Sauron

What better way to guarantee that the intl community can't watch the Israelis commit daily atrocities?


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/..._arrest27.html

Lake Stevens activist faces deportation by Israel

By LEWIS KAMB
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

A Lake Stevens peace activist, one of two Americans arrested Saturday by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, was being held in an Israeli jail yesterday awaiting deportation.

[...]

Israeli soldiers arrested the men as they tried to exit the West Bank camp after escorting home a group of schoolchildren who had been stranded amid gunfire, activists say.

Recounting eyewitness reports of the arrest, Seattle activist Linda Bevis said Johnson and the others told Israeli soldiers that they were going to escort the children to safety.

"The soldiers agreed to let them," said Bevis, a member of the Palestinian Solidarity Committee, which acts as the Seattle chapter of the ISM.

But when the men returned to the camp's exit gate, they were told that the area was a closed military zone and all were arrested, Bevis said.

Johnson and Bernal remain detained while awaiting deportation. Activists say Qashou was blindfolded and beaten, but has since been released.

Loren Pechtel

I don't see the connnection. They are deporting a couple--not all of them.

Sauron

1. The method and pretense under which the Israelis banned these two is dishonest. The peace activists escorted children out of the area where they were, and back to their own homes. But then when the activists were finished and tried to return to where they were staying, they were barred from returning, and told that it's suddenly a 'restricted zone'.

2. The Israelis are banning further visits by such peace activists.

Loren Pechtel

They escorted them out of a combat area. Combat areas are restricted to keep the people they are after from slipping away or ambushers from slipping in. Somehow I don't find it surprising that the area was restricted.

peacenik

Well, how convenient. A combat zone where children were in the line of fire was CREATED by the state of Israel. Why don't people call Israel's actions what what they are: Murder, cold blooded murder!!?

When Israel reigns down bombs in heavily populated areas KNOWING that innocent civilians are going to die its OK, but when Palestinians, who don't have the firepower that Israel has, tries to fight back with suicide bombers, they are called terrorists. Why are the Israeli soldiers who routinely commit atrocities against innocent Palestinian men, women, and children not also called terrorists? Personally, I think that both sides are wrong and we should condemn acts of violence committed on both sides rather than always siding with the state of Israel.

Sauron

You miss the point deliberately, Loren. Again. This all happened between the time when they escorted the kids home, and when they returned from that errand.

The area wasn't restricted while the peace activists were inside. It only became restricted once the peace activists left the area, to escort the kids back to their own homes.

Then, with the pesky peace activists out of the neighborhood, the Israelis (as usual) change the rules and re-designate it as a "restricted area". Not because anything changed in the 30 minutes it took to escort kids home. But because by redesignating the area, they were able to prevent the peacekeepers from returning. Which effectively kicked them out of the area, and prevented them from watching or objecting to the actions of the Israeli army in that neighborhood. How convenient.

So tell me - do you ever actually examine the acts you predictably defend? I mean, as opposed to knee-jerking your way to always justifying zionism?

PalestineChic19

hey? what else is new? nobody (foreign) is allowed in the Gaza area anymore, in an effort to keep out anyone involved or associated with the ISM and Amnesty International.

-Samirah