Anisa Abd el Fattah
Americans born and raised in the United States during the 50s, 60s and 70s might have a unique perspective of our country’s progress from an apartheid state of Jim Crow segregation, to what we thought we were as a people just prior to 9/11. It seems like a long time ago that we viewed ourselves as a people who had defeated the forces of evil racial supremacism and the politics and culture of racial hatred and fear that had divided us for so long. It was hatred and fear that had been imposed upon us for so many years, and presented to us as American culture that had divided us. America had suffered ugly years, and the consequences included spiritual and social deformity resulting from centuries of brutal human bondage, slavery and genocide that had to be falsely justified.
The false justification was couched in an American narrative that implied the racial inferiority of one group, and the racial supremacy of another. America justified its crimes of slavery and genocide with a narrative that was both Biblical and secular in its insistence that it was either God or Darwin who had selected the White race to preserve God and nature’s intrinsic order and selection of the races. It was suggested by both scripture and science in America, that it was in fact the duty of the supposedly “superior race” to dominate all of the other supposedly “inferior races” of people. Sometimes this message was subtle, and sometimes it was not. The spiritual and social deformities resulting from such hoaxes, lies and evil would have certainly destroyed the United States, had we as a people not faced our demons in the streets of Selma and Montgomery Alabama and other racial hot spots that became the battle grounds between good and evil from where our country’s racist demons were seemingly driven out.
It would have been almost impossible to have been a teenager or young adult during that tumultuous period of 30 odd years in US history, and not have been touched in some way by these events as they transpired. The change was there, in our daily news and nightly in the streets of our cities. America was changing, and to some of us it seemed fast, hard, and beautiful. To others it was merely frightening. For all of us, it was necessary.
In African-American communities there were stark differences between the worlds of adults and teenagers, except when it came to civil rights. This melding of the Black, specifically the African-American mind that closed the traditional generational gap in our communities was due, for the most part, to the preachers in the Black Churches. They made it clear to all of us every Sunday, that Jesus had said “suffer the children to come unto me,” which meant that we were not excused from the struggle. It was ours, whether we liked it or not, and whether we understood it or not. We cried when our parents cried, we got angry when they got angry, we marched when they marched, and we sat still and quiet and stood back when they told us to. Their tears, along with all of the expressions of joy and anger, faith and hope that animated their strong faces were sometimes all we had to go by. So we learned to read their faces and to understand, what it all meant.
For our parents, the fight had been long and unyielding. For many of them memories of slavery, only a generation or so past, were fresh in their minds. They knew what was at stake, and what they were fighting for. They were authentic. They were heroes, and their legacy was left to everyone who considers themselves part of this experience and experiment called America. We held on to their moral coattails all the way from Alabama in the 60s, to New York City. We let go, and began our collective fall from grace on September 11th, 2001.
How many of us would be willing to say today, that we as a people and a country are at our best and that the state of our union today is strong and sound? The racial supremacism that we stared down and the demons we thought we had defeated half a century ago are back. They have taken on a new form, and they are threatening our country again, but this time as religious supremacism barely hidden in the language of scripture and science, draped in the US flag while claiming piety, just as racism and Jim Crow had before.
Those of us, who are heartbroken by what now parades itself as the United States of America, understand that 9/11 changed us in many ways that were not good. We can see it in the faces and hear it in the voices of our fellow citizens, the hatred, the fear, and the anger. We understand that what we see and hear is a response to what is being said and demonstrated by our so called leaders and politicians who, just as before, have created a narrative that is ripe with false justification for the deprivation of rights for some Americans and blatant favoritism for others.
Whereas in the past, the ideas that divided and deformed us were contrived for the sake of justifying the demonization and domination of supposedly inferior races, today‘s dangerous ideas are aimed at creating a new American identity. An identity that is being crafted by Zionists who want to convince us that White European Jews are God’s selected or chosen people and that gentiles are inferior. They want us to believe that they have access to God, while our souls are trapped inside husks, making us nearer to animals in our consciousness, while they are supposedly superior and nearer to God.
The identity they are crafting for our country suggests that the gentile was created to serve and to protect the so called “chosen ones” with our lives, blood, and treasure, while it is their supposed duty to God, to dominate and to subjugate us and to use us for the fulfillment of their destinies and desires, whether in Heaven or in Hell. They want to recreate the United States, not in God’s image, but in an ugly image of modern day slavery where our people, including our children, will work long hours for little pay, no pensions, no sick days, no social security, no affordable health care, and no retirement. The trade off is that they will set no limits to our immorality, pornography, and sexualization and exploitation of our children. They have nothing vested in our spiritual growth or salvation, since according to their Talmud; we were created only to serve them.
Today, the United States of America sends 7 million dollars per day to Israel in foreign aide. That does not count for the military aide, or the security aide, the weapons and other ways that we funnel money to Israel that cannot be detected. Meanwhile, we are also paying billions to finance two wars being fought to secure Israel’s geo-political dominance in the Middle East and to capture oil and natural resources, much of which was reserved for Israel, and not the United States.
The Zionist Ku Klux in the US wants to recreate us as a country where the children of the rich and elite go to college, while the children of the poor go to war. They want us to surrender our morality to their genocides being carried out in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. They want to shield themselves from the consequences of their immoral crimes. They want us to overlook and justify their immorality and lawlessness. They want us to return to our dark past, a past from which we thought we had broken free.
Once we understand that today, in our country there exists a Zionist Ku Klux, similar in every way to the racist white Ku Klux Klan of history, we will understand why we are fighting for Zionist Israel’s global dominance in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will understand why we are fighting Islam in a bogus so called War on Terrorism and killing Muslims throughout the world, hoping to eliminate any resistance, challengers, detractors and/or competitors against Zionism. This Klan fights to sustain its control over our government, and many of our churches, civic and political organizations, schools and labor unions. This is why whenever we begin, as an American people, to ask questions, to demand our freedom from increasing government invasion of our privacy and protection of our rights, and our money, we are taken back to 9/11, and reminded that we should be afraid. It is why we are threatened and silenced with the very so called Anti-Terrorism laws that we thought were passed to fight terrorism, while it is becoming increasingly clear that they were really passed to fight us. They were passed to deprive us of rights, and to silence us and to prevent us from ever again challenging and battling our demons in our streets. The Zionist Ku Klux in America learned the lessons of our past. They learned, and remembered the important lessons that we forgot.
Even prior to 9/11 this Zionist Klan began their war of terror on the United States. It began as a very subtle suggestion that if we hoped to be safe from terrorism, we must change our laws, including our Constitution which our Congress was told presented a barrier to fighting terrorism. Now we know that the real message was that unless we changed our laws and got rid of our Constitution we would be the victims of an act of terrorism that would reach so deep into our collective psyche with fear, that we would forget all of our lofty ideas and past struggles, and surrender our rights anyway. What we didn’t known then, were that our own attempts to speak the truth and to exert our rights as a self-governing and sovereign people, to demand justice in our courts, and an end to wars and a balanced budget, would be called acts of terrorism. While Zionists and their political flunkies in our Congress stoked the flames of hatred against Muslims, Islam, and Middle Easterners after 9/11, falsely claiming that it was Muslims, led by an extremist Islamic idea, who attacked us on 9/11. AIPAC, the Israeli organization that overseas and manages Zionist power in the US, was busy buying and blackmailing our Congress, stealing our state secrets and passing laws to be used against all of us, but only after being tested successfully on our Muslim and Middle Eastern citizens first.
In May of this year 2010, a ship filled with medicines, food, and cement set sail for a place in Palestine called Gaza. For three years Gaza has suffered under an illegal economic embargo imposed by Israel in a failed attempt to overthrow the elected Palestinian government. While this ship was in international waters, headed for the coast of Gaza, Israeli commandos illegally boarded the ship and murdered 9 of the humanitarian activists aboard the ship, including a 19 year old American student. His autopsy shows that he was killed due to being shot 4 times in his brain at close range. There were other Americans on that ship the Mavi Marmara, and also on other ships that made up what was called the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
Thinking that they still enjoyed Constitutional rights in their country, some of the survivors upon their return home to the US, have sought to speak out, and to tell their fellow countrymen and women what happened to them and also what happened to that young American who was executed by the Israeli commandos. Rather than to be greeted with sympathy, and solidarity, or to be received by our government as heroes and citizens to be proud of for their humanitarian efforts, they were met with hatred, not by the people, but by Zionist politicians and their AIPAC cronies and operatives. There was no grief expressed by our government to the family of the fallen. No resolution passed in his honor by our Zionist Congress. No memorial held by our Zionist churches and synagogues, and not a tear shed for our country’s loss, suffered in the death of that brave young 19 year old American who was killed for carrying food to hungry Palestinians.
California Congressman Brad Sherman, along with others including New York City Councilwoman Christine Quinn, Representatives Jerry Nadler, Anthony Weiner, Carolyn Mahoney, Charles Rangel, and Scott Stringer issued threats to have the survivors arrested using anti-terrorism statutes, and to have them silenced with threats of government investigations into their private lives to supposedly determine if they have ties to terrorists. All actions aimed purely at depriving these citizens their constitutional rights.
The Zionist Ku Klux in America has shown its ugly face, and they have demonstrated for us in a most dramatic way, how they will use the so called anti-terrorism laws that our Zionist Congress passed without ever reading, to silence us and to deprive us of our Constitutional rights. One of the Zionist leaders of this cabal, Joseph Lieberman even threatened to pass a law stripping US citizens of citizenship if we dare criticize Israel, or take political positions opposed to those of our Zionist masters. They have proven by their own words and actions, that they will not honor the social contract between the governed and the governing known as the Bill of Rights. In their minds, they have already changed and remade America in a Zionist image, and all that is left is for us to either submit, or be treated as terrorists by our own government and elected officials whose purpose is no longer to serve, protect and represent the interests of the American citizen, but rather to serve, protect, defend and finance their false god and idol Israel, and to shield Israel from any accountability for its numerous crimes against gentiles, and violations of international law. Unless we are willing as a people to reject what is happening to our country, and to organize and to stand against it, we should expect to return to the days of the ugly and grossly deformed America. The old America from where we thought we had been liberated, and transformed. Together we stand, divided we fall.
On June 17th, Flotilla survivors Lara Lee, Ahonet Unsal, and Kevin Overdon will speak at the House of the Lord Church in New York City. They will speak about the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and what happened to them and other human rights activists on board flotilla ships, including those who were killed. We should turn out in huge numbers to support them, and other flotilla survivors and their right to speak, and to dissent.
Showing posts with label gaza freedom flotilla. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gaza freedom flotilla. Show all posts
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Sherman’s interpretation of 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act seems to defy true intent of the law, while attacking US Constitutional Rights to appease a foreig
Anisa Abd el Fattah
When the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 was passed following the Oklahoma City bombing, many Muslim and Arab Americans charged that the Act is unconstitutional, and that it was unfairly aimed at Muslims and Arabs, even though it was proven that Muslims and Arabs had nothing to do with the Oklahoma City Bombing. Of course the Department of Justice and other US law enforcement officials countered such charges, saying that the Act was not intended for anything except to effectively fight terrorism, no matter the race, religion, ethnicity or nationality of an individual perpetrator, group or foreign country.
Listening to California Congressman Brad Sherman, who is one of the many Zionist and Jewish politicians who found it politically expedient to congratulate Israel for its May 2010 massacre of 9 unarmed humanitarian aide activists on a Turkish ship bound for Gaza, one would think that Muslim and Arab suspicions were true. According to Sherman, the Act says it is “illegal for US citizens to give food, money, school supplies, paper clips, concrete or weapons to Hamas and Gaza’s civilian population.” As it turns out, this is merely Sherman’s interpretation of the Act. The Act never mentions, Gaza, or Hamas and is aimed exclusively at foreign terrorists and foreign governments that support or commit acts of terrorism. The aim of the Act is to prevent US citizens from fundraising and providing material support to terrorist organizations, states, and individuals that commit acts of terrorism and that provide material support for terrorism. Taking into consideration that Israel is accused of committing war crimes and crimes of aggression as well as crimes against humanity in an illegal assault on Gaza that left 1500 Palestinians, mostly woman and children dead, the Act could very easily be interpreted to also include Israel, the Israeli army and the illegal Jewish settlers among those targeted for prosecution by the Act.
Of course Sherman did not mention that fact. His objective was to use the law exactly in the way that US Muslims and Arabs had said it would be used, namely to target Muslims and Arabs. It appears that Sherman had hoped to create a novel interpretation of the Act that would be used to chill Muslim and Arab Constitutional rights to free speech and also dissent, and that would reinforce the wrong idea that Hamas is a terrorist organization and is therefore subject to the Act, along with any US citizen that would fundraise or send money to Gaza in an attempt to provide humanitarian aide to a people suffering, what the UN has designated a humanitarian crisis. In fact, following Israel’s flotilla massacre, the Obama administration pledged 400 million dollars to Gaza in humanitarian aide. Sherman did not call for the arrest of President Obama, nor of secretary of State Hilary Clinton.
In Sherman’s highly politicized interpretation of the Act, Sherman failed to mention the fact that the US Constitution protects the rights of US Citizens to protest and also to use our speech, which the Supreme Court has said includes our money and fundraising, to support our political positions and also to oppose and dissent from our government’s official positions. Along with that, Article 6 of the US Constitution says, “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding” which means that provisions within the Act must be reconciled with the Geneva Conventions, to which the US is a signor. According to both the Bush and Obama administrations, the US stands by and abides by the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions protects, rather than criminalizes the Palestinian resistance militias and the resistance movement.
According to the Joint Publication 1-02, the United States Department of Defense defines a resistance movement as "an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to resist the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability". It says: “In strict military terminology, a resistance movement is simply that; it seeks to resist (change) the policies of a government or occupying power. This may be accomplished though violent or non-violent means. A resistance movement is specifically limited to changing the nature of current power, not to overthrow it.” The correct military term for removing or overthrowing a government is an insurgency. Also, Article 4 of the Geneva Conventions defines legal combatants as:
1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfill the following conditions:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
In its 49th session, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights as recently as 1993, adopted resolution E/CN.4/ RES/1993/2 (A & B), recognizing and affirming the right of the Palestinian people to resistance against the illegal occupation by all means.” It states the following:
The Commission on Human Rights,
Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as by the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
Guided also by the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
2. Affirms the right of the Palestinian people to resist the Israeli occupation by all means, in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions, consistent with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, as has been expressed by the Palestinian people in their brave intifada since December 1987, in legitimate resistance against the Israeli military occupation;
Israel’s bogus claim that Gaza is no longer under military occupation is undermined by Israel’s simultaneous claim to a right to control Gaza’s borders, airspace and waterways. Its routine invasions, detainments of Gazans and other acts intended to maintain illegal control and authority over Gaza, further undermines Israel’s erroneous claim that Gaza is not under Israeli military occupation.
Article 6 of the US Constitutions says clearly that our treaties are the Supreme law of the land, and our military code recognizes by definition that the Palestinian resistance fighters are lawful combatants. Since statutory law overrides Executive orders , Bill Clinton’s attempt to criminalize the Palestinian resistance is merely a political ploy that was designed to create a legal context for Israel’s brutal violence in Gaza and the West Bank, and its illegal targeted assassinations of resistance leaders and activists. Clinton’s executive order which attempts to reduce the Palestinian resistance to mere terrorism is the pretext within which many of the worst criminal acts carried out by Israel against the people of Palestine have claimed legality. It is also the legal framework within which Sherman is emboldened to call for the arrests of US citizens for attempting to travel to Gaza, and to deliver humanitarian aide.
While seemingly anxious to please his AIPAC cronies and Zionist financial backers, Sherman seems to have lost sight of the fact that according to the Act, there may be some arrests to be made within his own circle of pro-Israel Zionists. He said in his highly publicized press release that he “will be asking the Attorney General to prosecute any American involved in what is clearly an effort to give items of value to terrorists.” That might include the California branch of the JDL that have been linked to the US State Department designated terrorist organization known as Kahane Chai, whose members were convicted of attempting to carry out terrorists attacks here in the US against an elected official. It might also include leaders of an entire network of synagogues, churches and Christian and Jewish charitable organizations that routinely raise money and transfer funds to Israel in support of the radical extremist settlers, many of whom are US citizens, and who routinely shoot, kill, harass and illegally confiscate the property of Palestinian citizens. Most of these illegal settlers are self confessed members of the Kahane movement, which is linked to Kahane Chai in ideology if not by card carrying memberships. In a New York Times article written by Neil Lewis, he states that Kahane Chai “advocates the restoration of the Biblical state of Israel and the expulsion of Arabs from Israel.” This is also the mantra of nearly every illegal Jewish settler in Palestine.
Among the list of US Jews arrested for acts of terrorism against Palestinians in Palestine are the confessed terrorists Jack Teity who murdered two Palestinians and wounded at least three. His murder victims included a 57 year old Palestinian shepherd murdered simply because he was not Jewish. Teity traveled between the US and Israel for 12 years carrying out his terrorist acts without ever being stopped and questioned or arrested. Teity, in his confession, stated that he smuggled the sub machine gun used in his killings, past a British airline’s security. Another US Jew who carried out an act of terrorism against Palestinians inside Palestine is Barak Goldstein who slaughtered 20 Palestinians in Hebron mosque. He is called a Jewish martyr, even though he shot his unarmed victims from behind with a fully automatic machine gun as they prostrated in prayer.
In the article, “Israel arrests settlers it says tried to bomb Palestinians” by New York Times columnist John Kifner, Kifner wrote: “Shin Bet uncovered a suspected Jewish network that apparently planned to bomb two or more Palestinian schools.” According to Kifner, “Israeli police confiscated sub machine guns, and Israeli military issued explosives.” He said the bombs were set to go off at 7:35 am, the time when most Palestinian students would arrive at the schools.” Kifner identified the leader of the network as Noam Federman, a leader of the Kach movement.
There is another interpretation of the Act, contrary to Sherman’s which suggests that Sherman himself could possibly be designated a supporter of international terrorism, since it appears that he might be abusing the power of his office and US taxpayer money in an attempt to provide political and legal cover for Israel’s terrorist act of piracy and murder of 9 human rights activists, carried out in international waters, and without provocation. A Congressional Research Service summary of the Act states that:
“Title I of the Act ‘enlarges proscriptions against assisting in the commission of acts of terrorism. It adjusts the Foreign Assistance Act to help isolate countries who support terrorists. “
Ironically the activists targeted by Sherman’s threats of arrest for exercising their Constitutional rights might actually be assisted against Israel by the Act which, according to the same summary, “expands the circumstances under which foreign governments that support terrorism may be sued for resulting injuries, and increases the assistance and compensation available to victims of terrorism.” The family of the US citizen killed by Israel on one of the flotilla boats with 4 shots through his brain and one through his heart might also look into the provisions of the Act seeking legal relief.
Why Congressman Brad Sherman felt compelled to attack the US members of the flotilla with an Anti-Terrorism statute is anyone’s guess. What we can be sure of is that US law is aimed at protecting the rights of citizens, their property and their persons, and not foreign governments. In his haste to arrest these citizens he obviously forgot the spirit, or intent of the Act, and depended too heavily upon his own misguided and highly politicized interpretation.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_movement
2.http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/genevacon/blart-4.htm
3. http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/EF7E1F52C06A9CB885256AD2004B1194
4. Cited in the article “Rep. Sherman” Prosecute US Citizens involved with Freedom Flotilla” Modoweiss.com
5. http://www.answers.com/topic/executive-order-1
6. Summary of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Charles Doyle, Senior Specialist, American Law Division of the Congressional Research Service
www.fas.org/irp/crs/96-499
7. Appeals Court Upholds Terrorist Label for a Jewish Group, New York Times, 10/06.
8. Israel Arrests Settlers It says Tried to Bomb Palestinians” New York Times, 5/19/2002
FBI Raided a Brooklyn Community Center led by Member of Kahane Chai, New York Times,
When the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 was passed following the Oklahoma City bombing, many Muslim and Arab Americans charged that the Act is unconstitutional, and that it was unfairly aimed at Muslims and Arabs, even though it was proven that Muslims and Arabs had nothing to do with the Oklahoma City Bombing. Of course the Department of Justice and other US law enforcement officials countered such charges, saying that the Act was not intended for anything except to effectively fight terrorism, no matter the race, religion, ethnicity or nationality of an individual perpetrator, group or foreign country.
Listening to California Congressman Brad Sherman, who is one of the many Zionist and Jewish politicians who found it politically expedient to congratulate Israel for its May 2010 massacre of 9 unarmed humanitarian aide activists on a Turkish ship bound for Gaza, one would think that Muslim and Arab suspicions were true. According to Sherman, the Act says it is “illegal for US citizens to give food, money, school supplies, paper clips, concrete or weapons to Hamas and Gaza’s civilian population.” As it turns out, this is merely Sherman’s interpretation of the Act. The Act never mentions, Gaza, or Hamas and is aimed exclusively at foreign terrorists and foreign governments that support or commit acts of terrorism. The aim of the Act is to prevent US citizens from fundraising and providing material support to terrorist organizations, states, and individuals that commit acts of terrorism and that provide material support for terrorism. Taking into consideration that Israel is accused of committing war crimes and crimes of aggression as well as crimes against humanity in an illegal assault on Gaza that left 1500 Palestinians, mostly woman and children dead, the Act could very easily be interpreted to also include Israel, the Israeli army and the illegal Jewish settlers among those targeted for prosecution by the Act.
Of course Sherman did not mention that fact. His objective was to use the law exactly in the way that US Muslims and Arabs had said it would be used, namely to target Muslims and Arabs. It appears that Sherman had hoped to create a novel interpretation of the Act that would be used to chill Muslim and Arab Constitutional rights to free speech and also dissent, and that would reinforce the wrong idea that Hamas is a terrorist organization and is therefore subject to the Act, along with any US citizen that would fundraise or send money to Gaza in an attempt to provide humanitarian aide to a people suffering, what the UN has designated a humanitarian crisis. In fact, following Israel’s flotilla massacre, the Obama administration pledged 400 million dollars to Gaza in humanitarian aide. Sherman did not call for the arrest of President Obama, nor of secretary of State Hilary Clinton.
In Sherman’s highly politicized interpretation of the Act, Sherman failed to mention the fact that the US Constitution protects the rights of US Citizens to protest and also to use our speech, which the Supreme Court has said includes our money and fundraising, to support our political positions and also to oppose and dissent from our government’s official positions. Along with that, Article 6 of the US Constitution says, “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding” which means that provisions within the Act must be reconciled with the Geneva Conventions, to which the US is a signor. According to both the Bush and Obama administrations, the US stands by and abides by the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions protects, rather than criminalizes the Palestinian resistance militias and the resistance movement.
According to the Joint Publication 1-02, the United States Department of Defense defines a resistance movement as "an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to resist the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability". It says: “In strict military terminology, a resistance movement is simply that; it seeks to resist (change) the policies of a government or occupying power. This may be accomplished though violent or non-violent means. A resistance movement is specifically limited to changing the nature of current power, not to overthrow it.” The correct military term for removing or overthrowing a government is an insurgency. Also, Article 4 of the Geneva Conventions defines legal combatants as:
1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfill the following conditions:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
In its 49th session, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights as recently as 1993, adopted resolution E/CN.4/ RES/1993/2 (A & B), recognizing and affirming the right of the Palestinian people to resistance against the illegal occupation by all means.” It states the following:
The Commission on Human Rights,
Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as by the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
Guided also by the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
2. Affirms the right of the Palestinian people to resist the Israeli occupation by all means, in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions, consistent with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, as has been expressed by the Palestinian people in their brave intifada since December 1987, in legitimate resistance against the Israeli military occupation;
Israel’s bogus claim that Gaza is no longer under military occupation is undermined by Israel’s simultaneous claim to a right to control Gaza’s borders, airspace and waterways. Its routine invasions, detainments of Gazans and other acts intended to maintain illegal control and authority over Gaza, further undermines Israel’s erroneous claim that Gaza is not under Israeli military occupation.
Article 6 of the US Constitutions says clearly that our treaties are the Supreme law of the land, and our military code recognizes by definition that the Palestinian resistance fighters are lawful combatants. Since statutory law overrides Executive orders , Bill Clinton’s attempt to criminalize the Palestinian resistance is merely a political ploy that was designed to create a legal context for Israel’s brutal violence in Gaza and the West Bank, and its illegal targeted assassinations of resistance leaders and activists. Clinton’s executive order which attempts to reduce the Palestinian resistance to mere terrorism is the pretext within which many of the worst criminal acts carried out by Israel against the people of Palestine have claimed legality. It is also the legal framework within which Sherman is emboldened to call for the arrests of US citizens for attempting to travel to Gaza, and to deliver humanitarian aide.
While seemingly anxious to please his AIPAC cronies and Zionist financial backers, Sherman seems to have lost sight of the fact that according to the Act, there may be some arrests to be made within his own circle of pro-Israel Zionists. He said in his highly publicized press release that he “will be asking the Attorney General to prosecute any American involved in what is clearly an effort to give items of value to terrorists.” That might include the California branch of the JDL that have been linked to the US State Department designated terrorist organization known as Kahane Chai, whose members were convicted of attempting to carry out terrorists attacks here in the US against an elected official. It might also include leaders of an entire network of synagogues, churches and Christian and Jewish charitable organizations that routinely raise money and transfer funds to Israel in support of the radical extremist settlers, many of whom are US citizens, and who routinely shoot, kill, harass and illegally confiscate the property of Palestinian citizens. Most of these illegal settlers are self confessed members of the Kahane movement, which is linked to Kahane Chai in ideology if not by card carrying memberships. In a New York Times article written by Neil Lewis, he states that Kahane Chai “advocates the restoration of the Biblical state of Israel and the expulsion of Arabs from Israel.” This is also the mantra of nearly every illegal Jewish settler in Palestine.
Among the list of US Jews arrested for acts of terrorism against Palestinians in Palestine are the confessed terrorists Jack Teity who murdered two Palestinians and wounded at least three. His murder victims included a 57 year old Palestinian shepherd murdered simply because he was not Jewish. Teity traveled between the US and Israel for 12 years carrying out his terrorist acts without ever being stopped and questioned or arrested. Teity, in his confession, stated that he smuggled the sub machine gun used in his killings, past a British airline’s security. Another US Jew who carried out an act of terrorism against Palestinians inside Palestine is Barak Goldstein who slaughtered 20 Palestinians in Hebron mosque. He is called a Jewish martyr, even though he shot his unarmed victims from behind with a fully automatic machine gun as they prostrated in prayer.
In the article, “Israel arrests settlers it says tried to bomb Palestinians” by New York Times columnist John Kifner, Kifner wrote: “Shin Bet uncovered a suspected Jewish network that apparently planned to bomb two or more Palestinian schools.” According to Kifner, “Israeli police confiscated sub machine guns, and Israeli military issued explosives.” He said the bombs were set to go off at 7:35 am, the time when most Palestinian students would arrive at the schools.” Kifner identified the leader of the network as Noam Federman, a leader of the Kach movement.
There is another interpretation of the Act, contrary to Sherman’s which suggests that Sherman himself could possibly be designated a supporter of international terrorism, since it appears that he might be abusing the power of his office and US taxpayer money in an attempt to provide political and legal cover for Israel’s terrorist act of piracy and murder of 9 human rights activists, carried out in international waters, and without provocation. A Congressional Research Service summary of the Act states that:
“Title I of the Act ‘enlarges proscriptions against assisting in the commission of acts of terrorism. It adjusts the Foreign Assistance Act to help isolate countries who support terrorists. “
Ironically the activists targeted by Sherman’s threats of arrest for exercising their Constitutional rights might actually be assisted against Israel by the Act which, according to the same summary, “expands the circumstances under which foreign governments that support terrorism may be sued for resulting injuries, and increases the assistance and compensation available to victims of terrorism.” The family of the US citizen killed by Israel on one of the flotilla boats with 4 shots through his brain and one through his heart might also look into the provisions of the Act seeking legal relief.
Why Congressman Brad Sherman felt compelled to attack the US members of the flotilla with an Anti-Terrorism statute is anyone’s guess. What we can be sure of is that US law is aimed at protecting the rights of citizens, their property and their persons, and not foreign governments. In his haste to arrest these citizens he obviously forgot the spirit, or intent of the Act, and depended too heavily upon his own misguided and highly politicized interpretation.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_movement
2.http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/genevacon/blart-4.htm
3. http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/EF7E1F52C06A9CB885256AD2004B1194
4. Cited in the article “Rep. Sherman” Prosecute US Citizens involved with Freedom Flotilla” Modoweiss.com
5. http://www.answers.com/topic/executive-order-1
6. Summary of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Charles Doyle, Senior Specialist, American Law Division of the Congressional Research Service
www.fas.org/irp/crs/96-499
7. Appeals Court Upholds Terrorist Label for a Jewish Group, New York Times, 10/06.
8. Israel Arrests Settlers It says Tried to Bomb Palestinians” New York Times, 5/19/2002
FBI Raided a Brooklyn Community Center led by Member of Kahane Chai, New York Times,
Monday, May 17, 2010
With the Name of God
National Association of Muslim American Muslim (NAMAW) calls for prayer vigil to break the illegal siege on Gaza. and free Palestine. Vigil dates to coincide with journey of freedom flotilla.
May 17, 2010
God says in the Qur’an, “The unbelievers are protectors of one another. Unless you this, (protect one another) there will be tumult and oppression on the earth and great mischief” (Holy Qur’an 8:73).
The Qur’an also teaches us that our prayers are a source of protection for one another. God told the prophet Muhammad (sa) that his prayers are a source of protection for the believers. Whereas we are not prophets, our righteous prayers, when prayed as the prophet prayed, also serve as a protection for the believers.
The city of Gaza in Palestine has been under an illegal and inhumane economic embargo, imposed by Egypt and the colonial Zionist occupation forces in Palestine for nearly 3 years. Egypt and the Zionist occupation forces have been aided and abetted by the likes of the so called Palestinian Authority and other Arab and also Western European countries and institutions that have refused to stop the criminal blockade. Even though more than 500 people, mostly suffering from chronic disease, have died as a result of this blockade, not even the UN Security Council has been moved by its own charter to put an end to this blatant crime against humanity, and the International Courts have also turned a blind eye, ignoring the tremendous suffering of the people of Gaza.
On May 15th the first of nine ships carrying humanitarian aide as well as building materials for the reconstruction of Gaza, left Ireland, headed for Gaza. It will meet and accompanied by 8 other ships, among them ships from Turkey, Algeria, carrying along with aid and assistance, delegations from the US and other Western countries as well as many noted personalities, statesmen, women and activists from throughout the world. The anticipated arrival date for the flotilla to reach Gaza’s shore is May 27, 2010.
The National Association of Muslim American Women (NAMAW) is calling upon those who will not go to Gaza, to support this effort with a vigil of night prayers offered on behalf of Gaza and the freedom flotilla. We will be petitioning God each night, from May 18th through the 27th, or whenever the freedom flotilla arrives in Gaza. We will ask God to end this criminal siege on Gaza now. We will petition God to end the occupation of Palestine now, and to free Palestine. We will also be petitioning God to protect the ships and passengers who have set sail for Gaza, in obedience to His command to the believers, to answer the call of the weak, the oppressed, and those who are not able to free and protect themselves from the evil satanic forces and their followers and patrons without our help.
Our prayer vigil will begin at 12:00am, EST, May 28th and continue until Fajr, or the Morning Prayer. Please feel free to customize your individual or communal vigil to fit your own schedule if necessary. Some of us will take a break from 2:30am to 3:30am and then continue prayer at 3:30 am, until Fajr. Whether you pray in congregations or groups in the mosques or privately as groups and/or individuals in your homes, centers, etc, it does not matter. What matters is that we have the niyah to free Palestine, to end the illegal occupation, to lift the siege on Gaza, and to protect the freedom flotilla, the people, the ships and their cargo, and make them reach Gaza safely and return home safely.
We invite believers of other faith traditions to also conduct prayer vigils to end the siege on Gaza, and to protect the freedom flotilla, free Palestine and end the occupation. Please pray on our schedule, or feel free to set your own according to what is convenient for you. That we pray in unity on these nights is an act of unity from the believers in a righteous cause and action.
May Allah accept our intentions and supplications and facilitate us. May He protect and save us from the tricks of our enemies and the satanic forces who will attempt to prevent our prayers in any way they can, whether through satanic attacks of jinns and demons, sleepiness, sexual desire, other lusts, fatigue, forgetfulness and by other means unknown to us, but known by God. May God allow His angels to descend on these nights to protect and comfort us, keep us awake and keep us company, lead our prayers and pray with us. May every created thing unite with us in prayer for Gaza and all of Palestine. May God silence the tongues of the wicked, foil their schemes and plots and destroy the wicked jinn who assist them and with whom they have taken league for protection, and render all of their deeds ineffectual. May Allah protect and guide the freedom flotilla ships, the people and their cargo, send His angels to journey with them, to calm the seas and command them, in the name of the One God, to serve this righteous cause. Ameen.
“Those who believe and adopt exile, and fight for the faith in the cause of God, as well as those who give them asylum and aide, these are all in very truth the believers. For them is forgiveness of sins and a provision most generous” (8:75).
National Association of Muslim American Muslim (NAMAW) calls for prayer vigil to break the illegal siege on Gaza. and free Palestine. Vigil dates to coincide with journey of freedom flotilla.
May 17, 2010
God says in the Qur’an, “The unbelievers are protectors of one another. Unless you this, (protect one another) there will be tumult and oppression on the earth and great mischief” (Holy Qur’an 8:73).
The Qur’an also teaches us that our prayers are a source of protection for one another. God told the prophet Muhammad (sa) that his prayers are a source of protection for the believers. Whereas we are not prophets, our righteous prayers, when prayed as the prophet prayed, also serve as a protection for the believers.
The city of Gaza in Palestine has been under an illegal and inhumane economic embargo, imposed by Egypt and the colonial Zionist occupation forces in Palestine for nearly 3 years. Egypt and the Zionist occupation forces have been aided and abetted by the likes of the so called Palestinian Authority and other Arab and also Western European countries and institutions that have refused to stop the criminal blockade. Even though more than 500 people, mostly suffering from chronic disease, have died as a result of this blockade, not even the UN Security Council has been moved by its own charter to put an end to this blatant crime against humanity, and the International Courts have also turned a blind eye, ignoring the tremendous suffering of the people of Gaza.
On May 15th the first of nine ships carrying humanitarian aide as well as building materials for the reconstruction of Gaza, left Ireland, headed for Gaza. It will meet and accompanied by 8 other ships, among them ships from Turkey, Algeria, carrying along with aid and assistance, delegations from the US and other Western countries as well as many noted personalities, statesmen, women and activists from throughout the world. The anticipated arrival date for the flotilla to reach Gaza’s shore is May 27, 2010.
The National Association of Muslim American Women (NAMAW) is calling upon those who will not go to Gaza, to support this effort with a vigil of night prayers offered on behalf of Gaza and the freedom flotilla. We will be petitioning God each night, from May 18th through the 27th, or whenever the freedom flotilla arrives in Gaza. We will ask God to end this criminal siege on Gaza now. We will petition God to end the occupation of Palestine now, and to free Palestine. We will also be petitioning God to protect the ships and passengers who have set sail for Gaza, in obedience to His command to the believers, to answer the call of the weak, the oppressed, and those who are not able to free and protect themselves from the evil satanic forces and their followers and patrons without our help.
Our prayer vigil will begin at 12:00am, EST, May 28th and continue until Fajr, or the Morning Prayer. Please feel free to customize your individual or communal vigil to fit your own schedule if necessary. Some of us will take a break from 2:30am to 3:30am and then continue prayer at 3:30 am, until Fajr. Whether you pray in congregations or groups in the mosques or privately as groups and/or individuals in your homes, centers, etc, it does not matter. What matters is that we have the niyah to free Palestine, to end the illegal occupation, to lift the siege on Gaza, and to protect the freedom flotilla, the people, the ships and their cargo, and make them reach Gaza safely and return home safely.
We invite believers of other faith traditions to also conduct prayer vigils to end the siege on Gaza, and to protect the freedom flotilla, free Palestine and end the occupation. Please pray on our schedule, or feel free to set your own according to what is convenient for you. That we pray in unity on these nights is an act of unity from the believers in a righteous cause and action.
May Allah accept our intentions and supplications and facilitate us. May He protect and save us from the tricks of our enemies and the satanic forces who will attempt to prevent our prayers in any way they can, whether through satanic attacks of jinns and demons, sleepiness, sexual desire, other lusts, fatigue, forgetfulness and by other means unknown to us, but known by God. May God allow His angels to descend on these nights to protect and comfort us, keep us awake and keep us company, lead our prayers and pray with us. May every created thing unite with us in prayer for Gaza and all of Palestine. May God silence the tongues of the wicked, foil their schemes and plots and destroy the wicked jinn who assist them and with whom they have taken league for protection, and render all of their deeds ineffectual. May Allah protect and guide the freedom flotilla ships, the people and their cargo, send His angels to journey with them, to calm the seas and command them, in the name of the One God, to serve this righteous cause. Ameen.
“Those who believe and adopt exile, and fight for the faith in the cause of God, as well as those who give them asylum and aide, these are all in very truth the believers. For them is forgiveness of sins and a provision most generous” (8:75).
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