with heart, pain &love for hurted Palestine

Viva Palestina convoy will reach Gaza today
Egypt insists that the convoy must enter Gaza from the israeli controlled Karam Abu Salem check-point instead of Rafah.
That means that Viva Palestina convoy must cross palestinian occupied territories.

Human Rights Watch slams Gaza blockade

Says it's a serious violation of international humanitarian law

Posted by Aharon Etengoff at 09:23 AM GMT on Mar 03, 2009

HUMAN RIGHTS Watch (HRW) has issued a statement criticising Israel's "punishing blockade" of the Gaza Strip.

The organisation also emphasised that ending the closure was "absolutely critical" for Gaza's economic recovery.

"All the pledges of aid [from the recent emergency conference in Egypt] will be worth next to nothing if donors do not demand that Israel open the borders to commercial goods as well as humanitarian essentials," explained Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "This unlawful blockade is the primary impediment to reconstruction and economic activity that is essential to any society."

According to Human Rights Watch, the blockade, which has been in place since Hamas seized control of the coastal territory in June 2007, amounts to "collective punishment of the civilian population" and is a serious violation of international humanitarian law. HRW also claims that Israel "has provided no security or other justification for its refusal to allow goods to enter or leave Gaza via the Karni crossing, or for its strict limits on what is allowed in and in what quantities." Indeed, security officials have reportedly refused entry to a variety of items, including chickpeas, macaroni, wheat flour, notebooks, freezer appliances, generators, water pumps and cooking gas.

"If Gaza business people can ship one truckload of flowers for Valentine's Day, why can't they export flowers, or strawberries and oranges, every day? Israel's blockade policy can be summed up in one word and it is punishment, not security," said Roth.

However, Dan Kosky, a spokesperson for the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, told The News that Roth "unfairly placed [the] blame entirely on Israel."

continue reading here : www.instantnews.net/human-rights-watch-slams-gaza-blockad...

Passage of UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 that
equated Zionism with RACISM.

Juste comme ça

un poste pour mettre les cris de révoltes du jour :

Stupidité sans bornes

Suspicions de borgnes

Absurdités sécuritaires

Excès d'erreurs fatales

Acharnement absolu pou une image du pays ternie !

Ras le bol :s

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45836

MIDEAST: 'EU Paying for Gaza Blockade'
By David Cronin

BRUSSELS, Feb 20 (IPS) - European Union aid has been given to an Israeli oil company which has reduced the supply of fuel to Gaza as part of an economic blockade internationally recognised as illegal, Brussels officials have admitted.

Almost 97 million euros (124 million dollars) in funds managed by the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, were handed over directly to the firm Dor Alon between February 2008 and January this year. Under orders from the Israeli authorities, Dor Alon has been rationing the amount of industrial diesel brought into Gaza in order to deprive its 1.5 million inhabitants of electricity. Power cuts have been a regular occurrence in Gaza because of Israeli actions undertaken since the militant party Hamas won an unexpected victory in Palestinian legislative elections during 2006.

Charles Shamas from the Mattin Group, an organisation based in the West Bank that monitors Europe's relationship with Israel, said that the EU has been helping to accommodate the economic blockade of Gaza. This is despite how the Union's most senior diplomats, including its foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, have condemned the blockade as 'collective punishment' of a civilian population. Collective punishment constitutes a war crime, according to the 1949 Geneva convention.

"The European Union has to give aid lawfully," said Shamas. "That means a good faith effort not to conform to the wrongful acts of others. In this case, the EU is giving effect to wrongful measures by Israel. You can't really credibly call on Israel to correct its behaviour if you are adjusting what you do to fit in to that behaviour."

Christiane Hohmann, spokeswoman on external relations for the European Commission, said that the diesel provided by Dor Alon is used in a power plant that meets 30 percent of Gaza's electricity requirements. Schools and hospitals are the primary beneficiaries of the EU's aid, she added, stating that Dor Alon delivered more than 96 million litres to Gaza as a result of the money it received from the Commission over the past 12 months. Dor Alon has also benefitted from aid granted by Germany and Belgium, both EU member states.

"This is not abetting the blockade," she said. "It is not part of it. What we are always saying to the Israelis is that they need to open the crossings (into Gaza). The heavy diesel needs to get in."

The Commission's aid is administered through a mechanism known as Pegase. Beginning its operations last year, Pegase is designed to bypass Hamas, while supporting activities run by its rival Fatah, the party in charge of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Hohmann stressed, however, that aid to Dor Alon is paid to the company itself and "doesn't go through any Palestinian structure."

A spokesman for Dor Alon said that any reduction in its deliveries to Gaza has been the result of Israeli government policies. "Dor Alon is a private company, it has to do whatever the ministry of defence tells us to do," he added. "I cannot tell you that we deliver more one day and less another day. That doesn't concern us. We follow orders in that matter."

One of the four largest fuel companies in Israel, Dor Alon also owns two chains of convenience stores, Alonit and AM:PM. As well as its activities in Gaza, it runs a network of petrol stations and shops in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

"What's happening here is that the Israeli economy is controlling access to the Palestinian markets to ensure the benefit of certain Israeli companies," said Merav Amir, campaigner with the Coalition of Women for Peace, an organisation that studies how Israeli firms can profit from the occupation of Palestine.

Amir pointed out that all international aid destined to the Palestinian Authority has been routed through Israel since the Oslo accords. Signed between Israel's president Shimon Peres, then foreign minister, and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in 1993, this was the first agreement negotiated face-to-face between the two sides. Yet while its official title referred to the self-government of the Palestinians, many observers feel that Israel has used the agreement to reinforce its control over the West Bank and Gaza.

"Israel holds a lot of money that actually belongs to the Palestinian Authority," added Amir. "With some of that money, it pays the suppliers in a way that sustains the dependence of the Palestinian economy (on Israel). The European Union is in a position to pressure Israel to change how all of this is done."

Chris Davies, a British Liberal member of the European Parliament, this week described how the blockade of Gaza, which he recently visited, is having devastating consequences in a densely populated area that is struggling to come to terms with the 22-day bombardment that Israel launched in late December last year.

Although 500 lorry loads of food and other supplies are needed each day in Gaza, Israel is only allowing 130 to pass through checkpoints controlled by its troops. "Paper for schools, nappies, water purifying tablets, concrete for rebuilding, they are all prohibited," he said. "The normal life of a big city is impossible." (END/2009)

Aujourd'hui arrive le convoi humanitaire "Viva Palestina" en Tunisie.

Soyez accueillants, aidez-les au mieux que vous le pouvez pour qu'ils arrivent sains et saufs à Gaza.

Le trajet de la clandestinité ?

Le convoi ne fera plus le trajet (Annaba-Tunis-Sfax-Gabès-Ras El Jedir) mais fera celui de Tebessa-Gafsa-Gabès-Ras Jedir pour continuer vers la Libye et l'Egypte jusqu'au passage de Rafah pour Gaza !

Ce trajet là ne s'annonce pas du tout reposant.

Souhaitons leur bonne route jusqu'à Gaza et espérons que l'Egypte retrouve la raison d'ici, là pour les laisser passer !

Updates:

Tunisian PM receives British MP George Galloway

TUNIS, Feb. 25, 2009 (TAP) - Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi received, on Wednesday afternoon, British MP George Galloway, member of the House of Commons, who is leading a British caravan of solidarity with the Palestinian people, in the Gaza Strip.

At the end of the meeting, Mr. Galloway said that he was convinced that the majority of the British public opinion is sensitive to the Palestinian people's cause, declaring in this regard: "We are horrified by what happened to the Palestinian population; and we have come to lend a helping hand."

Besides, the British MP pointed out that Tunisia has always supported the Palestinian people's just cause, recalling that the Palestinian leadership had been hosted during long years by Tunisia which had provided it with protection and support.

Mr. Galloway highlighted Tunisia's unwavering support to the Gazan people, saying that he was convinced that a warm welcome will be reserved to the solidarity caravan in Tunisia. The humanitarian convoy, comprising more than 100 vehicles, mobilised some 300 persons.

Setting out from London, the convoy has already crossed Belgium, France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, on its way to the Rafah crossing point. The meeting was attended by Foreign Minister Abdelwaheb Abdallah.

www.tap.info.tn/en/index.php?option=com_content&task=...

Gaza Convoy - Safely Into Tunisia

Written by Press Release
Wednesday, 25 February 2009 20:04
pacificfreepress.com/news/1/3770-gaza-convoy-sagely-into-...

De Gaza

De Gaza

Maroc-Algérie : Ensemble, ils ont dit " oui, rien que pour tes yeux Gaza ! "

Ils l'ont fait, ils ont ouvert leurs frontières dans un geste historique pour laisser passer la longue caravane d'aides humanitaires "Viva Palestina".

De malla3waj

De Gaza

Viva palestina: the movie link


link

The gaza aid convoy (link)

Volunteers will drive vehicles donated from all over Britain to Westminster on Valentine’s Day to form the convoy which will then drive almost 5,000 miles together through France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt where they will cross the border at Rafah into Gaza on 2nd March.

The convoy includes a fire engine, 12 ambulances, a boat and trucks filled with medicines, cash, tools, clothes, blankets and shoe-boxes filled with gifts for children. Each person travelling on the convoy is a self-financed British volunteer. The vehicles will be left with the people of Gaza; volunteers will fly home to the UK...

(link)

The effort is being co-ordinated by the campaign group Viva Palestina and is supported by the Stop the War Coalition, the Anglo-Arab Organisation, several British trade unions and a large number of Muslim organisations...

(link)

Video of the departure (link 1) (link 2)

A boat forming part of the Viva Palestina aid convoy now travelling overland from London to Gaza. The boat is intended to replace just one of the many Palestinian fishing boats sunk by the Israelis.

(link)

The convoy has arrived in africa!
“Just driven at 40mph through the streets of Tangier. Crowds of people lined the route cheering, giving victory signs and waving! Amazing!” George Galloway’s SMS...

(link)

19th Feb. 2009
The convoy reaches fez (link)


20th Feb. 2009
History in the making

In a magnificent gesture of solidarity with the people of Gaza, Morocco and Algeria have agreed to set aside their differences to open their land border for the first time since 1994 for the sake of the convoy, something that Condaleezza Rice failed on several occasions to persuade the two countries to do.

(link) (link 2)

It is still possible to join up with the convoy as it arrives in Egypt during the first week of March
see the Viva Palestina website for full details

(link)

As a journalist I love being first with the news so when I was handed a red hot exclusive story a few hours ago I could barely contain myself.

the media continues to give “Viva Palestina” a wide berth, with a few notable exceptions...

This is a real shame because they've really missed out on some excellent stories including:
*Heroic convoy members saving the lives of Moroccan policemen after a near-fatal road crash near Fes.
*Heroic London mother-of-six battling cancer continues her mercy mission for the sake of the children of Gaza.
*History in the making as Morocco and Algeria open their land borders for the first time in nearly two decades to let the mercy convoy pass.

Of course most of those making the headlines are Muslims and as we know, the Islamaphobic media in Britain prefers to write about Muslims in a negative way.
But this flawed news judgment reflects badly on them and not the "Viva Palestina" crew who come from all parts of Britain - they might not have been born in the UK but they are doing their adopted country proud.

* Yvonne Ridley is on board the "Viva Palestina" convoy with award-winning film-maker Hassan al Banna Ghani - her website is www.yvonneridley.org

Read more here : "Viva Palestina" grabbing more headlines By Yvonne Ridley

البرلماني البريطاني جورج غالواي يقود قافلة تبرعات الشعب البريطاني إلى غزة.

قافلة المساعدات ستصل غزة مرورا بفرنسا’ إسبانيا’ المغرب’ الجزائر’ تونس’ ليبيا و مصر

جميع المشاركين هم بريطانيون من كافة فئات المجتمع و الأعمار تطوعوا لقيادة أكثر من 100 سيارة معبأة بالمساعدات الضرورية التي يحتاجها أهل غزة’ وهم يسافرون على نفقتهم الخاصة كما سيدفعون ثمن تذاكرالطائرة التي ستقلهم للعودة إلى بلدهم’ إذ أنهم سيتركون السيارات بما فيها في غزة. تأتي هذه المبادرة إحتجاجا على رفض قناة ال "بي بي سي" بث نداء لإغاثة غزة أثناء القصف الإسرائيلي. يذكر أن ال"بي بي سي" و "سكاي نيوز" رفضتا بث النداء بداعي "الحياد"’ كما اختارتا عدم تغطية حملة المساعدات البريطانية بالرغم من ان الموكب المنطلق نحو غزة ليطأ إفريقيا يعد الأهم من نوعه منذ نهاية الحرب العالمية الثانية "



للمساعدة المادية الرجاء الضغط على الرابط التالي

http://www.vivapalestina.org/donations.htm

قافلة المساعدات الآن في المغرب

Israel Refuses to Sign Cease-Fire Until Soldier is Released

www.nowpublic.com/world/israel-refuses-sign-cease-fire-un...

The Real Estate War in Gaza
The History and "Morals" of Ethnic Cleansing

www.counterpunch.org/buch01062009.html

Obama tells Muslims, 'Americans are not your enemy'

Obama has just sent 17 THOUSAND SOLDIERS TO Afghanistan...

YES WE CAN.........NOT STOP THE WAR!

Zionism is a Disease of the Mind

By Middle East Online
To virtually incarcerate the Palestinian people inside degrading cages, destroying their livelihoods, confiscating their lands, stealing their water and uprooting their trees, and then to condemn their legitimate resistance as terrorism is a disease of the mind, notes Zaid Nabulsi.
I lost my gloves one day in a coffee shop in Geneva, and I tell you, it’s difficult to ride without them when it’s really cold. So as I was paying for a new pair with a credit card, the salesman, whom I knew was from Israel, tried to start some small talk by asking me what my family name means. I told him that it relates to the city of Nablus where my family is originally from.
Suddenly, the most bewildered look was plastered on his face. “Where is Nablus?” he asked, “I’ve never heard of it.” Then, after realizing that I knew he was bullshitting me, he pretended to remember, “Ah, Shkheim you mean? ”With my insistence not to learn these ugly names that the deranged Zionists have dug up from oblivion to erase our identity, that name certainly didn’t ring a bell. But now it was my turn. Although I knew where he was from, I asked “And you’re… from?” As he smiled while reminding me, I replicated the same look on his face moments ago. “Israel? Where is that?” Then after a brief pause, “Ah, the land of Canaan you mean. Palestine”.
You see if you want to get biblical on me, there is no such thing as Israel either, and I made that clear to this smartass. Here we were all of a sudden; my family descended from a place called Shkheim, and this guy a Palestinian. God does work in mysterious ways, but I still thanked Him for His small mercies that at least my name was not Zaid Shkheimy. “Have a nice day”, I told my Israeli friend. It was in fact a very cold, but still magnificently sunny day to hit the roads. The gloves warmed up my grip on the bike, but my heart was still frozen. I just cannot stand thieves who steal your gloves, or any other kind of thieves.
It was then that it finally occurred to me. Zionism is a sickness, for it takes much more than just a twisted ideology to make people think like that. It requires a profound leap of immorality of a higher order to instill this mentality in your followers. Zionism is not merely a political movement, but in its essence represents a deeply disturbed view of the world, which is a reflection of a terrible disease of the mind.
Indeed, to deny the existence of a vibrant community such as the Palestinian society in the early twentieth century and describe Palestine as “a land without a people for a people without a land” is a disease of the mind.
To assert property claims over real estate after the lapse of more than 2000 years with the same certainty of title as if one resided there yesterday is a disease of the mind.
To describe the colonial immigration to Palestine of a European people with no proven historical link to the ancient Israelites – and whose great, great recorded ancestors have never set foot there – as some kind of a “return” to that land is indicative of a perverted misunderstanding and misapplication of the verb to “return” and can only be a result of a disease of the mind.
To blame the Palestinians for being unreasonable in rejecting a partition plan in 1947 which gave the Jews, who only owned 7 percent of the land, an astonishing half of Palestine, is a disease of the mind.
To demand of the Arabs at the time to peacefully succumb to such partition, where 86 percent of the land designated for the proposed Jewish state was Palestinian-inhabited and owned land, is a disease of the mind.
To eventually grab 78 percent of Palestine through war and to force the flight of the population through deliberate massacres and then call it a war of independence is a disease of the mind.
To deny the orchestrated massacres and eradications of hundreds of Palestinian villages in 1948 and then denounce the Israeli historians who later exposed this truth as self-hating Jews is a disease of the mind.
To claim that having escaped the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, and Dachau is a justification for the murder, expulsion, and occupation of another guiltless people is a disease of the mind.
To legislate that any resident of Poland, Hungary, New York, Brazil, Australia, Iceland, or even Planet Mars, who happens to be blessed with a Jewish mother (yet cannot point to Palestine on the map) has a superior right to “return” and settle in Palestine to someone who has been expelled from his very own land, confined to a squalid refugee camp, and still holds the keys to his house, is a disease of the mind.
To blame God for the theft and occupation of someone else’s land by claiming that it was He who had pledged this land exclusively to the Jews, and to seriously promote the myth of a land promised by the Almighty to His favorite children as an excuse for this crime, is a disease of the mind.
To milk the pockets of the world for the atrocities of the Nazis, while stubbornly refusing a simple admission of guilt, let alone compensation or repatriation, for the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people is a disease of the mind.
To keep reminding and blackmailing the world of the plight of the Jews under Hitler 70 years ago, while at the same time inflicting on the Palestinians today the same fate of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, is a disease of the mind.
To virtually incarcerate the Palestinian people inside degrading cages, destroying their livelihoods, confiscating their lands, stealing their water and uprooting their trees, and then to condemn their legitimate resistance as terrorism is a disease of the mind.
To believe you have the right to chase the Palestinians into an Arab capital city in 1982 and to indiscriminately bombard its civilians for a relentless three months, murdering thousands of innocent people is a disease of the mind.
To encircle the civilian camps of Sabra and Chatila after evacuating the fighters and to unleash on them trained dogs (while providing them with night-illuminating flares for efficiency) and then deny culpability for the carnage is a disease of the mind.
To publicly declare a policy of breaking the bones of Palestinian stone-throwers to prevent them from lifting stones again and to enact this policy is a disease of the mind.
To have the sadistic streak of exacting vengeance on the innocent families of suicide bombers by punishing them with the dynamiting of their home is a disease of the mind.
To describe the offer of giving the Palestinians 80 percent of 22 percent of 100 percent of what is originally their own land as a “generous” offer is a disease of the mind.
To believe that you have the right to continue to humiliate the Palestinians at gun point by making them queue for hours to move between their villages, forcing mothers to give birth at check-points is a disease of the mind.
To flatten the camp of Jenin on its inhabitants and deny any wrongdoing is a delusional condition which is symptomatic of a serious disease of the mind.
To build a huge separation wall under the pretext of security, which disconnects farmers from their farms and children from their schools, while stealing even more territory as the wall freely zigzags and encroaches on Palestinian land is a disease of the mind.
To leave behind, in the last 10 days of a losing war in Lebanon, more than one million cluster bombs which have no purpose except to murder and maim unsuspecting civilians is a product of an evil disease of the mind.
To believe that the entire world is out to get you and to denounce any critic of the racist policies of the State of Israel as an anti-Semite, the latest victim being none other than peace-making Jimmy Carter, is an acute stage of mass paranoia, which is a disease of the mind.
To possess, in the midst of a non-nuclear Arab world, more than 200 nuclear warheads capable of incinerating the whole planet in addition to having the most advanced arsenal of weaponry in the world while continuing to play the role of a victim is a disease of the mind.
Yes, and for that salesman in peaceful Geneva to be so insecure as to refuse to acknowledge the name of the largest West Bank city under his country’s brutal military occupation is, sadly, nothing but an infectious disease of the mind.

Zaid Nabulsi is a lawyer. He spent many years working for the United Nations in Geneva. This article was originally published in Jordan’s Living Well magazine.

Please publish these photos everywhere to fight ignorance, desinformation, hypocrisy and conspiracy

Preghiera pubblicare queste foto dappertutto per combattere l'ignoranza, la desinformazione, l'ipocrisia e la cospirazione

Prière de publier ces photos partout pour lutter contre l'ignorance, la désinformation, l'hypocrisie et la conspiration

Bitte diese Fotos überall veröffentlichen, um Unwissenheit, Desinformation, Hypokrisie und Konspiration zu kämpfen

Vous croyez toujours qu' Encarta est un support pédagogique fiable ?

www.lemonde.fr/opinions/article/2009/01/28/effacez-le-nom...


Erase my grandfather's name at Yad Vashem, by Jean-Moïse Braitberg

Mr. President of the State of Israel, I am writing to you to intervene with the appropriate authorities to withdraw, from the Yad Vashem memorial dedicated to the memory of Jewish victims of Nazism, the name of my grandfather, Moshe Brajtberg, gassed at Treblinka in 1943, and those of other members of my who family died during deportation to various Nazi camps during World War II. I ask you to honor my request, Mr. Chairman, because what took place in Gaza, and more generally, the injustices to the Arab people of Palestine for sixty years, disqualifies Israel to be the center of the memory of the harm done to Jews, and thus to all humanity.

You see, since my childhood, I lived in amongst survivors of the death camps. I saw the numbers tattooed on their arms, I heard the story of torture; I knew the impossible grief and I shared their nightmares. I was taught that these crimes must never happen again, that never again must man, because of ethnicity or religion despise other man, mock his Human Rights of living a safe, dignified life, without barriers, and hope, so remote be it, of a future of peace and prosperity.

Yet Mr. President, I note that despite dozens of resolutions adopted by the international community, despite the glaring evidence of the injustices done to the Palestinian people since 1948, despite the hopes raised in Oslo, and despite the recognition of the right of Israeli Jews to live in peace and security, repeatedly reaffirmed by the Palestinian Authority, the only answers given by successive governments of your country have been violence, bloodshed, confinement, incessant controls, colonization, deprivations.

You'll tell me Mr. President, that Israel has the right to defend itself against people launching rockets into Israel, or suicide bombers that destroy innocent Israeli lives. My response to that is that my humanism doesn't vary according to the nationality of the victims.

Yet you, Mr. President, you lead the destiny of a country which claims not only to represent the Jews as a whole, but also the memory of those who were victims of Nazism. This is what concerns me and that I find unacceptable.

By displaying the names of my family members at the Yad Vashem Memorial, in the heart of the state of Israel, your state imprisons my family memories behind the barbed wires of zionism, and makes it hostage of a so-called moral authority which commits every day the abomination of denying justice.

So, please, remove the name of my grandfather from the shrine dedicated to cruelty against Jews so that it no longer justifies the injustice being done to the Palestinians.

Please accept, Mr. President, the assurances of my respectful consideration.

www.lemonde.fr/opinions/article/2009/01/28/effacez-le-nom...


Erase my grandfather's name at Yad Vashem, by Jean-Moïse Braitberg

Mr. President of the State of Israel, I am writing to you to intervene with the appropriate authorities to withdraw, from the Yad Vashem memorial dedicated to the memory of Jewish victims of Nazism, the name of my grandfather, Moshe Brajtberg, gassed at Treblinka in 1943, and those of other members of my who family died during deportation to various Nazi camps during World War II. I ask you to honor my request, Mr. Chairman, because what took place in Gaza, and more generally, the injustices to the Arab people of Palestine for sixty years, disqualifies Israel to be the center of the memory of the harm done to Jews, and thus to all humanity.

You see, since my childhood, I lived in amongst survivors of the death camps. I saw the numbers tattooed on their arms, I heard the story of torture; I knew the impossible grief and I shared their nightmares. I was taught that these crimes must never happen again, that never again must man, because of ethnicity or religion despise other man, mock his Human Rights of living a safe, dignified life, without barriers, and hope, so remote be it, of a future of peace and prosperity.

Yet Mr. President, I note that despite dozens of resolutions adopted by the international community, despite the glaring evidence of the injustices done to the Palestinian people since 1948, despite the hopes raised in Oslo, and despite the recognition of the right of Israeli Jews to live in peace and security, repeatedly reaffirmed by the Palestinian Authority, the only answers given by successive governments of your country have been violence, bloodshed, confinement, incessant controls, colonization, deprivations.

You'll tell me Mr. President, that Israel has the right to defend itself against people launching rockets into Israel, or suicide bombers that destroy innocent Israeli lives. My response to that is that my humanism doesn't vary according to the nationality of the victims.

Yet you, Mr. President, you lead the destiny of a country which claims not only to represent the Jews as a whole, but also the memory of those who were victims of Nazism. This is what concerns me and that I find unacceptable.

By displaying the names of my family members at the Yad Vashem Memorial, in the heart of the state of Israel, your state imprisons my family memories behind the barbed wires of zionism, and makes it hostage of a so-called moral authority which commits every day the abomination of denying justice.

So, please, remove the name of my grandfather from the shrine dedicated to cruelty against Jews so that it no longer justifies the injustice being done to the Palestinians.

Please accept, Mr. President, the assurances of my respectful consideration.

PROTESTA DE UN INTELECTUAL FRANCÉS POR LA ACTUACIÓN DE ISRAEL EN GAZA

TESTIMONIO CONTRA EL HORROR

www.elperiodico.com/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=46&id...

www.lemonde.fr/opinions/article/2009/01/28/effacez-le-nom...


Erase my grandfather's name at Yad Vashem, by Jean-Moïse Braitberg

Mr. President of the State of Israel, I am writing to you to intervene with the appropriate authorities to withdraw, from the Yad Vashem memorial dedicated to the memory of Jewish victims of Nazism, the name of my grandfather, Moshe Brajtberg, gassed at Treblinka in 1943, and those of other members of my who family died during deportation to various Nazi camps during World War II. I ask you to honor my request, Mr. Chairman, because what took place in Gaza, and more generally, the injustices to the Arab people of Palestine for sixty years, disqualifies Israel to be the center of the memory of the harm done to Jews, and thus to all humanity.

You see, since my childhood, I lived in amongst survivors of the death camps. I saw the numbers tattooed on their arms, I heard the story of torture; I knew the impossible grief and I shared their nightmares. I was taught that these crimes must never happen again, that never again must man, because of ethnicity or religion despise other man, mock his Human Rights of living a safe, dignified life, without barriers, and hope, so remote be it, of a future of peace and prosperity.

Yet Mr. President, I note that despite dozens of resolutions adopted by the international community, despite the glaring evidence of the injustices done to the Palestinian people since 1948, despite the hopes raised in Oslo, and despite the recognition of the right of Israeli Jews to live in peace and security, repeatedly reaffirmed by the Palestinian Authority, the only answers given by successive governments of your country have been violence, bloodshed, confinement, incessant controls, colonization, deprivations.

You'll tell me Mr. President, that Israel has the right to defend itself against people launching rockets into Israel, or suicide bombers that destroy innocent Israeli lives. My response to that is that my humanism doesn't vary according to the nationality of the victims.

Yet you, Mr. President, you lead the destiny of a country which claims not only to represent the Jews as a whole, but also the memory of those who were victims of Nazism. This is what concerns me and that I find unacceptable.

By displaying the names of my family members at the Yad Vashem Memorial, in the heart of the state of Israel, your state imprisons my family memories behind the barbed wires of zionism, and makes it hostage of a so-called moral authority which commits every day the abomination of denying justice.

So, please, remove the name of my grandfather from the shrine dedicated to cruelty against Jews so that it no longer justifies the injustice being done to the Palestinians.

Please accept, Mr. President, the assurances of my respectful consideration.

(cliquez sur l'image pour lire)