KPFA Flashpoints Radio Monday, July 1, 2002

KPFA Flashpoints News Radio

'OUR DAUGHTER WAS KILLED BY A SUICIDE BOMBER'
- from the Israeli founders of the Bereaved Family Forum .. 'but it is the terror of Israel's occupation that is to blame for her death. Every innocent victim from both sides is a victim of the occupation. The occupation is the cancer feeding Palestinian terror.' - (read more)

Friday, July 1, 2002 - Start Audio
-00:00 Leslie Kean: introduction: US sends CIA into Iraq; death penalty ruled unconstitutional.
-00:46 now with Robert Knight and the Knight Report.. Robert: federal judge's 28 page ruling.. the federal death penalty violates due process.. too many innocent executed.. in Nablus, Israeli executes two members of Hamas.. Sharon says 'self-defence'.. 15 Palestinian dead entombed in Hebron.. 50 miles north of Kabul, US bombs a friendly wedding party, killing maybe a hundred.. the Pentagon *apologizes*.. Bush rebels against ICC, threatens to pull US peacekeepers from Bosnia.. the Rome Statute ratified by 139 countries.. Republican JC Watts of Oklahoma to resign.. Oakland rep Barbara Lee, wins Wayne Moore Integrity in Government Award.
-05:10 Leslie Kean: Bush says Saddam must go.. and sends the CIA to take him out.. now w As'ad AbuKhalil, author of forthcoming book, Bin Laden and Terrorism.. professor of Political Science at CSU Stanislaus and Center for Middle Eastern Studies, CAL Berkeley.. Professor AbuKhalil: we know the suffering in Iraq has fallen most heavily on the poor of Iraq.. hasn't raised the ire of American public.. a decision has been made to replace the government.. to bring back the old form of colonialism.. like they have done in Afghanistan.. trying to do that in Palestine.. an expedited effort of the war on terrorism.. Leslie: about the Arab reaction?.. Professor AbuKhalil: important to distinguish between the Arab citizens and Arab governments.. Jordan is on record as politely 'opposing' an Iraqi invasion.. but the Jordanian public much more angry.. in Beriut, a poster on every street, "boycott them they are killing us".. US would like to do in Iraq like they did in Afghanistan.. but many dissimilarities.. the US aware of the bancruptcy of the CIA supported, so-called 'Iraqi National Congress'.. now talking to the *pro-Iranian* factions in Iraq.. Leslie: the administration has tried, but not established a connection between 9/11 and Iraq.. Professor AbuKhalil: no evidence whatsoever.. the Iraqis have nothing good to say about bin Laden.. eventually we may even see *leftists* in the US *linked* to Al-Quada, in order to suppress them.. this is not 'neo-colonialism', but just old fashioned 'colonialism'.. the former king of Afghanistan, made a fatal mistake, called the US actions 'foolish and counterproductive'.. now any foreign government that doesn't do what the CIA tells them to do will be undermined, *overthrown*.. like they tried to do to Hugo Chavez in Venezuala..
-16:45 music break
-18:12 Leslie: a federal judge today ruled the federal death penalty unconstitutional.. now w Stephen Bright of Southern Center for Civil Rights.. Bright: da judge told the gummit he was very concerned about the number of innocent people being executed.. gave the prosecutors time to convince him.. ruled today they failed.. DNA cases are a small number of cases.. most cases don't have DNA evidence.. extrapolated to all the cases, a huge number of innocent people have been executed.. the ruling will be appealed to the 2nd district appealate court.. Leslie: about the Supreme Court ruling against executing the mentally retarded.. by a 6-3 vote.. Bright: in Texas, the legislature passed a bill against executing the mentally retarded, but the governor vetoed it.. almost no other country in the world permits such executions [any executions actually].. about Jerome Bowden from Georgia.. had an IQ of 65.. gave a real childish statement before he was put to death.. embarrased everyone.. the Georgia legislature immediately passed a bill.. (hear Bowden's and other final statements/ audio) about 50 mentally retarded have been put to death in the US in the last 30 years.. most innocent people are convicted because because of mistaken identification, poor lawyering, racial bias.. the ultimate nightmare, a completely innocent person put to death by the state.. about frontier justice.
-30:25 Leslie: about Furman vs Georgia.. attorney, Joan Cheever.. book coming out, Back From the Dead, the Class of 72.. in 1972 the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional.. 5-4.. death penalty illegal for a time.. all 611 people on death row at the time, had sentenced commuted to life.. I looked at where all those people were today.. some had been in prison since 1950s.. in some state "life sentence' was commuted.. 310 were paroled.. I was pleasantly surprised.. 30% were returned to prison mostly for technical violations.. only 4% committed more violent crimes.. only 3 killed again.. one a serial killer.. 6 were found to be innocent.. that was before DNA evidence.. her *op ed* in last Sunday's NY Times: A Chance Reprieve.. about the execution Joan witnessed.. Joan: the prisoner asked me, I don't want to die alone tonight, will you be with me.. I agreed.. we talked for two hours, we prayed and cried.. he asked for forgiveness.. begged me to tell the victim's family.. he had had a plea bargain, he would have been out in 7 years, he rejected it.. ..about why the Class of 72 succeeded so well.. they did have the chance to get out, and they didn't kill again.. Leslie: the British home office did a study.. the murder rate 3 times higher here than in countries that don't have the death penalty..
-45:55 Leslie: now to Abe Bonowitz (sp?), Citizens United For Alternatives for the Death Penalty.. at the ninth annual fast and vigil to abolish the death penalty.. outside the Supreme Court.. many of us are here fasting.. tables set up with petitions.. a number of large banners.. Florida leads in the nation in wrongful convictions.. 24 released..
-53:50 Leslie: wrapup..
-54:30 End today's show. today's review by john lionheart

Event: Fight the Patriot Act: come hear attorneys Lynne Stewart, Tony Serra and others, Thursday July 11, First Congregational Church at Channing and Dana in Berkeley, more info call Barbara Lubin, 510-548-0542

Friday, June 28, 2002 - Start Audio
-00:00 Dennis Bernstein: introduction: Killing the West Bank slowly; national outrage at Pledge of Allegiance ruling; Flashpoints in Espanol: statement of resistance from a young Guatemalan activist at the G8 conference in Calgary
-00:40 Dennis: in Balata a 17 year old killed when soldiers open fire on stone throwers.. in Quaquila a six year killed on curfew break.. now with American teacher at Berzeit University, Chivvis Moore: strangulation.. THINGS HAVE COME TO A HALT.. PEOPLE CAN'T WORK, KIDS CAN'T GO TO SCHOOL, THE MEDICAL SYSTEM IS AT A STANDSTILL.. yet another effort to get as many people to leave ASAP.. Dennis: ISRAEL SEEMS TO HAVE A NEW STRATEGY, THEY ANNOUNCE A BREAK IN THE CURFEW, AND THEN SHOOT DOWN THE CHILDREN WHEN THEY RUN OUT OF THEIR HOMES.. now with American teacher at Berzeit University.. Chivvis Moore: this is not new.. ISRAEL HAS ALWAYS TRIED TO BREAK PEOPLES' SPIRITS BY SAYING ONE THING AND DOING ANOTHER AND OTHER SUCH DISHONESTIES.. in Jenin people were killed on a curfew break, coming with sacks in their hands.. about a man I visited, brain dead, shot in the head on a curfew, in Ramallah.. Dennis: an attempt to destroy a way of life.. now w Brian Wood, of the International Solidarity Movement.. Brian: yeah, the curfew imposed by fear and soldiers going around in tanks shooting at people.. in Jenin, 30% of the camp bulldozed.. the Jenin residents were people who loved life, had very big parties at weddings.. one wedding last year had 10,000 celebrants.. these are people without much money.. now only a few thousand people left in the camp, living among the ruins.. Dennis: about CNN apologizing for being alledgedly *pro-Palestinian*.. Chivvis: it is fascinating to me how a suituation can be twisted so that it seems to be what it is not.. THE PALESTINIAN VIOLENCE THAT PEOPLE TALK ABOUT, THAT IS JUST THE THE SYMPTOM.. THE DISEASE IS THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION OF THE WEST BANK FOR 35 YEARS.. it is hard to hear things twisted around.. 3.4 million people being strangled to death or submission.. the submission will only be temporary.. two men taken from an ambulance, beated by soldiers, taken away.. you can't even get to a hospital anymore.. sometimes for a matter of hours.. I asked what was wrong with the person inside the ambulance.. his appendix burst.. people afraid to come out of their houses.. because of the Israelis shooting at people during curfew breaks.. 27 Internationals trapped inside the hospital.. the US vetoes any international monitors.. a man in the hospital, beaten by the Israelis so bad he has internal injuries.. a long slow torture of a whole people.. refreshing to me that the US adminstration no longer pretending to support peace, more honest.. CIVILIANS ARE UNLAWFULLY BEING HELD, STEPPED ON, KILLED.. WITH US MONEY, GUNS, AND ARMS.. AMERICANS NEED TO HAVE THE COURAGE TO SPEAK OUT.. Brian: the same policy being acted out that the Zionist movement has acted out since 1948.. in the documents of the early Zionists (link2) (Cactus 48) (link4) (Zmag) (Avenery) (more links).. their intent was to remove as many of the native inhabitants as they could.. to 'transfer' them, to resettle them.. very few people seem to be aware that this is a central tenet of Zionist thought.. still trying to remove as many Pals from their ancestral lands as possible.. Dennis: Sharon just called for a million Jews to 'return' to Israel.. Chivas: there is a water problem.. not enough water in Israel for all the millions, so they have to have the West Bank water.. people on the outside what is done over time, rather than suddenly.. millions can be massacred and people will accept.. the Pals did nothing to the Jews, when the Jews came in after WWII.. if the Arabs had been expelled 35 years ago when Israel captured the West Bank.. Dennis: Brian, you write poetry.. Brian: I have a lot of time under curfew.

Brian's Poem: sounds of children screaming cease, replaced by sounds of tank treads.. buying vegetables and bread in the market of Jenin.. open fire on the.. four kids and a mother.. the red bread, no longer edible.. defending.. born of the wrong race, and wearing too dark skin.. (The Israelis) have a state though, so they aren't terrorists.. defending themselves from the stateless.. two million people stuck in their homes.. (You Soldiers,) happy to kill the nameless faceless cockroaches.. (suicide bombings) the result of your boot on their necks.. Palestinians are survivors..

the 9th circuit court ruling against the phrase, under God, stirs reaction across the nation.. the separation of church and state.. now w Professor Cecelia Alari (sp?).. Dennis: surprised?.. Cecelia: no, when it was added in 1954, it was constitutionally suspect.. interesting that it has taken this long to be challenged.. (no further review this segment)..

October 2001, Harper's magazine published the "Gaza Diary" of journalist Chris Hedges. Hedges' entry for June 17, 2001 provides even more shocking evidence of the wanton and deliberate killing of Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers at Gaza's Khan Yunis refugee camp.

Hedges writes:

"I sit in the shade of a palm-roofed hut on the edge of the dunes, momentarily defeated by the heat, the grit, the jostling crowds, the stench of the open sewers and rotting garbage. A friend of Azmi's brings me, on a tray, a cold glass of tart, red carcade juice."

"Barefoot boys, clutching kites made out of scraps of paper and ragged soccer balls, squat a few feet away under scrub trees. Men in flowing white or gray galabias -- homespun robes -- smoke cigarettes in the shade of slim eaves. Two emaciated donkeys, their ribs protruding, are tethered to wooden carts with rubber wheels."

"It is still. The camp waits, as if holding its breath. And then, out of the dry furnace air, a disembodied voice crackles over a loudspeaker."

""Come on, dogs," the voice booms in Arabic. "Where are all the dogs of Khan Younis? Come! Come!""

"I stand up. I walk outside the hut. The invective continues to spew: "Son of a bitch!" "Son of a whore!" "Your mother's cunt!""

"The boys dart in small packs up the sloping dunes to the electric fence that separates the camp from the Jewish settlement. They lob rocks toward two armored jeeps parked on top of the dune and mounted with loudspeakers. Three ambulances line the road below the dunes in anticipation of what is to come."

"A percussion grenade explodes. The boys, most no more than ten or eleven years old, scatter, running clumsily across the heavy sand. They descend out of sight behind a sandbank in front of me. There are no sounds of gunfire. The soldiers shoot with silencers. The bullets from the M-16 rifles tumble end over end through the children's slight bodies. Later, in the hospital, I will see the destruction: the stomachs ripped out, the gaping holes in limbs and torsos."

"Yesterday at this spot the Israelis shot eight young men, six of whom were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve. This afternoon they kill an eleven-year-old boy, Ali Murad, and seriously wound four more, three of whom are under eighteen. Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered -- death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo -- but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport."

There can be no doubt that Israeli troops have been targeting innocent Palestinian civilians for death from the beginning of the uprising. This understanding was also reflected in UN Security Council Resolution 1322, passed on October 7, 2000, which

"Condemns acts of violence, especially the excessive use of force against Palestinians, resulting in injury and loss of human life."

In making the moral superiority claim, Israel's apologists are either shamelessly denying the irrefutable evidence cited above and are simply lying, or they are asserting that some forms of murder are morally superior to other forms of murder.