Tag: West Bank

A Twitter Storm for my Friend Munther Amira on Nakba Day

Last March I wrote about my Palestinian friend, Munther Amira.  Munther is a social worker who lives near Bethlehem. He had just been arrested for protesting the way Israeli soldiers regularly arrest, abuse and imprison Palestinian children.

For important information documenting these widespread abuses, please check out the Defense for Children International/Palestine website as well as the work of an Israeli human rights organization called B’TSELEM, The Israeli Information Center on Human Rights in the Occupied Territory.

Change.org has launched a petition and a Twitter campaign on Munther’s behalf.  The campaign is scheduled for May 15, known as Nakba Day to the Palestinian people.  The Nakba, Arabic for The Catastrophe, is the Palestinian designation for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that was put into effect by Israeli military forces in 1948-49.

It is illegal for Palestinians to commemorate this day in Israel.

Munther’s arrest and imprisonment also demonstrate that there is no such thing as freedom of speech in the Occupied Territories.  It is also against the law (apparently) to protest Israel’s imprisonment of minors in military prisons.

Please, read the full petition at Change.org and speak up for Munther on May 15th.

I have excerpted the announcement below, complete with suggested tweets.

“It would be great if as many people as possible could join us in expressing solidarity with Munther by tweeting using #FreeMuntherAmira #FreePalestine #Nakba70 . Please share this information widely too, and let’s make this twitter storm as big as possible.

“Here are some suggestions for tweets that you could use, or you might want to compose your own, but do include the hashtags.

“Greetings to Munther Amira from [your country]. We stand alongside you in your continuing campaign for freedom and justice #FreeMuntherAmira #FreePalestine #Nakba70

“Greetings to Munther Amira from social workers in [your country]. We stand alongside you in your continuing campaign for freedom and justice #FreeMuntherAmira #FreePalestine #Nakba70

“Solidarity with fellow social worker, Munther Amira, thank you for standing up for the rights of Palestinian children and for being a shining example to us all #FreeMuntherAmira #Nakba70

“We stand in solidarity with Munther Amira & all Palestinian refugees on #Nakba70 and recognise the UN Declaration of Human Rights “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country” #FreeMuntherAmira #FreePalestine #Nakba70

“Freedom and justice for Munther Amira, Ahed Tamimi and all Palestinian children in Israeli military detention #FreeMuntherAmira #FreePalestine #Nakba70

Where Palestinian Lives Don’t Matter

17 dead.  773 wounded, or is it 1,400?  How many more victims will there be this week, or in the weeks ahead as Palestinians continue their Land Day protests?

Every victim shot with live ammunition.  Bullets fired at unarmed people standing dozens, if not hundreds, of yards away from the soldiers.  Unarmed marchers and high-powered rifles separated by a steel fence and a wide no-man’s land imposed from on high.

Over 100 snipers staring through high powered scopes.

Deadly shots fired into crowds kneeling in prayer, marching in protest.  Smoke and tear gas wafting through the air, encircling their heads, burning eyes, nose and throat like Hades’ own sulpherous fumes reminding them of hell on earth.

The army is proud, boasting that they know precisely where every bullet landed (a tweet since removed from Twitter). Each death a deliberate murder.  Every injury an intentional maiming.  Every wound a purposeful assault on the image of God.

The largest, most technically advanced military in the Middle East tries to convince us that young men with rocks, slingshots and burning tires pose an “existential threat” (as they say) to nuclear armed Israel.

Perhaps Israeli soldiers now fear deadly smoke inhalation from 100 yards away, as Palestinians cover their faces, sputter and gag against the hundreds of tear gas canisters raining down on their heads.

We are reminded that Palestinian lives don’t matter, not to Israel.

Nor do Palestinian lives matter to America, which once again seeks to block the U.N. resolution condemning the slaughter.  America, the lumbering moral Frankenstein, mesmerized by Israeli propaganda, suffers from a cauterized, national conscience seared like a piece of raw meat by a red-hot iron.

No.  Palestinian lives don’t matter to the United States, where Israeli lobbyists write US foreign policy in the Middle East.  Palestinians are inconvenient human fodder in need of bulldozing by Zionist racism and international neglect.

It is impossible for these Palestinian to make contact with the Israeli soldiers aiming at them from the opposite side of the fence.  Yet, these soldiers posture heroically while discussing the Palestinian “threat” they now mow down by bravely firing remote-controlled machine guns into the Gazan killing fields – the guns’ operators safely sitting many miles away in the Sinai desert.

It is like shooting fish in a barrel, except that these fish are human beings and the barrel is the Gaza Strip, a place that many observers have described as “the world’s largest open-air prison.”

Glenn Greenwald (one of the most important investigative journalists working today) asks a most revealing question, “Imagine if an Arab-majority country were imprisoning 1.8 million Jews in an open-air cage, preventing them from leaving, controlling all aspects of their deprived civic lives, then picking them off with snipers in the back when they protested. Might the reaction be different?”

What would the United States be saying to the United Nations then?

No, Palestinian lives don’t seem to matter, except to their Creator.

The Christian church knows that the Lord God Almighty cares deeply for the Palestinian people, as he does every human being.  And the Lord keeps score. He will not forget their suffering, come judgment day.

  • Please take a few minutes to watch Max Blumenthal – an investigative journalist who has spent a considerable amount of time in Gaza – describe what is happening now.
  • Also, read Gideon Levy’s article containing this lead: “The shooting on the Gaza border shows once again that the killing of Palestinian’s is accepted in Israel more lightly than the killing of mosquitoes.”

Zionist Settlers Attack Palestinian Farmers…Again

Gideon Levy is a brave and principled Israeli journalist.  For years his column in the daily newspaper Haaretz has been a near solitary voice documenting Zionist crimes and abuses against the Palestinian people.

Here is an excerpt from today’s column, “When Settlers Beat Palestinian Fathers in Front of Their Sons.”

“Raafat heard his father screaming in pain. He saw the Israeli draw close and hit his father in the head with his rifle butt, as he lay helpless at the foot of the hill. Raafat recognized the man from an attack the previous week, when he had also acted brutally. Jumaa urged his son to escape, so the thugs wouldn’t hurt him, too.”

I encourage you to read the entire piece and to check in on Mr. Levy’s work in Haaretz regularly, if possible.

Gideon Levy lives with personal bodyguards. He continues to write, travel and speak despite the regular death threats he receives from his fellow citizens.  While similar threats have driven other critics of Zionism from the country, Mr. Levy chooses to remain in Israel.

Gideon Levy is one of my heroes.

His is a prophetic, humane voice crying out for justice and love of neighbor in the midst of a racist Zionist nation, responsible for profligate state-sponsored violence, discrimination and bloodshed.

 

Israel Criminalizes Free Speech and Abuses Children

My friend, Munther Amira, is sitting in an Israeli prison cell.  His only crime: protesting to defend the rights of Palestinian children held in Israel’s military prisons.

Military courts, judges and prisons are the only options available to Palestinians in the West Bank because they live under military law and have no civil rights.

Modern Israel is a racist state, imposing a form of apartheid over the Palestinian people. The vast majority of Israelis do not care about the Palestinian children who are ripped from their families for the crime of throwing rocks at armored vehicles. Nor do they care when these children are crammed into over-crowded prison cells, having no idea when they might be allowed to return home.

But Munther cares.  So do I. And so should the church of Jesus Christ throughout the world.

Take a moment to watch this youtube video  from the independent journalist, Abby Martin, as Munther gives her a tour of his neighborhood in the Aida refugee camp.

Munther was arrested by Israeli soldiers on December 27th for the “crime” of walking down a Bethlehem street with a sign in his hands. He was marching peacefully with others who were protesting Israel’s habit of jailing Palestinian children such as Ahed Tamimi.

Hear Ahed describe her life under military occupation.  As a 16 year old advocate for Palestinian rights, Ahed had the audacity to slap the Israeli soldier who, just the day before, shot her cousin in the head.  She is now in prison, facing years of imprisonment.

Israel’s Minister of Education believes that the teenager  should receive a life-sentence.  A prominent Israeli journalist has advocated vigilante justice, saying, “In the case of girls, we should exact a price at some other opportunity, in the dark without witnesses or cameras.”

That’s the state of Israel for you.

My friend, Munther was sentenced to 6 months in prison and 5 years probation, for the “crime” of peacefully defending the rights of Palestinian children such as Ahed – while holding a sign with her picture on it, no less! – to be treated humanely and, most of all, justly.

I cannot think of a more noble cause. Yet, it is a cause that the United States and American evangelicalism/fundamentalism largely ignores.

At his sentencing hearing, Munther told the judge:

“[It] is my right to express and defend my people; I exercise this right in the territories of the Palestinian National Authority, and you are not responsible for me; I will not ask you to authorize me to express my point of view … I will not ask you for a permit.”

You can see why I like this man so much.  I am proud to call Munther my friend.

Munther’s cause is being supported by Amnesty International (USA), Amnesty International (UK), the International Federation of Social Workers – Human Rights Commission, the British Association of Social Workers and a number of other human rights organizations as well.

Munther’s daughter, a recent law school graduate, has written an article describing her father’s commitment to both non-violence and the continuing struggle for Palestinian equality.

Please sign the several petitions available through the links in this post demanding Munther’s immediate release.

Call your elected officials, telling them that American’s blind support for Israel’s human rights abuses must end.

Explain to anyone who will listen that Israel is a racist state that does not deserve American support, especially not the support of American Christians.