Jefferson Corner

I was so surprised when I read this morning, with my morning coffee, an article in the Washington Post titled “ Stricter Policy Splits West Ban Families”. The Post refrains from publishing any thing that may embarrass Israel and its friends in DC. Don’t know what will happen to the writer or the editor. They may get fired if Israel’s friends decide to do so as it happens to all those who dare to write the truth about Israel.
In any case, the story of Sam Bahour, a friend of mine and also from the same hometown of El-Bireh has been in the news for few weeks now, in major media, both print and TV, ever since Israel decided not renew his residency visa. Sam, born in Ohio returned to our hometown soon after Oslo thinking that Israel has changed. It did not.
Israel has been splitting more families than it united and the number of over 120,000 waiting for re-unification is a small number compared with those Israel deliberately split. Israel not only exercises and with great styles its policy of ethnic cleansing, but also make sure that those it could not expel, turns their lives to hell.
My late father, who happens to be a US citizen decided at the insistence of my late mother to return to El-Bireh so that my mother, who happened to have an Israeli residency permit, can be with her aging and ailing mother. My parents returned to El-Bireh after spending 4th of July 1976 here in Washington DC. By the way, my late father was a die hard Democrat, talked always about labor unions and about FDR as if he was god. Now I can see why he was not a Republican, in any case we go back to the story.
Soon after its occupation of 67, Israel introduced a law that allows certain families, usually husband and wife, to reunite if one of the spouses happened to be a “resident” of the West Bank at the start of occupation. My mother qualified for that.
One would think that Israel, way back in 76, before terrorism, before Hamas will process these application at least with some slow speed. It did not. My father for over 10 years had to travel to Cyprus every few months and return so that he can renew his “ tourist” visa to his hometown and to be with his wife and his ailing mother in law. Well, my father did that for some 10 years until someone called “ Abu Daoud” an Israel Jew and an employee of the Israel’s civil administration suggested that my late father pay the sum of $15,000 and he will be able to get his permanent residency. My father did pay the bribe and he was able to get his residency permit. Of course, Israelis like all other people do accept and take bribes Sharon did that too! They may be “chosen” but they are also on the take and do take bribes and are corrupt like all other people.
When my late parents became ill, I was living in Geneva and I wanted to have a permit to be with them. They applied for me, but were turned down. With some European connections, I was able to have my file reviewed again. This time Israel did approve the application, but insisted that I leave my own family in Geneva and stay in the West Bank for a period of not less than one year. It was a difficult choice and after traveling to El-Bireh to meet with my parents we decided I would not take the offer.
This is in contrast to the fact that some American Jews armed with a gun and a deed from G-d decided to take over couple of our properties in an area of the town called “Jabal Altaweel” as part of the Israeli settlement. Of course, as US citizens of the Jewish faith they can, under both Israel and US laws take over any property they chose without due regard as to who own the property. They are the chosen one and we as Palestinian American do not rise to even a second-class citizens, with equal protection of the law.

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Recently in Jerusalem, a committee was organized called “Justice for Jews of the Middle East”/ This organization is seeking more than $100 BILLION in compensation from Arab countries, and if the success of European Jews is an indication, then for sure “Arab Jews” will succeed in collecting the $100 BILLION and more.
Soon the US Congress will pass a law that will make it mandatory for Arab countries to pay and compensate Arab Jews for properties left behind. May be the US Congress will pass a law taxing every oil barrel, every bail of cotton, every can of olive oil produced in the Middle to raise the necessary funds and will add a $100 surcharge on every tax bill of any “Arab” living in the US and paying taxes. May be the White House will appoint a Czar to raise and collect this $100 BILLION in compensation to Arab Jews.
As a Palestinian American I am all for the Arab Jews seeking compensation for property loss and I have advocated this for a long time. I even go further, I advocate that Arab Jews have every right to return HOME to their countries in the Middle East, including Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq among others. I also advocate and call for the establishment of an international commission that will investigate the circumstances behind the Arab Jews leaving their countries, and should open an investigation into the actions of the Jewish Agency and the Mossad in creating events that led the Jews to leave. This international commission should also have the same mandatory powers to investigate the circumstance that lead the Palestinians to go into exile. I am for the right of the Jews to return home to their countries, in Morocco, in Tunisia (not sure if Senator George Allen will chose to return to Tunis), to return to Egypt and Iraq and of course to the nation-state of the Borough of Brooklyn.
As a Palestinian American will property taken over by Jewish settlers in the West Bank of El-Bireh, who claim that G-d gave them my land and the property of my parents and their parents, I am willing to forego all of my rights to such a property and cede to any Jews from the US or any where in the world who will file a claim in any US District court and who can present to the court that he/she has a dead for the property signed by G-d or witness by Mohamed, Jesus, Moses, Noah even Abraham. If the US District court will formally and legally recognizes the right of a Jew to my property then I am willing to give it all up and accept the ruling of such court. Until this happens and until Jews from the US or any where in the world can prove that G-d gave them my property and prove it in a court of law in the US, then and only then will I accept the notion of the promise land.
I do hope that Arab Jews can succeed in claiming their rights to their properties in Arab countries and can succeed in their right of return. May be they can establish an added precedent for the Palestinian to sue for the right of return and sue for the right to recover their properties within Israel and perhaps then and only with such an international commission can we set aside all of the lies and discover the truth about the exiles of Palestinians by Israel Jews and the exiles of Arab Jews by Arabs.

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While this US Administration continue to provide legal, political, financial and even criminal coverage of Israel’s crime within the Palestinian Occupied Territories, the US recently announce a $42 million fund to support Fatah re-organization plans making sure Fatah continue with its “agreed to” role as subcontractor for the Israeli Occupation.
It is so ironic that at a time when the US government and especially the White House and the State Department are silent on the humiliating treatment of its citizens within the Israeli Occupied Territories, as we have seen most recently with the denial of entry to Palestine of US citizens of Palestinian origins. Israel went even further by demanding that those US citizens of Arabic origin must leave the Occupied Territories. Sam Bahour is one case in point (visit the different website that covered his case in the US and international media) and the case of my sister Laila and her husband who planned to retire in El-Bireh but where denied residency. Of course if this treatment happened to any Jew, and especial to a US Jew by any country in the world all hell will break lose and congressmen and senators will be tripping over each other demanding freedom of residency and movement to members of the Jewish faith. Of course Arabs and Muslims are not entitled to this kind of coverage by US lawmakers and this administration.
While this administration is silent about all the crimes committed by Israel it is doing all it can to undermine the very democratic practices it advocate.
Every one, except the majority of the Palestinians do recognize that the Oslo Accord signed by the late Yasser Arafat and Ishak Rabin was nothing but a contractual agreement by an occupying power and representative of the occupied, where Israel as the occupying power cedes its role of managing the day to day affairs of the people under occupation to an organization such as the PLO and Fatah, with the US providing the political coverage to both Fatah and Arafat and the European Union providing the funding that keeps Fatah, the racketeering machine, well funded and in business. That is why we never hear any thing about ending the occupation, not from George Bush, not from Secretary Rice, not from Olmert, certainly not from any the Palestinian leaderships that is identified with Fatah. It seems that Fatah leadership have added the US State Department as client in addition to the European Union and Israel.
$42 million dollars will go a long way to fund and buy many of Fatah leadership who also made a financial killing since Oslo and who make sure that the Israeli Occupation continue as a steady source of income for Fatah and its leadership.
Since Oslo many of the Fatah leadership hardly ever talk about ending the Israeli Occupation and for the most part talk only of managing the occupation and talk about salaries for their army of thugs. These Palestinian officials talk nothing of the Israeli criminal occupation but talk of making life a “little easier” for those who have suffered some 39 years under the worst military occupation since Nazi Germany occupied most of Europe. No Fatah officials talk of the more than 750,000 Palestinians who were guest of Israeli jails, and no one talk of the hundreds of thousands who lost their properties. I am sure the US State Department in the next few months will go on a shopping spree buying the “conscious” and “themam” of many Palestinians in the US and around the world, making sure they complete the transaction begun with buying Fatah. I continue to say and repeat that Arafat and the PLO after the Palestinian exiles of 48 and the second exile of 67 and the military occupation are the worst thing that could ever happen to the Palestinian people. Oslo was nothing but a crime. Arafat, Fatah and the PLO should take the blame for failing to end the longest military occupation in modern history

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When it comes to Iraq, no Iraqis so far was and is able to describe the Iraqi situation and the failure of the Iraqi people to form and build a modern nation state than Foulath Hadid, the honory fellow at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford as he eloquently expressed his views in an article published in the International Herald Tribune (Friday, October 20, 2006).
Mr. Hadid quoting the late King Faisal I, shortly before his death describing the Iraqis as “ There is still— no Iraqi people but unimaginable masses of human beings, devoid of any patriotic ideas, imbued with religious traditions and absurdities, connected by no common tie, giving ear to devil, prone to anarchy, and perpetually ready to rise against any government what so ever” The late king Faisal was somewhat correct in the last instance. However the Iraqis did not rise in mass and throw out Saddam and his Ba’athist gang. Too bad the Sunni Muslims did not join the Shiites and Kurds when they revolted against Saddam.
It is very clear that not George Bush nor any one in his administration bothered to read the history of Iraq before they set of their reckless, ill advices, ill planned, and ill executed war on Iraq. It seems when it comes to history, members of this administration to do not bother to read, or are unable to read.
No one in their right mind, will disagree that Saddam Hussein is a killer, a murder, a war criminal who had to go, but many disagree with the lies of George Bush and with the way he ramp the war on Iraq, as a war on terror down the throat of congress and the public.
It is hard to believe how Bush allowed Paul Bremer to execute the plans for the post war Iraq without any due considerations to its history and its very complicated social, religious, tribal and ethnic structure.
More troublesome is the fact that Bush and Rumsfeld continue to believe in the same in what they are doing and thinking they are on the right course when the facts on the grounds tell them they better change plans and change tactics.
Bush afraid to admit he made a major blunder and made the biggest mistake of his presidency continues to make believe and continue to advocate, “staying the course”. What course are you talking about Mr. President? Your course is nothing but a disaster and all of the provado you can give and pretend will not change the facts on the grounds.
The Late president Lyndon Johnson lied to Congress when he claimed the North Vietnamese attacked US Navy ships in the Gulf of Tonking, thus escalating a conflict the murdered over 55,000 of our finest soldiers, crippled for life hundreds of thousands of GI’s and killed and murder over a million Vietnamese, he left in disgrace which he deserved.
Bush is doing the same like Johnson, lied about Weapons of Mass Destructions and continue to lie about the ties of Saddam to terror and of so far the number of murdered and killed Iraqis is approaching the 700,000. Do we expect that Bush will admit his lies and his failures before the death toll in Iraq reach a million, I doubt it?
The only beneficiaries of the Bush’s War on Terror are the so-called “security and terror experts” and those companies that sell to Department of Homeland Security. I do not believe the nation is safer or safer under Bush leadership.
It is time for Bush to admit to the people of the US that he lied, he made believe and he should apologies to the families of the more than 700,000 who died in Iraq so far. He should apologies to the nation and for taking the nation for a reckless, and joyless ride these past 5 years.

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When it comes to Iraq, no Iraqis so far was and is able to describe the Iraqi situation and the failure of the Iraqi people to form and build a modern nation state than Foulath Hadid, the honory fellow at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford as he eloquently expressed his views in an article published in the International Herald Tribune (Friday, October 20, 2006).
Mr. Hadid quoting the late King Faisal I, shortly before his death describing the Iraqis as “ There is still— no Iraqi people but unimaginable masses of human beings, devoid of any patriotic ideas, imbued with religious traditions and absurdities, connected by no common tie, giving ear to devil, prone to anarchy, and perpetually ready to rise against any government what so ever” The late king Faisal was somewhat correct in the last instance. However the Iraqis did not rise in mass and throw out Saddam and his Ba’athist gang. Too bad the Sunni Muslims did not join the Shiites and Kurds when they revolted against Saddam.
It is very clear that not George Bush nor any one in his administration bothered to read the history of Iraq before they set of their reckless, ill advices, ill planned, and ill executed war on Iraq. It seems when it comes to history, members of this administration to do not bother to read, or are unable to read.
No one in their right mind, will disagree that Saddam Hussein is a killer, a murder, a war criminal who had to go, but many disagree with the lies of George Bush and with the way he ramp the war on Iraq, as a war on terror down the throat of congress and the public.
It is hard to believe how Bush allowed Paul Bremer to execute the plans for the post war Iraq without any due considerations to its history and its very complicated social, religious, tribal and ethnic structure.
More troublesome is the fact that Bush and Rumsfeld continue to believe in the same in what they are doing and thinking they are on the right course when the facts on the grounds tell them they better change plans and change tactics.
Bush afraid to admit he made a major blunder and made the biggest mistake of his presidency continues to make believe and continue to advocate, “staying the course”. What course are you talking about Mr. President? Your course is nothing but a disaster and all of the provado you can give and pretend will not change the facts on the grounds.
The Late president Lyndon Johnson lied to Congress when he claimed the North Vietnamese attacked US Navy ships in the Gulf of Tonking, thus escalating a conflict the murdered over 55,000 of our finest soldiers, crippled for life hundreds of thousands of GI’s and killed and murder over a million Vietnamese, he left in disgrace which he deserved.
Bush is doing the same like Johnson, lied about Weapons of Mass Destructions and continue to lie about the ties of Saddam to terror and of so far the number of murdered and killed Iraqis is approaching the 700,000. Do we expect that Bush will admit his lies and his failures before the death toll in Iraq reach a million, I doubt it?
The only beneficiaries of the Bush’s War on Terror are the so-called “security and terror experts” and those companies that sell to Department of Homeland Security. I do not believe the nation is safer or safer under Bush leadership.
It is time for Bush to admit to the people of the US that he lied, he made believe and he should apologies to the families of the more than 700,000 who died in Iraq so far. He should apologies to the nation and for taking the nation for a reckless, and joyless ride these past 5 years.

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These days and ever since the criminal attacks by modern day Islamic terrorist on the World Trade Center resulting in the cold murder of over 3,000 innocent lives, many in the US and Israel especially the alliance of Conservative Evangelicals and Zionist Neocons, have been trying their best to define Muslim and Islamic values as promoters of mass murder and killing and Islam as nothing but a religion of terrorism. Even the Pope has joined this alliance. And sad to say they have succeeded in creating nations of fear here in the US and around the world.
No one can deny, that Islam in its early days was spread by swords and by “holly worriers” but then all great empires of that time and prior, have engaged in wars for one reason or another using armies of tens of thousands of soldiers. Many of the great empires such as the Persian, Byzantine, and Roman Empires not to mentions Athens, Sparta and Carthage all engaged in wars and occupations. Why Islam is the only one that is targeted these days accused of violating human values. At least Muslim worriers NEVER committed the kind of war crimes committed by soldier of the Holy Roman Empire and the Great Crusade committed in the name of God and Jesus Christ and committed to save the Holy Land from the Muslim Infidels.
It seems that many of modern day Christian Evangelicals and Zionist Neocons forgot all about the hundreds of millions of people killed and murdered by armies of colonizers and occupiers armed with modern Judea-Christian values.
One only need to remember the Spanish Inquisitions against Muslim and Jews, the conquest of Latin America by the Conquistadors who killed tens of millions of native Latin Americans. They refuse to remember let alone admit the killings and murder of tens of millions of Africans by colonizing powers of Christian Europe and the killings of tens of millions of American Natives and forget about the killings and murder of tens of millions of African slaves killed by the longest running crimes of its kind in the world. These criminals where not Muslim Jihadists, but where committed by nations with Christian values. Of course since we always hear of Judea-Christian values, we also need to remember the Israeli Occupation and exiles of millions of Palestinian Arabs in the name of Judeo- Zionist values. The list of crimes continue with the murder of millions of Jews in Europe in the Second World War, the killing and murder of millions during the same war and the previous war, the killing of hundreds of thousands by allied planes in Germany and in Japan and the killing of millions in Central and Latin America. Of course no one talks of these crimes as crimes with its source in Judea-Christian values. Yes there are many Muslim criminals who committed terrorist crimes around the world, but then there are millions of Judea-Christian soldiers who committed murder in the hundred of millions. Those with glass houses should not throw stones. It is time for Muslims, Jews and Christians must admit they all committed crimes at one time or another.

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