Posted on 04/05/2002 7:26:27 PM PST by LarryLied
Thousands of demonstrators took part in rallies throughout Bahrain yesterday to express their solidarity with the Palestinian people and to protest against the atrocities being carried out against defenceless people by the Zionists.
The demonstrators chanted slogans condemning the outrageous Zionist terrorism and urged support for the Palestinian people in their struggle to defend Arab dignity and Muslim holy places.
They called on Arab and friendly countries, together with the UN, to take all necessary steps to lift the siege against the Palestinian people and their leader President Yasser Arafat and to end the massacres of hundreds of people committed by Israeli occupation forces.
The demonstrators called for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories and urged Arab nations to sever all ties with Israel, declare jihad and give every support to the Palestinian uprising.
Rally disrupted by 'infiltrators'
Bahrain security forces were compelled to intervene when a number of people "infiltrated" a rally in support of the Palestinians and threw Molotov cocktails and stones at the US Embassy yesterday, said Interior Minister Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa last night.
He said the rally was heading peacefully towards the US embassy when the attack on private property took place.
"As a result, the security forces in co-operation with the organisers of the rally, were forced to deal with such infiltrators in order to preserve the normal order and security enjoyed by the kingdom," said Shaikh Mohammed in a statement.
The Minister said he regretted these acts and stressed that while such rallies were allowed to take place in recognition of people's feelings towards the Palestinians, public security had to be maintained.
He added that disturbances and attacks on public and private buildings as well as diplomatic missions could not be allowed.
Shaikh Mohammed said the actions of the infiltrators did not reflect the civilised and democratic spirit of the people of Bahrain.
He said the Interior Ministry would take appropriate measures to ensure such actions were not repeated and would bring people who violated the peace to justice.
The Minister said he also regretted that infiltrators had prevented the protesters from submitting their demands to the US embassy which was ready to accept them.
Women to support intifadaWOMEN of all nationalities are to hold a silent demonstration in support of the people of Palestine in front of the UN House in Hoora today.
The hour-long vigil will be held from 4pm and is being organised by Irish Fiona Gaffney in conjunction with the global phenomenon Women in Black.
It is a loose network of women worldwide committed to peace with justice and actively opposed to war and other forms of violence.
Ms Gaffney expects at least 100 mostly expatriate women to turn up for the demonstration.
However, Bahraini women are also more than welcome to join.
Women in Black vigils were started in Israel in 1988 by women protesting against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, demanding peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Participants will be asked to sign a letter to be sent to the UN, care of the UN Information Centre in Bahrain.
It calls for the UN and the signatories' countries to protest to the UN Security Council at the maltreatment of the people of Palestine at the hands of Israel, to end the siege of Ramallah, the virtual imprisonment of Yasser Arafat and the blockades of Bethlehem, Tulkarm, Bait Jala, Jenin and other West Bank Cities. For more information, contact Ms Gaffney on 9424232.
Silence of the US LambsBy Maha bint Abdulaziz Al Khalifa
The most frightening aspect of America is that it is not by accident that many US officials, both good and ordinary men, are committing murder against the Palestinians.
The latest massacres carried out by Israelis against Palestinian people and the total "Silence of the American Lambs" penetrates to the heart of that darkness which we call the 2002 Palestinian Holocaust.
The entire Arab community feels utterly dismayed at the indirect American involvement in the mass murder of the Palestinians.
Arab governments expect America to play a crucial role in finding a final solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The murderous record of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is a true reflection of the social background and actions of individual men.
His barbaric record offers some of the most powerful and disturbing evidence to date of a savage human capacity for extraordinary inhumanity.
In short, the Israeli attack on the Arabs of Palestine was not a short intense wave of mass murder, but a gradual programme of terrible hardship, deprivation and persecution of the Palestinian population.
This offensive, moreover, came just when the Arab world refused to support a direct American strike against Iraq.
In other words, Israeli aggression surfaced after America had failed to convince Arab governments to participate in decision-making involving a strike against Iraq.
The grass-roots perpetrators became "professional killers" because of failed operations. Even historians will encounter numerous difficulties in trying to write about a unit of such men, among them the problem of sources.
In recent decades the historical profession in general has been increasingly concerned with writing history "from the bottom up", with reconstructing the experiences of the bulk of the population ignored in the history of high politics and high culture hitherto so dominant.
In America in particular, this trend has culminated in the practice of "blaming others" achieved through a "thick description" of common experiences of ordinary people such as in the Oklahoma bombing when an Arab was initially blamed for a failure in American internal politics.
But all along it was a man of pure American blood who was responsible because of his anger at his own government.
When such an approach of illegitimate accusations has been applied to the era of technology of information, however, some have criticised it as an evasion - a way to shift attention from the unparalleled horrors of the new Nazi Israeli regime's genocidal policies to those mundane aspects of life that continue relatively undisturbed.
America must understand that darkness will never be light. Not trying to understand the perpetrators in human terms makes it impossible, not only in this war, but in any history of a nation defending their own land.
Palestinians are in a situation with no more choices. Most people carrying out suicide bombings do so because the American government has made it clear that human responsibility is ultimately an individual matter.
Bahrain is friendly. And you can't land a C-5 Galaxy on a carrier (more groups would be nice however). A lot of stuff we needed in Afghanistan passed through Bahrain.
They won't be doing too awfully much of that sort of thing, because if you don't eat, you don't "go", and there is not all that much food in the place, as I understand it, but in the meantime, can you imagine the stench. Actually I can, since my mother's family were farmers, which included pigs, which smell almost as bad as regular humans but probably not as bad as these terrorists. Father's brother lived in a one room trailer for a long time, with a honey bucket for use during cold weather, and this was Nebraska, where the weather does indeed get quite cold at times, PU!. Two hundred people, maybe three hundred, using whatever is available has got to really stink. Gonna be a requirement for lots of ex-lax though after they come out, assuming they come out vertical rather than horizontal.
Sorry to disappoint you, but may be a long time before that happens---so for now, you might want to take your hand out of your pants.
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