Stephen Lendman

On and off for the past 35 years, so-called "peace" talks repeatedly have been stillborn from inception, a grand illusion masking an Israeli/Washington partnership intolerant of peace, demanding unconditional surrender, nothing less, the de facto Oslo result, one-sided for Israel, Palestinians given nothing to this day, enduring worse conditions now than then.

What chance then now for peace with no legitimate partner, its democratically government excluded, a coup d'état president 20 months past his term's expiration representing them, and an Arab hating Israeli Prime Minister once calling it "a waste of time."

In addition, the Israeli Lobby controls Washington's Middle East agenda, unwilling to grant Palestinians any rights. As a result, they endure daily violence, not stopping even as a show of good faith, and Netanyahu's announced settlement freeze was bogus. Construction slowed, but never stopped. Some process. Imagine what's coming. More of the same, not an equitable just peace. The charade goes on, a spectacular deception, Palestinians to be blamed when it fails for not negotiating in good faith.

Here's more. From August 26 - September 1, Israeli forces made 37 incursions into West Bank communities and another into Gaza, arresting 15 Palestinians, including three children. Four paramedics and two human rights workers were also detained, and six Palestinian civilians and an international activist injured. In addition, Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian farmers and shepherds in Hebron and Salfit as well as other civilians and their cars on main roads, acting lawlessly with impunity as they always do, authorities practically incentivizing them to commit violence and destructive acts.

These incidents aren't isolated. They occur daily in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, women and children treated like men, none of it reported in America and most Western media sources.

Stephen Lendman

In July 2005, a coalition of 171 Palestinian Civil Society organizations created the Global BDS movement for "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights" for Occupied Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinian diaspora refugees.

The Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute (RI) provides "real-time strategic decision-making" support in areas of national security and socioeconomic policy. Its new report titled "The Gaza Flotilla: The Collapse of Israel's Political Firewall" suggests it's working. It followed an earlier one on "creating a political firewall" against Israel's "delegitimization challenge," recommending sabotage and subterfuge against growing global forces it fears, not an equitable solution it rejects.

Focusing now on the Gaza Flotilla, it called it "the tip of the iceberg" attempt along with the BDS movement and Durban conference against racism to cause "tangible and significant damage to Israel." Unmentioned was how expert Israel is in self-inflicting it by decades of occupation and crimes of war and against humanity.

Clearly they're having an effect, RI saying opposition "momentum is gaining," its aim "to delegitimize Israel in order to precipitate its implosion, inspired by the collapses of" apartheid South Africa and the Soviet Union. Calling the challenge global, systemic and political, RI blames two cooperating forces:

● the Iran/Hamas/Hezbollah "Resistance Network;" and
● the "Delegimization Network" based in cities like London, Brussels and San Francisco.

Their "constantly adapting" strategy requires Israel to adopt "a comprehensive systemic treatment" of the challenge it faces.

Reham Alhelsi
My Palestine

Zionist settlers, illegal colonists coming from all over the world to steal and occupy Palestinian land, armed with a green light to shoot and kill Palestinians whenever they want, won’t hesitate to use force against civilian Palestinians. Their violence includes shooting, stabbing beating, running over Palestinians, stealing their land, property and water, razing agricultural land, uprooting trees and burning crops, stealing harvest, raiding houses and blocking roads. Settler attacks are often initiated by them without any provocation or threat to their safety from Palestinians. In their attacks, the Zionist colonists are often accompanied by Israeli soldiers who either watch and don’t intervene to stop the settler terror or participate in the attacks and provide protection to the settlers. Zionist colonists are seldom prosecuted for their terror actions and in the very rare cases when they were prosecuted, they received very mild sentences. With every passing year, the terrorism of the Zionist colonists occupying Palestinian land increased in brutality and in quantity. Burning down Palestinian homes, mosques, cars and fields have become daily occurrences as beating and attacking Palestinian children on the way to school or Palestinian civilians on the way to work or home.

Looking back, I have tried to gather some examples of terror attacks carried out by Zionist colonists occupying Palestine (Quotations and info are from www.pchrgaza.org unless otherwise stated)

Franklin Lamb
My Catbird Seat

The author seen with children at Shatila Refugee Camps, unaware that
some of their relatives and families' friends were among the hundreds
butchered against 11 such "walls of death" 28 years ago, on September
16-18, 1982. Photo: Courtesy of the author, Dr. Franklin Lamb.

The untreated psychic wounds are still open. Accountability, justice and basic civil rights for the survivors are still denied.

Scores of horror testimonies have been shared over the past nearly three decades by survivors of the September 1982 Sabra- Shatila massacre. More come to light only through circumstantial evidence because would be affiants perished during the slaughter. Other eyewitness are just beginning to emerge from deep trauma or self imposed silence.

Some testimonies will be shared this month by massacre survivors at Shatila camp. They will sit with the ever growing numbers of international visitors who annually come to commemorate one of the most horrific crimes of the 20th century.

There are no average massacre testimonies.

Zeina, a handsome bronzed-faced middle-aged woman, an acquaintance of Munir Mohammad’s family, asked a foreigner the other day: “How can it be 28 years? I think it was just last fall that my husband Hussam and our two daughters, Maya, 8 years old, and Sirham, 9 years old, left our two room home to search for food because the Israeli army had sealed Shatila camp nearly two days before and few inside Shatila Camp had any. I still pray and wait for them to return.”