Military Resistance: thomasfbarton@earthlink.net 6.1.14 Print it out: color best. Pass it on.

Military Resistance 12F1

[Thanks to SSG N (retd) who sent this in. She writes: Celebrities always go to the front
of the line.]


Want To End Secret Wait Lists?
Staff The VA!
Cleaning House In The VAs
Executive Ranks Will Only Treat
The Symptom
Until We Fill Thousands Of Vacant
Positions, Open Closed Hospital Beds
And Provide More Dollars For Building
And Maintaining Medical Facilities, We
Will Never Heal What Ails The VA
There Isnt Enough Time In The Day For
The Available Doctors To Treat Every
Veteran Who Is Seeking Care In A Timely
Fashion

When they have sounded the alarm, our members have faced retaliation and
intimidation time and time again.

Employees shouldnt feel afraid to speak up when they see managers more
concerned with securing bonuses than providing patients with timely access to
care for critical medical conditions.

May 28, 2014 Union Veterans Council, AFL-CIO. Posted by: Ben Chitty, Veterans For
Peace

The publics outrage over excessive wait times and rigged recordkeeping at Veterans
Affairs hospitals is more than justified.

As a former VA nurse, I understand all too well that depriving veterans of timely access
to care is a disservice to them and their sacrifice to this nation.

But cleaning house in the VAs executive ranks will only treat the symptom.

The disease plaguing the VA healthcare system is chronic understaffing of
physicians and other frontline providers.

Until we fill thousands of vacant positions, open closed hospital beds and provide
more dollars for building and maintaining medical facilities, we will never heal
what ails the VA.

Physicians are dealing with excessive caseloads and insufficient support staff. Since
2009, 2 million veterans entered the VA health care system for a net increase of 1.4
million new patients.

Each physician should be responsible for no more than 1,200 patients at a given
time, according to the VAs own guidelines, yet many VA doctors are treating
upwards of 2,000 patients each.

Simply put, there isnt enough time in the day for the available doctors to treat
every veteran who is seeking care in a timely fashion.

Compounding matters is a performance system that sets unrealistic goals and
incentivizes managers to increase the number of patients served, instead of
improving the quality of care.

Rather than face the understaffing issue head-on and risk poor ratings, many
managers have taken the easy way out and have cooked the books to mask the
wait times.

But blaming those managers for a performance system that was doomed from the
start wont help our veterans get the care they seek any faster.

Truth be told, there is nothing wrong with the VA that cant be healed by what is right
with the VA: the frontline providers who care for our veterans every day.

No one is complaining about the quality of care our veterans receive.

Thats because the federal employees who look after our nations heroes work hard
each and every day to provide them with world-class service.

Unfortunately, those same employees have lived in fear of speaking out about the
problems they witness due to an established history of retaliation, including loss
of duties and unfounded disciplinary actions.

Our members have paid a heavy price for voicing concerns, submitting letters to agency
leaders, raising issues in labor management meetings, and testifying before Congress
on wait time issues and veterans access to care.

When they have sounded the alarm, our members have faced retaliation and
intimidation time and time again.

Employees shouldnt feel afraid to speak up when they see managers more
concerned with securing bonuses than providing patients with timely access to
care for critical medical conditions.

In fact, they should be encouraged to bring up these issues so they can be rectified
before more veterans go without the treatment they so desperately need.

The waitlist and understaffing issues are one and the same.

Until Congress gives the VA the resources to hire enough frontline clinicians to
meet demand, our veterans will continue to face long waits.

And to be clear, sending veterans to expensive health care providers outside the VA
system on a massive scale will not fix the underlying resource deficiencies plaguing our
veterans medical centers.

According to the Independent Budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs,
developed each year by leading veterans groups, the Veterans Health
Administration is facing a $2 billion funding shortfall for the upcoming fiscal year
and another $500 million shortfall for fiscal 2016.

As the nation prepares to honor our fallen soldiers this Memorial Day, there is no better
time to strengthen our support for the health care system that treats those veterans who
made it home.

Its time for the VA to get back to basics and focus on improving access to care for our
nations veterans.

The agency must cut excess management layers and use those resources to boost
frontline staffing of doctors, nurses and others directly involved in patient care.

The growth of middle management positions within the agency has ballooned to
unprecedented levels, from fewer than 300 in 1995 to more than 1,700 by a recent
count, costing taxpayers $203 million annually.

The VA long has been held up as a model healthcare delivery system that all other
hospitals should emulate.

The care our veterans receive is second to none, but that only counts when our veterans
actually are treated.

MORE:

VA: Please Hold. You Should Hang Up
And Just Watch Cat Videos Instead


May 18, 2014 by Dick Scuttlebutt, The Duffle Blog

We appreciate you holding. The VA is experiencing a higher-than-average volume of
calls this week. Calls are answered in the order they are received. Someone should be
able to assist you in [ONE] minutes.

From the lakes of Minnesota to the hills of Tennessee

Did you know that you can check the status of your claim by going online? Point your
browser to w-w-w dot claims dot veterans dot medical dot va dot gov, forward-slash
medical, forward-slash veterans, forward-slash claims, forward-slash 404 dot vagov dot
current, forward-slash aspx dot com, forward-slash va.gov, forward-slash 404.html##.

Across the plains of Texas! From sea to shining sea

Your call is important to us. Someone should be able to assist you in [ONE] minutes with
your call about [INVALID MENU ENTRY].

From Detroit down to Houston from New York to L.A.

A claims representative should be with you [SHORTLY]. Your call is important to us. J ust
hang up and kill yourself. Someone should be able to assist you in [ONE] minutes.

Well theres pride in every American heart, and its time we stand and saaaaaay

You selected menu option [INVALID MENU ENTRY]. Please have your claim number
and social security number on hand when you speak with the claims representative.

You should just hang up and watch cat videos and leave us alone. Your call is very
important to us. Someone should be able to assist you in [ONE] minutes.

And Im proud to be an American, where at least I know Im free

We appreciate you holding.

Did you know you can check the status of your claim by presenting yourself in person to
your local VA claims center? J ust hang up, go to your local VA claims center, and sit in
our waiting room. Current in-person wait time is approximately [DEATH] hours.

And I wont forget the men who died, who gave that right to me

Your call is extremely important to us. If this is an emergency or if you are having
suicidal thoughts, please hang up and dial 911.

Make sure you have your claim number, your social security number, and a sharp paring
knife on hand while you wait for a suicide prevention specialist. Someone should be
able to assist you in [ONE] minutes.

And I gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today

We appreciate you holding off killing yourself. The VA is experiencing a higher-than-
average its hopeless, just end it all this week. Calls are answered in the order they are
sweet release of death. Someone should be able to assist you in [ONE] minutes.

Cause theyre aint no doubt I love this landGod bless the U.S.A



FORWARD OBSERVATIONS




At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh had
I the ability, and could reach the nations ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of
biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.

For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.

We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they
oppose.

Frederick Douglass, 1852


Nothing has more revolutionary effect, and nothing undermines more the
foundations of all state power, than the continuation of that wretched and
brainless rgime, which has the strength merely to cling to its positions but no
longer the slightest power to rule or to steer the state ship on a definite course.
-- Karl Kautsky; The Consequences of the Japanese Victory and Social
Democracy


Godzilla: King Of The Monsters?
Edwards Film Actually Undercuts
Some Of The Strength Of The Anti-
Nuclear Metaphor Of The Original
If You Want To Be Wowed By Some
Very Cool Monsters And Kaiju Battle
Scenes, Overlook The Plot And Give The
Newest Godzilla A Shot


May 22, 2014 by Nicole Colson, Socialist Worker

Warning: This review contains spoilers.

J ohn Carpenter, the director of The Thing, once famously stated, Monsters in movies
are us, always us, one way or the other. Theyre us with hats on.

Kaiju (literally strange creature in J apanese) are perhaps the most iconic expression
of this. From the time Godzilla--or Gojira (a combination of the J apanese words for
gorilla and whale)--first rose out of the ocean to stomp on Tokyo in Ishiro Hondas
1954 movie, the monster has served as a not-so-subtle metaphor about the horrors of
atomic war.

References to the atomic horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are prominent in the
original J apanese film.

J apanese audiences in 1954 watching Gojira and seeing images of fleeing refugees and
fires, explosions and panic, would have had the real-life experiences of the devastation
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to compare. As Peter Wynn Kirby explained in the New York
Times in 2011, Far from the heavily edited and jingoistic, shootem-up, stompem-down
flick that moviegoers saw in the United States, J apanese audiences reportedly watched
Gojira in somber silence, broken by periodic weeping.

Also present in the minds of the audience at Gojiras November 1954 opening was the
horror that befell the Daigo Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon 5)--a J apanese fishing boat
whose crew was poisoned with radiation in March 1954 after being caught in the fallout
from a 15-megaton H-bomb the U.S. detonated near Bikini Atoll. Six crew later died,
and more than 400,000 J apanese citizens turned out for the funeral of the ships radio
operator, Aikichi Kuboyama, that year.

In the original film, early scenes in which Gojira first rises from the sea directly invoke
this nuclear menace.

As Tim Martin describes the original film in the Telegraph:

Thudding drumbeats and unearthly howls accompany the stark opening titles, before
the scene changes to the deck of a fishing boat in the Pacific, where the crew are
relaxing, chatting and playing guitar. The ocean begins to boil. The men are blinded and
burnt as they flee in terror.

Tapping out his desperate SOS below decks, the ships radio operator is the first to die.
Once again, Gojira suggested, the J apanese people was being attacked in its homeland
by historys greatest superweapon.

At another point in the 1954 film, a woman on a train complains, First contaminated
tuna...and now Godzilla. (Following the detonation of the U.S. bomb in Bikini Atoll, the
J apanese tuna market bottomed out as a result of radiation contamination, and the
Emperor Hirohito was said to have removed seafood from his diet as a result.)

For director Ishiro Honda and producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, Gojira was meant both as an
homage to great Hollywood monsters in movies like 1933s King Kong, as well as an
explicit warning about nuclear dangers.

Tanaka later commented that the allegory of the film was that Mankind had created the
Bomb, and now nature was going to take revenge on mankind.

When it opened in J apan, Gojira was the most expensive movie to have been made in
the country--and it shattered box office records. Ever since, in over 50 movies--and with
the creation of hoards of kaiju allies and enemies from Mothra to Ghidorah (the three-
headed monster) to Mechagodzilla (a giant robo-Godzilla controlled by evil aliens)--
Godzilla has been presented as both foe and friend to the J apanese people, reflecting
his shifting status from monstrous parable to pop-culture icon in the country, in movies
that run the gamut from the interesting to the ridiculous (but mainly ridiculous).

As science fiction website IO9s Annalee Newitz recently commented:

In his time, Godzilla has represented nuclear bombs, natural disasters, military science
run amok, and genetic experiments gone wrong. Hes fought aliens, terrorists, natural
forces, other monsters, and time travelers who wanted to undermine J apans economic
power. After 50 years, Godzilla was no longer truly a friend to J apan, nor to humanity.
But somehow humanity came up with weapons--including other monsters--to contain
him.

Godzilla 2014

Godzilla heads toward San Francisco

Its too bad then that with such meat to work with, the newest, Hollywood-produced
Godzilla misses living up to its full potential.

The story that is, not the monster.

Dont get me wrong--the latest version of the monster is indeed incredible to behold, a
behemoth of special effects that lives up to the hype and may alone be worth the price of
a 3-D ticket.

Wisely, director Gareth Edwards takes a tell dont show approach with the monster
until well into the films second half, revealing just tantalizing glimpses of the kaijus
enormity to the audience early on. (One scene, in which a small glimpse of Godzillas
back is seen wending its way under naval vessels as it heads toward the San Francisco
Bay, called to mind J aws: Youre going to need a bigger boat.)

Opening in 1999 in the fictional J apanese city of J anjira, the film introduces us to nuclear
engineer J oe Brody (Bryan Cranston) and wife Sandra (J uliette Binoche). Before Brody
can even properly raise the alarm about strange new seismic activity hes been noticing,
the nuclear plant is destroyed and the local populace evacuated, in a clear nod to the
Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in 2011.

Fifteen years later, the action picks up in modern-day J anjira, as Brodys now-grown son
Ford (Aaron Taylor-J ohnson), a naval officer just returned from combat duty, tries in vain
to talk his father out of his idea that officials are hiding a major secret. Turns out that
J oe Brody is right, of course (and Cranston has some fun doing middle-aged white guy
rage as only he can), but its too late.

The massive unidentified terrestrial organism (or, MUTO) that officials have been
keeping from the public has finished sucking the plants nuclear reactors dry of its
radioactive food, and the creature has awakened to wreak havoc as it makes its way
toward an egg-carrying mate that has lain long-dormant in the Nevada desert.

What follows is primarily an action thriller--monsters fighting and the military efforts to
stop them.

This action is interspersed with shots of serious-looking people in small rooms,
including scientist Dr. Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and Admiral William Stenz (David
Strathairn), debating how best to prevent the MUTOs from destroying large swaths of
the U.S. even as Godzilla, whose existence has been known to the military since 1954,
begins its own lumbering rise from the depths of the Pacific.

What happens next is no surprise--the military advocates the use of nuclear weapons as
bait for the MUTOs while Serizawa warns against such plans, arguing that the military
should let nature (Godzilla) take its course.

Guess which one is proven right?

Indeed, Serizawa becomes the Official Scientific Voice of Reason (TM) common in
such movies, dramatically producing his fathers pocket watch--stopped at the precise
moment of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima--to make the point about the potential
dangers of the militarys plan.

Its the most overt warning in the film about the dangers of atomic weaponry.

Watanabes role as Dr. Serizawa is a nod to the 1954 films Dr. Serizawa, an arrogant
researcher who sacrifices himself at the end of the film while using his work to kill Gojira-
-and simultaneously preventing the destructive nature of his work from being replicated
in the future.

But, that film warned us, If we keep on conducting nuclear tests, its possible that
another Godzilla might appear somewhere in the world, again. Unfortunately, the great
Watanabe here is reduced to delivering pat one-liners like, The arrogance of man is in
thinking nature is in our control and not the other way around.

Oddly, the film glosses over the fact that this new Dr. Serizawa works for a company,
Monarch, that has supposedly known about the existence of the kaiju for 60 years but
has kept that knowledge from the public. (And wouldnt knowing that there are giant
prehistoric monsters who feed off radiation be something that the global public might
want to know about when deciding whether or not to, oh, build nuclear plants like the
one the film opens on?)

In fact, Edwards film actually undercuts some of the strength of the anti-nuclear
metaphor of the original.

Here, we are informed that the 1954 Bikini Atoll bombing wasnt part of the nuclear arms
race, but a joint effort of the worlds governments to kill Godzilla the first time he rose.
And Serizawas plan to let Godzilla take care of the MUTOs seems hardly less
dangerous than trying to use nukes against them.

In an ironic twist, the U.S. Navy participated in the making of Edwards film--and
continues to argue for the use of nuclear power in its operations.

As Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told U.S. News and World Report at a recent screening
of the movie, What the Navy has done is proved for 70 years that nuclear energy
transportation--which we pioneered--is very safe, very reliable.

Beyond the clumsiness of the films nuclear politics, it relies on just a few too many
coincidences and easy outs--like the fact that our hero just happens to be Naval
lieutenant just back from a tour of duty whose expertise is in ordnance disposal (which
comes in handy when you might have to deal with a nuclear warhead!)--and a few too
many clichd shots of the awe-struck faces of children witnessing disaster.

None of this makes Godzilla an awful movie--just one whose plot holes and failure to
make use of its excellent cast keep it from being a truly epic summer blockbuster. So if
you want to be wowed by some very cool monsters and kaiju battle scenes, overlook the
plot and give the newest Godzilla a shot.

But then be sure to watch the original 1954 J apanese film (not the American reshoot
starring Raymond Burr) and remember, as Annalee Newitz writes, that the greatest
kaiju who ever lived will never truly go away. As long as we face incomprehensibly huge
disasters, we will need a metaphor as big as Godzilla to bring them to life.



CLASS WAR REPORTS





Jailed In Egypt:
The Crime Of Holding A Protest
Without Permission From Police
The Protest Is Against The Police
How Do You Expect Us To Ask
Permission From The Institution We Are
Protesting Against?

Mahienour el-Massry

We dont like jails, but we are not afraid of them, said Mahienour defiantly. The
state keeps imagining that with its laws, prisons and dogs it can protect itself. But
even if you gather all of us in prison, the revolution will continue.

May 22, 2014 by Eric Ruder, Socialist Worker

On May 20, a court in Alexandria, Egypt, confirmed two-year jail sentences and $7,000
fines each for Mahienour el-Massry, a leading member of the Revolutionary Socialists
(RS), and eight others--for the crime of holding a protest without permission from
police.

The activists had gathered outside an Alexandria courthouse in December 2013 to draw
attention to the retrial of police officers who murdered political blogger Khaled Said.
Saids murder in J une 2010 contributed to the growing anger that eventually boiled over
into the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. Mahienour was part of the initial group of activists
who launched the campaign calling for a trial of police who tortured Said to death.

The protest is against the police, said Khaleds mother. How do you expect us to ask
permission from the institution we are protesting against?

Mahienour is one of the best-known women activists in Egypt.

At the age of 26, she is a human rights lawyer and widely respected for her fearless
opposition to police abuse and tyranny.

She also faces charges for storming a police station in Alexandria while
Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood was president. In truth, she was there
to serve as the lawyer for detained activists when authorities charged her as well.

The May 20 trial of the activists was a travesty.

When the defense asked the original judge to recuse himself, the judge agreed.
Typically in such instances, the case is then postponed and rescheduled for another
day. Instead, Mahienour was transferred to a new judge in the same building, and the
hearing went forward. The new judge issued his ruling without even considering any
evidence provided by the defense.

We dont like jails, but we are not afraid of them, said Mahienour defiantly. The state
keeps imagining that with its laws, prisons and dogs it can protect itself. But even if you
gather all of us in prison, the revolution will continue.

Meanwhile, all the police officers accused of murdering Alexandria protesters
during the 2011 revolution that toppled hated dictator Hosni Mubarak have all
been acquitted.

The very same police chief who oversaw those massacres is back on the job and
part of prosecuting revolutionary activists.

In an interview, Egyptian activist and journalist Mostafa Ali put the case in context:

There has a been a concerted crackdown by the state--not only on thousands of
supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, but also hundreds of secular activists
opposed to both the rule of the Brotherhood and the current interim authorities.

The court system has railroaded hundreds of people and sentenced them in an
outrageous manner, on trumped-up charges, for crimes they didnt commit. They
want to silence all kinds of dissent. There are thousands of people like Mahienour
in Egypt.

As a perfect example of Alis point, the day after the verdict against the nine Alexandria
activists was upheld, Mubarak and his two sons were also convicted of looting $17
million in state funds. And their sentences? Three years for Mubarak, and four years for
his sons.

Many in Egypt expect Mubarak will simply appeal the sentence, just as he successfully
overturned the verdict against him for the deaths of hundreds of Egyptians killed by his
security forces during the 2011 revolution. Mubarak currently faces a retrial on those
charges.

According to a McClatchy news report:

The role of Egypts courts already are controversial. More than any other Egyptian
institution, except perhaps the military, the courts have proven critical to attacking the
democratic reforms that Mubaraks ouster was supposed to usher in. J ustice for the
masses has not been their hallmark.

For example, Mubaraks sentence for corruption is the same as the one handed down in
December to activist Ahmed Maher, the former leader of the April 6 Youth Movement.
Mahers crime? Calling for protests against government abuse. Maher is serving that
sentence now.

Human rights organizations, including the Egyptian Network for Human Rights
Information and the Egyptian Initiative for Individual Rights, spoke out against the
sentence for Mahienour and the other activists.

Presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi also issued a statement in support of
Mahienour. The anti-protest law is unconstitutional, he tweeted.

Mahienour and all those who are convicted based on this law must be released.
Sabahi is campaigning for the repeal of the law and for the release of the
thousands of political prisoners currently held in Egyptian jails.

Union workers as far away as Sao Paolo, Brazil, have also come out in defense of
Mahienour and the rest of the other activists.

What You Can Do:
Find out how you can support Mahienour el-Masry at the Egypt Solidarity website.

You can also sign this petition to oppose the suspension of civil liberties in Egypt.


OCCUPATION PALESTINE


Racist Scum On The March:
Go To Hell, Leftist, Muhammad
Is Dead And Other Jerusalem Day
Slogans:
So, Are Jewish Men Not Enough For
You? You Need To Fuck Arab Men
Instead?
This Is Jewish Land. If You Dont Like
It, Go To Syria. Go Die In Syria

The crowd enters J erusalems Old City singing racist chants / A. Daniel Roth
Photography

May 29, 2014 By Leanne Gale, The J ewish Daily Forward

As I made my way out of the Muslim Quarter, the dark alleyways suddenly seemed
too quiet.

Just moments before, crowds of ultranationalist Jewish celebrants had marched
through this same space shouting Death to Arabs.

Children had banged against shuttered Palestinian homes with wooden sticks and
Israeli police had stood by as teenagers chanted Muhammad is dead.

Now, all that remained were eerie remnants of their presence: Kahane Tzadak
(Kahane was right) stickers plastered over closed Palestinian shops and the
ground littered with anti-Muslim flyers. As Israeli police and soldiers began to
unblock closures,

Palestinian residents of the Muslim Quarter cautiously ventured outside.

This is the only time I cried.

J erusalem Day marks the anniversary of the Israeli conquest of East J erusalem in 1967.
The March of Flags has become an annual tradition in which thousands of
ultranationalist J ewish celebrants parade through the city waving Israeli flags.

It culminates in a dramatic march through the Muslim Quarter, generally accompanied
by racist slogans and incitement to violence.

Israeli police arrive in the area earlier in the day, sealing off entry to Palestinian residents
for their own safety.

Those Palestinians who live in the Muslim Quarter are encouraged to close their shops
and stay indoors, while any Palestinian counter-protest is quickly dispersed.

Growing up at the Solomon Schechter Day School of Long Island, I have fond memories
of J erusalem Day. We celebrated every year with school-wide assemblies and dances,
singing Sisu et Yerushalayim (Rejoice in J erusalem) and J erusalem of Gold with
pride.

Even in high school, I never knew the political significance of the day or imagined that
my joy might be at someone elses expense.

Today, I know better.

I made a conscious decision to attend the March of Flags this year. As an intern at Ir
Amim, an Israeli organization committed to fostering a more equitable and sustainable
J erusalem, I helped coordinate a group of volunteers to document racist slogans, police
responses to incitement, and restrictions on Palestinian mobility. While I thought I knew
exactly what to expect, I find myself feeling numb as I write these words.

The sea of celebrants convened at the Damascus Gate, outside the Muslim Quarter,
seemingly ready to fight.

Most were wearing Kahane stickers or paraphernalia, and almost all chanted anti-Arab
slogans. Whenever a percussion grenade would go off at the nearby Palestinian
counter-protest, hundreds of marchers would run over to the police-line to watch,
shouting insults as Palestinians quickly dispersed.

Moreover, despite heavy restrictions on Palestinian entry to the area, there was
more than one violent confrontation with the Palestinian press, Red Crescent
volunteers, and local Palestinian residents simply trying to pass through in one
piece.

Perhaps most striking were the children. I will never forget the young J ewish boy, no
older than five, wearing stickers plastered all over his shirt: Kahane was right and
Dont even think about a J ewish woman (sponsored by Lehava).

As youngsters milled through the crowd, my protective instincts kicked in to keep them
from getting trampled. More than once, a young boy would look up to me, overwhelmed.
I would guide him to a nearby parent, silently weighing the red sticker on his shirt.

After watching group after group storm into the Muslim Quarter, I finally decided to enter
along with them, video camera in hand. It was not long until the crowd began to notice
that I was filming. Do you film them when they throw stones? a young man shouted.
Why do you film us instead of them?

I walked on, trying to remain calm in a threatening environment.

A group of J ewish teenagers surrounded me. So, are J ewish men not enough for you?
You need to fuck Arab men instead? And, Go to hell, you leftist.

Another blew the sparks of his cigarette directly into my face.

The crowd continued down through the Muslim Quarter, shouting Death to Arabs as
young Palestinian children stared out of second story windows.

A mother carrying her child handed him a large poster, instructing him to hold it in
front of my camera so as to obstruct my view. Anywhere I turned, the child turned
his poster, until it became impossible for me to film. When I finally turned the
camera off, another woman walked straight up to me. Her face inches from mine,
she practically spat, Shame on you. People died for this land. This is Jewish
land. If you dont like it, go to Syria. Go die in Syria.

We often hear about the mythic reunification of J erusalem. But the March of Flags, if
we pay any attention at all, reveals the violence of J ewish power in the holy city.

This violence has simultaneously violated the Palestinian residents of J erusalem and
poisoned the J ewish community from the inside out. And these days, even as the
daughter of a rabbi, I question if I have the strength to stay in the game.


Military Resistance In PDF Format?
If you prefer PDF to Word format, email: contact@militaryproject.org


A Collective Memory -- Lifta
( )
The Israelis Were Afraid We
Could Come Back, So They Broke
The Roofs Of The Houses So We
Couldnt Return
I Have The Israeli ID, And I Cannot
Live In My House
Now The Israelis Call It Ein Neftoah, As
If Lifta Didnt Exist Before. Mr. Odeh

Walking down into Lifta towards the spring.



The distinctive architecture of Lifta.


Mr Yacoub Odeh, born 1940 in Lifta village, age 8 when forced to leave Lifta in February
1948. You will go home and you will arrive happy. But I cant go to my home, to my
grandfather in the graveyard. I will never forget, my world is here.

May 17, 2014 by Beyond Compromise

The story of Mr Yacoub Odeh, 74 (b.1940), a native of Lifta.

Notes taken 10 May 2014.

They[1] came to Lifta. They burned the Mukhtars house[2]. Two days later they burned
twenty houses. Everyone wanted to leave, but the Zionist gangs forced the J ews to stay
and the Arabs to leave. The Zionist gangs controlled the main entrance to Lifta (Yacoub
points up the hill toward J erusalem) so they controlled the whole village. They blocked
the road to J erusalem.

I remember that time. They were shooting to stop people going to J erusalem.

I remember we spent some days down in a house in the lower village. I remember my
mother was making a fire for cooking. My brother came running and shouting, Mama,
the J ews, the J ews, shooting!

I remember my father carrying my small sister on one shoulder and my brother on the
other shoulder, down the valley away from the village. My father sent us in a truck.
There were many families, many children.

We went to Abu Ghosh. At the entrance there we heard, Dont come in, you will die!
Someone had been shot the previous day.

We went to Latrun, where there is now Canada Park standing on three villages Imwas,
Yalo, Deir Ayyub. We went to Imwas, then to Beituniya and to Ramallah. It was very
cold, winter.

Lifta was one of the first villages cleansed, kicked out. We went knocking on doors,
asking for food. Can you imagine you leaving your home? We had everything. We
were like kings on our land. Now we were asking for food, for help.

Two months later Deir Yassin happened.[3] None of the families remained after the
massacre.

After that we came back to the village, but it was empty, everything was burned. Since
that time, we cant return.

My father died one year after the 67 War. He was sad that he had to ask for help after
we left the village.

After that, I came with my uncles, aunts, to the village. They said, Here was my house!
Here was your house! Here was the mosque!

I brought my mother back. She cried, For what?! Here is my father, my mother, my
brother. For what all this?!

There was a J ewish man in one house. He invited us in I cannot give you coffee, tea,
juice. I have only water. This is not a celebration. I did not do this. Where is Ahmed
(Yacoubs father)?! My mother said my father was not here, but here is his son. The
J ewish man had gone to school with my father.

The Israelis were afraid we could come back to our village, so they broke the roofs of the
houses so we couldnt return.

Now J ews come from the world to live in our houses. I have the Israeli ID, and I cannot
live in my house.

No one has the right to confiscate my home, remove my history, tell me not to
return. Mr. Odeh

The community still comes on Land Day, Nakba Day, to clean the garden, the
spring, the graveyard. This is opposite to what Ben-Gurion said that the old
people will die and forget. But the old people didnt die. We are keeping their
message in the young generations. Mr. Odeh

*************************************************************

[1] They refers to the Haganah, a J ewish paramilitary group that existed during the time of the
British Mandate of Palestine (1920-1948); the Haganah later became the core of the Israel
Occupation Forces.

[2] On 11 J anuary 1948,
http://web.archive.org/web/20030719190040/http://alcor.concordia.ca/~pal/History/Villages/lif@vil
.html

[3] The Deir Yassin massacre of over 100 Palestinian villagers by the J ewish Irgun and Lehi
militia groups on 9-10 April 1948, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre

For more information on Lifta, visit the Lifta Society.

*************************************************************

Lifta is a Palestinian village located to the northwest of Jerusalem, divided by the
1949 Armistice green line leaving part of it in the West, the other part in East
Jerusalem. It has been inhabited for over 2000 years, long before the
establishment of Israel.

As a result of the Nakba in 48 and the massacre in the nearby village of Deir
Yassine, the remaining inhabitants were forced to leave seeking protection. Like
in other parts of Palestine occupied in 48, the Israeli government considered Lifta
and its remains as absentee property, while many of its property owners and
residents live as close as 500 m away, in East Jerusalem.

Currently, the Jerusalem Municipality is proceeding with its plan to turn Lifta into
a Jewish luxury residential commercial neighbourhood, deleting any presence of
Palestinian cultural heritage. Today, to save Lifta, descendants with activists and
friends are appealing to the Israeli Court against this violation and illegal act.

Centre for Jerusalem Studies

*************************************************************

To check out what life is like under a murderous military occupation commanded
by foreign terrorists, go to:
http://www.maannews.net/eng/Default.aspx and
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/list.php?id=ej898ra7yff0ukmf16
The occupied nation is Palestine. The foreign terrorists call themselves Israeli.


DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK





Domestic Enemy Smashes
Handcuffed Boy Through
Window In The Bronx And Then
Tries To Stop Treatment For
Him:
The 14-Year-Old Boy Sat On The
Stoop Of Hookah Stop In The
Bronx, Blood Pouring From His
Chest And Filling His Lungs
This Is What Its Like To Die
A Witness Described The Police
Officers On The Scene As Nonchalant

J avier Payne, 14, in the hospital Sunday afternoon.


A blood stained sidewalk outside the Bronx store where J avier Payne, 14, was pushed
through a glass window by police. Robert Stolarik / J J IE

An argument ensued between the paramedics and police about removing the
teenagers handcuffs so they could treat his injuries.

Initially, the police refused, but eventually relented, witnesses said.

May 19, 2014 By: Daryl Khan, J uvenile J ustice Information Exchange

NEW YORK The 14-year-old boy sat on the stoop of Hookah Stop in the Bronx,
blood pouring from his chest and filling his lungs, and thought: This is what its
like to die.

Moments before 11 oclock Saturday night, the boy, Javier Payne, had been
smashed through the stores plate glass window by a police officer who had
stopped him after an altercation with a man on the street, witnesses said.

The boy was bleeding critically and under arrest.

When EMS paramedics arrived at the scene they found the color draining from Paynes
face, his clothes soaked in blood and his hands cuffed behind his back.

A witness described the police officers on the scene as nonchalant about the
emergency unfolding in front of them.

He looked like a young man who was facing down his own mortality, said one city
employee familiar with the incident.

This is a kid who was staring at his own doom. He looked like he was going to die. And
if he didnt get help when he did, he would have.

An argument ensued between the paramedics and police about removing the
teenagers handcuffs so they could treat his injuries.

Initially, the police refused, but eventually relented, witnesses said.

One of the paramedics had to hold the boys chest wound closed while they rushed him
to J acobi Medical Center. Medical experts said it may have saved Paynes life.

As he was wheeled into the emergency room Payne was shrieking: They threw me
through a glass window and now Im going to die, Im going to die.

Initially, EMS did not rush to the scene because when the officers put the call over
they did not indicate that there was a pediatric emergency, a source familiar with
the incident said.

Instead they used a protocol normally used for drunks.

The office did not issue a sheet an email to the police press corps detailing
newsworthy events on the incident.

A spokesman for the police department said two teenagers were arrested, ages 13 and
14, at approximately 11 p.m. Officers charged both of the suspects with resisting arrest,
obstructing governmental administration and assault.

He said he could not confirm the incident involving Payne being thrown through the
glass.

Its not listed in the report here, he said.

Saturday night, Payne was apprehended and placed under arrest by two patrol officers
in the Little Italy section of the Bronx on a mixed residential and commercial stretch of
Arthur Avenue.

During the arrest, and after he was handcuffed one of the officers smashed his
face through the plate glass window of the hookah shop at 2491 Ave., cutting his
face and slicing open his chest and puncturing his lung, family and sources said.

The NYPDs Internal Affairs Bureau has launched an investigation into the incident,
according to, J aviers mother, Cherita Payne, 50.

Sunday afternoon, she said police finally allowed her to see her son, after he had
undergone hours of surgery. She visited her son on the sixth floor of the hospitals
intensive care unit where she found him lying in a hospital room, incapable of moving,
his face covered with fresh abrasions, two incongruously bright, white gauzes taped to
his forehead and the left side of his scalp above the ear.

Her son, hooked up to tubes and wires and his head poking from beneath a crisp
blanket, told her he didnt know what was wrong with the officer who drove him through
the plate glass window.

When she asked him what happened after he was injured she said her son told her: I
told them I needed to get to the hospital. Im bleeding. I can feel the blood gushing out.
Then the cops told me not to worry about it, that they were going to take me to a
hospital.

During her brief visit, two members of the department who introduced themselves as
investigators from the Internal Affairs Bureau interviewed her son. They showed her son
J avier pictures of police officers and asked him if he recognized any of them as the ones
who had driven his head through the window.

She said he did not identify anyone during her visit.

When J avier saw his mother, he began to weep.

Mommy, Mommy, he said. The cop, he pushed my head through the window
while I was handcuffed, Mommy, he pushed my head through the window.

Cherita said she tried her best to comfort him.

I said, Its going to be all right, its going to be all right, Im going to protect you, she
said.

She began to convulse with sobs as she recounted the anecdote.

Thats my job, she said. Thats my job isnt it? Thats my job as his mother. Im so
tired of this shit, pardon my language, but Im so tired, so tired. Help me J esus, in the
name of the Lord, help me.

She said police officers informed her that she would need to go to the 48th
precinct and get a letter of approval signed every day that she wants to visit her
son again.

J avier, the youngest of seven children, is her baby, Cherita said. She described him as
a typical teenager but that he is immature for his age and that he cant make decisions
on his own. She said he is trying his best to make it into the next grade.

By late afternoon Sunday, the shattered glass had been swept up and most of the blood
had been sprayed on to the curb. A new pane of glass had already been installed.
Gaudy lights flashed advertising the ornate water pipes behind it.

Some of Paynes blood collected in puddles that ran along the curb in front of 2491
Arthur Ave. Some of it had already begun to fade indistinguishably into the sidewalk, a
haphazard pattern of splotches and sprays.

J ose Perez who lives in apartments next to the hookah shop, said he left his house
Saturday night to grab a soda from the store down the block when he saw the immediate
aftermath of the mayhem.

I came out and saw the glass and the blood it was everywhere, Perez, 34, said.
Thank God he is going to make it. I didnt know he was just a kid, a young guy like that.
Its a total shock to me. Why would they do that?

He said his block of apartments and small businesses and pizza shops is peaceful, and
that relations between the police and the community is unremarkable.

Nageib Aldaylam, 47, has owned and operated Hookah Stop for almost three years. He
agreed with his neighbor that the neighborhood is a sleepy one.

My friend, I never even had a gate on my store, he said.

He said he recognized Payne but does not know him well. He said Payne and another
teenager had walked into his shop before the violent confrontation with the police.
Aldaylam said he came from behind his slightly elevated section behind the counter to
greet the customers as his practice.

He said they didnt buy anything, but they didnt cause any trouble.

The kids came in normal, and they left normal, he said. They did zero, nothing.
All the action happened outside.

As soon as Payne and his friend stepped out of the store and back on to Arthur
Avenue the police officers stopped them.

He said he heard the boys and the officers arguing and that heated words were
exchanged.

He said they went back and forth for several minutes when he was jolted by the sound of
the glass exploding.

He said the Payne was sitting on his stoop moaning: Im bleeding, Im bleeding. In the
street, the squad car was parked parallel to his shop with a man in it gesturing to Payne.
Aldaylam said it was his impression that the man was identifying Payne.

He said the officers questioned him while Payne sat and bled.

They asked Aldaylam if he had any security footage. He told them no. And then they
asked if Payne and his friend had done anything when they came into his store. Again,
Aldaylam replied no.

Aldaylam added that it seemed the boys may have slipped into his store to hide from the
police. When asked if he thought the police went too far in smashing Payne through his
window, he shrugged.

What happened, happened, he said. The truth is the truth. What more can I say?

As she left the hospital, Cherita was less subtle about her feelings. You got to stop this,
you got to put a stop to this, she said. Weve got to stand up for ourselves, for our
children. Were human. We have rights. My kid has rights, too.

Ronald Vails, J aviers stepfather, said his stepson does not cut an intimidating figure.

Hes a little guy, said Vails, 64. Hes 14 but he looks much smaller. There was
no need for this. They said he still has pieces of glass in his lung.

J aviers family said Payne is part of the Persons in Need of Supervision program at MS
22 where he is in the eighth grade; she said she enlisted him to make sure he got more
attention. His family said he loves sports. He had recently taken an interest in
basketball, and enjoys playing handball in local playground courts.

Vails said he played wide receiver for the Bronx Steelers, a youth league football team in
the Fordham section whose mission it is to reduce violence for children and teens in the
Bronx. Vails said it is too early to tell how his injuries will affect his ability to play for the
team in the future.


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