From: Jonathan Davis (jonathan.davis@lineone.net)
Date: Sat Aug 10 2002 - 07:02:28 MDT
Dear Combatants,
Regardless of exact figures of how many Palestinians have been butchered by
their own people, some things have been firmly established by this thread:
The Palestinians and the Israelis are not even approaching equal to each
other in any moral or civilizational sense. On the one hand you have a
prosperous multicultural democracy threatened by annihilation and trying to
deal with an unprecedented murders assault on its existence. On the other a
barbaric quasi-medieval fiefdom/dictatorship that is an operational base for
some of the most ruthless terrorists in the world. Those terrorists are
harboured and feted by the population of that benighted statelet who
celebrate jubilantly whenever the terrorist - acting in their name - kill
Israelis, any Israelis. .
Show me the pictures of Israeli dancing in the streets when the IDF has ever
made a mistake that cost innocent lives?
Show me the images of Israeli collaborators hanging from streetlights.
Show me the carnage after an Israeli suicide bomber has blown up civilian
Palestinians.
Come on.
There has been a desperate and wholly unsuccessful attempt to characterize
these two sides as somehow equivalent. One is a beacon of civilization and
rational restraint, the other is one of the worst examples of the excess of
Islamist fanaticism and the utter primitiveness of much of the Islamic
world.
Trying to distill the truth from war propaganda whilst the war is still
raging is futile. Throwing sources of misinformation and exaggeration at one
another yeilds nothing but confusion and worsening tempers.
Just look at the facts.
Israel occupies territories captured in war. A defensive war that came about
from the last major effort by its neighbors to annihilate it.
Within those territories and within its national borders there exist some of
the people know as Palestinians.
There are Palestinian communities in every single one of Israel's neighbors
and have been for centuries.
The only place in the whole of former Trans-Jordan where there is an ethnic
nationalist movement demanding territory for Palestinians is within Israel.
Israel is detested by Islamists and generally hated throughout the Muslim
world as it is situated in the Holy Land and is symbol of Islamist expansion
checked and defeated.
The destruction of the state of Israel would be welcomed by virtually every
Arab and Muslim in the world. It is the expressed and clearly stated
intention of slew of terrorist organisations that this is also their
intention.
The Palestinian Authority - established in the Oslo accord - far from being
the building block from which statehood would be built, has become a base of
operations for these terrorists and all allied Israel Annihilator
organisations.
Part of their strategy is to excuse the murder of Israelis by claiming they
are fighting for a Palestinian state. The problem is that this is not all
they are fighting for. They are fighting for a Plalestinian state which will
come about after the destruction of Israel and the reduction to Dhimmitude
or annihilation of the Israeli Jews.
The issues of Palestinian statehood (which was maturing well by diplomacy
and international accord) and the assault on Israel by those intent on its
destruction are actually separate issues.
It was the Palestinians who abandoned Oslo and restarted the Intefadah. It
was the Palestinian who have systematically violated the agreements of
Oslo - principally the issue of terrorist operation from within the PA's
territory.
The situation is simple: Whilst Israeli remains under attack the issue of
Palestinian state will not be resolved. Simply because the PA still is the
base for terror. No terror and the diplomatic solution - so favoured by many
here, yet who forget it was the Palestinians who rejected it - can be
restarted.
What I find odd is that people in this forum have tried to accuse Israel of
war crimes (shown to be without substance) and variously accused the Israeli
of barbarism, brutality and flouting the conventions of civilized behaviour
but seldom if ever concede that the bulk of truly murderous and illegal
activity is being meted out by the Plaestinians. The excuse of course is
that the Palestinians are not a state, Israel is. This implies that the
Israeli are rstrained by conventions that the Palestinians are exempted by
virtues of being stateless.
Of course this is bunk.
What this ignores is that one set of people has chosen to govern itself by
democratic means and establish a state to administer its collective affairs
whilst the other group incapable or unwilling to organise itself into a
governable entity has of course agreed to nothing that restrains its
activities.
We now see the incredible situation where the combatant who has agreed to a
convention is attacked by a combatant who has not and gets castigated for
defending itself against this aggressor by the only means available to stop
the attack.
How can this be right? The civilised person agrees to restraint is then
attacked by an uncivilised person who has not - in the ensuing unseemly
uncivilized and brutal fight it is forgotten that it was Mr Civilised who
was attacked by Mr Savage and instead we have people screech "MrCivilised
should know better! Mr Civilised to agreed not to fight like this!"
There are some who appear to think there is a known standard by which
nations are supposed to deal with weekly mass killings of its citizens by
way of suicide bombs. I can tell you that the civilised standard is being
set by Israel which is a odel of restraint. What we are witnessing in
Israeli is how a decent democratic and civilised nation state reacts to a
murderous assault by a ruthless and primitive enemy.
When it comes to the Palestinian terrorists, their active supporters and all
of their related Islamist brethren, I have one mantra of advice for those
able to fight them and it come via Mr Kurtz: Exterminate all the brutes.
Regards
Jonathan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Hermit" <hidden@lucifer.com>
To: <virus@lucifer.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 10, 2002 6:15 AM
Subject: Re: virus: Dear Hermit: You Constitutionally Can\'t Admit When You
Lose
>
> This article may be of interest.
>
> Given Joe's assertions over the past while, one paragraph stands
out.Palestinian informers necessarily operate in secret, for fear of ending
up like Rajoub and the 70 other suspected collaborators who have been killed
in the West Bank and Gaza in the past two years. So the question really is
whether only 70 Palestinians have been killed by the Israelies in the last
two years, or if not, where the other 1540 "collaborators" (given the PRCS
(http://www.palestinercs.org/Latest_CrisisUpdates_Figures&Graphs.htmgure
of 1600 deaths) necessitated by Joe's 50% theory are buried.
>
> He pointed the finger and pulled the strings, but the protection ran out
> Reviled collaborator whose treachery cost him his life
>
> Source: The Guardian
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,772205,00.html)
> Authors: Suzanne Goldenburg
> Dated: 2002-08-10
>
> Musa Rajoub died a traitor's death, dragged from a jail cell in the cold
hours before dawn, shot, and strung up by his left foot from an electricity
pylon in the centre of Hebron without an ounce of pity.
>
> He must have known he had it coming to him. In the West Bank and Gaza
there is a special hatred reserved for Palestinians believed to have
trafficked with Israel's intelligence agencies, and Rajoub had openly
boasted for years of his powerful connections.
>
> When an Israeli helicopter gunship fired four missiles into the car of
Marwan Zaloom, incinerating the local commander of the al-Aqsa Martyrs'
Brigades and a fellow passenger, Rajoub's fate was sealed.
>
> Under cover of darkness, a mob of masked men descended on the central jail
in Hebron and dragged Rajoub and two other prisoners outside. It is unclear
where Rajoub's Palestinian Authority jailers were at the time, but there is
no sign that they intervened to stop - or even protest at - his punishment.
The three men's mouths were sealed with masking tape, their hands and feet
bound with wire.
>
> All three - Musa Rajoub from Dura, a village not far from Hebron in the
south of the West Bank, Mohammed Dababse from Halhoul, which is also near
Hebron, and Zuhair Muhtaseib from Beit Safafa near Jerusalem - were married
with children.
>
> All three were accused of collaborating with Israel. They were beaten for
nearly 24 hours and shot on the spot where Zaloom died, around dawn on April
23. The summary execution was claimed almost immediately by the Martyrs'
Brigades, a militia linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.
>
> "They opened fire on their bodies. Minimum each one took not less than 20
bullets," a researcher from the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group
said.
>
> Then the bodies were strung up for the mob - half-naked carcasses by this
point for the boys who stoned, spat at and stubbed out cigarettes on cold
and greying flesh. According to witnesses interviewed by human rights
organisations, no one tried to stop the ghastly spectacle or to persuade the
mob that the men deserved to be put on trial.
>
> Several hours later the police cut them down and carted the bodies to city
hall in a rubbish truck. Rajoub's widow, Sahar, recognised him by his shirt.
>
> "It was more than mutilation," she said, sitting in the family home in
Dura. "If I show you the clothes he was wearing, you will see. So much
blood. The collar of his shirt is encrusted with it."
>
> Palestinian informers necessarily operate in secret, for fear of ending up
like Rajoub and the 70 other suspected collaborators who have been killed in
the West Bank and Gaza in the past two years.
>
> But Rajoub never hid his allegiance, neither has his family. "Of course he
was a collaborator. He always used to admit it. Everyone in Dura knew it,"
his widow said.
>
> "But that's not the real reason why he was killed."
>
> Mrs Rajoub's lack of embarrassment at her husband's profession is
extremely rare; the stain of collaborating with Israel is not easily erased.
>
> The families of collaborators almost always disclaim any knowledge of
their activities, even after they are killed, or jailed by the Palestinian
police.
>
> That Rajoub's family is even prepared to discuss his death is testimony to
the power he exerted over his village, Dura, and his powerful clan
connections. The Rajoubs are one of the biggest families in Dura, and well
connected: Jibril Rajoub, a distant cousin of Musa, is a former West Bank
security chief.
>
> Musa behaved as if he was untouchable, drawing on those family contacts,
the threat that he could bring down Israel's wrath on those who crossed him,
and the protection money he is believed to have paid to the local
Palestinian police each month.
>
> "He held his M-16 aloft and walked ostentatiously through the streets of
Dura. He would bully people in the street. He would humiliate them," Khalid
Amayreh, a Palestinian journalist and commentator from Dura, said.
>
> "He acted in a gangsterly manner. I dare say many many Palestinians in the
town have personal stories about their encounters with him."
>
> Others in Dura have more charitable memories. They say Rajoub was forced
to sell secrets to support his seven children, and that while he doubtless
preyed on his fellow Palestinians in other parts of the West Bank he showed
relative leniency to the people of Dura.
>
> In a living room plastered with images of Arab militancy - Lebanese and
Palestinian fighters, at least four pictures of Saddam Hussein, and one of
Osama bin Laden - his neighbour Bassem Zeer describes a man who was ready to
use his connections with the Israeli authorities to benefit others - for a
fee. Mr Zeer, a dealer in illegal weapons, had frequent needs of his
services. He said Rajoub interceded with Israel on at least two occasions to
keep him out of jail.
>
> "Not just me, he used to help a lot of people. If you needed a building
permit, or wanted to get people out of jail, you went to Musa. He used to
walk in the streets of Dura, and say: 'If I do anything bad to my own
village, then you are welcome to kill me'."
>
> That shameful collusion between patriotism and practical need is crucial
to the position of collaborators in Palestinian society. Since Israel
occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 it has used a variety of methods to
build up an extensive network of spies: sexual blackmail; offers of travel,
work and building permits; early release from prison.
>
> "Collaborators have been a cancer on the collective conscience of the
Palestinian people," Mr Amayreh said. "They are the worst and most
diabolical product of the Israeli occupation, and the collective hatred for
collaborators cannot be over-estimated."
>
> Rajoub began his career as a collaborator after he was arrested by the
Israeli army in 1983 for harbouring wanted men in his home. His was a
conventional initiation. He started as an asfour - literally a sparrow - the
name Palestinians use for the men planted in crowded cells to elicit
information from inmates. The asfour also has a more sinister use.
>
> Since the Israeli supreme court restricted the use of torture during
interrogations two years ago, Palestinians say, collaborators have been used
to administer beatings in the cells. But if they are caught they can be
beaten to death themselves.
>
> By the time of his death, people in Dura say, Rajoub presided over five
cells of collaborators who collected snippets of information about militant
Palestinian groups in the village and nearby areas of the West Bank. On the
side he ran a lucrative contracting business sending Palestinian labourers
to jobs on building sites in Israel.
>
> He was often away, in other parts of the West Bank, and in Hadera, in
northern Israel, where he was able to conduct his business using the Israeli
identity papers he was given in 1994.
>
> All those activities came crashing to an end on November 15 2000 when he
was arrested by the Palestinian police and imprisoned in a Hebron jail on
charges of collaborating with Israel.
>
> A trial was instigated, Mrs Rajoub retained a lawyer. But the proceedings
fizzled out, and she turned her attentions towards ensuring her husband's
comfort and safety in prison, and securing his eventual release, through
bribery rather than the law.
>
> In her version of events, securing Rajoub's safety was simply a business
arrangement. Each month she paid a healthy sum to his jailers as an
insurance policy, and she began negotiating a price for his eventual
release.
>
> There was talk of cash payments and vehicles. Mrs Rajoub looked for a
buyer for a plot of family land in the village. The months passed.
>
> Elsewhere in the West Bank and Gaza, life became increasingly perilous for
those accused of collaborating with Israel.
>
> Since the uprising against Israel began in September 2000, 71 Palestinians
have been killed on suspicion of serving as spies and informers, according
to the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group.
>
> Two were publicly executed by the Palestinian Authority after rapid
proceedings that made little pretence of being a fair trial. The others were
victims of vigilante justice exacted by Palestinian armed groups - mainly
those linked to Fatah. They were killed by the mob.
>
> Most of the bodies were dumped in waste ground or in unmarked graves,
denied a proper burial in a Muslim graveyard. Rajoub, however, escaped that
final insult.
>
> The reason for such hatred is evident. Since the uprising began the
Israeli army has used helicopter gunships, tanks, and booby-trapped cars to
assassinate 82 Palestinian activists and militants and 31 bystanders.
>
> It hunted them down with information provided by the network of
collaborators in the West Bank and Gaza.
>
> The army has also protected its informants. When it reoccupied the West
Bank last month troops headed for the jails to free prisoners held on
suspicion of collaborating. The 130 collaborators held in Hebron's two
Palestinian prisons disappeared, moved to other villages in the West Bank
where their personal histories were unknown, or to Israel proper.
>
> But that was too late for Rajoub.
>
> On April 20 his wife visited him in jail. He was weak and had developed
asthma. But Mrs Rajoub was hopeful. A few weeks earlier Rajoub's superior in
the hierarchy of informers, Ismail Abu Hmeid, had secured his own release by
paying a bribe of $100,000 (£65,000) to the Palestinian Authority.
>
> Ms Rajoub was finalising the arrangement to sell the family plot of land
and had settled on the terms for buying her husband his freedom: the
equivalent of $15,000 in cash plus his 1997 four-wheel drive vehicle.
>
> She told him he would not be in jail much longer. But the cosy business
arrangement was coming to a close.
>
> Two days after her last visit to the prison Zaloom was assassinated in the
streets of Hebron.
>
> His followers in the al-Aqsa Martrys' Brigades wanted retribution.
Although Rajoub had been in jail for 18 months and was in no position to
have given the Israelis any current information on Zaloom's whereabouts, his
earlier notoriety made him a prime target for revenge.
>
> Months later Mrs Rajoub remains shocked at the collapse of the deal. "My
husband was in jail for a year and a half. He had nothing to do with
Zaloom's assassination," she said. "We were in the middle of negotiations.
My sense of things was that if I paid the money he would be released."
>
> Palestinian security officials in Hebron deny that there was such a deal.
They also say they were powerless to prevent the men from al-Aqsa Brigades
taking Rajoub and the two others from prison. But few people in Dura believe
that story.
>
> "I was not surprised, but of course always there is an ambivalent feeling
because he was also a victim," Mr Amayreh said.
>
> "What happened is the epitome of the entire Palestinian tragedy:
Palestinians killing Palestinians. Musa Rajoub and the likes of him are not
immaculate people. But they themselves are victims of the Israeli
occupation."
>
>
> ----
> This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of
Virus BBS.
>
<http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=260
00>
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