There is a river flowing in Palestine today

It is as old as man yet as new as dawn

It runs from splattered droplets and

Little trickling rivulets

It flows in trickles and torrents

Depending on the sources

Sometimes it gushes out in unquenchable floods

It seeps into sands as old as time

It is spattered walls and floors and cars

Like graphitti everywhere it seems

The old and the young alike

Contribute to this flow

Israel turns the taps

And again the river rises

Even the unborn no one is exempt

This river flows from vengence the taps are turned by hate

Greed and power create the flow

How will it end

No man on earth can know

It is Palestine’s life blood

Flowing, flowing , flowing

Her heart is being cut out

One human soul at a time

Her men, her children, her wives

And mothers and unborn babes

Pour out their lives as a blood sacrifice

Exacted by the raiding , marauding hordes

Who come to kill at will

Or sit like cowards on surrounding lands

In ships at sea or hovering in the air

They send in death on artillery shell

On missiles winged and armed for killing

Wheelchairs or cars

It really does not matter

Twisted remains of what once was

And a pool to add to the river

Isn’t the river full yet?

I guess it is not - just yet

For Israel adds to it daily

Self defense is the excusing cry

Yet her fear and suffering and death

Are measured out in teaspoons full

While in Gaza and West Bank

It is a raging torrent

A flood poured out across the sands

And flowing ‘round the world

In Palestine’s disporea the flood is raging

This flood threatens to drown soul in despair

Anger burns at the carelessly caused flood

Fear terrorizes little children

Waves of grief break across every heart that cares

As Palestine again pumps out

Her life blood on the sands

With every beat of her collective heart

We all die a little

With either heartbreak or new callousness

While a river of death and suffering

Flows again in Palestine

Deaf ears and hardened hearts

Turn away from the pleading cries

Palestine is bleeding to death

Her broken wounded collective soul

Is dying piece by piece

Israel has opened the taps

The faucet turned full force

And no one will say it is enough

The river is full to capacity

But the world just waits to watch the flood

Blood thirsty Israel

Bets on a blood lusting world

As the flow builds up to the overflowing

As river flows in Palestine

A river as old as the dawn

And no one will quench the flow

Life’s blood soaks into the sands

Still a part of this earth

Bodies return to the dust

But souls belong to the creator

He’s tracking them

Every one

He’s watched as the river filles

Drop by drop

And in the final count

Some how

Justice will surely come

http://www.rense.com/general77/asset.htm
Bush Outlaws War Protest - Citizens Face Full Asset Seizure
From Dave Livingston
7-20-7

WELL IT HAS HAPPENED. THIS MANIACAL SON OF A BITCH HAS OUTLAWED ALL WAR PROTEST AGAINST THE IRAQ WAR HERE IN THE UNITED STATES.
PASSED INTO LAW JULY 17TH. SINCE CONGRESS IS TOO WEAK-KNEED TO STAND UP AND DO THE RIGHT THING, PERHAPS IT WILL BE LEFT TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. WILL THIS BEGIN THE CIVIL WAR HERE IN THE UNITED STATES PREDICTED BY JOHN TITOR? READ THE ARTICLE BELOW, "Bush Outlaws All War Protest In The United States"..........best of luck.........dave livingston

Bush Outlaws All War Protest In United States
By Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
7-19-7

In one of his most chilling moves to date against his own citizens, the American War Leader has issued a sweeping order this week outlawing all forms of protest against the Iraq war.

President Bush enacted into US law an 'Executive Order' on July 17th titled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq", and which says:

"By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004."

According to Russian legal experts, the greatest concern to the American people are the underlying provisions of this new law, and which, they state, are written 'so broadly' as to outlaw all forms of protest against the war. These provisions state:

"(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or

(b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.

(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.

All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order and, where appropriate, to advise the Secretary of the Treasury in a timely manner of the measures taken."

To the subsection of this new US law, according to these legal experts, that says "...the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit...", the insertion of the word 'services' has broad, and catastrophic, consequences for the American people in that any act deemed by their government to be against the Iraqi war is, in fact, supporting the 'enemy' and therefore threatens the 'stabilization of Iraq'.

In an even greater affront to the American people are the provisions of a law called The Patriot Act, and that should they run afoul of this new law they are forbidden to allow anyone to know about it, and as we can read as reported by the Seattle Times News Service:

"The [Patriot] act also expands the use of National Security Letters, which are a kind of warrant that the Justice Department writes for itself, authorizing its agents to seize such things as records of money movements, telephone calls and Internet visits. Recipients of a National Security Letter are not allowed to tell anyone about them, and so cannot contest them."

It is interesting to note, too, that this is not the first time that the United States has unleashed the brutal power of their government against its citizens to further their war aims and stifle domestic dissent, as during the European conflict of World War I they enacted a law called The Sedition Act of 1918 and which "...forbade Americans to use "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, flag, or armed forces during war."

It is curious to note that after the enactment of this new law there has been no protest by any of the other political leaders in the United States, with the exception of the only Muslim member of the United States Congress, Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison, and who compared President Bush to the Nazi War Leader Adolph Hitler by stating the attacks upon the World Trade Center could be likened to the burning of the Reichstag.

Today, as the United States faces an imminent economic collapse, while at the same time its war bill has reached the staggering amount of $648 billion, one of the last freedoms the American people have had to protest their leaders actions against them, and other peoples in the World, has now been taken away from them, the freedom to speak and write in opposition to what is being done to them.

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.", said the great British writer George Orwell, but, and sadly, liberty has been lost to the once free people of the United States who are no longer allowed to tell their leaders, or each other, what they don't want to hear.

With this being so, the American people should, likewise, contemplate their 'new' future, and as, also, stated best by George Orwell, "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

© July 19, 2007 EU and US all rights reserved.

[Ed. Note: The United States government actively seeks to find, and silence, any and all opinions about the United States except those coming from authorized government and/or affiliated sources, of which we are not one. No interviews are granted and very little personal information is given about our contributors, or their sources, to protect their safety.]


********************************


New Executive Order Stomps on the Fifth Amendment
"...any (citizen) person who undermines efforts to promote
economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq."

Gambling911.com
7-18-7


Did anyone get the license plate of that Mack truck that ran us over yesterday? By executive order, the Secretary of the Treasury may now seize the property of

The Secretary may make his determination in secret and after the fact. Click here to read this new little gem out of the Bush Administration.

What's it say, you ask? The White House will decide if you are in any way "undermining efforts" in Iraq, or related to Iraq or pretty much anything else, the Treasury Department is authorized to seize your money, property, stocks, etc

Although good in overall notion (stop terrorist funding), the ridiculously broad language in this order takes the 5th amendment, and flushes it down the toilet. As an example, if it appears that if you, say, donate to a charity that the Bush administration determines, without any proof, is trying to undermine the Iraqi government, all of your assets can be frozen. No due process, do not pass go.

The order permits the targeting of those who aid someone else whose assets have been blocked under the order -- wittingly or not. And under Section Five, the government does not have to disclose which organizations are subject to having their assets frozen:

For those persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that, because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 1(a) of this order.

The scope of the order has raised civil-liberties concerns. "Certainly it is highly constitutionally questionable to empower the government to destroy someone economically without giving notice," says Bruce Fein, a Justice Department official in the Reagan administration. "This is so sweeping it's staggering. I've never seen anything so broad that it expands beyond terrorism, beyond seeking to use violence or the threat of violence to cower or intimidate a population. This covers stabilization in Iraq. I suppose you could issue an executive order about stabilization in Afghanistan as well. And it goes beyond even attempting violence, to cover those who pose 'a significant risk' of violence. Suppose Congress passed a law saying you've committed a crime if there's significant risk that you might commit a crime."

How does the Secretary of the Treasury feel about a t-shirt that says, 'Stop the War?' Is such a T-shirt considered destabilizing?

http://www.gambling911.com/Executive-Order-Fifth-Ammendment-071907.html

Attacks on bloggers are real and destructive to our computers and stored history

http://www.counterpunch.org/landau06302007.html
Weekend Edition
June 30 / July 1, 2007

Meet the New Goliath
Israel is Bad for Jewish Ethics
By SAUL LANDAU

You can trace the current Middle East conflicts back to Moses, who was deaf. God said: "Moses, take your people to Canada." Moses heard Canaan.

One group of religious Jews believes Israel is anathema to Jewish ethics. On June 10, a group of Naturei Karta (Guardians of the City) joined a demonstration in Washington DC to protest the Israeli occupation of Palestine and of Syria's Golan Heights. Back in October 2005, Neturei Karta leader Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss had made the group's position clear about Israel and the Zionist movement. "The Zionists use the Holocaust issue to their benefit. We, Jews who perished in the Holocaust, do not use it to advance our interests. We stress that there are hundreds of thousands of Jews around the world who identify with our opposition to the Zionist ideology and who feel that Zionism is not Jewish, but a political agenda...What we want is not a withdrawal to the '67 borders, but to everything included in it, so the country can go back to the Palestinians and we could live with them ... "

Two years ago, I talked to one of the men in black suits, with black hats and the traditional curls of the Hassidic Jews--but they are not Hassidic.

"How can the ethics of Judaism be practiced by corrupt state officials, and most are corrupt in most governments?" He said this before the July 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, meaning before the revelation that the then head of the Israeli army, General Dan Halutz, was busy selling off his stock portfolio on the morning of the invasion for fear that prices would plunge. In addition, as Israel prepared to go to war, two Cabinet officials were charged with pinching the butts of young women staff members.

"Do you realize, that a man who calls himself a Jew," he continued, "gave orders to Israeli young men and women in the army or police to kill Palestinian civilians, to break their bones [referring to Labor Party Defense Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who in 1989 urged Israeli soldiers to break the bones of Palestinian demonstrators]. Is such behavior compatible with our ethics? With morality on any level? As long as Israel exists as a state, Jewish men and women will commit unpardonable sins and pollute the religion for future generations. Israeli has fomented a pernicious lobby in the United States and its equivalent in Europe to tell the non-Jewish public that it is a democratic David fighting a fanatical Goliath. This is a lie. No Messiah will ever return to such a terrible place. A state of Israel can exist only after the Messiah Returns."

I tried to lighten the mood a little, fearing he would explode in anger. I recounted the story of the man shortly after the 1948 creation of Israel who returns home and tells his wife. "The rabbi said all Jews have to move to Israel because the Messiah will soon come there. "Are you crazy?" she retorted, "After we spent all that money fixing up the apartment!"

He didn't laugh.

"Have you lost your sense of humor?" I asked.

"When it comes to Israel," he replied, "I see nothing funny."

As a child, my family elders, rabbis and other religious figures taught me the same lessons as Israeli journalist Uri Avnery learned: "Judaism a humane religion, a 'light unto the Gentiles'. Judaism means to loathe violence, to value the spiritual above the powerful, to turn an enemy into a friend. A Jew is allowed to defend himself. 'If somebody comes to kill you, kill him first' as the Talmudic injunction goes--but not as a lover of violence and the intoxication of power."

These ideas long preceded the creation of Israel as a Jewish state, one that has been routinely at war--or on the edge of war -- with its neighbors. After the 1967 war, Orthodox and Hassidic sects began to gain influence in Israeli politics and culture.

Settlements grew in the territories taken in that war against Israel's neighbors. And with these new colonies, some of them fervently religious, arose justification for discriminating against Palestinians who, began to acquire in the language of these Israelis the characteristics of the hated "other." The great irony of course was that the Nazis had developed just such a language for Jews. What Israelis did to Palestinians was a far cry from the Holocaust, but nevertheless it sounded deeply discordant to Jews like myself to listen to devout rabbis justifying a system that former President Jimmy Carter called "apartheid" in his book.

John Ross recounts his experience when he went to Palestine to observe the olive harvest and seven, young men in yarmulkes "charged down the bare brown hillside swinging thick clubs and hurling large lethal stones, war-whooping in Hebrew their harsh curses upon the people of this lacerated land. I was standing with a Palestinian farmer and his family under a freshly-picked olive tree when they came for us and thus, I suppose, guilty of being a race traitor in their perverted vision."

As Ross began to run, "the savages [members of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane's fascist cult] broke out of the trees and before I had time to turn towards them, they were upon me The first blow glanced off the small of my back and I tumbled to the red-brown earth, trying to cover my head with my forearm. The second smashed into my wrist and the blood began to spurt One Nazi youth picked up a large, jagged rock and advanced upon me with malice glowing in his evil, rabid eyes, hurling it from five feet away. I felt the painful crack against my knee and then they were pulling me to my feet, tearing my clothes and booting me down the hill like a punctured soccer ball." (Anderson Valley Advertiser December 3, 2003)

Compare the thugs who put Ross in the hospital to the words of Mordechai Eliyahu, former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel and key spiritual guide for Israeli settlers in Palestinian territory. In early June, he wrote to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. He offered his decree: having compassion with the civilian population of Gaza is incompatible with protecting Israeli soldiers' lives. Those holding supposedly humane feelings imperil Israeli lives. The rabbi's son, Shmuel, interpreted this decree: "if killing 100 Arabs is not sufficient to stop the launching of Qassam rockets at Israel, then 1,000 must be killed. And if that is not sufficient, then 10,000, and 100,000 and even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop."

Eliyahu claimed that "all civilians living in Gaza" are "collectively guilty for Qassam attacks on Sderot" and that "there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings."

Journalist Avnery found the letter in Olam Katan [Small World], "a weekly pamphlet to be distributed in synagogues nationwide. Eliyahu wrote that "This is a message to all leaders of the Jewish people not to be compassionate with those who shoot [rockets] at civilians in their houses." Eliyahu's son, Shmuel Eliyahu, chief rabbi of Safed, said his father "advocated carpet bombing the general area from which the Qassams were launched, regardless of the price in Palestinian life." (Avnery, Gush Shalom, June 9, 2007)

In his letter, Eliyahu justified his edict by quoting from Psalms. "I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them and I will not desist until I have eradicated them."

Avnery reported on Eliyahu's disproportionate equation. Over the last six years, nine Israelis in Sderot died from "crudely built Qassam missiles." 650 Palestinians died last year (more than half unarmed civilians, according to Amnesty International) from attacks by Israel, one of the most potent and sophisticated military powers in the world."

In Israel, so far neither outrage nor outcry has come from this bloody call. Instead, writes Avnery, "The number of rabbis who publicly support such methods has risen to the hundreds. Most of them come from the settlements," where Jews have taken Palestinian land and water and built their own communities--albeit the World Court declared that one nation cannot claim the conquered territory of another. (Gush Shalom)

In the United States, Israeli propagandists and uncritically loyal supporters, including Congress, cling to the image of Israel as a besieged David surrounded by Goliaths, as a nation of democrats and justice seekers isolated in a sea of anti-democratic and unjust enemies. A nation with 200 nuclear missiles and the best conventional army, the highest industrial and technological capacity in the region as poor little David?

In front of Washington DC's synagogues, signs declare: "We support Israel in its struggle for peace and justice." Israel has shown little interest in either peace or justice. Its government knows no nation or group of nations would dare attack it lest it feel the wrath of a government well in tune with Rabbi Eliyahu's sentiments. Israel has become Goliath. Hopefully, an Israeli David will also emerge and guide his people toward peace and justice.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=22505
Another assassination in Ramallah's city center - By Sam Bahour
Date: 30 / 05 / 2007 Time: 12:43
Ramallah (29 May 2007) - It was a good day today, well, that is until about 5:40pm when Israeli undercover and military forces assassinated a Palestinian outside the window where I was standing.

The target was Omar Abu Daher, a 22-year-old who it seems happens to be a member of a security force loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. He was only one of several that were murdered in cold blood today; two more were killed in Gaza, one in Tulkarem, two others in Jenin. These are the ones reported so far, but the night is still young.

Unknowingly, I, along with a dozen Palestinian and foreign colleagues, happened to be in the same building where it seems Omar was having dinner. Omar was sitting in the popular street-front Nazareth Restaurant (catty-corner from Angelo's Pizzeria), well known for its falafel and where my wife stopped this morning to bring some falafel home for breakfast after she drove our younger daughter Nadine to school this morning. The restaurant is walking distance from the elementary school's entrance.

As a matter of fact, only a few hours before this assassination, between 1:30pm and 1:45pm to be exact, my daughters and I passed this same spot after picking up Nadine from school. Our other daughter Areen was home all day studying for her end of year exams and wanted to take a break so she went with me for the drive. I dropped Areen off in front of Nazareth Restaurant so she could buy the three of us ice cream cones from Baladna Ice Cream Shop to eat on the way home. Baladna is a few doors up from Nazareth Restaurant.

Later in the afternoon, while Omar, the latest Israeli victim, was having a meal at Nazareth Restaurant, I was on the third floor, in a roundtable discussion, one in a series that I'm attending at the Mattin Group, a human rights-based policy research and advocacy organization. We were meeting to learn about the workings of the European Union and how we can make it more accountable to International Humanitarian Law. The irony between what was about to happen on the ground floor and what was being discussed on the third floor is mind-boggling and sobering, to say the least.

An hour and a half into our meeting in the conference room, the window of which overlooks the main Ramallah thoroughfare, we heard car tires screech and a loud bang. My knee-jerk comment was that a car accident had happened. One of my colleagues bent back to take a look and before he could speak rapid machine gun fire and loud explosions erupted. The gunfire was literally below our window. We all immediately took to the floor and crawled to a safe hallway in the middle of the office. A peek out to the street and it was confirmed, as it has been so many times prior, the Israeli military had entered the middle of town again.

A few more peeks and the picture became clearer. An undercover Israeli military hit team entered under the cover of an armored jeep, camouflaged to look like a Palestinian delivery truck, with Palestinian license plates and the whole works. A few meters away was a blue civilian mid-sized car with more undercover hit men; this group also had a masked man with them, most likely a Palestinian collaborator who was used to identify the hit team's target. This assumed collaborator could have also been an Israeli fake to make Palestinian onlookers feel like they are being betrayed more so than they really are -- we will never know. A few minutes later and an Israeli armored jeep showed up clearly exposing the unraveling events below. Then a Palestinian mini-van taxi with more Israeli plainclothes military personnel appeared, now wearing only baseball caps that identified them as "POLICE."

For the most part, we stayed in the center of the office, away from the windows. Most people with me had been through this type of activity before and took it in stride, thinking that another arrest operation was taking place. Two young foreign women that were with us seemed to be experiencing this for the first time and were worried it would last long. We comforted each other with some jokes. I lightheartedly noted that the normal time this goes on for is three days. A friend said that, if that's the case, we better start rationing the two small bags of pretzels that were on the table. Our foreign colleagues smiled and relaxed a bit. We joked that the Israelis shooting up a storm down below needed to join us in our meeting to learn about international humanitarian law. Although we all laughed, we knew that this is exactly the kind of act that keeps provoking and prolonging this crisis. In the heat of the moment, one does not see the crisis, but rather sees those around as humans who need comfort and everyone supports everyone else.

The shooting and percussion grenades intensified. We all now felt that something dire was happening. With every barrage of gunfire we would pull people away from the windows which were numerous and all exposed to the gunfire. Our hosts made their case for staying in the hallway, showing us the bullet holes in the wall from past stray bullets sustained during previous Israeli adventures. While we sat this out, we also recalled when the exact same office we were in was taken over in 2002 by the Israeli military which used it as a field base when they were operating in Ramallah, placing the city under military curfew for 34 consecutive days. In that episode, the soldiers trashed the entire office, leaving their feces on top of the photocopy machine as a souvenir.

After about 45 minutes we could hear a mass of people chanting below and we could hear rocks banging against the cars. A peek out the window and we saw hundreds of Palestinian youth flooding into the main street. In front of them a convoy of Israeli military jeeps was leaving the scene. As the jeeps accelerated, the youth ran after them in a desperate and futile attempt to inflict damage on their armored vehicles by pelting them with rocks.

Our woman host looked out to the main street below; she stretched over the window ledge to see if any soldiers were still on the sidewalk below. As she stepped back from the window she was noticeably shaken. She said, "They took him away dead." I looked to see what she was referring to and the ambulance had just raced off, leaving a pool of thick, dark red blood on the sidewalk, as the only remnant indicating that hell had just visited this spot. A young female colleague standing next to me stood quietly, just weeping. It was assumed by us all that whoever was taken away in the ambulance, was taken away lifeless.

By the time we raced downstairs to the main road hundreds of people had gathered in two groups; one around the pool of blood and the other, 20 meters away, at the doorstep of Nazareth Restaurant which had its metal doors all closed, except one that was cracked open and the owner stood blocking people from entering. He was watery-eyed and visibly shaken, telling onlookers that there was nothing to see. The aftermath was less chaotic than usual, onlookers were already in mourning.

It seems seven other persons were injured and taken to the Ramallah Hospital and the Israeli military followed and surrounded the hospital! Tonight, it is yet unclear of these persons' fates. Right now, it's confirmed that one person, in Ramallah, was assassinated, point blank.

I walked away from the growing crowds to my car, which was parked out of the line of fire. As I drove home, I found many of the roads leading into the city center were full of rocks. It become clear that this was a rather large operation and Israeli jeeps stationed at the city's entry points all met with resistance from those who were around at the time with the only 'weapon' readily available, stones.

On my way home, I passed the Presidential Compound on Radio Street. This is Mahmoud Abbas's headquarters. Only a few hours before it was reported in the news that he announced that he will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert on June 7 to discuss the 'peace process.' Alone, I just shook my head and wondered for how long can this Palestinian President, this Palestinian Authority Government, and this Palestinian Legislative Council continue to go through the empty motions of governance under military occupation, while Israel, with full internationally-sanctioned impunity, assassinates Palestinian citizens -- those very same security personnel that are supposed to hold the peace -- in broad daylight, arrests dozens from their beds every night -- including ministers, mayors and legislators -- and prohibit millions of Palestinians whom they have displaced from returning to their homes.

I guess the more accurate question I should be asking myself is until when will the Palestinian people continue to accept such inept leadership?

It is now being reported by the Palestinian Ministry of Information that:
Israel undercover 'special forces' executed a Palestinian man at point blank range this afternoon during an attack on Ramallah. The man, identified as Omar Abu Daher, a member of Mahmoud Abbas' Presidential Guard, was initially shot in the leg outside the offices of the Health, Development, Information and Policy Institute on Ramallah's Main Street.

When he fell to the ground, Israeli undercover forces executed him with a shot to the back of the head at close range. He was killed instantly.

Paramedics from the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) managed to retrieve his body, which they transported to Sheikh Zayed Hospital in Ramallah. Doctors said that Daher had been shot 24 times all over his body.

As I close this writing, the shooting outside has been nonstop for almost an hour, mainly coming from the direction of the Al-Amari Refugee Camp, which is walking distance from my home. Most likely, this is from Palestinians, shooting in air, in an act of defiance (and desperation) after the loss of their fallen comrade.

As I put my daughters to bed, I pray for those that fell today, all of them, and their families. I give thanks that my daughters were not with me tonight to see what I saw and hear what I heard. I also pray for those innocent Israeli citizens that will fall victim to the inevitable revenge attacks that I saw brewing this evening with my own eyes in the streets of Ramallah.

The sad fact is that it does not have to go on like this. The world could bring Israel into line with international humanitarian law, United Nations resolutions and common sense to stop this nonsense, this waste, this needless human loss.

-------------
Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American businessman living in Al-Bireh/Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. He is co-author of HOMELAND: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians (1994). He can be reached at sbahour@palnet.com