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Paranoid Fantasies About 9/11
Hi Fraser,Distract From The Real Issues//FEEDBACK I'm here to tell you, my friend, that you are flat out wrong if you think the simplest explanation for 9-11 is the official narrative. The only way to explain all of the unexplained things that happened on 9-11 >> the simplest interpretation requiring the fewest assumptions is angry religiously inspired arabs, pushed into this fanatical corner by entire lifetimes of seeing their nation, race and religion shafted, ripped off, and militarily organised by the 'christian' west. this makes the fewest assumptions, your version requires many many "unexplained things that happened." is that 9-11 was a "false flag" operation. Come on Fraser, you're really losing your credibility with me over this. >> i reckon these 'far out' positions are majorly created by the intelligence services so that any alternative 'leader' or 'hero' who emerges can be wrong footed by them saying he is on the bush side of their particular nutty position. remember u were 100% sure about kucinich, no :) I'll bet my life that it was an inside job. That's how certain I am. Are you as certain? >> no. i'd say 90%. but i have a totally scientific working conclusion, based on a SINGLE 100% reasonable assumption. what u have, by the basket case eh load, is "unexplained things that happened" :) In Peace, galen denzen, california >> this exchange has since developed several threads and participants. when I get back from croatia, I might decide to put the discussion on the UP! UP! “Things happen; it doesn't matter how they happen.
The Drug War Is Over//FEEDBACKIt's not what happens but how we react to the event that's important. The event is there so that we can reflect on ourselves and our development.” S.M. Ching Hai. UP! (\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o the UP! is a global edutainment round-up, broadcast weekly to =[13,222]= Alternative// Activist// Zippy// Trance// New Age// Peace folks recommended to the Parallel YOUniversity// Megatripolis Dance Dept as "showing signs of life". Since recipients forward it widely to their own lists and sites, we conservatively estimate 30,000+ direct recipients. A further 30,000 read it on the YOUniversity's site. And, because of its 'mix' of 'specialist' & 'general' content, it's increasingly being posted on a variety of sites worldwide, making an estimated total weekly readership of =[275,000+]= (\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o Loved your address to the Prophet's Conference. So RIGHT ON. May it soon come to pass. I remember Terrence McKenna's description of cannibus as the Sacred Medicine of the Mother. She is being ushered in. Blessings, Janie, Mendocino, California Great piece on the drugs debate! Tam, California The article on the Bush-Nazi connection and the "end of the war on drugs" is interesting but a little strange to see. The war on drugs rages on, albeit unsuccessfully... I don't really disagree with you though. Erik, Canada, UP! Madonna Abandons Newfound,
Robert Krupto Orgasm-Based Judaism After Run-ins With Hasidim, Palestinians "People actually take this religion shit seriously over here." Pop icon Madonna renounced her newfound, orgasm-based, "Kabbalah" Judaism after several run-ins with ultra-Orthodox Jews and angry Palestinians during her brief stay here in Israel. The pop star said she was re- converting to Catholicism because, "People actually take this religion shit seriously over here." At an impromptu press conference held at El-Al Airlines during the pop queen's hasty retreat from the war-torn country, Madonna expanded on her previous remarks. "I was surprised to find out that people actually take religion seriously here." As she spoke an unidentified woman attempted to cover up her new Star of David tattoo. "Back in the states, if I fellated a man dressed like Jesus or made a video as a lesbian-slut Virgin Mother Mary I'd get a few letters or maybe a handful of protesters at each concert. Yet that pales in comparison to the press I got here as an artist? I come to Jerusalem an honest student of orgasm-based Judaism, and everybody hates me and the press could give a shit." She related her most frightful encounter. "I'm like walking down the street, and one of those Abraham-Lincoln-looking Hamadisi whatever you call them guys - is like 'Slut Go Home!' and I'm like 'Look, man, I'm here because I totally respect your religion, ok? So don't go imposing your rules or values on me, Hitler-man.' For some reason that really made him mad. They chase me down the street, yelling something about how the whole of this is going to cost me or something, and then I found myself in like this really different part of the city." Madonna, who appeared visibly upset while telling the story, paused briefly, claiming she was, "Verklempt, uh . . . I mean really shook up." She continued, "So I'm in this really run-down part of the city, and these really buff guys come running up, and they're like, 'You Jew?' and I'm like 'Yes, yes, shal-mon my brother’ and they start picking up stones and like totally throwing them at me. And they're saying things in this whole other language… I found out later they were - " Madonna then turned to her publicist, who whispered something in her ear, "- oh yeah, Palacetonians. It turns out those people don't like Jews much." "It just doesn't make sense," Madonna wondered aloud. "I mean, it's not actually like you're actually supposed to obey the rules of your religion, right? That's just for people in, like, Kentucky. I mean religious imagery is good to belittle in music videos, but no one actually takes it seriously, right? What's the matter with people over here?" At press time Madonna was in consultations with Richard Gere to find out whether Buddhism has any sex-based, not-yet-too-trendy offshoots. http://www.brokennewz.com/displaystory.asp_Q_storyid_E_1097madonnajew UP! Bruce Springsteen, Conscience,
Jann S. Wenner, Rolling StoneThe Artist And Politics Do you see these Vote for Change concerts reaching undecided voters, or are they more to rally the energy of people who have made up their minds? “I always felt that the musician's job, as I experienced it growing up, was to provide an alternative source of information, a spiritual and social rallying place, somewhere you went to have a communal experience. I don't know if someone is going to run to the front of the stage and shout, "I'm saved" or "I'm switching," but I'm going to try. I will be calling anyone in a bow tie to come to the front of the stage, and I'll see what I can do.” In a practical sense, what are you accomplishing? First of all, we have a large group of musicians -- Dave Matthews, the Dixie Chicks, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., John Fogerty, James Taylor and many others -- who are coming together as a rallying point for change. I think the concerts are going to be an energizing experience for all who come. Basically, the concerts are raising money specifically for America Coming Together to do very practical things: voter education, to go out and mobilize voters, to go door-to-door, to assist voters getting to the polls. They're the real foot soldiers who are going to get out the progressive vote. That's probably the concerts' most important result. Why did you stay away from being actively involved in partisan politics for so long? I didn't grow up in a very political household. The only politics I heard was from my mother... http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/6477832?rnd=1095945961590&has-player=true&version=6.0.10.505 UP! only a small cadre
“Only a small cadre of technoprophets is attempting to extrapolate current trends and imagine what our world might look like in the next few decades.” of technoprophets?! give us a break! //FEEDBACK Only a small cadre of technoprophets indeed! As if only 'technoprophets' could do such a thing as imagine what it'll be like! >> r u quoting correctly here? have checked u r correct. well, of course i thought the same thing as yerself. partly i assumed most UP!readers would see the glaring error. How about the eco-prophets among whom I count myself? >> too narrow a vision tho it's of course a crucial aspect. but for me the eco-psychology precedes any change. existence before essence! My book, 'Sol' [preliminary title] is set around 2040 and doesn't include space ships, nano or otherwise, >> which'll be what's wrong with it then :) the Singularity is where we're heading and EVERYTHING will be involved then, exactly everything. that's equally why the technoprophets are wrong too. and that's why writers are finding the task impossible. of course i solved it back in megatripolis days (if you bin paying attention:) (or forward) just people trying to survive and mostly failing due to the ecological collapse making it difficult. (but it's a good read ;-) >> how do u do that? loadsa shagging or wot? It's down to whether you're into escapism or realism. >> your idea of realism, a world in which nanotechnology plays no part. if u want my advice (or if u don't:) there are tons of good plots for nano going wrong. vonnegut covered it way back with wozzit Ice Nine? I'm afraid the escapists words >> not here to defend them in any way. they'll all get taken hostage for not looking where they're doing :) will die as their websites die as the power begins to fail and societies the world over start to seriously break down, and famine drives violence which drives breakdown and instability. Survival of the fittest will be the order of the day, not baby jellyfish cocktails in nano-reality. >> nice one! we should market it! perhaps drizzled with fractalled i-scream, topped with your own personal Singularity? am sure the rest. @ the end of the YOUniverse would take a few dozen on a trial basis. Back when sci-fi started, 50s-60s, it was innocent, a future of techno surprises was just around the corner, imagination could be free to imagine anything and base it on the merest whisper of a nod towards a current techno trend. It functioned as escapist stories which fed the 'we can do anything' mentality of the techno-age and then the sixties changed all that. Those who understood, tried to tell it and change their lives, but no one much was listening and so Star Wars and the rest became public fare and nothing was done to mitigate the horrendous damage we were doing. Since which time it's been all downhill, and in a week when one hurricane is followed closely by another to ravage a string of hundreds of islands right up to the US, when fires still rage in California, Spain, France and Italy, when Japan has had serious flooding, http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/26966/story.htm and locusts begin to march across Africa http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/26965/story.htm it's surely a waste of valuable UP! space to spend words on a sci-fi book as if it had any relevance? Not that it would be the UP! if it included such downers as the above, >> now that's a fair point. UP! to a point. actually i assume that my readers know that serious shit is happening but, like the opening para in my "DRUG WAR OVER" talk, don't we already know enuff to know that the whole system needs top to bottom (almost literally:) reassemblage and are already waist deep into that? do more details help or depress us? viz yerself. and you're assuming that your narrow beam is covering the whole picture and i KNOW that's not true. but interminable Bush revelations just don't cut it for me, and what my grandfather did is pretty much irrelevant to me so why should Bush's matter? >> because that's where corporate fascism moved when germany fell and is now running the world or trying to. We know what he's about and what he's done >> hey that's MY line: we already know enuff and more details just turn u off. c what i was saying now? [his assault on the environment is his number one crime] >> no, it's just one of the major disasters cascading down from a deeper issue. and THAT's what we gotta solve. and that the world needs him to go and that he might or might not. The rest doesn't matter and will change no minds, certainly not the tiny number of floaters who apparently decide the result of US elections. To be a floater in the states means you can't think, have no moral beliefs one way or the other, and decide at the last minute on the basis of a TV ad. >> sorta weekend voters. Thus democracy is the dictatorship of the terminally stupid, >> that's deeply wrong and u should personally focus on this perception. they have been brainwashed since birth by priestly politicians and morality-challenged billionaire sharks. call em helpless, drowninginignorance, but they're not stupid. their existential doubt is growing and festering in their subconscious and WILL finally surface, indeed has started to. it is outdated [if Bush and Blair are so keen on it, it can't be worth a light] >> we are @ a very primitive and basically "rigged" version of democracy. representative democracy. the species is moving towards participatory democracy where the people vote on everything. (long debate this one, i've explored it quite far, and once ran in the Govan by-election on the slogan "GOVAN YOURSELVES". why today's primitive version is rigged is because since at least the 2nd world war america (fascism as we now realise) has pushed the concept of democracy in order to remove all competition, but then buying or buying all the media and controlling the information. without the range of information democracy cannot work. but it doesn't mean people are stupid, it means the ruling elite are too clever and nature-alienated by half! (which, in the truly moral or evolutionary sense, means, duh, stoopid.) and voting just encourages them. So I disagree with your LibDem decision, if the turnout continued to go down and down, there would come a time when even the media would notice that they're largely irrelevant and start reporting the real world and real people and what they're doing, saying and thinking. As people slowly got used to their lack of need for the state, they would more and more take on the things the state thinks it owns and it's power would slowly diminish. >> bakunin? It's at the heart of the whole system, voting gives them the nod to assume power and do damage. Very few are immune to the corruption of power, so government is always corrupt and an enemy of the people. The LibDems would be no different once in office. >> it's all shades, and fixed-minded people can always refuse to notice them. i'm afraid, pete, you are, like so many of elder alternative culture, in the grip of castaneda's 2nd enemy of a warrior. I'm off to the survival/army surplus shop down the road, >> am splitting for split :) Pete Password, Hereford, UK UP! FUN WITH HATE RADIO A fun and easy way to get your message out to thousands, even millions of people, is through the medium of talk radio. Although firmly in the trenches of the right, it's still possible to get a liberal point of view onto the airwaves by following these easy steps: 1) When the screener asks you what you want to talk about, be sure and tell them something relatively innocuous but tangentially relatable to the point you want to make. 2) If possible, use a slightly southern or hick accent - they're more likely to put you on and the AM audience is more likely to relate to you. 3) Don't go straight to your main point - get there incrementally. Remember there's a seven-second delay and they'll cut you off if you go too far or get there too fast. Here are some examples: NationDrudge Report Topic: Ad submitted to Moveon.org comparing Bush to Hitler Screener: "Whaddaya wanna say to Drudge?" Me: "Yeah, I'm a member of MoveOn.org and I just think this whole Bush-Hitler thing is ridiculous!" Screener: "Alright... hold for Drudge and go straight to your point. Don't ask him how he's doing, okay?" * * *Drudge: Line Five, Jason in California, you're on the air. Jason (me): Oh yeah, hey there Matt. This business about Bush being Hitler, that's just ridiculous... Hitler's Dead! Drudge: Well they say it's not Auschwitz yet... it's coming, it's not yet. Jason: Bush is a lot more like David Koresh the way I see it. Y'know he talks to God, he's got a little ranch outside of Waco - sees everything in terms of good and evil... He ain't no Hitler. Drudge: uh... Jason: Just 'cuz his grandpa supported Hitler, an' maybe his dad might've supported Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden... y'know, ya can't tar George W. with the sins of his fathers... Drudge: Well, y'know they try, they try... yes... Jason: Now I just wanted to say... Drudge: As they salute Armand Hammer, right... Jason: Now I just wanted to say a little thing about dirty laundry... and uh, now we got what? We got 485 people dead, we got somethin' like 2,700 seriously wounded over there... That's over thirty-two hundred blood-soaked U.S. uniforms, y'know? An' I'm thinkin' we impeached Clinton over one lousy dress. Ain't that funny? Ah mean... Ain't that a hoot? Makes me think what-the-hell, who says a superpower can't be a laughingstock? Y'know what I mean? Drudge: Thank you sir... (hangs up) Yeah, he was, he was real clever. I think maybe he was submitting his 30 second ad here that we'll have Michael Moore and Donna Brazil judge tomorrow. He's a Bushwhacker... he's one of the original Bushwhackers. Alan Colmes Topic: The Catholic Church and the War in Iraq Guest: Father Donahue, a stridently pro-war priest who holds the War in Iraq adheres to the Church's notion of a "Just War", (no matter what the Pope says...) Me: "Jason from Oceanside" (with mild hick/Nascar dad accent) Warning: This text gets very graphic. Jason: "Thanks for having me on Alan - I consider myself to be a god-fearing Christian and a big supporter of my country and I just wanna tell you about the sermon I listened to yesterday in church. The subject was "Who would Jesus Bomb?" and the answer was pretty much 'nobody.' The major point the priest was making was that bombing, ALL bombing... was just plain cowardly, and it didn't matter if it was us doing it or anybody else, but what it all boiled down to was that bombing is cowardly and Jesus wouldn't support it. And he said his inspiration for the sermon had come from the Pentagon itself - when they said the reason they thought the Iraqi Army folded so quickly was because they were mostly just conscripts, y'know... just kids pulled from outta their villages... So I gotta wonder why, y'know... why we gotta kill all these kids who had nothin' to do with it... " Alan: So what do you say father? This is what's being said in some churches." Father Donahue: Uhhh yeah, I think they should find another religion - why don't they become Quakers? My religion, Roman Catholicism, rejects that totally and that's why they have the most sophisticated understanding of what a Just War... Alan Colmes: This is priests who are saying this... Catholic Priests! Father Donohue: That's right and you'll find, uh, no end to the number of nuns in this country who are pro-abortion and nobody wants to talk about that - all I'm telling you is they don't represent the teachings of the Catholic Church. The teachings of the Catholic church are found in the catechism, the ministry of the Pope and... Alan Colmes: Alright Jason, thanks for your call... Jason: May I? May I just interject one more time? AC: Yes. Jason: The most striking thing that he talked about was something called "overpressure", which is not the explosive force of the bomb but the pressure wave that radiates around the bomb... and that what that does is that it implodes the sinuses and the eardrums of the people who are there... AC: Yeah, Bombing isn't good for ya... Jason: and that what happens is your cerebral spinal fluid - your brain fluid, leaks out through your nose and through your ears... AC: Right... Jason: And that you don't die right away... You're as good as dead, but you don't die right away... AC: (Uncomfortable) Right, right... right. Jason: And that these are just kids... That was the point he was really trying to make - these were just kids pulled outta villages! and they don't have a Chance! They didn't have a Chance to fight back... And they just gotta lie there - starin' up at the sky and prayin' to whatever God they got to pray to... AC: (Throughout) Uh, yeah, right... right, uh right... Jason: While their brain fluid is drippin' out through their nose and through their ears... AC: Uh Jason I gotta move on... Jason: And it's our tax dollars that are payin' for this... AC: Uh, Jason, thank you for your call, I thank you very much. Stacy Taylor Topic: Environmental Protection Agency halts construction of a strip mall because it's site is the only known habitat for a particular species of fly. Screener: "Stacy Taylor Show." Me: (thick southern accent) "Yeah, ah've been a hunter just about all my life and frankly ah've just about had it with these environmentalist wackos!" Screener: "Okay, what's your name and where you from?" Me: "I'm Phil callin' from Ocean Beach." * * *Stacy Taylor: Okay now let's go to... Phil from Ocean Beach... Phil: Hey Stacy... I tell ya, this fly thing - it's them 'environmentalist wackos I'm tellin' ya... Stacy: Them environmentalist wackos... Phil: I tell ya... I'm a Bald Eagle hunter myself, and I can't tell ya... Stacy: (laughs) A bald eagle hunter huh? Phil: Yep, an' I can't tell you the problems I have huntin' eagles an' it's all because of this "endangered species"... bull! If ya ask me... Stacy: Are you doin'... are you being a little sarcastic here Phil? Phil: Not at all sir, not at all. Musta been five years ago I saw a bald eagle try to take away a little baby from its mother (voice cracking with emotion) an' ever since then I've dedicated my life to exterminating Bald Eagles from the face of this planet... and believe me, it's not an easy job! Stacy: Uhh, yeah, I'm sure... I'm sure it's tough out there. Look uh, there's an organization out there just for you man, and the organization... have you heard of PETA? Phil: PETA?! Stacy: I don't mean People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, I mean the alternate version, it's called People Eating Tasty Animals. Phil: (laughs) Well, lemme tell ya I actually have had Bald Eagle and it's not a bad tasting bird! Stacy: You have not! What're you talkin' about man? Phil: Well, you can believe what you like... Stacy: You've eaten Bald Eagle. Phil: Yessir. Lord knows them flies probably ain't too tasty though. Stacy: Yeah, otherwise they'd all be dead. Phil: Well I'm workin' on them Eagles for the same damn reason. Stacy: Phil, just work on the flies, leave the eagles alone - they're a symbol of this great country for cryin' out loud. Phil: Yeah, well that's what they say - they say it's an endangered species an all but as far as I'm concerned, that don' mean nothin'! Stacy: Okay, okay... thanks for the call Phil. Chill out now. Michael Savage I made this call about a week after Savage lost his cable TV show for exploding at a caller he termed a "sodomite" and saying he should "die of AIDS". I was hoping with my call to bait him into saying something similarly stupid and possibly getting him off the airwaves entirely. Failing that, I hoped I might give him an aneurysm. Came pretty damn close too. Savage: Okay, I wanna hear from you callers out there, the ones who were raised by leftist parents... all you red-diaper doper babies out there. I wanna hear if you liked them, if they screwed you up, whatever. Our first call's from Justin in Los Angeles. Justin, welcome to the Savage Nation. Justin (Me): Hi Michael. I'm definitely one of those kids-of-leftists. My father was very big into civil rights and poverty issues back in the sixties. I hate to disappoint you though: he wasn't a hippie or anything like that, he was more a nerdy kind of activist, you know, the kind with short hair... Savage: Uh-huh. Justin: And I guess, 'cuz he spent a lot of time trying to help out other people and his causes and the like, he wasn't really home all that much, or not as much as he could've been, and I know it must've had some impact on the family, but y'know what? Savage: What? Justin: You aren't fit to lick his boots. Savage: (enraged) What?! What the hell do you know about me? What the hell do you know about anything? You don't know anything about me, about what I've done... about my work in nutrition, in conservation... anything! How would you know anything about me? Justin: Well, I hear what you say on the radio... Savage: You don't know anything! You're just stupid, like the rest of them, what do you know? Savage: WHAT! YOU BASTARD! You FILTHY FILTHY BASTARD! You just come here and say that! You just come down to the studio... any time any place, I swear to god you filthy, filthy miserable leftist commie son of a bitch...(etc. etc. for another minute or two...) UP! (\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)
Diary of a Buddhist In Paradise eh PalestineIF YOU CANNOT VIEW THIS PROPERLY, TELL US AND WE’LL PUT YOU ON A SPECIAL UNFORMATTED LIST. TO REPLY TO FRASER OR THE UP! SIMPLY HIT REPLY. (\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/) by Lokabandhu (of the Buddhafield), September, 2004 THE VALUE OF THE BUDDHIST APPROACH
AND OF THIS GREAT MAN IS: YOU CAN BE 100% CERTAIN THAT, IF HE’D ENDED UP SIDING WITH THE ISRAELIS, HE WOULD HAVE BEEN AS FRANK ABOUT THAT Quiet Is Not All Right:
I visited Hebron between the dates of September 13th and 20th 2004, part of a group of 10 ISM workers which included 5 Buddhists from the UK. Tariq was our local coordinator. He is 24 years old, a student of engineering. I learnt that his father had been detained without trial by the Israeli army for the past 2.5 years, the rest of his family had emigrated to Jordan but that he was refused exit from Israel because of his father - who he was not allowed to visit. A Report On Hebron His top two projects for us were firstly to help local villages fight against the Israeli Apartheid Wall that was being built on their land, and second to help the situation in the Old City, now almost a ghost town because of the great number of soldiers there and the difficulty of living so close to the aggressive Israeli settlers. This report focuses on the Old City not the Wall. Hebron is presently unique in the West Bank because it has a substantial illegal Israeli settlement (Beit Hadassah) right in the very centre of the Old City, creating a situation where the lives of some 60,000 Palestinians are systematically disrupted by some 4,000 soldiers for the sake of some 400 settlers. It is a ludicrous situation and would almost be funny if it was not so real and the cause of so much suffering for so many people. And if it was not also a part of a much larger process of gradual illegal invasion and colonisation. During the time we were in Hebron the situation was relatively quiet and there was little for us to do except walk about the Old City meeting people and speaking with them. Most people were very friendly as soon as we said "Salaam Al-e-Qum" and smiled, however there was clearly a lot of tension in the air and some suspicion - probably because the settlers are in the habit of walking up and down 'their' city and there is a real fear of them extending their territory. We were staying for a night in one of the further suburbs of Hebron, and when leaving in the morning, passed a little girl who started crying violently - we learnt later that she thought we were settlers! In general though we were made very welcome indeed - very few friendly foreigners find their way to Hebron these days. Quiet it might have been, but I should emphasise very strongly that 'quiet' does not mean 'all right'. Once or twice in the silent streets I found myself thinking "this seems all right" and had to remind myself of the facts of the matter. Closure Of Shuhadda Street To Palestinians Despite Hebron being a part of Palestine and not Israel, the main street of the town (Shuhadda Street) is now completely closed to Palestinians, except for the very few who live there. This means the town is effectively cut into two halves, to cross those few yards means a detour of several kilometres. The town's graveyard is on the wrong side of the road, meaning local people are unable to visit their family tombs. Shuhadda Street has become a sort of mid-Western film set - hot, dusty, and empty, with guns never very far away. The only people who walk up and down it now are the settlers, who generally carry machine guns, even the young teenagers, strange to see them toting machine guns and their Jewish kippa caps on. This is quite scary to see, even for me, who was less likely to be shot at. We were not able to speak to any settlers although we could probably have arranged it if we had wished, being Internationals. It was clear however that there is absolutely no communication between locals and settlers. The soldiers are supposed to be there to keep the peace between the two sides but this seems to mean keeping the locals firmly to the edges and allowing the settlers to walk where they please. Certainly the Palestinians do not see the soldiers as there to keep the peace, rather to dominate them. Checkpoints And Soldiers Patrols Behind the main street are a maze of smaller streets leading up to the Old City, these can only be reached by passing an army checkpoint continuously manned by soldiers with machine guns, making passage into the Old City a nerve-wracking affair. Most days however, what is in a way worse than the machine guns is the arbitrariness of the soldiers: they can detain any Palestinian at any time for any or no reason, and often do, making them sit at the side of the road in the hot sun for many hours at a time. Not surprisingly people have chosen to avoid the area, and the town's main market has moved about 1km away. In addition to the checkpoints, in the narrow streets of the Old City there are frequent 6-man soldiers' patrols, before they enter you can hear them lifting their machine guns into firing position and cocking the trigger. No doubt they are afraid themselves but it is very intimidating to hear. Hebron is well-known among international aid agencies, we met CPT (the Christian Peacemaker Team) and TIPH (the Temporary International Presence in Hebron) while there. TIPH's job is to monitor and report on the situation, CPT intervenes more actively if local people are being harassed. Army Closure Of Shops As well as the checkpoints and the patrols, about 200 of the Old City shops have been summarily closed by military order, and many houses have had their front doors welded closed by the army. This means that in some cases the owners can only enter and leave their homes through a window at the rear of the house, or over the rooftops. Continuous Curfew For 3 Years In addition to the checkpoints, the patrols, and the closed shops, the Old City has suffered from a strict curfew for 3 of the past 4 years. An Israeli army curfew generally means that the soldiers have orders to shoot to kill on sight, it creates an extremely dangerous situation for any person to go anywhere at any time, even outside the official curfew hours. This includes delivery of basic supplies of food and medicine, and also the movement of children, who are as likely to be shot as adults under a curfew. Who can blame the shopkeepers and market stallholders for moving? Although the curfew is not presently in force, evidence of the effects of Army violence and repression is everywhere - bullet holes in shopfronts, cobwebs on the fronts of shops... Although things were quiet, the Army has retained all its observation and sniper positions around the city - many of the most strategic buildings have camouflage netting draped over the top balcony or steel observation posts perched on the roof. We were told that in reality sniper positions are often concealed, but occupied or not, the visible ones create a constant and frightening reminder that the city is under armed occupation and that curfew can be reimposed at any time. Settlers' Harassment In addition to the checkpoints, the patrols, the closed shops and the curfew, we heard a great many reports of vandalism and verbal abuse by the settlers. In many cases the houses of the settlers directly overhang the streets of the Old City, and here the locals have had to fit thick metal mesh across the streets to catch the rubbish that has been thrown out of the settlers' windows onto the street - and the Palestinians - below. In several cases the metal mesh was sagging due to the weight of debris above. It is of course impossible for me to say what motives the settlers may have for throwing rubbish in this way - had they wished to continue being malicious they could have thrown foul water, but I did not hear of this being done. Nonetheless they must have known full well that the streets below their windows were Palestinian streets. A lot of Palestinian windows were smashed, apparently by stones often thrown by settlers' children. These all combined - together with the real violence of recent years - have made the whole of the Old City into a ghost town. The reason given by the Army is always "security", but one feels the real aim is colonisation, certainly the effect is depopulation of the Old City through fear and strangulation. These processes of displacement and harassment have not ended yet. Process Of Colonisation, Extension Of Illegal Settlements On the outskirts of Hebron is the much larger illegal Israeli settlement of Qiryat Arba. For those interested, this means 'Town of the Four', referring to the four biblical couples reported to be buried here in the Cave of Machpelah under the Ibrahami Mosque - Adam and Eve (!), Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah. This biblical fame explains a good deal of why the city has become such a battleground and focus for extremist Israeli settlers - it is the no.2 site in Palestine for both Jews and Muslims. The locals probably wish it had never been mentioned! It was women from Qiryat Arba who in 1979 illegally occupied the old Jewish hospital of Beit Hadassah in Hebron's Old City, leading directly to its present death-like state. Walking up to Qiryat Arba, and along the road which marks the border between Israeli and Palestinian areas, one sees graffiti which has been sprayed on the doors of many Palestinian homes - Stars of David and angry writing in Hebrew (which I have not yet been able to translate but will). The feeling I get is that the graffiti is saying "you're next..." and I can imagine that it is extremely intimidating to receive. It is in fact eerily similar to tactics used by the Nazis in Germany, not a happy thought. Of course you can dismiss provocative graffiti as being 'only' spray paint, buty more concretely there are plans afoot for a new Israelis-only road to link Qiryat Arba with the Cave of Machpelah and one can be sure that it will not be long before it is extended a few yards further to the illegal settlement in the heart of the city. Up on the border road, there are plans to construct a new Jewish synagogue on the Muslim side immediately adjacent to Muslim homes. This is presently being blocked by the Israeli authorities - but it is probably only a matter of time until they arrange the necessary military cover - ie a new Army checkpoint or base - and it goes ahead! Hebron has a long history, with ownership moving between Jews and Muslims many times over the centuries. For this reason, since the Jews started their illegal settlements in the area there have been major propaganda efforts to justify their right to be here, an Internet search looking for 'Hebron' or 'Beit Hadassah' will quickly lead you to some of these. They consider their occupation of Hebron to be legitimate because there were Jews living there in the past, most recently in 1929 and most anciently when Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah for his burial site sometime around 1,800 B.C! Their desire to live here would not be so bad if it was based on a desire to peacefully co-exist. Instead the settlers have gone on record as aiming to completely expel the Palestinians from Hebron or at least from its Old City. This is no idle threat as the 4,000 soldiers based here constantly remind one. Tit-For-Tat Violence Over the years there has been a great deal of violence in Hebron, not least in 1994 when Baruch Goldstein, a settler, entered the mosque and massacred 29 Muslims while they were at prayer, wounding a further 200. According to my guidebook, there is now a shrine to him in the adjacent illegal Israeli settlement of Qiryat Arba. The guidebook (Lonely Planet) describes him as "a popular settler hero". Not surprisingly there has been a good deal of tit-for-tat violence over the years, but with the massive army presence in town it is mostly Palestinian civilians who are injured or killed. Palestinian suicide bombers have certainly killed settlers over the years, and this led to an Israeli Army invasion of the whole district & city in 2002 - after similar invasions of Jenin, Tulkarm, etc. We were told that the Israeli Army becomes nervous if it is not able to operate inside a city. The invasion is partly a tactic to expose & kill - to 'flush out' - the most active resistance fighters. Collective Punishment As well as being in the Old City, we spent some time in other areas of Hebron, and it was here that it was most obvious that what is happening on Hebron's Old City is part of a much larger violent occupation of the whole country. The reality of the situation is not immediately apparent to the naked eye, you have to have things explained by a local. For instance, there are many gaps or piles of rubble between the houses. Why? Collective punishment has been very much used by the Army, usually taking the form of blowing up or bulldozing the family home of anyone who has been discovered to be a suicide bomber or other form of fighter. To give an example, we stayed in a house in the suburbs, next door there was an empty space with a big pile of rubble. On asking, we were told that this house was blown up by the Israeli Army some three months ago, the explosion being so violent that it blew in all the doors and windows on that side of our host's house. The family were living in a makeshift tent in one corner of the space. Across the small valley we could see a bulldozer working, we were told that was a house which had been blown up only last week. On the corner of the street was a small corrugated iron shop, the owner used to occupy a five-storey house on the site before that was blown up some years ago. These are examples of collective punishment, which is specifically outlawed under international law and the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the punishment of innocent people who may be connected with a 'guilty' party. Israel and her Supreme Court have consistently refused to uphold the Geneva Conventions and the illegality of its collective punishment, using a variety of reasons but notably that the Occupied Palestinian Territories (ie the West Bank) never constituted a sovereign state so Israel's invasion and occupation of Palestine do not count as the invasion and occupation of another country - and so international humanitarian law does not apply! Water Rights / Economic Warfare Besides collective punishment, there is lower-level but on-going economic warfare being waged by Israel against the Palestinians. An example of this is water - Hebron has many natural springs, but local people are not allowed to use them. Instead they have to buy water at considerable cost, often delivered by tankers, while Israel helps itself to 80% of the water in the underground aquifers for intensive agriculture and 'modern' plumbing. . Conclusion We went to Hebron at Tariq's invitation, inspired by his vision of bringing life back into the Old City. He thought that our presence might give locals confidence to re-enter it in greater numbers. Maybe we had some effect, it is hard to be sure. One idea he had was to organise a daily 'boy's march' through the checkpoint (children below a certain age do not need ID) to generate momentum and confidence in entering the Old City, followed by us or others putting on a concert or other entertainment to draw in the locals. One thing we realised while there was just how hard it is to actually DO anything when faced with such overwhelming odds and where people have more-or-less got used to the wrongness of the situation. We felt very strongly Tariq's - and I am sure, thousands of others' acute frustration and yet puzzlement what to do. ISM has now established a flat for volunteers in the centre of the Old City, as we left five others arrived, and hopefully they will build on what we have done so far. One day, Palestine will be free... Lokabandhu lokabandhu@buddhafield.com As a P.S..., I searched the BBC news website for 'Hebron' recently, and found a short but interesting 'Diary of 2003' by a settler living there, - a New Yorker, clearly a real person with real feelings etc but throwing in several formulaic references to terrorism etc in the course of his short summary of the year. And saying "of course I believe Jews should be able to live anywhere in Israel" - fair enough, of course, but completely skating over the fact that Hebron is miles outside Israel's borders! Reflecting on it, I felt I'd like to ask him 3 questions - 1. Do you feel you are presently living within the State of Israel? If so, where are its borders? 2. Do you wish to live in peace with your neighbours? What would do you do if one of your children insulted a Palestinian? 3. What is the difference between the idea of the Chosen People and the idea of the Master Race? (a more provocative but, to my mind, very pertinent question! And genuinely meant as a question, not a sort of rhetorical statement). UP! a l l g o o d t h i n g s c o m e t o a n e n d
which don't justify nuttin'U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UP P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P
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