Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls who were murdered in the Negev town of Al-Fura’a last week, couldn't find a police officer to listen to her warnings, neither in Arad nor in Ma’ale Adumim. Both police stations operate in areas where Israel wants to gather the Bedouin into permanent communities, against their will, in order to clear more land for Jewish communities. The dismissive treatment Dandis received shows how the Bedouin are considered simply to be lawbreakers by their very nature. But as a resident of the West Bank asking for help for her daughters, whose father was Israeli, Dandis faced the legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords.

The Palestinian police is not allowed to arrest Israeli civilians. It must hand suspects over to the Israel Police. The Palestinian police complain that in cases of Israelis suspected of committing crimes against Palestinian residents, the Israel Police tend not to investigate or prosecute them.

In addition, the town of Al-Azaria, where Dandis lives, is in Area B, under Palestinian civilian authority and Israeli security authority. According to the testimony of Palestinian residents, neither the IDF nor the Israel Police has any interest in internal Palestinian crime even though they have both the authority and the obligation to act in Area B.

The Palestinian police are limited in what it can do in Area B. Bringing in reinforcements or carrying weapons in emergency situations requires coordination with, and obtaining permission from, the IDF. If Dandis fears that the man who murdered her daughters is going to attack her as well, she has plenty of reason to fear that she will not receive appropriate, immediate police protection from either the Israelis or the Palestinians.

Dandis told Jack Khoury of Haaretz that the Ma’ale Adumim police referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee. Theoretically, this committee (which is subordinate to the Civil Affairs Ministry) is the logical place to go for such matters. Its parallel agency in Israel is the Civilian Liaison Committee (which is part of the Coordination and Liaison Administration - a part of the Civil Administration under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories).

In their meetings, they are supposed to discuss matters such as settlers’ complaints about the high volume of the loudspeakers at mosques or Palestinians’ complaints about attacks by settlers. But the Palestinians see the Liaison Committee as a place to submit requests for permission to travel to Israel, and get the impression that its clerks do not have much power when faced with their Israeli counterparts. In any case, the coordination process is cumbersome and long.

The Palestinian police has a family welfare unit, and activists in Palestinian women’s organizations say that in recent years, its performance has improved. But, as stated, it has no authority over Israeli civilians and residents. Several non-governmental women’s groups also operate in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and women in similar situations approach them for help. The manager of one such organization told Haaretz that Dandis also fell victim to this confusing duplication of procedures and laws. Had Dandis approached her, she said, she would have referred her to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has expertise in navigating Israel’s laws and authorities.

John Kerry revealed his long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East on Sunday, hinging on a $4bn (£2.6bn) investment in the Palestinian private sector.

The US secretary of state, speaking at the World Economic Forum on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea, told an audience including Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian economy is essential to achieving a sustainable peace.

Speaking under the conference banner "Breaking the Impasse", Kerry announced a plan that he promised would be "bigger, bolder and more ambitious" than anything since the Oslo accords, more than 20 years ago.

Tony Blair is to lead a group of private sector leaders in devising a plan to release the Palestinian economy from its dependence on international donors. The initial findings of Blair's taskforce, Kerry boasted, were "stunning", predicting a 50% increase in Palestinian GDP over three years, a cut of two-thirds in unemployment rates and almost double the Palestinian median wage. Currently, 40% of the Palestinian economy is supplied by donor aid.

Kerry assured Abbas that the economic plan was not a substitute for a political solution, which remains the US's "top priority".

Peres, who had taken the stage just minutes before, also issued a personal plea to his Palestinian counterpart to return to the negotiations.

"Let me say to my dear friend President Abbas," Peres said, "Should we really dance around the table? Lets sit together. You'll be surprised how much can be achieved in open, direct and organised meetings."

Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops.

“All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive.

Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him.

“I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.”

Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay.

“It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.”

He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?”

Illegal annexation

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community.

Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect.

“After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote.

Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation.

Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce.

Extreme poverty

Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower.

While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line.

“How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”.

“Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked.

“You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS.

Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities.

Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn.

Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank

Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent.

“Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found.

Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population.

To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones.

It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services.

“Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER).

Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”

Just in time for the 5th anniversary of al Qaeda’s September 11th attack, Hollywood’s master conspiracy theory director Oliver Stone produced the movie, “World Trade Center,” which conspiracy theorists hoped would be equal to his provocative movie about the Kennedy assassination, “JFK.”

Goodness knows there have been lots of questions surrounding the attacks on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the downing of United 93, which is the title of another 5th anniversary film. I wondered if Stone’s movie would go back to the lead-up to the attacks, and decided to refresh my memory on details leading up to that tragic event.

Some have compared 9/11 to the Reichstag fire rumored to have been staged by Hitler to confirm Nazi claims of a pending Communist revolution. And what about the Israel-First, Neo Conservatives that serve in the Bush/Cheney administration? Following 9/11 all eyes were on Israel to lend us a hand in learning, as they have, how to combat terrorism. However, the real question is does Israel know how to combat terrorism or create it.

The NeoCon’s Policy for a New American Century (PNAC) report “Rebuilding America's Defenses” refers to the possibility of a “catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.” Were they hinting at an event similar to September 11th to establish American (and its ally Israel’s) dominance in the world? Written in 2000, the report outlines an aggressive policy towards Iraq. "…while the unresolved conflict in Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein," the PNAC report states.

“Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region,” the PNAC report claimed. Yes, the Weapons of Mass Destruction excuse for war was a hoax as well as invading Iraq under the pretext of a War on Terrorism. All had been pre-arranged and some believe staged. But would Oliver Stone have the guts to hint at this in his version of events in the “World Trade Center?”

I clearly recall President Bush’s statement from December 18, 2000, shortly before he was inaugurated. "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator,” according to a CNN report. And in late July, only weeks prior to the 9/11 attacks, Bush was widely quoted as saying, "A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it,” according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, to name one source. Was he thinking of the “to-be-written” 342 page Patriot Act that astonishingly was foisted upon Congress soon after the attacks?

Shortly after George W. Bush lost the popular vote and was selected by the Supreme Court to become the 43rd President of the United States, disquieting articles began to appear about his father, George H. W. Bush, the 41st President, former Vice President to Ronald Reagan, and former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA. “Poppy,” as Dubya calls his father, was revealed to be a major player in the Carlyle Group.

Two months after his son’s Inauguration, New York Times correspondent Leslie Wayne reported, “Mr. Bush (the father) and Mr. Baker (his former Secretary of State) were using their extensive government contacts to further their business interests as representatives of the Carlyle Group, a $12 billion private equity firm based in Washington that has parlayed a roster of former top-level government officials, largely from the Bush and Reagan administrations, into a moneymaking machine.”

“Over the last decade, the Carlyle empire has grown to span three continents and include investments in most corners of the world. It owns so many companies that it is now in effect one of the nation's biggest defense contractors and a force in global telecommunications,” the New York Times article continued. “In getting business for Carlyle, Mr. Bush has been impressive.”

Impressive indeed, Bush senior had a vested interest in war as some have noted over the past five years. Though the Saudi Binladen Group was also tied in with Carlyle, busily investing in aerospace companies along with a myriad of other ventures, following September 11th they claimed they had broken family ties with their infamous brother, Osama.

A deeper understanding of the relationship can be found in a transcript from a Democracy Now interview conducted on March 6, 2003 between Amy Goodman and Dan Briody, author of “The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group.”

“DAN BRIODY: The Carlyle group has had a relationship with the Bin Laden family since the mid 1990's. They have extensive business interests in Saudi Arabia. They used to own the company called Vinell which was recently bombed in Riyadh, and was also operating as a C.I.A. cover up operation--

AMY GOODMAN: --and has just been given the contract to--here it goes from training basically the private militia of a despotic regime in Saudi Arabia for the last 25 years--now got the contract to train the Iraqi military.

DAN BRIODY: That's right. This is a very controversial company. Carlyle no longer owns them. They sold them to T.R.W. a ways back and I believe T.R.W. is part of the Northrop Grumman now, but they did own them back in 1995 when there was another car bomb attack on the same company in Riyadh. So they had an extensive presence in Saudi Arabia and they wanted to increase that presence. And one of the families that they met through the royal family was the Bin laden family, which of course owns a very large construction concern in Saudi Arabia called the Saudi Bin Laden group, a $5 billion company. And that relationship proved to be very fruitful for Carlyle as the Bin Ladens became investors in some of Carlyle's funds. And one of the most significant funds that they invested in was a fund called Carlyle Partners II which is a very large defense oriented fund that the Bin Laden family was invested in, and up until just after September 11th when it became appallingly clear to everyone that the Bin Laden family, because they were invested in this defense fund, stood to gain financially from the war on terrorism which was being waged against their own brother, Osama, so at that point the criticism in the press on Carlyle became too great and they divested themselves from the Bin Laden family.

AMY GOODMAN: And they were together on September 10, September 11.

DAN BRIODY: That's right. The Carlyle group annual investor conference was taking place in Washington D.C. at the Ritz Carlton on the morning of September 11th, so you had all of these incredibly connected, powerful and wealthy ex-politicians, like James Baker III, like George H.W. Bush, like Frank Carluchi and the like, all together with Shafik Bin Laden looking after his family's investment in the Carlyle group, watching the events of September 11th unfold together. Quite a scene.

AMY GOODMAN: Bush that morning, George Bush senior, flying out and caught on a plane at that time.

DAN BRIODY: That's right.”

Though Poppy only admits to meeting with the family on two occasions – once in 1998 and again in 2000 (Judicial Watch, 9/28/01), Osama himself was trained and funded by the CIA to fight the Soviets in the 1980s, according to Michel Chossudovsky, professor of Economics, University of Ottawa in an article entitled: Who is Osama Bin Laden?

“Prime suspect in the New York and Washington terrorists attacks, branded by the FBI as an "international terrorist" for his role in the African US embassy bombings, Saudi born Osama bin Laden was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war "ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet invaders". 1

“In 1979 "the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA" was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.” 2:

“With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan's ISI [Inter Services Intelligence], who wanted to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan's fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad.” 3

“The Islamic "jihad" was supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia with a significant part of the funding generated from the Golden Crescent drug trade:...,” Professor Chossudovsky wrote.

Today the headquarters compound of the Central Intelligence Agency located in Langley, Virginia, is known as the "George Bush Center for Intelligence." (I kid you not.) Former President George Bush was Director of Central Intelligence and head of the Central Intelligence Agency from January 1976 to January 1977. Obviously he had long standing ties to the top-secret spy organization; otherwise he would never have been named as the chief executive. His father, Connecticut Senator Prescott Bush also had ties to the CIA. He had been a close business associate with Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA from 1953 to 1961. Dulles was a key player in the upstart of the Cold War National Security policy which resulted in the arms race, including the nuclear arms build-up. Under Dulles’ leadership, the CIA also established the MK-Ultra, a top-secret mind control research project.

According to the Guardian Unlimited (November 1, 2001), “Two months before September 11 Osama bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days for treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro. The disclosures are known to come from French intelligence which is keen to reveal the ambiguous role of the CIA, and to restrain Washington from extending the war (in Afghanistan) to Iraq and elsewhere.”

“Bin Laden is reported to have arrived in Dubai on July 4 (2001) from Quetta in Pakistan with his own personal doctor, nurse and four bodyguards, to be treated in the urology department. While there he was visited by several members of his family and Saudi personalities, and the CIA,” Guardian correspondent Anthony Sampson wrote. “Intelligence sources say that another CIA agent was also present; and that Bin Laden was also visited by Prince Turki al Faisal, then head of Saudi intelligence, who had long had links with the Taliban, and Bin Laden. Soon afterwards Turki resigned…” At that time, Bin Laden’s illness was so severe he was expected to live no longer than two years.

On the morning of September 11, 2001 as I prepared to leave for work, a friend dropped by with his daughter and son-in-law. Several months earlier, Chet and I had visited his family in New York City. His daughter was working in a lawyer’s office next to the Twin Towers. Her husband was a Dominican, a musician and head of a Merengue band at night who parked cars in the Trade Center parking garage during the day. They lived in a tiny Manhattan apartment with their young son.

Chet had begged them to leave the city, settle in rural Massachusetts where we lived, where their lives might be less exciting but the air was fresh and children are able to play free in the great outdoors. As we spoke of their decision to leave NYC, I remember the sound of an approaching plane. I looked up to see a commercial jetliner, an airbus that seemed closer than usual turning in a south-easterly direction.

When I arrived at work (a bit late) the Criminal Justice professor in the office next to mine burst into my office saying something about a plane – New York City and one of the towers. I later learned that one flight controller said the plane was hijacked over Gardner, Massachusetts, less than 50 miles west of Boston. The state college I worked for at the time was in Gardner. My home was about 5 miles from the town line.

Now, five years later, as I sat in the movie theater waiting to watch the Oliver Stone rendition of events, I flashed back to a phone call I made to a childhood friend on 9/11 once I closed my office door, shaken to the core. Bernie is a sometime Broadway producer who lives in Washington Square, near Greenwich Village, and shares an office not far from the site of the World Trade Center. Fortunately, he had stayed home and his phone was still working. He rushed to the roof top to see what was going on and narrated that one tower was still standing. Moments later he yelled that the tower was collapsing into rubble.

Later a colleague ducked her head into my office to say she had heard a radio report that the Pentagon was under attack. I rushed into the ladies room to mask my trauma. I believed the nation was at war and unconfirmed reports claimed the United States Capitol building had been bombed, Congress was under attack. I needed to remain calm, to appear professional. I looked in the mirror. My blood pressure was so high blood vessels had burst in my eyes. My eyeballs were bright red and grotesque.

An hour passed where students, faculty and staff wandered about watching televisions scattered around the campus. Finally, a college-wide announcement was made that the governor had ordered an evacuation of all government buildings and we were ordered to leave. Days later, when we returned, we were warned about phones possibly triggering bombs that might be hidden anywhere in the building. There were periodic “sweeps” and evacuations as campus police were joined by city police and fire fighters. As faculty and staff at a state institution, we attended meetings to prepare for attacks that fortunately never came.

And here we are, five years since the events of 9/11, no longer in mourning but hardly reassured. I braced myself as the opening credits of the movie rolled over shots of New York City reacting as the planes slammed into the towers. These were familiar scenes broadcast over and over again but still my eyes brimmed with tears. So much has happened since September 11th. So much has changed. America has lost her innocence and too much of the Arab and Muslim world is in ruins because of us – our minds still clouded by the dust and debris spewed from the wreckage.

Since 9/11 we have drawn so close to Israel that our policies seem to be identical at times. Our support for the “Zionist Entity,” as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls Israel is unconditional. Yet, the men responsible for Shock and Awe and over 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths pretend to see no correlation between the constant brutalization of nations and their people and those who stand up to resist American-Israeli despotism – a resistance that for the most part is not terrorism but self-defense. Instead they rant about Islamofascism akin to Hitler and Lenin as they seek to terrorize and subjugate Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan and Iran and Syria if they can manage the trick. Insanity, I thought and sat back to watch the film.

Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center” follows the “real-life story of two Port Authority police officers, John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Pena), who survive the collapse of the towers only to find themselves caught amid the steel and concrete of the remains,” film critic Michael Phillips wrote for the Chicago Tribune.

If I were a film critic I would write: Though the film’s heroes rush toward the towers to help, there are no heroics here; instead they are trapped as debris begins to fall and end up helping no one, least of all themselves. Officer McLoughlin rushes his crew into an elevator, believing it is the only structurally safe place in the building. Then all hell breaks loose and the buildings fall as the narration moves from the injured and dying to the wives and families waiting for news. Finally, film director Stone jumps into the counter-point, the real hero of the melodrama, an ex-Marine named Dave Karnes.

Dave lives and works in nearby Connecticut. Here, the action gets jumpy. There is a cut to Dave, presumably at work. The camera follows Dave and his colleagues watching televised reports and reacting to events. Dave, as a man who served in Iraq in 1991, knows what’s happening. The nation’s at war, he declares. A co-worker claims he heard that Israel has been laid waste by the terrorists. (In real life, I don’t recall anyone saying anything about Israel being under attack – only something about an Israeli Mossad team that set up cameras by the Hudson and trained them on the Twin Towers and later appeared to be celebrating the event, i.e. the “dancing Israelis.”)

Next, Dave is in a chapel with someone next to him - perhaps a minister? They stare long and hard at an extremely large, dark brown, wooden cross as they confer about the unfolding events. Dave prays and resolves to go where he is needed – to the World Trade Center to do what only a Marine can do best – serve his country and God. The camera pans again to the Christian cross and remains there for quite some time – perhaps to imbue us with righteous indignation at what the godless Islamofascist are up to.

As you might expect, the ex-Marine leads a lonely charge up the hill of rubble as dusk falls and others have given up the search. He is followed by a medic and together they hear the clanking for help from Will Jimeno as he pulls on a copper water pipe to sound an alert – a call for help. Jimeno is so far gone as he lies beneath the weight of concrete slabs that he hallucinates Jesus has arrived with a water bottle to save him. As Jimeno and his buddy John McLoughlin are hauled to safety, rescuers cheer and ex-Marine Dave Karnes delivers the final dramatic punch with the line, “We're gonna need some good men out there to avenge this!”

The end credits reveal that Karnes went on to enlist for two tours of Iraq duty, presumably to fight the evil doers who were responsible for 9/11, as Bush would have us believe.

(I suspect no one will be asking me to write a film review anytime soon, not based on the above account).

On September 5th, in a lead-up to the 5th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, the White House released a strategy paper asserting the nation has made progress in the war on terror but that al-Qaida has adjusted to U.S. defenses and "we are not yet safe."

"The terrorists who attacked us on September the 11th, 2001, are men without conscience, but they're not madmen," Bush stated. "They kill in the name of a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs that are evil but not insane." Perhaps the same might be said of George, Dick, Donald, their NeoCon, Israel-First cronies and a Congress that blindly supports a preemptive policy that strikes first and asks questions later – despite international laws to the contrary.

As for Osama Bin Laden, according to an article published on Independence Day, July 4th of this year, unnamed intelligence sources claim a CIA unit that hunted for Osama bin Laden and his top deputies for a decade has been disbanded. The New York Times reported, “The unit, known as ‘Alec Station,’ was shut down late last year. The decision to close the unit, which predated the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, was first reported Monday by National Public Radio. The officials told the Times that the change reflects a view that al-Qaida's hierarchy has changed, and terrorist attacks inspired by the group are now being carried out independently of bin Laden and his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.”

“The CIA said hunting bin Laden remains a priority, but resources needed to be directed toward other people and groups likely to initiate new attacks.”

What I’d like to know is - what does the CIA know that they’re not telling? Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri appear on videos periodically, as if on cue, to make statements such as the latest foolishness about all of us converting to Islam or else – and then blend back into the woodworks. Are the tapes doctored? Who knows? If Adolph Hitler had somehow survived and gone into hiding, would the world have retreated from locating him even though he continued to make inflammatory statements on radio and in news reels?

Though the tragic events of September 11th were horrific and served to galvanize the nation – to what end? I suspect Oliver Stone’s real message is hidden within the symbols embedded in the film. The key to Bush’s strategy is to create fear that Israel and the US are targets – follow a militant Christian cross – and save the world through a bloodied sword. Onward Christian Soldiers. It’s US against THEM – the Judeo-Christians in all our power and might vs. (preferably) unarmed Islamic nations - a 21st century Crusade. Divide and conquer, that’s the stuff, dehumanize and demonize.

There has got to be a better way. The United States’ intent at world domination and control creates enemies – so too does Israel’s non-stop land grabs, wars and torture and killing of the indigenous people of the region.

Despite the militancy of Zionist Christians, I seem to recall Christ saying something about “loving thy enemy” and “turning the other cheek.” Of course, the Bush administration and Congress seem to be most concerned with the question, what’s in it for me? The answer - a world at peace built on the foundation of equal rights and mutual respect. That is the lesson we should have learned from 9/11. Sure we needed to get the bad guys, if only to protect society from further attacks. But the next step should have been to work with Arab and Muslim nations to stabilize (not rape and pillage) the region. Through economic, agricultural, and public works projects, a build-up of educational opportunities and mutual commerce, together we can build a better world.

Endnotes

1 - Hugh Davies, International: `Informers' point the finger at bin Laden; Washington on alert for suicide bombers, The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998.
2 - See Fred Halliday, "The Un-great game: the Country that lost the Cold War, Afghanistan, New Republic, 25 March 1996):
3 - Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999

Genevieve Cora Fraser is a poet, playwright and journalist as well as a long-standing environmental and human rights activist

As the Jerusalem Municipality prepares the largest home demolitions in Occupied East Jerusalem since the Six Day War in 1967, former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres called for the complete ethnic cleansing of the entire Palestinians population from their homes in Jerusalem. Current plans call for the demolition of 88 buildings housing approximately 1,000 residents in the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem which is recognized as part of Palestine under the 1949 Armistice Agreement.

According to the Palestinian National Authority’s International Press Center, Peres who currently serves as the deputy of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, has “called for an exodus to the Palestinian population in occupied Jerusalem, which estimated about 240,000, under a pretext to secure keeping Jerusalem as undivided capital of Israel.”

“Peres, the current leader of the Labor party said in a Cabinet meeting that it is misperception to believe that it is possible to keep Jerusalem as a capital for the Jewish people at a time 240,000 Palestinians live in it,” the IPC reports.

Ironically Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres were the twin architects of the Oslo Peace Accord, sharing the Nobel Peace Prize with Palestinian President Yassir Arafat in 1994. In September 1995, Rabin and Arafat signed the Second Israeli-PLO Accord, popularly called the Oslo II Accord, at the White House in the presence of President Clinton - amidst strong opposition from the Israeli right wing. Shortly afterward Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli religious extremist and Peres formed a new government, serving both as Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. In the general elections the following year, Peres was defeated by Shamir's Likud successor, Binyamin Netanyahu

Peres’ call for complete ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem was echoed by Israeli Prime Minister Arial Sharon during Israel’s so-called Jerusalem Day on June 6, which is the anniversary of Israel's capture of the Old City and Arab East Jerusalem in 1967. Sharon pledged that Jerusalem will remain undivided. “Jerusalem is ours for eternity and will never pass into foreign hands," Sharon said.

Jerusalem Day was also marked by violence. As Israeli police escorted a group of Jewish visitors to the al-Aqsa Mosque, police used stun grenades against stone throwing Palestinians. The al-Aqsa Mosque compound, one of the holiest sites to Muslim worshippers, is known to Jews as the Temple Mount. To Muslims it is the place where the Prophet Muhammad is said to have ascended to heaven. For Jews it is the site of ancient biblical temples. In the past year, right-wing Jewish extremists have made repeated attempts to derail the Gaza disengagement plan by instigating violence. Some have expressed plans to blow up the site and build the 3rd Temple of Jerusalem to replace the 1st built by Solomon and destroyed by the Babylonians and the 2nd which was destroyed by the Romans around the time of Christ.

CBC News Canada reports that “after the morning's clashes members of a Jewish fringe group known as the Temple Mount Faithful marched towards the al-Aqsa compound, chanting and singing the Israeli national anthem. They carried a coffin with the word ‘disengagement’ on it and banners that read ‘We will liberate the Temple Mount.’”

In Ramallah, Palestinian President Abbas said the decision by Israeli police to allow Jewish visitors was a provocation. Palestinian plans call for East Jerusalem to serve as the capital of a future Palestinian state. In March controversy surrounded Israel’s allocation of $2 million to demolish approximately 26,000 Palestinian homes in Jerusalem. Under international law, the occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza is illegal. Ethnic cleansing and mass deportation are designated as crimes against humanity and also prohibited under international law.

The original United Nations Partition Plan of 1947, a.k.a. Resolution 181 – on which Israel bases its legitimacy - called for a future Government of Palestine, the creation of Independent Arab and Jewish States within Palestine, and a Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem. In addition there was to be freedom of movement for both sides and no unnecessary transfers of populations. In cases where eminent domain was necessary, those transferred were to be compensated.

Instead, following the Arab-Israeli War in 1948, eighty percent of the Palestinian population was ethnically cleaned from historic Palestine, with Israel staking claim to seventy-eight percent of their land. The fledgling government then passed “Absentee Property Laws” declaring all Palestinian Arabs “absent” from their property, even those who remained. At that time, Palestinian land, property, and bank accounts were transferred to the state of Israel. To this day, the Palestinian refugee population is the largest in the world, with only one right guaranteed, the Right of Return.

On May 5, 1949, at the time the application of Israel for admission to membership in the United Nations was under consideration, a meeting of the General Assembly was held at Lake Success, New York. The assembled rebuked Israeli actions by reiterating that “the State of Israel, in its present form, directly contravened the previous recommendations of the United Nations in at least three important respects: in its attitude on the problem of Arab refugees, on the delimitation of its territorial boundaries, and on the question of Jerusalem."

The General Assembly statement continued, "The United Nations had certainly not intended that the Jewish State should rid itself of its Arab citizens. On the contrary, section C of part I of the Assembly's 1947 resolution had explicitly provided guarantees of minority rights in each of the two States. For example, it had prohibited the expropriation of land owned by an Arab in the Jewish State except for public purposes, and then only upon payment of full compensation.”

“Yet the fact was that 90 per cent of the Arab population of Israel had been driven outside its boundaries by military operations, had been forced to seek refuge in neighboring Arab territories, had been reduced to misery and destitution, and had been prevented by Israel from returning to their homes. Their homes and property had been seized and were being used by thousands of European Jewish immigrants...”

“Surely the Jews, who claimed that they had always been an uprooted people whose homelessness had driven them to fight for their ancient home, could not in all justice and conscience seek to remedy that uprooting by inflicting it upon others," the United Nations documents affirms.

Israel portrays the children of Palestine as terrorists, faceless stone throwers, but due to Israeli policies, it's highly complex matrix of control, the health, education and overall well-being of the 1.8 million children of Palestine are at severe risk, Adah Kay, Professor at City University, London stated at the UN Conference on Palestine held in New York City in mid-September. Kay co-authored the book Stolen Youth, with Catherine Cook and Adam Hanieh, former staff and volunteers with Defense for Children International/Palestine Section. Published in 2004 and subtitled, "The Politics of Israel's Detention of Palestinian Children," Stolen Youth is the first book to explore Israel's incarceration of Palestinian children based on first-hand information from international human rights groups and NGO workers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Children make up 53 per cent of the Palestinian population.

"Through law, politics and economic restrictions Israel governs Palestine with thousands of military orders controlling every aspect of their lives, down to what plants are allowed to be grown," Kay explained, noting that particularly harsh punishment is handed out to Palestinian children in violation of Article 3, the Rights of Children. The principles espoused in Article 3 first appeared in international law in 1924 as the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child, and was later adopted by the General Assembly on 20 November 1959 and recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1989.

Article 3 states that "the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth." The article also acknowledges that "the family, as the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children, should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities within the community."

"The use of prison is central to the occupation," Kay said. "Since 1967, Israel has detained more than 600,000 Palestinians. Since the intifada until 30 June of this year, 2,650 children have been arrested and imprisoned." Under Israeli jurisdiction, Palestinian children have no right to a lawyer nor are they permitted to know what the charges are.

"Children of 16 and 17 are treated by the military as adults, contrary to international law," Professor Kay reported. "Palestinian children once arrested are subject to torture including severe beatings, exposure to extreme temperatures and forced into extreme positions. They are blindfolded, shackled and put into detention centers in military camps or in settlement outposts where the Israelis force them into signing confessions and attempt to recruit them as collaborators. They are almost always sent on to prison."

Conditions in Israel prisons are overcrowded, and unsanitary. They lack supplies and medical care. Children are isolated, lonely and abused and endure lasting symptoms. Abuse in prison is systematic and amounts to torture. Many attempt suicide and are subject to disease. Once incarcerated, children have no access to formal education which historically has been highly valued in Palestine, according to Kay.

Professor Kay described how Palestinian education in general is under attack because of restrictions on movement. "Children and teachers are stopped at checkpoints and mounds of dirt block roadways. They are gassed, shot at and injured going to and from school," she said. Between 2000 and February 2003, 132 students have been killed on their way to and from school.

"Schools and universities have been broken into, shelled and bulldozed by the military. Because of the constant disruptions there has been a decline in concentration. Absent-mindedness, panic attacks and requests for frequent breaks are on the increase," the professor stated. Military orders have been used to close down schools and universities. Under these conditions, it is difficult to maintain standards and the arts and physical education have suffered as drop-out rates increase.

The over-all health of Palestinian children is also deteriorating with death, injury and disability on the rise. Though previously a middle class society, poverty has significantly increased along with severe malnutrition. In Gaza, malnutrition now equals that in poor sub-Saharan countries. Vitamin A deficiency is also on the rise and the immunization program which once had enjoyed a 90% participation rate has dropped to 50% due to sieges, closure and movement restrictions.

Kay outlined how Israel has deliberately prevented the supply of vaccines from reaching the Palestinian population. "Electricity is cut to clinics so medical supplies, including vaccines, are spoiled and mobile clinics are prevented from reaching their destinations. Palestinians lack access to safe water and must live with open sewers," she added. Siege and military incursions have led not only to births at checkpoints, where dozens of women and their newborns die, there has been a serious decline in preventive health care for mothers and new born babies. Lack of access to safe water also increases health risks for children suffering from malnutrition. Water costs have risen by 80 per cent since 2000.

Despite violence which has become a fact of life under Israel's brutal occupation, Palestinians still display a remarkable resiliency and strong coping mechanisms. However, the children are fearful for themselves and their families, with Gaza and the refugee camps displaying the greatest stress. Among these children violence is increasing. Funeral games are common and aggressiveness toward one another has increased. With death, disease, and disruptions, including homelessness common, parents are experiencing increased difficulty controlling their children as well as a decreased ability to care for them. Social opportunities are rare for these children and their vision for a future is bleak. "With the future of Palestine's children and society at risk, how much longer will the world stand by?" Professor Kay asked.

In a bizarre twist to Biblical tradition, the Israeli military has launched an unprecedented assault on the Palestinian environment that threatens to undermine and destroy the plant and animal life of the Holy Land. Typically such a discussion might focus on toxic herbicidal sprays or leaching hazardous waste tanks, buried nuclear waste or possibly genetically altered crops, all of which may be problems. Along with destruction of the architecture and artifacts of the Holy Land exhibited in wide-spread destruction in Nablus and other sites, Israeli Occupation Forces are also demonstrating an iron clad will to wipe out the natural world that historically has been associated with the Holy Land. For example, Bethlehem's ancient lush and exquisitely beautiful hilltop forest has been completely eradicated to make way for the illegal quasi-military settlement fortress of Har Homa.

Recently the Palestinian National Information Center (PNIC) released statistics relating to the 3045 Palestinians who have been killed and the 38,000 Palestinians wounded in the past 42 months. Clearly, the killing and maiming of men, women and children, most of who are innocent civilians is against all international laws and is condemned throughout the world except for the United States of America which funds the Israeli Terrorist Project (allegedly to counter occasional suicide bombings.) And to read that 62,044 dunums of land have been bulldozed for a variety of reasons and 991,581 trees have been uprooted by Israel has become a mind numbing expectation. The lands expropriated for the Apartheid Wall in West Bank amount to 201,696 dunums.

Ironically, the destruction of fruit bearing trees by theocratic Israel is incongruous with Jewish beliefs. Such a practice is expressly prohibited by the Old Testament even in cases of war. Deuteronomy, Chapter XX, Verse 19 states, "Thou shalt not destroy the trees therefore, by forcing an axe against them; for thou mayest eate of them, and thou shalt not cut them downe." This is not permitted even in a case where they might be employed in a siege.

The motivation behind the 457 agricultural stores and 472 pens destroyed by Israel in the past 42 months is painfully clear as well as the 12,892 live stock killed. It is very much in line with the past destruction of a United Nations food warehouse and the killing of the UN personnel assigned to distribute the food to starving Palestinians (America also vetoed the resolution condemning this act). Israel is employing starvation and dehydration tactics to "ethnically cleanse" a population of 3.5 million, a crime of heinous proportions that the world is frantic to stop but for which the American Congress rushes forward to support with upward of 14 billion dollars each year.

Currently United Nations food aid to the Gaza Strip has been halted due to Israeli restrictions on the movement of staff and food containers, though between 600,000 and 700,000 Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip rely on the emergency food rations supplied by UNRWA. A food convoy funded by the good people of Edinburgh, Scotland was also prohibited entry into the West Bank.

Recently I attended a conference on Palestine at M.I.T. in Boston. A surgeon who spoke at the conference had just returned from Gaza. He had stood in line at a checkpoint with 250 other international medical staff who attempted to enter Gaza to treat the many wounded and increasingly ill population. They had come equipped with all sorts of desperately needed medical supplies. Most of the supplies as well as the medical personnel were refused entry. However, this particular doctor was from San Francisco and the IDF soldier at the checkpoint was also from San Francisco so he had mercy on a hometown guy. (Many IDF are American/Israelis.) Later this same doctor, who sounded and looked like a Greek or Italian American but was of Palestinian origin, was refused entry into an Israeli hotel because of his skin color.

The statistics involving demolition and destruction over the past 42 months goes on and on and includes thousands upon thousands made homeless. In addition, "Israeli aggressions on the Palestinian agricultural sector resulted in damages to 10,323 farmers, bulldozing of six greenhouses and 12 tractors" according to the PNIC. "Also, IOF demolished 262 wells completely and destroyed 207 agricultural stores including devastation of 171,589 pens," the report states along with facts pertaining to 1,014 water wells and 288,985 meters of farms fenced in, and 714,719 water lines that also have been destroyed.

But the statistics that really got to me were these: "840 cows and 9,738 beehives were destroyed by the Israelis." Palestine is the Land of Milk and Honey promised by God to the Israelites as they emerged from Egyptian bondage. Of course this promise was predicated on their obeying God's commandments which they failed to do, hence the Jewish Diaspora if one is inclined to believe Biblical tradition. "And it shall come to passé, that as the Lord rejoiced over you, to do you good and multiply you; so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to naught; and ye shall be plucked off the land whither thou goest to possess it." Deuteronomy, Chapter XXVIII, Verse 63.

Of course, cows can be replaced. Clearly, Israel doesn't want Palestinians to enjoy or receive any health benefits from fresh, wholesome milk, or to enjoy a good steak or hamburger for that matter. But destroying 9,738 beehives? Bees are needed to pollinate the flora which is eaten by the fauna. We are talking about a spring devoid of life if Israel has its way. In leafing through the Bible I also noted a list of curses associated with disobeying God's will, or as the Old Testament states in failing to "walk ever in his way." One of the curses speaks of the Lord smiting the offender with madness. Hello, Israel, have you gone mad, as in stark raving lunacy??? Why are you bent on destroying life itself?

As a postscript, there is now a bill which frankly strikes me as unconstitutional, namely in violation of the American Right to Free Speech. The offending (and offensive) proposed legislation would make it a crime for students to speak out publicly against Israeli policies. It's called H.R. 3077 and would set up a virtual federal tribunal to investigate and monitor criticism of Israel on American college campuses. I have been informed that it has already passed the House and is about to go before the Senate. If one didn't know better, one might assume that the 3rd Reich had somehow morphed into the 4th Reich. Hopefully, that hasn't happened. But it strikes me the issue is pending.