[Peace-discuss] Zionist Propaganda and the DI

[David Green]

Below are two articles: The first, from the Guardian,
is self-explanatory. The second, from the Trib,
describes another incident of a child being shot by
Israeli soldiers, and concludes with a brief
retraction of the propaganda regarding U.N.
ambulances. This morning’s Daily Illini contains an AP
wire story about Sharon's political problems and the
internecine attack on a Palestinian security cheif
(similar to the Trib article), but includes nothing
about the U.N. retraction or attacks on Palestinian
children. There still has been no retraction of the
U.N. claim in the DI, which was repeated by columnists
David Johnson on Monday and Elie Dvorin on Thursday of
last week. I sent two letters regarding this
allegation last week.

It is clear that the DI is rife with Israeli hasbara
(propaganda) this semester, even given the fired
columnist, who was replaced by Johnson, who is an
Illinipac member who seems to draw his material from
frontpage.com, etc. So we have two out of ten
columnists whose primary purpose for being columnists
is to disseminate Zionist propaganda.

I am copying Wayne Ma, the DI Opinions Editor, on this
message. I am also preparing a more elaborate forum
piece on hasbara in Urbana-Champaign and at UIUC. This
is more than a problem at the DI, but an institutional
problem relating to Jewish Federation, the Drobny
Center for Jewish Culture, and even the Illinois
Program for Research in the Humanities, all of which
tend to feed off of each other. 

David Green


Dead Palestinian girl 'riddled with bullets' 

Conal Urquhart in Tel Aviv and agencies in Jerusalem
Tuesday October 12, 2004

The Guardian (UK)

The Israeli army has begun investigating the death of
a 13-year-old 
Palestinian girl said to have been shot dead by
soldiers then riddled with 
bullets by their commander. 
On television and in newspapers soldiers claimed that
the officer shot 
her in the head and emptied a magazine of bullets into
her body. 

Iman el Hamas was walking to school last week when she
strayed near an 
Israeli army post in Rafah. Soldiers opened fire and
killed her. 

The company commander then approached the body and
fired two bullets at 
her head before switching his gun to automatic, the
soldiers alleged. 
Doctors found more than 20 bullets in her body. 

The soldiers were so disgusted by the slow pace of an
army 
investigation that they approached the Israeli daily
Yedioth Ahronoth to demand the 
officer's dismissal. 

One told the paper: "The company CO who sprayed the
girl with bullets 
turned us all into vicious animals and besmirched us
all. 

"As far as we are concerned, it is either him or us.
If he is not 
dismissed, we will not agree to serve under him. 

"It is a disgrace that he is still in his position. We
want him to be 
kicked out in a legal fashion." 

The soldiers said the officer shot the girl even
though he was told by 
members of his unit not to. 

One said: "We spotted her at a distance of 70 metres.
Shots were fired 
at her from the positions of the outpost, she ran away
and was hit. I 
realised she was dead. 

"The company CO approached her, shot two bullets into
her, walked back 
towards the force, turned back to her, switched his
weapon to automatic 
and emptied his entire magazine into her. 

"He pumped her full of holes. We were in shock, we
grabbed our heads. 
We couldn't believe what he was doing. Our hearts
ached for her." 

At first the army said the soldiers had suspected that
the girl was 
carrying a bomb. Later it said the girl was being used
by gunmen to lure 
them from their post. 

Yesterday an army source said an investigation had
begun, but it was 
"too early to speak of criminal charges". 

The girl's family insist that she was going to school
and carrying only 
her schoolbooks. "We demand the prosecution of Iman's
killer, [but] we 
do not trust the Israeli judicial system," her elder
brother, Ehab, 
said. 

"We know that this area where the outpost was located
is off limits, 
but no one can control kids all the time. Iman got up
and had breakfast 
with five of her nine brothers, and took leave of her
parents as she 
does every day on the way to school. 

"Even if someone used the child, and I am certain it
did not happen, 
she presented no danger to anyone," he said. 

• The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, survived
two no-confidence 
votes in parliament yesterday after he vowed to
continue with his plan 
to withdraw settlers and troops from some occupied
territory. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1325307,00.html

Sharon pursues stronger coalition
Gaza security chief escapes blast; girl shot in
classroom
By Ken Ellingwood
Tribune newspapers: Los Angeles Times

October 13, 2004

JERUSALEM -- Smarting from a symbolic loss in Israel's
parliament, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Tuesday
explored ways to stabilize his coalition while pushing
a controversial plan to remove Israeli settlers and
soldiers from the Gaza Strip.

Sharon and representatives are holding or planning
talks with leaders of opposition factions, including
the left-leaning Labor Party, in hopes of expanding
the governing coalition, which lacks a parliamentary
majority.

Sharon sent Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz to meet with
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Shas, an
opposition religious party.

The prime minister may not have to broaden his
government before Oct. 25, when he intends to present
his plan for evacuating the Gaza Strip to the
parliament, or Knesset.

Despite fierce resistance to the pullout among
hard-liners in his conservative Likud Party and among
rightist religious factions, the plan is expected to
gain Knesset approval with help from Labor and leftist
parties.

Sharon suffered a setback Monday when the Knesset
inaugurated its autumn session by voting not to accept
the terms of his opening speech, which included an
overview of the Gaza pullout. The 53-44 vote carried
no legal weight however.

Opponents of the evacuation plan, which calls for
removing all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four
others in the West Bank by the end of next year, are
urging a nationwide referendum on the proposal. Sharon
rejected that idea again Tuesday, according to Israeli
media.

Some opposition politicians have called for early
elections to pick a new government.

Nonetheless, Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he
expects Sharon to stick with plans to get the
evacuation approved by the Knesset.

"The question which is currently on the agenda is
whether we should enter a stupid months-long elections
campaign now, only to end up in the very same
situation we are in today, or whether we should create
the waves which would allow the prime minister to
implement the historic decisions he is leading,"
Olmert told Israel Radio.

Also Tuesday, a car bomb exploded outside a
Palestinian police headquarters in Gaza City as a
convoy was carrying Moussa Arafat, the top security
official in the Gaza Strip and a cousin of Palestinian
Authority President Yasser Arafat.

Moussa Arafat was not injured in the blast, which
appeared to be aimed against him. He was appointed
head of security in July, a move that angered
Palestinian critics who saw him as a symbol of
corruption and stoked factional tensions.

In other developments Tuesday, UN officials said an
11-year-old girl was struck in the chest by gunfire
from an Israeli military position as she sat in a UN
classroom in the Khan Younis refugee camp in southern
Gaza.

The girl, Ghadeer Jaber Mokheimer, was hospitalized
and in stable condition, according to the UN Relief
and Works Agency. The agency said two bullets were
fired from an Israeli position near a bloc of Jewish
settlements and that one of them hit Ghadeer.

The agency said bullets fired by Israeli soldiers have
hit students at UN schools in southern Gaza four other
times since March 2003.

Israeli military sources said troops fired at a spot
from which Palestinian militants launched mortars at
the army post and nearby Israeli communities. The
sources said the army was investigating.

Also, the Israeli army said it erred two weeks ago
when it said that a videotape shot from a drone over
the Gaza Strip showed militants putting a Qassam
rocket into a UN ambulance. UN officials said the
object was most likely a stretcher. The military
conceded that it was not a rocket.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune 



		
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