Women in Black Uk

I was staying in a small village near to Nablus. Nablus is now into its 228th day of curfew. While Palestinians are confined to their houses their town is being systematically destroyed around them and those venturing out to try and get food and medicines, to see their families, or try to get their kids to school are shot and wounded. And this is a pattern being repeated in all the large towns.

I heard a few days ago that the Israeli forces in Gaza attacked Rafah's water supply at Tel el-Sultan destroying with bulldozers the 2 largest of the 6 wells that supply the town's water. This has resulted in a reduction of 50% in the town's water supply. An email the same day (February 1st) reported that the whole of Hebron was under total curfew and tanks and bulldozers had leveled the produce market, crushing all the fruits and vegetables - this in a town where malnutrition is a serious problem because of the closures.

While Bush and Blair prepare for war against Iraq, while the international community's attention is distracted, the already dreadful pressure on Palestine is being increased and a whole people are being throttled to despair and death.

The fears that local villagers confided to me in August - that when the war against Iraq started the Israselis would start transferring Palestinians out of their homes, and would take over more of their lands, that they would suffer another Naqba - disaster - has already begun.

On Tuesday 21st January, just east of the Green Line - inside the West Bank, 62 Palestinian-owned shops and businesses housed in 28 buildings were razed to the ground, along with all their contents, in a once flourishing commercial area in Nazlat 'Isa in the District of Tulkarem. The Israeli military said they would return to destroy the rest. Shocked people were seen looking at the enormous piles of rubble that covered the entire length of the road, hoping to find some of their belongings. Israel had declared Nazlat 'Isa, with its population of 2,500, a 'military zone'.

This is just 1 of the 15 villages that are to be 'confiscated' - can you get your head around what it means to have your village confiscated? - this is just one of 15 in this particular zone - in the northern "first phase" of the Separation Wall. These demolitions will take place near the Green Line, while the Wall itself, which will not be even visible from the village, is being built over 2 kilometers east of Nazlat 'Isa - in other words over 2 kms inside the Occupied Territories.

These demolitions are not only meant to destroy the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of families, but will seal the fate of the village and pave the road for the 'transfer' policy which will leave them homeless, landless, and without any means to sustain their lives.

The 'Apartheid Wall', as it is being called, is only the latest in a series of human rights abuses that includes outright land and water theft; house, farm, and business demolitions; 24 hour curfews going on for weeks and months; electricity, sewage and water cuts; institutional and infrastructural damage; mass arrests, detentions and torture; killings and woundings - in other words - a brutal military occupation.

If ever there was a country that deserves international intervention to stop the blatant disregard for International Humanitarian Law then Israel is that country.

James J. David, a retired US Brigadier General, who served in Vietnam and in the Middle East has an interesting set of questions that I have adapted and would like you to answer for me - I will say the questions and you can tell me the answer:-

Q: Which country in the Middle East is the 4th largest military power in the world?
A: Israel.

Q: Which country alone in the Middle East has nuclear weapons?
A: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle East refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections?
A: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle East seized the sovereign territory of other nations by military force and continues to occupy it in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?
A: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle East routinely violates the international borders of another sovereign state with warplanes and artillery and naval gunfire?
A: Israel.

Q: What American ally in the Middle East has for years sent assassins into other countries to kill its political enemies (a practice sometimes called exporting terrorism)?
A: Israel.

Q: In which country in the Middle East have high-ranking military officers admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed and which country refuses to prosecute these soldiers?
A: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East created 762,000 refugees and refuses to allow them to return to their homes, farms and businesses?
A: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East refuses to pay compensation to people whose land, bank accounts and businesses it confiscated?
A: Israel.

Q: In what country in the Middle East did the man, who ordered the successful assassination of a high-ranking U.N. diplomat, become prime minister?
A: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a U.S. ship, the USS Liberty, in international waters, killing 34 and wounding 171 American sailors?
A: Israel.

Q. What Middle East country preaches against hate yet builds a shrine and a memorial for a murderer who killed 29 Palestinians while they prayed in their Mosque?
A: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle East deliberately targeted a U.N. Refugee Camp in Qana, Lebanon, and killed 103 innocent men, women, and children?
A: Israel

Q: Which country in the Middle East is in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council resolutions and has been protected from 29 more by U.S. vetoes?
A: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle East receives more than one-third of all U.S. aid yet is the 16th richest country in the world?
A: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle East receives U.S. weapons for free and then sells the technology to the Republic of China even at the objections of the U.S.?
A: Israel.

Q: What country routinely tests new weaponry provided by the United States, and tests it against civilians and civilian targets?
A: Israel.

Q. What country in the Middle East was cited by Amnesty International for demolishing more than 4000 innocent Palestinian homes as a means of ethnic cleansing?
A: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle East has just recently used a one-ton smart bomb, dropping it in the center of a highly populated area killing 15 civilians including 9 children?
A: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle East routinely kills young Palestinian children for no reason other than throwing stones at armored vehicles, bulldozers, or tanks?
A: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle East signed the Oslo Accords promising to halt any new Jewish Settlement construction, but instead, has built more than 270 new settlements since the signing?
A: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle East has assassinated more than 100 political officials of its opponent in the last 2 years while killing hundreds of civilians in the process, including dozens of children?
A: Israel.

Q. Which country in the Middle East regularly violates the Geneva Convention by imposing collective punishment on entire towns, villages, and camps, for the acts of a few, and even goes as far as demolishing entire villages while people are still in their homes?
A: Israel.

Q: And the final question:- What country in the Middle East is the United States and the UK threatening to attack because of fear of terrorism?
A: Iraq

For thousands of years now we have heard from the powerful, the rich, the military - that if we want peace, if we want to protect ourselves from violence and mayhem and from terrorists, then we must go to war - that the only way we can have peace is to be prepared to kill for it.

This is absolute rubbish. If we want peace then we have to build peace. If we want to stop terrorism then we have to stop practicing and supporting terrorism - and we have to stop providing terrorists, including Sharon, with weapons and money. If we want other countries to stop building and threatening to use weapons of mass destruction and to disarm, then we have to do the same. If we want other countries to respect international law then we have to do the same and we have to make sure that our allies respect international law too.

The USA deploys at least 30 B61 nuclear bombs here at Lakenheath along with the F-15 fighter planes that will drop them under US and NATO First Use Policy. The nuclear weapons here and the policies for their use are in major contravention of international law as are the UK nuclear weapons aboard Trident submarines. Does this mean that all of us here deserve to be bombed because we have not managed to get our Government to disarm yet?

We have a responsibility to the whole world to protest vigorously and to try our best to nonviolently disarm all weapons of mass destruction wherever we are and what better place to begin than in our own back-yard - here at Lakenheath. I implore you all to do whatever you can, nonviolently and in accordance with international law, to stop this illegal base from being able to carry out its crimes against humanity and to

STOP THE WAR.