5/7/06 10h45 Manifestation Européenne pour la Palestine

Dear all,

Office of the Palestinian Prime Minister bombarded recently ! And one has to expect the worst after the last orders from Olmert. Until where the destruction of Palestine will go ? Until where the active complicity of our governments will go ? And until where our shame to have done nothing ?

On the occasion of the special session on Palestine of the European Parliament this week, we invite you to join to us to the demonstration which will take place

Wednesday July 5 with 10h45

in front of the principal entry of the European Parliament

Please help us to circulate largely this call to your own networks !

Press release of the "Collective judéo-arabe et citoyen pour la Paix" following the intervention of the three Alsatian deputies to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (DNA - Sunday July 2nd) :

Les Dernières nouvelles d’Alsace - Sunday 2nd July (rubrique Région, page 5)

"the 3 Alsatian deputies (Bernard Schreiner, Armand Jung and Marc Reymann), members of the parliamantary Assembly of the Council of Europe have signed a declaration to condemn the kidnapping by Hamas of the soldier Gilad Schalit who has the double nationality French and Israelian expressing their strong wish that the Parliamentary Assembly stop any relations with Hamas"

Two weights, two measurements !

At the moment when the State of Israel bombards with impunity the office of a Prime Minister democratically elected, destroys a power station - fact considered as a war crime by Geneva conventions -, bombards roads, bridges, university and private houses, put in jail ministers and deputies, kills out full families and starves a whole population, our three Alsatian deputies sitting in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe do not see something to say. But, in opposite, they protest against "the kidnapping" of a soldier in the performance of his military duties ! In other times and place, this was called "to make a war prisoner" and was generally solved by an exchange. Contrary to its allegations, Israel carried out in the past such exchanges. Today, we have to note that this prisoner is only a pretext to continue the systematic destruction of the Palestinian infrastructures, which were partly financed by Europe, and to raise terror among the population.

The "Collectif judéo-arabe et citoyen pour la Paix" protest vigorously against the unilateral, shocking and deeply unfair attitude of the Alsatian deputies. We expect from the Council of Europe, of which it is the role, to reaffirm the resolutions of the international law, to condemn the committed crimes and to require of the sanctions against the State of Israel who ignores international organisations, thanks to the protection and with the active support of the Western governments.

People are in danger and our governments and some of our deputies are part of the situation !

Strasbourg, July 2, 2006

Tél : (33) 06 22 37 80 43

You will find below the last article of Gidéon Lévy in Haaretz.

"A black flag By Gideon Levy

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=733427

A black flag hangs over the "rolling" operation in Gaza. The more the operation "rolls," the darker the flag becomes. The "summer rains" we are showering on Gaza are not only pointless, but are first and foremost blatantly illegitimate. It is not legitimate to cut off 750,000 people from electricity. It is not legitimate to call on 20,000 people to run from their homes and turn their towns into ghost towns. It is not legitimate to penetrate Syria’s airspace. It is not legitimate to kidnap half a government and a quarter of a parliament.

A state that takes such steps is no longer distinguishable from a terror organization. The harsher the steps, the more monstrous and stupid they become, the more the moral underpinnings for them are removed and the stronger the impression that the Israeli government has lost its nerve. Now one must hope that the weekend lull, whether initiated by Egypt or the prime minister, and in any case to the dismay of Channel 2’s Roni Daniel and the IDF, will lead to a radical change.

Everything must be done to win Gilad Shalit’s release. What we are doing now in Gaza has nothing to do with freeing him. It is a widescale act of vengeance, the kind that the IDF and Shin Bet have wanted to conduct for some time, mostly motivated by the deep frustration that the army commanders feel about their impotence against the Qassams and the daring Palestinian guerilla raid. There’s a huge gap between the army unleashing its frustration and a clever and legitimate operation to free the kidnapped soldier.

To prevent the army from running as amok as it would like, a strong and judicious political echelon is required. But facing off against the frustrated army is Ehud Olmert and Amir Peretz’s tyro regime, weak and happless. Until the weekend lull, it appeared that each step proposed by the army and Shin Bet had been immediately approved for backing. That does not bode well, not only for the chances of freeing Shalit, but also for the future management of the government, which is being revealed to be as weak as the Hamas government.

The only wise and restrained voice heard so far was that of the soldier’s father, Noam Shalit, of all people. That noble man called at what is clearly his most difficult hour, not for stridency and not for further damage done to the lives of soldiers and innocent Palestinians. Against the background of the IDF’s unrestrained actions and the arrogant bragging of the latest macho spokesmen, Maj. Gen. Yoav Gallant of the Southern Command and Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, Shalit’s father’s voice stood out like a voice crying in the wilderness.

Sending tens of thousands of miserable inhabitants running from their homes, dozens of kilometers from where his son is supposedly hidden, and cutting off the electricity to hundreds of thousands of others, is certainly not what he meant in his understated emotional pleas. It’s a shame nobody is listening to him, of all people.

The legitimate basis for the IDF’s operation was stripped away the moment it began. It’s no accident that nobody mentions the day before the attack on the Kerem Shalom fort, when the IDF kidnapped two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from their home in Gaza. The difference between us and them ? We kidnapped civilians and they captured a soldier, we are a state and they are a terror organization. How ridiculously pathetic Amos Gilad sounds when he says that the capture of Shalit was "illegitimate and illegal," unlike when the IDF grabs civilians from their homes. How can a senior official in the defense ministry claim that "the head of the snake" is in Damascus, when the IDF uses the exact same methods ?

True, when the IDF and Shin Bet grab civilians from their homes - and they do so often - it is not to murder them later. But sometimes they are killed on the doorsteps of their homes, although it is not necessary, and sometimes they are grabbed to serve as "bargaining chips," like in Lebanon and now, with the Palestinian legislators. What an uproar there would be if the Palestinians had grabbed half the members of the Israeli government. How would we label them ?

Collective punishment is illegitimate and it does not have a smidgeon of intelligence. Where will the inhabitants of Beit Hanun run ? With typical hardheartedness the military reporters say they were not "expelled" but that it was "recommended" they leave, for the benefit, of course, of those running for their lives. And what will this inhumane step lead to ? Support for the Israeli government ? Their enlistment as informants and collaborators for the Shin Bet ? Can the miserable farmers of Beit Hanun and Beit Lahia do anything about the Qassam rocket-launching cells ? Will bombing an already destroyed airport do anything to free the soldier or was it just to decorate the headlines ?
Did anyone think about what would have happened if Syrian planes had managed to down one of the Israeli planes that brazenly buzzed their president’s palace ? Would we have declared war on Syria ? Another "legitimate war" ? Will the blackout of Gaza bring down the Hamas government or cause the population to rally around it ? And even if the Hamas government falls, as Washington wants, what will happen on the day after ? These are questions for which nobody has any real answers. As usual here : Quiet, we’re shooting. But this time we are not only shooting. We are bombing and shelling, darkening and destroying, imposing a siege and kidnapping like the worst of terrorists and nobody breaks the silence to ask, what the hell for, and according to what right ?"

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of confort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenges and controversy"
Martin Luther King