Shame on me. Perhaps aggregating news has made me desensitized to the barbaric daily violence inflicted against Palestinians. I skipped over the following headline from my list today and chose one about Jordan’s Abdullah & Grapel instead, as if they are more worthy of recognition than this little girl:
Child Suffers Quadriplegia After Being Shot By Israel Army Fire During Training
Palestinian medical sources in occupied Jerusalem reported that a 4-year-old child, was shot by a stray live round in her neck fired by Israeli soldiers during training at the Anatot military base, built on lands illegally annexed from the residents Anata Palestinian town, north of Jerusalem.
http://www.imemc.org/article/62371
Her name is Aseel Ara’ra, a picture of can be found here. I wish I could apologize to her.
aseel via Maan
Update: Original version of this piece carried the wrong picture of Aseel. Thanks to commenters for correction.
” skipped over the following headline from my list today and chose one about Jordan’s Abdullah & Grapel instead, as if they are more worthy of recognition than this little girl:”
Thank you. What a heartbreaking story. I often avoid looking at these pictures because my stomach goes funky and I start to lose it. BUT Americans should be forced to look at the results of our support for Israel no matter what.
Dead Iraqi bodies, injured Iraqi people etc. Look at the results of our support and invasions.
Have been out to the Dayton Ohio Veterans Administration with my WWII father many times the last four years. Just recently had to go there several times with him (he is in a wheelchair, unable to walk) to get a new wheelchair etc (the etc is very involved) Anyway once I was able to get my father transported back to the nursing home that is now his home due to serious complications I went back into the VA and sat and talked with two Iraqi Vets who were both missing limbs. I had been with my father in the wheelchair special equipment section of the VA. One young man had three limbs missing, the other two legs up to the knees. Did not talk with them at the same time.
After talking with them about the service they were receiving at the VA, the weather, etc etc (again do not push or probe the Vets I talk with unless they open a door, and many do if you spend enough time with them and are really interested in what they have been through) But even after talking about light issues I had to find a restroom, go into a stall and cry for their serious and honorable losses. So sad that they sacrificed their limbs to a war based on a “pack of lies”
My understanding of the (so called) law is that occupier cannot take (or take over) land except for reasons of military necessity.
TRAINING could be done in pre-67 Israel, so training in OPTs is not necessary — and is illegal.
I wish I could apologize to her and to all the others for the intransigent, insensitive refusal of most of the human race (or of its governments, anyhow) to prevent this sort of thing by (at a bare minimum) enforcing the existing (since 1949) international law of belligerent occupation.
When Israeli thugs are captured, they’re held for years, and they aren’t tortured, they aren’t starved or abused, they aren’t bricked up in solitary confinement with nothing.
Meanwhile, those same thugs kill children wantonly just by training veritably in their backyards. Like a daisy stomped flat under jack boots… or maybe ants under the magnifying glass of a bully.
Israel may be incredibly successful at force of arms, but history will remember the “Jewish nation” as one of the most callous and vile regimes in human history.
OK. That’s the Palestinian version of the story. It’s not credible, especially given that the photo is not of Aseel Arara. It is a photo from 2006.
http://proisraelbaybloggers.blogspot.com/2011/10/fauxtography-101-more-photo-fraud-from.html
And no, they’re not lying; here’s the original:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-05/21/content_4580676.htm
I’m sort of wondering how pnn ended up using this photo. It’s pretty brazen and pretty stupid given how fast and easy it is to check these things.
Maybe it would be worth looking into what sort of medical support and life she can expect as a stateless Palestinian from a refugee camp and compare it to what paralysed Israelis can expect. Because that is the evil of racial discrimination in a nutshell.