_______________________________________________________________________
NPK-info 28-09-2001- Nederlands Palestina Komitee / www.palestina-komitee.nl
_______________________________________________________________________

Nu één jaar Tweede Intifada.

Zondag 30 sep 14:00 manifestatie op de Dam in Amsterdam
Tegen de Nieuwe Oorlog - Meer info: http://www.omslag.nl
En op http://www.wereldcrisis.nl
Persbericht hierna.

Voorts bijgevoegd
* The war of the children, The Guardian, 27-9-2001
* One year on: Palestinians take stock, BBC News Online's Fiona Symon

DCI/PS reminds the international community of the Campaign to Free
Palestinian Child Political Prisoners. Website can be found at
http://www.dci-pal.org/prisonweb/childprisoners.html .
DCI/PS urges to sign the petition available at
http://www.petitiononline.com/dcips/petition.html

NPK/WL, 28-9-2001

_______________________________________________________________________

top
P E R S B R I C H T

Van het Platform tegen de 'Nieuwe Oorlog'

   Brede steun voor landelijke manifestatie Tegen de 'Nieuwe Oorlog'

   Zondag 30 september 14.00 op de Dam in Amsterdam

   Utrecht, 25 september 2001 -

   Zo'n negentig organisaties hebben tot nu toe het Manifest
Tegen de 'Nieuwe Oorlog' ondertekend, en roepen op voor de
landelijke manifestatie aanstaande zondag 30 september om 14.00
uur, op de Dam in Amsterdam.

   Het Manifest Tegen de 'Nieuwe Oorlog', dat ten grondslag ligt
aan de manifestatie, is binnen twee dagen tijd ondertekend door
organisaties uit vrijwel alle sectoren van de maatschappij. Uit
de snelheid en de breedte van de ondertekening blijkt hoezeer de
oproep weerklank vindt in de Nederlandse samenleving. Enkele
grotere organisaties hebben de ondertekening van het Manifest
nog in beraad. Het IKV heeft besloten zich niet aan te sluiten
bij het Platform, maar is wel uitgenodigd een spreker te
leveren, en heeft deze uitnodiging aanvaard.

   Manifest en manifestatie zijn een initiatief van het Platform
Tegen de 'Nieuwe Oorlog', dat zondag in Utrecht werd opgericht.
Het Platform is een coalitie van vredes- en
solidariteitsgroepen, maatschappelijke organisaties,
migrantengroepen en kerkelijke- en religieuze groeperingen.

   De leuzen tijdens de manifestatie op 30 september zijn:

   Rechtvaardigheid, geen wraak
   Neem de voedingsbodem van het terrorisme weg
   Wraak is geen waardige reactie
   Creeer geen nieuw vijandbeeld

   De manifestatie heeft als doel om tot uitdrukking te brengen
dat veel mensen in Nederland zeer bezorgd zijn over de terreur-
aanslagen in de Verenigde Staten en de gevolgen daarvan. De Dam
zal zondag ook een plek zijn om de gebeurtenissen en
ontwikkelingen van de afgelopen weken te beschouwen en te
bespreken. Het programma is nog in voorbereiding.

   Een poster die oproept tot de manifestatie is te downloaden
van de websites http://www.omslag.nl en http://www.wereldcricis.nl
   Posters zijn ook te bestellen via 020-6279661.

   Voor financiele steun aan de manifestatie is een gironummer
geopend: 15602 tnv. Tribunaal voor de Vrede, Amsterdam, ovv
'Platform'.

   De volledige tekst van het Manifest tegen de 'Nieuwe Oorlog'
en de lijst van oproepende organisaties treft u hieronder aan.

   Het Platform Tegen de 'Nieuwe Oorlog' is te bereiken in
Vredescentrum O'43 in Utrecht. Tel. 030-2714376.

-------

Noten voor de pers

* Bel voor nadere informatie 030-2316666 (Jan Schaake, Kerk en Vrede)

* Het laatste nieuws vindt u op http://www.omslag.nl

-------

top
MANIFEST TEGEN DE 'NIEUWE OORLOG'

    Rechtvaardigheid, geen wraak

De organisaties die deel uitmaken van het Platform tegen de
,,Nieuwe oorlog'' zijn geschokt over de onvoorstelbare
terreuraanslagen van 11 september. We veroordelen deze
onmenselijke daden en leven mee met de slachtoffers. Hen moet
recht gedaan worden, onder andere door toekomstige
terroristische aanslagen te voorkomen. Wij willen niet dat er
nog meer burgerslachtoffers vallen en maken ons dan ook zorgen
over een militaire campagne onder leiding van de Verenigde
Staten, waarbij zelfs het gebruik van kernwapens ,,niet
uitgesloten'' is. Wij vrezen dat Nederland, als NAVO-bondgenoot,
in deze oorlogshandelingen wordt meegezogen en roepen de
Nederlandse regering op zich in te spannen voor een alternatieve
reactie.

    Neem de voedingsbodem van het terrorisme weg

Militaire vergelding zal geen einde maken aan het terrorisme.
Terrorisme is alleen effectief te bestrijden door de problemen
op te lossen die de voedingsbodem ervan vormen. Terrorisme maakt
gebruik van uitzichtloosheid die voortkomt uit sociale
ongelijkheid en repressie, zowel binnen staten als op
internationale schaal. De internationale gemeenschap moet zich
niet laten verleiden tot steun aan militaire acties, maar moet
(in VN-verband) een bijdrage leveren aan het vreedzaam oplossen
van conflicten in de wereld, zoals in het Midden-Oosten.

    Wraak is geen waardige reactie

Onze rechtsstaat is gebaseerd op het intomen van wraak en
eigenrichting.  Een militaire wraakcampagne gaat hier lijnrecht
tegenin. Wij keuren zo'n actie af op grond van dezelfde waarden
als die waarmee we de aanslagen in de VS veroordelen. In plaats
van hen eigenhandig af te straffen, moeten de verantwoordelijken
voor de aanslagen berecht worden door een onafhankelijke
rechterlijke macht. Een militaire reactie leidt tot nog meer
burgerslachtoffers, vluchtelingen en geweld, om over de dreiging
met kernwapens nog maar te zwijgen. Onder het internationaal
recht is zo'n reactie bovendien omstreden. Verregaande
uitbreiding van de bevoegdheden van inlichtingendiensten staan
overigens op gespannen voet met democratische verworvenheden als
het recht op privacy. In plaats van de budgetten voor defensie
en inlichtingendiensten te verhogen kan beter geinvesteerd
worden in conflictpreventie. We moeten het geweld doen ophouden
en niet voortzetten.

    Creeer geen nieuw vijandbeeld

De verantwoordelijken voor de aanslagen worden in de hoek van
het islamitisch fundamentalisme gezocht. Zowel in de VS als in
Nederland draagt dit helaas bij aan verscherping van
vooroordelen tegen moslims en migranten.  Een vijandbeeld tegen
de islam is zo geboren. De verwachte militaire reactie zal het
vijandbeeld verder aanwakkeren. Dit brengt ook de multiculturele
samenleving in gevaar. Westerse overheden moeten erkennen dat
terrorisme en Islam niet samenvallen en dat ook de bevolking in
een land als Afghanistan lijdt onder de terreur van het
fundamentalisme. Als bevolking moeten we laten zien dat mensen
van verschillende religies, herkomst en gezindte in vrede met
elkaar kunnen samenleven.

Ondertekend door: (per 25 september 15.00 uur.)

ACU politiek cultureel centrum
Afghaanse Vrouwen in Nederland
Aktie Strohalm
Akties Tegen Kernwapens
Alert, fonds voor jongerenactiviteiten
AMOK
Amsterdam Anders/Groenen
Anti-fascistische Actie Nederland
Anti-Oorlogs Comite Leiden
ASEED Europe (Action for Solidarity, Equality,
Environment and Development)
ATKB (Vereniging van Vrouwen uit Turkije in Amsterdam)
Attac Nederland
Bangladesh Groep Nederland
Campagne Tegen De Wapenhandel
Casa Migrante y Parachia Hispanohablantes
Centrum voor Mondiaal Onderwijs
Congregatie Zusters van Liefde
COS Overijssel
DIDF - Federatie van Democratische Verenigingen
van Arbeiders uit Turkije in Nederland
Doopgezinde Vredesgroep
DWARS (politieke jongerenorganisatie verbonden GroenLinks)
EMCEMO (Euro-Mediteraan Centrum Migratie en Ontwikkeling)
Enschede voor Vrede
Euro's voor Vrede
FED-KOM, Federatie van Koerdische organisaties in Nederland
Franciscaans Milieuproject Stoutenburg
Franciskaanse Vredeswacht
Gebondenheid van de Palestijnse Gemeenschap in Nederland
Groenen
Guatamala Komitee Nederland
Haags Vredes Platform
Hijos Nederland
Humanistisch Verbond
Humanistisch VredesBeraad
Initiatiefgroep Deventer voor Vrede
Inspraakorgaan Turken
Internationale Socialisten
Jongerenbond
Jonge Socialisten
Kerk en Vrede
Komitee Utrecht tegen Racisme en Fascisme
Landelijk Beraad Vredes Organisaties
Latijns Amerika Centrum
Leefbaar Gelderland/De Groenen (provinciale staten van Gelderland)
Marokkanen Informatiecentrum Nederland
Moslim Informatie Centrum Nederland
Multicultureel Instituut Utrecht
NCPN
NCPN - jongeren
Nederland Bekent Kleur
Nederlands Expertisecentrum Alternatieven voor Geweld
Nederlands Palestina Komitee
Omslag, Werkplaats voor Duurzame Ontwikkeling
Onkruit Vergaat Niet!
Oorlog is geen Oplossing
Quakers
Pais
Palestina Komitee Rotterdam
PRIME, vluchtelingenorganisatie
PSP-92
Samenwerkingsverband Stop de wapenwedloop
Socialistische Arbeiders Partij
Socialistische Partij
Solidaridad
Solidariteit, blad voor een strijdbare vakbeweging
Speerpunt
Steungroep Vrouwen zonder Verblijfsvergunning
Stichting Aarde-Werk
Stichting Anti-Militaristies Buro (AMB) Nijmegen
Stichting Provinciaal Platform Anti Racisme Zuid-Holland
Stichting Teilhard de Chardin
Stichting Voor Aktieve Geweldloosheid
Trans National Institute
Tribunaal voor de Vrede
Vakgroep Women, Population and Development van het Institute of
Social Studies
Vereniging Juristen voor de Vrede
Vereniging Solidair - Europese beweging voor samenwerking
en solidariteit
Vereniging Zin!
Vlaardings Vredes Platform
Vredes Aktie Kamp
Vredesburo Eindhoven
Vredesburo Heerlen
Vrouwen tegen Uitzetting
Vrouwen voor Vrede
Werkverband van Religieuzen voor Gerechtigheid en Vrede
Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
World Conference on Religion and Peace
XminY solidariteitsfonds
_______________________________________________________________________

top
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,558671,00.html
The war of the children

A year ago 12-year-old Mohammed al-Durrah died before the eyes of the world,
instantly becoming an icon of the new intifada. Since then more than 120
children, 28 of them Israeli, have been killed. Suzanne Goldenberg visits
the parents of the conflict's most famous victim and asks: has anything been
achieved?

Thursday September 27, 2001
The Guardian

On the wall of a breezeblock house, on a sand-spattered lane called Martyrs
Street, there is a spray-painted rendition of the Palestinian pietà: a
father, cradling his dying child in his arms, with both figures scored by
red and black gashes representing bullets and blood.

This is the home of the al-Durrah family, unremarkable people transformed
into modern-day icons when their son, Mohammed, was shot dead by Israeli
soldiers in the very first days of the Palestinian revolt last year.
Mohammed was 12 years old when he was killed on September 30, two days after
the start of this second intifada. Within hours, the world was familiar with
the final 40 minutes of his life, captured by a Palestinian cameraman for
French television: the mask of terror on the face of a child, the convulsive
twitches from each new round, and then the gradual loosening of the dying
boy's grip on his father, Jamal.

Jamal al-Durrah and his wife, Amal, have been immersed in those scenes ever
since, their sitting room plastered with images of Mohammed: cowering in his
father's arms in propaganda posters; smiling in childhood snapshots; and
serious in a large portrait in pastels donated by an Egyptian artist.

His death has been re-broadcast relentlessly by the Palestinian authorities
on the television that is almost like an extra member of the family, and his
short life has been re-lived in excruciating detail for the countless
reporters, television crews, and dignitaries who have made their way here,
drawn by the cult of the first child martyr of the intifada.

"I feel like he died only yesterday," says his mother, Amal. But while the
constant attention makes it impossible to move beyond the first stages of
grieving, she says she takes comfort in Mohammed's posthumous celebrity, and
finds herself drawn irresistibly to the images of his death on TV.

"Even if they are horrible pictures, he was my son, and I still like to look
at him," she says. "All the world saw Mohammed dying on television, and all
the mothers felt that this child was their baby. When he died, he awakened
the world, and so I think it was worth it."

Mohammed's father, Jamal, was hit by 12 bullets. He emerged from four months
in a Jordanian hospital with a withered right hand, a slight limp, and a
burning sense of mission.

"I believed in the struggle before the death of Mohammed," he says. "The
main difference is that I have turned myself into an ambassador to tell the
world about our struggle."

That sense of calling has taken the al-Durrahs - who had only left the Gaza
Strip on one occasion before Mohammed's death, and who still do not own a
telephone - to Egypt, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, and the anti-racism
conference in South Africa last month. Their home - a standard refugee
shelter with a corrugated asbestos roof - is sparsely furnished with plastic
chairs and badly scarred wooden divans.

But there are reports they have received thousands of dollars from
well-wishers in the Arab world, in addition to the obligatory $220 a month
pension doled out by the Palestinian Authority to the families of victims,
and the $10,000 cheque from Saddam Hussein. Some of the donations paid for a
marble headstone for Mohammed. An unemployed labourer before his son's
death, Jamal muses about establishing a foundation for children with
disabilities, or maybe a scholarship fund for needy university students.

Meanwhile, he and his wife have been consumed by the whirlwind of the past
year. As they speak, their six surviving children pummel each other and
scream, but fail to attract their parents' attention. The neighbours say
they have run wild for the past year.

The celebrity, and their understandable bitterness at Mohammed's death, has
also steeled the al-Durrahs' hearts against any chance of a compromise with
Israel. To Jamal's mind, the carnage in New York and Washington on September
11 was a product of the Israeli secret service, Mossad, a theory he is
willing to expound on at some length. Ask Mohammed's mother and father if
they would be willing to contemplate living in a Palestinian state made up
of the West Bank and Gaza, with Israelis as their neighbours, and both
reply: "We must have all of Palestine."

Tomorrow, it will be exactly a year since the eruption of the violent
Palestinian rising, which followed the provocative visit of the then
hardline opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, to the hallowed ground in
Jerusalem revered by Muslims as the Haram as-Sharif, and by Jews as the
Temple Mount, site of two destroyed biblical temples. Since then, more than
750 people have been killed, including scores of children - Arab and
Jewish - many far younger than Mohammed.

The spot where he was killed - Netzarim junction, a crossroads presided over
by a hunkering Israeli army position - is unrecognisable. The concrete
barrel where Mohammed and his father sought cover was destroyed by the
Israeli army a few days after his death, along with a shack belonging to the
Palestinian security forces. Two blocks of flats overlooking the Israeli
army camp were razed later. In the man-made wasteland that remains, a lone
Israeli tank now prowls, and a machine-gun nest looms from a mound directly
opposite the spot where Mohammed was killed.

So what has the revolt won for the Palestinians? "There are no political
solutions in the air as we enter the second year of the intifada," says
Hussain Sheikh, the commander of Yasser Arafat's Fatah organisation in the
West Bank. He says the uprising has achieved three broad aims: it has roused
the international community to the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli
occupation in the West Bank and Gaza; it has exposed claims that Israel was
willing to make painful concessions for a peaceful settlement of the Middle
East dispute; and it brought renewed scrutiny to the role of the illegal
Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza as the focal points of
conflict.

What Sheikh does not say, however, is that the primary accomplishment of the
uprising was achieved with the images of Mohammed's death, when
international sympathy for the Palestinians was never higher. The impact of
those images was acknowledged by the Israeli authorities. Ever since, the
army has stubbornly tried to promote an alternative explanation for
Mohammed's death - that he and his father were in fact targeted by
Palestinian gunmen.

The death of Mohammed did not stop other children from being killed. By the
time the first reporters descended on the al-Durrah's home, the uprising had
claimed an even younger victim than Mohammed: Sara al-Haq, a chubby
two-year-old with copper-coloured ringlets, shot dead in her village near
the West Bank city of Nablus. Instead, the killing of children has, in a
way, defined the intifada, feeding the cult of martyrdom that has engulfed
children cut down while throwing stones at Israeli tanks and, most
ominously, the suicide bombers who have carried out dozens of attacks on
Jewish civilians.

It has also provoked a macabre competition between Arab and Jew to claim the
youngest victim of the revolt. According to the Palestinian Human Rights
Monitoring Group, 140 of the Palestinian victims of the uprising have been
under the age of 18 - or about a quarter of the entire toll. The Israeli
human rights group, B'Tselem, counts 127 minors among the dead. Twenty eight
Israeli children have been killed - including 22 who were blown up by
suicide bombers inside the Jewish state. Yesterday there was still one more
casualty: a 16-year-old Palestinian stonethrower shot in the head by Israeli
soldiers in the Gaza Strip, three miles from the spot where Yasser Arafat
and the Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres, were holding ceasefire
talks.

In his iconic status among Palestinians, Mohammed al-Durrah now has a
counterpart in a Jewish baby girl, Shalhavet Pass, who was shot dead in her
stroller at the gates of the Jewish settlement in Hebron. She was 10 months
old. Shalhavet's chubby face now stares out of websites, T-shirts, and
amulets produced by the Hebron settlers in her memory.

However, the youngest Jewish victim of the uprising is Yehuda Shoham, aged
five months, who died from wounds sustained when a rock was thrown at his
family's car near the West Bank settlement of Shilo on June 6. The youngest
Palestinian victim was not killed by Israeli soldiers, but by Jewish
extremists. Diya Tmeizi, a three-month-old baby boy, who was born after his
parents underwent a decade of fertility treatment, was shot dead with two
other Palestinians when their car came under fire as they were returning
from a wedding in Idna village, near Hebron, on July 20 this year.

Other children have died unremembered - as has a principal actor in the
drama surrounding Mohammed al-Durrah's death: the ambulance driver, Bassem
al-Bilbeisi, who was shot dead trying to rescue father and son. "I hear the
al-Durrah family got money and has become famous now," says Hanan
al-Bilbeisi, his widow, who says she and her 11 children have been reduced
to penury by his death. "I know money is no compensation for losing a child,
but I wish we could have been given a chance to have our say in the media.
My husband also deserves to be known."

Those hundreds of dead - the celebrities such as Mohammed and the overlooked
such as al-Bilbeisi - are the reason most widely cited by Palestinians for
their unwillingness to go along with the ceasefire declared last week by the
Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. How can they give up now when so many
have died?
Sharon and Arafat have been made well aware that Washington does not want
their conflict to intrude on its efforts to forge a broad war coalition, and
that it cannot recruit Arab states so long as the intifada continues to
rage.

Last week's truce was the fifth declared so far, but people had given it a
breath of hope because of the unprecedented pressure from Washington for it
to succeed. For some Palestinian leaders, who admit the intifada has brought
them no closer to their aims, the ceasefire is a last, unexpected chance:
they can abandon the largely military means by which the uprising has been
fought, and return to mass protests. They realise they can hardly expect the
international community to pay attention to their regional conflict when the
world is transfixed by the attack on the US, and the awaited reprisal.
Fifteen Palestinians were killed in the 24 hours that followed the carnage
in the US; their deaths provoked little international comment.

The Palestinian leadership is also terrified that if they do not rein in the
militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, there could well be another suicide
attack inside the Jewish state - an eventuality that, in the present
international atmosphere, could destroy for ever support for the
Palestinians. However, Palestinians officials also say the ceasefire is
tenuous, and the region could easily explode once more unless the truce
produces real gains, such as an end to Israel's suffocating siege of the
West Bank and Gaza.

"If the situation remains like this, we will have very many people who will
want to die, especially if Sharon stays in his closed mentality, and remains
opposed to any negotiations on a final settlement," says General Abdul Razak
Majaida, the head of Palestinian security in the West Bank and Gaza, and the
enforcer of the ceasefire. His security forces are also going to have to
deal with popular resentment at Arafat's Palestinian Authority for making
heroes of some of the dead - such as Mohammed - while others remain
forgotten. Many Palestinians feel betrayed by their leaders.

But most of all they are going to have to convince a people who have
surrounded themselves with images of their dead children to overcome the
hatred that now rules their hearts. Emblazoned on the wall of his home,
beneath the mural of the dying Mohammed, is a slogan evidently painted on
with the al-Durrahs' approval. It says: "What was taken by force can only be
returned by force."
_______________________________________________________________________

top
One year on: Palestinians take stock

By BBC News Online's Fiona Symon

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1564000/1564975.stm

A year since the outbreak of the intifada, living standards among
Palestinians have fallen dramatically.

Israel's stranglehold over the Palestinian economy is virtually complete and
takes the form of over 150 military blockades erected in the West Bank and
more than 40 in Gaza.

To these must now be added the new buffer zone, established this week along
the border between Israel the Palestinian areas.

All entry and exit points to the West Bank and Gaza - even mountainous paths
and dirt roads - have been closed.

Daily humiliation

Palestinians experience daily humiliation, and sometimes intimidation, at
these checkpoints.

B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group that monitors army activities in the
occupied territories, says it is aware of at least six cases in which
soldiers have shot and killed Palestinians "without provocation" at roadblocks during
the uprising.

The Israeli army denies this, but what is not in dispute is the impact the
checkpoints have had on the economy.

This has virtually ground to a halt, according to a report by the
Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction.

It puts the total loss in all economic sectors at $4.25bn dollars during the
period between September 2000 and September 2001.

Tourism, which previously accounted for 11% of the Palestinian gross
domestic product and was an important source of hard currency, has come to a complete
halt as a result of the closure.

Farming, trade and industry have all been severely hit - PECDAR estimates
that around 150,000 fruit trees alone have been uprooted.

More than 4,000 homes have been destroyed, in addition to a large number of
public buildings and projects, says PECDAR, which puts the cost of
infrastructure losses at $165m and transport losses at $5m during the
period.

Airport closure

The closure of Gaza International airport - the site of today's long-delayed
meeting between Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres - has had a disastrous
effects on tourism and investment.

The Palestinian Authority has spent millions of dollars on attracting
investment and upgrading tourism, but the airport closure has resulted in
large numbers of investors taking their money elsewhere.

Meeting took place amid a hardening of attitudes

The siege has been particularly damaging because of the extent to which the
Palestinian economy is dependent on Israel, says PECDAR, noting that 85% of
trade is done through Israel, and Palestinians buy their electricity, water
and telecommunications from Israeli companies.

Before the intifada the number of Palestinian workers was 651,000, of whom
133,000 worked inside Israel.

As a direct result of the closure, unemployment has risen from 12% to 51% of
the Palestinian workforce.

"A natural consequence of unemployment is poverty. As a result of the
Israeli closure, thousands of Palestinians lost their jobs and consequently their
main source of income," says PECDAR

Business paralysed

Palestinian analyst Khalil Shikaki said Israel's closure policy "has planted
the seeds of hatred for a long time to come".

The blockades have not provided security for Israel, but have radicalised
moderate Palestinians whose businesses have been paralysed, he says.

This view is reflected in the latest public opinion poll conducted by the
Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre.
 
It surveyed Palestinians last week and found that attitudes towards the
peace process have hardened.
 
Support for the peace process fell from 38% last June to 29% this month and
the percentage of Palestinians who regard the peace process as dead has risen to
42% from 27%.
 
Ghassan Khatib, director of the centre, says Palestinians are in no mood to
compromise because they believe the one achievement of the intifada so far
has been to prevent Israel from imposing its blueprint for a final settlement.
 
"Palestinians believe that Israel initiated the violence, and that they are
simply reacting and resisting Israeli aggression," said Mr Khatib.

_______________________________________________________________________

 

 

 

 

vorige pagina