#the lede

[sohaibsmart]

Grace and Shame | The New Yorker

On a damp Charleston night ten years in the past, a ninth-grade dropout with a bowl haircut named Dylann Roof walked right into a Bible-study class at Mom Emanuel A.M.E. Church, dwelling to the oldest traditionally Black congregation in South Carolina. Roof, twenty-one, carried a .45-calibre Glock semi-automatic and eight magazines of hollow-point bullets. He settled right into a seat close to…

[sohaibsmart]

Donald Trump and the Iran Disaster

“Historical past doesn’t repeat itself, however it rhymes.” Whether or not or not Mark Twain ever actually mentioned that line, it suits and resonates loudly as President Trump shuttles between the Oval Workplace and the State of affairs Room, weighing if he ought to dispatch bombers on one more American sortie to the Center East. First, the required caveats. Since seizing energy, in 1979, Iran’s…

[cloudywithachanceoffajr]

Neesh Neesh.....Journalists Punched by Israeli Officers After Fatal Shooting at West Bank Checkpoint

Very not cool news came out of the West Bank over the weekend, which yet again proves the catch 22 of having young soldiers leading patrol units......

The original article appeared in the NYT blog, The Lede, and was written by Robert Mackey 

(Dec 14) Two Palestinian journalists working for Reuters were punched, hit with rifle butts and forced to strip by Israeli soldiers on Wednesday as they tried to reach the scene of a fatal shooting at a West Bank checkpoint, the news agency reports. The soldiers then confiscated the crew’s camera and gas masks before letting off a tear-gas canister which forced one of the men to seek medical treatment.

Although the journalists had press credentials, they were not allowed to show them by the officers, who accused them of working instead for an Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, which provides video cameras to Palestinians to help document life under Israeli military occupation.

Someone who was does work with the Israeli rights group managed to record video at the checkpoint in the city of Hebron, just after the fatal shooting of Muhammad al-Salameh, 17.

As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported, the officer who shot the boy said that she fired only after the boy attacked another officer and pulled out a toy gun that looked real. A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, Captain Barak Raz, posted an image on Twitter of what he said was the toy gun in the boy’s possession on Twitter.

The dead boy’s uncle told Agence France-Presse, “The plastic gun story isn’t true and it is all fabrication,” adding that Muhammad was stopped by the officers on his way to a bakery to pick up a cake for his 17th birthday party. A photograph said to show Muhammad hours before he was shot and killed, grinning during a birthday celebration at school, circulated online after his death.

According to a report on the Israeli news blog +972, the dead boy’s family said that “none of those who knew Muhammad had ever seen” the toy gun in his possession. The blogger added that while the two versions of events do not match, “Luckily, the checkpoints in Hebron are monitored by Israeli security cameras, and I am sure that if her story is true, the I.D.F. will release the video, showing a 17-year-old teen taking out a toy gun and holding it to the head of a soldier.”

The young female officer who fired the fatal shots, described in Israeli media reports as a 19-year-old, told The Jerusalem Post, “I know I did the right thing. This is what they taught us, to fire at the terrorist in order to neutralize them, fake gun or not.”

The Israeli security forces in Hebron are there in large numbers to protect several hundred Jewish settlers who moved to the city of nearly 200,000 Palestinians after it was occupied by Israel’s military in 1967. The shooting took place near the boy’s home and the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a site revered by Jews and Muslims as the traditional burial place of the founding fathers of both religions.

(As a personal side note, having spent some time in Hebron in 2007, the Jewish community there disgusted me in their openness to condone racism and violence against Arabs - it is the only place in Israel where I've seen Jews throwing stones at Palestinian women and children)

The Foreign Press Association in Israel said in a statement describing the incident that it “condemns in the strongest terms the assault by Israeli soldiers of two of our members in Hebron.” The statement continued:

Yousri Al Jamal and Ma’amoun Wazwaz, both highly experienced cameramen who work for Reuters, were stopped while driving to the scene of a shooting incident in the heart of the city. Their car was clearly marked ‘TV’ and they were both wearing blue flak jackets with ‘Press’ emblazoned on the front. The soldiers forced them to leave the vehicle at gunpoint, punching them and hitting them with the butts of their guns. The two men were not allowed to show their ID and were made to strip and kneel in the street with their hands behind their head. One of the soldiers then dropped a tear-gas canister in front of the men and the IDF patrol ran away. More tear gas was fired as Jamal and Wazwaz tried to escape the scene. Wazwaz was overwhelmed by the fumes and needed hospital treatment.

The group also welcomed Israel’s promise to investigate the incident, but added that it is still waiting to hear the results of the Israeli military’s investigation into an attack on a journalist in another part of the West Bank four months ago.

Paul Danahar, the group’s chairman and the BBC’s Middle East bureau chief, was distinctly downbeat about the possibility of the military’s investigation in a message posted on Twitter shortly before the statement was released.

[politicsditto]

Image by: Bulent Kilic AFP/GETTY 

Rami al-Sayed, whose images of the fierce military assault in Homs were broadcast around the world in recent weeks, was the victim of intense shelling at close range, an uploaded video shows.

[hemlock-on-a-nurselog]

[philippelazaro]

Locating Loved Ones

If you are looking for information on people in the quake zone, Google has opened a Person Finder page.

Ushahidi, a crowdsourcing mapping tool, has set up a local platform for Japanthat allows people in the area affected by the earthquake to text the location of people who may be trapped in damaged buildings.

Inquiries concerning U.S. citizens living or traveling in Japan should be referred to the U.S. Department of State, Office of Overseas Citizens Services at 1-888-407-4747 or 202 647-5225.

Aid and Charitable Organizations

Each of the following groups have set up fundraising sites specifically for the victims of Friday’s earthquake and tsunami.

AMERICAN RED CROSS Red Cross officials say donors can text REDCROSS to 90999 and a $10 donation will automatically be charged to donor’s phone bill, or donations can be made directly on its Web site.

AMERICARES Information is available on the organization’s Web site.

CARE CARE is one of the world’s largest private international humanitarian organizations. Their offices in Asia are on high alert and have ensured that staff are informed of the tsunami warnings and other related developments.

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS Information is available on the organization’s Web site.

GLOBALGIVING.ORG GlobalGiving is working with International Medical Corps, Save the Children, and other organizations on the ground to disburse funds to organizations providing relief and emergency services to victims of the earthquake and tsunami. Donors can text JAPAN to 50555 to give $10, and larger increments can be submitted on GlobalGiving’s Web site.

INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS Information is available on the organization’s Web site.

LIONS CLUBS INTERNATIONAL Information is available on the organization’s Web site.

THE SALVATION ARMY The Salvation Army has been providing food and shelter to Tokyo commuters who were stranded when public transportation was interrupted by the earthquake. They are to send a team to Sendai, a city about 250 miles Tokyo, to assess the situation there. Text JAPAN or QUAKE to 80888 to make a $10 donation. (Make sure to respond “YES” to the Thank You message you receive.) Donations can also be made on the organization’s Web site or by calling 1-800-SAL-ARMY.

SAVE THE CHILDREN To make a donation, visit Save the Children’s Web site, call 1-800-728-3843, or text JAPAN to 20222 to donate $10.

SHELTERBOX.ORG Shelterbox.org is a disaster-relief organization that focuses on providing survival materials such as tents and cooking equipment to families displaced by disasters.

UJA-FEDERATION OF NEW YORK Information is available on the organization’s Web site or by calling [phone].