Idiots.
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
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
hohohohoho!....Good one!
prisoner6
Ya, sure, buddy. You are on a first ten days of a trip to hell. Your remains will be shipped UPS Brown to your bewildered next of kin. Darwin cannot be doubted!
Their goals include removing Israeli roadblocks around Palestinian towns
Can't wait to hear about the outcome when they try this.
What if they are? Infiltrating the enemy requires trust. What better way to establish trust. Just think how far one could infiltrate the Palestinian echelon with a few charged cell phone batteries, an electrolysis machine and some gay porn!
I don't know. I would think every Jew in the world would be a conservative, but the overwhelming majority in this country are liberal Democrats.
It beats the hell out of me. I'm something of the "black sheep" of my family for being "conservative/libertarian." Everyone else in my family is liberal... I used to believe that is was simply because they didn't have the facts, but when I'd present them with facts, the response was, "I don't care." Nothing that anyone could say would get them to change their minds.
I have started to believe that the reason that the "victim mentality" runs so deeply through the American Jewish community is a deep seated guilt for having survived the holocoust... That they shouldn't be alive, and they are subconciously doing everthing within their power to destroy Israel and remaining Jews world wide. Most reform Jews in America seem to actually have a deep seated disdain and anger (maybe even hatred) for the Orthodox Jews, and they give little thought to what being Jewish means, i.e. it's a RELIGION, not a "cultural identity!"
Anyway, it boggles the mind, at least mine! As for me, should anyone come for this Jew, I'll take my cues from those who revolted at Treblinka or the Warsaw Ghetto, not those who marched sliently off to slaughter...
Mark
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