Hundreds of tickets were cancelled at the request of Israeli authorities, who circulated the names of those they suspected were flying as part of the Air Flotilla “Welcome to Palestine” campaign.

Here is a copy of the letter sent by Israeli authorities to European airport authorities:

The Air Flotilla participants intend to tell Israeli passport control agents that the purpose of their visit is to go to Bethlehem [in the occupied West Bank].

And, here is a copy of the letter that Israeli authorities intend to distribute, in various languages, to mock Air Flotilla participants:

Then, Ravid sent out Tweets with scans of the entire draft letter, in the original Arabic:
Here is page number 1 of the draft letter Abbas will send Netanyahu here
Here is page number 2 of the draft letter Abbas will send Netanyahu here
Here is page number 3 of the draft letter Abbas will send Netanyahu here
Here is page number 4 of the draft letter Abbas will send Netanyahu here.

There has been a lot of speculation about this letter — Abbas would announce his resignation, Abbas would disband the entire Palestinian Authority…

The same day, Israeli former Minister of Justice Yossi Beilin, formerly of Meretz and previously the Labour Party, wrote a piece, entitled “Dear Abu Mazen, End This Farce”, which was published on the Foreign Policy website, here, urging Abbas to disband the PA, saying:

“I admit that I never believed the moment would come when I would have to write these words. I am doing so because U.S. President Barack Obama has convinced you not to announce, at this point in time, the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority’s institutions and the ‘return of the keys’ of authority for the Palestinian territories to Israel. Because there have never been serious negotiations with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the last three years, and because you did not want to perpetuate the myth that a meaningful dialogue existed, you have been sorely tempted to declare the death of the ‘peace process’ — but the American president urged you to maintain the status quo. It is a mistake to agree to Obama’s request, and you can rectify this.
…

“Oslo’s opponents, on both sides, were initially startled by a process that promised to lead to a partition of the land in a few years. They later turned Oslo into a tool to prevent partition by prolonging the interim agreement, claiming that, as long as it is not replaced by a permanent agreement, it must continue and be binding to both sides. Oslo’s adversaries have turned the interim agreement, which was supposed to last not more than six years and serve only as a pathway to a final solution, into an arena where they can continue to build settlements or spin their dreams of an Islamic empire, without the world putting serious pressure on them to put an end to the conflict. The extremists’ gutting of the Oslo agreement has been complete. They have uprooted the permanent-status negotiations — where the two sides pledged to tackle core issues such as the status of Jerusalem, the fate of Palestinian refugees, and the future of Israeli settlements — from the peace process. They have succeeded in
preventing the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines with land swaps, the establishment of two capitals in the current area of Jerusalem, the formulation of appropriate security arrangements, and a fitting symbolic and economic resolution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees — as was proposed in the Geneva Accord, in which you were involved in all of the details. Their aim is to perpetuate the interim process indefinitely, and every single day that passes plays into their hands.
…
A declaration of the end of the Oslo process — justified by the fact that the path to a permanent-status agreement is blocked — is the most reasonable, nonviolent option for putting the subject back on the world’s agenda, with the aim of renewing genuine efforts to reach a conclusive solution”.

Yossi Beilin served as a minister in the cabinets of Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Ehud Barak. He initiated the Oslo peace process in 1992, worked on the Beilin-Abu Mazen talks between 1993 and 1995, and launched the Geneva Accord with Yasser Abed Rabbo in 2003.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the effort. Speaking from the southern French city of Montpelier, where he is campaigning for the forthcoming elections, Sarkozy said he was “glad that this nightmare is over”, according to the AP http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15716/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=ypSDmCoh.

But, a few hours later, Sarkozy retracted his remarks.

It seems that French journalist Edith Bouvier, who pleaded for evacuation from Baba Amr — because her leg was broken in two places, she could not walk, and she badly needed urgent fast surgery — was left behind and had not reached safety in Lebanon, as was previously announced. Only British journalist/cameraman Paul Convoy made it out, overnight, the BBC reported, here.

According to this BBC report, Bouvier’s whereabouts were unknown, though she apparently may have made it out of Homs, all of which is a danger zone under attack.

The BBC also reported that there was no news about the bodies of Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik.

Before this surprising turnaround, and before Sarkozy’s retraction,
Zak @TheZako commented, with apparent admiration, on Twitter:
“.@Avaaz spoxman on @BBCRadio4: 23 activists were killed during the evacuation of foreign journalists. Crazy, crazy!”

Was it 23? Or, 13?

[@Avaaz Tweeted today that: "Ricken Patel, from #Avaaz, is live on #NSCNN CNN now. "There were over 50 activists in the opp, 23 died". But an Avaaz press release, below, says it was 13...]

And, who are these Avaaz activists, really?

Avaaz itself announced here that “a network of Syrian activists coordinated [though a Tweet by @Avaaz says it provided "support"] by the global campaign organisation Avaaz helped the international journalist Paul Conroy escape into Lebanon. He had been injured and trapped in Baba Amr, Homs for six days under continuous Syrian government shelling. The three other journalists Javier Espinosa, Edith Bouvier and William Daniels remain unaccounted for. Avaaz responded to requests from the journalists, their families and colleagues to attempt to evacuate them and worked with over 35 heroic Syrian activists each night who volunteered to help in the rescue. The activists have offered to support in the evacuation every night since Remi Ochlik and Marie Colvin were killed by Syrian government shellfire last Wednesday, during which time they rescued 40 seriously wounded people from the same place and brought in medical supplies. Tragically this operation led to a number of fatalities as the Syrian Army targeted those escaping, during their bombardment of the city on Sunday evening. 13 activists were killed in the operation. Three activists were killed by Syrian targeted shelling as they tried to assist the journalists through Baba Amr. While Paul Conroy successfully escaped the city, ten activists died bringing relief supplies into Baba Amr. On the day of their evacuation, over 7,000 people had been forced to flee their neighbourhoods in south Homs in fear of massacres. This operation was carried by Syrians with the help of Avaaz. No other agency was involved”.

The BBC said that “Campaign group Avaaz said it had co-ordinated an operation to free the wounded journalists and two trapped colleagues, and some of the activists involved had died in the process. Avaaz executive director Ricken Patel said the rescue group had been split in two by shelling after leaving Homs, and only Mr Conroy’s group had been able to move forward. Avaaz described the three other journalists – Ms Bouvier, Javier Espinosa, and William Daniels – as ‘unaccounted for’. Mr Conroy was apparently able to walk across the border into Lebanon during the night, but our correspondent adds that the more seriously wounded Ms Bouvier would have had to be carried on a stretcher”.

Javier Espinosa, Middle East Correspondent for El Mundo [Spain], reportedly survived uninjured the same attack killed Colvin + Ochlik, and wounded Bouvier + Conroy. One of his accounts of the situation in Baba Amr was published by The Guardian, here.

William Daniels, a French photographer who was on assignment for Panos photo agency, may or may not have been wounded.

Mr. Conroy’s wife, who had given hell to British Foreign and Commonwealth Office [FCO] officials for their seeming earlier inaction on rescuing her husband, said this evening that she was thrilled. A FCO spokesperson, speaking on “customary condition of anonymity in line with policy” said that “All the necessary work is being done on repatriating Marie Colvin’s body and ensuring Paul Conroy gets to safety. For security reasons we can’t give you any more detail of that at the moment”. This is reported by CBS News here.

The Committee to Protect Journalists [CPJ] issued a statement, posted here, from its New York Headquarters that “In all, eight journalists have been killed in Syria in the last four months, CPJ research shows. On Friday, a Syrian videographer Anas al-Tarsha was killed in Homs while filming a bombardment. A week earlier, another Syrian videographer, Rami al-Sayed, was killed in Baba Amr”.

CBS News also reported here that: “The Syrian opposition group Local Coordination Committees [LCC] and global activist group Avaaz said Conroy was the only foreign journalist to escape Syria. Rima Fleihan, an LCC spokeswoman, said the Sunday Times photographer was smuggled out by Syrian army defectors. The global activist group Avaaz, which said it organized the evacuation with local Syrian activists, said 35 Syrians volunteered to help get the journalists out and bring aid in. Of those, 13 were killed. Avaaz said three were killed in government shelling while trying to help Conroy through the neighborhood and 10 others were killed trying to bring in aid while Conroy was on his way out on Sunday evening … The LCC said other Western journalists are negotiating with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to be allowed to leave Syria without having their videos and photos confiscated by authorities. All the journalists killed and wounded in Homs were smuggled into Syria from Lebanon illegally”.

Really, who are these Avaaz activists?

Liz Sly made an attempt to clarify in a report published in the Washington Post here, which recalled that about ten days ago, “New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid died of an asthma attack during a strenuous trek out of Syria across the mountainous Turkish border”.

Sly’s Washington Post piece reported that “The botched rescue [n.b. - of injured and stranded journalists from Baba Amr] Tuesday also underscores the dangers facing the underground networks of activists and smugglers set up to evacuate people injured in government attacks to hospitals in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. The same networks carry medical supplies such as blood bags and antibiotics into Syria for use in field hospitals and have been used by journalists to enter the country illegally. Similar but separate networks have also been utilized to smuggle weapons to the fledgling armed resistance movement known as the Free Syrian Army. But most of those active in the medical networks are civilian volunteers, seeking to help Syrians who have been injured during protests and who risk detention if they seek treatment at government hospitals, said Wissam Tarif, a Lebanon-based activist with Avaaz. ‘They are just ordinary guys who did not pick up weapons but decided to evacuate injured people’, he said. ‘Some of them have basic medical training, some can do tetanus shots and provide some medical assistance. Some of them are just guys who can carry heavy weights. They’ve been doing this for a year, and hundreds of them have been killed’. Altogether, 23 members of the network engaged in ferrying medical supplies and injured victims between Homs and Lebanon have been killed since last Wednesday’s attack on the journalists, said Tarif, who has close ties with the network. [Wait - is Sly separating this "network" from Avaaz, or are they identical, or at least overlap?] In the process, they have evacuated 40 injured civilians from Homs. Details of the the ambush and the identities of the dead Syrians were not disclosed to protect future evacuation operations, With the deaths of the activists and the evident discovery of the secret route they had been using by Syrian security forces, the network is now in jeopardy, activists said, leaving it unclear whether the remaining journalists can be evacuated. Efforts by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to negotiate safe passage out of Bab Amr for the journalists have failed”…

Meanwhile the UN Human Rights Council convened in a special session in Geneva to discuss the situation in Syria. High-level delegations were expected to attend. The Syrian delegates walked out in protest early in the session after a UN official told the meeting that “atrocities were being committed in Syria”.

The BBC added that “French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has urged the 47 nations in the council to be prepared to submit a complaint against Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague”.

And, why do veteran combat journalsts working for major news organizations trust Avaaz with their lives in getting into, and when inside, the Baba Amr quarter of Homs, Syria, which has been beseiged by the Syrian army on a mission to exterminate “Islamist terrorism”?

Ahvaaz [Avaaz]:
The name of an organization [a "global advocacy group", The Telegraph coyly calls them] called Avaaz, has been mentioned as cooridinating closely with journalists covering the Syrian uprising, and in connection with their arrivals in besieged places like Baba Amr.

Their website is available in 14 or 15 languages at www.avaaz.org, here, they are on Twitter [@avaaz], and also Facebook — and they are interested in global matters — the oceans, the Amazon, the internet, and now Syria — identifying themselves as “a campaigning community” with 13 million members.

Their website says: “Avaaz—meaning ‘voice’ in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages—launched in 2007 with a simple democratic mission: organize citizens of all nations to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want … Where other global civil society groups are composed of issue-specific networks of national chapters, each with its own staff, budget, and decision-making structure, Avaaz has a single, global team with a mandate to work on any issue of public concern–allowing campaigns of extraordinary nimbleness, flexibility, focus, and scale. Avaaz’s online community can act like a megaphone to call attention to new issues; a lightning rod to channel broad public concern into a specific, targeted campaign; a fire truck to rush an effective response to a sudden, urgent emergency; and a stem cell that grows into whatever form of advocacy or work is best suited to meet an urgent need”…

UPDATE: Julian Borger reported here in The Guardian on Tuesday night [28 February] that Avaaz was founded in 2007.

Borger adds that Avaaz “emerged out of activist groups in the US and Australia, including ResPublica, GetUp! and MoveOn.org. Its founding president is Ricken Patel, a Canadian-British veteran of the International Crisis Group, a global thinktank, and MoveOn.org, a progressive American group. He runs a team of campaigners around the world, with offices in New York, Rio, Delhi, Madrid and Sydney”.

And, Borger added. Avaaz “has taken on a prominent and more physically risky role in the Arab spring, providing satellite phones and other communication equipment to pro-democracy groups in Libya, Egypt and Syria … Amid the bloodshed of Syria, the organisation’s commitment is less likely to be queried. The question its critics are raising now is whether a group that started out in the high-tech safety of the internet has found itself out of its depth in a brutal conflict in the real world”.

While the first time I recall hearing the name Ahvaaz was in connection with an “uprising” against the Islamic Republic regime installed in Tehran that the Iranian authorities strongly believe was coordinated with the American CIA + British secret services, they also seemed to have some kind of association with the MEK — or, Mujahedeen-e-Khalq = a supposedly “leftist’ movement that was part of the resistance to the Shah of Iran prior to the Iranian revolution, but was then persecuted, and took up arms against the Islamic Republic, when they found an ally in Saddam Hussein who offered them shelter and a base came which they are now evacuating for relocation as refugees around the world, under great pressure.

Ahvaaz, if I am not mistaken [will check] is the Persian version of the name of [CORR: the capital city of Khuzestan, the] Arabic-speaking province [Ahwaz] in south-western Iran, bordering Iraq, the Shatt al-Arab, and the north-western shore of Iran along the Persian Gulf.  It was in the Ahvaaz province that the first clashes in the terrible Iran-Iraq war [end 1979 to August 1989] took place, between the freshly-installed Islamic Republic and a Saddam Hussein backed by the U.S., by all Arab states [officially, at least] and by all the “civilized world”.

Ahvaaz came in big, internationally, in social media more recently at a late phase of the Tahrir Square protests — and though nobody knew who they were, exactly, many otherwise savvy people were enthusiastic to support, if not join, their calls for signing petitions, etc., in support of the Tahrir movement.

Like the MEK, Avaaz seems to be very media-savvy, and have expertise in modern technology.

But, Avaaz is functioning differently than the MEK at the height of its influence. Avaaz is concentrating on social media, and video postings on the internet, as well as their new role of helping “smuggle” journalists into battle zones in closed Syria via routes they have access to in neighboring countries [Lebanon, and possibly Turkey -- the Israel government is surely aware of this, but keeping a judicious quiet].

The Avaaz website explains this under the heading, Breaking the Middle East Black-out:

“Funded by donations from almost 30,000 Avaazers, an Avaaz team is working closely with the leadership of democracy movements in Syria, Yemen, Libya and more to get them high-tech phones and satellite internet modems, connect them to the world’s top media outlets, and provide communications advice. We’ve seen the power of this engagement — where our support to activists has created global media cycles with footage and eyewitness accounts that our team helps distribute to CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and others. The courage of these activists is unbelievable — a skype message read ‘state security searching the house, my laptop battery dying, if not online tomorrow I’m dead or arrested’. He’s ok, and together we’re helping to get his and many other voices out to the world”

But, in Syria, things are not ok.

[Due to the dire situation, presumably, there is no particular information about Syria, at the moment, on the Avaaz website... UPDATE Yet, Avaaz states, here, that it "has been working with activists on the Syrian Spring since it started, setting up a network of over 400 Citizen Journalists across the country, smuggling in medicines and international journalists to report on the unfolding story and campaigning to ensure that sanctions and political pressure are applied on the Assad regime. The organisation is entirely funded by small donations from its members".

UPDATE: An article published on The Guardian website last July, here, reports that "Since 2009, Avaaz has not taken donations from foundations or corporations, nor has it accepted payments of more than $5,000. Instead, it relies simply on the generosity of individual members, who have now raised over $20m. Much of this money goes towards specific campaigns. This year, $1.5m was raised to supply cameras to citizen journalists throughout the Arab world; as a result, much of the footage currently coming out of Syria was filmed on equipment provided by Avaaz". The BBC picked up and rewrote this today, reporting rather lazily, here, that "Avaaz says it is independent and accountable because since 2009 it has been wholly member-funded".]

Why should journalists trust Avaaz with their lives, as Marie Colvin did?

And, why are French photographers and filmmakers working so closely with Avaaz? [Are French photographers just more passionate and curious about the world? Or, do they have some kind of official backing?...]

If Avaaz is behind the recent quantum leap in improvement in the filming and video streaming of protests throughout Syria — particularly the dancing protests highlighted in our previous post — they deserve a lot of credit for their skills.

By comparison, the MEK, before it was labelled by the US as “terrorist organization”, a label which they have been fighting, used to function less as “local fixers” who can boost a foreign correspondent’s impact and reach, and more as an effective pressure group which was in regular contact with members of Congress and other governments, as well as everyone’s editors — and if a journalist didn’t seem enthusiastic about publishing their news, they would threaten to go to one’s editors. They implied that they could promote journalists’ careers — or of having them black-listed, and fired … Like other powerful and effective lobbies, the MEK traded in influence, and was feared.

More to follow later…

When she made that remark, she was speaking at St. Bride’s Church in London in November 2010, at a memorial service for journalists who have died in the line of duty. She said that, earlier: “I first went to war with a typewriter, and learned to tap out a telex tape. It could take days to get from the front to a telephone or telex machine”. The full text of Marie Colvin’s speech was eepublished the day of her death in The Guardian, here.

What she did not think of, and may not have known, at the time she spoke those words, was that when she used her satellite phone to file her material a year and a half later, from beseiged Baba Arm in the Syrian city of Homs, her coordinates were captured and used for targetting by military artillery.

The use of her satellite phone may have killed her. Electronics experts say [see below] that if journalists must use their satellite phones in battlefield conditions, they should keep a distance from the phone: “If you have to get the signal out – do so safely and move your ass”.

In the few minutes after the news broke — in the morning, February 22nd — of the killing by shelling of Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik in Baba Amr, Homs [and the wounding of at least three other journalists working in the same "Media Center"] the horrible possibility dawned that they had been tracked and targetted after using their satellite phones and other equipment to upload their news reports and photos.

Satellite phones and computers are apparently not allowed into Syria.

Neither, for the most part, are journalists.

But Marie Colvin and her colleagues managed to get in from Lebanon with the help of smugglers working with the Free Syria Army [FSA] which is trapped, with some 28,000 Syrian civilians, in the Baba Amr quarter of Homs, where they have been subjected to sharply increased shelling, this week, by the Syrian Army which claims to be fighting “Islamic terrorists”…

Syrian Army snipers are said to be stationed at the perimeter of the Baba Amr area, and shoot all those trying to leave, or enter. [But, the smuggler's apparently have one route that is being used...]

The Syrian Army might not have the latest technical capability to track Satphone signals and “triangulate” targetteting based on this … But again, they might. Or, they might have friends and allies and mercenaries who are skilled in this, and who would also have the latest technology with which to do it…

The Telegraph [London] reported here that Colvin, Ochlik and their colleagues were “fired on as they tried to flee a makeshift press centre that had suffered a direct hit from a shell. Witnesses said they were killed by a rocket-propelled grenade as they emerged from the ruins of the press centre, which was next door to a hospital. Frederic Mitterrand, the French culture minister, said they had been ‘pursued as they tried to flee the bombardment’ … Reporters working in Homs, which has been under siege since Feb 4, had become concerned in recent days that Syrian forces had ‘locked on’ to their satellite phone signals and attacked the buildings from which they were coming”.

The Globe and Mail of Canada wrote that: “The press centre was apparently the only place in the city with a ‘live feed’ for broadcasters and satellite phones emitting a near-constant signal. Syrian government forces could triangulate the location of the satellite transmission. Intelligence agencies around the world track phone and satellite signals to target enemies. Syrian activists said they took specific measures to avoid being detected when using satellite phones, such as limiting the duration of their calls, and changing locations”. This is published here.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote, here that “There are a few different ways by which satellite phones can be tracked. The first—and easiest for a government actor—would be to simply ask or pressure a company to hand over user data … Satellite phones can also be tracked by technical means and there is ample technology already on the market for doing so … Authorities can find the position of a satellite phone using manual triangulation, but in order to track a phone in this manner, the individual would need to be relatively close by. Nowadays, however, most satellite phones utilize GPS, making them even easier to track using products widely available on the market such as those mentioned above. Some of these products allow not only for GPS tracking, but also for interception of voice and text communications and other information … Colvin has put a human face on a problem that has plagued citizens of the Middle East for years now: surveillance equipment being used by despotic governments to track down journalists and activists, like provided to them by Western technology companies. Now it’s possible this equipment directly led the murder of an American journalist”.

David Burgess wrote on his blog, The OpenBTS Chronicles, here, that the danger for a journalist to use a satellite phone in a combat zone is “about the fact that you are transmitting a distinctive radio signal”:
“Regardless of encryption, authentication, etc., the mere existence of one of these radio signals sends a message to an observing military force: There’s someone over there with fancy comms and it’s not us. That can be a very dangerous message”.

The SaferMobiles website subsequently published an article entitled: “Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid of Satellite phones in Insecure Locations”, posted here which advises that:
“Nothing will prevent location discovery with a satellite phone, other than not using the device”, and “IF you must use one, keep your conversations as short as possible. Keep in mind that keeping a conversation short is only relevant if you change your location immediately following a call”.

Here is an international Twitter exchange between technically-proficient tweeters who say not only is it possible — they also warn, it is probable. “Keep a distance before using a Satphone”, one warns MSFnce-Fra [Medecins Sans Frontiers-France]. He also tweeted that extreme precision in targetting is not needed: “just a 100 meters precision is enough to wipe the place”.

Another person in the exchange warned: “If you have to get the signal out – do so safely and move your ass”.

He added: “No matter what – unless you *know* otherwise, your Satellite phone almost certainly discloses your exact GPS location in an insecure manner”.

And, he recommended [without any evident commercial motive] using this product, a GSMK Cryptophone, with the link he provided here.

****************************

Here are some excerpts from this interesting exchange on Twitter [the top ones are the more recent]:

David Burgess ? @dburgess00
@Katrinskaya @safermobile @jilliancyork my $0.02: openbts.blogspot.com/2012/02/some-c…
[ http://openbts.blogspot.com/2012/02/some-comments-on-satellite-phones.html ]

Elasti Girl ? @Katrinskaya
Were journos in #Syria targeted by their sat phones? @safermobile explains how that’s possible: bit.ly/xQumFh cc @jilliancyork
[ https://safermobile.org/be-afraid-be-very-afraid-of-satellite-phones-in-insecure-locations/]

Jillian C. York ? @jilliancyork
Satphones, Syria, and Surveillance by @jilliancyork and @WLLegal for @EFF – goo.gl/oxbT9 (+1 to @ioerror)

Okhin @okhin
@MSF_france dites à vos agents de se mettre à l’écart avant d’utiliser un téléphone sat. Ils sont utilisés pour guider l’artillerie. [= "Tell your people/staff to stay a distance away before using a satellite phone. They are used to guide artillery" ]

Okhin @okhin
@asteris not sure there’s a need for tech help. I think it’s basic military transmission tactics to triangulate a signal.

Okhin @okhin
@asteris @Katrinskaya @csoghoian I think Assad does not need extreme precision, just a 100 meters precision is enough to wipe the place

Asteris Masouras @asteris
@okhin triangulating broadcasts is one thing, locking on to a specific signal & directing precision fire to it another

Okhin @okhin
@asteris arstechnica.com/business/news/… for the eavesdroppping part at least. I guess triangulating a satphone does not require to crack it.
2:27 PM – 23 Feb 12 via web • Details

Asteris Masouras @asteris
We need a serious investigation in the satphone targeting issue, at any rate, along w full registry of companies producing such tech #Homs

David Burgess @dburgess00
@Katrinskaya @ioerror Thuraya absolutely knows your location. Do you trust Thuraya’s employee screening procedures with your life?

Aaron Huslage @huslage
@ioerror they can still be sniffed over the air. How does Tor help with deniability in the case of a point-to-point link?

Jacob Appelbaum @ioerror
If you are using a Satellite phone for *data* in Syria or elsewhere – use Tor! Your communications are trivial to intercept.

Elasti Girl @Katrinskaya
@ioerror Privacy IS vital security often and in many places. Never understood the weird way in which we separate privacy and security.
Retweeted by Jacob Appelbaum

Jacob Appelbaum @ioerror
@matt_mcc @huslage Of course not. Different threats. If you have to get the signal out – do so safely and move your ass.

Matt McClellan @matt_mcc
@ioerror @huslage don’t need content for targeting
from Ellicott City, MD

Jacob Appelbaum @ioerror
No matter what – unless you *know* otherwise, your Satellite phone almost certainly discloses your exact GPS location in an insecure manner.

hi @BannedFromOz
@Voulnet supposedly the user would have to purposely lower the security settings thru a series of steps in order for an attack to happen.

Jacob Appelbaum @ioerror
If you are using a Satellite phone for voice calls – stop unless you’re using cryptophone: cryptophone.de/en/products/sa… = GSMK Cryptophone [http://www.cryptophone.de/en/products/satellite/cp-t3/]. The information on the product page linked says: “The CryptoPhone T3 Thuraya satellite option is the perfect solution for secure communications in areas without GSM coverage or if you do not wish to depend on local network infrastructure”.

Jacob Appelbaum @ioerror
If you are using a Satellite phone for *data* in Syria or elsewhere – use Tor! Your communications are trivial to intercept.

Christopher Soghoian @csoghoian
I wonder which surveillance vendor sold Syrian gov the gear it used to “lock-in” to sat phones of murdered journalists. telegraph.co.uk/news/9099325/M… Retweeted by Jacob Appelbaum
[ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9099325/Marie-Colvin-Syria-regime-accused-of-murder-in-besieged-Homs.html ]

***************************

This last tweet links to an updated article published here by the British daily paper, The Telegraph, which mentions the possibility that tracking of Satellite/Satphone/Satellite computer signals may indeed have been used to deliberately target the journalists working in the FSA “Media Center” yesterday, which we cited in our previous post, yesterday.

The Telegraph also reported that “Hours before she died, Colvin had given interviews to several broadcasters including the BBC, Channel 4 and CNN in which she described the bloodshed as ‘absolutely sickening’. She also accused Mr Assad’s forces of ‘murder’ and said it was ‘a complete and utter lie that they are only
targeting terrorists…the Syrian army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians’. Sources in Damascus confirmed that Syrians, including Mr Assad, would have been able to watch Colvin’s broadcasts – a fact that could have sealed her fate”…

Intensive shelling started some two weeks ago.  The Syrian Army is reportedly using large mortars on the civilians trapped with fighters from the Free Syria Army [said to be composed of Syrian military defectors].
Marie reported that Syrian Army snipers are posted all around the perimeter of the area now being shelled, so it is very difficult and dangerous to go in or out. Supplies of all kinds are dwindling in the siege.

Yesterday, Marie said in a Q+A aired on BBC: “I watched a baby die”.

Killed with Marie was 28-year-old French photographer Remi Ochlik, whose work is posted on his website here, and where he wrote about himself: “In 2011, Remi photographed the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions and the uprising and war in Libya”. Ochlik stayed behind in Homs when a staff photographer for a French publication was pulled out because of the dangerous conditions.

Yesterday, Syrian blogger/journalist Rami al-Sayed ["Syria Pioneer"] was killed in Baba Amr while working to report the fighting on the internet. “He was one of the first activists who risked their lives and braved sniper bullets to film the protests in Homs. Rami also set up a channel to live stream the anti-regime demonstrations and the army’s assaults on the city. Rami never admitted he was the one behind the channel but whenever his colleagues told me he was ‘out’ or ‘busy’, I was sure to find a live feed on his channel”, according to a post published here, which was picked up by the NYTimes blog, TheLede.

In all, as of today, some 13 journalists have lost their lives in the fighting in Syria.
Marie and Remi were killed today, and at least three other journalists were wounded in the same attack this morning, just after they had uploaded video and photos, and filed stories — leading to the growing suspicion that sophisticated electronic methods had been used to track and target the journalists.

The Telegraph reported in an updated article bylined by Gordon Rayner, Nabila Ramdani and Richard Spencer
that a group of journalists “were fired on as they tried to flee a makeshift press centre that had suffered a direct hit from a shell. Witnesses said they were killed by a rocket-propelled grenade as they emerged from the ruins of the press centre, which was next door to a hospital. Frederic Mitterrand, the French culture minister, said they had been ‘pursued as they tried to flee the bombardment’ … Before the building was attacked, Syrian army officers were allegedly intercepted by intelligence staff in neighbouring Lebanon discussing how they would claim journalists had been killed in crossfire with ‘terrorist groups’ … Hours before she died, Colvin had given interviews to several broadcasters including the BBC, Channel 4 and CNN in which she described the bloodshed as ‘absolutely sickening’. She also accused Mr Assad’s forces of ‘murder’ and said it was ‘a complete and utter lie that they are only targeting terrorists…the Syrian army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians’. Sources in Damascus confirmed that Syrians, including Mr Assad, would have been able to watch Colvin’s broadcasts – a fact that could have sealed her fate. Jean-Pierre Perrin, a journalist for the Paris-based Liberation newspaper who was with Colvin in Homs last week, said they had been told the Syrian Army was deliberately going to shell their media centre, which had a limited electricity supply and internet access thanks to a generator. Mr Perrin said: ‘A few days ago we were advised to leave the city urgently and we were told “if they [the Syrian army] find you they will kill you”. I then left the city with [Colvin] but she wanted to go back when she saw that the major offensive had not yet taken place’.” This account is published here.

The way to get over the paywall is through this link, here, which has been re-tweeted many times this morning.

The Times later removed the paywall, and Marie Colvin’s last story from Baba Amr is posted publicly here.

It opens with these words:
“They call it the widows’ basement. Crammed amid makeshift beds and scattered belongings are frightened women and children trapped in the horror of Homs, the Syrian city shaken by two weeks of relentless bombardment”.

Her report is unabashedly partisan:
“It is a city of the cold and hungry, echoing to exploding shells and bursts of gunfire. There are no telephones and the electricity has been cut off. Few homes have diesel for the tin stoves they rely on for heat in the coldest winter that anyone can remember. Freezing rain fills potholes and snow drifts in through windows empty of glass. No shops are open, so families are sharing what they have with relatives and neighbours. Many of the dead and injured are those who risked foraging for food.
Fearing the snipers’ merciless eyes, families resorted last week to throwing bread across rooftops, or breaking through communal walls to pass unseen.
The Syrians have dug a huge trench around most of the district, and let virtually nobody in or out. The army is pursuing a brutal campaign to quell the resistance of Homs, Hama and other cities that have risen up against Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, whose family has been in power for 42 years.
In Baba Amr, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the armed face of opposition to Assad, has virtually unanimous support from civilians who see them as their defenders…”

Lindsey Hilsum wrote a farewell to Marie, here on the Channel 4 blog:
“The week before last, over dinner in Beirut, I told Marie that I would not sneak across the border into Homs because it was too dangerous. She said she was going to have a go anyway. She felt it was important. ‘Anyway, it’s what we do’, she said”.

As’ad AbuKhalil [Angry Arab] commented on his blog later today that:

[1] “So Western media sneak correspondents into Syria illegally, and then expect the Syrian regime to protect them. If Israel were to see one Western correspondent sneaking into Israel, he/she would be incinerated on the spot. More importantly, during the various chapters of Isareli assaults and invasions and massacres, Western media carefully observed all Israeli military rules and laws and regulations”; and
[2]“So basically: we now know that the Free Syrian Army killed a French journalist and the Syrian regime killed two journalists today. So both are killers of journalists but why did the killing of the French journalist produce no outrage in Western circles?”

Her colleague + friend Christopher Dickey wrote today in The Daily Beast, here, that:
“Marie really was the greatest war correspondent of our generation. She took extraordinary risks and got extraordinary stories year after year, decade after bloody decade. I think nobody can match her record for pushing herself into the middle of the action to witness what war is and what war does and ‘get the information out’. Because if you really want people to understand, really want them to care—and Marie wanted that very much—then press releases and human-rights reports and anonymous cellphone video vaguely attributed is not going to cut it. There is no substitute for the correspondent who goes and sees for herself what is happening, and tells the world in exact, dispassionate, irrefutable detail”.

Marie was injured and lost the use of her left eye while reporting on fighting in Sri Lanka in 2001.  At the time of her death today she was 57, and has covered almost all the major conflicts in her professional lifetime.

In November 2010, Marie Colvin gave a speech at St. Bride’s Church in London on the importance of war reporting, which journalists have linked to on Twitter this morning, in which she said:

“I have been a war correspondent for most of my professional life. It has always been a hard calling. But the need for frontline, objective reporting has never been more compelling. Covering a war means going to places torn by chaos, destruction and death, and trying to bear witness. It means trying to find the truth in a sandstorm of propaganda when armies, tribes or terrorists clash. And yes, it means taking risks, not just for yourself but often for the people who work closely with you”.



“…the scene on the ground [n.b. - of all wars] has remained remarkably the same for hundreds of years. Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers children. Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice. We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado? Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price…
Today we must also remember how important it is that news organisations continue to invest in sending us out at great cost, both financial and emotional, to cover stories. We go to remote war zones to report what is happening. The public have a right to know what our government, and our armed forces, are doing in our name. Our mission is to speak the truth to power. We send home that first rough draft of history. We can and do make a difference in exposing the horrors of war and especially the atrocities that befall civilians…
In an age of 24/7 rolling news, blogs and Twitters, we are on constant call wherever we are. But war reporting is still essentially the same – someone has to go there and see what is happening. You can’t get that information without going to places where people are being shot at, and others are shooting at you. The real difficulty is having enough faith in humanity to believe that enough people be they government, military or the man on the street, will care when your file reaches the printed page, the website or the TV screen. We do have that faith because we believe we do make a difference. And we could not make that difference – or begin to do our job – without the fixers, drivers and translators, who face the same risks and die in appalling numbers. Today we honour them as much as the front line journalists who have died in pursuit of the truth. They have kept the faith as we who remain must continue to do”.

An article entitled “Highway to the Danger Zone”, by Sherry Ricchiardi, published here in the American Journalism Review in April 2000 profiled Marie at work. It reported this episode, when Marie was with rebels fighting Russian forces in Chechenya:

“Russian warplanes swooped like menacing hawks, spitting fire onto the narrow, dirt road. At the center of a bull’s-eye was a lone four-wheel-drive vehicle carrying Chechen fighters and one of Europe’s most daring war correspondents.
There was no time for Marie Colvin to wonder if she had gone too far this time, smuggling herself past Russian checkpoints into the heart of the carnage. Trapped in the back seat with no escape route, she braced for the final impact.
Milliseconds later, slivers of glass and steel went flying as a burst of high-caliber machine gun fire ripped into the back end of the mud-caked vehicle. Operating on instinct, Colvin scrambled free of the wreckage, running with Chechen fighters into a field of thorny bushes and barren birch trees, scant cover from an air attack. She remembers thinking, ‘This is a death trap’.
For the next nine hours, Colvin lay with her body pressed to the frozen earth, not daring to move as Russian planes continued to bomb and strafe the sloping valley in a morbid game of hide-and-seek. Once, a shell exploded so close that shrapnel sliced off the tree branches that hung above her.
‘It was torturous. I knew if I cracked and ran, I was dead’, the reporter recalls. After dark, she crept back to the road and thumbed a ride with Chechen fighters returning from the firing line in a rickety 1950s-vintage pickup truck. By daybreak she was deeper into forbidden territory …
…Although it flies in the face of her early journalism training in the United States, she stands fast behind reporting with an attitude. ‘My own experience tells readers more about what is happening than merely attributing every quote. The people I meet and my reactions to them–that is part of the story’, Colvin says. ‘It’s quite often stronger to write, “I saw this”.’ But she shuns making herself the focus of the story…
To defuse cultural differences or the perceived threat posed by an outsider, Colvin chooses to blend in by living under the same conditions as the people she is covering. ‘If you go in bare and eat what they eat, drink what they drink, sleep where they sleep, there is less separation’, she says.
In December, the reporter shared a 20-by-6-foot filth-encrusted sleeping area with more than a dozen Chechen fighters in a remote command post. Once, when hard lumps disrupted her sleep, she reached down and pulled out two hand grenades. The rebels ‘would come off the firing line and just collapse’, Colvin says, adding, ‘They were very kind to me’.
A Chechen commander paved the way by announcing: ‘There are no women here. Just a journalist’. To his fighters, many of them Islamic, the edict was a release from conventions based on gender. ‘They were very respectful. They weren’t protective, just accepting’, says Colvin, who was accompanied by a Russian photographer working for the Sunday Times…
…Staying alive became an obsession after a road offering her best chance for retreat was captured by Russian paratroopers.
A reign of terror followed, with Russian MiGs firing on any vehicle that attempted to pass. Alternative routes were blocked by heavy fighting. The only possibility of escape into neighboring Georgia was over a 12,600-foot ice-covered mountain where the risks of robbery and kidnapping became new enemies.
It was, says Colvin, ‘a terrible nightmare’ that drove her to break her own rules about making herself the focus of a story. ‘I am a city girl, and I am not particularly fit. I never planned to climb a 12,000-foot mountain. It was test enough that it was worth writing about’, she explains. ‘I feel I played chicken with my life a lot during that trip’.
Colvin wrote:
‘Within an hour we were zigzagging up a mountain on a 6 inch-wide path covered in snow and ice. I was carrying a pack with a satellite telephone and a computer and wearing a flak jacket. I felt every ounce… I regretted every cigarette I had ever smoked–and I had smoked a lot in the past few days: cheap Russian tobacco that gave me some respite from the bombs and the decisions… We walked up the slope, looking down thousands of feet into a gorge that one slip would take us into. Magomet [a guide] hauled me by the hand to the last summit. I slept for an hour sitting against a stone in the snow until Magomet woke us at dawn with a warning that we were still in Chechnya and would have to move.
It was a discouraging day. Traveling up the next river, I stepped in the wrong spot and plunged through the ice up to the hip into raging torrent below.
The next 12 hours were passed in a daze, one foot in front of the other, up and over another mountain. The air was so thin that I could not fill my lungs, and the wind was so strong that several times I was almost blown off the mountainside. Just before dawn we reached a snow-covered field amid the peaks.
For the next two days we lived in the shepherd’s hut on flour and water. I supplemented the porridge once with wild onions. They tasted horrible but they would give us some vitamins. Magomet gave me a pistol loaded with nine bullets–telling me not to shoot a wild animal until it was 10 meters away but to shoot a man the moment one appeared–and set off to find a way forward.
In the riveting account, Colvin described how on December 29, the bedraggled group came upon a pile of stones that marked the Georgian border. But, before they could cross, shots rang out. As they dove for cover more rounds were fired. Colvin remembers thinking, ‘It seems unfair that here, yards from the border, we will die’.
On instinct, the guide began shouting wildly in Chechen. Suddenly, the gunfire stopped. Then, the beginning of a miracle.
Just before dark, a helicopter thundered into view and quickly landed. As Colvin rushed down the slope she was greeted by a hulk of a man, a Hemingway figure in white beard and blue snow jacket. He uttered words that would become indelible: ‘Jack Hariman, American Embassy. Are we glad to find you!’.”

The Daily Telegraph noted in an article published today, here, that:
“She was decorated for her reporting from Chechnya, where she was pinned down by fire from Russian aircraft and troops. Finding her last relatively sensible line of retreat cut off by paratroopers, she escaped over an icy mountain path into Georgia, but after four perilous days’ journey found herself stranded.
Colleagues, including her then husband, Patrick Bishop, the author and a former Telegraph journalist, realised she was in trouble and contacted the American embassy in Tblisi which duly sent a helicopter to rescue her.
In their citation, the judges of the British Press awards said: ‘Her escape from Chechnya was a superb adventure, grippingly told. It was one of the great adventure stories of all time, they should make it into a film’.”

Those who’ve worked with her speak of her being tenacious, legendary, brave — and also delightful, nice, generous, and a lovely person.

She made one choice — to go where the action was.

Another choice is to stick with a story for years, however slow-moving that is…

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]]> http://un-truth.com/human-rights/marie-colvin-our-mission-is-to-speak-the-truth/feed 1 http://un-truth.com/israel/the-terrible-traffic-accident-near-jabaa http://un-truth.com/israel/the-terrible-traffic-accident-near-jabaa#comments Fri, 17 Feb 2012 05:21:24 +0000 Marian Houk http://un-truth.com/?p=12657 A terrible traffic accident — a crash between a fuel truck and a school bus carrying Palestinian schoolkids from Shuafat Refugee Camp to a park near Ramallah — happened on Thursday morning at 9am in rainy weather in a heavily-trafficked area of the near West Bank, not far from Jerusalem.

It is an area where there are often many accidents.

There is no traffic control and no civilian police presence [except for Israelis, and the Israeli settlements which abound in the area].

It is an area under Israeli military occupation for the past 45 years — since June 1967.

It is an area which used to be more or less seamlessly contiguous, from June 1967 until the early years of the Second Palestinian Intifada.

It is an area where I have driven, often several times a day, for over 4 years.

Now, Shuafat Refugee Camp, established after the 1967 war, was — and still is — the only Palestinian refugee camp located within the Jerusalem municipal boundaries as unilaterally defined by Israel in late June 1967.

But, in recent years, the Wall has enclosed Shuafat Refugee Camp, and resident — who still carry Jerusalem IDs and who still pay Jerusalem taxes — must pass through an Israeli military checkpoint in order to get to Jerusalem. Alternatively, if they drive east, through Dahiet as-Salaam and Anata, they can connect with the Palestinian West Bank without passing through a checkpoint.

Because Shuafat Refugee Camp is still administratively part of Jerusalem — no bureaucratic action has been taken to change this, only the military construction of the Wall and the checkpoint into Jerusalem — and because the residents still have Jerusalem IDs and may participate in Israeli health insurance programs, the victims [or, some of them, at least] can and should be treated in Israeli hospitals… and some of them were,
after PA “coordination” [telephone calls to the Israeli military] allowed them to pass back through Qalandia of Hizma checkpoints.

The accident reportedly happened on a rain-slicked road at 9am — right in the middle of the morning rush-hour traffic [7am-9:30 am Sun-Thurs] of Israeli settlers descending Road 60 to go to work or appointments in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

It is a dangerous and frightening as well as frustrating area — not because of the possibility [that does exist] of scattered violence or attacks, but precisely because of the combination of the traffic conditions and the lack of law there [at least, for Palestinians].

The IDF — Israel’s Army — is in charge of the area, as it is of the entire West Bank, under the authority of Israel’s Ministry of Defense [now headed by Ehud Barak].

And, the road where the accident occurred is in Area C [as defined in the Oslo Accords agreed between Israel + the Palestine Liberation Organization] — under Israel’s control.

Also agreed under the Oslo Accords: Israelis in the West Bank are treated under Israeli law, while Palestinians in the West Bank are treated under the Israeli military administration.

[Internationals, mainly considered "tourists" because of the visas they are on, usually have not much real status, as if somehow they are not really here. But, they are generally treated under Israeli rules simply because they are visibly "foreigners", and, if it has to be discussed or analyzed, because they can only enter the area with Israeli visas...]

Joint Israel-Palestinian security coordination ended with the outbreak of the Second Palestinian Intifada, after 28 September 2000. And, Israel has been in charge of subsequent decisions about whether or not it trusts Palestinian security forces enough to allow them to operate anywhere. Where this happens, it is strictly defined and supervised by the Israeli military.

It is, therefore, completely Israel’s responsibility that there is virtually no traffic control there other than street signs, and no civilian police presence to assist anyone other than Israelis.

This is something we have reported on this blog for some four years.

The casualty numbers are conflicting [coming from both Palestinian + Israel sources] — but seem to be 10 killed [including 9 small children between 4 and 6 years of age, and one of their teachers], and at least 40 wounded, dispersed in various hospitals in Ramallah and Jerusalem.

A Palestinian Authority [PA] source said Thursday evening that the bodies of six victims were still unidentified because they were so badly burned, and that the PA was conducting DNA tests on the remains.

UPDATE: Ma’an News Agency carried a report on Friday morning, published here with the comments of five-year-old Muhammad Baker Shihadeh, who Ma’an said is now recuperating [from bruises + shock, according to his father] in a Ramallah public hospital: “We were shouting, dancing and singing as we were excited about our school trip, when suddenly I saw a fire and felt heat like our teacher’s description of hell”.This is very striking: “Like our teacher’s description of hell” … Four and five and six year olds here are learning from their teachers about … hell.

According to Ma’an’s report, “Muhammad was able to escape from the bus after it overturned, and before a fire whipped through the seats, his father said. He had been incredibly excited about the trip, and ran to the bus with friends on Thursday morning, excitedly discussing the games they would play later in the day, he continued. ‘My son told me when the accident happened the children were crying and screaming in total terror. Some escaped before the fire, but others were terribly injured and were stuck inside the bus between the seats’.”

After the accident, there was coordination [allowed by Israel] between Israeli military and rescue services, and the Palestinian Authority operatives [Palestinian firemen were allowed on the scene, Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances ferried some of the injured and dead to Ramallah facilities [it seems there may have been some competition in this matter], and Palestinian security forces were allowed to “coordinate” — this means, via phone calls — with the IDF over the transport of some wounded to Jerusalem. It is not yet clear what has happened concerning the bodies of the dead, and funeral arrangements.]
,
One of the most striking visual images from the rescue scene was this photo, circulated by the Israeli Government Press Office [part of the Prime Minister's Office] on behalf of the Israeli Magen David Adom rescue service, which is part of the Federation of International Red Cross and Crescent Societies — see the Palestinians lined up on the top of what has become a cliff [the road was carved between the stone sides of a hill -- and phone reception is very poor here]:



Other photographers [including from Reuters, captured the vigil of Palestinians lined up on the rocky hill that the road cuts through]… This photo was posted by Ma’an News Agency:



UPDATE: Haaretz reported Friday on the continuing chaos for the parents of the schoolchildren: “As word of the accident spread, worried parents began descending on the school. The fact that the injured children were sent to several different hospitals in four different cities (Jerusalem, Ramallah, Petah Tikva and Tel Hashomer, near Tel Aviv ), compounded by communication problems among the various Israeli and Palestinian agencies involved and the fact that the bodies of several of the children were disfigured nearly beyond recognition by the crash and the fire all meant that it took many parents hours to discover what had become of their children. In an unusual move aimed at calming the situation, Israel permitted Palestinian police officers onto the site to retore order. The police asked parents for DNA samples to aid in identifying the bodies of the victims … ‘When we heard, we went to Ramallah’, said Nabil Salameh, whose nephew Milad Salameh was on the overturned bus. ‘But we didn’t find him. Then I went to Hadassah Mount Scopus and then to Hadassah Ein Karem, but I still have no answer’. At Hadassah Mount Scopus, a doctor walked into the waiting room at 2 P.M. and said, ‘We have a child with green eyes. Does anyone know a child with green eyes?’ Numerous faces fell, and one desperate mother burst into tears. ‘My daughter, Marwa Amira, I can’t find her anywhere’, she said. ‘I looked in Ramallah, I looked everywhere. Tell me where she is! If she’s dead, I want to know. Just tell me’! Parents on Thursday blamed the school’s principal, Alia Rajabi, for loading the buses with far beyond the number of children allowed by law. They also claimed Magen David Adom took 40 minutes to reach the site of the accident, which they said occurred at 8:30 A.M. But MDA officials said it received a call only at 9:05 A.M. and the first ambulances arrived within a few minutes”. This is reported here.

Here is a record of my Tweets throughout the day on Thursday:

Marian Houk @Marianhouk
New site Times of Israel: after bus crash which killed schoolkids, Jlem allowed PA police into Shoafat Camp “to maintain calm among parents”

Marian Houk @Marianhouk
PA Health Min says the 6 victims of this morning’s bus crash not yet identified due to burns, PA is doing DNA testing. maannews.net/eng/ViewDetail…

Marian Houk @Marianhouk
Jerusalem??? @debkafile: Six Palestinian nursery schoolchildren and four adults were killed in a bad road accident in N Jerusalem Thursday
12:18 PM – 16 Feb 12 via web · Details

16 Feb AbuKedem @AbuKedem
@marianhouk Haaretz also says n. jlm

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
@AbuKedem – the assumptions are made on basis of purely political mental maps, no awareness of what has happened + is happening on ground

16 Feb AbuKedem @AbuKedem
@marianhouk Well soon Jerusalem and Ramallah will be one contiguous urban space anyway…

Marian Houk @Marianhouk
But, @AbuKedem, Jerusalem + Ramallah used to be one contiguous urban space. It’s Israel that keeps changing the definitions, as it wants

AbuKedem @AbuKedem
@marianhouk Not quite urban… Jordanian Municipal Jerusalem was tiny compared to Israel’s

Marian Houk @Marianhouk
@AbuKedem, Israelis who pay no attention whatsoever to unilateral acts of their own govt now say a traffic accident outside Adam is in NJlem
12:56 PM – 16 Feb 12 via web

Marian Houk @Marianhouk
@AbuKedem – from late 1967 to today, Israel has unilaterally enlarged Greater Jerusalem Municpality, then shrunk it unilaterally by Wall
In reply to AbuKedem

Marian Houk @Marianhouk
@AbuKedem, Palestinian kindergarten students are only some of those who have to travel in unsafe no-man’s land, Twilight Zones, Seam Zones
In reply to AbuKedem

Marian Houk @Marianhouk
@AbuKedem – the whole scene in West Bank has been drastically changed in last decade, to detriment of Palestinians. Safety has been lost.
In reply to AbuKedem

Marian Houk @Marianhouk
But, @AbuKedem, Jerusalem + Ramallah used to be one contiguous urban space. It’s Israel that keeps changing the definitions, as it wants
In reply to AbuKedem

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
@AbuKedem – the assumptions are made on basis of purely political mental maps, no awareness of what has happened + is happening on ground
In reply to AbuKedem

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
Jerusalem??? @debkafile: Six Palestinian nursery schoolchildren and four adults were killed in a bad road accident in N Jerusalem Thursday

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
Traffic in + around Qalandia + Jaba’a checkpoints is chaotic + dangerous b/c 2 legal systems but no law, no civil police, no traffic control

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
PA police allowed “coordination” w/ IDF in transfer of Palestinian schoolkids injured in schoolbus crash in WBank today = making phone calls

RT Abir Kopty @AbirKopty
Three days of mourning declared in Palestine to mourn the victims of the terrible accident today. #Jaba
Retweeted by Marian Houk

Marian Houk @Marianhouk
Pal schoolkids on bus that crashed w/ [fuel] truck in WBank today were from Shuafat Refugee Camp, on kindergarten trip. haaretz.com/news/national/…

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
According to Ma’an, the Palestinian schoolkids in traffic crash were from Anata [West Bank side of Wall] going to school in Ramallah [?]

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
Ma’an now: 10 Palestinian schoolkids killed, 42 injured in crash near Jaba’a chkpoint, Adam settlement @MaanNewsAgency. maannews.net/eng/ViewDetail…

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
Jerusalem? This is in Jerusalem?? @Jerusalem_Post: 5 [?] killed [CORR 40 injured] in Jerusalem bus accident – ow.ly/96qd8

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
Almost certainly, Palestinian schoolkids victim of deadly schoolbus crash this am were from privileged families, going to intl school.

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
@AbuKedem – Welcome, but CaptainBarakRaz just tweeted that this was at northern entrance to Ramallah [Beit El DCO?], I asked 4 clarification
In reply to AbuKedem

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
I myself saw one traffic fatality [apparently Palestinian] lying wrapped in sheet on Road 60 one Friday nite a few weeks ago near Binyamina

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
@CaptainBarakRaz – Pls clarify. Where did this accident happen?
In reply to Captain Barak Raz

16 Feb IDF @IDFSpokesperson
Clarification: #IDF emergency response force at scene of crash – medical treatment was supplied by Red Crescent
Retweeted by Marian Houk

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
I’ve personally seen many many car crashes — causing chaos — between Adam junction + Hizma Checkpoint. No traffic control, just Isr Army

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
The whole scene where Palestinian schoolkids died in schoolbus crash today is so dangerous b/c there’s civilian law only for Israelis.

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
Machsom Watch: Israel Border Police hold Palestinian traffic every am at Jaba’a in recent months, give priority to Road 60 traffic [to Isr]

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
Occasional, very occasional, sporadic Israeli police presence [no machine guns evident] at Adam junct in last 1.5 years or so, usually none

16 Feb Ahmad @ANimer
I dunno why this make me feel sick @CaptainBarakRaz: And like everything else here – media coverage is nonstop pic.twitter.com/vWY7yTYX
Retweeted by Marian Houk
View photo

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
@ANimer, Israeli Army rules in WBank, where Palestinian schoolkids died in schoolbus crash today. No traffic control or civ police on Road60
In reply to Ahmad

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
Jerusalem? Jerusalem? @IDFSpokesperson: Truck crashed into #Palestinian children’s bus in Jerusalem. @CaptainBarakRaz updates via IDF medics

16 Feb Captain Barak Raz @CaptainBarakRaz
And like everything else here – media coverage is nonstop pic.twitter.com/GLtYTcuM
Retweeted by Marian Houk
View photo

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
Situation in + around Qalandia Checkpoint [both sides] is terrible, a scandal, an accident waiting to happen. Jaba’a Checkpoint + Adam too

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
@AbuKedem – Reports via SMS [Maan, SMS-Israel]. Bus apparently came thru or went around Qalandia, crashed at Adam Junction. No law, just IDF
In reply to AbuKedem

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
IDF soldiers, medics helping at terrible schoolbus crash scene b/c it’s in West Bank = no civilian police, no law for Pales @AvitalLiebovich

16 Feb Marian Houk @Marianhouk
Palestinian schoolkids killed in schoolbus crash in crazy lawless situation at Adam junct [Qalandia, Jaba'a, Road 60] @AbirKopty @ManaraRam

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“Starved to death??? How could you!

Clubbed to the ground with a rifle butt by a proto-Stormtrooper, shot between the eyes, dumped in a Berlin canal … precisely 93 years ago today Sunday [15 January]. They’ll have gathered at spot, as they do every year.


Memorise Brecht’s rhyme — ‘She told the poor what life was about / And so the rich have rubbed her out’.

Slight frail fearless she was the real deal. Just who the Occupy movement could do with. Jewish, of course. Where’s her like today? Dare one wonder where she’d stand on … well you know what.”

UPDATE: Wikipedia reports that Rosa Luxemburg was questioned “violently” by Social Democrats and then executed [hit by a rifle butt and also shot in the head, then thrown into a river] on 15 January 1919 in the suppression of an uprising that the Spartacist League she co-founded took part in. The Wikipedia entry on Rosa Luxemburg can be read in full here.

Wikipedia also reports that “Luxemburg’s last known words, written on the evening of her murder, were about her belief in the masses, and in what she saw as the inevitability of revolution:
‘The leadership has failed. Even so, the leadership can and must be recreated from the masses and out of the masses. The masses are the decisive element, they are the rock on which the final victory of the revolution will be built. The masses were on the heights; they have developed this ‘defeat’ into one of the historical defeats which are the pride and strength of international socialism. And that is why the future victory will bloom from this “defeat”.
‘Order reigns in Berlin!’ You stupid henchmen! Your “order” is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will
already “raise itself with a rattle” and announce with fanfare, to your terror: I was, I am, I shall be!”

And, Wikipedia lists some of her other better-known comments:
“Luxemburg’s best-known quotation is: ‘Freedom is always the freedom of the one who thinks differently’ (Freiheit ist immer Freiheit der Andersdenkenden) — this is from a fuller quotation:
‘Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of a party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of the dissenter. Not because of the fanaticism of “justice”, but rather because all that is instructive, wholesome, and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effects cease to work when “freedom” becomes a privilege’.

‘Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element’.

And
‘Those who do not move, do not notice their chains’.”

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Nablus, 3:30 pm on a sunny and relatively quiet Friday afternoon, at the entry to the city: an unmarked black SUV-type van, with very dark windows, was parked at 90 degree angle to road.

The unmarked black van had a Palestinian Authority [PA] license or number plate [white, with green numbers on white background], with the number 7-8600-91.

I glanced at it as I drove past, never having seen any of the usual white and marked PA security vans parked at the entry to the city — they used to be further in, at the point where you would turn if going to the Balata Refugee Camp, but never here.

But this was not a normal PA security van — it was black, unmarked, with very dark windows. Just one.

It could be PA, but not the usual security.

However, I thought, it could be Israeli … they could be using false PA plates. But, it was just one van, and the Israelis don’t ususally station themselves around the West Bank so exposed.

Suddenly, just after I passed, it pulled out right behind me, and drove quickly right up on my tail, flashing its headlights on high beams. As I slowed down, it zipped around to cut me off in front, blocking me diagonally.

Immediately, four men in civilian clothes (nice clothes, too — there were some honey- or cognac-colored suede jackets, trousers, normal shoes in good condition) jumped out of the side doors of the black unmarked van with black windows. At least two men remained inside, in the front seat of the van.

The four rush, but do not run, to my window. They’re suddenly right there. They don’t show any ID, but they don’t show any weapons, either.

In Arabic, they demand to know where I’m from. New York, I say. Then they ask to see my “hawiyya” [Palestinian ID card]. I tell them I don’t have a “hawiyya”.

I thought the best first thing to show, in the circumstances, might be my PA Press Card.

Luckily, I was right. Oh, a journalist! they said, and backed off. That was an immediately improvement in the situation. But, I felt I had to ask them why they had chased and stopped me, in such an alarming manner.

What was the reason? Why had these plainclothed officers in an unmarked black car with black windows chase + stop me for no apparent reason without showing ID? Why did they never give me any explanation? They didn’t even relax and smile, and say “Welcome”, the way the green-uniformed PA Security did at the very few Palestinian checkpoints that exist in the West Bank [at several places in Jericho, at the northern entrance to Nablus coming on the road from Shavei Shomron, and maybe one or two other spots]…

They just backed off, got into the unmarked black van, and drove away…Scary.

At least, it showed the utility and usefulness of PA Press Cards…

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]]> http://un-truth.com/blogging/on-press-cards-here-the-value-of-a-pa-press-card/feed 0 http://un-truth.com/human-rights/recommended-reading http://un-truth.com/human-rights/recommended-reading#comments Fri, 23 Dec 2011 09:29:43 +0000 Marian Houk http://un-truth.com/?p=12102 Amira Hass has written this, or things like this, in Haaretz before.

But, it’s like Picasso’s Blue period — she keeps trying to explain what she sees, over and over again, until she finally captures its essence. [I have sometimes explained what I'm doing in the same way...]

It isn’t that this time she finally got it right — no, there’s still so many things to write, so many more ways to try to describe this reality so that it’s understandable, and comprehended by those not physically here [or, by those who are here, but don't see it, or who ignore it].

But, this time [as many times], the words resonate in a special way.

Amira writes: Palestinians are heroes, braving Israeli dictatorship – “To live this way and remain sane – that’s heroism. ‘And who says we’re sane?’ Palestinians answer me. Well, here’s the proof: self-irony. The thugs of the hills are only the icing on the cake. Most of the work is being done by thugs wearing kid gloves… Latest update 01:41 21.12.11, here.

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