Calling Bono
Dan Clore
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://www.counterpunch.org/weir01082010.html
January 8 - 10, 2010
Your Palestinian Gandhis Exist ... in Graves and Prisons
Calling Bono
By ALISON WEIR
Dear Bono,
In your recent column in the New York Times, "Ten for the Next Ten," you
wrote: "I�ll place my hopes on the possibility � however remote at the
moment � that...people in places filled with rage and despair, places
like the Palestinian territories, will in the days ahead find among them
their Gandhi, their King, their Aung San Suu Kyi."
Your hope has already been fulfilled in the Palestinian territories.
Unfortunately, these Palestinian Gandhis and Kings are being killed and
imprisoned.
On the day that your op-ed appeared hoping for such leaders, three were
languishing in Israeli prisons. No one knows how long they will be held,
nor under what conditions; torture is common in Israeli prisons.
At least 19 Palestinians have been killed in the last six years alone
during nonviolent demonstrations against Israel�s apartheid wall that is
confiscating Palestinian cropland and imprisoning Palestinian people.
Many others have been killed in other parts of the Palestinian
territories while taking part in nonviolent activities. Hundreds more
have been detained and imprisoned.
Recently Israel has begun a campaign to incarcerate the leaders of this
diverse movement of weekly marches and demonstrations taking place in
small Palestinian villages far from media attention.
The first Palestinian Gandhi to be rounded up in this recent purge was
young Mohammad Othman, taken on Sept. 22 when he was returning home from
speaking in Norway about nonviolent strategies to oppose Israeli
oppression and land confiscation. He has now been held for 107 days
without charges, much of it in solitary confinement.
The second was Abdallah Abu Rahma, a schoolteacher and farmer taken from
his home on Dec. 10, the only one to be charged with a crime. After
holding him for several days, Israel finally came up with a charge:
�illegal weapons possession� � referring to the peace sign he had
fashioned out of the spent teargas cartridges and bullets that Israel
had shot at nonviolent demonstrators. (One such cartridge pierced the
skull of Tristan Anderson, an American who was photographing the
aftermath of a nonviolent march, causing part of his right frontal lobe
to be removed.)
The third was Jamal Jumah�, a veteran leader in the grassroots struggle,
who was taken by Israeli occupation forces on Dec. 16th and is now being
held in shackles and often blindfolded during Kafkaesque Israeli
military proceedings.
Palestinians have been engaging in nonviolence for decades.
When I was last in Nablus I learned of a massive nonviolent
demonstration that had occurred in 2001 � estimates range from 10,000 to
50,000 Palestinian men, women, and children taking part in a nonviolent
march. All sectors of Nablus had joined together in organizing this �
public officials, diverse parties, religious, secular, Muslim, Christian.
Modeling their action on images of Dr. Martin Luther King, they marched
arm-in-arm, believing that Israel would not kill them and that the world
would care. They were wrong on both counts. Israeli forces immediately
shot six dead and injured many more. And no one even knows about it. At
If Americans Knew we are currently working on a video to try to remedy
the last part; there�s nothing we can do about the dead.
But there�s a great deal you can do, Bono. You can use your talent and
celebrity to tell the world these facts. You can write a New York Times
op-ed about the Palestinian Gandhis in Israeli prisons and call for
their freedom. You can sing of these Palestinian Martin Luther Kings you
wished for, and by singing save their lives.
For the reality is that nonviolence is only as powerful as its
visibility to the world. When it is made invisible through its lack of
coverage by the New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN, Fox News, et
al, its practitioners are in deadly danger, and their efforts to use
nonviolence against injustice are doomed.
In the New York Times you publicly proclaimed your belief in
nonviolence. Now is your chance to demonstrate your commitment.
* * *
Killed by Israeli forces while demonstrating against the Israeli wall
being built on Palestinian land [http://palsolidarity.org/2009/06/7647]
5 June 2009:
Yousef �Akil� Tsadik Srour, 36
Shot in the chest with 0.22 calibre live ammunition during a
demonstration against the Wall in Ni�lin.
April 17, 2009:
Basem Abu Rahme, age 29
Shot in the chest with a high-velocity tear gas projectile during a
demonstration against the Wall in Bil�in.
December 28, 2008:
Mohammad Khawaja, age 20
Shot in the head with live ammunition during a demonstration in Ni�lin
against Israel�s assault on Gaza. Mohammad died in the hospital on
December 31, 2009.
December 28, 2008:
Arafat Khawaja, age 22
Shot in the back with live ammunition in Ni�lin during a demonstration
against Israel�s assault on Gaza.
July 30, 2008:
Youssef Ahmed Younes Amirah, age 17
Shot in the head with rubber coated bullets during a demonstration
against the Wall in Ni�lin. Youssef died of his wounds on August 4, 2008.
July 29, 2008:
Ahmed Husan Youssef Mousa, age 10
Shot dead while he and several friends tried to remove coils of razor
wire from land belonging to the village in Ni�lin.
March 2, 2008:
Mahmoud Muhammad Ahmad Masalmeh, age 15
Shot dead when trying to cut the razor wire portion of the Wall in Beit
Awwa.
March 28, 2007:
Muhammad Elias Mahmoud �Aweideh, age 15
Shot dead during a demonstration against the Wall in Um a-Sharayet �
Samiramis.
February 2, 2007:
Taha Muhammad Subhi al-Quljawi, age 16
Shot dead when he and two friends tried to cut the razor wire portion of
the Wall in the Qalandiya Refugee Camp. He was wounded in the thigh and
died from blood loss after remaining in the field for a long time
without treatment.
May 4, 2005:
Jamal Jaber Ibrahim �Asi, age 15
Shot dead during a demonstration against the Wall in Beit Liqya.
May 4, 2005:
U�dai Mufid Mahmoud �Asi, age 14
Shot dead during a demonstration against the Wall in Beit Liqya.
February 15, 2005:
�Alaa� Muhammad �Abd a-Rahman Khalil, age 14
Shot dead while throwing stones at an Israeli vehicle driven by private
security guards near the Wall in Betunya.
April 18, 2004:
Islam Hashem Rizik Zhahran, age 14
Shot during a demonstration against the Wall in Deir Abu Mash�al. Islam
died of his wounds April 28, 2004.
April 18, 2004:
Diaa� A-Din �Abd al-Karim Ibrahim Abu �Eid, age 23
Shot dead during a demonstration against the Wall in Biddu.
April 16, 2004:
Hussein Mahmoud �Awad �Alian, age 17
Shot dead during a demonstration against the Wall in Betunya.
February 26, 2004:
Muhammad Da�ud Saleh Badwan, age 21
Shot during a demonstration against the Wall in Biddu. Muhammad died of
his wounds on March 3, 2004.
February 26, 2004:
Abdal Rahman Abu �Eid, age 17
Died of a heart attack after teargas projectiles were shot into his home
during a demonstration against the Wall in Biddu.
February 26, 2004:
Muhammad Fadel Hashem Rian, age 25
Shot dead during a demonstration against the Wall in Biddu.
- Hide quoted text -
February 26, 2004:
Zakaria Mahmoud �Eid Salem, age 28
Shot dead during a demonstration against the Wall in Biddu.
Notes and Sources:
(1) Israeli was first exposed in the West by the London Times in the
late 1970s. Foreign Service Journal
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/opinion/03bono.html] wrote about
Israeli torture of Americans in June, 2002, and Addameer
[http://addameer.info/?p=496] gives specifics today.
(2) Al Haq, the West Bank affiliate of the International Commission of
Jurists � Geneva, writes:
[http://freemohammadothman.wordpress.com/2010/01/] ��as part of their
repression campaign, which coincided with the release of the Goldstone
Report, the Israeli forces have re-launched daily dawn raids in villages
affected by the Wall, arresting youths and children, for the purpose of
extracting confessions about prominent community leaders advocating
against the Wall, and continued to intimidate activists by destroying
their private property and threatening them with detention. Finally,
Israel has directly targeted the Grassroots �Stop the Wall� Campaign
[http://stopthewall.org/index.shtml]by arresting and intimidating its
leaders�His village, Jayyous, has been devastated by the Apartheid Wall
(3) Human Rights Watch
[http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/12/04/israel-end-arbitrary-detention-rights-activist]
found that �"The only reasonable conclusion is that Othman is being
punished for his peaceful advocacy...�
(4) Abdallah Abu Rahma was taken
[http://www.popularstruggle.org/freeabdallah]when �eleven military jeeps
surrounded his house, and Israeli soldiers broke the door, extracted
Abdallah from his bed, and, after briefly allowing him to say goodbye to
his wife Majida and their three children � seven year-old Luma, five
year-old Lian and eight month-old baby Laith, they blindfolded him and
took him into custody.�
On Jan. 6th Abdallah wrote: [http://palsolidarity.org/2010/01/10429]:
�I mark the beginning of the new decade imprisoned in a military
detention camp. Nevertheless, from within the occupation?s holding cell
I meet the New Year with determination and hope�. Whether we are
confined in the open-air prison that Gaza has been transformed into, in
military prisons in the West Bank, or in our own villages surrounded by
the Apartheid Wall, arrests and persecution do not weaken us. They only
strengthen our commitment to turning 2010 into a year of liberation
through unarmed grassroots resistance to the occupation.
�The price I and many others pay in freedom does not deter us. I wish
that my two young daughters and baby son would not have to pay this
price together with me. But for my son and daughters, for their future,
we must continue our struggle for freedom��
(5) Tristan Anderson was shot [http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5324]
with a high-velocity canister after photographing a nonviolent protest
in Ni�lin on March 13, 2009. His ambulance was held up for a period of
time by Israeli forces before finally being allowed to take him to a
hospital. Video of parents� press conference
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcK_4ksR1fw]
(6) Israeli forces interrogated Jamal Juma� and then �brought him back
home, handcuffed, and searched his house while his wife and three
children watched. Then they took him off to prison.� � CounterPunch
[http://www.counterpunch.org/hijab12242009.html ] Despite being held for
20 days, [http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/2152.shtml] no charges have
yet been brought against Jamal.
(7) The Nablus march mentioned above took place on March 30, 2001, on
Jerusalem Street in the south of Nablus, leading to the Huwara
checkpoint. This was on what Palestinians call the "Day of the Land" or
"Land Day" (information on Land Day can be seen at
http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/255.shtml).
(8) In our study of the Associated Press, �Deadly Distortion,�
[http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/ap-report.html] we commented:
��our analysts looked at hundreds of articles that AP published on
topics relating to the Israel/Palestine issue, and noted a number of
additional patterns that merit further examination� Nonviolence
movement. Palestinian resistance efforts have included numerous
nonviolent marches and other activities, many joined by international
participants, Israeli citizens, and faith-based groups. This nonviolence
movement has been an important topic in the Palestinian territories,
with growing numbers of people taking part � in 2004 the Palestinian
News Network reported on 79 major demonstrations that were exclusively
nonviolent. Yet, we did not find any reports in which AP had described a
Palestinian demonstration or other activity as nonviolent or utilizing
nonviolence.
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew,
[http://www.ifamericansknew.org/] which provides information about
Israel-Palestine. She can be reached at con...@ifamericansknew.org. She
phoned and faxed Bono�s management company Principle Management
[http://www.fanmail.biz/25157.html] at both their New York and Dublin
locations in an effort to contact him but has not yet received a reply.
She suggests that others may wish to do this as well: 212.765.2330 /
fax: 212.765.2372.
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
(Wait for the new edition: http://hplmythos.com/ )
Lord We�rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"