Cast Iron Stomachs: The Beautiful Defiance Of Palestine’s Hunger Strikers

Thousands of Palestinians
are on hunger strike for
their karameh: their dignity;
and they refuse to quit
until the Zionist occupation
grants them freedom.

by Jonathan Azaziah

I am in awe of you my sisters and brothers...

What is a nuclear-armed rogue regime...

Compared to your courage that is so pristine...

What is a gulag-type prison compared to your magnificent hunger...
           
I am in awe of you I repeat, like a child who lays his eyes on a shooting star for the first time...

You are leaders amongst a region of deceivers, you are dreamers amongst a legion of schemers, you are lions amongst liars of the occupier that persists in making every massacre it commits even more twisted than its last "worst crime"...

You are giants amongst ants, your will is an immovable object that shakes the earth to its core...

There are only a few struggles as worthy, righteous and determined as yours...

Expansionist monsters, never content with the land that they’ve conquered, they’re always yearning for more...

They cannot relate to your heroics because they’re soulless, their hearts are made of dirt and impure...
   
While your very essence is made of the heavens’ shiniest levels...

And the wondrousness of the martyrs who scoffed at the darkness that swallowed them, like lightning they struck the Zionist devils...

Murder and rape, torture and theft, colonization and lots of devastation, this is what the occupiers have peddled...

Slaughtered trees, killed flowers, ended animals and executed buildings...

Violations of every aspect of human life, its insanity, strife and calamity, breaking up and frightening families, shock, the electrocution of children...

For 131 years, these monsters have swarmed the land like the parasites they are...

Khader Adnan: Palestinian
hero and survivor of a
66-day hunger strike.

At one point, Palestine was Jannah on earth, but now, paradise is far...

64 years of occupation and terrorism, a terror system built where the holy land was...

Supremacy and hatred, planted in the heart because the enemies have raped it, pathetically erased it, replaced the holy land’s love...

The truth of what happened swept under the holy land’s rugs...

An infestation of demons, happily bathing in the holy land’s blood...

Your poetry and paintings, marches and stones against their war machine...

Your undying will is all that stands in their way of bringing forth their morbid dream...

Nile to the Euphrates, and then from there, the whole damn planet...

And the Zionist-occupied West tells you “nonviolence,” I know you can’t stand it...

They want nonviolence during annihilation, Al-Dayah and Al-Samouni fams damaged...

They want nonviolence during ritualistic sacrifice, Ghalia and Akkash fams vanished...

They want nonviolence as women and children are murdered during birth at checkpoints...

Hana al-Shalabi:
Palestinian hero
and survivor of
a 43-day hunger strike.

They want nonviolence and slavery, subjugation and overall, just less noise...

And when you refuse their silence, they lock you away in deadly dungeons...

Where they oppress you and hurt you more, controlling your every function...

Where they humiliate you and animalize their hold...

Where they threaten your family for noncompliance, where they cannibalize your soul...

Where over 300 are imprisoned in administrative detention, no charge, its sheer barbarity...

Where your rights are even more usurped than before, where they beat you so bad you can longer hear with clarity...

Where their dignity is none...

Where you transcend the spectrum, Palestinian is what chivalry becomes...

Where you take up the mantle of “defender” of those dispossessed...

Where you stand up for the old and oppressed...

Where you give hope to those hoping for death...

Cast iron stomachs, bulletproof will and minds made of kevlar...

Live and let die your stomachs growl, souls scream live and let starve...

Your hunger pains are the oppressors’ nightmare...

Kept awake screaming in the wee hours of the morning, haunted by your refusal to be type scared...

Hasan al-Safadi:
Palestinian hero
on hunger strike;
60+ days and counting.

Cast iron stomachs, a hunger strike for the ages...

A strike for the men, women and children, a strike for the workers and a strike for the sages...

Ireland is in solidarity, Bahrain is with you as well...

Your cry for justice is being heard the world over, from all peoples sitting in hell...

4,653 Palestinian political prisoners, more than half are striking...

More than half are revolting, more than half are fighting...

Khader Adnan lit the match, Hana al-Shalabi fueled the fire...

Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh now carry the torch at 70 plus days, Hasan Safadi and Omar Abu Shalal spread the embers in a 60 plus blaze, Mohammad al-Taj, Ja’far Ezzedine and Mahmoud Sarsak continue to inspire...

Cast iron stomachs, defying Jewish supremacist ideology that keeps the occupier thuggish and implores them to prevent family visits...

What kind of inhumanity is this...

Cast iron stomachs, your hunger pains scream that it is not time to die, it is time to see...

Prison is a fragile and meaningless piece of glass that is easily shattered when your mind is free...

They are incapable of feeling, incapable of anything but killing, they are slaves to their own dangerous lies...

Palestinian families don’t even sleep as their loved ones languish in cells, pain is the only thing keeping them sane or alive...

Protests around the world in solidarity, but nothing changes and we wonder why...

Will there be outrage if any one of the living martyrs suffering from the hunger dies...

Bilal Diab:
Palestinian hero
on hunger strike;
70+ days and counting.

Will there be demands of “Israeli” embassy closures, will there be calls for Zionists to be jailed...

Probably not, due to Jewish sensitivities, this environment is just swell...

This must change; we must be fearless in our truth-telling, so the taboos can be ended...

Our brothers and sisters are dying, who gives a damn if Jews are offended...

Fake Western activists run their mouths about international law, yawn...

Zionist entity tramples upon it while they keep producing movies of international war porn...

Assassinations and espionage, hasbara generation and shadowy money...

Jewish kids in their classrooms who think “Israeli” savagery’s lovely...

Would they smile if it were Jews on hunger strike, would they smile if it were their own being violated...

Not at all; but they revel in their ethnocentrism, they won’t even deny their hatred...

Cast iron stomachs, a demand for what is just or death...

To die for a righteous cause is the pinnacle of humanity, after that, there is nothing left...

And why does the international community offer nothing but stupor and silence...

Because Jewish networks demand it whenever the Zionist entity commits abuses and dishes out gratuitous violence...

Jewish Lobby runs America, France too...

Britain and Australia, it plays the music that nations dance to...

The usurping Zionist dragon is merely the center of international Jewish power...

We are living in Jewish days, our moments counted by clocks that record Jewish hours...

Organized Jewry is behind the planet’s plight, the driving force of war, destruction...

Thaer Halahleh:
Palestinian hero
on hunger strike;
70+ days and counting.

More war, some war after that, another war or two and more corruption...

So hungry for death, it aims to even topple Russia and China...

The entire Islamic world burning over a Jewish-Zionist plot, just a reminder...

Americans know nothing of Palestine, where are the professors educating them or pushing a manual...

Americans know nothing of the hunger strikers nor would they care if they did, Jewish Hollywood has made them believe that all Arabs and Muslims are animals...

Tyrannical terror under a totalitarian tribe, not even the pitiful accept this...

Our comrades rot in Zionist occupation hellholes and we should be quiet over political correctness...

Supremacist tribalists, overly drunk on their own notions of chosen-ness...

World Jewry is the engine that powers Zionism in Palestine, it is a clan of living omens, ferocious and vulturous...

When will the world understand what these creatures are, vile and sick...

So brazen that they’ve shot Palestinians into oblivion on television then denied they exist...

A wise woman once said to save Palestine is to save the world...

Save the babies and the elders, save the boys and save the girls...

Save the holy land, crush the beasts...

Save the oppressed ones, lift up the weak...

Return their strength to them, tell them they are the reason we fight...

Tell them that you are so strong its crazy, tell them that they are beaming with light...

Khader Adnan lit the match, Hana al-Shalabi fueled the fire...

Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh now carry the torch at 70 plus days, Hasan Safadi and Omar Abu Shalal spread the embers in a 60 plus blaze, Mohammad al-Taj, Ja’far Ezzedine and Mahmoud Sarsak continue to inspire...

Blood pressure, weight and heart rate dropping, bleeding from the gums and the nose...

Hair falling out, muscles atrophying and the music of numbness is drumming your soul...

Children denied their baba, mothers denied their sons...

Deprivation and degradation, torturous and slaughterous, this is the system that these Zionist tyrants run...

Harbingers of death, rapists of dignity...

Evil resides in their spirit, making them makers of your dangers and misery...

Fake leaders ignore you, meet with Jewish supremacists instead...

American government gives “Israel” more money, while pretending that you’re dead...

World doesn’t hear your cries, it doesn’t hear your screams...

Occupation wants to keep you awake in agony, ‘cause it fears your dreams...

Cast iron stomachs, hunger and pain swallowed in your refusal to comply with...

From the River, to the Sea,
one day, Palestine The
Beautiful, will be free.

The ugly occupation; your beautiful defiance...

Cast iron stomachs, just by living, you defeat them...

When you’re hungry for justice, the only suitable food is freedom...

You are the stones of the throwers, the poems of the hopers, the blaze that ignites from the security zones to the ocean, the equivalents of righteous kings overthrowing an aggressor...

Every breath that you take is a victory over your oppressor...

You are living martyrs, warriors of a heavenly force...

Armed with your cast iron stomachs, a predetermination of the enemy’s loss...

No, not an exaggeration, no, not the solving of an illustrious mystery...

When a “state” is born from injustice, its only destination in due time is the dustbin of history...

You stare Malak al-Mawt in the face, and you tell him to go somewhere and play...

Because your martyrdom is living, the Akhira is not where you will stand today...

But if you cross over tomorrow, the Resistance will struggle onward, we refuse to allow despair to reign...

O’ mighty hunger strikers! You will be triumphant, nevermind the machinations of monsters and the ignorance of thieves...

Solidarity with you! Your courage is legendary, you give shivers to the world and I know you’ll keep giving the shivers when you’re free...

Cast iron stomachs, your hunger paves the road for Palestine to return to its rightful place from the River to the Sea...

Cast iron stomachs, heroes is what you are, may we all fight like you and pray with no fear...

Palestine from the River to the Sea, sub7an’ALLAH wa insha’ALLAH ya Rab, that beautiful day is so near...

~ The End ~

Mysterious West Bank Shootings: Random Murders Or Assassinations?

Recent killings
in the occupied
West Bank
ghetto-prison bear
an Israeli signature.

by Jonathan Azaziah

The occupied West Bank is run like a ghetto prison, identical to the besieged Gaza Strip excluding the all-out Israeli siege. It is governed by the dictator-like regime of ‘President’ of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mahmoud Abbas, whose presidency ended in January 2009 (1), and ‘Prime Minister’ Salam Fayyad, who is unelected and totally backed by the Zionist-occupied governments of the Western world for his mythical (as in myth, for it doesn’t exist) ‘state building,’ a farcical sideshow which has cloaked his theft of Palestine’s wealth and natural resources by establishing neoliberal economics and corporate privatization through a firm of wealthy House Arabs known as PADICO (2).

Because of these criminal policies, one out of every four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank is out of work, and the population is losing nearly 3% off of its wages every year (3). And in Area C of the West Bank, which represents 60% of the territory and is under direct Zionist military control, the poverty is even worse than occupied Gaza (4). This atmosphere of degradation and depravation is reinforced through sustained collaboration known as ‘security coordination’ between the PA’s militias and the Zionist entity’s occupation military. This collaboration includes torturing anyone who rebels against the authoritarianism of the Abbas-Fayyad regime, carrying out targeted killings of Resistance members, murdering civilians to generate widespread fear and subservience to the quasi-dictatorship and working closely with foreign intelligence agencies like MI-6 (5).

There is nothing filthier, nothing more demeaning, nothing more detrimental to one’s dignity than working against one’s own people for the benefit of the enemy. And the Palestinian Authority represents the very essence of these three qualities of sedition.

Juliano Mer-Khamis:
Assassinated by the
IOF Duvdevan death
squad on
April 4th, 2011.

It is this sedition that was on full display on April 4th, nine years to the day of the beginnings of the horrific, inhuman Jenin Refugee Camp massacre carried out by the Zionist entity over a period of 13 days. Internationally renowned activist, actor and director Juliano Mer-Khamis was gunned down in front of his wife and 10-month old son right outside of his Freedom Theater in occupied Jenin. The Zionist media, typically and vilely, reported the killing as the work of ‘masked Palestinian militants.’ The PA began an ‘investigation’ of the brutal murder and even apprehended a suspect, Mujahed Qaniri. Qaniri however, vehemently contended the allegation and denied any involvement in the heinous act. He was released soon after his detention once a DNA test vindicated him and affirmed his contention (6).

No lengthy duration was needed for the revelations to emerge. The murderers of Juliano were not ‘masked Palestinian militants’ but masked Israeli soldiers, the elite Mistaravim unit known as the Duvdevan. Juliano had been murdered by Duvdevan in a high-level intelligence operation, intimately attached to a greater, global intelligence agenda of the Zionist entity. The PA cleaned up the usurping regime’s mess by staging a false investigation and deposing of all of the evidence. To their praiseworthy and honorable credit, many of those closest to Juliano and several activist committees slammed Zionism as the culprit behind the murder (7).

Though the Abbas-Fayyad security apparatus eradicated much of the evidence of Israeli military intelligence plotting, it hasn’t been able to eradicate the voices of the people; Juliano’s loved ones, comrades, proteges and colleagues throughout the occupied West Bank aren’t simply demanding that the killers be brought to justice, they are petitioning, protesting and calling for real protection of the Freedom Theater and Juliano’s legacy (8).

Al-Jalazun
Refugee Camp
was the first site
of Duvdevan's
'clean-up'
assassinations.

The assassination of Juliano Mer-Khamis, the incessant, booming outcries for justice after his passing and the PA’s ongoing cleanup operation at the Zionist entity’s behest are at the core of the bizarre happenings in the West Bank in the month of May. On May 6th, 30-year old Muhammad Yahya Khawaldah was shot to death in the refugee camp of al-Jalazun, not too far from Ramallah. Two weeks later, 32-year-old Omar Hussein Abu Halou was shot to death in occupied Nablus. On May 28th, 52-year old Ramadan Omar Salhab was shot three times and succumbed to his wounds in occupied Jericho.

To this date, there still has not been a single suspect detained in any case. Why? Because in every instance, the murderers were masked. This, all by its lonesome, is enough to raise eyebrows in regards to the mysterious shootings. However, there is something else, something ominous that invalidates the appearance of randomness and certainly gives validation to the appearance of assassination. All three of these Palestinian men, had previously worked for Israeli intelligence as full-blown spies or assets (9). The locations of their residences (and their assassinations), Nablus, Ramallah and Jericho, were all frequented by Juliano Mer-Khamis in his humanitarian work as an activist, and were also sights of commemoration after he was gunned down in Jenin.

It appears, that these men were intelligence assets in the joint operation between Israeli occupation forces’ Duvdevan unit and the Palestinian Authority’s security forces to assassinate Juliano Mer-Khamis. It appears, that these men provided vital reconnaissance to Duvdevan to keep tabs on Juliano Mer-Khamis and document the patterns of his whereabouts in the occupied West Bank, therefore ensuring a ‘successful’ operation through the utilization of the element of surprise. Hence, why Juliano Mer-Khamis was gunned down in a moment, in a place he felt most secure: in front of the Freedom Theater, with his wife and child.

It appears, that these men then spoonfed a false suspect to the PA to seal the deal on the cover up. When the suspect fizzled out however, the Zionist masters of the collaborationist PA were not pleased. And it would appear, that out of this displeasure, that these men were eliminated by Duvdevan, which has dominion over the West Bank, to prevent them from revealing the operation to any institution of media and to remind them, that their services were no longer needed. The circumstantial evidence is powerful. The Israeli elephant in the room is the manner in which these men were killed: exactly like Juliano Mer-Khamis was killed by the Duvdevan unit.

Israeli intelligence
moves in the shadows
to remove
'no-longer-needed
assets.'

The Zionist entity has locked up the daughter of the former Deputy Head of Mossad for refusing to serve in IOF (10). The Zionist entity routinely tear gases and brutalizes Israeli solidarity activists at weekly protests in the occupied Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh (11). The Zionist entity’s Mossad assassinated British media tycoon, Zionist extremist, Katsa (Mossad officer) and major asset to the usurping Israeli regime Robert Maxwell in the Canary Islands for his attempts at extorting and blackmailing the agency (12).

And the Zionist entity’s Shin Bet assassinated Israeli Prime Minister (and Zionist terrorist who served in the Palmach and Haganah) Yitzhak Rabin in one of its most daring operations, all for the sake of furthering the expansionist agenda and confiscation of Palestinian land (13). If Israel would kill ‘its own’ for going against its agenda, or to further its agenda, it would be naive, childish and asinine to think that it wouldn’t do the same to Palestinian collaborators.

What is most tragic of all regarding the deaths of these Arab assets of Zionism, is that they most likely held the keys to the doors which would unlock the inner secrets of Juliano Mer-Khamis’s assassination. Though it is known that the IOF elite Duvdevan death squad killed Juliano and why it pulled the trigger, some integral questions remain: when was the plot hatched? Who gave the direct order? Are there hits already in place for Juliano’s family, as there are with Mossad-abducted Gaza engineer Dirar Abu Sisi (14)? Unfortunately, the answers to these inquires, and many more, died with Muhammad Yahya Khawaldah, Omar Hussein Abu Halou and Ramadan Omar Salhab.

The illegal and
the unelected:
Mahmoud Abbas
and Salam
Fayyad will do
anything to remain
in power and
please their
Zionist puppeteers.

A Final Comment: Activists Beware of ‘Reconciliation’

Juliano Mer-Khamis was not the first activist to be murdered (or severely wounded) by the Zionist entity with Abbas-Fayyad complicity/direct assistance in the occupied West Bank and sadly, he will not be the last. Iain John Hook, Jawaher Abu Rahmah, Brian Avery, Bassem Abu Rahmah, Tristan Anderson and Emily Henochowicz were brutalized or killed before Juliano (15), and the memory of these brave souls serves as an everyday reminder to what the unity between occupier and collaborator brings forth.

The recent ‘reconciliation’ deal processed by the highest ranking officials from the Fatah-controlled PA and Hamas has been revealed not only as a sham due to the continuance of Israel-PA ‘security coordination’, but as a defeat of Hamas at the hands of the Zionist entity after multiple assaults on the illegally besieged Gaza Strip (16). Hamas officials have been uncharacteristically quiet about the deal, but it is understandable. Just prior to Operation Cast Lead, Hamas leader Khaled Mish’al was calling Mahmoud Abbas an ‘illegal president;’ he called the PA an organization that ‘stifles Resistance;’ he declared that the PA ‘provides free services to the Israelis’ and he demanded prosecution for its officials (17). Right on all counts. But now, Mish’al and Abbas are behaving like long lost brothers and it is nothing short of disgraceful.

Wafsi Qabha on the other hand, Gaza political official and former Minister of Detainees, has had the courage to speak out against the fraudulent reconciliation deal. He’s stated with no qualms, ‘there are no real indications of reconciliation in the occupied West Bank.’ Qabha continued, ‘PA security forces are still interrogating Hamas supporters and members.’ Qabha also noted, that despite (hollow) promises from the PA, at least 35 Hamas officials and fighters remain imprisoned in the torturous dungeons of Fatah (18).

The EU-US-backed PA considers anyone that stands against its criminal rule a ‘Hamas supporter,’ including political analysts, religious figures, civilians and activists. This totalitarian approach was on perfect display for Nakba Day 2011, as Fatah militias violently dispersed a demonstration in al-Zawia Square of occupied al-Khalil. Activists and students, including women, were severely beaten and cameras and phones were confiscated to prevent any reporting of the collaborationist barbarity (19).

The Zionist entity’s new clandestine war on Palestine (Operation Phantasmagoria) has not only been initiated to crush indigenous Resistance, deepen its foothold through ethnic cleansing and occupation and whitewash all of its crimes in the eyes of the war criminal-infested ‘international community,’ but to disrupt the international solidarity network that is so dedicated to Palestinian liberation and self-determination. The Zionist entity is aiming to create the kind of atmosphere, where activists will not only feel threatened by the Israeli occupation, but Palestinians themselves and their communities via the brutality of Zionism’s donkeys and lapdogs, the PA, being portrayed as representative of the people. Setting aside the PA’s collaborator identity, this is immersed in baselessness and coated with racism, xenophobia and orientalism. Nobody in possession of a mildly sound, thinking mind is falling for this hasbara. But activists beware, you are being targeted. Again. Now, more than ever.

~ The End ~

Sources:

(1) Don’t Deny Our Rights: Open Letter To Mahmoud Abbas by The Electronic Intifada

(2) The PA And The Privatization Of Palestine by Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada

(3) UN Agency Report Shows West Bank Economy Not Flourishing by Haaretz

(4) West Bank Poverty ‘Worse Than Gaza’ by Al Jazeera English

(5) Documents Reveal PA-Israel Collaboration To Target Resistance by The Electronic Intifada

(6) Palestinian Police Charge Former Fighter With Murder Of Israeli Peacemaker by Saed Bannoura, IMEMC; Killer Of Israeli-Palestinian Director Still At Large by Saed Bannoura, IMEMC

(7) Operation Phantasmagoria III: Juliano Mer-Khamis, Assassinated Hope by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion

(8) Mourners Demand Justice For Slain Theater Director by Ma’an News Agency

(9) Police: Man Shot Dead In Jericho by Ma’an News Agency

(10) Father, Forgive Me, I Will Not Fight For Your Israel by Igal Sarna, The Sunday Times

(11) PHOTOS: Protest In Nabi Saleh Consumed By Tear Gas by Joseph Dana, 972 Magazine

(12) Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul by Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon

(13) Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin? by Barry Chamish

(14) Abu Sisi: Israeli Detectives Threaten To Kill My Family by Palestinian Return Centre

(15) Operation Phantasmagoria I: Israel’s New Shadow War On Palestine by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion

(16) Operation Phantasmagoria II: Gaza And Al-Quds, Linked In Blood by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion

(17) Hamas Leader In Exile Slams ‘Illegal President’ Abbas by Ma’an News Agency

(18) Qabha: “Real Reconciliation Does Not Exist In The West Bank” by Saed Bannoura, IMEMC

(19) PCHR Condemns The Violent Dispersion Of Peaceful Assembly In Hebron On The Anniversary Of The Palestinian Nakba by Palestinian Centre For Human Rights