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<h1> Senator Barbara Boxer Upstages Powerful Israeli Testimony</h1>
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<div class="cat-date-line"><big><big><span class="cat-date-line2"><a
href="http://www.popularresistance.org/category/educate/" title="View
all posts in Educate!" rel="category tag">Educate!</a></span>
<span class="cat-date-line3"> <a
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<span class="cat-date-line4">By Rania Khalek, <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/us-senator-filibusters-live-coverage-powerful-palestinian-testimonies"
target="_blank">www.electronicintifada.net</a><br>
August 8th, 2014</span><br>
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<p><big><big> </big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><em>CSPAN cut from Tariq Abukhdeir’s live, moving
testimony of Israeli abuse in Jerusalem to cover Barbara
Boxer’s incoherent pro-Israel rant to a mostly empty
Senate chamber. (<a
href="http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4505836/barbara-boxer">screenshot</a>)</em></big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big><b><b>Goes to Senate Floor to Speak Incoherent
Israeli Platitudes Forcing CSPAN to Cover Her Rather
than American Between by Israelis</b></b></big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>On Friday, fifteen-year-old <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/tariq-abukhdeir">Tariq
Abukhdeir</a> spoke at a <a
href="http://www.c-span.org/video/?320809-1/discussion-israelpalestinian-conflict">hearing
on Capitol Hill</a> about the brutal beating he endured at
the hands of Israeli police in early July.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>The purpose of the hearing was to address Israeli
impunity and US <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/complicity">complicity</a>
in crimes against Palestinians. Tariq was one of six
panelists to address the room, which was overflowing with
congressional staffers.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Moderated by author and campaigner <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/people/josh-ruebner">Josh
Ruebner</a>, other panelists included Tariq’s mother, Suha
Abu Abukhdeir; Hassan Shibly of the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/council-american-islamic-relations">Council
on American-Islamic Relations</a>, Florida chapter;
Sunjeev Bery from <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/amnesty-international">Amnesty
International</a>; Brad Parker from <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/defence-children-international-palestine-section">Defence
for Children International</a> and Palestinian author <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/people/laila-el-haddad">Laila
El-Haddad</a>.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Though he was just one of six speakers, Tariq’s
testimony was especially powerful as he relayed to the
audience the horrors and discrimination he witnessed and
experienced as a Palestinian-American child visiting his
ancestral homeland.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>But just as Tariq started to detail <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israel-holds-us-boy-without-charge-after-police-nearly-beat-him-death">the
Israeli beating that left him unconscious</a> and
unrecognizable, CSPAN 2, which was broadcasting the hearing
live, cut to the Senate floor.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>You can <a
href="http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4505836/barbara-boxer">watch
the whole thing back on CSPAN’s website</a>. The cut from
Tariq to Boxer occurs soon after time code 03:30.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<h2><big><big>Suppressing Palestinian voices</big></big></h2>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Tariq began his testimony by describing the
widespread violence Israeli soldiers inflicted on his
neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem after his cousin and
best friend, sixteen-year-old <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/muhammad-abu-khudair">Muhammad
Abu Khudair</a>, was kidnapped and burned alive by Jewish
vigilantes who were incited to violence by Israeli leaders
following the murder of three Israeli teens hitchhiking from
an illegal settlement in the West Bank.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Tariq and several of his cousins watched from an
alley, Tariq explained, as Israeli soldiers shot rubber
bullets at protesters. Eventually the soldiers were
attacking in Tariq’s direction, prompting a terrified Tariq
to run. After he jumped a fence and tripped, “the Israeli
police grabbed me from behind, slammed my face into the
floor, zip-tied my hands behind my back and started to kick
me and punch me in the face and in the ribs,” recounted
Tariq.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>For those tuning into CSPAN, this was the last they
heard from Tariq, whose speech was suddenly replaced by
Democratic Senator <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/barbara-boxer">Barbara
Boxer</a> from California on the Senate floor agitating
for greater support for Israel to a mostly empty room as
most most elected representatives had departed that day for
a five-week recess.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>CSPAN told the The Electronic Intifada that the
channel is required to cut to the Senate floor when an
elected official is speaking.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Boxer’s office did not respond to calls asking if the
senator was aware that the hearing was taking place.
However, organizers collecting names of congressional
staffers in attendance told The Electronic Intifada that an
intern from Boxer’s office tried to get into the hearing but
left because there was no space, suggesting Boxer knew she
was interrupting the hearing.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<h2><big><big>Israeli talking points</big></big></h2>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Boxer spent the next fifteen minutes spewing
semi-coherent platitudes about Israeli victimhood. “We all
know that our ally Israel is in a fight for its survival
because a terrorist group, so named by the United States and
Europe, is at war with Israel right now,” Boxer declared.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>In what seemed like a transparent attempt to counter
Tariq’s narrative, Boxer added, “we remember how it all
started with the kidnapping of three Israeli boys and their
torture and their death and a mosque praised that.
Tragically there was a revenge killing and the Israeli
government arrested the Israelis responsible for that and
they are going to face justice while Hamas praises, praises
what happened.”</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>As usual, reality tells a much different story.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Even Israeli officials openly admit that <a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/killed-turning-onslaught.html">Hamas
was not responsible</a> for the kidnapping or the murder
of the three Israeli teens, whose disappearance was used by
the Israeli government as a pretext to rampage through the
West Bank, ransacking homes and arresting hundreds of people
under the guise of a rescue mission for three boys that <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/netanyahu-government-knew-teens-were-dead-it-whipped-racist-frenzy/13533">authorities
knew had been killed</a> hours after they were reported
missing.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Boxer also championed the lie that Hamas broke the
ceasefire that same Friday morning by capturing an Israeli
soldier.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>It has since been revealed that the <a
href="http://www.alternet.org/world/who-broke-ceasefire-obama-blames-hamas-against-all-evidence">Israelis
broke the ceasefire</a> and subsequently <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.608715">carpet
bombed Rafah</a> with the stated aim of killing an Israeli
soldier because the Israeli army suspected he had been
captured — a procedure known as the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/did-israeli-army-deliberately-kill-its-own-captured-soldier-and-destroy-gaza">Hannibal
Directive</a>. In an attempt to kill their own soldier,
the Israeli army slaughtered more than 150 Palestinians
across Rafah, which has sustained incalculable damage.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>As Boxer continued to spew Israeli talking points,
the reason for her tirade on the Senate floor became
increasingly unclear. One moment she was blaming Hamas for
violating that morning’s ceasefire and the next she was
urging the Senate to allow Israel to participate in the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/visa-waiver-program">US Visa
Waiver Program</a>.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>At the end of Boxer’s rant, CSPAN cut back to the
hearing in time to catch Suha Abukhdeir’s closing remark:
“The life of a Palestinian in Gaza should be valued as much
as the life of any human being.”</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Next at the podium was CAIR Florida’s Hassan Shibly,
who said, “As an American attorney, what happened to Tariq
Abukhdeir at the hands of a nation that claims to be a
democracy and claims to be an ally of the United States and
—” That’s as far as Shibly got before he was replaced by
live footage of Boxer once again on the Senate floor. This
time Boxer was joined by Democratic Senator Harry Reid from
Nevada. The two interrupted the remainder of the hearing
discussing various pieces of legislation that can’t even be
voted on until the Senate reconvenes in September.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Given the choke-hold pro-Israel lobbying
organizations like AIPAC have on US elected officials, it is
plausible Boxer’s maneuvering was orchestrated to suppress
the reach of an open and honest conversation about Israeli
criminality, much like US President Lyndon Johnson called an
impromptu press conference to interrupt televised coverage
of former sharecropper and civil rights activist <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07PwNVCZCcY">Fannie
Lou Hamer’s moving testimony</a> at the 1964 Democratic
National Convention.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<h2><big><big>Palestinian voices are a threat</big></big></h2>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>The pro-Israel community has every reason to worry
about the airing of Palestinian voices like Tariq’s, Suha’s
and Laila El-Haddad’s.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Their experiences are undeniable proof of the
supremacist ideology that governs Israeli society and
subjugates Palestinians, even those who hold American
passports. Indeed, it is because Tariq is American that his
story is so powerful.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>In the United States, he is afforded basic rights
that he was violently denied in occupied Palestine simply
because he is Palestinian, a paradox that shatters the myth
of Israel as a democratic state.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<h2><big><big>A family under attack</big></big></h2>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>“The Palestinian people, they don’t have rights,”
said Tariq at the hearing. “When I visited over there, I
actually forgot that I had freedom. And for my cousins, I
really wish that they had the same freedoms that I have
living in America.”</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Tariq later explained to The Electronic Intifada that
his cousins and friends who were beaten and arrested
alongside him in early July are still languishing in Israeli
jails.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>One cousin in particular, Mahmoud, is Tariq’s closest
friend and was beaten and arrested while trying to help
Tariq.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>“Mahmoud is 15 and a half like me,” Tariq told The
Electronic Intifada. “Him and Muhammad [Abu Khudair], God
rest his soul, were my first two friends that I made in
Palestine. I hung out with Mahmoud and Muhammad every day.”</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Hours after learning that their best friend was
forced to drink gasoline and burned alive, Tariq and Mahmoud
were chased and tackled by Israeli police as part of the
Israeli government’s ongoing war on Muhammad Abu Khudair’s
entire extended family in the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/shuafat">Shuafat</a>
neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>“Mahmoud got away but he came back to help me and got
grabbed and punched and kicked, just like me,” recounted
Tariq.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>The arrest and terror campaign inflicted on the
extended Abu Khudair family by the Israeli government has
denied them an opportunity to truly mourn the loss of
Muhammad.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>“Tariq was not able to grieve his cousin’s death as a
result of the beating Israeli police gave him that same day
that his cousin was brutally murdered by Israeli
extremists,” said Suha Abukhdeir. “Instead of the police
protecting us they taunted us and told us that Muhammad was
just the first to be killed and that 300 Palestinians would
be killed for the three Israeli teenagers who were killed.”</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>It appears they made good on that promise in Gaza,
where more than 1,800 Palestinians, overwhelmingly
civilians, have been mercilessly slaughtered in one Israeli
massacre after another.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Meanwhile, the Israeli government has intensified its
attack on Tariq’s family.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>“The day after I left Palestine, they arrested all
the males in the house I was staying in, without any
charges,” said Tariq, whose family home in occupied East
Jerusalem was <a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/relatives-apparent-revenge.html">raided
by Israeli police</a> hours after he departed the country.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<h2><big><big>Another American teen in Israeli jail</big></big></h2>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>One panelist after another reminded the audience that
the only exceptional things about Tariq’s beating were that
it was caught on film, and he has an American passport.
Otherwise, what happened to him is routine for Palestinian
children living under Israeli occupation.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Perhaps the lack of video footage can help explain
the ongoing imprisonment of fifteen-year-old Mohammed Abu
Nie, an American citizen who is still in Israeli jail after
he was arrested with Tariq in early July.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Tariq told The Electronic Intifada that he, Abu Nie
and his cousin Mahmoud were together watching the protests
when they were chased, tackled and arrested by Israeli
police.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Abu Nie’s imprisonment was largely unheard of until
the <a
href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2014/07/229855.htm">daily
US State Department press briefing</a> on 28 July.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>In response to a question about the status of Abu
Nie’s case, US State Department spokesperson <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/jennifer-psaki">Jennifer
Psaki</a> revealed that the American teen “was arrested on
July 3rd during protests in the Shuafat neighborhood in East
Jerusalem” and, like Tariq, stands accused of
“rock-throwing, attacking police, carrying a knife, and
leading protests,” all of which is untrue, according to
Tariq, who insists they were only watching and not
participating in the protests.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>According to the State Department, Abu Nie has not
seen his parents since the night he was detained and there
are allegations that he has been beaten while in custody.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Psaki said that the US is “gravely concerned about
the detention of an American citizen child” but is “calling
for a speedy resolution” rather than Abu Nie’s release.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<h2><big><big>“My tax dollars killed my family”</big></big></h2>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Laila El-Haddad, a Gaza City native who lives in
Columbia, Maryland, opened her speech with a soul-crushing
statement.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>“My tax dollars killed eight members of my family
this morning,” said El-Haddad. She went on to list the names
and ages of her slaughtered relatives, seven members of the
<a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/israeli-airstrike-massacres-family-prominent-physician-and-author">El-Farra
family</a>. Among them were three children. Two of them
were fleeing when they were killed by a second Israeli air
strike.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>El-Haddad proceeded to deliver a short and damning
history lesson about the population that Israel has
ghettoized in the Gaza Strip:</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>The reality is Gaza right now is being bombarded.
It is completely blocked out, besieged and blockaded. This
is a situation unheard of in modern history for a
population that is already largely refugees, that is
already besieged, that is already stateless to then be
bombarded mercilessly with no intervention.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Gaza is roughly twice the size of Washington, DC,
where we all sit today. It has a little over a million and
half inhabitants, 1.7 going on 1.8. Most of those
inhabitants are under the age of 18. Three-quarters of
them are refugees, meaning they are not from the place
they are compelled to live. They are from towns and
villages, many of them depopulated, destroyed, ethnically
cleansed by Zionist militias prior to 1948 and they sought
refuge in Gaza and they were besieged in Gaza and they are
not allowed to return to their native lands.</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Thanks to Senator Boxer’s lengthy tirade, El-Haddad’s
testimony did not air.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>But at least one lawmaker heard her story.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Democratic Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota
— who recently issued a call in <em>The Washington Post</em>
for an <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/keith-ellison-end-the-gaza-blockade-to-achieve-peace/2014/07/29/e5e707c4-16a1-11e4-85b6-c1451e622637_story.html">end
to the crippling blockade</a> on Gaza, a rare and risky
move for any American politician — was the only elected
official to attend the hearing.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>Signifying a tiny but important crack in unwavering
support for Israeli crimes among US elected officials,
Ellison also made an appearance at an event featuring Tariq
later that evening at Busboys and Poets, a DC restaurant
that often serves as a progressive meeting spot.</big></big></p>
<big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>“I’m embarrassed we haven’t done more,” he told the
crowd that night.</big></big></p>
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