FYI
Shawgi Tell
Graduate School of Education
University at Buffalo
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 11:17:21 -0700
From: MID-EAST REALITIES <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Kuttab, his US employers, & torturing Palestinians into submission
MID-EAST REALITIES - Kuttab works for the Americans, others don't
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TORTURING PALESTINIANS - It's really the Americans
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DAOUD KUTTAB GETS WHITE HOUSE HELP
OTHER PALESTINIANS TORTURED TO DEATH
MER - Washington - 6/3/97:
While the White House was busy protesting Arafat's police
arresting Daoud Kuttab -- a Palestinian essentially working for
the Americans through the thin veil of an organization known
as InterNews -- a Palestinian was being tortured to death by
the Israelis.
Kuttab was never in any real danger -- and in the end he
praised Arafat, ceased his broadcasts, and is enjoying all the
attention. The Americans have created a journalist and hero
out of a very ordinary Palestinians who has no significant
accomplishments to his name and who is known for being an
opportunist despised by many who know him.
Khalid Abu Dayyeh, and large numbers of Palestinians did
need serious help, however. He was being tortured, now he is
dead, and even the story of what happened to him has been lied
about by the Israelis -- something they get away with because
so much of the press allows them to and because the Americans
refuse to step in.
For Kuttab the Americans held back visas, monies, and insisted
he be freed from Arafat's jails. For Abu Dayyeh and so many
others the Americans do worse than their silence; they actually
make the money and guns available in ever greater amounts to those
willing to ratchet up the intimidation and the repression.
These days ordinary non-opportunist and non-American-employed
Palestinians are being grossly abused, severely intimidated, and
sometimes tortured to death, by both the Israeli government and
the "Palestinian Authority" it serves.
In the end, however, it is the American government that bears
the real responsibility for this terrible state of affairs; and
the American press that does such a terrible job of exposing the
realities while usually reporting the lies.
The Israeli lie, for instance, that Abu Dayyeh was arrested for
trying to steal a gun from a soldier in occupied East Jerusalem
never made much sense. The following article from PALESTINE TIMES
about what really did happen seems alot more credible:
"H o s p i t a l "
o r
" P l a c e o f T o r t u r e "
Occupied Jerusalem- From Khalid Amayreh (30/5/1997)
Khalid Ayesh Abu Dayyeh, 37, who died on 16 May of brain hemorrhage at
West
Jerusalem's Share T'zedek hospital , was not the first Palestinian to
die of torture at an
Israeli hospital. However, the circumstances surrounding his death
provided a fresh
testimony to the utter savagery and bestiality with which Palestinians
detainees are
routinely maltreated at the hands of Israeli interrogators. Abu Dayyeh
was actually
beaten to death "inside the hospital" where he was supposed to receive
treatment.
Hence, rather paradoxically, the very people who were supposed to
provide medical
care for him, killed the helpless Palestinian deliberately, by beating
him on the head
until he was no longer alive.
Khalid's fatal saga began on 4 May when he headed for the Al Aksa Mosque
for
prayer. There at the Mosque's entrance, he was stopped by four Israeli
soldiers who
started making sarcastic and obscene remarks about Islam and the Prophet
Muhammed. According to his mother, Khalid (a practicing Muslim) could
not bear
hear the Jews mock Islam's Holy Book and Prophet. And as he sought o
defend his
religion's dignity (verbally), the four soldiers attacked him savagely,
handcuffed him,
and took him to the notorious Russian Compound detention center, often
referred to
by Palestinian detainees as the "butchery of the Shabak."
There Khalid was reportedly subjected to various forms of severe
torture, particularly
beatings. Consequently, Khalid sustained serious injury in the neck
which necessitated
his transfer to the Share T'zedek hospital in West Jerusalem. Khalid had
called his
mother shortly before he was taken to the hospital. He told her "not to
worry" and that
he would be released in a few days. But that was the last time she heard
his voice.
Khalid died almost immediately after he arrived at the hospital.
The Israeli authorities initially sought to evade responsibility for his
death. An Israeli
Prison Authority spokesman claimed on 18 May that Abu Dayyeh "committed
suicide
at Share T'zedek, " adding that he had psychological problems, a charge
vehemently
denied by is family. However when an unidentified sanitary worker at the
hospital
intimated to the press the circumstances of Khalid's death, the Israeli
spokesman was
forced to abandon the "suicide story," stating that "the matter is being
investigated."
According to Khalid's mother, the same eyewitness informed the family
that the
border policemen who accompanied her son the hospital provoked him and
sought to
humiliate him by cursing his "religion and Prophet." (deriding Islam,
the Prophet
Muhammed, and the Holy Qura'an lately became a widespread practice in
Israeli jails
and detention centers). Khalid, the eyewitness continued, screamed at
them "stop,
stop, stop," and sought to disentangle himself from their grip. Watching
the site,
hospital personnel, including several sentries, leapt on Khalid, beating
him savagely on
the head, using hand fists and unidentified objects until he lost
consciousness. Khalid
was pronounced dead two hours later. An autopsy on his body revealed
that he died of
brain hemorrhage caused by "external blow to the head."
Khalid's mother and bereaved wife expressed utter distrust in Israeli
promises to
establish the facts of his death.
"First they murdered my son cold-bloodedly, second they tried to cover
up their crime,
and now they tell us to trust them to carry out a fair investigation
into what happened,"
his mother said.
"God will take our revenge," his wife added in sad serenity.
On 22 May, Khalid was buried in Bethlehem, to be added to the long list
of Palestinian
victims of Israeli torture and oppression.
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M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S
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