Author: mopress

Of course, we would usually treat news from Gaza as, well, not Texas. But as Ibrahim family attorney John Wheat Gibson says: “This is what Israel plans for the Ibrahim children in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” Therefore, we post this report from John Pilger–gm

New Statesman
Terror and starvation in Gaza
John Pilger

Published 22 January 2007

Pilger on the genocide that is engulfing Palestine as bystanders silently look on

A genocide is engulfing the people of Gaza while a silence engulfs its bystanders. “Some 1.4 million people, mostly children, are piled up in one of the most densely populated regions of the world, with no freedom of movement, no place to run and no space to hide,” wrote the former senior UN relief official Jan Egeland and Jan Eliasson, then foreign minister of Sweden, in Le Figaro. They described a people “living in a cage”, cut off by land, sea and air, with no reliable power and little water, and tortured by hunger and disease and incessant attacks by Israeli troops and planes.
Egeland and Eliasson wrote this four months ago in an attempt to break the silence in Europe, whose obedient alliance with the United States and Israel has sought to reverse the democratic result that brought Hamas to power in last year’s Palestinian elections. The horror in Gaza has since been compounded: a family of 18 has died beneath a 500lb US/Israeli bomb; unarmed women have been mown down at point-blank range. Dr David Halpin, one of the few Britons to break what he calls “this medieval siege”, reported the killing of 57 children by artillery, rockets and small arms and was shown evidence that civilians are Israel’s true targets, as in Leba non last summer. A friend in Gaza, Dr Mona el-Farra, emailed: “I see the effects of the relentless sonic booms [a collective punishment by the Israeli air force] and artillery on my 13-year-old daughter. At night, she shivers with fear. Then both of us end up crouching on the floor. I try to make her feel safe, but when the bombs sound I flinch and scream . . .”

When I was last in Gaza, Dr Khalid Dahlan, a psychiatrist, showed me the results of a remarkable survey. “The statistic I personally find unbearable,” he said, “is that 99.4 per cent of the children we studied suffer trauma. Once you look at the rates of exposure to trauma you see why: 99.2 per cent of their homes were bombarded; 97.5 per cent were exposed to tear gas; 96.6 per cent witnessed shootings; 95.8 per cent witnessed bombardment and funerals; almost a quarter saw family members injured or killed.” Dahlan invited me to sit in on one of his clinics. There were 30 children, all of them traumatised. He gave each a pencil and paper and asked them to draw. They drew pictures of grotesque acts of terror and of women streaming tears.

The excuse for the latest Israeli terror was the capture last June of an Israeli soldier, a member of an illegal occupation, by the Palestinian resistance. This was news. The kidnapping by Israel a few days earlier of two Palestinians – two of thousands taken over the years – was not news. A historian and two foreign journalists have reported the truth about Gaza. All three are Israeli. They are frequently called traitors. The historian Ilan Pappe has documented that “the genocidal policy [in Gaza] is not formulated in a vacuum” but part of Zionism’s deliberate, historic ethnic cleansing. Gideon Levy and Amira Hass are reporters on the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. In November, Levy described how the people of Gaza were beginning to starve to death: “There are thousands of wounded, disabled and shell-shocked people, unable to receive any treatment . . . The shadows of human beings roam the ruins . . . They only know the [Israeli army] will return and they know what this will mean for them: more imprisonment in their homes for weeks, more death and destruction in monstrous proportions.” Hass, who has lived in Gaza, describes it as a prison that shames her people. She recalls how her mother, Hannah, was marched from a cattle-train to the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen on a summer’s day in 1944. “[She] saw these German women looking at the pris oners, just looking,” she wrote. “This image became very formative in my upbringing, this despicable ‘looking from the side’.”

“Looking from the side” is what those of us do who are cowed into silence by the threat of being called anti-Semitic. Looking from the side is what too many western Jews do, while those Jews who honour the humane traditions of Judaism and say, “Not in our name!” are abused as “self-despising”. Looking from the side is what almost the entire US Congress does, in thrall to or intimidated by a vicious Zionist “lobby”. Looking from the side is what “even-handed” journalists do as they excuse the lawlessness that is the source of Israeli atrocities and suppress the historic shifts in the Palestinian resistance, such as the implicit recognition of Israel by Hamas. The people of Gaza cry out for better.

http://www.johnpilger.com

http://www.newstatesman.com/200701220021

forwarded by
John Wheat Gibson

Dallas, Texas

We told the story of Salim Yassir, the Palestinian refugee held for four years by USA immigration authorities, whom Judge Maryanne Trump Barry called “a man without a country.” And we hinted, pay attention to this story, because there’s Yankee lawyers coming to Texas. Well, Joshua E. Bardavid is the New York lawyer who argued the Yassir case before Judge Barry, and he is filing a federal suit in behalf of the Ibrahim family. We’ll tell more as we know it, but first, here’s a get-acquainted interview with Mr. Bardavid, that he graciosly agreed to conduct via email–gm

TCRR: We are very interested in the Yassir case as an example of what can happen to “a man without a country.” Of course, we have read Judge Barry’s decision. Can you tell us a little more?

Joshua Bardavid: Mr. Yassir’s case was difficult and strange. I learned a lot about the different tricks of which the government was capable. After we thought
we had finally won the case, the government tried to force Mr. Yassir back onto a ship bound for England, without travel documents. This would have placed his life, or at least well-being, in significant danger for a variety of reasons.

The only reason we were able to stop it was because I had maintained contact with the lawyers for this shipping company, and they contacted me in the middle of the night. I then called the media, and when ICE got calls for comment, and camera crews were showing up on the docks, they called it off.

After his release, Mr. Yassir experienced more difficulty, as the government fitted him with a global positioning tracking device (that didn’t work). In the end, they ended up spending a huge amount of money, resources, and personnel-hours for someone who had never been accused of a crime and who they admitted in court filings did not pose a danger to the community in any way.

Eventually, the government dropped their efforts to track his daily movements, although Mr. Yassir is still required to check in every two months, and has had trouble renewing his employment authorization.

TCRR: Your federal case for the Ibrahim family comes about 90 days after they were abducted by immigration authorities. And we have seen lawyers making reference to a kind of 90-day trigger when it comes to immigration detention. Does this explain the timing of your visit?

Joshua Bardavid: As for the timing of our court filings, it is not directly related to the 90-day trigger, as it is our contention that the government only had the legal authority to detain the Ibrahims for 90-days from the date they were ordered removed in 2004. Because the government chose not to, they cannot now do so.

Our timing is simply related more due to the fact that we were just retained, and this was the earliest we could complete all of the papers required to file the federal court action. We are confident that the law is strongly on our side, and that it is only a matter of time before the Ibrahims will be released (although I suspect there will be very significant efforts to remove the Ibrahims in any way possible — lawful or not — by the government).

TCRR: We consider the Ibrahims a Texas family now. I hope you will be able to stop the government from removing them.

Joshua Bardavid: I will comment more as the case proceeds, and I thank you for your efforts to call attention to this important fight.

We’re getting some viistors from LiveJournal, which is cool, because they put stuff up like this –>.

Letter Charges Immigration Authorities with Unlawful Detention; Reveals Feb. 8 Deadline for Report to Senate Committee about Hutto Family Prison

By Greg Moses

“We will be filing a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the Western District of Texas for Hanan, Hamzeh, Rodaina, Maryam, and Faten and a separate petition for writ of habeas corpus in the Northern District for Salaheddin,” says New York immigration attorney Joshua E. Bardavid today in reference to the Ibrahim family of Richardson, Texas who were abducted and jailed by USA immigration authorities in early November.

On January 24, 2007, Bardavid and his mentor Theodore N. Cox sent to the Department of Homeland Security a request for release of the Ibrahim family. Bardavid has supplied us with a pdf of the request; however, since the electronic file contains exhibits of family travel documents, Bardavid asks that it not be posted out of respect for the privacy of the Ibrahim family. Here is a summary:
In the request for release, Bardavid and Cox argue that the lawful period for detaining and deporting immigrants is within a six-month period following a final order of removal. Since that order of removal was officially filed on August 24, 2004, attorneys argue that the lawful period for detention and deportation has long expired.

Furthermore, say Bardavid and Cox, there is no likelihood that the Ibrahims can be sent back to Palestine. According to the Oslo II accords, Palestinian families may only return if they meet specific conditions (“individuals who left with valid travel documents that were pre-approved by he Palestinian authority, in possession of current. validly issued Palestinian identity documents”) that the Ibrahims do not fulfill.

Neither do the Ibrahims pose any risks to the USA or to their neighbors, says the attorneys. So there are no special circumstances to warrant the family’s detention:

“Their time in the Palestinian Territories and time in the United States demonstrate that they are nothing short of upstanding, productive, well-respected members of any community in which they live. Their continued detention is unlawful in that the purpose of the detention – civil (to effectuate removal) – no longer exists.”

In fact, argue Bardavid and Cox, the special circumstances that do exist in the Ibrahim case are ones that support the immediate release of the family:

“Hanan Alhai Ibrahim is currently pregnant. The stressful and unhealthy conditions in prison endanger the health and wellbeing of both Mrs. Ibrahim and her unborn child.”

Quoting remarks made by President George W. Bush when he signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004, attorneys argue that not only is the detention of Mrs. Ibrahim unlawful, but that the detention of her unborn son “is a direct violation of the spirit of the law.”

“In signing this bill into law, President Bush explained that it ‘reinforced the circle of compassion’ and reaffirmed our Government’s and society’s commitment to a ‘a culture of life.’ ”

As for the children already born into the Ibrahim family, attorneys argue that their ages are a special circumstance that counts in favor of release:

“Aged five to fifteen, the emotional impact and devastating long-term psychological harm caused by prolonged detention cannot be underestimated. The same holds true to Mr. and Mrs. Ibrahim’s youngest child, age two, who has been separated from the family and placed into foster care as a direct result of this unlawful detention.”

Even if the Ibrahims were being detained within the allowable six month period, attorneys Bardavid and Cox argue that immigration authorities have not yet provided evidence that they conducted a proper custody review.

“Here, to the best of counsel’s knowledge, ICE has not conducted a single review of Respondents’ current detention. Because ICE has failed to do so, they are in violation of the laws and regulations governing detention, and continued detention is invalid.”

Additionally, argue Bardavid and Cox, the detention of the Ibrahims is a violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the USA Constitution, including a right to family unity.

“Distilled. the case law establishes that a fundamental right exists for parents and children lo maintain their bonds and ongoing relationship as a family unit free from government action that destroys that family unit.”

In fact, Congressional concern about the treatment of families has resulted in a demand by the Senate Appropriations Committee that ICE “submit a report by February 8, 2007, assessing the impact of the Hutto Family Center in Williamson, Texas, on the number of families required to be separated, and providing updated forecasts of family detention space needs for the next 2 years.”

Bardavid and Cox also reference a consent decree in the case of Flores v. Ashcroft under which the federal government adopted a policy in 2001 to “usually house . . . persons under the age of 18 in an open setting such as a foster or group home, and not in detention facilities.”

Because ICE has not taken any steps to prove why the Ibrahim children must be detained in prison, the agency is required to release them immediately, argue Bardavid and Cox in their letter to the Department of Homeland Security, dated Jan. 24, 2007.