Israeli terrorists in uniform attack civilians, children

The Israeli invasion and attack on Nablus began before the bombing in Tel Aviv. In fact, it began an entire day before. The headlines in Israeli and American newspapers claiming that the invasion of Nablus by the IOF was a response to the bombing are contradicting by eyewitness testimony and stories filed by journalists documenting the attack, including a report in Ha'aretz, a day before stories filed on the Tel Aviv bombing.

Journalists, medical volunteers and bystanders targeted, Palestinian bystander shot in the neck by Israeli sniper
April 17th, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Israeli snipers shot live ammunition at journalists, international medical volunteers and unarmed Palestinians gathered outside of a house occupied by the army.

A crowd of over a hundred was gathered in protest of this house occupation. Palestinian youth threw stones at wooden planks that the soldiers placed on the window of the house.

According to international medical volunteers from the United States, England, Germany, Chile, and Denmark, eighteen year old Islam Aktshot was shot with live ammunition in the neck while he was watching the events at 11:45 Monday morning.

“He was standing next to the wall doing nothing when suddenly he put his hands to his neck. When he put his hand down large amounts of blood poured out,” said Danish volunteer Anamaria. “We, the medical volunteers and the journalists were standing together when the soldiers fired in our direction. A bullet whistled five centimeters away from me.”

At 12:05pm Basam Balbali 15 years old with shot with live ammunition in the leg.

The house, which is situated on the eastern edge of the old city of Nablus, was occupied Sunday night. The Israeli military is currently occupying at least five homes in Nablus.The practice of occupying a tactically important home and holding the occupants incommunicado is known in the Israeli Army as a “Straw Widow” operation. The army uses the occupied home as an observation post and sniper position. Such homes are often reoccupied several times.

More on the Wall

Walls do not easily function to completely keep people out of a certain area. People will scramble, crawl, climb, even fucking pole-vault over walls if economic need, basic hunger, gives them reason to get over the wall.

You can build it really tall, and they will cut holes in it at the bottom and dig tunnels underneath it. You can patrol the entire length of the thing, and someone will cut a singular hole in the fucker, which everyone knows about, and everyone will go to, and they will watch for each other to make sure no patrol is coming and get people through.

That's how we roll. Humans are very resilient, tricky, clever, and the oppressed are usually far more clever when it comes to things like this than the well-educated classes. You can't stop us; all you can do is make this yet another trial that makes us smarter with every added difficulty. It makes it worse for you in the end, so go ahead.

From the Economist:

Fence them off
In the easternmost parts of the city (Jerusalem), where the barrier cuts between the Mount of Olives (inside) and Abu Dis (outside), running right through residential neighbourhoods, a strange sight presents itself. The great concrete wall leaks people. In the morning, they squeeze through gaps between the blocks and existing buildings, helping each other to negotiate piles of rubble and loops of barbed wire. In the evening they are sucked back in.

For thousands, this is the daily commute.

Most of them are blue ID holders who prefer some discomfort to a long detour to the nearest official crossing point. One way or the other, some 60,000 people are thought to cross each day in each direction. While the wall is still incomplete, the soldiers often tolerate their infractions.
But according to a survey by the JIIS, a wide swathe of West Bank Palestinians without blue IDs are also in East Jerusalem's catchment area. For it is (or it was until recently) their main place of work or study, of shopping and recreation.

An unknown number—some say 40,000—also live there illegally. Cutting them off from Jerusalem not only complicates their lives and splits up families. It takes away business from Jerusalem, impoverishing it further. And it creates joblessness in Ramallah, Bethlehem and the surroundings, adding to the severe depression of the West Bank's economy.

A series of industrial estates that have gone up around the edge of Jerusalem and in the West Bank could help. Ezri Levi, head of the Jerusalem Development Authority, says that places like the Atarot industrial estate, located just by the checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah, are intended partly to create jobs for those West Bankers who can get permits to work there, which should, he argues, "reduce the tensions between the two populations".

But Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, a pressure group, points out that the estates also allow Israel to maintain its economic dominion: Israeli firms can compete with West Bank firms for cheap labour, yet the Palestinian firms cannot compete with the Israeli ones for custom.

Before the barrier began to go up, the intifada had done its worst to the tourist industry on which both Jerusalem and Bethlehem thrive. Though more than a year of relative calm (thanks less to the barrier than to a ceasefire by the militants) has brought an upturn, tourists and pilgrims are still reluctant to stay the night in Bethlehem, on the West Bank side of the barrier, so the city's hotel business is collapsing.

Maddening Horror

Riverbend, who blogs at Baghdad Burning, recently posted the following describing the sheer horror in which Iraqis are living. Such stark renderings of the hell in which they live wrought by our own brutal force and lust for power makes lightheartedness, and our self-righteousness, seem inappropriate at best and completely evil at worst.

What kind of threat can the evangelicals' hell with its lake of fire and everlasting torment pose to people who have lived through this? It might even prove a relief.

I recommend we all make our way to church on Friday afternoon to beat our breast and rip our hair lamenting the terror with which we coexist and beg until we are hoarse and we have cried our last tear for forgiveness for it. Not just from the crucified man, but most importantly from our fellow human, may they have mercy on us.

Iraq Diaries
Uncertainty...

Riverbend, Baghdad Burning, 30 March 2006

I sat late last night switching between Iraqi channels (the half dozen or so I sometimes try to watch). It's a late-night tradition for me when there's electricity- to see what the Iraqi channels are showing.

Generally speaking, there still isn't a truly 'neutral' Iraqi channel. The most popular ones are backed and funded by the different political parties currently vying for power. This became particularly apparent during the period directly before the elections.

I was trying to decide between a report on bird flu on one channel, a montage of bits and pieces from various latmiyas on another channel and an Egyptian soap opera on a third channel. I paused on the Sharqiya channel which many Iraqis consider to be a reasonably toned channel (and which during the elections showed its support for Allawi in particular). I was reading the little scrolling news headlines on the bottom of the page. The usual- mortar fire on an area in Baghdad, an American soldier killed here, another one wounded there... 12 Iraqi corpses found in an area in Baghdad, etc. Suddenly, one of them caught my attention and I sat up straight on the sofa, wondering if I had read it correctly.

E. was sitting at the other end of the living room, taking apart a radio he later wouldn't be able to put back together. I called him over with the words, "Come here and read this- I'm sure I misunderstood..."

He stood in front of the television and watched the words about corpses and Americans and puppets scroll by and when the news item I was watching for appeared, I jumped up and pointed. E. and I read it in silence and E. looked as confused as I was feeling.

The line said: "The Ministry of Defense requests that civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by coalition forces working in that area."

That's how messed up the country is at this point.

We switched to another channel, the "Baghdad" channel (allied with Muhsin Abdul Hameed and his group) and they had the same news item, but instead of the general "coalition forces" they had "American coalition forces". We checked two other channels. Iraqiya (pro-Da'awa) didn't mention it and Forat (pro-SCIRI) also didn't have it on their news ticker. We discussed it today as it was repeated on another channel.

"So what does it mean?" My cousin's wife asked as we sat gathered at lunch.

"It means if they come at night and want to raid the house, we don't have to let them in." I answered.

"They're not exactly asking your permission," E. pointed out. "They break the door down and take people away- or have you forgotten?"

"Well according to the Ministry of Defense, we can shoot at them, right? It's trespassing-they can be considered burglars or abductors..." I replied.

The cousin shook his head, "If your family is inside the house- you're not going to shoot at them. They come in groups, remember? They come armed and in large groups- shooting at them or resisting them would endanger people inside of the house."

"Besides that, when they first attack, how can you be sure they DON'T have Americans with them?" E. asked.

We sat drinking tea, mulling over the possibilities. It confirmed what has been obvious to Iraqis since the beginning- the Iraqi security forces are actually militias allied to religious and political parties.

But it also brings to light other worrisome issues. The situation is so bad on the security front that the top two ministries in charge of protecting Iraqi civilians cannot trust each other. The Ministry of Defense can't even trust its own personnel, unless they are "accompanied by American coalition forces".

It really is difficult to understand what is happening lately. We hear about talks between Americans and Iran over security in Iraq, and then American ambassador in Iraq accuses Iran of funding militias inside of the country. Today there are claims that Americans killed between 20 to 30 men from Sadr's militia in an attack on a husseiniya yesterday. The Americans are claiming that responsibility for the attack should be placed on Iraqi security forces (the same security forces they are constantly commending).

All of this directly contradicts claims by Bush and other American politicians that Iraqi troops and security forces are in control of the situation.

Or maybe they are in control- just not in a good way.

They've been finding corpses all over Baghdad for weeks now- and it's always the same: holes drilled in the head, multiple shots or strangulation, like the victims were hung. Execution, militia style. Many of the people were taken from their homes by security forces- police or special army brigades... Some of them were rounded up from mosques.

A few days ago we went to pick up one of my female cousins from college. Her college happens to be quite close to the local morgue. E., our cousin L., and I all sat in the car which, due to traffic, we parked slightly further away from the college to wait for our other cousin. I looked over at the commotion near the morgue.

There were dozens of people- mostly men- standing around in a bleak group. Some of them smoked cigarettes, others leaned on cars or pick-up trucks... Their expressions varied- grief, horror, resignation. On some faces, there was an anxious look of combined dread and anticipation. It's a very specific look, one you will find only outside the Baghdad morgue. The eyes are wide and bloodshot, as if searching for something, the brow is furrowed, the jaw is set and the mouth is a thin frown.

It's a look that tells you they are walking into the morgue, where the bodies lay in rows, and that they pray they do not find what they are looking for.

The cousin sighed heavily and told us to open a couple of windows and lock the doors- he was going to check the morgue. A month before, his wife's uncle had been taken away from a mosque during prayer- they've yet to find him. Every two days, someone from the family goes to the morgue to see if his body was brought in.

"Pray I don't find him... or rather... I just- we hate the uncertainty."

My cousin sighed heavily and got out of the car. I said a silent prayer as he crossed the street and disappeared into the crowd. E. and I waited patiently for H., who was still inside the college and for L. who was in the morgue. The minutes stretched and E. and I sat silently- smalltalk seeming almost blasphemous under the circumstances.

L. came out first. I watched him tensely and found myself chewing away at my lower lip, "Did he find him? Inshalla he didn't find him..." I said to no one in particular.

As he got closer to the car, he shook his head. His face was immobile and grim, but behind the grim expression, we could see relief, "He's not there. Hamdulilah [Thank God]."

"Hamdulilah" E. and I repeated the words in unison.We all looked back at the morgue. Most of the cars had simple, narrow wooden coffins on top of them, in anticipation of the son or daughter or brother. One frenzied woman in a black abaya was struggling to make her way inside, two relatives holding her back. A third man was reaching up to untie the coffin tied to the top of their car.

"See that woman- they found her son. I saw them identifying him. A bullet to the head."

The woman continued to struggle, her legs suddenly buckling under her, her wails filling the afternoon, and although it was surprisingly warm that day, I pulled at my sleeves, trying to cover my suddenly cold fingers.

We continued to watch the various scenes of grief, anger, frustration and every once in a while, an almost tangible relief as someone left the morgue having not found what they dreaded most to find- eyes watery from the smell, the step slightly lighter than when they went in, having been given a temporary reprieve from the worry of claiming a loved one from the morgue...

To read more from Riverbend, visit her blog, Baghdad Burning, here.

"The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won't die"

"Israel has absolutely no right to suspend reimbursements for customs and tariffs it collects on behalf of the PA. That money is not theirs to keep; it is Palestine's, who cannot collect tariffs and customs on its own because it is occupied, Israel, not itself, controls its borders, and Israel keeps them from collecting these monies on its own.

And what is Hamas supposed to recognize? A state that apparently does not recognize itself, that is unwilling to set its own borders but keeps expanding, colonizing others' land, stealing through fiat, and changing its borders every day? Is Hamas supposed to recognize the right of the "Jewish state" to exist? Would Israel recognize the West Bank if Hamas declared it a "Muslim state"? I would think not. We don't qualify the identity of nation states as religious ones or encourage states to identify with only one particular identity trait. That is antithetical to democracy. A "jewish state" does not recognize the rights and identity, indeed the right to exist, of the millions of Palestinians that live inside the 1967 borders of the state of Israel. Israel should acknowledge the reality that it is in fact already a binational state and recognize the rights of both to coexist with equal rights and respect for their dignity in a democratic state.

In closing Hamas cannot recognize the right of Israel to exist until it acknowledges the right of Palestinians to exist, which they have not in fact done.



From Electronic Intifada:

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4599.shtml

Canada and the US are the first governments that have severed all ties with the Palestinian Authority. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay and International Cooperation Minister Josee Verner announced this week that "Canada will have no contact with the members of the Hamas cabinet and is suspending assistance to the Palestinian Authority."

At the same time, representatives of the US administration sent an email to diplomats and contractors directing them to sever contact with Hamas-appointed government ministers, and even those who are not members of Hamas. The order said that communication is still permitted with the office of Mahmoud Abbas and with members of the Palestinian Legislative Council who have not been elected on the Hamas list.

Earlier, Israel stated that the PA "will become a terrorist authority unless Hamas, which controls the PA, fully accepts the threshold conditions as determined by Israel and approved by the Quartet." The US administration and Canada accordingly want Hamas to denounce violence, recognize Israel and accept previous agreements, including the Road Map. This move shows again how inconsistent foreign policy is towards Palestine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In mid-February, as the Israeli government announced that it would stop reimbursing the customs duty which it collects on behalf of the PA, the Israeli Prime Minister's Advisor Dov Weisglass was quoted by Israeli media as referring to the planned economic siege on the PA as a diet, whereby "the Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won't die".

Meanwhile, Palestinians face a looming humanitarian crisis due to prolonged closures of Palestinian territories. This has already resulted in shortages of food and other necessities and threatens to have a disastrous effect on the 1.3 million Palestinians who live in the Gaza Strip.

On more than one occasion the US administration has failed to denounce violence on the part of Israel, vetoed UN resolutions on the basis of "balance" and has not demanded the same conditions from Israel, while it provides much more aid to Israel. In 2003, the US funded the Palestinian Authority with $224 million. By way of comparison, US military grants to Israel that same year were $2.1 billion, excluding the so-called "emergency wartime supplemental (Iraq)" of $1 billion. US economic aid to Israel that year consisted of $9 billion for approved loan guarantees, $600 million for economic grants and $60 million for immigration and resettlement assistance. With all this leverage, the US never asked Israel to recognize Palestine, never asked Israel to denounce violence and never ensured that Israel respected signed agreements.

In October 2004, the US vetoed a Security Council resolution that demanded the "immediate cessation of all military operations in the area of Northern Gaza and the withdrawal of the Israeli occupying forces from that area" and which reiterated "its call for the cessation of violence and for respect of and adherence to legal obligations, including those under international humanitarian law." It called the resolution "lopsided and unbalanced".

This was not the first US veto of a resolution that called on Israel to denounce violence. The Bush administration alone has cast seven vetoes. More than once, US ambassadors have responded to these vetoes by saying that such resolutions would "undermine efforts to restore peace" in the Middle East. During the military assault on northern Gaza at least 107 Palestinians were killed and 431 injured. Tank shells and helicopter missiles, fired into densely populated areas, caused many of the casualties. A quarter of those killed were aged 18 years and under. The dead include nine UNRWA pupils from six schools and two teachers.

The US and Canada want Hamas to recognize Israel. This in itself is not an easy demand. What would Hamas recognize? No Palestinian or Israeli would know where the boundaries of Israel are set. The governments that ask Hamas to recognize the state of Israel must be specific about Israel's boundaries before asking for recognition.Over the years, Israel has captured additional territory. Does this mean the "Jewish State" as proposed in the UN Partition Plan of 1947, or would this mean the ceasefire lines of the War of 1967, area C of the Oslo Accords, or areas that Israel occupied since September 28, 2000? The newly elected Olmert cabinet plans to define Israel's borders unilaterally without dealing with the Hamas government, so why would Hamas bother to recognize this?

Apart from boundaries, there is another reason to be reluctant. There are at least 20 Israeli laws that specifically provide unequal rights and obligations based on what the Israelis call nationality, which in Israel is defined on the basis of religion. Israelis must carry a card that identifies them as a Jew, a Muslim or a Christian. All non-Jews are second-class citizens. Why would one recognize a state that doesn't recognize its own citizens? Moreover, over 80 percent of the land within Israel that was once owned by Palestinians has been confiscated. Unlike any other country in the world, Israel does not define itself as a state of its residents, or even a state of its citizens; rather, as a state for Jews only. It is impossible to recognize that they can travel to Israel, declare citizenship, and be granted all the privileges of being Jewish that are denied to Palestinians who have lived in the area for hundreds of years.

The US, Canada and the European Union (EU) want Hamas to recognize a state that hasn't recognized Palestine as such. These countries themselves haven't recognized Palestine yet, even though more than 120 other countries have recognized Palestine following its proclamation by the Palestine National Council meeting in Algiers in November 1988.

In 1988, the UN acknowledged the proclamation of the State of Palestine in a General Assembly resolution (43/177). In July 1998, the General Assembly adopted a new resolution (52/250) conferring upon Palestine additional rights and privileges, including the right to participate in the general debate held at the start of each session of the General Assembly, the right of reply, the right to co-sponsor resolutions and the right to raise points of order on Palestinian and Middle Eastern issues. By this resolution, "seating for Palestine shall be arranged immediately after non-member States and before the other observers."This resolution was adopted by a vote of 124 in favour, 4 against (Israel, US, Marshall Islands and Micronesia) and 10 abstentions.

Canada itself was late to recognize Israel. Canada abstained when the admission of Israel to the UN came to a vote in the Security Council. Canada only granted recognition in May 1949, once Israel had been admitted to the UN. Palestine is already admitted to the UN, but Canada has failed to recognize Palestine. In contrast, within minutes after Israel declared its independence on May 15, 1948, US President Harry Truman granted recognition.

Israel, the US, the EU and Canada want Hamas to respect signed agreements. Yet how can Hamas respect signed agreements while Israel hasn't respected any of the agreements signed between Israel and the PLO?

The Oslo agreements did not mention the military occupation and postponed, until the final stage, negotiations over core issues of the conflict: refugees, settlements, borders and Jerusalem. Although many thought that Oslo would lead to an end of the occupation and the establishment of an independent state, the process itself, and the failure of the US and the EU to act as honest brokers, allowed Israel to continue land confiscations, house demolitions and territorial expansion, leaving Palestinians with little to no recourse. Israel continued to build settlements in the occupied territories and the number of settlers doubled in the West Bank during the years of the 'peace process'.

The rebirth of the Oslo process in the Middle East Quartet-sponsored "Road Map" is not much better. While the Road Map calls for "reciprocal steps," attention thus far has almost exclusively focused on what measures Palestinians take, not what Israel should do. The Oslo Agreements expired on May 1999 and the Roadmap expired in 2005.

a recent report to the UN Human Rights Commission, Special Rapporteur John Dugard said Israel had failed to adhere to the "road map" plan drawn up three years ago by the Quartet. He said the plan is hopelessly out of date and needs to be revamped. Dugard suggested to the Quartet that it adopt a position on the conflict that would take more account of human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory and the refusal of Israel to comply with the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, and that it revise the road map in accordance with these considerations.

Before doing this, it would be a sign of wisdom if the governments of Canada, the US and the EU become consistent in their policies with respect to Israel and leave double standards behind. Aid and constructive dialogue are essential because starving the Palestinians into submission would be a catastrophe.

And like it or not, Hamas is the elected government of the Palestinians.

Arjan El Fassed is a co-founder of The Electronic Intifada

Yet more proof that Bush knowingly lied about WMD in Iraq

So, uh, yeah, here's yet another story that points to Bush having pre-war intelligence that showed Iraq was not developing WMD. Why did he lie? Why, if he was pretty sure there was no threat of WMD from Iraq, did he say all this to us before the invasion? I truly believe that Bush really, really wanted to invade Iraq. And not just for imperialist reasons, such as having great control over the oil supply. I think he truly believes that he has been given a mission from on high to literally force people if needed to live in a system, economically, religiously, socially, and politically, that mirrors America. Notice I did not say he wants to bring freedom and democracy, because he doesn't want freedom and democracy on any terms. He wants people to live in an American system, the only valid form of freedom and democracy in his viewpoint. We aren't going to even touch on the fact that under this corporate oligarchy known as the 50 states we have only semblances, images on a cave wall if you will, of freedom. Anyway, here it is:

PREWAR INTELLIGENCE
Insulating Bush

By Murray Waas, National Journal©
National Journal Group Inc. Thursday, March 30, 2006

Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address -- that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon -- might not be true, according to government records and interviews.

As the 2004 election loomed, the White House was determined to keep the wraps on a potentially damaging memo about Iraq.

Hadley was particularly concerned that the public might learn of a classified one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate, specifically written for Bush in October 2002. The summary said that although "most agencies judge" that the aluminum tubes were "related to a uranium enrichment effort," the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's intelligence branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."

Three months after receiving that assessment, the president stated without qualification in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."

The previously undisclosed review by Hadley was part of a damage-control effort launched after former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV alleged that Bush's claims regarding the uranium were not true. The CIA had sent Wilson to the African nation of Niger in 2002 to investigate the purported procurement efforts by Iraq; he reported that they were most likely a hoax.

The White House was largely successful in defusing the Niger controversy because there was no evidence that Bush was aware that his claims about the uranium were based on faulty intelligence. Then-CIA Director George Tenet swiftly and publicly took the blame for the entire episode, saying that he and the CIA were at fault for not warning Bush and his aides that the information might be untrue.

But Hadley and other administration officials realized that it would be much more difficult to shield Bush from criticism for his statements regarding the aluminum tubes, for several reasons.

For one, Hadley's review concluded that Bush had been directly and repeatedly apprised of the deep rift within the intelligence community over whether Iraq wanted the high-strength aluminum tubes for a nuclear weapons program or for conventional weapons.

For another, the president and others in the administration had cited the aluminum tubes as the most compelling evidence that Saddam was determined to build a nuclear weapon -- even more than the allegations that he was attempting to purchase uranium.

And finally, full disclosure of the internal dissent over the importance of the tubes would have almost certainly raised broader questions about the administration's conduct in the months leading up to war.

"Presidential knowledge was the ball game," says a former senior government official outside the White House who was personally familiar with the damage-control effort. "The mission was to insulate the president. It was about making it appear that he wasn't in the know. You could do that on Niger. You couldn't do that with the tubes."

A Republican political appointee involved in the process, who thought the Bush administration had a constitutional obligation to be more open with Congress, said: "This was about getting past the election."

Read the rest at: http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0330nj1.htm

Israel shows its true motives

Although the title may suggest otherwise, I am not at all saying this is the first time that Israel has admitted blatantly or acted with no cover other than the motivation of seizing Palestinian land and leaving only the scaps of the West Bank they do not want for the Palestinian indigenous population.

http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/03/26/notice-at-kalandia-checkpoint-al-ram-is-now-israel/

On Saturday March 25 Israeli military placed a notice at the Kalandia checkpoint announcing that from March 27, 2006 only holders of a permit to enter Israel will be allowed to cross the checkpoint to the West Bank village of Al Ramm.

By restricting Palestinian access in this way, the Israelis have effectively annexed the village minus its West Bank residents to Israel, cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank. The restriction will also cement the illegal annexation of occupied East Jerusalem.

The Kalandia checkpoint is flanked on both sides by the annexation Wall. Olmert’s Kadima party has admitted that the Wall is not a temporary security measure as Israel originally claimed but will be Israel’s “permanent border”.

"a government... that sees our people as an epidemic"

I have sad news for the Vice President of Guatemala, Eduardo Stein. Its not just the government. Its the mass of white America that sees their domination of our culture and economy threatened by what some have referred to as the "brown cockroach virus" from across the border.

I would imagine... no, I would wager every cent I have, that King, Rohrabacher, Tancredo, and the like love to see people around the world wave the US flag, when the president visits, during the Olympics, or when we invade and occupy them... lets wait on that last one. But my point is is we don't just welcome the masses in other countries waving our stars and bars; we demand it and are infuriated sometimes when they do not. And we don't even see why telling people to go back to Mexico and wave Ole' Glory instead of living and working here and waving the Mexican flag along side our rag at their rallies is just a tad bit catty and, dare we say... racist?



Latin leaders balk at US 'wall'

The proposed 700-mile barrier is to be a big issue at Thursday's NorthAmerican summit.

By Danna Harman Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

NOGALES, MEXICO - Some envision a wall. Others, a fence - or even a"virtual" fence of cameras, lighting, and sensors along the US-Mexicanborder. Whatever form it will take, the US is discussing, planning, and, insome places, already building it - much to the fury and frustration ofneighbors south of the border.

As Mexican President Vicente Fox prepares tomeet Thursday with President Bush and Canada's new prime minister, StephenHarper, in Cancún, the proposed 700-mile, $2.2 billion barrier is a majorpoint of contention - not just for the US and Mexico, but for the US and thewhole region.

Regional leaders - whose countries in 2004 received some $45 billion senthome from immigrants in the US - have met three times recently to discuss how best to oppose it."

At a moment when relations between the US and Latin America are at their lowest point since the end of the cold war, this fence proposal is viewed as a terrible affront," says Michael Shifter, vice president of theInter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank.

"It is hard to imagine any other symbol that more strongly reinforces theimage of the "ugly American" and is more sharply at odds with the "good neighbor" concept."

It's not just the barrier, but other issues as well in proposed US immigration reform legislation that irk regional leaders and caused hundreds of thousands of people to protest in multiple US cities over the past few days.

The US Congress passed a tough immigration bill in December that would make it a felony for illegal immigrants to be in the US, impose new penalties on employers who hire them, and erect a fence along one-third of the border's total length. At present, just over 80 miles of federally enforced barriers and fencing are erected at strategic points on the border, mainly in Texas and California.

This week, the Senate will debate a comprehensive bill that is expected to include guest-worker provisions and avenues for legal residency, while at the same time beefing up border security. So far, a draft of the bill calls only for expanding and reinforcing fencing in Arizona - the border state with the most illegal immigration traffic - and adding 200 miles of vehicle barriers there, but more extensive fencing elsewhere is still underdiscussion.

"No country that is proud of itself should build walls," Fox told reporters when he last met Bush one year ago, and a month after the House began talks on approving a fence. "[I]t doesn't make any sense."

Since then, as the debate has continued in the US over what kind of fence is needed and where, Fox has called the proposal everything from "stupid" and"discriminatory" to "shameful," and heralded illegal migrants as "heroes" who will in any event find ways to cross the border.

Last year 1.2 million illegal immigrants were apprehended by the borderpatrol as they tried to cross into the US, and it is frequently estimated that close to the same number make it. Last year was also a record year for deaths. In 2005, 473 would-be immigrants died en route, many victims of thirst, heatstroke, exhaustion, or exposure when they tried to cross less carefully guarded desert areas.

Currently, 11.5 million to 12 million illegal immigrants live in the US, according to estimates in a report released this month by the Pew Hispanic Center. Of these, an estimated 6.2 million, or 56 percent, are Mexicans. Another 2.5 million, or 22 percent of the total, come from other LatinAmerican countries.

The money these people send home is vital to the region's economy. In 2005, legal and illegal immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean sent home$45 billion in remittances, double the total of a decade earlier, according to the Social Outlook 2005 report by the Economic Commission for LatinAmerica and the Caribbean (ECLAC), a UN regional body. Mexican workers alone sent home a record $17 billion. So while Fox might be the regional leader most concerned with, and vocal about, US immigration policy - he is far from the only one.

Spearheaded by Mexico, and galvanized by the fence proposals, foreign ministers and other top officials from Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador,Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama as well as Colombia, Ecuador,and the Dominican Republic met March 15 in Guatemala and vowed to coordinate their lobbying efforts against the US bill if it should pass in the Senate.

Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein, in turn, called the bill "an affront to Latin America by a government that claims to be our partner, butwhich apparently only wants our money and our merchandise, and that sees ourpeople as an epidemic."

This was the third time representatives from these 11 countries have gathered to discuss the US bill. In early January, they convened in Mexico City and put out a joint statement saying that "incomplete measures that only involve the stiffening of immigration policies do not represent an integral solution for dealing with the challenges posed by the phenomenon of migration."

In February, the group met again in Cartegena, Colombia, and devised a plan to identify key US senators to reach out to on the issue. Both the Mexican parliament and the five-nation Central American Parliament have condemned the proposed fence and are calling on the Senate to throw it out.

"Our message is that we are your neighbors, we are your friends. This is a common challenge," Carlos de Icaza, Mexico's ambassador to the US, told reporters in Washington last week. "And we are part of the solution, not only part of the problem."

Ms. Harman is Latin America correspondent for the Monitor and USA Today.