Posted on 03/30/2002 2:19:11 PM PST by kattracks
NEW YORK, Mar 30, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Steve Quester is spending his spring break in the West Bank.
Quester, a public school teacher, is joining about 20 other American activists who are traveling to the Palestinian territories to act as human shields for Palestinians as the Israeli military mounts retaliatory strikes for a series of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.
"We're going to put ourselves in the way between Israeli military aggression and a helpless civilian population," said Quester, 39, who departs Sunday for a ten-day trip. He and other activists, several of whom are already in the Mideast, plan to stay in Bethlehem, Nablus and Gaza.
The group, which includes Jewish and Palestinian Americans, hopes to engage in various nonviolent protests and activities "to stop the madness that's going on there," said Quester, who teaches first grade in the New York borough of Brooklyn.
Their goals include removing Israeli roadblocks around Palestinian towns, observing Israeli-controlled checkpoints, helping rebuild demolished Palestinians homes and accompanying Palestinians on protest marches, he said.
The activists are part of a growing contingent of foreigners, mostly from Europe, who are in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to protest the Israeli occupation and recent military action. On Thursday, about 600 activists arrived in Ramallah, where Israeli tanks have surrounded the offices of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat since Friday.
The U.S. activists are working in cooperation with a Palestinian-led coalition called International Solidarity Movement that has appealed to foreigners to bring attention to conditions under the Israeli occupation. This is the third time that Americans have made trips to the Mideast in conjunction with the coalition, most recently in December.
An American member of this coalition, Adam Shapiro, and an Irish woman, Caoimhe Butterly, spent Friday night inside Arafat's Ramallah compound. Shapiro left the offices Saturday, but Butterly decided to stay because she has medical training.
The Israeli siege is part of a major military offensive launched after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 22 Passover diners on Wednesday.
Quester, who has lived in Israel for three years and speaks fluent Hebrew and "shaky" Arabic, says his "heart breaks for everyone killed in the violence."
He believes the suicide bombers are "desperate and hopeless" and that that ultimately "all the heartbreak flows directly from Israel's policy" of occupying the Palestinian territories.
He hopes his trip will boost the morale of Palestinians "by seeing more internationals standing shoulder to shoulder with them."
"I'm a Jew," Quester said. "The Israeli army and government are perpetrating a great evil on the people of Palestine, and they're doing so in my name. I can't let this stand."
Also, as an American, Quester said he opposes the financial and military aid that the United States provides Israel, which in his opinion perpetuates the violence.
Israel receives more than dlrs 3 billion a year in civilian and military aid from the United States.
"We U.S. citizens have a special responsibility to stop the madness that's going on there," he said.
By MALCOLM FOSTER Associated Press Writer
Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved
Um, what about Arafat's policy? What about the policy of Saddam Hussein to deflect world attention by stimulating this recent upsweep of terrorism with $25,000 cash bonuses. Why the allegedly "zionist controlled media" doesn't harp on this point is beyond me. Guess it undermines the purity of motive and cause.
That is if they allow them in the country in the first place
With a doctorate in Middle Eastern studies, Linda Steinmann knows only too well the political cauldron that produces martyrs ready to blow themselves up for the cause. When the kids in her Advanced Placement American government class at Forest Hills High School ask how it is that anyone could cheer the news of mass slaughter, she tells them of the "rage" so many in the Middle East feel "about the gap between the Third World and the First World."
Typical garbage. a "doctorate" don't mean much anymore. Such a fantasy, Arabs care about the "third world." They care about themselves. She's living in a guilt liberal fantasy world. Glad our finest minds are teaching our children.
The mood inside the Columbia University auditorium on a recent Saturday afternoon was heavy with a sense of fears confirmed. The topic at hand was AIDS. ... "I came here with a close friend who doesn't want to stand up," he [a "respected 40 year old AIDS treatment activist" -- unnamed] began. "For the last 12 years my friend has not had any sex other than receptive oral sex. And never to the point of ejaculation. Three months ago he seroconverted." Now the room was almost electrically quiet.
Rotello also gave us "well known New York activist" Steve Quester, who said that after years of testing HIV negative he had "engaged in three instances of unprotected sucking to ejaculation" and was now positive. Quester was pictured as a "case study," his face pathetic, accusatory.
This guy teaches first grade!
How sick is that? I don't care if the Palies or the IDF off him, just someone please do it.
Wow! All in one week!!
These liberal nuts are really amazing!!
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