News from Mosul.

On 15 August, I took my Daughters Najma, and Aya's mother with me to the hospital, in order to make the medical examination for Najma prior to present her paper to the college.
About 10 AM we hear a loud sound of explosion, but we can check each other by cellphone we didn't know where the explosion.
On returning home we have to cross the bridge to the other side of the city, we did so, but ofter that we face a block in all the roads leading home.

I became an expert in the side ways and detours, but all the efforts failed to take us home. We took our lunch in an popular restaurant and then spend the time in one of my brothers house. The problem was with my older daughter who is still breast feed her second baby Mo'men, three months old Aya's brother.

Later and before the dark we managed to go home.
The reason for this problem is in the following report.

15 August 2006 via INA

- A major explosion in Mosul this morning just before noon. This was the result of a car bomb in a trailer driven by a suicide bomber before noon today targeting the headquarters of the Kurdish National Union in Al-Ta'meem district east of Mosul. This resulted in heavy casualties with some 20 to 30 people injured in addition to a large number of dead. The severity of the explosion, which hit a nearby petrol station, led to the collapse of several nearby buildings in the neighborhood, hence the large numbers of bodies, many are still under the rubble. At least 17 cars were burnt whilst queuing at the petrol station, queues now are a normal occurrence given the fuel crisis which has been biting hard over the last few months in Mosul .

Next day I went to the hospital as usual, but this time all the five bridges of Mosul were closed in front of vehicles, so we have to cross the bridge on feet, it was very hot day and the distance was to long but we did it.
Again there was a reason for that and it is in the following report.

16 August 2006

- Several parts of the right bank of Mosul witnessed arm confrontation between gunmen and the police this morning. The clashes lasted about 2 hours in Al-Amel, Mosul Al-Jadida, Souq Al-Ghanem and other areas. A source in Nineveh police constabulary stated that the local authority closed the 5 bridges across Tigris in Mosul as a precaution. The police was able to kill 5 gunmen and arrest 6 others in addition to destroying several of the gunmen cars and confescating large amount of arms and ammunitions.
- In Al-Nabi Younis (Profit Jona) district, left bank of Mosul, an explosive device went off targeting an American Convoy. The area was soon surrounded by US forces sealing the area, hence the inability to know the number of causalities and the amount of damage caused.

Today afternoon A Doctor whose clinic are opposite of mine, are kidnapped in the middle of the day from his clinic. The kidnapper put him in the rear luggage box of the car and run a way, fortunately the door open accidentally while the car was very fast, he jump from the car and injured his head and may be some of his ribs.


Those are not a typical days of our life, but samples of what the Americans Freedom and Democracy brought to us.

Who are the real terrorists in the Middle East?

What exactly is being defended? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state?

By Oren Ben-Dor
(Israeli citizen teaches the philosophy of law and political philosophy at University of Southampton)

Published: 26 July 2006
The Independent

As its citizens are being killed, Israel is, yet again, inflicting death and destruction on Lebanon. It tries to portray this horror as necessary for its self-defense. Indeed, the casual observer might regard the rocket attacks on Israeli cities such as Haifa and my own home town, Maharaja, as justifying this claim.

While states should defend their citizens, states which fail this duty should be questioned and, if necessary, reconfigured. Israel is a state which, instead of defending its citizens, puts all of them, Jews as well as non-Jews, in danger.

What exactly is being defended by the violence in Gaza and Lebanon? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state? I suggest the latter. Israel's statehood is based on an unjust ideology which causes indignity and suffering for those who are classified as non-Jewish by either a religious or ethnic test. To hide this primordial immorality, Israel fosters an image of victimhood. Provoking violence, consciously or unconsciously, against which one must defend oneself is a key feature of the victim-mentality. By perpetuating such a tragic cycle, Israel is a terrorist state like no other.

Many who wish to hide the immorality of the Israeli state do so by restricting attention to the horrors of the post-1967 occupation and talking about a two-state solution, since endorsing a Palestinian state implicitly endorses the ideology behind a Jewish one.

The very creation of Israel required an act of terror. In 1948, most of the non-Jewish indigenous people were ethnically cleansed from the part of Palestine which became Israel. This action was carefully planned. Without it, no state with a Jewish majority and character would have been possible.

Since 1948, the "Israeli Arabs", those Palestinians who avoided expulsion, have suffered continuous discrimination. Indeed, many have been internally displaced, ostensibly for "security reasons", but really to acquire their lands for Jews.

Surely Holocaust memory and Jewish longing for Eretz Israel would not be sufficient to justify ethnic cleansing and ethnocracy? To avoid the
destabilization that would result from ethical inquiry, the Israeli state must hide the core problem, by nourishing a victim mentality among Israeli Jews.

To sustain that mentality and to preserve an impression of victimhood among outsiders, Israel must breed conditions for violence. Whenever prospects of violence against it subside, Israel must do its utmost to regenerate them: the myth that it is a peace-seeking victim which has "no partner for peace" is a key panel in the screen with which Israel hides its primordial and continuing immorality.

Israel's successful campaign to silence criticism of its initial and continuing dispossession of the indigenous Palestinians leaves the latter no option but to resort to violent resistance. In the wake of electing Hamas - the only party which, in the eyes of Palestinians, has not yet given up their cause - the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank were subjected to an Israeli campaign of starvation, humiliation and violence.

The insincere "withdrawal" from Gaza, and the subsequent blockade, ensured a chronicle of violence which, so far, includes Palestinian firing of Kasem rockets, the capture of an Israeli soldier and the Israeli near re-occupation of Gaza. What we witness is more hatred, more violence from Palestinians, more humiliation and collective punishments from Israelis - all useful reinforcement for the Israeli victim mentality and for the sacred cow status of Israeli statehood.

The truth is that there never could have been a partition of Palestine by ethically acceptable means. Israel was created through terror and it needs terror to cover-up its core immorality. Whenever there is a glimmer of stability, the state orders a targeted assassination, such as that in Sidon, which preceded the current Lebanon crisis, knowing well that this brings not security but more violence. Israel's unilateralism and the cycle of violence nourish one another.

Amidst the violence and despite the conventional discourse which hides the root of this violence, actuality calls upon us to think. The more we silence its voice, the more violently actuality is sure to speak.

In Hebrew, the word "elem" (a stunned silence resulting from oppression or shock) is etymologically linked to the word "almut" (violence). Silence about the immoral core of Israeli statehood makes us all complicit in breeding the terrorism that threatens a catastrophe which could tear the world apart.

A courageous voice of reason and sanity from Israel!

I know and always said that a goodness is present in the soul of men what ever their natinal or ethnic differences.

I read this article in the Internet, I found it deserve to be read by other as it throw some light on the darkness of the mind of some people.

Morality is not on our side


By Ze'ev Maoz

There's practically a holy consensus right now that the war in the
North is a just war and that morality is on our side. The bitter truth
must be said: this holy consensus is based on short-range selective
memory, an introverted worldview, and double standards.

This war is not a just war. Israel is using excessive force without
distinguishing between civilian population and enemy, whose sole
purpose is extortion. That is not to say that morality and justice are
on Hezbollah's side. Most certainly not. But the fact that Hezbollah
"started it" when it kidnapped soldiers from across an international
border does not even begin to tilt the scales of justice toward our
side.

Let's start with a few facts. We invaded a sovereign state, and
occupied its capital in 1982. In the process of this occupation, we
dropped several tons of bombs from the air, ground and sea, while
wounding and killing thousands of civilians. Approximately 14,000
civilians were killed between June and September of 1982, according to
a conservative estimate. The majority of these civilians had nothing
to do with the PLO, which provided the official pretext for the war.

In Operations Accountability and Grapes of Wrath, we caused the mass
flight of about 500,000 refugees from southern Lebanon on each
occasion. There are no exact data on the number of casualties in these
operations, but one can recall that in Operation Grapes of Wrath, we
bombed a shelter in the village of Kafr Kana which killed 103
civilians. The bombing may have been accidental, but that did not make
the operation any more moral.

On July 28, 1989, we kidnapped Sheikh Obeid, and on May 12, 1994, we
kidnapped Mustafa Dirani, who had captured Ron Arad. Israel held these
two people and another 20-odd Lebanese detainees without trial, as
"negotiating chips." That which is permissible to us is, of course,
forbidden to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah crossed a border that is recognized by the international
community. That is true. What we are forgetting is that ever since our
withdrawal from Lebanon, the Israel Air Force has conducted
photo-surveillance sorties on a daily basis in Lebanese airspace.
While these flights caused no casualties, border violations are border
violations. Here too, morality is not on our side.

So much for the history of morality. Now, let's consider current
affairs. What exactly is the difference between launching Katyushas
into civilian population centers in Israel and the Israel Air Force
bombing population centers in south Beirut, Tyre, Sidon and Tripoli?
The IDF has fired thousands of shells into south Lebanon villages,
alleging that Hezbollah men are concealed among the civilian
population. Approximately 25 Israeli civilians have been killed as a
result of Katyusha missiles to date. The number of dead in Lebanon,
the vast majority comprised of civilians who have nothing to do with
Hezbollah, is more than 300.

Worse yet, bombing infrastructure targets such as power stations,
bridges and other civil facilities turns the entire Lebanese civilian
population into a victim and hostage, even if we are not physically
harming civilians. The use of bombings to achieve a diplomatic goal -
namely, coercing the Lebanese government into implementing UN Security
Council Resolution 1559 - is an attempt at political blackmail, and no
less than the kidnapping of IDF soldiers by Hezbollah is the aim of
bringing about a prisoner exchange.

There is a propaganda aspect to this war, and it involves a
competition as to who is more miserable. Each side tries to persuade
the world that it is more miserable. As in every propaganda campaign,
the use of information is selective, distorted and self-righteous. If
we want to base our information (or shall we call it propaganda?)
policy on the assumption that the international environment is going
to buy the dubious merchandise that we are selling, be it out of
ignorance or hypocrisy, then fine. But in terms of our own national
soul searching, we owe ourselves to confront the bitter truth - maybe
we will win this conflict on the military field, maybe we will make
some diplomatic gains, but on the moral plane, we have no advantage,
and we have no special status.

The writer is a professor of political science at Tel Aviv university.