A reminder or Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian people

It was very interesting to read that a student complained about what was published in the silhouette and how the silhouette can publish such an article about the Massacre of Jenin. Well, in response, we would like to ask, what happened to freedom of speech and freedom of expression? If something does not appeal to you, it does not necessarily imply that it is incorrect or is a “pervasion of facts”. The silhouette has given students of McMaster great opportunity and space to openly debate issues that affect our lives in way or another.

The Jenin massacre was committed by the Israeli army and resulted in the deaths of many Palestinian refugees. Some may deny the massacre but “A British forensic expert who has gained access to the West Bank city of Jenin says evidence points to a massacre by Israeli forces” (BBC April 18, 2002). If one were to Google the words ‘Jenin Massacre’ and look up the images, you will see horrific sights of dead civilian men, women and children which under no circumstances should be justified even if it was a direct response to homicide bombers which were supposedly traced to Jenin. Response by the Israeli army should never come at the cost of the innocent civilians including toddlers and babies in Jenin. No matter how little or how many died in the Massacre; it is still a crime against humanity committed by the Israeli army.

It was claimed in a previous article that Israel has a code of conduct; however, the Israeli army does not abide by any of it. Everyday, Palestinians are humiliated by the Israelis every time a Palestinian crosses a checkpoint. We would like to ask what is the Israeli code of conduct is, when an Israeli soldier himself once said in a documentary “Whoever comes close wants to make trouble, we break them” then states “What do we mean by break them? We let them suffer”. Moreover, to show the brutality of the Israeli army, CBS have released a clip showing the abuse of a Palestinian boy by the Israeli soldiers. (YouTube: Israeli police beating Palestinian).

Apart from these isolated incidents of violation of human rights, lets not forget the Apartheid wall that runs over 650 km (400 miles) inside the West Bank, which breaks up the Palestinian territory. The wall is 8 meters high, twice the height of the former Berlin wall. The wall is another violation of Human Rights restricting and hindering the Palestinian movement around their own territory. This is a great opportunity to bring up this issue since this week marks the International Week of Action against the Apartheid Wall. Many events are happening around the globe to educate people on this topic. This wall is affecting the Palestinians in so many ways that in 2004 the International Court of Justice declared that the wall is ILLEGAL, and ordered Israel to stop the construction of this wall but until this moment Israel did not comply. Palestinians villages and cities are divided because of this wall and more construction points were implemented. People are only allowed to pass by those check points for 20 minutes in the morning, 15 in the afternoon and only another 20 minutes in the evening. Not only do the Palestinians have to go through the difficulty of getting through to the other side but get humiliated by the Israeli soldiers in the process.

At the end, some may not agree to what we have to say, but the ignorance must end. The information stated about is true and easily accessible. People must stop being oblivious to the atrocities committed by the Israeli army against the Palestinian people. We would like people to be more educated about this topic and try to seek the truth which will only reaffirm what we are trying to prove and raise awareness about it.

Basel Jarrad & Zahraa Al Khalisi
12/11/2007

PS. This article was banned from being published in The Silhouette. The reason was that the editor will not allow any articles about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to be published. Soon we will take off this ban and will make sure to allow those articles!!

False Claims

Until when are we going to keep hearing words and phrases such as war on terror, rendition, interrogation and many other words related to the same topic? What always disappoints me is that the victims of these are always the same people, people who are basically MUSLIMS.

People think that Muslims became the target for all those claims after 9/11 but I actually believe it was even earlier than that. I read about it in a book once how that the CIA after the collapse of the Soviet Union had decided to find and create a new enemy for the States and they picked ISLAM to be their new enemy. For the last seven years the first people accused, and most of the time the only, are Muslims.

I want to mention more about a specific incident that we, as all Canadians, should stand up against any similar incidents happening again. Maher Arar, a name that probably a lot of you read his name in the newspapers lately. He is a Syrian-born, Canadian citizen who worked and lived in Ottawa until his rendition to Syria in 2002. Rendition? Yeah, that happened when he was travelling back to Canada and during a stopover in JFK airport in New York, Arar was detained by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. The Americans was acting upon information supplied by the RCMP. Arar, was interrogated by the American officials about alleged links to al-Qaeda. Twelve days later, he was chained and flown to Syria on a secret flight. In Syria he was tortured, beaten and forced to make false confessions. After spending a year in jail being tortured they cleared Arar of all terrorism allegations and said that he was innocent. This is a short summary of what happened to an innocent Canadian citizen of being rendered and tortured and then found innocent because of false information from the RCMP.

The reason why I wanted to mention this story because this is just a simple example for the false war on terror claims. I see this as something against human rights and our morals as free people. Arar received an official apology from the Prime Minister Stephen Harper and $10.5 million settlement for his ordeal. Yes it might sound that $10.5 million is a lot of money, but do you think this would heal the psychological hurt that he is facing now? I’m pretty sure if you asked any psychologist they will tell you that a person being tortured for an entire year would have many psychological problems that won’t be easy to heal at all, so this money will only begin the healing process.

There is a new movie called “Rendition” which I want to watch sometime very soon. It covers almost the same story for an Egyptian-American chemical engineer who got detained and transported to Egypt to be tortured because of terrorist affiliation, but his American wife kept trying to find out where her husband was taken to. So I believe it’s a good movie to watch regarding this topic.

Until when will Muslims have to live and accept this treatment? I hate those “random checks” in airports now, because I’ve never seen any person who is not Muslim being randomly checked. I believe the media has played a big role in affecting our mentality that you can see people everywhere now looking to any guy with a beard as being a suspect for any terrorist act. As we are all free students and intellectuals we should oppose all this kind of treatment to any human being. Guantanamo bay detainment centre is one of the places that we should fight for to be shut down because until this moment now many of the prisoners there have not even been charged with any act of terrorism.

Of course I would like to live in a safe and secure world but should that be for the price of the freedom of many people? Amnesty International is one of the international organizations that have been fighting against those secret detainee transfers and other kind of false war on terror claims. My self, as a student I really wish that we will be able to start attacking the terrorism problem in a different way, rather than accusing the same people always and most of the time those people are found innocent.


* This article was published in The Silhouette on November 1st, 2007 ( Volume 78, NO. 9) *