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Israeli firm gets Mexico border wall contract

by Rusty Dulce Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2007 at 4:39 PM

..president is headed to court on rape charges, it's Prime Minister is being investigated for corruption.. But that does not prevent them from getting sweet deals right here in the U.S.

Know who your "friends" are!
United States' closest friend is a country whose president is headed to court on rape charges, it's Prime Minister is being investigated for corruption, His military chief has resigned. His office manager is under house arrest, and an inquiry commission is looking into allegations that he mishandled last summer's Lebanon war. And last but not least they continue to kill innocent people in Palestine. Now, they are going to "help" U.S. secure it's borders...

Israeli firm gets Mexico border wall contract
http://ww4report.com/node/2743

Published on World War 4 Report (http://ww4report.com)

Israeli firm gets Mexico border wall contract

By Bill Weinberg

Created 11/08/2006 - 03:40

How ironic. We noted [1] in August that ex-Israeli security chief Uza

Dayan was warning the US against emulating Israeli strategies in

securing the Mexican border. Now it appears that Elbit Systems [2], an

Israeli firm which is building the "Aparthied Wall" in occupied

Palestine, has been awarded a contract, along with Boeing, to build the

wall on the Mexican border. From Israel21C [3], Oct. 15:

For possibly the first time ever, the words Israel and border are in the

same sentence and it doesn't have anything to do with its own borders.

The talent and expertise that Elbit
Systems (NASDAQ ELST) has employed

for years in protecting Israel's borders will now be put to use on US

borders to keep Americans safe.

Kollsman Inc., an American-based subsidiary of Elbit, has been selected

as a member of the winning consortium by the Department of Homeland

Security (DHS) for the Secure Border Initiative (SBI) to supply

technology to identify threats, to deter and prevent crossings, and to

apprehend intruders along the US borders with Canada and Mexico.

Kollsman, headquartered in Merrimack, New Hampshire, is a development,

manufacturing and support organization providing advanced

electro-optical
and avionics systems to the commercial aerospace,

military and homeland security markets. The company's expertise

includes enhanced vision systems, flight displays, head-up displays,

thermal imaging systems, fire control systems, and advanced security and

surveillance solutions.

The Secure Border Initiative is the latest attempt by the United States

government to use technology to secure its borders, stop smuggling, and

prevent illegal immigration. After September 11, illegal immigration is

not just seen as a social problem, but also a national security issue. A

unique aspect of this initiative was that Homeland Security gave the

bidders total freedom to create new ideas of how to apply both new and

old technology to secure the US borders.

The DHS awarded the SBI contract for the border security project to prime

contractor Boeing over Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. In addition

to Boeing and Elbit, the other members of the $2 billion program are

telecommunication heavy-weights Lucent, L3 Communications, Perot Systems

and Unisys Global Public Sector.

Elbit was selected because of its ability to bring together global

resources with decades of technological experience and capabilities

securing borders in extreme cold, mountainous regions, as well as hot,

desert terrains.

Kollsman's global parent, Elbit Systems Ltd. has extensive experience

with operational border control and management systems combined with

command, control and situational awareness for the Israeli government.

Elbit's Long Range Reconnaissance and Observation System (LORROS) and

advanced turnkey unmanned aerial vehicle systems (UAV) are some of the

products and technology that will be utilized.

President and CEO of Elbit Systems of America, Tim Taylor said he was

proud of being part of the winning bid and is "motivated to provide the

best border protection available."

"US citizens and the federal government are very concerned about the

vulnerabilities on the porous US northern and southern borders. The

help restore the safety and security that Americans have known for so

long. Detecting threats along 6,000 miles of border in the US is not the

place for experimentation. The experience of our family of companies,

along with the substantial credentials of Boeing as a successful prime

integrator in the homeland security market enables us to make a

significant contribution to protecting the United States."

Wayne Esser, head of the SBInet project for Boeing said: "We are very

happy that Elbit is part of the team because there is not

one-size-fits-all solution for 6,000 miles of border. Knollsman has the

engineering and manufacturing capability to provide at short notice

state-of-the-art solutions that will be integrated to support this

challenging effort. The result will be a program that safeguards the

freedoms that are a cornerstone of our nation."

Based in Haifa, Elbit is the largest non-governmental defense company in

Israel.

"Elbit Systems through its Ortek subsidiary is a major player in

homeland security in Israel and throughout the world. The electronic

deterrence system is key in providing customers in Israel and around the

globe with comprehensive solutions for peripheral defense," said Joseph

Ackerman, president and CEO of Elbit.

Among its projects are defense systems for Israel's land and sea

borders, peripheral security systems of air force bases, major sections

of the border security fence, and Jerusalem's detour route.

>From AP [4], Sept. 22:

Boeing's project proposal also included relying on more than 300 radar

towers along the borders, some supplemented with cameras developed by

Israel's Elbit Systems Ltd. which can spot people nearly 9 miles away

and vehicles at distances of up to 12 miles.

Under the program, Boeing and its partners will also work to improve

physical infrastructure along the border areas to help agents do their

job.

After SBInet is deployed in Arizona, it will be rolled out in segments to

other parts of the border based on highest traffic areas, Chertoff said.

Other partners of Boeing in the bid include L-3 Communications Holdings

Inc. , Unisys Corp. , Perot Systems Corp. , DRS Technologies , Elbit

unit Kollsman Inc., Lucent Technologies , Centech and USIS.

The organizers of an event this Saturday Nov. 11 at New York City's

Judson Memorial Church, "Resist the Apartheid Walls, from Palestine to

Mexico [5]," note: "Elbit will import Israeli military technology,

tested on Palestinians, for use against poor immigrants here."

See our last posts on Israel/Palestine [6], the struggle for the Mexican

border [7], the immigration crackdown [8] and the "Apartheid Wall [9]."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source URL:

http://ww4report.com/node/2743

Links:

[1] http://ww4report.com/node/2339

[2] http://www.elbitsystems.com/

[3]

http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles%5El1450&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Technology

[4] http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/oct/27/bush_signs_fence_bill/

[5] http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/11/78913.shtml

[6] http://ww4report.com/node/2735

[7] http://ww4report.com/node/2728

[8] http://ww4report.com/node/2732

[9] http://ww4report.com/node/2387


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Wont be so interesting...

by Hamil Phangue Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2007 at 7:02 PM

When we finally notice that the gun ports point both ways, in and out along these final solutions to the immigrant problem.
Welcome to New Palestine.
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Interesting

by observation Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2007 at 8:55 PM

I guess Mexico isn't participating in the boycott, either.
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Pigs at the Trough

by Howler Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 at 8:28 AM

Yes, the biggest most well connected pigs and their friends in the lobbies.
More the reason to turn off the tap that pours slop into various profiteers.
This nation of citizens have seen their treasures drained, their manufacturing shipped, at tax payer expense off shore and their currency raped by military spending.
The pigs are fat enough.
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what was that, S Y ?

by H Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 at 10:49 AM

Another mindless canard when nothing else will do? 'Bashing Israel' is only a small target zone. There is so much profiteering going on there's room for everyone. Feel special or something? You're not the only piglet elbowing its way to the tap.
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SchtarkerYid

by So, does the "H" Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 at 11:04 AM

So, does the "H" stand for "hypocrite"?
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Your government, economy, and national identity have been hijacked by these monsters!

by wakey-wakey! heerzahot cuppajoe foryuz Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 at 3:37 PM

They're criminally insane political MANIACS who bring whole new realms of meaning to the term "supremacist." They're absolutely convinced that only they are truly human or morally important. If you're not one of them, they would prefer to see you tortured to death as slowly and horribly as possible... just like they're doing now to their Palestinian prisoners... just like they did before that to the "Kulaks," the Ukrainians, the Cossacks... Just like they YEARN to do to EVERY OTHER GROUP OF PEOPLE ON EARTH. It's what "Chosen People" really means in the twisted evil mysticism / psychosis of absolute hatred that is their true belief.

IF YOU DON'T GET OFF YOUR ASS AND STOP THEM, THEY WILL BRING THEIR UTTERLY PURE HATRED DOWN, BY MEASURED DEGREES, ONTO YOUR HEAD, AND DOWN ONTO EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING YOU HOLD DEAR.

THEY WILL DESTROY YOUR ENTIRE WORLD.

It's already happening.

The time has come to wake the fuck up
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gad that's crud(e)

by nice one Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 at 3:53 PM

sloppy very sloppy.
worst propaganda attempt I've ever seen after so much time spent assembling it. Utube this.
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Where are these people from versus those they displace?

by What the Zionists don't want you to see Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 at 5:36 PM

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Who are these people?

by Where are they from? Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 at 11:20 PM

The majority of Israelis have their origins in the nations of the Middle east and North Africa. Thank you for asking.
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Not stolen

by bought and paid for Saturday, Jan. 27, 2007 at 2:57 PM

Re: stealing homes:

Ziff (Rape of Palestine 1938) says "In the case of the peasants who sold to the Jews, with the exceptionof a bare five percentwho bettered themself in urban pursuits, all remained on the land. Most of them sold only part of their acresand with the money obtained got out of debt for the first time in their lives. Within the past 6 years the debt of the Arab cultivator has been reduced by 60% while his income has sharply increased. The most solicitous prodding of the Government over the last ten yearshas not been able to bring forth more than 664 Arab families that could come under the definition of displaced."

Living and owning are two different concepts. If you buy a house that it currently being rented, and you displace the residents, you are not "stealing" their home. The vast majority of property was purchased (at exorbitant prices) from wealthy absentee landlords
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Land belongs to those who live and work on it.

by death to landlords Saturday, Jan. 27, 2007 at 3:32 PM

Death to capitalism.
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Ziff this

by Ziffer Saturday, Jan. 27, 2007 at 6:34 PM

[“The vast majority of property was purchased (at exorbitant prices) from wealthy absentee landlords-”]

-Despite the fact that a large share of Jewish capital was allocated to rural areas, and despite the presence of British imperialist military forces and the immense pressure exerted by the administrative machine in favor of the Zionists, the latter achieved only minimal results with respect to the settlement of land.
They, nevertheless, seriously damaged the status of the Arab rural population. Ownership by Jewish groups of urban and rural land rose from 300,000 dunums in 1929 [67,000 acres] to 1,250,000 dunums in 1930 [280,000 acres]. [*]The purchased land was insignificant from the point of view of mass colonization and of the settlement of the “Jewish problem”. But the expropriation of one million dunums – almost one third of the agricultural land – led to a severe impoverishment of Arab peasants and Bedouins.-
Colonizing Palestine-
The Hidden History of Zionism
Chapter 3
By Ralph Schoenman
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They entered a wasteland

by and made the desert bloom Saturday, Jan. 27, 2007 at 10:35 PM

Land belongs to those who live and work on it.


Absolutely. And the Jews entered a desolate and unloved land,

From Samuel Clemens. "A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds - a silent mournful expanse ... We reached Tabor safely ...
We never saw a human being on the whole route"

and turned it into a thriving agriculture region.
The land belongs to those who live on it and work it.
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"They entered a wasteland"

by another Zionist lie Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007 at 8:39 AM


palestine47.jpg, image/jpeg, 362x565

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Breaking the Law in the West Bank - The Private Land Report - Nov. 2006

by Peace Now Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007 at 9:27 AM

This report by the Peace Now Settlement Watch Team is a harsh indictment against the whole settlements enterprise and the role all Israeli governments played in it. The report shows that Israel has effectively stolen privately owned Palestinian lands for the purpose of constructing settlements and in violation Israel's own laws regarding activities in the West Bank. Nearly 40 percent of the total land area on which the settlements sit is, according to official data of the Israeli Civil Administration (the government agency in charge of the settlements), privately owned by Palestinians. The settlement enterprise has undermined not only the collective property rights of the Palestinians as a people, but also the private property rights of individual Palestinian landowners.

Summary:
The majority of settlements have been constructed either entirely or partially on private Palestinian land
• For the first time Peace Now is able to prove, that despite the State and settler’s claims, the majority of the settlements in the West Bank have been constructed on private Palestinian land and not on State land.
• 130 settlements were constructed either entirely or partially on private Palestinian land
• Around 60 thousand dunams of the land used by the settlements is actually private Palestinian land
• Private Palestinian land accounts for 40% of land used for settlements
• Construction of settlements of private Palestinian land is illegal according to the Supreme Court ruling, (Elon More precedent of 1979), and thus cannot be authorized. The result is that not only were the outposts constructed in an illegal manner, but also a large number of the veteran settlements were established on private Palestinian land and are thus illegal.
• The data presented here has been hidden by the State for many years, for fear that the revelation of these facts could damage it’s international relations. Only recently did Peace Now manage to obtain this material.
• Conclusion: For many years the state of Israel has been seizing thousands of dunams of private Palestinian land in order to construct settlements. The claim by the State and settlers that the settlements have been constructed on state land is misleading and false. The vast majority of settlement construction was done against the law of the land and the Supreme Court ruling and therefore unauthorized.
On a moral note this report paints a picture of the Israeli state acting in “daylight robbery” of Palestinian land and handing it over to Israeli settlers. The State has been taking advantage of the weakened status of the Palestinians in order to steal their land.

Peace Now Demands: That the Attorney General order an immediate investigation into these findings and bring those responsible to justice.

• From the official response received by Peace Now from the Civil Administration, regarding Peace Now's report on the settlements that have been built on private Palestinian Land, we can learn that they don't deny the findings. For thr Civil Administartion's letter click here.
The response doesn't deny that the facts presented, but instead claims that in the "last few years" there has been awareness to try to prevent it.
For Peace Now reply - click here.

For the full report - click here
For the Arabic translation -
click here
For the Franch translation - click here

Adora - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Alei Zahav - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Alfei Menashe - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Alfei Menashe (Nirit) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Almon (Anatot) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Alon Shvut - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Ariel - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Asfar - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Ateret - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Avnei Hefetz and Hahar (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Barqan and Ma'ale Israel (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Bat Ayin and Bat Ayin East, Bat Ayin West, Old Massu'ot Itzhak (outposts) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Beit Arye - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Beit El and Beit El East, Jabel Aritis (outposts) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Beit Horon - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Beitar Illit - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Bqa'ot - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Bracha and Bracha A (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Carmel - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Dolev - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Efrata and Givat Hadagan, Givat Hatamar (outposts) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
El'azar and Derech Ha'avot (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Eli and Palgei Mayim, Nof Harim, Hayovel (outposts) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Elkana - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Elon More and Point 792 - Skali's Ranch (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Enav and Einav North East, Einav South West (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Eshkolot - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Etz Efraim - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Geva Binyamin and Bnei Adam (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Gitit - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Giv'at Ze'ev - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Giv'on Ha'hadasha - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Haggai - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Halamish and Elisha Preparatory (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Har Adar - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Har Gilo - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Hashmonaim - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Hermesh - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Immanuel - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Itamar and Hanekuda, Gva'ot Olam, Hill 851, Hill 782, Hill 836, Hill 777 (outposts) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Karmei Tzur and Tzur Shalem (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Karnei Shomron - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Kedumim - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Keidar - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Kfar Adumim and Nofei Prat - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Kfar Etzion - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Kfar Ha'oranim (Menorah) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Kfar Tapuah and Kfar Tapuah West (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Kiryat Arba - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Kiryat Netafim - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Kochav Ha'shachar and Mitzpe Kramim, Ma'ale Shlomo (outposts) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Kochav Ya'akov - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Ma'ale Adumim - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Ma'ale Amos and Ibei Hanahal (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Ma'ale Efraim and Industrial Zone - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Ma'ale Levona - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Ma'ale Michmash and Mitzpe Danny, Neve Erez (outposts) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Ma'ale Shomron and Elmatan (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Ma'on and Hill 833 - Ma'on Farm (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Masu'a - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Mechola - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Mechora - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Metzadot Yehuda and Nof Nesher (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Mevo Dotan - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Mevo Horon - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Migdal Oz - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Migdalim - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Mitzpe Yericho - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Modi'in Illit - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Na'ale - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Negohot and Mitzpe Lachish (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Netiv Ha'gdud - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Neve Daniel - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Nili - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Nokdim - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Ofra and Amona, Mishpatei Aretz Institute, Ofra North East (outposts) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Oranit - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Otniel - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Pedu'el - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Pnei Hever - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Psagot and Mitzpe Ha'ai (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Rechelim - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Revava - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Rimonim - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Ro'i - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Rosh Tzurim - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Sal'it - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Sha'arei Tikva - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Shadmot Mehola - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Shaked - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Shavei Shomron - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Shilo, Shvut Rachel and Industrial Zone - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Shim'a and Shim'a North (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Susiya and Susiya North (outpost) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Talmon and Haresha, Horesh Yaron, Zayit Ra'anan (outposts) - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
Telem - For the detailed aerial photograph click here
www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=61&fld=191&docid...

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Villagers helpless in face of settlers' land grab

by repost Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007 at 9:29 AM


January 27, 2007

Palestinian homes may soon be bulldozed into history, writes Ed O'Loughlin in Susya, Lebanon.

READERS of Asterix comics will be familiar with the notion of the lone village surrounded by enemy encampments, holding out for survival.

It is unlikely the people of Susya, on the southern tip of the West Bank, have heard of Asterix. But these poor Palestinian farmers are familiar with the scenario.

For more than 20 years this small agricultural area has served as an example of how Israeli military occupation and right-wing Jewish settlement have ground away at the lives of Palestinian civilians.

It is mainly thanks to the support of Israeli human rights and peace groups that any Palestinians are left in Susya at all. But under a petition pending in the country's Supreme Court, what is left of the Arab village may soon be bulldozed into history.

Mohammed Nawajeh, a Palestinian lawyer whose family owns land in Susya, says the village's misfortunes began in the early 1980s when the Israeli government began planting Jewish settlements - illegal in the eyes of the International Court of Justice - on the rocky hills around the village.

One settlement even bears the same name as the Arab village, which is mentioned in the Bible. "These settlements grabbed more and more of the village's land every time they expanded, and then they started expelling people," said Mr Nawajeh, pointing to the ring of eight Israeli-held positions on the surrounding hillsides."The whole intention of the soldiers and the settlers is to make us so frustrated that we leave the area for good."

The village was home to 50 families before it was bulldozed by the Israeli Defence Forces in the mid-1990s. Susya is unique in the region in that some of its inhabitants - olive farmers and Bedouin herders - lived in caves. Unfortunately, they were not the first people to live there.

"They were sitting on the remains of Byzantine and Roman and Hellenistic ruins, and an old synagogue from the second temple period," said David Schulman, an activist with the Israeli-Arab peace group Ta'ayush (Co-existence).

He said Israel declared the village a national park and evicted people. Many families gave up and left, but some refused to abandon their farmland and moved to another site a few hundred metres away, into tents, stone huts and other caves.

The Israeli Army continued its efforts to drive them away. "There was repeated harassment," said Professor Schulman, a lecturer in Sanskrit at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

"In the early 1990s the army came in the middle of the night and simply put them [the villagers] in trucks and dumped them 15 kilometres to the north," he said. "In 2001 there was a major onslaught where 80-90 per cent of the caves were blocked up. So the people set up this motley collection of tents and huts here, and this is what is left of Susya."

A few dozen people still camp out halfway between the original village and the Israeli settlement.

"It was better in the caves than in the tents," recalls Mahmoud Nawajeh, 23, a relative of Mohammed. "It was drier and warmer, especially in winters."

He points to open craters that were once home to 20 members of his family - before Israeli Army earthmovers broke them open with pneumatic drills. His brother Abdullah, 45, said their father was shot dead by a Jewish settler in 1991 while herding his sheep.

In its latest petition to the Israeli courts, the army is calling for the demolition of the remaining Palestinian shelters because they were built without planning permission from the Defence Force's Civil Administration, which still controls most basic aspects of Palestinian life in the West Bank.

But, say concerned Israeli human rights groups, much of the direct pressure against the Palestinian civilians comes not from the army but from the well-armed residents of neighbouring Jewish settlements.

Susya villagers and the human rights groups have filed numerous complaints, sometimes with photographic and video evidence of settlers assaulting Palestinian civilians, including children on their way to school.

So far, locals say, no Jewish settler has been punished and when police or soldiers are present they usually fail to intervene to protect Palestinians.

"We've not been able to work the land for the last six years, even though there's an Israeli court order saying we can," Mohammed Nawajeh said.

Most of his land has been declared a closed military zone. "We have to ask the Israeli Army for an escort every time we want to go there and when we do the army says we are too busy," he said.

"We've tried to do it without them but the settlers come and attack us … I called the army to protect me once when the settlers attacked me, and they arrested me instead."

An Israeli police spokesman said there were occasional "small-scale incidents" involving settlers and Palestinians in the area that were investigated immediately. "Arrests have been made," he said.

He was aware of two continuing investigations, but could not say if settlers had ever been prosecuted. As an "extreme precaution" police had escorted Palestinian children to school to protect them from the settlers, he said.
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Abbas is a puppet

by death to traitors Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007 at 9:32 AM

Death to his Quisling regime.
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A vison of the future

by the new palestinian state Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2007 at 12:35 AM

At least eight Palestinians died Friday in a resurgence of factional violence that overshadowed a rally marking the one-year anniversary of Hamas' victory in parliamentary elections.

Abbas, who had been elected president in 2005, has been trying to cut a deal with Hamas for months on installing a coalition Cabinet supportive of his endeavor to negotiate peace with Israel and end the crippling sanctions. Those talks have broken down several times amid sporadic factional fighting that has left more than 60 dead since May.

Friday's violence, which left at least 28 people injured, broke two weeks of relative calm.

(And these will end up in Alison Weir's statistics and will ultimately be blamed on Israel)

Two Hamas militiamen who had left a mosque in Gaza City were killed in a shootout with Fatah police officers at their headquarters a block away.

Most of the violence occurred in the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya and its refugee camp.

It began when a jeep of the Hamas-led Interior Ministry's police force hit a roadside bomb late Thursday, wounding seven police officers and five civilians. Two of the officers died Friday.

Before dawn Friday, Hamas police officers surrounded the home of a Fatah militiaman suspected of having planned the bombing and killed him. A police spokesman said the militiaman fired at the police as they went to arrest him.

(Oh, look targeted execution. Do I hear any shouts of "war crimes" from the gallery?)

Fatah officials called his death an execution.

Later in the day, Hamas forces in Jebaliya besieged the home of a senior officer in the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's militia, killing two unarmed civilians nearby, including a 16-year-old boy.

(Oh, look. Colateral damages, and the targeting of children. Do I hear any shouts of "war crimes" from the gallery?)

In response, the Fatah militia said it seized 24 Hamas hostages in Gaza and the West Bank and would kill them if the besieged officer in Jebaliya, Mansour Shalayel, was harmed. Several of the hostages were paraded before reporters in the West Bank city of Nablus.

(Kidnapping as a negotiation technique. Will rape and torture be next?)

Also killed Friday was a Hamas activist shot by a rooftop sniper as he rode through Jebaliya in a loudspeaker van summoning people to a rally marking the election anniversary.

(murder as a way of stiflling free speech. Any cries of war crimes from the gallery?)
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