abrams tank-which fires DU shells and is armored with DU-reinforced metal. The "Apache" and the Cobra helicopter gun ships are also equipped to fire DU shells. Since this latest Intifada started, the U.S. has shipped Israel "the newest and most advanced multi-mission attack helicopters in the U.S. inventory," as reported in the Jerusalem Post. These were Apache helicopters.
The IAC delegation witnessed Israeli attack helicopters, which people described to them as "Apache" helicopters from the U.S., firing shells and rockets at targets in and around Ramallah on Nov. 1. They then examined a small office used by the Fatah organization that the projectiles hit and destroyed.
The following day they saw machine guns on tanks being fired at Palestinian youths in Ramallah armed only with rocks and slingshots. They also visited a Fatah office near Nablus that Israeli rockets had hit the night before.
The IAC delegation gathered up shell casings and metal fragments in these areas. As they were preparing to leave from Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, members of the IAC delegation were stopped, searched and interrogated. The shell casings and metal fragments were confiscated. While this prevented the IAC from arranging its own tests, it made them even more suspicious that the Israeli forces were using DU shells and trying to hide it.
Because of its great density, DU is also used to stabilize or balance airplanes and missiles, including the Tomahawk Cruise missile. When the missile explodes, or should the plane crash, the DU burns and is released into the air just as it is when DU shells hit steel. DU is also used to shield tanks, including the M1 Abrams tank used by the U.S. and Israel. After 32 continuous days, or 64 12-hour days, the amount of radiation a tank driver receives to his head from overhead armor will exceed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's standard for public whole-body annual exposure to man-made sources of radiation.
Whether from shells or from the scrapings from tanks moving around the countryside, radioactive materials enter into the land, the water and the whole food chain, contaminating the densely populated West Bank and Gaza, where water is a scarce resource. Wanton radioactive contamination of this region is a crime against all of humanity and a threat to the entire region now and for generations to come.
According to the LAKA Foundation in the Netherlands, the Israeli army first used depleted-uranium weapons in the 1973 war, under direction from U.S. advisers.
The same 1995 report from the U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute mentioned earlier asserts that Israel is one of the countries with DU munitions in its arsenal. These included at that time at least Bahrain, Egypt, France, Greece, Kuwait, Pakistan Russia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, as well as the United States. This assertion has been repeated in the Christian Science Monitor, the Jerusalem Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and other newspapers.
Israel has a nuclear-weapons program more developed than that of any country except the five major nuclear powers. For exposing this nuclear program, Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear-weapons technician, was kidnapped by the Mossad and held in solitary confinement 14 years.
Given Israel's own nuclear program and well-developed military industry, the likelihood is that Israel is a manufacturer of DU ammunition. The firm Rafael of Israel is named in numerous reports as being such a manufacturer. But even if this were not the case, Israel has been able to import DU weapons from the United States.
DANGERS FROM DEPLETED URANIUM
DU, much like natural uranium from which it hardly differs, is both radioactive and toxic. DU is a waste product of the process that produces enriched uranium for use in atomic weapons and nuclear power plants. Over a billion pounds of DU exists in the United States and must be safely stored or disposed of by the Department of Energy. With its half-life of 4.5 billion years, the radioactivity of DU is effectively eternal.
It is so abundant it has been given away to arms manufacturers. Because it is extremely dense-1.7 times as dense as lead--when turned into a metal DU can be used to make a shell that easily penetrates steel. In addition it is pyrophoric, that is, it burns when heated by friction from when it strikes steel.
When DU burns, this spews tiny particles of poisonous and radioactive uranium oxide in the air. The small particles can be ingested or inhaled by humans for miles around, and even one particle, when lodged in a vital organ, can be dangerous.
The Pentagon tested DU shells at various sites around the U.S., and used it openly in combat against Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war. At least 600,000 pounds of DU and uranium dust was left around Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia by U.S. and British forces during that war.
Although the U.S. government and military continue to deny or minimize the environmental and health dangers from depleted uranium weapons, they themselves have to admit these dangers exist. A 1995 report from the U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute, entitled the "Health and Environmental Consequences of Depleted Uranium in the U.S. Army" stated, "If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences. The risks associated with DU in the body are both chemical and radiological.... Personnel inside or near vehicles struck by DU penetrators could receive significant internal exposures."
DU is also considered at least a contributing cause to the 130,000 reported cases of "Gulf War Syndrome." Numerous international studies in Britain, the United States and in Iraq have linked Gulf War Syndrome to the use of radioactive weapons in the bombing. The chronic symptoms of this ailment range from sharp increases in cancers to memory loss chronic pain, fatigue and birth defects in the veterans' children.
The damage to the Iraqi people was even more severe. A symposium in Baghdad in December 1998 found higher rates of childhood leukemia and other cancers in people living around Basra, Iraq, and attributed this to DU contamination. Data was presented on the pattern of a more than five-fold increase in many cancers, a ten-fold increase in uterine cancer and a sixteen fold increase in ovarian cancer and the high incidence of still births and congenital deformities, especially in Southern Iraq.
U.S. USE OF DU WEAPONS WORLDWIDE
The only admitted use of DU in combat has been in the 1991 war against Iraq, the 1995 NATO bombing of Bosnia and the massive NATO assault on Yugoslavia in 1999. There have, however, been other instances when the Pentagon has test-fired DU shells in such a way that it has endangered nearby civilians. Besides the many tests conducted within the United States, these include DU testing at sites in Vieques, Puerto Rico; Okinawa, Japan; Panama and South Korea.
VIEQUES, PUERTO RICO
Vieques, an island near and part of Puerto Rico, has been a Pentagon target-practice site since 1940. For the past few years and especially since an errant U.S. bomb killed a Vieques resident in April 1999, people in Vieques and all Puerto Rico have mobilized to stop the testing on that island. As part of this mass mobilization, they have demanded that the U.S. Navy fulfill its responsibility to the local environment and clean up depleted-uranium shells it fired on the island.
While first denying it did such testing, in January 2000, Navy spokespeople admitted firing 263 shells reinforced with DU during practice runs in Vieques, claiming they did so "by accident." They said Navy forces were able to recover 57 rounds, leaving 206. Removing the DU contamination has remained one of the demands of the movement in Vieques. Dr. Doug Rokke, former Director of the Pentagon's Depleted Uranium Project, has condemned the Navy's use of DU in Vieques and called in a Feb. 9, 2000 news release for "complete environmental remediation of all affected terrain and medical care be provided for all affected residents of Vieques."
OKINAWA
The U.S. government never notified Japan it was testing DU weapons near Okinawa. Yet it turned out that a U.S Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier jet in late 1995 had test fired 1,520 rounds of DU ammunition. The Pentagon finally admitted this in an article published in the Washington Times on Feb. 10, 1997. This created such a national outrage including angry denunciations in the Japanese Duma that the U.S. government apologized, agreed to remove the weapons from bases on Okinawa and make an extensive clean-up of the site.
As reported in the Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun, Pentagon spokesperson Kenneth Bacon said the U.S. military has moved all depleted-uranium bullets deployed in Okinawa to south Korea. He also reportedly said that in south Korea, the shells are closer to a "potential battlefield.
According to the Mainichi Shimbun article, a South Korean foreign ministry source said the U.S.-puppet government in Seoul had not been informed of the transfer. "If it is the case that the move was made to avoid further controversy in Japan, it could disturb sentiments of the [south Korean] people," the source reportedly said.
SOUTH KOREA
And it did. U.S. Air-Force veteran turned peace activist during the war against Vietnam Brian Willson reports on his May 2000 visit to South Korea:
"For Example, in May 2000, Koreans discovered that U.S.Air Force A-10s were practice bombing at a 50-year-old bombing/strafing range (Koon Ni) near the village of Maehyang Ri, fifty-five miles southwest of Seoul. On May 8, due to an in-flight emergency, one of the A-10s quickly dropped six bombs outside of the prescribed bombing area, damaging some houses in the village and injuring seven residents. "Local Korean villagers have been vehemently opposed to the use of their historic farmland for U.S. bombing and strafing practice ever since the Korean government first provided the 5900-acre Koon Ni site free of charge to the U.S. military in 1951. The Korean government does not even collect from the U.S. the utility fees entailed for operating the range, now leased by the Pentagon to the world's largest arm's manufacturer, Lockheed Martin. When people inquired into the purpose of the A-10s, and asked for explanations for the errant bombing, they discovered that A-10s were heavily used in Kosovo and Serbia delivering DU-coated weapons. "The local people of Maehyang Ri demanded an answer from the Korean government and U.S. military in Korea as to whether DU weapons were being stored in Korea or used in any way during practice bombings. Though at first officials denied presence of DU, incessant pressure by doubting Korean people finally elicited an admission from officials of both the Korean government and U.S. forces that, indeed, DU was present in Korea. It had been moved there in February 1997 from bases in Okinawa, after the Japanese complained of its presence there. And though Korean and U.S. officials denied that they used DU in practices at the Koon Ni range, they did admit that on two occasions in 1997, DU weapons were inadvertently expended in Korea."
PANAMA
According to an article in the Aug. 20, 1997 Christian Science Monitor, Rick Stauber, A member of the seven-person team that prepared the US Department of Defense's report on leftover ordnance at three military firing ranges in Panama, says during his investigation he was handed a report, listing all US weapon testing from the 1960s to the early 1990s, that showed that 120mm depleted- uranium projectiles were fired on Empire Range.
At first, U.S. Ambassador William Hughs denied Stauber's report. When the Fellowship of Reconciliation brought this to the attention of Panamanian daily newspapers, the strong reaction forced Washington to admit that the military had at least stored DU shells in Panama to test their deterioration in tropical climates. Stauber, a military consultant, said that they would then be obliged to test fire at least some of the shells to see if they were functional.
KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA
Early in NATO's war against Yugoslavia, on April 1, 1999, the International Action Center sent out a news release charging the U.S. with using DU weapons against Yugoslavia. While the Pentagon was trying to avoid comment on this, Pentagon spokespeople had already told the media that the A-10 Warthog anti-tank plane was being used against Yugoslav tanks in Kosovo. Finally pressure on this question from the media forced the Pentagon to acknowledge use of DU.
Still, NATO headquarters and especially the Pentagon withheld cooperation with investigations of DU contamination of Kosovo. On Oct. 14, 1999, a United Nations official who chairs the task force investigating the impact on the environment of the 78-day U.S.- NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia said that NATO officials had refused to cooperate regarding their use of depleted- uranium weapons. Pekka Haavisto, task-force chairperson, said his team was unable to determine the extent of pollution caused by uranium-tipped weapons. He said NATO refused either to admit using the weapons or to cooperate with the task force.
Finally though, in a letter to the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan from NATO Secretary-General,
Lord Robertson, it states:
"DU rounds were used whenever the A-10 engaged armor during Operation Allied Force. Therefore, it was used throughout Kosovo during approximately 100 missions... A total of approximately 31,000 rounds of DU ammunition was used in operation Allied Force. The major focus of these operations was in an area west of the Pec- Dakovica-Prizren highway, in the area surrounding Klina, in the area around Prizren and in an area to the north of a line joining Suva Reka and Urosevac. However many missions using DU also took place outside these areas."
According to articles written October 2000 by Rainer Rupp in the Berlin daily, Junge Welt, and by British journalist Felicity Arbuthnot, concern over DU dangers have created problems involving both UN personnel and NATO-country troops occupying Kosovo.
"Last week [Oct 14-20] the French government followed its Italian counterpart and launched an investigation of the effects of spent depleted uranium shells on its soldiers in Kosovo. Two Italian K-FOR (occupation) soldiers who were stricken with cancer and who showed symptoms similar to those with Gulf War Syndrome are to be flown from Kosovo to Rome in the near future.
"The Rome military prosecutor followed his colleagues in Milan, Turin and Venice and set underway an investigation of the effects of DU- shells on Italian troops in Kosovo. With this in the background the Portuguese defense minister has decided to withdraw the Portuguese troop contingent from Kosovo. (Junge Welt, Oct. 24)
Notice that in all these cases the military authorities at first either stonewalled or denied that DU was being used, then wound up having to admit it.
ISRAELI EL AL JET
A flaming crash of an El Al cargo jet in Bijlmer, a suburb of Amsterdam on Oct. 4, 1992, killing 43 people has been the target of ongoing research. The health consequences for people in a whole section of Amsterdam has created an ongoing movement of the Dutch Greens on the chemical and radiological toxicity of depleted uranium.
The El Al Boeing 747 jet had on board tons of chemicals, flammable liquids, substances used in the manufacture of nerve gas and 1,500 kilograms of DU in the form of counterweights. Both the nerve gas chemicals and the DU have long been a topic of debate. The Dutch Ministry of Defense report "Health risks during exposure to uranium" documented the radiotoxic effects of DU in the human body.
THE GULF WAR
U.S. veterans organizations have campaigned to demand investigation and compensation for their extremely high incidence of chronic sicknesses among Gulf War veterans. The U.S. government has denied their claims.
IS ISRAEL USING DU IN COMBAT?
Some may argue that because the Israelis are not firing against tanks-the strongest military justification for using DU shells-but against unarmed or at the most lightly armed and virtually unprotected opponents, there is no special reason for them to be using DU shells.
This is true. But the same could be said for U.S. forces in Vieques, Panama, Okinawa and south Korea, yet DU weapons were tested in all those places. Like the Pentagon brass, the Israeli general staff would want to try out their weapons under all conditions, especially in combat. Now that they are firing at homes and offices in an attempt to punish the Fatah leadership, they would want to see if DU shells penetrate concrete as they do steel and if this makes a difference in battle.
The Israeli military has already shown its racist contempt for the Palestinians by firing to maim thousands and kill hundreds of young people protesting the occupation of their country, people armed in the great majority with stones and slingshots. As of Nov. 20, over 240 people have been killed and over 8,000 wounded.
And the Israeli officers have a strong reason to use DU-shielded tanks. They want the Israeli soldiers and their families to think that they are invulnerable in their tanks and armored personal carriers shielded with DU armor. If the troops grow ill months or years later from their constant exposure to radiation, that is no longer a political problem for the generals. The same is true when they handle shells and fire rounds from tank guns.
The Israeli peace movement and the families of the troops, should know that the illusion of invincibility comes at a price. There has already been the beginning of resistance among individual Israeli troops to playing the role of oppressor. This movement should seriously consider the dangers of DU.
The first step to exposing and stopping this crime and its long-term impact is to start a serious investigation of Israeli use of depleted- uranium weapons.
Comment on this Article
Flashback: Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
James Brooks
Counterpunch
July 5 2006
"On June 10th, 2004, the two clinics in Al-Zawiya treated 130 patients for gas inhalation. The patients were children, women, old people and young men. Dr. Abu Madi related that there was a high number of cases of [tetany], spasm in legs and hands, connected to the nervous system. Pupils were dilated...Other symptoms included shock, semi-consciousness, hyperventilation, irritation and sweating." (1)
Thus reads a report by medical units serving the West Bank village of Al-Zawiya, where nonviolent resistance to Israel's impending wall has been extraordinarily resolute. According to the medical report (procured by the International Middle East Media Center - IMEMC), "the gas used against the protestors is not tear gas but possibly a nerve gas."
The following day, Israel's 'Peace Bloc', Gush Shalom, began a press release with the following quote from Al-Zawiya: "What the army used here yesterday was not tear gas. We know what tear gas is, what it feels like. That was something totally different.... When we were still a long way off from where the bulldozers were working, they started shooting things like this one (holding up a dark green metal tube with the inscription "Hand and rifle grenade no.400" - in English). Black smoke came out. Anyone who breathed it lost consciousness immediately, more than a hundred people. They remained unconscious for nearly 24 hours. One is still unconscious, at Rapidiya Hospital in Nablus. They had high fever and their muscles became rigid. Some needed urgent blood transfusion. Now, is this a way of dispersing a demonstration, or is it chemical warfare?" (2)
The incident in Al-Zawiya appears to be the tenth attack by Israeli soldiers using an "unknown gas" against Palestinian civilians since early 2001. We have photographs of the canisters. We have film of victims suffering in the hospital. We have interviews with Palestinian and European doctors who have treated the victims. And we presumably have hundreds, perhaps thousands, of survivors. But we know nothing of their fate. Despite the evidence, we have not inquired.
Though it is a state secret, Israel's development of chemical and biological weapons has been known and analyzed for decades. From the typhoid poisoning of Palestinian wells and water supplies in 1948 (3,4) to the conversion of F-16s into nerve gas 'crop dusters' in 1998 (5), Israel has always demonstrated a strong interest in developing CBW agents and methods for their dispersal.
In 1992 an El Al 747 flying nerve gas ingredients from the US to Israel crashed into an Amsterdam apartment building. (6) According to Salman Abu-Sitta, president of the Palestine Land Society, the respected Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad followed up the crash with an in-depth investigation of the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), Israel's CBW complex in Nes Ziona. The paper reportedly found "strong links" with several US CBW and medical research centers, "close cooperation between IIBR and the British-American biological warfare programme", and "extensive collaboration on BW research with Germany and Holland." (7)
At IIBR, doctors publish world-class research in acetylcholine, the mother lode of nerve gas design. The Nes Ziona complex is reputed to have invented an "undetectable" poison-needle gun for "clean" assassinations. (8) In September 1997, two days after Jordan's King Hussein told Israeli PM Netanyahu that Hamas was seeking negotiations, Mossad agents in Jordan attempted to kill Hamas leader Khaled Misha'al with a lethal dose of fentanyl. (9)
For years, rumors persisted that Israel was using or testing unknown chemical agents on Palestinian civilians. The rumors began to reveal their substance February 12, 2001, when Israel began a six-week campaign of "novel gas" attacks in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. By chance, American filmmaker James Longley arrived in Khan Younis, Gaza in the middle of the first attack. That afternoon he began filming the victims. His award-winning film, Gaza Strip, documents the naked reality of Israel's chemical weaponry_the canisters, the doctors, the eyewitnesses, and the hideous suffering of the victims, many of whom remained hospitalized for days or weeks. (10)
The February 12 gassing of neighborhoods in Khan Younis presaged the attacks that followed. When the gas canisters landed, they began to billow clouds of either white or black, sooty smoke. The gas was non-irritating and initially odorless, changing to a sweet, minty fragrance after a few minutes. One victim recalled, "the smell was good. You want to breathe more. You feel good when you inhale it." The smoke often shifted to a "rainbow" of changing colors. (11) (12)
From five to thirty minutes after breathing the gas, victims began to feel sick and have difficulty breathing. A searing pain began to wrench their gut, followed by vomiting, sometimes of blood, then complete hysteria and extremely violent convulsions. Many victims suffered a relentless syndrome for days or weeks afterward, alternating between convulsions and periods of conscious, twitching, vomiting agony. Palestinians agreed: "This is like nothing we've ever seen before." (13)
Forty people were admitted to Al-Nasser Hospital "in an odd state of hysteria and nervous breakdown", suffering from "fainting and spasms." Sixteen gas patients had to be transferred to the intensive care unit. Doctors "reported the Israeli use of gas that appeared to cause convulsions." (14)
At the Gharbi refugee camp, thirty-two people "were treated for serious injuries" following exposure to the gas. Dr. Salakh Shami at Al-Amal Hospital reported the hospital receiving "about 130 patients suffering from gas inhalation from February 12." (15)
Bewildered medical personnel had "never seen anything..like the gas at Tufa." Victims were "jumping up and down, left and right..thrashing limbs around", suffering "convulsions..a kind of hysteria. They were all shaking." Others were already unconscious. An hour or two later, they would come to. And the convulsions and the vomiting and disorientation and pain would return.(16)
The following day, February 13, Israeli forces again deployed the strange new gas canisters in Khan Younis. Over forty new gas victims, "including a number of children..from 1 to 5 years-old", arrived at Al-Nasser Hospital and the hospital of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. (17)
The news began to trickle out. "Palestinian security services have accused the Israeli army of using nerve gas during a gunbattle yesterday", reported AFX News Limited, noting "the army has strongly denied the charges." (18) The Voice of Palestine reported that "specialists believe that this is an internationally banned nerve gas." Those who inhaled the gas "suffered a nervous breakdown and vomited blood." (19)
The next day, Deutsche Presse-Agentur quoted Dr. Yasser Sheikh Ali from Al-Nasser Hospital: "Israel has been using a powerful type of tear gas against the Palestinians that causes convulsions and spasms." According to DPA, more than 80 Palestinians...reported that Israeli soldiers had used the white smoky gas, but Israel denied doing so." (20)
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported that on February 15 three more canisters of the poison gas were fired at houses in the Khan Younis camp, and "another 11 Palestinian civilians, mostly children, suffered from suffocation and spasms due to gas inhalation." (21) British journalist Graham Usher wrote that Khan Younis civilians were "incapacitated" by "a 'new' form of toxic gas." (22)
PA President Yasser Arafat publicly "accused Israel of using poison gas." The IDF issued a second denial. Israeli Communications Minister Ben-Eliezer called reports of gas casualties in Khan Younis "incorrect and false." Senior PA minister Nabil Shaath said that a sample of the gas would be sent to "an international center for analysis." (23) The results, if any, were never divulged.
On February 18, Israeli soldiers near the Neve Dekalim settlement reportedly fired four poison gas canisters at Palestinian houses in Khan Younis. Later that afternoon, more canisters were fired, forcing Palestinians to flee their homes. PCHR reported that "41 Palestinian civilians, mostly children and women, suffered from suffocation and spasms." (24) By PCHR's count, 238 Palestinians were affected by poison gas attacks between February 12 and February 20. Twenty-seven of the victims were still hospitalized on the 22nd. (25)
On March 2, an unknown gas was used against civilians in the West Bank town of Al-Bireh. Israeli soldiers reportedly fired "canisters of a highly effective black gas similar to the one used in Khan Yunis three weeks ago." (26)
Twenty-four days later, Israeli forces east of Gaza City used a gas that "left symptoms different from those of the..gas used first.. in Khan Yunis starting from February 12..", although several similarities also appeared. In this attack the onset of abdominal pain seemed to be delayed. (27)
On March 30, medical professionals in Nablus reported Israeli soldiers using the new poison gas against Palestinian demonstrators. (28)
British journalist Jonathan Cook reported a March gas attack on the schoolyard of Al-Khader village, near Bethlehem. Thirteen year-old Sliman Salah was playing when a gas canister landed next to him, "enveloping him in a cloud of gas described by witnesses as an unfamiliar, yellow colour." Large doses of anti-convulsants were required to control the boy's seizures and maintain consciousness. His symptoms "were finally brought under control five days after his exposure to the gas. But Salah's father says the boy is still suffering from stomach pains, vomiting, dizziness and breathing problems." (29)
In its March, 2003 special report, Israel's Secret Weapon, BBC Television reviewed this series of gas attacks, noting, "The Israeli army has used new unidentified weapons. In February 2001 a new gas was used in Gaza. A hundred and eighty patients were admitted to hospitals with severe convulsions....Israel is outside chemical and biological weapons treaties and still refuses to say what the new gas was." (30)
In my amateur analysis of the reported comments of victims, eyewitnesses and medical professionals regarding this series of attacks, I identified thirty-three distinct symptoms attributed to the unidentified gas. All but three of these symptoms appear to be typical of nerve gas poisoning. (31) Tareg Bey, a chemical warfare expert at the University of California-Irvine, told the Chicago Reader that the symptoms described to him "all fit really well to nerve gas", though he was puzzled by the reported fragrance and skin rashes. (32)
In an October 9, 2003 article, Jennifer Loewenstein and Angela Gaff asked, "What gas is Israel using?" They reported the story of Mukhles Burgal, a Palestinian prisoner caught in a brutal attack inside Israel's Ashkelon prison. The "guards forced their way into the crowded cell, spraying two canisters of some type of gas. Some of the 14 prisoners passed out...The effects of the gas were severe muscle spasms and an overwhelming sensation of not being able to breathe." (33)
Two days later, Palestine Monitor reported that Israeli forces in Rafah were allegedly "firing gas grenades containing a black gas believed to be adamatite [adamsite?]- the use of which is forbidden according to international law. Medical authorities urged people to avoid the gas at all costs, as it not only causes difficulty in breathing but seriously affects the nervous system." (34) For some reason, PCHR's press release from the same day, an apparent source of these reports, is no longer available. (35) On the 14th, eyewitness Laura Gordon wrote, "The army used some kind of nerve gas for the first time in Rafah, leaving people in convulsions for days." (36)
Following the recent gas attack in Al-Zawiya, town officials reportedly told Al Ayyam newspaper, "the Israeli occupation troops were using an illegal substance that caused nerve spasms and that several cases had been transferred to Nablus hospitals." (37)
The PA's International Press Center reported that "official and public sources in..Al-Zawya..asserted that those who have inhaled the tear gas IOF troops fired at them four days ago are still suffering from the effects of the gas...a number of those citizens have already had amnesias or partial memory loss, in addition to cramps...in addition to strange cramps every three hours... those who inhaled the gas are still suffering severe pains in the joints and nausea for four days now. Eyewitnesses recalled that the Israeli soldiers were keen on picking the empty tear gas canisters.." Journalists told IPC "that the gas was in different colors they have never seen coming out of a tear gas canister before, and that some gases had an unrecalled smell." (38)
According to IMEMC, "..tens of demonstrators who inhaled this gas had partial memory loss. Dr. Bassam Abu Madi told IMEMC that the some of those who inhaled the gas had severe choking and some contraction in their feet and arm muscles. Eyewitnesses said the gas has a strange smell and a reddish-brownish color." [corrected copy] In a follow up story, IMEMC concluded that "protesters were attacked with gas that is not like the tear gas. Those who inhaled the gas suffered some memory loss while others had other symptoms of a nerve gas. Yet this was not medically confirmed for lack of laboratories to inspect the gas canisters collected from the scene." (39)
Al Jazeera reported the opinion of Awni Khatib, a professor of chemistry at Hebron University; "the new symptoms-particularly the violent convulsions experienced by some Palestinian protesters outside the village of Sawiya [Zawiya], southwest of Nablus-suggest..that the Israeli army may be using a new class of chemicals that lie somewhere between normal tear gas and chemical weapons." (40)
Israel's repeated use of highly toxic unknown chemicals against Palestinian civilians is now an open secret. We can expect these attacks to continue until a concerted effort is made to determine the facts and hold Israel accountable. So far, the international human rights community has steadfastly ignored the mounting evidence.
When will professional investigators begin to retrieve and test the gas canisters? Why has no one but James Longley bothered to document interviews with victims, doctors, and other eyewitnesses? In a world in which one country's mere possession of chemical weapons can be an excuse for international retribution, how another country's use of chemical weapons against civilians be dismissed as a "regrettably excessive" tactic of crowd control?
Comment on this Article
Israeli Blood-sport in Gaza
11/07/2006
By Mike Whitney
""We are sure that Israel is using a new chemical or radioactive weapon in their operation...When we try to X-ray dead bodies, we find no trace of shrapnel that hit the person killed." Dr. al-Saqqa, Shifa hospital, Gaza; following the examination of the "completely burnt" bodies of dead Palestinians killed in Israeli air raid.
Question: How many editorials or op-ed columns have appeared in American newspapers defending the rights of Palestinian civilians to live in peace without the constant threat of being invaded or shelled by the world's forth largest military?
None.
How many editorials or op-ed columnists have defended the Geneva Conventions or international laws against collective punishment, the willful destruction of critical infrastructure, or military maneuvers that deliberately put civilians in imminent danger?
None.
Then how many editorials or op-ed columnists have presented the recent flurry of events (including the capture of Israeli soldier Galid Shalit) in the broader context of Israel's ongoing boycott of food and medical supplies, as well as the 50 or so Palestinian civilians who have been killed in Israel's regular incitements in the occupied territories?
None.
The account of Palestinian suffering and victim-hood rarely finds its way into the mainstream press, but in the present case, it has been completely ignored. In fact, none of the media provide any context for the current invasion at all. Israel's blockade of food and lethal provocations have been going on for months, and yet, the accounts from Gaza would have the reader believe that history began on the day that the Israeli soldier was captured.
Sure, if the reader wants a balanced perspective, he can go to the internet and choose from the many articles which provide the Israeli or Palestinian perspective of events, but the mainstream media?
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
The bias has grown into such an impenetrable cloud of pro-Israeli rubbish that it's laughable. In fact, its more likely to stumble across the random article lambasting Bush or Cheney than anything remotely critical of Israel.
There's no debate about the facts of Israel's brutal siege of Gaza. The only thing in dispute is the way those facts are skewed in the American media. Pick up the New York Times and you would swear it was edited by Ariel Sharon. There's not even an attempt at evenhandedness; just the foolish ruminations of scribes who think they can spin war crimes into hard-hitting journalism.
Israel has been pummeling Gaza for months; intentionally starving the beleaguered occupants while lobbing 6,000 artillery shells into populated areas. Isn't that front page news?
Meanwhile, another 50 civilians have been bumped-off in gangland-style hits ("Targeted assassinations") authorized by the Knesset's newest Mafia Don, Ehud Olmert. Olmert has put the carnage and destruction into high-gear eliciting criticism from his very own daughter who protested in front of her father's home with signs that said, "Stop the Killing" among other things.
The Israelis have developed "sound machines" that emit ear-piercing explosions that have been deployed in Gaza City to shatter windows, cause miscarriages, and send children into deep trauma. It is a "terror device" pure and simple; it has no other function except to produce massive fear and anxiety. It is the latest weapon in the prodigious arsenal of the "world's most moral army" (Olmert quote)
So why can't we get the real scoop about Israel's depredations in the territories or, at the very least, an occasional article providing a differing point of view? Is that too much to ask?
Simply put, anyone who believes this nonsense about "the poor abducted soldier" who fell prey to Hamas terrorists is a fool. The soldier is part of an illegal occupation which has been condemned in countless UN resolutions and which makes him a legitimate target in the struggle for national liberation. Since his capture, he has received medical attention and, my guess is, he probably hasn't been tortured or abused at all. (which certainly would not be the case if he was captured by Israeli or American forces)
So, who're the terrorists here anyway?
Newly elected Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has been calling for calm and restraint throughout the entire 14 day ordeal. In fact, Haniyeh has made repeated appeals to the militants to release the soldier unharmed even while "Olmert the barbarian" was rampaging through Gaza blowing up roads, electric power plants, water lines, and, yes, even schools.
Schools, for God's sakes. That's just flat nuts!
If Israel had any sense they'd dump Olmert the madman and appoint Haniyeh as Prime Minister. So far, he's the only one who has emerged from this mess looking like a reasonable fellow. (Note: Israel continues to threaten his life.)
Anyway, don't expect objectivity from the American "free press". I had to search through the Arab media just to find out that the UN was sending a fact-finding mission to Gaza to report on "Israel's grave rights violations". Don't you think that the American people would like to know that little tidbit?
Or, that UN special-rapporteur, John Dugard is headed off to Gaza to investigate the Israeli military's "disproportionate use of force against civilians". Dugard said, "It is clear that Israel is in violation of the most fundamental norms of humanitarian law and human rights."
His comments have not appeared in any American newspaper.
Wouldn't the American people want to know how far removed their government is from the prevailing opinion of other countries?
Sure they would, but don't expect the media to tell them.
The American public has no idea the effect this invasion has had on the Muslim world; the mass demonstrations in Amman, Cairo, Tehran, Doha etc. They haven't heard the anger ring-out at the United Nations or the world leaders who are sick and tired of the US defending Israel's heavy-handed tactics.
The average American has no idea that Israel is keeping over 9,000 prisoners locked up without charges and that over 400 of them are woman and children.
What the hell are they doing with children anyway? It's an outrage.
It's pretty clear that Israel would never get away with its crimes against humanity if it didn't have a trustworthy friend in the American media. The streetwalking western press gave Bush a free pass on his Iraqi bloodbath; now they're abetting Israel in its terror-crusade in Gaza.
Comment on this Article
Israelis give government good grades for response to Gaza situation
JPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST
The government's conduct in the situation created by the kidnapping of the soldier Gilad Shalit currently wins quite good grades from most of the public, according to a new poll published by professors Ephraim Yaar and Tamar Hermann of Tel Aviv University.
Nevertheless, the majority identifies with the statement that it is unfair that the kidnapping drew such a severe response, whereas Israel's reaction to the ongoing Kassam fire on Sderot has been relatively restrained.
Furthermore, in contrast to the decision-makers' stated refusal to hold direct negotiations with Hamas on freeing the kidnapped soldier, the prevailing view in the public is that Israel should indeed negotiate for his release. This apparently reflects the overriding importance the public in general ascribes to the principle of redeeming captives, since when it comes to direct political negotiations with Hamas, the public is almost evenly split in its positions with a slight advantage for those opposing such talks.
As for the personal functioning of the prime minister and the defense minister so far, a different picture emerges. A majority, albeit small, evaluates Olmert's functioning positively, while a larger majority views Peretz's functioning negatively. In any case, neither leader is viewed especially flattering