Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

A woman walking down steps in the old city of Jerusalem, November 18, 2007. Photo by Michal Fattal/Flash90.

Flash 90

Ronen Zvulun/ Reuters
Israeli soldiers break into a Palestinian house next to Qalandiya Checkpoint, Jerusalem.
March 16, 2007

Munson: Dion Nissenbaum’s blog “Checkpoint Jerusalem” is excellent. He is the Jerusalem bureau chief for the McClatchy newspapers.

Dion Nissenbaum’s Blog: Checkpoint Jerusalem, December 16, 2007

“Local Testimony ,” the Israeli photographic contest that Yoav Galai won last year for his series (mentioned below) on soldiers wounded in Lebanon, is out with its new exhibit in Tel Aviv.The exhibit includes a diverse collection of images that you can see here .

There’s a stark series by Wissam Nasser [Nassar] from Maan News about an Israeli artillery bombardment of Gaza that killed 19 innocent Palestinians in Gaza, most of them from one family.

There’s a great multi-media series by Pulitzer Prize winner Muhammad Muheisen on Palestinian life through the seasons.

Wissam Nassar, MaanImages

Deadlocked, Gaza
In the beginning of November 2006, Israel began shelling the Beit Hanun neighborhood in Gaza. The worst attack took place at dawn on November 8th. In the attack, 19 Palestinian citizens were killed, among them ten women and seven children, and tens were wounded. Most of the victims were from the Atamna family.
November 2006
Digital photo

Uriel Sinai, Haaretz, Getty Images, סדרות (Go to second gallery)

The city of Sderot and the communities of the Gaza envelope have been marked by Palestinian terrorist groups from Gaza as the prime goal for attack by Qassam missiles. In the last year, an average of five Qassam rockets have been launched over Sderot every day, and force the residents of the area to live in constant fear of the next “code red” alarm.
August 2007
Digital photo, converted to black and white

Nir Rosen, Scapegoats in an Unwelcoming Land, WP, December 16, 2007

Last Wednesday, a car-bomb blast on a crowded Beirut street killed Brig. Gen. Francois Hajj, one of Lebanon’s top generals. The capital began buzzing with speculation that Hajj had been assassinated in retaliation for his role as the operational commander of the army’s bloody three-month battle with an armed Islamic group last summer. In May, Fatah al-Islam — a foreign jihadist group inspired by al-Qaeda, led by veterans of the struggle in Iraq and made up mostly of Saudis, Syrians and even some Lebanese — ensconced itself on the outskirts of Nahr al-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, and massacred Lebanese troops at an army checkpoint. Hajj’s forces responded by indiscriminately bombarding the camp in the name of the war on terror, and the Lebanese public rallied ’round.

Palestinians had once again become Lebanon’s scapegoats, victims of a land in which they have long faced slaughter and discrimination…. I’ve heard followers of assassinated president-elect Bashir Gemayel, whose Maronite Christian militia massacred Palestinians in 1976, brag that he was stopped at a checkpoint in the early years of the country’s 1975-90 civil war with a trunk full of the skulls of dead Palestinians….

Last summer, I witnessed yet another chapter in the book of the refugees’ misery. By late June, most of the Palestinians from Nahr al-Bared had fled to Badawi, another refugee camp nearby. In a schoolyard there, I was stopped by a man named Abu Hadi, born in Haifa in 1946. “I am a person without an address,” he told me. “I wish I was a donkey or a horse so I would have doctors and lawyers for my rights.” He showed me a plastic bag with a sponge and a towel. “My bathroom is in my hand,” he said….

Only in October did the army finally begin to allow a trickle of Palestinians back to their homes, and then only in the so-called new camp, a small area on the outskirts of the original camp that had housed 2,000 families and been safely under Lebanese army control throughout the clash.

When about 1,000 families finally passed through the checkpoints, to the jeers of soldiers and demonstrators, they found only destruction. Every single home, building, apartment and shop that I saw had been destroyed. Most buildings had been burned from the inside; the signs of the flammable liquids that the soldiers had used were scorched on the walls, and empty fuel canisters were strewn on the floors. Ceilings and walls were riddled with bullets, shot from inside, seemingly for sport. Most homes that I saw had been emptied of furniture, appliances, sinks, toilets, televisions and refrigerators. Most shockingly, soldiers had defecated in kitchens and bedrooms, on plates, bowls, pots and mattresses; they had urinated into olive-oil jars.

Lori Hinnant, British Hand Over Basra to Iraqi Control, AP, washingtonpost.com, December 16, 2007

Britain’s Saturday, Dec. 15, 2007, handover of Basra province will have a limited effect on security in Iraq’s biggest oil region because rival Shiite warlords and local officials have been wielding the real power in the area. The main players in Basra and southern Iraq are the powerful Shiite entities, al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia; Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the largest Shiite political party and the Badr Brigade militia, which has largely been absorbed into the Iraqi security forces; and the Fadhila party, which also has its own fighters and a member as Basra’s governor.

Iraqis carry their luggage through Baghdad after returning from Syria this month. Many refugees come back to find their houses occupied or ransacked, and their neighborhoods transformed into sectarian strongholds. (By Wathiq Khuzaie — Getty Images)

Karen DeYoung, Balkanized Homecoming - washingtonpost.com, December 16, 2007

When the Iraqi government last month invited home the 1.4 million refugees who had fled this war-ravaged country for Syria — and said it would send buses to pick them up — the United Nations and the U.S. military reacted with horror.

Iraqis carry their luggage through Baghdad after returning from Syria this month. Many refugees come back to find their houses occupied or ransacked, and their neighborhoods transformed into sectarian strongholds.

U.N. refugee officials immediately advised against the move, saying any new arrivals risked homelessness, unemployment and deprivation in a place still struggling to take care of the people already here. For the military, the prospect of refugees returning to reclaim houses long since occupied by others, particularly in Baghdad, threatened to destroy fragile security improvements.

“It’s a problem that everybody can grasp,” said a senior U.S. diplomat here. “You move back to the house that you left and find that somebody else has moved into the house, maybe because they’ve been displaced from someplace else. And it’s even more difficult than that, because in many cases the local militias . . . have seized control and threw out anybody in that neighborhood they didn’t like.”…

In most of Baghdad, the population shift has been at the expense of Sunnis, many of whose former neighborhoods are newly populated by poorer Shiite migrants under militia protection and, often, control. Groups such as Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia “are no longer just thugs who are carrying guns around on the street,” the diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity about the issue. “They’ve kind of supplanted local government, with streams of revenue — rent from housing they’ve taken over, protection money from businesses,” and control of fuel and electricity supplies.

At least 300,000 Gazans rally to mark Hamas’ 20th anniversary - Haaretz, December 16, 2007

Meshal said Abbas, who controls the West Bank, does not have the mandate to negotiate with Israel.

Addressing the rally, senior Hamas official Mushir al-Masri warned Israel to expect many casualties if Israel Defense Forces troops launch a major operation in the coastal territory in an attempt to stop almost daily rocket fire by militants at Israel.

“Jews, go back, because we have already dug graves for you,” Masri said. Israel carries out regular raids on Gaza and has killed dozens of militants in the past month….

Large pictures of Hamas’ leaders, both in Gaza and in exile, were draped across the speakers’ podium. A black banner hanging from a nearby building read, in Arabic, English and French: “We will not recognize Israel.”

“This is the real referendum on the popularity of resistance, the people converging behind Hamas,” said Zayed Herzallah, a 28-year old merchant, who brought a van full of young relatives. “Hamas today, after 20 years and after thousands of martyrs, is graduating the fourth generation (of supporters).”