Posted on 03/31/2002 3:03:28 PM PST by l33t
NEW YORK (April 1) - The family of Brooklyn-born Adam Shapiro rejoiced on Saturday night upon hearing that the volunteer medic was released after treating Palestinian wounded and dining with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat in his besieged Ramallah headquarters.
Shapiro, 30, a co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, which organizes non-violent protest against what it calls Israeli occupation, entered Arafat's headquarters on Friday evening to treat and evacuate the wounded. He also negotiated the entry of a Red Cross ambulance and a doctor.
Shapiro told the New York Post he feared for his life until the IDF permitted him to leave the compound on Sunday morning, after he ate a sparse breakfast of bread and cheese with Arafat.
"We expected at any moment a shell would come through the wall. There was nothing we could do about it," he told the New York Post.
He described a scene of carnage in the compound, including blood-splattered walls and rows of dead Palestinian guards in the hallways. He said 60 guards and 40 staffers were in the building with Arafat, and their only source of light during the nights of bombardment was from cigarette lighters.
His parents, Stuart and Doreen, and his brother Noah, a lawyer, had gathered in their Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, apartment on Saturday night when they received a call from Shapiro telling them he had safely left the compound.
Noah Shapiro told the New York Times his brother's belief in the teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. motivated him to help the Palestinians.
"He's passionate about it, and wants to show there is a way to protest without suicide bombings," he said.
Adam Shapiro, who told various news outlets he does not consider himself a Jew, previously worked for Seeds of Peace, a summer camp that brings Jewish and Arab teenagers to Maine every year to learn about coexistence. He also taught English in Yemen and led tour groups through the Muslim country.
For the past three years, Shapiro has lived in Ramallah. He said he plans to wed Huwaeida Arraf, an American-born Palestinian, in May.
.......
In 1953 the Ben-Gurion government prosecuted an elderly pamphleteer, Malchiel Gruenwald, for having libelled Rezso Kasztner as a collaborator for his dealings with Eichmann in 1944. The trial had considerable international coverage throughout 1954. Eichmann must have followed it in the press, for he described his relationship with Kasztner at length in taped interviews he gave to a Dutch Nazi journalist, Willem Sassen, in 1955, parts of which were later published in two articles in Life magazine after his capture in 1960. Gruenwald had denounced Kasztner for having kept silent about the German lies that the Hungarian Jews were only being resettled at Kenyermezo. In return, he was allowed to organise the special convoy, which ultimately became a train to Switzerland, and place his family and friends on it. Further, Gruenwald claimed, Kasztner later protected SS Colonel Becher from being hung as a war criminal by claiming that he had done everything possible to save Jewish lives. Eichmann described Kasztner as follows:
This Dr Kastner [many sources Anglicise Kasztner's name] was a young man about my age, an ice-cold lawyer and a fanatical Zionist. He agreed to help keep the Jews from resisting deportation --and even keep order in the collection camps-- if I would close my eyes and let a few hundred or a few thousand young Jews emigrate illegally to Palestine. It was a good bargain. For keeping order in the camps, the price of 15,000 or 20,000 Jews --in the end there may have been more-- was not too high for me. Except perhaps for the first few sessions, Kastner never came to me fearful of the Gestapo strong man. We negotiated entirely as equals. People forget that. We were political opponents trying to arrive at a settlement, and we trusted each other perfectly. When he was with me, Kastner smoked cigarettes as though he were in a coffeehouse. While we talked he would smoke one aromatic cigarette after another, taking them from a silver case and lighting them with a little silver lighter. With his great polish and reserve he would have made an ideal Gestapo officer himself.
Shapiro seems to be a Kastner in the making.
Er kann gehn in der erd arayn.
Leftist Activists Attempt to Smuggle Wanted Terrorists
(IsraelNN.com) Chief Operations Officer of the IDF General Staff, Major General Giora Island, stated that a delegation of Western leftist activists and reporters, who had entered Ramallah to show their support for the isolated PLO leader, attempted to smuggle 20 wanted terrorists out of Arafat’s headquarters. The terrorists had found sanctuary in the Ramallah offices of the Palestinian Authority leader, but tried to escape undetected by intermingling with the leftist activists as they exited the compound. However, as the delegation of forty foreign activists and reporters, along with the 20 wanted terrorists, exited the Muk’ata compound, they were taken into custody by Israeli soldiers.
The IDF Central Command had declared Ramallah a closed military zone, making the very presence of civilians in the city a violation of security measures. The reporters among the group are expected to face sanctions on their future work in Israel. The IDF Spokesman’s office stated that the delegation endangered their own lives and the lives of IDF soldiers by their effrontery.
The European activists and reporters marched into Ramallah today, ignoring the warning shots fired by IDF soldiers and the declaration of Ramallah as a closed military zone. They met with Arafat, posed for photographs and presented the PLO leader with a t-shirt. A French member of the group stated that “if IDF soldiers shoot, they must be aware that they are also shooting at European citizens.” They next attempted to smuggle out wanted PLO terrorists, but were, as reported, apprehended.
In light of the serious incident, the Minister of the Interior, Eli Yishai, intends to forbid the entry of foreign leftist activists into Israel.
Too bad it didn't.
I wonder what G-d considers him to be...
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