Rather mixed reactions to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama at this stage. Palestinians resent it deeply wondering why Bush wasn’t offered it. Fidel Castro has acknowledged the changes in international relations with a shift to diplomacy not present before.
The Palestinians can be forgiven for not noticing as my good friend Kamel Hawwash from Birmingham amplifies. News from Bil’in reports the customary peaceful delegation to the apartheid wall which divides the farmers from their crops. Accompanied by a large delegation of French supporters and armed with sacks they go to harvest the olives. They are met with a barrage of tear gas and so the canisters are collected instead of the precious olives.

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I was watching a DVD about the British composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams whose music has recently been re-evaluated. The comments about it expressing rural scenes like “cows looking over gates” is clearly far removed from the Third (“Pastoral”) symphony as possible. First of all the landscape isn’t English, but that of France in the middle of the First World War where VW had volunteered for ambulance duty. In the film use is made of that utterly horrific picture of a naked child ablaze after the use of napalm in Vietnam. I don’t quite know why it was felt necessary to use this to point out what was in the composer’s mind in his violent outburst in the Fourth symphony but we know he was a humanitarian with socialist ideals. Whether he did or he didn’t clearly the lessons of Vietnam were not heeded. Not by the US in Iraq. Not by the Israeli government in Gaza. Some early eyewitnesses spoke of the horrible injuries civilians, including women and children were sustaining – even animals on farms and in the zoo! These are all war crimes and the Hague awaits the perpetrators in time.

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Reports from Israeli occupation of Palestine is often unbelievable. How sick is this?
Palestinian Youth Murdered by Israeli Army
On Wednesday, 30 September 2009, the Israeli army murdered a Palestinian youth outside his school, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam high school in Yabad village, west of Jenin. This school had been closed from 2001-2006.
Around 11:35am, a military jeep with the license plate number 655474 left the main road to turn into the access road to the school where a group of male students gathered close to the main entrance of the school. The jeep was driving at a fast speed and targeted Foad Mahmoud Naiyf Turkuman (age 17) who was crouching down close to a small concrete wall. According to eye witnesses (one of his teachers and three of his friends), the jeep hit Foad directly and pushed him against the wall. Due to the impact, Foad was thrown 2.5 meters and fell to the ground in front of the vehicle. The driver of the jeep then drove his vehicle forward running two wheels over Foad’s chest and torso of the already injured youth a second time. He then stopped the engine and called for reinforcement, claiming mechanical failure. The driver of the jeep closed the gate of the school and did not allow any of the teachers’ cars to go out and take the injured student from the ground, or help him.
A second jeep with the license plate number 611041 arrived. The newly arrived soldiers threw tear gas at three friends of Foad’s standing nearby as well as into the school court yard to prevent anyone from coming to the scene. About 24 students were injured by the tear gas. Eventually, the second jeep towed the first one away to underline the claimed mechanical failure. While the media portrayed the event as an accident, the Palestinians clearly see it as a deliberate murder. Some witnesses documented the event with their mobile phone cameras.
When Foad’s brother, Mahdi Mahmoud Naiyf Turkuman ran to the scene to help his brother, the soldiers blocked his way. He injured his wrist when he slammed his hand against the jeep in an attempt to get through. As teachers and students tried to come to Foad’s rescue, saying that they will call an ambulance to take him to the hospital, the soldiers allegedly asked what was the problem and if anyone was injured!
Foad, who was seriously injured, was left unattended for 30 minutes because the army prohibited anyone from approaching. Finally, the teachers and a relative were allowed to rescue him and take him to Jenin hospital in a relative’s private car. He died from his injuries at the hospital an hour later. His brother Mahdi had to be sedated by injection since he witnessed the murder of his own brother and was in shock.
Eye witnesses mentioned that the soldiers obviously assumed that the boys were about to throw stones. Since the Israeli army is not supposed to use their guns on stone throwers, they seemed to have opted to use their jeep as a weapon instead.
Most of the students were in their classes, but a few were finishing up and going to their homes.
Foad’s family, who are refugees from Haifa since 1948, decided to file suit for murder against the Israeli army.

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