A new book
on terrorism
and other human rights abuses
in the Middle East
based on news stories over eight years
from several hundred references
by
Jerrold Cohen
Current United States concerns
Withdrawal of troops from Iraq
Fighting in Afghanistan
Resolution of the Israeli-
Iran’s development of nuclear power
How much do you know about police or army terrorism that goes on daily in the Middle East? It does.
(For the impatient the answers are below in small print, (select text, copy into a program like Notepad, and see the answer), but they will be given in full size shortly.)
You could have helped to prevent every last one of these situations if you had known about it. These are the top of the iceberg. There are lots more....
The Trouble Spots Quiz, Continued
He managed to get her into the doctor’s office, where they called for an ambulance. When he left the doctor’s office he was taken captive by the soldiers, who put him in a Jeep and began beating him up, including banging his head against the wall of the Jeep. When it was clear that he had nothing important to tell them, they let him out, and when he got to the hospital, he found that his niece had died of her wounds. In their report the soldiers said that they had followed standard procedure and a shot at the tires of the cab. There were no bullet marks around the tires, but the windows of the cab were shattered.
Where did this happen?
A. Guadalajara
B. Kano
D. Islamabad
This happened last Christmas. Fuel shipments were deliberately blocked, throwing about a million people into darkness Christmas Eve, 2008. The electric power plant had been stalled for two full weeks because of lack of diesel fuel. Flour and cooking gas had run out. More than 80% of the bakeries were completely closed.
Where did this happen?
B. Basrah
C. Tehran
D. Mecca
Here is a story about the birth of a child on May 1, 2006. The mother was in her early 20s. She had been arrested while pregnant and put in jail without any charges against her or any trial date set. She was taken to a hospital in shackles and cuffs when the child was about to be born. She was not allowed to have any family present during the childbirth, which was by Caesarean section. She had been sentenced to 28 months when she was arrested, September 29, 2005, but was never granted a court date, and no charges were ever pressed against her.
Where did this childbirth happen?
A. Tegucigalpa
B. Lagos
C. Kirkuk
Here is story about soldiers mistreating children. This occurred February 14, 2007. Soldiers broke into a secondary boys’ school and burst into classroom after classroom, pushing teachers out of the way, beating several of the students. Some of the students hid under their chairs and others protected themselves with their school bags. At least six children suffered broken hands when they tried to protect themselves from being beaten with soldiers’ batons by covering their heads with their hands.
Where did this happen?
A. Baku
C. Khartoum
D. Mogadishu
This story is about a senseless assault on a medical center. On May 2, 2006, soldiers broke into a town’s medical center, i.e. the hospital, assaulting guards and vandalizing equipment, particularly the operating room. Not a single examination room was spared. They destroyed doors. Soldiers forced the night guard to open up the sterilized operating room and made it useless. They vandalized the pharmacy, the waiting rooms, and the hospital files. The Director of the medical center reported that they rendered the surgery room useless.
Where did this happen?
A. Islamabad
B. Kandahar
C. Sarajevo
Trouble Spots Quiz
This quiz is about police and soldier violence against ordinary people. If you are not familiar with these topics, just continue on.
You could have helped to prevent every one of these situations, if only you knew about it. Do you recognize any of them? We ask you to tell where they happened. The answers are at the bottom of the page in tiny print, but they will be on another page in large print.
This terrible incident happened January 16, 2007. It was mid-
On that day, several Jeeps with police came riding down the street, the police shooting
indiscriminately toward the boys with rubber-
A ten-
Several of the girl’s friends saw it. A 16-
Where did this happen?
A. Kabul
B. Darfur
D. Phnom Penh
Let’s go on to our second story. This was not so recent. It happened August 15, 2002.
A five-
His grandfather and a neighbor kept a wary eye on the tank as they farmed the land behind the grandfather’s house. They began running toward the boy and screaming at him to get out of the way when the tank aimed its gun at him. They did not reach him in time. A gunner inside the tank shot a bullet through the boy’s head, killing him, and also shot at the grandfather and neighbor, wounding both. Later, the grandfather pointed out that there was no one else in the area.
Where did this happen?
A. Managua
C. Baghdad
D. Beirut
The next story: this happened March 6, 2006. An eight-
Answers to The Trouble Spots Quiz, Continued
almost invariably missing their targets, at rare intervals hitting some, to which
Israel replied by shutting down the border crossings between Israel and the Gaza
Strip, resulting in wide-
The fuel shortage became so critical that the power station had to shut down. On Christmas Eve 2008 most of the Gaza Strip stayed dark at night due to lack of electricity. The flour mills had stopped production due to lack of fuel. Four fifths of the bakeries were closed down.
This all happened prior to the widespread 22-
Now, let’s go back to our home page story about the mother who gave birth to her
baby while kept in shackles and handcuffs while her baby was born May 1, 2006 by
Caesarean section. The mother’s name was Samar Subaih. She and her husband were arrested
without charges by Israeli forces September 29, 2005. No charge was ever brought
against her, and no trial date was ever set. She was one of the hundreds of Palestinian
detainees arrested by Israeli soldiers or police without charges. The official name
for this kind of incarceration is “administrative detention”. She was not arrested
for anything she did against the state of Israel, but because in the future she might
do something that harmed Israel. During her pre-
Regarding our home page story about soldiers breaking into a secondary boys’ school,
this incident occurred in Abu Dis, a suburb of Jerusalem. Israeli soldiers invaded
the Abu Dis Secondary Boys’ School and broke into classroom after classroom, beating
up several of the boys in each classroom. Some of the boys tried to protect their
heads from the baton blows by shielding themselves with their hands and got their
hands broken. According to the Palestinian News Network, the Israeli Embassy claimed
it knew nothing about the attack on the school saying nothing had been published
in the Israeli press, although the attack was reported to the Israeli Human Rights
Centre in Jerusalem, and statements were taken from many people involved. Camden
Town in England bills itself as a sister city to Abu Dis, and the Camden Abu Dis
Friendship Association called for an investigation. We have searched for a reason
for this illegal break-
If you answered B. Abu Dis to the question as to where this incident happened, you answered correctly.
Where did soldiers wreak havoc in a medical center? This happened in the town of Beit Sahour in the West Bank. On May 2, 2006 at dawn, Israeli soldiers broke into The Beit Sahour Medical Centerand spent two hours destroying the contents. They smashed up every examination room, they destroyed files, they smashed up the pharmacy, and they made the sterile operating room and useless. We have found no reason for this senseless illegal attack. Was this due to hatred of Muslims? The medical center was Roman Catholic. Later, and the Israeli military spokesperson stated that the soldiers were searching for wanted persons. We have seen no reason that complete destruction of the contents of a medical center for help in the search for wanted persons.
If you answered D. Beit Sahour, as the place where this assault on a medical center occurred, you answered correctly.
We have not, in these examples, taken up the subject of Israeli settler violence. During the past year, it has become so common that the Israeli government considers it to be a serious problem. Israeli setters often destroy Palestinian crops. Some Israeli settlers beat up Palestinians, for example shepherds taking care of their flocks or schoolchildren walking home alone. There have been several incidents of Israeli settlers running over Palestinians in the past year.
Answers to the Aberdeen Publishing
Trouble Spots Quiz
Remember the ten-
Her father, Bassam Aramin, was in the Islamic Jihad as a teenager. He spent seven years in Israeli prisons, and got to know one of his jailers well. He began to see the Israelis as people rather than as ogres oppressing his people. When he left prison, he became one of the founders of Combatants for Peace, an organization of Palestinian fighters and Israeli soldiers who refused to take up arms. The initial meetings of this organization were scary for the members, but they learned to trust each other more and more. When Bassam’s daughter Abir was killed, he believed the perpetrator would be brought to justice, but the doctors said that Abir’s wounds could have been caused by a boy throwing a stone. The Israeli authorities never bothered to question witnesses who saw what happened. It was a terrible price for Bassam to pay, to never see his daughter’s killer brought to justice. He did not return to fighting. He established a garden at Abir’s school in her memory.
If you answered C. Anata as the place where the shooting took place, you answered correctly.
The five-
The tank gunner who killed Ayman said in his report that he did the shooting because
he thought he saw terrorists. Our experience with stories of Israeli soldiers shooting
at Palestinian fighters is that they go bullet-
The eight-
Kamal didn’t realize it, but Israeli soldiers were trying to flush out some Palestinian fighters from the building next door to the doctor’s office. As soon as he parked his cab he saw them and tried to get out before serious shooting started. It was too late. Several soldiers just a few yards away from the cab completely took out the rear window with bullets and shot up the rest of the cab in moments. It was a matter of shooting first and asking questions later. Most of this horrible story is recounted in an online Counterpunch article by Ha’aretz reporter Gideon Levy, who pointed out that the soldiers saw that there was a little girl in the cab, but still shot her. Her uncle Kamal’s story is simply and graphically told in his testimony to the Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem. I think the reader must agree with me that the Israeli soldiers’ treatment of him showed gross disregard for his most basic rights as a human being. He needed three bullet wounds operated on in the hospital, and he was badly beaten by the soldiers while he had those wounds.
Akaber and her doctor lived in the town of Al Yamoun. If you answered C. Yamoun as the place where she was shot, your answer was correct..
Most of us in the United States did not follow the story of the siege of the Gaza
Strip by the Israelis until Israel started wide-
But fighters from several factions in the Gaza Strip had been firing crude homemade rockets over to nearby Israeli cities throughout the year, (continued in next column) almost
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