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ISRAEL KEEPS RIGHT ON BUILDING AND BEATING
CAMP DAVID ISN'T THE END OF IT...NOT BY A LONG SHOT
MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 7/25/00:
Whatever comes from Camp David will not be the end of
the story. The Israelis have a long history of seeming to agree about
things under pressure in order to achieve short-term political gains, while
then finding ways and pretexts to continue to pursue their basic policies
of domination and control. All the talk today about "sharing" Jerusalem
is clearly designed to trap Arafat into signing agreements which will in
the end be twisted to Israeli purposes, regardless of what they actually
say. Goodness, the Israelis against the whole world, are still challenging
the meaning U.N. Resolution 242 (1967)!
Even while Camp David is underway, Israeli bulldozers
continue to plow through Palestinian fields across the Green Line building
still more "by-pass" roads and "thickening" settlements. Palestinians
this week near Bethlehem confronted Israeli construction crews, to no avail
as the Israeli occupation Army put them down as always. And in the
Arab areas of East Jerusalem a few days ago Israeli police showed again
just who is really in charge as the following report from a Palestinian
Human Rights groups outlines.
Whatever is agreed at Camp David will be massively played
out for public relations purposes, portrayed by the U.S. and Israel in
ways that twist everything to deceptively make the Israelis look magnanimous
and compromising, and the Americans "even-handed". But Israel's
long track record of deceit -- going way back to when Ben-Gurion repeatedly
insisted in the 30s that the Jews had no intention of setting up an exclusivist
Jewish State -- belies a different reality that has gone on for decades
now.
And as for the Americans, they have been playing the Good
Cop role in this huge conspiracy to promote the Israelis and to manipulate
and control the Arabs for quite some time now.
Camp David II, like Camp David I, is not the end of the
story, nor of the conflict, no matter what is said in the immediate days
ahead.
ISRAELI
OCCUPATION FORCES ASSAULT PALESTINIANS
IN EAST JERUSALEM
Yesterday, 23 July 2000, Israeli border police stationed next to the central post office in the Salah al-Din Street in Jerusalem, assaulted Palestinian citizen Shafieh Shkirat, 28, from Jabal Al-Mukaber. Shkirat a field researcher for the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER) was later detained and held incommunicado but later released on bail of 5000 NIS.
Shkirat was heading to the post office when he saw a number of the border
police soldiers intercepting a physically handicapped Jerusalemite, whom
he knew to be of the Alquam family. They were harassing him. Shkirat
intervened and tried to explain
the condition of the handicapped person and urged them to stop hassling
him. The soldiers did not take kindly towards this intervention and
beat Shkirat severely in front of other passers-by. They used rifle
butts and batons, and punched and kicked him. He was later held without
any legal justification.
The director and another lawyer form the JCSER arrived at the scene to negotiate the situation with the officer in charge, but he refused to cooperate and ordered them out of the police station. The captain, Unis, instructed the soldiers to assault any Palestinian citizen who gathered around the police station to enquire about the situation. Many people were assaulted and beaten severely. Two were injured.
Shkirat was transferred to the Russian Compound police station, on the pretext that he had blackmailed and intervened in police affairs. He was interrogated for more than an hour and a half but was later released after the intervention of JCSER’s lawyer who noticed that Shkirat’s well being had deteriorated. Shkirat suffered a cut to his forehead and a fracture to his right shoulder as well as bruises all over his body. He was later transferred to hospital for medical treatment. Earlier the officer in charge had denied him first aid.
It should be noted that the soldiers at the police station indicated
above usually harass and blackmail Palestinian citizens who pass by Salah
al Din Street - this behavior seems to have become habitual. (LAW)
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