While on Their Way to Worship: Israeli Crimes against the Palestinian People

by Michael Gillespie, contributing editor The Independent Monitor

The Palestinians in this video were on their way to worship. This is what the Israeli occupation looks like on a good day, when it's on its best behavior, while Israeli B'Tselem peace activists are on the scene with their video cameras running.

They herd the old women like they were cattle. The men and boys they haul off to God knows where for God knows what purposes and for God knows how long. And that's on a good day. When the cameras aren't around, the so-called Israel Defense Force uses Palestinian children for target practice. The most common cause of death among children in the illegally Occupied Palestinian Territories is gunshot wound. American tax dollars fund this horror. Every day. The U.S. government provides generous diplomatic, military, and economic support for any and all of Israel's black letter law war crimes and crimes against humanity. Every day.

The occupation, the ethnic cleansing, the brutal repression, the women who die in childbirth at Israeli checkpoints, the cancer patients who can't get to the hospital, the school children who are killed on their way to school, all part and parcel of Israel's ruthless subjugation of the Palestinian people, all illegal. The whole world knows. The whole world sees it. While Americans, those whose homes have not yet been foreclosed, those who still have jobs, wonder why "they" hate us.

Michael Gillespie writes regularly for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, the nation's oldest and most widely read and respected journal focusing on the politics and culture of Middle East and U.S. foreign policy in the region, and for The Independent Monitor, the national newspaper of Arab Americans. He lives and works in Iowa. This short article is reposted by Billie Greenwood with his permission.

Information accompanying the YouTube video:

This piece of video was filmed at the Qalandiya Israeli military checkpoint directly before the entrance of a small ghetto where the so-called Palestinian Authority has their headquarters, where the house and the office of the Palestinian president Mahmoud AbbasMahmoud Abbas are located.

Qalandiya is a Palestinian refugee camp located to the north of the city of Jerusalem, and about 1 Km south of the city of Ramallah.

From this piece of video which was filmed at the Qalandiya check point, portions which show people collapsing unconscious were edited (censored), for "unknown reasons" the "unknown reasons" likely being that the video was filmed by Israelis worried about the reputation of Israel.

Video posted September 28, 2009 by YouTube user alMuhalla. This video is credited to Mahsanmilim (original behind link)- All rights belong to them.

Information introducing the video:

Israel denies Palestinians entry to Jerusalem all year round.
On Ramadan, the Muslims' month of fasting, Israel announced that "in honor of the holiday" it would allow elderly Palestinians to pray at the alAqsa mosque on Fridays. Ramadan 2009

For another account:

The first Friday of Ramadan. A report. Qalandiya Checkpoint. Aya Kaniuk and Tamar Goldschmidt. Qalandiya Checkpoint. 28.8.2009 Translated by Tal Haran.