Palestinian Protester’s Death Throws Spotlight on Movement Against Israeli Wall

[mudplanet]

By Amitabh Pal, January 6, 2011

The new year opened tragically in the Palestinian Occupied Territories.

Jawaher Abu Rahmah died on New Year’s Day morning at a hospital in Ramallah, where she was admitted after having a severe reaction to tear gas that the Israeli forces fired into a crowd in Bilin. Demonstrators had gathered as part of a weekly protest against the Israeli wall. (Jawaher was reportedly watching with her mother from a distance.) Even Israeli officials are not disputing that the tear gas had an adverse effect on her, though they assert that she passed away due to medical negligence or a preexisting condition. Those who were there at the demonstration maintain otherwise.

“What the army—what the IDF— is saying is outrageous,” states Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli present at the scene, after detailing step-by-step the events that led to Jawaher’s demise. “They’re spreading rumor without any fact. If you ask me, this is not even newsworthy. And, yet, people keep on reporting it.”

The United States was complicit in the incident in a number of ways. The tear gas was reportedly manufactured by an American company, Combined Systems, headquartered in Jamestown, Pennsylvania. And Israeli actions such as these are enabled by the massive U.S. financial support and political backing that the state of Israel receives.

What makes Jawaher’s death doubly poignant is that her brother, Bassem, was slain by an Israeli tear gas canister in 2009 while participating in the very same protests in the village of Bilin. The Israelis insist that such unfortunate incidents are in response to stone throwing (even though the BBC says that video footage in the case of Bassem shows no such thing).


http://www.progressive.org/ap010611.html

[Sinistrous]

1. For what it's worth: Combined Systems, is a company in the portfolio of

the Carlyle Group:

http://www.carlyle.com/portfolio/item7431.html