FULL ARTICLES

BOMBED ISRAELI BUS TO BE EXHIBIT IN NEW YORK

Bombed Israeli bus to be exhibit in New York
From Stephen Farrell and Yonit Farago in Jerusalem
(London) Times
October 1, 2003

The charred remains of a bus destroyed by a suicide bomb are to be put on display at a Jewish fair in America under controversial plans announced by Israel's emergency rescue service.

The twisted wreckage of Bus 32A, in which 19 people were killed by a Hamas bomber at Patt Junction in Jerusalem on July 18 last year, has been loaded on to a lorry and moved near to a port in southern Israel ready for shipping.

Approval is being awaited by chiefs of Zihui Korbanot Ason, the Israeli rescue and body parts recovery organisation known as Zaka, whose volunteers spend hours scraping the last fragments of blood and flesh from bomb scenes for burial in accordance with Jewish religious tradition.

Zaka's plans are opposed by the Israeli Government, which fears that the blackened hulk will scare away potential visitors at stalls seeking to boost tourism at the biannual Jewish Expo fair in New York in December.

Jonathan Peled, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: "We are against the idea, but we are not going to stand in their way. We do want to bring the effects of terrorism home to the rest of the world, but we don't think it's exactly the appropriate venue to bring such a bus to a fair which is supposed to be attracting tourists to Israel.

"However, it is a private initiative, and there are people in favour of it."

Zelig Feiner, of Zaka, said that the aims were to raise awareness of its work, to bring home to Jewish communities the effects of such suicide bombings and to show solidarity with New York. "They have gone through a terrorist attack and we want to show them we are all in the same war against terrorism," Mr Feiner said.

"We do not want to shock people too much, but we want to create awareness, a unity between New York and Jerusalem."

Bus No 32A was destroyed by Muhammad al-Ghoul, a 22-year-old student from al-Faraa refugee camp near Nablus, who strapped explosives packed with nails to his body and boarded the morning rush-hour service crowded with school pupils and commuters travelling to central Jerusalem from Gilo, a Jewish settlement built on land seized during the 1967 war but claimed by Israel as part of "Greater" Jerusalem. The explosion lifted the vehicle clear of the ground, tore off its roof and sent bodies flying through the windows.

 

MECCA COLA

Mecca Cola
The Syria Times
September 30, 2003

"Don`t shake me, Shake your conscience"
"Drink engaged, not like an idiot!"
"No more drinking stupid, drink with commitment"

It has been a year since the establishment of the Paris based Mecca-Cola, but already it is high on the market all over Europe, most of the Middle Eastern Countries, Africa and even America! Soon, it will be in Syrian markets too!! The product was displayed at this year`s Damascus Fair. This is more than just a mere advertisement to sell a new brand of soft drink. The foundation is an association that gives 20% of its profit to charities, 10% of which goes to Palestinian children charities via UNICEF. This is more than can be said to the hundreds of thousands of Arab products that are produced all over the Arab Nation, and abroad. Dr Khaled Mahamied, from Syria, co-founder of the foundation, along with Mr. Tawfik Mathlouthi of Tunis, said: " we considered the idea of launching a new concept, namely that of putting the economy at work in the interests of ideology".

The Ideology behind the Idea:

The red and white can is a challenge to the design, ideology and symbolism of Coca-Cola. It even uses the same font. Yet, while Coca-cola is associated with capitalism and imperialism, Mecca-cola is the anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism symbol.

The motto says it all. So Mathlouthi`s Mecca Cola is more than just a good business opportunity; it`s a way of making a statement against American imperialism and foreign policy towards the Middle East. "Anyone who buys a Mecca Cola bottle is making an act of protest against the American politics and also against the crimes of Zionism" states Mr. Mathlouthi. It is also an ideology about combating America`s imperialism and zionism by providing a substitute for American goods, and increasing the blockade of countries boycotting American goods. Popular anger against the United States over its support for Israel amid the Palestinian Intifada has sparked a campaign to boycott American products, all over the Arab and Muslim World.

It is not surprising that someone like Mr. Mathlouthi, would come up with a product with an "ideological impact". As a young boy, he used to sell door-to-door products to raise money to support Palestinians. "I`m a citizen, and a citizen is somebody who is engaged, involved in all civil and political life in his city. A real citizen must act. A good citizen doesn`t wait for decisions."

Anti-war activities

During the anti-war march that was organized in London, and which included a million participators, the marchers were handed 36,000 bottles of the cola and 10,000 t-shirts with the Mecca-Cola logo and the message "Stop the War" and "Not in my Name." The 20-foot-high Mecca-Cola vehicle displayed a board saying "All human beings are born free and equal ... and should think before they drink."

The world's biggest soft drinks manufacturer is being targeted by Muslim campaigners because of its economic ties with Israel and because the war on terror has made all American brands a focus for resentment in the Muslim world. Coca-Cola admits that it has felt some impact of such boycotts, though it does not elaborate. Even the London's Sunday Times admits that: "The drink is now seen as politically preferable to Pepsi or Coke."

A call for Investing Arab Money in Arab Issues

Mecca cola has proved that investing in Arab Issues is worth it, both economically and culturally. In less then a year, the company has financially profited and has given a boost to Arab causes. A stab against American domination and zionism, this new economical and cultural project is the outcome of the dynamic changes that are taking place in the region. Thus, the importance of the product comes from the fact that it has helped in the merge or remerges of a new Arab Nationalism culture, in an innovated form. It is important to boycott American products not only because they finance the Zionist terrorism against the Palestinians, but also because these products transfer the denigrated culture and ideology to the consumer. In other word, we become, by consciousness or unconsciousness, Americanized.

Mecca cola was a well-planned alternative to the young and old "coke lovers" among the anti-imperialism consumers. Even the quality in itself is challenging. So, this is a call for Arabs to invest their money in Arab products with Arab morals of brotherly relations, love and peace, to replace the anti-peace, hideous ideological products.

 

TWIN VICTIMS

Twin victims
Letters page
The Guardian
October 1, 2003

In his anniversary coverage of the Palestinian intifada, Chris McGreal (3,000 dead yet peace remains elusive, September 29) writes that the Jewish Chronicle "recently said no comparison could be drawn between the killings of Palestinian children and the murder of 'unblemished' Jews". The JC did not, and would never, editorialise in that vein. Indeed, we have said in repeated leader columns that the renewed conflict in the Middle East has, tragically, claimed innocent victims on both sides. The death of a child, any child, is as terrible a tragedy as it is possible to imagine.

McGreal's reference was, I can only assume, to a recent opinion column by media critic Alex Brummer (which also took issue with McGreal's Middle East coverage, sparking a rebuttal letter from him which we printed in the JC). The distinction which the columnist drew was not between Palestinian and Jewish victims. It was between Palestinian civilians killed in "a war zone", and the victims of a deliberate attack on a Jerusalem bus carrying worshippers home from prayers.

Ned Temko
Editor
Jewish Chronicle

 

HOLOCAUST'S HIDDEN CHILDREN SHOW THEMSELVES

Holocaust's hidden children show themselves
By Deborah Zabarenko
Reuters
October 1, 2005

The hidden children of the Holocaust are all gone now but the artefacts of heartache endure: a pink party dress, a huge wooden wardrobe, a fanciful drawing of a flying bus in the imagined future of the year 2000.

These and other objects that belonged to the thousands of European young ones forced into hiding during World War Two are the subject of a new exhibition at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Among the souvenirs on display is the note that accompanied Berty Goslinski, who started her hidden life at the age of three months in the Netherlands. The note falsified her name to disguise her Jewish origins, but the plea for care was real: "I am Klassje van der Velde, born May 3, 1942. My mother abandoned me. Will you take care of me?"

Berty's parents went into hiding without her, trusting their infant daughter to members of the Dutch resistance, who moved her more than 30 times over two and a half years. They managed to see her once in their years apart and received only one photograph of her, which shows a round-cheeked little girl with fringe and a knitted cap.

Now known as Bertie Levkowitz, she lives in Arizona; her parents live in California.

The note and the photograph are part of "Life in Shadows," a special show to mark the museum's 10th year.

There are dozens of other pictures, some of Jewish children in Catholic orphanages, as Catholics. There is an embroidered blouse given to a young girl who had sheltered for some time in a Catholic refuge but was expelled as she grew to look "more Jewish" -- the traditional blouse was meant to help her hide in the outside world.

HIDING IN A WARDROBE

Efraim Gat was hidden by a family in a big free-standing wardrobe, which is part of the exhibition, along with a tiny chair he used during his two years of hiding.

"It started when I was five years old until I was seven," said Gat on a visit to Washington. "In the evenings, if there were no strangers in the apartment, I was allowed out. Then at night I slept there, I had a blanket. I didn't suffer. It wasn't too hard...The wardrobe was a safe place."

Gat looked for the family who hid him in Poland after the Soviet Union collapsed but hit a dead end. Then in 1998, the family tracked him down in Israel.

"I was so moved I cried," he said of the reunion. "I owe these people my life. It's something I can never return; anything I will do won't return the value of what I get."

Near the entrance to the exhibition is a pink dress, appropriate for a toddler, with a white collar and smocking. It belonged to Lela Altarac, killed by a German bombing raid in Sarajevo in 1941. Lela never went into hiding, but her family took her dress as a souvenir when they fled to Albania.

Even though the experience of hiding from the Nazis eliminated normal childhood for the thousands who hid during the war, some managed to keep the instinct to play, according to Steven Luckert, the exhibition's curator.

Anything could become a plaything, including the wooden scraps used by 12-year-old Jurek Orlowski to make toy soldiers, each no bigger than a thimble. Other toys included dominoes, a crude wooden wagon and a minuscule metal tea set.

Imagination was not extinguished. Simon Jeruchem, hidden in a French village, painted a vision of the year 2000, when he imagined people might travel from Paris to London aboard a winged bus.

The truth was that most children who failed to hide were killed. Worthless as forced labour in Nazi concentration camps, most were exterminated if discovered.

Those who rescued them were at such risk that the temptation to reveal hidden children was high. Some who hid Jewish children blackmailed the parents, demanding more money to support the hidden ones and threatening to report them to the authorities.

Reliable numbers of how many children were hidden from the Nazis are hard to come by, but the museum notes than before the war, about 1.6 million Jewish children lived in the countries that were eventually occupied by Germany and its allies. By the end of the war, between one million and 1.5 million of those children were dead.

 

SAID'S VIEWS NOT BASED ON IDEOLOGY

Said's views not based on ideology
By John Ure
Letters page
Financial Times
September 30, 2003

Sir, You are surely wrong to label the late Edward Said a "Palestinian nationalist" (Obituary, September 26). Internationalist is more to the point.

In a world that stands by hopelessly watching the murderous conflict between the state of Israel and Palestinian Arabs, Edward Said's scholarship and voice argued that hopelessness arises from a failure to take seriously an understanding of the nature and causes of the conflict.

His rejection of the Oslo agreement was based not upon rhetorical ideology but upon an analysis of its failure to offer an economically viable and therefore politically viable Palestinian state. Viability, a term once adopted by both George W. Bush and Tony Blair, cuts to the political heart of the problem, but all the so-called solutions - and the "road map" does not even try to offer one - fail on this very point. Hence, I am sure, Said's conclusion that the only viable state is one shared by Arabs and Jews, and that is as great a challenge to the Israeli left as it is to the Israeli right.

John Ure, Associate Professor, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong

 

MOST PALESTINIANS SUPPORT ARAFAT AND INTIFADA: POLL

Most Palestinians support Arafat and intifada: poll
Agence France Presse
October 1, 2003

JERUSALEM - Nearly three-quarters of Palestinians support their leader Yasser Arafat, and more than half favor the continuation of the intifada and suicide attacks, according to a poll published on Wednesday.

A total of 73.7 percent said they support Arafat, 32.1 percent said their support for him is moderate, and 41.6 percent reported firmly supporting him, according to results of the poll by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion (PCPO) based in the West Bank town of Beit Sahur.

About 21 percent said they do not support the Palestinian leader, and more than five percent were undecided.

More than 58 percent of those polled said that no other Palestinian leader currently is in a position to sign a peace accord with Israel, while 16.5 percent disagreed and another 25 percent were undecided.

Furthermore, a 56 percent majority of Palestinians are in favor of continuing the intifada, the uprising against Israeli occupation, while 31 percent want it stopped and 13 percent are neutral.

About 47 percent of those polled estimate that the intifada, which began in September 2000, has served Palestinian interests, with 40 percent disagreeing, and 13 percent undecided.

Forty-five percent supported the peace process, 38 percent do not support it and 16 percent expressed no opinion.

Of those polled, 55 percent said they support the continuation of suicide attacks against Israel, 27 percent opposed the attacks, 18 percent are undecided.

The poll also revealed that the Arafat's Fatah organization leads in popularity in the Palestinian territories, with 29 percent of people polled replying they would vote for Fatah during possible future elections.

A total of 645 Palestinians were polled from the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.