3 November 2008

The destruction of Bassem abu Gwedar's home and the demolition of the 'unrecognised' Bedouin villages of the Negev





There is no 'terrorism' on the part of the Bedouin of the Negev. They haven't resorted to force of arms, the usual excuse on the part of the Zionists for their rape and pillage of the Palestinians. Yet as the following message shows, this hasn't prevented the demolition of homes in Bedouin . The following message is a description of a typical example of the racist demolition of Palestinian homes for the sole reason that their inhabitants are not Jewish. The 'Demographic Problem' i.e. too many non-Jews is the primary reason in the Jewish State for these acts of terror against an unarmed civilian population.

Tony Greenstein

To: "Yeela Livnat"

Dear all,

Thursday in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Khashm Zanna the home of Bassam abu Gwedar, a father of three young girls, and his wife, all citizens of the State of Israel, was demolished. The reason given by the Israeli authorities was that the structure was a new structure and had been built without a permit, which for all residents of the unrecognized villages is unattainable. The home had been built a year ago replacing the tin hut they lived, and the demolition order was posted almost immediately. The family took the case to the local courts, which refused to offer any respite from their predicament.

The situation is that of a catch 22: there is no method of attaining a building permit, but without a building permit the home is illegal and must therefore be destroyed, so Bassam and his family were left homeless. The bulldozers arrived at nine o'clock in the morning accompanied by 150 soldiers and 20 members of the paramilitary Green Patrol.

Bassam's neighbors gathered in front of the home in non-violent protest of the order, but under threat of violence they retreated and the bulldozers crushed his home to rubble. It was completed at 10:40 AM, taking under two hours to leave a family of five without a home. Bassam and his family's sole crime were being members of an ethnic group in a state that is severely biased against him and those like him. Bassam's family watched the demolition with utter desperation and helplessness, confronted with afaceless force of destruction. The season chosen for the demolition was not lost on the family. The recent rains and cold make the homelessness that much harder. "We have nowhere left." He told members of the RCUV Thursday. Khashm Zanna is an unrecognized village of more than 2000 people livingroughly 15 kilometers south of Beer Sheva in the Negev desert, and has been in the same location for more than 200 years. They have no access to electricity, water, sewage, paved roads, or medical services from theIsraeli government. They are constantly under the threat of home demolition, as all houses in the village have been deemed illegal. This demolition is not an isolated incident, but the latest in a series of co-ordinated operations designed to make life in the villages as unbearable as possible, so as to force the residents to abandon their lands.

Also Thursday, the village of Tweil abu Jarwal was completely destroyed for close to the 20th time. The night prior to this demolition, six young men of the village were arrested and kept overnight in the police holding cells in Beer Sheva. They were arrested in the village on charges of trespassing on their own land, held overnight and then released on the sole condition that they refrain from returning to their homes for two weeks. This village is deeply in need of assistance in the form of new tents, and if you or someone you know can contribute for new tents in the village, please donate through PayPal to yallylivnat@gmail.com, or send a check payable to the RCUV at 47 Ha-Atzmaut St PO Box 10002,Beer Sheva, 81405, Israel

Thank you all,

Joshua Berer,

International Communications Advocate, Regional Council of Unrecognized Bedouin Villages, olomachad@gmail.com

5 comments:

  1. http://www.z-word.com/z-word-essays/false-confessions%253A-how-anti-zionists-incriminate-zionism.html?print

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes an article by our old 'friend' Anthony Julius. Almost impenetrable as Atzmon's articles.

    You'll see from an earlier article http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2008/05/gilad-atzmon-joins-with-anthony-julius.html how Julius's attacks on anti-Zionists are applauded by none other than Gilad Atzmon, the anti-semitic Zionist!

    Unfortunately Julius, for someone who is supposed to be so clever, has difficulty marshalling and confining his arguments and suffers from what one can only describe as Israel Blindness.

    Thus he thinks he's scored a great point because he cites another Zionist devotee, Derek Penslar to the effect that Herzl's well known 1895 Diary entry:

    "We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country ... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."

    didn't apparently even refer to Palestine or Palestinians! No mention of the term Arab is made. In fact at this time Herzl was focussed on Argentina not Palestine.

    Well this is true, up to a point. Argentina was in fact one of two places Herzl saw as ideal for Zionist colonisation (Palestine though trumped it, but Baron Maurice de Hirsch did in fact establish some Jewish settlements there). But it is entirely irrelevant and if the good professor weren't so thick and obtuse, or maybe wilfully blind, he would understand why.

    It doesn't matter whether Herzl was referring to Argentina, Palestine, Uganda/Kenya or indeed Timbuctu! What he was describing was the CHARACTER of the Zionist mode of colonisation - one of transfer and expulsion as opposed to exploitation. It makes not a jot of difference whether Arabs or South Americans were the target. Would it have made it any better if the Zionists had colonised Argentina, no doubt on the ground that with all that gold in South America this was the real Jerusalem, and the Argentinians would have to give way to the people to whom god had given the land! Would it have made any principled difference if Herzl had actually been referring to South Americans?

    Of course not, though I think Penslar is in any case wrong, but if he isn't wrong it makes no difference anyway.

    I can't be bothered to demolish any more of Julius's nonsense.

    Tony G

    ReplyDelete
  3. A heartbreaking article - they always are.


    Gilad Atzmon, the anti-semitic Zionist!
    - Spot on TG!

    Here is a (slightly amended) comment I made on Jews sans Frontiere blog today, which I think worth repeating here on the estimable azvas blog.

    Atzmon uses a form of antisemitic abuse when he uses quotes by famous zionists, such as Chaim Weizmann, but without any further reflection -
    Chaim Weizmann’s view of the Jewish identity as expressed in his famous address at the First Jewish Congress: "There are no English, French, German or American Jews, but only Jews living in England, France, Germany or America."
    The 3rd CategoryThe 3rd Category and the Palestinian Solidarity Movement
    30.6.05

    And again, here is Atzmon quoting Max Nordau -
    "The emancipated Jew is insecure in his relations with his fellow-beings, timid with strangers, suspicious even toward the secret feeling of his friends. His best powers are exhausted in the suppression, or at least in the difficult concealment of his own real character.
    Max Nordau, Speech at the First Zionist Congress August 29, 1897

    Between the Shtetl and the Big City
    One Hundred Years of Jewish Solitude

    CounterPunch

    Atzmon accepts the racist zionist definitions of what it means to be a Jew, and then uses them to go on and write the most turgid series of intellectually constipated articles you'll ever set eyes on.

    For instance, just because the BNP has views about what it means to be 'British' I don't have to accept their racist definitions, and I am not at all obliged to use them to then go on and criticse and abuse British people.

    Atzmon, in his article -
    The Wandering Who
    02 Sept 2008
    - seems cock-a-hoop that Jews aren't a race. Well, the only people these days who would claim such a thing are racists. The fact that some of these racists are Jewish, so what? You get racists everywhere and it's nothing peculiar to Jews or Jewishness or whatever.
    Atzmon adopts the racist views of zionists about Jews in order to give himself the opportunity to parade his own antisemitic credentials.


    all the best!

    ps
    The latest Media Lenes Alert is worth a read -
    CHILDREN IN THE CROSSHAIRS
    Media Silent On Evidence Of Israeli Targeting Of Youngsters
    Media Lens
    03 Nov 2008

    "There is also strong and consistent evidence to suggest that [Israeli forces] deliberately kill Palestinian children in reprisal for the deaths of Israeli civilians or members of the [Israeli forces], which amounts to a war crime."
    Palestinian Council for Human Rights,
    'Blood on their hands. Child killings by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the Gaza Strip. June 2007 - June 2008',
    October 22, 2008 p. 46

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes Joe is right. Atzmon quotes Zionist leaders and ideologues in support of his own political positions, as proof positive that everything he says is correct.

    Just as Zionism was a response to anti-Semitism, so Atzmon is a reflection of Zionism. Thus Atzmon is, to use his own favourite metaphor, a double negation!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Just as Zionism was a response to anti-Semitism, so Atzmon is a reflection of Zionism. Thus Atzmon is, to use his own favourite metaphor, a double negation!
    - Or even
    Atzmon's intellectual honesty and responsibility is an empty signifier, much like his bloated ego.
    (cf antisemitism according to Atzmon is an empty signier)

    We could play these pointless post-modern word games all day I suppose TG, much like Atzmon does.

    all the ebst!

    ReplyDelete

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