May I suggest a link to www.theactivist.co.uk which covers a number of global

political issues as well as domestic UK issues but which especially supports

action to establish a Palestinian state and stop the blatant expansionism of

Israel and its human rights abuses. Another focus is on the continuing US

imperialism which threatens world peace and stability.

A corresponding link to the appropriate part of the aljazeerah web site can be

provided if you advise which part.

Editor: Your link has been added to Peace Activists section.

I'm am constantly shocked by the amount of propaganda used by your website. I applaud you for showing the Muslim point of view through out the world. I am a strong supporter of Israel and I am Jewish as well, but I read your site everyday, looking at the articles, pictures, cartoons and mostly the reader letters and your responses to them.

I would firstly like to say that the usage of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic cartoons does not further peace, it only promotes hatred towards ALL Jews, not simply Israelis. Showing Jewish people as old men with black hats, beards and large noses, with evil looking faces is EXACTLY what the Nazi's did to decencitize the average German, causing them to hate Jews and therefore sit back while Hitler exterminated 6 Million of us.

I especially enjoy the letters to the editor. I enjoy learning about other people's opinions and beliefs, but I am disappointed when many of their arguments are based on incorrect information, or Arab propaganda.

I have said this many many times, and I will say it once again. A Palestinian state CANNOT depend on Israel returning to its "original" borders, mostly because the people in power (such as Arafat) consider Palestinian borders to be all of Israel. This is interesting because never in the Palestinian people's history as it owned any land, at all. The original partition plan (which was decided by the UN) called for Jerusalem to be an international city, and the Palestinians to have much more land than just the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Yet instead of sharing the land, like so many Palestinians now say they want, they ATTACKED Israel, and four other Arab nations attacked as well. Therefore to secure Israel's borders, they took more land than was originally given. Now many people call this Imperialism, but it is not. Israel accepted the plan, they were ready to live side by side with their Arab neighbours. But the Arabs attacked them right away.

I apologize for the history lesson, I am sure that you are already well aware of the History of the land. Looking back at our past will solve nothing, and will not resolve this conflict. I only hope that if you choose to look into the past, that you use the correct information about the past rather than spewing propaganda. Thank you very much,

Dear Sir,

I hope Al-Jazeerah.info would be one of those media that would be able to balance the propaganda media of the US and some western countries, particularly Islamic Countries

I am from Malaysia and have began fed up reading the US and western controlled media that continuously project this country (and other Islamic countries) in the negative way such as her incompetent leaders, undemocratic, oppressive and suppressive leader, non-religious freedom and many more other accusations which as a Malaysian and staying here obviously knows the true picture. But foreigners who rely on them as their sole source of information are getting all the false news.

This has been and will always be their intentions to discourage investment into an Islamic country which has project herself where Islam is a religion for progress. However US and Western media are trying very hard to project that all Islamic countries are backward, oppressive, non-democratic, etc etc and that Islam is synonymous with backwardness.

I therefore urge Al- Jazeerah.info to counter such lies by actually giving true picture of other Muslim countries. As an independent media and a third party reporting, your coverage will be more credible for the readers.

Dear Sir

I am an Epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine a leading school of Public Health in the UK. I am researching, collating and analyzing information on the short, medium and long term impacts of the war on Iraq in order to disseminate accurate information on the impact of this war on the health of the Iraqi population.

Among the indicators I will be examining are deaths (direct and indirect), morbidity (changes in incidence of old diseases and emergence of new ones), number of persons injured, numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons, maternal and child health, immunisation coverage, nutritional status and mental health. In addition to damage to infrastructure (such as damage to hospitals, electricity grids, water and sanitation plants) and the environment.

I am writing to you as I am trying to access information from media (BBC, Reuters, The Guardian Newspaper) and non-governmental organisations (World Health Organisation, UNICEF, Oxfam) and was wondering if you could provide me with any information you think may be useful to this project. I appreciate any help you can provide.

Many Thanks

Research Fellow in Epidemiology

However, you can check aljazeerah.info news items during March and April. There is a lot of the information you're looking for. Good luck. Also check the documents section for a website that focuses on depleted uranium.

More:

Iraqi children face death from malnutrition -- UN

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14423692.htm

photo:

http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/imagerepository/iqchildren.jpg

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blpic-bushregimecards.htm

from a political humor site

Israel Uses Women, Children As Shields In Jenin: Witnesses

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-05/14/article11.shtml

photo:

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-05/14/images/pic11.jpg

May 15th 2003

PAC-PRESS

The Palestinian American Congress (PAC) commemorates

today (May 15th) Al-Nakbah.

Activities to bring the Palestinian community together on this day

have been on going throughout this week. In New Jersey, an art

exhibit and a lecture; in New York, a picnic with music and poetry,

in Houston, an art exhibit, in California, a picnic and a gathering

to honor Rachel Corrie; and many more.

The following two articles shed some light on this tragic day:

Our colleague and National Board member Hesham Tillawi

wrote the second article named Al-Nakbah.

__________________________________________

Al -Nakba (Arabic for Catastrophe) is the expression that was

named after the historic and tragic event of the ETHNIC

CLEANSING (compulsory population transfer for political aims),

and DISPOSSESSION of the Palestinian people for the past five

and a half decades. In 1948, hundreds of thousands of

Palestinian native inhabitants were forced to abandon their

lands, homes and properties and flee from their homeland,

under the constant attacks of the Zionist gangs.

These gangs were funded by several countries and private

Jewish rich people, in an effort to create a national homeland for

the Jews.

Until this very day, the Zionist attempts to dislocate the

Palestinian people continue, taking several forms and names,

recently dubbed the policy of "Transfer". This policy represents a

firm and solid proof to the continuous efforts that have been

exerted for the past 55 years to forger facts and deny

Palestinians the right to return to their homeland, the right to live

freely and the right for self determination.

Palestinian refugees fled to different place; some fled to the

neighboring countries around Palestine, others fled inside

Palestine and lived in refugee camps, built for them by UN

agencies, and the others were dispersed in several countries

around the world.

All these refugees had a common dream ?? to go back to their

original homes. Generations and generations of refugees

passed, and with each remembrance day of Al-Nakba, this

dream is revived, and Palestinians in Diaspora look forward to

the day where they would go back again to their stolen Palestine.

Parents teach their children from where they originally came in

Palestine, and urge them to pass this heritage to their children.

__________________________________________________

_____________

"I am particularly amazed by the flight of the Arabs. This is a

more extraordinary episode in the annals of this country than the

establishment of a Jewish state. Truly astonishing is that the

Arabs have disappeared from a whole section of the country,"

wrote the first Israeli foreign minister Moshe Sharette on June 16

1948.

SAFSAF- a Palestinian village- 52 men tied with a rope and

dropped into a well and shot. 10 more were killed. Women

pleaded for mercy, three were raped, and a girl aged 14 was

raped. Another 4 were killed. This was a scene from 1948.

" They do it in the middle of the nights. Quietly, stealthily. In

large groups. Well organized militias-armed and all. A crowed of

about 50 religious settlers. Came in the night to two houses in

Israeli-annexed, Arab East Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarah, over the

Green line. They threw a child out of the broken window they had

entered by. A two-year old flying baby, falling from the 2nd story

window…" This was a scene from the end of April 2003. As

reported in Haaretz on April 29,2003, this group of terrorists were

escorted to this location by Tourism Minister Benny Elon of

Sharon government. From 1948 until now the scene had not

changed much. 1948 saw the birth of "Israel" and the birth of the

Palestinian refugee problem. The British Mandate over

Palestine was ending on May 14, 1948. The British were

supposed to bear responsibility for preserving law and order

until midnight, May 14, 1948. On several occasions they

defended Jewish settlements and neighborhoods. They did not,

however attempt to prevent the advance of the Haganah- Jewish

terrorist group- or the flight and expulsion of the Arabs. In some

cases they even helped the Arabs leave their homes. At the

same time they coordinated the transfer of many aspects of

government with the Jewish agency. This smooth transfer of

power was Britain's final contribution to the Jewish national

home.

By the end of the fighting in 1949, almost a million

Palestinians were forced off their land. More than 400 of the 500

Arab villages in Palestine had been taken over by the Israelis.

The inhabitants of these villages were driven out or fled in terror,

their land was confiscated and they were forbidden to return to

their land

Early May 1948 speaking to the People's Council, Israel's

first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion claimed that no Jewish

settlement to date had been abandoned in the war- in contrast

with " some hundreds Arab settlements" He asserted that "the

Arabs had abandoned cities with great ease, after the first

defeat, even though no danger of destruction or massacre

confronted them. Indeed it was revealed with overwhelming

clarity which people is bound with strong bonds to this land".

But in fact it was exactly the danger of destruction and the

massacres that were the cause of the Arab abandonment of

their homes. At the same moment that Ben-Gurion was saying

that, the Palmah- a Jewish terrorist group-was massacring

some seventy Arab prisoners near Ein az Zeitun and several

Arabs in the village itself.

To help Sherret's with his amazement and to expose

Ben-Gurion's lies that the Palestinians were in no danger when

they left their homes in 1948 let us look at a small sample of

what was happening in 1948:

At Sabbarin, the village fled after 20 were killed in the village, =

an IZL armored car fired at the fleeing villagers. "More than one

hundred old people, women and children, who had not fled from

Sabbarin and other villages, were held for few days behind

barbed wires at an assembly point in Sabbarin, after which they

were expelled to the Arab town of Umm al Fahm. The Jewish

troops combed the villages to ascertain that they were empty and

to make sure they remain empty. In the town of Lydda, a

massacre took place. 300 to 400 Israeli troops entered the town.

They were ordered to shoot at any thing that moves. The town

people took fright at the sounds of shooting outside believing

that a massacre was taken place, they rushed into the streets,

and were cut down by Jewish fire. In accordance with the Zionist

plan, the Haganah and other Zionist groups launched a series of

military attacks, the fully anticipated result of which was the

Arabs' flight from Palestine. These attacks were the most

important single factor in the exodus of April-June from both the

cities and villages. This is demonstrated clearly by the fact that

each exodus occurred during and in the immediate wake of each

military assault. No town was abandoned by the bulk of its

population before Jewish attack. Haifa, an Arab city of 70,000

strong Palestinians in 1947. In April 1948, an attack on Arab

refinery workers caused some 15,000 to 20,000 to flee the city.

The attacking Jewish forces brought in Jeeps broadcasting

recorded horror sounds including shrieks, wails and anguished

moans of Arab women. The wail of sirens and the clang of

firearm bells, interrupted by a sepulchral voice calling in Arabic:

Save your souls, all ye faithful, flee for your lives. According to an

eyewitness's account of a Haganah officer: "the threats to use

poison gas and atomic weapons against the Arabs made the

Arabs of Haifa flee the city." By the end of the war, only 3500

Arabs remained in the city. Watching the Arabs flee Ben-Gurion

exclaimed, "What a beautiful sight". David Ben-Gurion was the

architect of the 1948 War and the expulsion of the Arabs. As far

back as the late 1930s, Ben-Gurion said: "I support compulsory

transfer. I don't see in it anything immoral".

Ad Dawayima in late October. A soldier eyewitness

described how the IDF, capturing the village " without a fight first

killed about 80-100 Arab men, women and children. The children

they killed by breaking their heads with sticks. There was not a

house without dead. The remaining Arabs were then closed off

in houses without food and water, as the village was

systematically razed". SA'SA- cases of mass murder, over 1000

dead. People lifted white flags. A sacrifice was offered to feed the

troops. The whole village was expelled. Saliha- 94 were blown

up with a house.

The Palestinians left their homes for two reasons, the first

and for most they were expelled from their homes by force, and

the second, they were afraid for their lives from the terror and the

horror stories they had heard of the Jews massacring men,

women, and children as they had done in the village of Deir

Yassin. The Jewish campaign of ethnic cleansing started way

before Israel became a state, and before the British army left the

country. On April 3 1948 the Haganah, forced the 994 residents

of Khirbet Azzun to leave their village. On April 10, the 620 Arab

residents of Ad Dumeir, the 910 Bedouins from Arab an-Nufeiat,

and 340 Bedouins of Arab al-foqara were expelled from their

homes. On April 15, some 650 Arabs from Miska and an

uncounted number from Khirbet as-Sarkas were kicked out of

their homes. On May 12 1948, 600 residents of Najd and 1200

residents of Sumsum were forced out. Zarnuga and Kaukaba,

with population of 2600 and, 1870 were forced out on May 27 19

48 by the Givati Brigade and 800 Arabs from the village of Huj

were forced out on May 28th. Arab Rubin's 1550 residents were

expelled on June 1st, and Yibna with a population of 5920, was

emptied by force on June 4th .

This was only a partial list of what had happened in

Palestine in 1948. None of these expellees were allowed to

return to their villages once the war was over. One of the most

famous massacres took place at the village of Deir Yassin in the

hills on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Its residents were

considered passive, peaceful and friendly to the Jews. Its

leaders had agreed with an adjacent Jewish neighborhood,

Givat Shaul, that each side would prevent its own people from

attacking the other side. The city had not been in any way a threat

militarily to the Jews. The Irgun and Lehi Jewish terrorist groups

headed by Menachem Begin laid plans for an attack on the

village. A force of 120 men went into the village. One of its

leaders, Benzion Cohen, later said of the men who participated

in the attack, "The majority was for liquidation of all men, in the

village and any other force that opposed us, whether it be old

people, women, or children." 256 people were murdered in the

village. No one was spared. Old men, women and children.

Pregnant women were killed and their babies were cut out of

their wombs with knives and daggers. Bodies were left in the

street for the others to see. Some of the survivors were put in the

back of trucks, blindfolded and hands bound were paraded

through the streets of the Jewish controlled side of Jerusalem.

News of this massacre sent shock waves through Arab

communities, where Deir Yassin quickly became a name of

infamy and a source of terrible fear for the Arab population of

Palestine. After this "excellent" and, "great" operation Menachem

Begin, who later became Israel's prime minister issued a

message to his troops: "Accept my congratulations on this

splendid act of conquest. Convey my regards to all the

commanders and soldiers. We shake your hands. We are all

proud of the excellent leadership and the fighting spirit in this

great attack. Tell the soldiers: you have made history in Israel

with your attack and your conquest. Continue thus until victory. As

in Deir Yassin, so everywhere, we will attack and smite the

enemy. God, God, Thou hast chosen us for conquest."

55 years and counting, the Palestinians are still faced with

the same atrocities they faced back in 1948. Thousands of

Palestinians killed by the Israeli army just in the last two years.

The Security Council of the United Nations issued resolution 181

back in 1948 requiring the return of all Palestinian refugees to

their homes, 55 years later, refugees are still refugees, and

Israel still a member of the United Nations.

The Palestinians have been asked to control their

extremists from attacking Israel, as a first step to satisfy the

Road Map requirements, but who will control the extremists'

government in Israel today?