Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 05:43:04 +0000 (GMT)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?pierre=20guyotat?= <pierreguyotat-AT-yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Re: deleuze-guattari-digest V2 #1330


The hidden weapons factories
By Amira Hass
via Znet                                              
____________A mother trudging along with her child at
the Qalandiyah checkpoint on Monday. The current siege
makesAvigdor Lieberman's plans for the cantonization
of the territories look like a humane and enlightened
     program.      
     There's one laboratory for ticking bombs that the
Shin Bet and European foreign ministers skipped when
     they demanded Arafat take action against
terrorism. At this lab - which has hundreds of
branches in the West Bank and Gaza - hundreds, if not
thousands, of people are making the mistake of
thinking "I'm ready
     to die with the Philistines." The labs are the
IDF checkpoints and blockades, which gradually have
tightened the siege around every Palestinian 
settlement, making Avigdor Lieberman's plans for the
cantonization of the territories look like a humane
and enlightened program. It's difficult to grasp all
the information that comes from these besieged places.
The lack of medical
     supplies, such as oxygen tanks, is a daily,
desperate routine in the hospitals. Cooking gas and
fuel and
     even drinking water routinely run out. Suppliers
have difficulties bringing in fresh food.
      
     Last week, the order went out that Palestinians
are banned from using roads in Area C - some 60
percent
     of the West Bank. Schools are half empty. At
Fowar refugee camp, for example, the children couldn't
     avoid the checkpoints and couldn't get to their
school in Hebron for the past three days. The
universities
     are partially or fully paralyzed, like Bir Zeit,
where all the roads leading to the school have been
closed
     because of the curfew on northern Ramallah. The
school year has already been lost, and along with it
the
     students' expensive tuition.
      
     Along with the checkpoints, closures and curfews,
an unknown number of people have lost their jobs in
     the private sector or have been forced to move,
wasting half a salary on a second rent. Every peasant
     farmer who goes out to work his fields risks his
life; whether he has to go through Area C, or because
his
     presence on a security road for a nearby
settlement turns him automatically into a "suspect."
      
     The IDF counts every Palestinian mortar and land
mine, but doesn't count all the stun grenades and tear
     gas grenades, rubber-coated bullets and live
ammunition used by soldiers every day to enforce a
total
     closure.
      
     The northern neighborhoods of Ramallah have been
under curfew for the last nine days. The soldiers in
     their tanks enforce that order every few hours by
rolling into the middle of the road and aiming their
     cannons toward the hundreds of people trying to
get to the city center through the hills. Sometimes
the
     soldiers throw a tear gas grenade or a stun
grenade, sometimes they shoot "rubber." Sometimes they
     confiscate the keys to cars and tell the drivers
to pick up the keys at the Civil Administration. But
the Civil
     Administration building is in Area C, where
Palestinians are forbidden to go.Without cameras and
outside observers, it's as if these things never
happened. The IDF can promise that
     it knows nothing about any shooting. Like the
shots that killed taxi driver Marwan Lahluh from
Arabe, who tried to get to besieged Jenin via dirt
roads, and was shot in the chest by a bullet from a
grove where the Palestinians say an IDF unit is
posted.
The IDF promises that "humanitarian" cases are allowed
through the checkpoints. If so, how come Tamer
Kuzamer, a sick baby, and his mother, were not allowed
through the Habla checkpoint to get to a doctor in
Ramallah? His family looked for a roundabout way, much
longer than the direct one, but the baby died en
route. Why did two heart patients on their way back to
Gaza from medical treatment end up waiting three
hours last Friday night until an Israeli lawyer's
intervention finally enabled them back into the
besieged
strip? And why should a woman, who gave birth only 14
hours earlier, have to wait in an ambulance for
hours at the exit from Nablus on the way back to a
village only 10 minutes away by car? When there are
     no journalists or diplomats around, the IDF's
answer is that "the complaints are not known to us."
      
     Every one of these examples should be multiplied
by tens of thousands of people who are daily subjected
     to the same harm, in order to begin to understand
the totality of the Israeli siege. One has to imagine
the
     eyes of all those who see an old man tottering on
crutches in the mud and rain as he shrinks past a huge
     tank, or a young girl with pigtails and in a
school uniform, cowering behind a rock as a soldier
throws tear
     gas.
      
     Israel has but one answer: All is fair in the war
against terrorism. That's why it's forgotten that the
suicide
     terrorists near the Jerusalem hotel and on the
Haifa bus slipped into Israel despite the checkpoints,
and
     that the Jerusalem pedestrian mall bombers came
from Abu Dis, which is in full Israeli security
control.
     And that's apparently why there will be only more
military escalation and a further tightening of the
closure.
      



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