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Dear Israel Shamir;
I read with sorrow and longing your beautiful piece below on Aboud. I know the village quite well from the period after the Gulf War when I was working on residence rights and family reunification there and other places for the Palestinian Federation of Women's Action Committees (Zahira Kamal), and from 1989, when our then press office (Sanabel, at which Rayna Moss was assistant editor) spearheaded a campaign to counter the middle-of-the-night deportations of people whose right to live there had been denied.
I currently work with destitute AIDS patients in Cambodia, so it is impossible for me to be in Palestine now. It is good to know that someone with your loving heart is working on behalf of people I still love and miss.
In solidarity, Beth Goldring----
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Dear Mr. Shamir,
Thank you for going to Aboud. I knew this had happened, but didn't see anything in print about it. Recently I "gained" a critic who told the EWTN network that I am too "one-sided". Reading your reports always makes me feel that I'm not anti-semite, just trying to get the other side of the news out there. This article really helped me even though it is about such violence to people and to the environment. Gratefully, Sr. Mary
One is so outraged to read your articles. One feel impotent. But at least you are one voice in the wilderness. And the most important thing. Arabs are also Christian. Thank you for your article. NAILA.---
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Dear Israel, I loved this piece; it tackles the often overlooked issue that people, good, solid people, have been living on the land for millennia. Best. Nabeel---
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Israel: It is very dificult not to feel a profound pain upon hearning your testimony. The reply of the Israeli officer is the same as that of the Nazi station master. Hitler won his war against the Jews. The most pitiful victims of the Shoa are not the men and women of who were railroaded to their death, but the men and women who survived only to become Nazis. Miguel Bedolla Mr. Shamir: For some time I doubted your intentions. This goes back to an exchange that took place earlier on between the two of us. Perhaps I misunderstood your intentions. It is not that I do not think that Israelis are capable of caring about what is happening to the Palestinians....for I know there are some very good Israeli people who are working hard for peace. Also, some of your recurring themes deeply disturbed me and made me feel that somehow you were not genuine. I am still confused about what and who you really are but what would impress me the most is when you go physically out to stop the aggression against the Palestinians....which I believe you have started doing. It is not that you are not eloquent, for you are. But what I mistrusted for some time was your sincerity. I asked many people about you. Some did not know, some told me good things, some felt you to be a fake. If I have misjudged you, forgive me. If we are both on the same side, I would be delighted more than you could ever know. Edna Dear Lena, The Abboud Article is so beautiful. I was touched! and to be written by someone called Israel Shamir, Wow.... Mary
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Habibna Shamir, it is good to hear from you as always. Many thanks for your concern about my favorite place on this planet Aboud. As my cousin Hiam said to me this past Sunday when I talked to her "we are lonely here, send friends to visit us". Her Mom, my Aunt Um Munier asked her to tell me that they are living a life of "a mouse in the trap". This really summed up the situation pretty good. As for Aboud, what I understand is that about two weeks ago a settler was killed or injured about a kilometer outside Aboud in the direction of Bir Zeit which was used by settlers as an excuse to grab the surrounding land for the start of a new settlement. They moved in and the Army is protecting them and no one in the village is allowed to even check their property. The Land of at least three of the village families are affected but no one is sure how much damage to the olive trees has occurred. Two of these families are my relatives. No one in the Village is allowed to use this main road to Bir Zeit and Ramallah and are forced to take a 2.5 hours route (one way) through Shoukba and round about. Real nice life. Salamat, Mousa
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Amazing and sad. Thanks for sending me Olives of Aboud. When will it end? Warm regards, Builder----
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Dearest Issi, This is really such a beautiful piece.... Wallah mabrouk wa alf shookur! I've fallen in love with the village through your words and I hope that I visit it one day and help to plant new olive trees with the villagers. Genie--
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Your account of another example of shameless Israeli brutality has to reflect the dichotomy of Israel's way of life which allows you to write such things without fear of persecution, yet lacking respect for their Palestinian neighbors' rights, is baffling proving once more that Israel's democratic system must only be for Jews. My question then is, are the Israeli authorities allowing you to express your views just to show the world how fair minded they can be to their Jewish population or is that their way of attempting to ferret like-minded people like yourself for some nefarious reasons ? Regardless of Israel's intentions, your courage to express your opinions to the world is very much appreciated and we hope will awaken the conscience of those Israelis who are blindly following the policies of their previous rulers, the British during their ignominious mandate of Palestine which saw my father incarcerated twice for defending Palestinian freedom fighters during the 1936-39 riots !! Salams and keep hope alive !! Cecil
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In passing Shamir's article alludes to an aspect of Zionist destruction that often escapes notice or mention. In the early 20th century anthropologists discovered Appalachia as a storehouse of 17th century British folk culture, linguistics and music.
Likewise, the Palestinian villages that Zionist destroyed in 1948 and the population that the Zionists ethnically cleansed were a treasure of at least 2000 years of anthropological, cultural and linguistic information. It will probably require at least another century to comprehend exactly what Zionism destroyed beyond all recovery in Palestine.
To be fair, I should note that the Zionists had equally murderous intention toward Eastern European Jewish folkculture and probably would have happily worked with Nazis for its demise if a reasonable understanding could have been achieved (as it might have been if Arlosoroff had not been assassinated -- Arlosoroff and the Nazis had a good working relationship and basically spoke the same language).
Joachim Carlo Santos Martillo Ajami---
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Dear Shamir, - A great account, very powerful.
If it is not a final version, may I suggest that in the passage,"... the complete lunacy of the prevailing Jewish narrative, of the *land without people* ..." you replace the word "Jewish" either with "Zionist" or if you don't like that word something else such as "Israeli state propaganda" to replace "Jewish narrative" - ?

An analogy: I have a photograph of an atrocity taken in Afghanistan. It is of an execution, a deliberately botched hanging of four men said to be guilty of looting and murder. A man, identified in the caption as "an Islamic guard," is pulling the leg of the dying man, making him swing from side to side, thus prolonging the death agony. Now it seems to me that there are many ways this guard could be APTLY identified, but that the single BROAD word "Islamic" is an offensive and racist locution. It provides some license for animosity, possibly even hatred, toward Muslims, in my view. But Olives of Aboud is a wonderful account, and look forward to sending it to an old friend of mine who is caught up in the prevailing "Jewish" mythology. I wish I had been there with you with a video camera. Walter----
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From Ezra Ounce to Israel Shamir:
As a result of posting your article to Free Republic, I have been banned from that site.... I can no longer post, there. It would appear that "Free" Republic is available only for the discussion of non-sacred cows.... Here is the discussion on the site.
To: Ezra Ounce The latest cease fire will fail just as every one before has. There will never be peace in the middle east until one side exterminates the other. It seems that humans just can't coexist with other humans who happen to have a different religion, skin color, cultural background, etc. Give me one example of different people living in harmony and I'll give you 100 examples of different people trying to destroy each other. AlaskaErik
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To: Ezra Ounce I believe this man has been discredited as a Communist plant from the former Soviet Union. newwahoo "Give me one example of different people living in harmony and I'll give you 100 examples of different people trying to destroy each other."
How about the Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Church of God Christians, and Arab/Palestinian Moslems living in Aboud ? Israel's report reads to me as though they were living in perfect harmony for more than nineteen hundred years..... until the 'holy' Israelis, aided and abetted by the American 'Government' interposed Ezra Ounce And doubtless those "olive trees" were only PLO stunt men dressed up in paper mache and wearing fake branches on their helmets. Those darned A-rabs.
I'd like to see a second source on this. The Israelis have their hands full right now without having to busy them with destroying a peace loving Christian village. Something is missing from this story.
"I believe this man has been discredited as a Communist plant from the former Soviet Union." Please provide references for this assertion (unless it just happens to be one of your beliefs). As you know, our 'government' has historically favored many "Communist plants" from the former Soviet Union, e.g., Mikail Gorbachev, now presiding over the former Presidio......... Also, many Jews are openly and self-acknowledged communists, but that fact does not necessarily invalidate all of their observations.
Do you have any basis for your statement, or is this simply an ad hominem slur, an attempt to discredit the man, because you are unable to discredit his eye-witness observations ? What could be more "communistic" than the current brutalization of the Arabs by the Israelis ? Ezra Ounce Arafat is a criminal of global proportions.... no doubt about that...... An Arab version of Rabin, the Irgun, and the Stern Gang. But that doesn't justify the destruction of ages-old olive trees!!! Or the pauperization of non-adversarial, peaceful and harmonious people!
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To: Ezra Ounce Rabin???? Didn't he bear witness to his personally commitment to peace with his own blood? I would still like a second source on this story and if not that at least the source of your original article (and not just the author's name). He is not anyone I am familiar with.
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To: newwahoo "Your attempt to link Israel to communism is laughable." If you will refer to your first post, you will see that it was you (not me) who attempted to link an Israeli Jew (Israel Shamir) to communism.... Soviet communism, for heaven's sake! Do you no longer remember (or believe) your previous assertion ? Here is your quote: "I believe this man has been discredited as a Communist plant from the former Soviet Union." Calm down, newwahoo, don't blow your keppa! Take a valium, and regain your composure and coherence!
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To: newwahoo "..being religous and communist at the same time is impossible as a matter of philosophy..." True, WaWa, unless you are a jew. Jews are such experienced experts at twisting things in media and history that such a sandwich would go together like gravlax and bagels! What a joke. Mixing religion and communism is as easy for a jew as mixing dinner with politics. Also, in regard to your confused statement above, it was jews who succeeded in making communism THE state religion in Russia. Finally, don't whine about 'antisemitism', you don't even follow the meaning of the word and for someone who gets so much mileage out of a term, you sure do ask for it with your mouthy, arrogant attitude. Is it really that Israeli murder of Palestinian kids and destruction and trespass of Arab property is such a small problem, globally speaking, or is it that jews just can't deal with ANY criticism at all?
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