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The High Court of Justice on Thursday gave Deputy Chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. Dan Halutz 15 days to explain his moral and ethical position regarding an air force operation to kill Hamas terrorist Salah Shehadeh in which 14 civilians were killed, including seven children. The decision was handed down in a petition by the left-wing Yesh Gvul movement and a group of intellectuals, artists, and politicians demanding that Halutz, who served as commander of the air force at the time of the operation, not be appointed deputy chief of General Staff. Halutz has been appointed to the position in...

Uri Avnery was the first Israeli to meet with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, and one of the last. While many Israelis blamed Arafat for the failure of the Oslo Accords and for leading the reign of terror which replaced it, Avnery said he never lost his faith in the Palestinian leader. "Arafat was not only a great national leader, but he was a partner with whom we could have made peace and should have made peace," said the 81-year-old long-time activist and former journalist. "I was the first Israeli who ever spoke with Yasser Arafat; it was unusual. My...

Iran is seeking volunteers to act as a massive human shield around Iran's nuclear reactor in case of a military attack against the facility. About two weeks ago Iran announced its plans build more nuclear power plants with Russian help the in southern port city of Bushehr, ignoring US and Israeli concerns that by-products from the plants could be used to manufacture atomic bombs. The US and Israel strongly suspect Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, but Iran has consistently denied the charges. The Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Campaign is organizing the human shield campaign...

1.30pm - Around 2000 self-styled "human shields" poured into Najaf yesterday to join Shiite insurgents holed up in the gold-domed mosque, as fresh battles in the holy city prevented a quick victory by US and Iraqi forces. US forces backed by tanks exchanged fire with the followers of Moqtada al Sadr, the rebel Shiite cleric whose supporters barricaded inside the Imam Ali shrine were joined by the unarmed but defiant "human shields." But as the crackle of machine gun fire echoed through the old city, armed Iraqi police turned their ire against journalists in the city. Last night they fired...

WITHIN the next few days, Lee Ferguson, a highly trained combat soldier, will return to Iraq and face one of his most formidable enemies. Not the remnants of Iraqi military resistance after the second Gulf conflict, but the ghosts of his own past. Separated by 14 years from the boy he was in 1990, Lance Corporal Ferguson, 27, is now arguably as dangerous as those who made him one of Saddam Hussein’s infamous "human shields". But he admits that it could take more that the distance of time and military training to lay that ordeal finally to rest. "I am...

THE terrorists who escaped after killing 22 people in Saudi Arabia at the weekend were holding human shields to ensure their escape. It is believed the three men, still on the run, escaped after making good on their threat to execute hostages in the Oasis housing compound in the eastern oil city of Khobar. A hostage heard the gunmen shouting they would release their captives if the security forces let them go. "The security forces refused at the beginning but then apparently relented," he said. "There was a kind of deal reached, although some hostages had already been killed." A...

When older Palestinian boys started throwing stones at Israeli border police in the flashpoint West Bank village of Biddo, 13-year-old Muhammed Badwan went along to watch.

BIDDO, West Bank (Reuters) - When older Palestinian boys started throwing stones at Israeli border police in the flashpoint West Bank village of Biddo, 13-year-old Muhammed Badwan went along to watch. He ended up on the hood of an Israeli jeep, at least one of his skinny arms tied to a wire mesh screen that blocks the windshield from incoming stones, according to a photograph of the purported incident distributed by an Israeli rights group. "He was a shield for them," Saeed Badwan, a 34-year-old labourer, said of his only son. "When I saw him on the hood of the...

Rachel Corrie, One Year LaterBy Steven PlautFrontPageMagazine.com | April 13, 2004 The one-year anniversary of Rachel Corrie's demise has arrived.For those whose memories fail them in this matter, let me refresh things.  Rachel Corrie was a young fanatic college student from Washington State, who decided she could make the world a better place by showing her solidarity with Middle East terrorism and Palestinian mass murderers.  She joined the International Solidarity Movement, a communist-anarchist group who openly support Palestinian terrorism.  Corrie set up shop in the Gaza Strip, where she and her ISM comrades spent their days trying to harass and...

Parents of woman killed by Israeli bulldozer join anti-Caterpillar rally April 5, 2004 Parents of a young woman who was killed by an Israeli soldier driving a Caterpillar bulldozer spoke Sunday at a rally to build support for two protests against Caterpillar this month in Chicago and Peoria. Craig and Cindy Corrie of Olympia, Wash., spoke at the rally at Chicago Temple, 77 W. Washington, about their daughter Rachel, 23. She was trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home in Gaza when the bulldozer ran over her in March 2003. An Israeli Defense Force investigation cleared the soldier,...

(Editor's note: On March 16, 2003, 23-year-old Rachel Corrie died in a bulldozer accident in the Gaza town of Rafah.) Today is the first anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death. I want to thank Corrie for the explosives that flow freely from Egypt to Gaza, via the smuggling tunnels under the Gaza homes that she died defending. Perhaps it was these explosives that in the year since her martyrdom--oops, death--have been strapped around suicide bombers to blow up city buses and restaurants in Israeli cities, particularly in Jerusalem, killing men, women and schoolchildren (two of them classmates of my daughter and...

Among the 14 Arabs killed in yesterday's IDF counter-terrorism operation were one child and a youth. IDF sources said that the two were placed in the line of fire, with the terrorists hiding behind them. Among the 14 Arabs killed in yesterday's IDF counter-terrorism operation in Gaza were one child and a youth. IDF sources said that the two were placed in the line of fire, with the terrorists hiding behind them. Lt.-Col. Ofer, commander of the Givati Brigade Patrol Battalion, told Yediot Acharonot, "The other side has a culture of using children as a human shield. We have several...

http://www.hklook.com/english.htm MIDI - COME A LITTLE BIT CLOSERIn a PLO town was a girl named Rachel Corrie She was reading to children anti-American stories She was brainwashed by mom and dad By a college professor was had But one day she would run out of luck and things turned out ba-a-ad Hello, Mr. Bulldozer, you can't touch this house...I'll stand in your way Hello, Mr. Bulldozer, Jews must be stopped...this will not be your day She was burning our flag with the little terrorists cheering And to the scum of the earth she became someone who's quite endearing She was...

'In Athens They Call Her She Who Would Not Retreat'February 17, 2004 By Leslie Knopp The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions presented a posthumous award to Rachel Corrie, who was run over by an Israeli bulldozer while protecting a Palestinian home. OLYMPIA - Activist Rachel Corrie was far from her Olympia home, but she guarded Palestinians' homes as if they were her own. Last March she stood between the home of a Palestinian doctor and an Israeli bulldozer. She was acting as a human shield. The driver ran her down, killing her. "In Athens they call her 'she who...

After the bombs stopped falling, Faith Fippinger ventured out into Baghdad. At a hospital, she found a man weeping beside his dying wife. Their six children had been killed in the attack, too, Fippinger said. When the man asked Fippinger where she was from, she told him the truth — the United States, which was dropping the bombs pounding the city. Not denying her citizenship was something she had sworn to do during her time in Iraq, Fippinger said. She wanted the Iraqis to know there were Americans who did not approve of the war on Iraq. "I would say...

Dear Saddam, Remember when we first met on that magic night in Baghdad in 1983? You were gassing those wacky Iranians with chemical weapons and having a grand old time, but Ronnie and I just said hey, 'dictators will be dictators' - know what I mean?!! Hahaha. It's a good thing we sold you all those weapons and military equipment that you used in crushing your own people. Lord knows what might have happened if we hadn't stepped in to help you out. What a time it was too! We sold you all kinds of fun things - anthrax, VX...

Still No Justice for Rachel Corrie - Smith -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, January 23 2004 @ 12:57 PM EST "It is an insult to the human heart to have to force government officials to do their jobs properly while digesting the fact your child has been brutally killed .." By WENDY SMITH Tom Hurndall, a 22-year-old British peace activist, died last week in a London hospital. He was shot in the head by Israeli sniper fire nine months ago while shepherding Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip out of the line of fire. He had been in a coma since his injury....

A U.S.-born rabbi went on trial Wednesday on charges of blocking Israeli bulldozers that had come to demolish Palestinian homes built in Jerusalem without proper Israeli permits. Arik Ascherman, on trial along with two Israeli activists, does not deny blocking the bulldozers, but said the demolitions were illegal and he had a duty to stop them. The case drew attention to the simmering conflict between Israel and the Palestinians over control of Jerusalem. Israel claims the entire city, including the eastern sector, which it captured in the Six Day War, as its eternal capital. Palestinians claim east Jerusalem - home...

A British peace activist who was shot by an Israeli soldier as he tried to protect Palestinian children from gunfire in a Gaza refugee camp died last night in a London hospital. Tom Hurndall succumbed to pneumonia. He had been left in a persistent vegetative state after being hit by a bullet at the Rafah camp in April. The 22-year-old died hours after the soldier who shot him was charged with aggravated assault in a rare prosecution of a member of the Israeli military for harming a civilian. But the military judge handling the case told the family's lawyer in...

printable version with comments Ken O'Keefe - Baghdad by Ken O'Keefe - Truth Justice Peace (TJP) Monday, Jan 5 2004, 10:04am universalkinship@yahoo.com international / anti-war / press release To Burn U.S. Passport in Baghdad Irish Citizen Burns U.S. Passport - Ex-U.S. Marine, Gulf War Veteran & Truth Justice Peace (TJP) Human Shield Iraq Founder to Burn U.S. Passport in Baghdad When – 10 AM, January 7, 2003 Where – Firdos Square - Baghdad’s Infamous Saddam Statue Toppling site Contact – universalkinship@yahoo.com (checked throughout the day) Ken O'Keefe Ken O’Keefe to read the following statement at Firdos Square; “First of all...