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Traveling thousands of miles to start my graduate education, i was disconnected from the world for about 10 days. With a couple of days driving on the road, and no internet set up at home yet, i had no means to check the news or anything. So, when i was planning to write my next post, i was thinking of talking about my 2-day driving road trip.

However, as soon as i got connected, the stark dark news was hard to escape. The mass punishment of innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza is just inhumane. No words can really describe what is going on. It is truly frightening. What would happen if this was done to people in Europe or the USA ? How would the world react ? What description would be given to the country/people applying such mass punishment ? Why is it not done now ? Why is the world turning its blind eye ?

Words escape me trying to come up with something different that what many great bloggers have said about this. I leave you with this nice article by Sabbah.

I have always witnessed bias in media (nothing new here). However, it still manages to shock me as to how biased can they manage to be. I just watched a news segment by ABC news covering Bush’s visit to the region. What shocked me the most is that at the end of the segment they casually said that rockets fired from Gaza continue to hit Israeli towns (during Bush’s visit).

That sentence ended right there, and then they moved on to another topic. No mention what so ever about what Israel has been doing in Gaza and the West Bank. Come on!! Israel still carries a military offensive operation in Gaza, and they were in Nablus for a 3-day offense just a few days ago.

I also hate the words “Palestinian Rockets”. I think these words imply something big, powerful, destructive, and fatal … you know, REAL ROCKETS, the kind that Israel uses. However, the Palestinian “rockets” are homemade, and almost always cause no casualties. Just by looking at the footage of these rocket firings, you can tell how weak they are.

Anyway, this conflict drives people insane, and unfortunately the mass media does not do its job of reporting fairly from both sides

Urrggh, i am still sleepy, so excuse me if i can’t compose coherent sentences.

I came across this on Sabbah’s blog. A 700 year-old mosque near Bethlehem was torched by a group of Israeli settlers. Unfortunately, the media turned its face on this. You can read more about this at Sabbah’s blog post, and at the source.

A group of Israeli settlers torched an historic mosque in the town of Al-Khader, near Bethlehem, on Tuesday. The settlers used 20 beehives as fuel for the fire, after stealing the beehives from a Palestinian farm located near the mosque.

The Al-Hamadiyya Mosque is the main center for prayer for most of the villagers in Al-Khader village, and is believed to be 700 years old.

The villagers restored the mosque several years ago, after they were prevented from going to other nearby mosques due to Israeli restrictions. The town of Al-Khader is completely surrounded by Israeli fences and the Wall, which is being constructed on the village land.

Israeli settlers have been attempting to seize land around Al-Khader for the expansion of the Jewish-only colonies of Efrata and El’azar. Al-Khader has faced increased restrictions by the Israeli military, including being unable to leave the village, which is completely surrounded.

So, with no way to leave their village, a group of local Muslim leaders restored the ruins of Al-Hamadiyya mosque. An imam was appointed two years ago to head the restored mosque.

The imam and fellowship of the mosque called on the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities to help them rebuild the burned mosque, and to help protect the village from future Israeli attacks.

by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News