The BBC Middle-Eastern section has a ‘Jerusalem Diary’ and an ‘Israel at 60′, in which they invite Israelis to submit their views on the creation and independence of the israeli state. Needless to say there is no mention of the Palestinians, the crimes commited against them, or the horrific condition they find themselves in now. The BBC are, frankly, participating in the Zionist states ethnic cleansing policy, which includes not reporting on, or belittling the suffering of the Palestinians.

I have complained, and hope others will too.

I have pasted a copy of my letter below.

From the BBC Website:

As Israel approaches its 60th anniversary, the BBC News website would like to hear the views of Israelis about their country.

Do you have memories of 1948 or the time before the state? What are your hopes for the next 60 years of Israel? What can Israelis do to settle their country’s borders and reach peace with its neighbours?

Were you born in Israel, or have you moved there from somewhere else? What do you value most about your country? What things would you change if you could?

We would like to include a photograph of you alongside your views, so please include your phone number in the form below so we can get in touch with you:

My Letter of Complaint:

Dear BBC,

It is shocking that a supposedly impartial news service chooses to allow the perpetrators of one of the worst apartheid regimes the world has seen a medium through which to celebrate their ‘independence’ and ‘creation’. It is terrible that there is no mention of the brutally violent methods that this regime adopted and continues to use in order to achieve and maintain their state. The victims of their ambition still exist today, and they still suffer holocaust like treatment at the hands of those you are celebrating with.

I speak of course of the Zionist State of Israel, the ‘Jerusalem Diary’ and the ‘Israel at 60′ sections you have on the Middle East section of your website. You should not allow yourselves to be tools in this states propaganda, and its mission to demonise the victim while ethnically cleansing the Land of Palestine of its Arab inhabitants –and no I am not being dramatic.

If you cannot but have these sections on your site, then at least have a Palestine at 60, or a Palestinian Nakbe at 60, or something similar. You should not be pandering to the wishes of an albeit powerful state, and you should not be brushing their victims under the carpet.

For once I would like to see you do a proper job with this!

I came across these videos by the NonmuslimHijabi while browsing hijab styles on Youtube. This lady is not muslim but wears hijab anyway (she has a video on why if you care to watch it). The styles are really nice, properly covering, and easy to reproduce, even if, like me, you have 10 thumbs

This edition shows how to wear hijab while showing off earings, the first style covers the neck (important if you’re a muslim hijabi) the other does not.

The hijab part of this video is very easy, and is how I usually wear it. She also shows how to wear niqab, and as a disclaimer I shall say that posting this video does not mean that I endorse it.

To commemorate the Palestinian Nakbe, which roughly translates to the ‘catastrophe’, when the British Mandate ended in  Palestine on the 5th of May 2008, subjecting the Palestinians to violently brutal ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Zionist factions, Za3tar has called for a Blog about Palestine day (akin to the successful Blog about Jordan Day), and is being supported by Qwaider.

A fantastic iniative and I plan on contributing. I also think we should all contact our local news agencies to inform them of this, and ask them to cover it.

I have already emailed the BBC (hey, if they agree to it, anyone will!):

Dear BBC,

As you are aware this is the 60th year since the invasion and subsequent ethnic cleansing of Palestine of its native inhabitants. As you are also aware the injustices against the Palestinian people continue to this day. There is an estimated 4 million Palestinian refugees, a man-made man-supported humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and a similar situation in the West Bank.

To commemorate this, the blogosphere has dedicated the 15th of May 2008 to a ‘Blog about Palestine’ day, in which bloggers write a post about palestine. This initiative is a follow on from a Blog about Jordan day (BAJD), by the blog aggregator Qwaider Planet, who is also supporting the Blog about Palestine day. The BAJD was a major success, with nearly 60 entries and a feature on Jordanian Radio.

I expect the Blog about Palestine day to be even bigger, and considering the seriousness of the situation Palestinians face everywhere not only important to report on but also interesting. Most of the bloggers will be Palestinians in exile, who have other forms of citizenships and allegiances to Palestine as well as some other country. This will be a great opportunity to gain insight on the mind set of refugees, which palestinians epitomise, being the oldest refugee ‘problem’ today.

I hope that you will take this request to report on the story seriously and will look forward to an in depth coverage.

Thank you

Israel is holding 60th B-day (I know, sick isnt it?) here in the UK, so we MUST make sure that people hear from the Palestinians, and from the supporters of the Palestinian issue.

It’s been 60 years since my family were brutally expelled from Palestine, but it might as well be 600 we’re still going back.

Cosmology may be coming to an institution near you. The Middle East is surprisingly uninterested in cosmology, even though we have at least one eminent cosmologist that I know of (Qaisar Shafii from Egypt), cosmology has failed to take root in the academic institutions in the region. This I always found surprising, for research into theoretical cosmology is cheap to fund, all we need is a computer with an internet connection, and a supply of paper, pencils and erasers. I also find that arabs are very curious about cosmology, most arabs I meet quizz me about the Big Bang theory, the origins of the universe and such. Stephen Hawking was met with a huge crowd when he visited the university of Birzeit in 2006, yet the Centre for Excellence in Theoretical Physics and Applied Mathematics due to be built with EU funds sometime in the future do not have cosmology on their list of research aims (in fairness though they were very open to the idea of possibly including it). Apparently attempts to establish cosmology research groups in Lebanon, Egypt and Morroco have failed, due to apathy, and lack of a conducive research environment. This was a wakeup call to me, I had always thought that moving back to the Middle East and establishing such research would be a doddle. I do find it surprising on another level, since the Middle East is predominantly Muslim (except Lebanon, but even there we make up 50% of the population!), and the Quran strongly urges “looking up at the stars and pondering their origins” (c.f. Aal Imraan verse 191 + many more).

As a result of these unpromising experiences Dr Al Fakir has established the Muhammed Institute for Science of the Cosmos (MISC) and they have just launched their website.

WHAT THE MISC DOES
The end product of MISC operations are substantial advances in astrophysics, cosmology, and space exploration, in the form of scientific papers in internationally recognised refereed journals, and collaborative experimental projects. To that end, MISC activities include (1) organising annual conferences brining together the MISC research community at large, (2) supporting specific research collaborations between groups of MISC researchers, (3) supporting senior researchers in dedicating extended stretches of time to the MISC, (4) planning and promoting Earth-based and space-born experiments that have bearing either on the physics of the Universe (gravitation, microwave background, etc) or on the origin of life (solar system exobiology, astrobiology, etc), (5) creating and nurturing branches of the MISC in various parts of the Muslim world, (6) creating opportunities for promising young researchers from the Muslim world to collaborate with seasoned MISC researchers.

Of particular interest is the list of eminent non-muslim cosmologists who support the institute, Alexander Vilenkin, Robert Wald and William Unruh, which I find extremely promising. Eventually they plan on being able to fund visits to institutions in the Muslim world with a resident cosmologist, or visits from cosmologists based in the Muslim world, with the possibility of funding postdoctoral and permanent staff members. The potential increase in job opportunities aside (something of extreme interest to someone at my level), this will be great for the middle east (and muslim world as a whole) on many levels. It will foster creativity and ‘outside the box thinkin’, something I find to be lacking in the arab countries at least, interaction with experienced cosmologists, and the potential in excelling in something other than conflict and commerce (as in the UAE). The Muslim world has a strong history in Astronomy (see 1001 Muslim Inventions and George Saliba’s site for a summary), that even though we managed to severley neglect, makes us naturally disposed to this branch of science and we really should foster it once more.

Since publishing my various posts on islamic swimsuits (here, here and here) I have had about 2000 hits solely for these posts, my most popular posts of all. Most of the comments I received were from companies which manufacture such suits advertising their products, which has been absolutely fantastic!

In this post I will post sample pictures from each website of the suits with a short summary of what each one offers. If anyone has tried any of them, I would like to hear from you, and I can incorporate your comments/reviews into this blog.

Burqini

Country of Origin Australia

Company Name: Ahiida Website www.ahiida.com

Description: 100% polyester, 50+ UV protected, water resistent, water repellent, low water absorbency and quick to try. They come in three catergories: slim-fit, modest-fit and active-fit

Images:

Notes: I believe this suit is available in the UK. It costs nearly £65. Phone: 0845 052 4686

Splashgear:

Country of Origin: USA

Website: www.splashgearusa.com

Description: based on the gear surfers wear. This product is, made of lightweight and quick-drying 83% Nylon 17% Lycra constructed with flatlock seams for comfort, fabric provides UV protection

Images

Notes : this is available in Bristol (UK) and Dubai (UAE) check website for further details.

Customer Review: I reviewed this suit here, I have used it several times since and I absolutley LOVE it. A summary:

From a practical perspective, the suit was good. Swimming was easy, and I just need to get used to having something next to my skin while swimming. It did introduce extra resistance while doing the aqua exercises, and the trousers did balloon while I was standing. I think next time I will get the narrower leg trousers (I got the wide leg ones). When you exit the water the top does stick but a quick tug at the bottom loosens it immediately, this is something that was made clear by the manufacturers though.

In all, if asked, I would give the suit 9/10. Marks deducted for the head piece, and 1/2 for increased resistance (if only very slight).

MyCozzie

Country of Origin: United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Website: www.mycozzie.com

Description:

Images

Notes: This is available in Mall of the Emirates, Dubai.

AquaGym:

Country of Origin: Brazil

Website: http://www.acquagymbrazil.com/

Description:

Images

Hasema

Country of Origin: Turkey

Website: www.hasema.com

Description:

Images

Customer Review: Nido has tried the first suit, and here is what she has to say about it:

I love it! It is so comfortable! easy to wear and to swim while wearng it! I used it in swimming pools and in the sea…the vest top is water resistant, and it stays loose! The 3 other parts’ material is like any other swimming suit…

Can’t wait for summer time to swim outdoors

RubyZent:

Country of Origin: Singapore

Website :http://www.rubyzent.com

Description:

Images

Bodykini

Country of Origin: Spain

Website: www.bodykini.com

Description: Provides a perfectly uniform and elegant surface that enhances the beauty and style of garments, ensures maximum comfort and fit thanks to “four-way” stretch equal in all directions), aids the evaporation of body moisture and keeps the skin fresh and dry, ensures an effective anti-static effect, ensures the best aero-aqua dynamic performance in competitive sports, ensures maximum breathability, protection from UV rays (UPF+50), high chlorine resistance

Images:

It seems that there has been an explosion in swimwear suitable for muslim women, since my post which quickly reviewed the Australian (ahiida, approx 65 GBP, UK phone: 0845 052 4686), American (splashgearusa approx 50 GBP w/out p&p VAT custom charges (it worked out to be 100GBP with), which I review here) and turkish suits (hasema), I have come across several other companies which provide similar suits.

A brazilian company acquagym have a nice collection, and they have commented on my blog a few times:

An Emarati company, mycozzie costs about 350 DHs (50 GBP)

A spanish company, Bodykini , costs about 89 euros, about 70 GBP (not sure if you would still pay customs etc. since it is delivered to the UK from an EU country, no info on their website)

It’s great to see so many options. Most of which I could see myself wearing, and which are becoming more affordable (ahiida sell for 160GBP in the UK!!!) I am taking my beloved splashgear suit to Dubai on holiday, and shall test it out in the wide open sea.

If any visitors have tried any of these suits, please share your experiences.

*ISRAELI DEATHS MATTER MORE*The horrific shooting of eight young people at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem last Thursday was followed by saturation media coverage. International statesmen lined up with condemnations of the attack and condolences for the victims and their families.Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced: “This is clearly an attempt to strike a blow at the very heart of the peace process.” (Jon Smith, Press Association, ‘Brown: massacre “strikes at heart of peace”‘, March 7, 2008)Foreign Secretary David Milliband described the slaughter as “an arrow aimed at the heart of the peace process so recently revived.” (Donald Macintyre and Eric Silver, ‘Massacre in the heart of Jerusalem’, The Independent, March 7, 2008)The Guardian’s front page declared: “the descent into violence in the Middle East accelerated last night” in a “dramatic escalation”. (Rory McCarthy, ‘Eight dead as gunman hits Jerusalem religious school’, The Guardian, March 7, 2008). A Daily Mirror headline read: ‘Kids Murdered In The Library’ (Allison Martin, March 7, 2008). The Telegraph asserted
that the attack “is likely to be remembered as the moment the Middle East peace process died.” (Tim Butcher, ‘Hopes of peace in the Middle East are blown away in a hail of bullets’, Daily Telegraph, March 7, 200

The contrast to reactions to the killing of over 120 Palestinians, including many women and children, in occupied Gaza the previous week could hardly be more striking. On one day alone, 60 people died in a hail of Israeli firepower using F-16 planes, Apache helicopter gunships, tanks, armoured bulldozers and ground troops.

No Western leader was heard condemning the Israeli assault on Gaza as “an attempt to strike a blow at the very heart of the peace process.” To our knowledge, no reporter suggested that “the peace process” had now “died”. No headlines screamed of Palestinian babies “murdered” in their beds. In short, news reports from the Gazan bloodbath typically lacked
the anguished details and tone that suffused the reporting from Jerusalem less than a week later.

Nor was there the same heightened pitch and intensity of news coverage following Israel’s deadly ‘incursion’ into Gaza in mid-January. 17 Palestinians were killed in one day, and around 50 injured, while President Bush was visiting the region. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said:

“What happened today is a massacre, a slaughter against the Palestinian people.

“Our people cannot keep silent over these massacres. These massacres cannot bring peace.” (Al-Jazeera, ‘Abbas: Israeli raid “a massacre” ‘, January 15, 2008; http://english. aljazeera. net/NR/exeres/0787158A- D180-44F4- 9327- 7BE8DBBB197D. htm

<http://english. aljazeera. net/NR/exeres/ 0787158A- D180-44F4- 9327-7BE8DBBB197 D.htm&gt

But for the Western media the massacres that really matter, the ones which “strike a blow at the very heart of the peace process”, are those inflicted on Israelis.

*The BBC’s Propaganda Role*

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is now at its worst since the occupation by Israel began in 1967. More Gazans are dependent on food aid than ever before: fully 1.1 million out of a population of 1.5 million. Hospitals are suffering the longest power cuts yet experienced, record levels of raw sewage are being pumped into the sea, and the economy is at its most dire with unemployment set to exceed 50 per cent. (’The Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion’, March 6, 2008; http://christianaid .org.uk/images/ gazareport. pdf). Is it any wonder that the people of Gaza are in despair?

Our alert of March 3 highlighted the lack of attention given to the latest assessment by John Dugard, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Territories. Palestinian terrorism, while abhorrent, is the “inevitable consequence” of Israeli occupation, noted Dugard. He warned: “the collective punishment of Gaza by Israel is expressly prohibited by international humanitarian law.” (Media Lens media alert, ‘Israel’s Illegal Assault On The Gaza “Prison”
<http://www.medialen s.org/alerts/ 08/080303_ israels_illegal_ assault.php>’)

The BBC’s official response to our challenge about its neglect of Dugard’s vital analysis was telling:

“We missed the original publication of John Dugard’s report, but are intending to write about its formal presentation to the UN later today.

“Mr Dugard has, of course, repeatedly made very critical comments about Israel, some of which we have reported: http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/middle_ east/7044148. stm

“It is fair to point out however that Mr Dugard’s views are not those of the UN. Under international law, an occupied community is not allowed to adopt terrorist methods against the civilian population of its occupier. Occupied people remain under an obligation to conduct themselves according to the laws of war. So, while terrorism may be an ‘inevitable consequence’ of the occupation, that does not mean it is somehow legitimate. The UN, including the secretary general and the security council, have repeatedly condemned suicide bombings and rocket fire from Gaza: http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi /middle_east/ 7273444.stm
<http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/middle_ east/7273444. stm> ” (Email from “The BBC News website” [no name provided], March 6, 200

This response is noteworthy, even for the BBC’s usual shameful record. There was no mention of Israel’s responsibilities as the occupying power, or its repeated and brutal transgressions of international and humanitarian law over forty years. Human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem in Israel, have documented many grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention, constituting war crimes. Little of this fundamental context ever makes it into BBC news reports.

Instead, the BBC focused exclusively in its reply on the obligations of “an occupied community” which has been continually attacked and impoverished by an Israeli state that is massively supported – financially, militarily, diplomatically - by Washington. The anonymous BBC official who wrote that “while terrorism may be an ‘inevitable consequence’ of the occupation, that does not mean it is somehow legitimate” was answering a strawman argument of his or her own invention. Neither Media Lens nor the UN Special Rapporteur claimed that Palestinian terrorism was “legitimate.” Indeed, had the BBC employee read the report, he/she would have seen that Dugard had condemned Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel’s civilians as “war crimes”.

As promised, the BBC news website did indeed write about the Dugard report; it devoted all of 168 words at the bottom of a short news item. The item noted blandly that unspecified “scheduling problems” meant that the report would now be presented to the UN in June rather than this month. (BBC Online, ‘UN alarm at Gaza-Israel violence’, March 6, 2008;
http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 1/hi/world/ middle_east/ 7281711.stm <http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 1/hi/world/ middle_east/ 7281711.stm>). For the Special Rapporteur’s assessment to be shunted to one side by the ‘international community’, even as the slaughter in the Middle East continued, was horribly ironic. The possibility that power politics might have been at play in the alleged “scheduling problems” appears to have eluded the media’s scrutiny.

*The Eternal BBC Claim: “We Will Not Be Cheerleaders For Anybody”*(blog author’s aside: ha ha bloody HA)

Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s Middle East news editor, received numerous emails that were copied to us. Many were in direct response to our alert, but others were sent spontaneously by people appalled at the coverage they were seeing and hearing from the publicly-funded broadcaster. After the killings at the Jewish seminary, Bowen defended the corporation’s recent unbalanced news coverage from the region:

“In the last week, we have reported very fully from inside Gaza as well as from Sderot and Ashkelon. We will continue to report on the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. But we will also report fully from the Israeli side. The BBC’s reporting will be as impartial as we can make it. We will not be cheerleaders for anybody.” (Email, March 6, 200

Bowen’s assertion simply does not stand up to scrutiny. In our March 3 alert, we cited the testimony of former BBC Middle East correspondent Tim Llewellyn who pointed out that ‘balance’ is “the BBC’s crudely applied device for avoiding trouble”. This inevitably leads to a clear news bias towards the viewpoint of power residing in Israel, Washington and London.

The public can see for themselves the ‘neutral’ media language used to describe Israeli actions: ‘incursion’, ‘retaliation’, ‘military operations’. By contrast, Israel endures ‘terrorist attacks’, ’slaughter’, ‘a bloodbath’. Careful analysis by Greg Philo and Mike Berry, of the Glasgow University Media Group, found a persistent, ugly pattern:

“In our samples of news content, words such as ‘mass murder’, ’savage cold-blooded killing’ and ‘lynching’ were used by journalists to describe Israeli deaths but not those of Palestinians/ Arabs. The word ‘terrorist’ was used to describe Palestinians, but when an Israeli group was reported as trying to bomb a Palestinian school, they were referred to as ‘extremists’ or ‘vigilantes’.” (Philo and Berry, ‘Bad News From Israel’, Pluto Press, London, 2004, p. 259)

The reality is that by devoting disproportionate coverage to Israeli deaths over Palestinian deaths, the BBC’s claims to “impartial” reporting are simply demolished. With great consistency, lives in the ‘Third World’ are presented as being of far less importance than those who are ‘like us’. At its most brutal, we see a deeply racist attitude that also underpins the culture of killing in the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Major General Bargewell’s report into the massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha by U.S. marines gave a glimpse of the prevailing mindset:

“Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as US lives, their deathsare just the cost of doing business…” (Josh White, ‘Report On Haditha Condemns Marines; Signs of Misconduct Were Ignored, U.S. General Says,’ Washington Post, April 21, 2007)

And while the BBC and other news media continue to pump out propaganda about the Middle East, the “cost of doing business” is only too obvious to the victims and anyone who cares about them.

*SUGGESTED ACTION *

The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.

Write to: Jeremy Bowen, BBC’s Middle East news editor
Email: jeremy.bowen@ bbc.co.uk <mailto:jeremy.bowen@ bbc.co.uk>

Write to Helen Boaden, BBC news director
Email: helenboaden. complaints@ bbc.co.uk
<mailto:helenboaden. complaints@ bbc.co.uk>

Please send a copy of your emails to us
Email: editor@medialens. org <mailto:editor@medialens. org>

Please do NOT reply to the email address from which this media alert
originated. Please instead email us:
Email: editor@medialens. org <mailto:editor@medialens. org>

This media alert is archived here:
http://www.medialen s.org/alerts/ 08/080311_ israeli_deaths_ matter.php

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Excerpts from Famous Zionist Quotes, Palestine Remembered.

 ”Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it’s true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations’ time, but for the moment there is no chance. So it’s simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipes us out”. (The Jewish Paradox by Nahum Goldman, p. 99)

“The Arabs cannot accept the existence of Israel. Those who accept it are not normal. The best solution for the [Palestinian] Arabs in Israel is to go and live in the Arab states—in the framework of a peace treaty or transfer.” (Simha Flapan, p. 99)

The Israeli policy has not changed since.

Electronic Intifada

Compared with the international silence that surrounded Israel’s recent massacres of Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Gaza Strip, condemnation and condolences for the victims of the shooting attack that killed eight students at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem has been swift.

“I have just spoken with [Israeli] Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert to extend my deepest condolences to the victims, their families, and to the people of Israel,” US President George W. Bush said. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon added his “condemnation” and “condolences, ” as did EU High Representative Javier Solana.

The day before the Jerusalem attack, Amira Abu ‘Aser was buried in Gaza. She had lived just 20 days on this earth before being shot in the head by Israeli occupation forces who attacked the house of friends she and her family were visiting. Needless to say, she had not been firing rockets at Sderot when she was killed. One of the house’s inhabitants was found the next day, shot dead and his head crushed by an army jeep, an apparent victim of an extrajudicial murder by Israeli forces. (http://electronicin tifada.net/ v2/article9375. shtml)

But confirming their status in the eyes of the “international community” as less than complete human beings, neither Amira’s killing, nor any of the dozens of Palestinian civilian victims of Israel’s onslaught in Gaza have merited condemnation or condolences.

The fallacy that lies behind the differential concern for the lives of innocent Israelis and Palestinians is that the massacre in Jerusalem and the massacres in Gaza can be separated. Israeli deaths are “terrorism,” while Palestinian deaths are merely an unfortunate consequence of the fight against “terrorism.” But the two are intricately linked, and what happened in Jerusalem is a direct consequence of what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians for decades.

Let me be clear that the killing of civilians, Israeli or Palestinian, is wrong, repugnant, and cannot bring this one-hundred- year war caused by the Zionist colonization of Palestine to an end. There will be an Israeli propaganda effort — as always — to present Palestinian violence as being simply motivated by hatred, and divorced from the context of brutal occupation that Palestinians live under. What greater proof could you need than an attack on religious students, devoting their life to the study of the Torah?

We cannot expect much analysis in the media of why the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva might have been chosen as a target. Was it mere coincidence that the school, named for Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and led after his death by his son Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, is the ideological cradle of the militant, Jewish supremacist settler movement Gush Emunim?

Unlike other sects in Israel which sought exemption of their students from military service, Gush Emunim encouraged its followers to join the army and become the armed wing of religious nationalist Zionism. Gush Emunim settlers, many of them, like Moshe Levinger, graduates of Mercaz HaRav, founded the most extreme and racist settlements in the Occupied West Bank, including the notorious colonies in and near Hebron whose inhabitants have made life miserable for Palestinians in the city and forced many of them out of their homes. It is the militant settlers of Gush Emunim who still honor Baruch Goldstein who murdered 29 Palestinians in Hebron in February 1994. It is in Hebron that the Gush Emunim settlers spray “Arabs to the gas chambers” on Palestinian houses.

It is possible that the Mercaz HaRav gunman did not know or care about any of this, that any target he could identify as Israeli would have satisfied his desire to exact revenge.

In 2002, Israeli army chief Moshe Yaalon declared that “the Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.” This would be achieved by the massive and constant application of force until they got the message. The same philosophy was elaborated in 2004 by Professor Arnon Soffer, one of the architects, with former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, of the 2005 Gaza “disengagement. “

Soffer, an avid supporter of turning Gaza into a hermetically- sealed pen for unwanted Palestinians, explained that if Palestinians fire a single rocket over the fence into Israel, “we will fire 10 in response. And women and children will be killed, and houses will be destroyed. After the fifth such incident, Palestinian mothers won’t allow their husbands to shoot Qassams [rockets], because they will know what’s waiting for them.”

Soffer predicted that in a few years’ time, “when 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe.  Those people [the palestinians] will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam.” With Palestinians closed in, “The pressure at the border will be awful,” Soffer predicted. “It’s going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.”

To be fair, Soffer did display a human side: “The only thing that concerns me is how to ensure that the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings” (”It’s the demography, stupid,” The Jerusalem Post, 21 May 2004).

For decades Israel has been exercizing with ever-escalating brutality this deliberate strategy to crush through force and starvation a civilian population in rebellion against colonial rule. To Israel’s vexation, the Palestinians are not playing their part. After sixty years of expulsions, massacres, assassinations of their leaders, colonization, torture, and mass imprisonment, the Palestinians have utterly failed to understand that they are a “defeated people.”

The vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank endure unprecedented oppression by the Israeli army and settlers without resorting to violence in response, but they maintain an inextinguishable determination to endure until they regain their rights. If the methods the Palestinian resistance has sometimes used are reprehensible, they have also been typical for anti-colonial resistance movements throughout time, as William Polk shows in his book Violent Politics: A History of Insurgency, Terrorism and Guerilla War from the American Revolution to Iraq, and Robert Pape demonstrated through his study of suicide bombing in Dying to Win.

Is it not time for the rest of the world to step in and force Israel at last to understand the same thing, so that the senseless bloodshed can finally stop and all the people of the country — Israelis and Palestinians — can begin to imagine a future other than an endless parade of funerals?

– Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (Metropolitan Books, 2006).