it's a shame these slugs ain't real

On the left photo, taken on the 25/7/2008, Bassam Ibrahim Abu Rahme is seen during a protest in Bilin, flying his kite between two sections of the apartheid fence.
On the right photo, taken on the 24/4/2008, Mohamed Khatib flies the kite of Bassen after he was killed one week before, in front of the apartheid fence in Bilin.
Bassen was murdered by Israeli soliders on the 17/4/2009, during the weekly protest in Bilin.
Photo by: Oren Ziv/ Activestills.org

I wrote about Bassem here and here and here. I'm fairly sure Mohamed Khatib was the man trying to negotiate with the Israeli soldiers to stop shooting in the video in this post after Bassem had been critically wounded by a teargas canister shot directly at him from a distance of 30 metres. As for the caption above, it is a bit confusing. I think the 'after he was killed one week before' should maybe be omitted. Visit the active stills photo stream. There are some quite amazing photos such as the ones below. All of the protests against the wall in Bilin that active stills documents are non-violent.

Demonstrators run avoid tear gas shot by the Israeli army, during a protest against the apartheid wall in the west Bank village of Bilin, on the 24/4/2009.
Hundreds of Palestinian, Israelis and internationals protested the murder of Bassam Ibrahim Abu Rahme, which was shot by an Israeli solider on the Friday demonstration last week in Bilin. Photo by: Oren Ziv/ Activestills.org

Demonstrators hold shields to protect themselves from tear gas canisters and rubber coated bullets shot by the Israeli army, during a protest against the apartheid wall in the west Bank village of Bilin, on the 24/4/2009.
Hundreds of Palestinian, Israelis and internationals protested the murder of Bassam Ibrahim Abu Rahme, which was shot by an Israeli solider on the Friday demonstration last week in Bilin. Photo by: Oren Ziv/ Activestills.org

It's nothing to worry about, really. I know that the Australian and western governments use similar techniques to disperse all those people who protest against the Iraq war

Iraq War protest, Los Angeles, 2007
Wait, no tear gas or rubber bullets (remember to check out the size of those tear gas canisters) how about here?

Policeman stands over a white student (an onlooker or protest supporter), while tear gas hangs in the air during the Afro-American Society takeover of Duke University 's Allen Administration Building.[Durham, North Carolina] (photograph by Harold Moore, courtesy of the Herald-Sun).

or

here:
1976, Soweto Uprising, South Africa
That's more like it. We support this type of suppression of protest in the West, don't we? We have never condemned it, have never supported civil rights, or thought that apartheid was wrong?

I know so much of it is about media coverage. Without media coverage, the hearts of the general populous cannot be won. So I was pleased to see that the following got blanket reportage:

Fourth Bil’in International Conference on Popular Nonviolent Resistance, Bilin, Palestine, 22/4/2009.

A member of “Anarchist against the wall” speaks during the opening of the Fourth Bil’in International Conference on Popular Nonviolent Resistance, on the 22/4/2009.Photo by: Oren Ziv/ Activestills.org

Here a member of Anarchists against the wall speaks out at the Fourth Bil'in International Conference on Popular Nonviolent Resistance. Read that word, Nonviolent. I've written it a few times so that it doesn't get lost in the typeset. As said before, I'm glad that it got blanket coverage in the mainstream presses, because nonviolent protest is what it's all about.
Oh, it didn't. . ?
. . . the speaker is a terrorist, or oppressed. That must be the reason. She looks pretty threatening, I must admit. She is probably Israeli, too. There are plenty of Israelis who join in the nonviolent protests. But we all know about that, too, don't we?

And who said Palestinians didn't have a sense of humour?

Fourth Bil’in International Conference on Popular Nonviolent Resistance, Bilin, Palestine, 22/4/2009.

Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad (center), holds an art work made from rubber coated bullets, shot by the Israeli army towards protestors against the wall in the west bank village of Bilin.
The gift was given to him by the people of the village of Bilin, during the opening of the Fourth Bilin International Conference on Popular Nonviolent Resistance, on the 22/4/2009.Photo by: Oren Ziv/ Activestills.org

here are your Gandhis

For Durban, visit Antony Loewenstein, he has a lot, and Mondoweiss. Visit the blogroll.

The video halfway down this post is old in the current affairs scale of things, it being shot on April 17, but it is a video of Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahme who died last week after being hit in the stomach by a teargas canister. I blogged about it here and here.
The Israeli news, Ynet, reports Bassem's relative, Abdullah, who was near Bassem when he was fatally wounded, as saying (my emphasis):

"I can say for certain that there was no violence or provocation on the part of the protestors... The casualty's last words were to the soldiers and police officers: 'Stop firing, stop firing.' And then the grenade hit him and he was critically injured."

Bassem was wearing a bright green shirt and was shot directly by a soldier from some thirty metres away. The teargas canisters are huge.
Abdullah follows up his above statements with the words below, which should be given close attention by all the people who are crying out for the Palestinians to get themselves a Gandhi (my emphasis):

Abdullah claims that the increasing incidents of firing on demonstrators in recent weeks, and the growing number of protestors injured and killed in anti-fence rallies, show that the Israelis don't know how to handle the non-violent protests.

"When the struggle is armed, the Israelis like it," he says. "They know that with their weapon, with one aircraft, one bombing, they can handle the struggle. But when the struggle is non-violent, and when peace activists from Israel and the entire world are taking part in the demonstrations, it's harder to conceal the truth, to hide the robbery and violence.

"We're noticing that they're losing their senses, and this why, over time, they run wilder and become more violent."

According to Abdullah, "We know that what worries the Israelis more is that this style of a non-violent struggle might spread from Bilin, Naalin and other numbered centers and become a wide model. So they are seeking to suppress this model before it spreads even more, because they know our struggle is justified and that they are losing.

"Moreover, Bassem was killed when we were trying to enter land which an Israeli court ruled we are allowed to enter."

I have blogged a little about this fear of non-violent protest in this post where the Israeli forces have described peaceful protest as being "...a smart way to trigger Israeli violence and thus incite the uprising''

Apparently the soldiers asked the Palestinians who were protesting against the apartheid wall if they wanted more 'gas' (read the Mondoweiss article below). As this 'incident' was actually filmed, it made the news in Israel, and there will be a self-investigation and so on and so on.

This text is from Mondoweiss. The shorter video he refers to has been removed due to violating terms of use... whatever that means...considering it was apparently distributed by Reuters.

This is a fuller video than the short, shocking video we posted last night depicting the killing of Bassem Ibrahim Abu Ramah yesterday at the weekly protest of the confiscatory wall in the West Bank village of Bil'in. The video shows plainly that the demonstrators were not violent. Here is a rough translation of the words on the video, supplied by an anonymous friend:

The demonstrators are telling the soldiers in Hebrew that there are children and Israelis present and they are asking them not to shoot. Bassem is shouting "listen, wait a minute, wait a minute" before he falls to the ground. The soldiers then fire another round of tear gas as the demonstrators yell that he is injured and needs an ambulance.

In the longer video, as [Mohammed] Khatib is arguing with the soldier, I can't make out all of it because they're talking over each other, but you can clearly hear the soldier say, "do you want more gas?" They can see someone is on the ground and bleeding and because they know it's a Palestinian, they don't care.

And the soldier is telling Khatib "Are you going to shut up?" as Khatib pleads with him to stop shooting. The Israeli who's next to Bassem right after the shooting is just saying, there's an injured man, bring an ambulance quickly. He asks Bassem where he was hit. The demonstrators also repeat throughout, this is a non-violent demonstration. The soldiers merely respond with teargas.

This is what Bassem looked like not even one year ago:


From the active stills group.

An archive photo, taken on 25/7/2008, shows Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahme (ElFeel) during a protest against the wall in the village of Bilin.

And also, thanks to Mondoweiss, this is the Full Text of President Ahmadinejad’s Remarks at U.N. Conference on Racism for anyone who is interested.

monkey brain sushi

There is serious stuff to write, and hopefully I'll get around to it. Unfortunately, the world does not stand still while I'm nursing a hangover. Monkey Brain Sushi was a great book of Japanese short stories that I read in the early nineties. It's how my head feels, too, and my general being. Kind of raw and slithery. Still, I will go to the castle in a few hours with a friend, and enjoy some of the remaining cherry blossoms. Hopefully the weather is not too chilly. Oh, okay, I'll get a little serious. A follow-up to yesterday's story.

In these two photos, an Israeli protestor [sic] is seen in two different demonstrations, both held in front of the Ministry of Defense in Tel aviv, holding a sign with the same slogan: “Also I am an un-armed protestor- shot [sic] me!”

The first photo was taken on the 19/5/2004 during a demonstration after the Israeli army attacked a protest in the Gaza strip, kilning many Palestinians, and the second one, was taken on the 18/4/2009 during a demonstration after the Israeli army murdered Bassam Ibrahim Abu Rahme during a protest in Bilin.

Photos by: Oren Ziv/ Activestills.org

A Palestinian man holds the tear gas canister that killed Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahme (ElFeel), at a hospital in the West Bank city of Ramallah on the 17/4/2009.
Bassem was murdered by the Israeli army, during a protest against the apartheid wall in Bilin. A soldier shot him with an extended range tear-gas projectile that was aimed directly at him from a distance of 30 meters. Bassem was critically injured in the chest and died shortly after arriving at a hospital in Ramallah.

Photo by: oren Ziv/ Activestills.org

flying kites

From the active stills group.

An archive photo, taken on 25/7/2008, shows Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahme (ElFeel) during a protest against the wall in the village of Bilin.

Bassam was murdered by the Israeli army [17 April, 2009], during a protest against the apartheid wall in Bilin. He was shot with an extended range teargas projectile directly at him from a distance of 30 meters. Bassem was critically injured in the stomach and died not long after in a hospital in Ramallah.

That is a similar teargas projectile, and a similar way of targeting, that caused American, Tristan Anderson's, criticial condition.

*Note: I see that Israeli Uri Avnery at Gush Salom has commented on this. His post is short. It follows in full (my emphasis, apart from the title):

Bil'in demonstrator Bassam Abu Rahme killed – soldiers' trigger-happiness inspired from higher up
Already for four years, demonstrations are taking place at the village of Bil'in, to protest the "Separation Fence" which robs the villagers of much of their land, and whose route is in blatant violation of the Supreme Court ruling. Also before, the army used violence to disperse the Palestinian, Israeli and international demonstrators. But, until this morning no one got killed. The killing of Bassam Abu Rahme today, a Bil'in resident, follows upon the severe head wounding of American peace activist Tristan Anderson a month ago, and constitutes a grave escalation.

This escalation was not caused by the demonstrators' behavior, in which there had been no change, but to new instructions given to the military forces on the ground. Whether by explicit instructions or by a tacit nod and a new "spirit of the commander", the finger on the trigger was loosed and authorization given for the tear gas containers as lethal missiles.

This is the harsh heritage of the Gaza War and the mass killings which it entailed. To this is added the odious spirit of the new government, which confronts the entire world and places a racist provocateur in charge of its foreign affairs - not to speak of the new-old Defence Minster Ehud Barak, who is responsible for a lot of bloodshed.