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<h1 class="title" id="page-title">US senator filibusters live
coverage of powerful Palestinian testimonies</h1>
<div class="submitted">
<span property="dc:date dc:created"
content="2014-08-05T12:00:26+00:00" datatype="xsd:dateTime"
rel="sioc:has_creator">Submitted by <span class="username"
xml:lang="" about="/users/rania-khalek"
typeof="sioc:UserAccount" property="foaf:name" datatype="">Rania
Khalek</span> on Tue, 08/05/2014 <br>
<b><small><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/us-senator-filibusters-live-coverage-powerful-palestinian-testimonies">http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/us-senator-filibusters-live-coverage-powerful-palestinian-testimonies</a></small></small></small></small></b><br>
</span> </div>
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<div id="file-28288" class="file file-image file-image-png
media-element file-full" style="width:618px;"><br>
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<p>On Friday, 15-year-old <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/tariq-abukhdeir">Tariq
Abukhdeir</a> spoke at a <a
href="http://www.c-span.org/video/?320809-1/discussion-israelpalestinian-conflict">hearing
on Capitol Hill</a> about the brutal beating he endured at the
hands of Israeli police in early July. </p>
<p>The purpose of the hearing was to address Israeli impunity and
US <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/complicity">complicity</a>
in crimes against Palestinians. Tariq was one of six panelists
to address the room, which was overflowing with congressional
staffers.</p>
<p>Moderated by author and campaigner <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/people/josh-ruebner">Josh
Ruebner</a>, other panelists included Tariq’s mother; Suha Abu
Abukhdeir; Hassan Shibly of the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/council-american-islamic-relations">Council
on American-Islamic Relations</a>, Florida chapter; Sunjeev
Bery from <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/amnesty-international">Amnesty
International</a>; Brad Parker from <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/defence-children-international-palestine-section">Defence
for Children International</a> and Palestinian author <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/people/laila-el-haddad">Laila
El-Haddad</a>.</p>
<p>Though he was just one of six speakers, Tariq’s testimony was
especially powerful as he relayed to the audience the horrors
and discrimination he witnessed and experienced as a
Palestinian-American child visiting his ancestral homeland. </p>
<p>But just as Tariq started to detail <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israel-holds-us-boy-without-charge-after-police-nearly-beat-him-death">the
Israeli beating that left him unconscious</a> and
unrecognizable, CSPAN 2, which was broadcasting the hearing
live, cut to the Senate floor.</p>
<p>You can <a
href="http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4505836/barbara-boxer">watch
the whole thing back on CSPAN’s website</a>. The cut from
Tariq to Boxer occurs soon after time code 03:30.</p>
<h2>Suppressing Palestinian voices</h2>
<p>Tariq began his testimony by describing the widespread violence
Israeli soldiers inflicted on his neighborhood in occupied East
Jerusalem after his cousin and best friend, 16-year-old <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/muhammad-abu-khudair">Muhammad
Abu Khudair</a>, was kidnapped and burned alive by Jewish
vigilantes who were incited to violence by Israeli leaders
following the murder of three Israeli teens hitchhiking from an
illegal settlement in the West Bank.</p>
<p>Tariq and several of his cousins watched from an alley, Tariq
explained, as Israeli soldiers shot rubber bullets at
protesters. Eventually the soldiers were attacking in Tariq’s
direction, prompting a terrified Tariq to run. After he jumped a
fence and tripped, “the Israeli police grabbed me from behind,
slammed my face into the floor, zip-tied my hands behind my back
and started to kick me and punch me in the face and in the
ribs,” recounted Tariq.</p>
<p>For those tuning into CSPAN, this was the last they heard from
Tariq, whose speech was suddenly replaced by Democratic Senator
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/barbara-boxer">Barbara
Boxer</a> from California on the Senate floor agitating for
greater support for Israel to a mostly empty room as most most
elected representatives had departed that day for a five-week
recess. </p>
<p>CSPAN told the The Electronic Intifada that the channel is
required to cut to the Senate floor when an elected official is
speaking. </p>
<p>Boxer’s office did not respond to calls asking if the senator
was aware that the hearing was taking place. However, organizers
collecting names of congressional staffers in attendance told
The Electronic Intifada that an intern from Boxer’s office tried
to get into the hearing but left because there was no space,
suggesting Boxer knew she was interrupting the hearing. </p>
<h2>Israeli talking points</h2>
<p>Boxer spent the next 15 minutes spewing semi-coherent
platitudes about Israeli victimhood. “We all know that our ally
Israel is in a fight for its survival because a terrorist group,
so named by the United States and Europe, is at war with Israel
right now,” Boxer declared.</p>
<p>In what seemed like a transparent attempt to counter Tariq’s
narrative, Boxer added, “we remember how it all started with the
kidnapping of three Israeli boys and their torture and their
death and a mosque praised that. Tragically there was a revenge
killing and the Israeli government arrested the Israelis
responsible for that and they are going to face justice while
Hamas praises, praises what happened.”</p>
<p>As usual reality tells a much different story.</p>
<p>Even Israeli officials openly admit that <a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/killed-turning-onslaught.html">Hamas
was not responsible</a> for the kidnapping or the murder of
the three Israeli teens, whose disappearance was used by the
Israeli government as a pretext to rampage through the West
Bank, ransacking homes and arresting hundreds of people under
the guise of a rescue mission for three boys that <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/netanyahu-government-knew-teens-were-dead-it-whipped-racist-frenzy/13533">authorities
knew had been killed</a> hours after they were reported
missing.</p>
<p>Boxer also championed the lie that Hamas broke the ceasefire
that same Friday morning by capturing an Israeli soldier.</p>
<p>It has since been revealed that the <a
href="http://www.alternet.org/world/who-broke-ceasefire-obama-blames-hamas-against-all-evidence">Israelis
broke the ceasefire</a> and subsequently <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.608715">carpet
bombed Rafah</a> with the stated aim of killing an Israeli
soldier because the Israeli army suspected he had been captured
— a procedure known as the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/did-israeli-army-deliberately-kill-its-own-captured-soldier-and-destroy-gaza">Hannibal
Directive</a>. In an attempt to kill their own soldier, the
Israeli army slaughtered over 150 Palestinians across Rafah,
which has sustained incalculable damage.</p>
<p>As Boxer continued to spew Israeli talking points, the reason
for her tirade on the Senate floor became increasingly unclear.
One moment she was blaming Hamas for violating that morning’s
ceasefire and the next she was urging the Senate to allow Israel
to participate in the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/visa-waiver-program">US
Visa Waiver Program</a>. </p>
<p>At the end of Boxer’s rant, CSPAN cut back to the hearing in
time to catch Suha Abu Abukhdeir’s closing remark: “The life of
a Palestinian in Gaza should be valued as much as the life of
any human being.”</p>
<p>Next at the podium was CAIR Florida’s Hassan Shibly, who said,
“As an American attorney, what happened to Tariq Abukhdeir at
the hands of a nation that claims to be a democracy and claims
to be an ally of the United States and —” That’s as far as
Shibly got before he was replaced by live footage of Boxer once
again on the Senate floor. This time Boxer was joined by
Democratic Senator Harry Reid from Nevada. The two interrupted
the remainder of the hearing discussing various pieces of
legislation that can’t even be voted on until the Senate
reconvenes in September.</p>
<p>Given the choke-hold pro-Israel lobbying organizations like
AIPAC have on US elected officials, it is plausible Boxer’s
maneuvering was orchestrated to suppress the reach of an open
and honest conversation about Israeli criminality, much like US
President Lyndon Johnson called an impromptu press conference to
interrupt televised coverage of former sharecropper and civil
rights activist <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07PwNVCZCcY">Fannie Lou
Hamer’s moving testimony</a> at the 1964 Democratic National
Convention. </p>
<h2>Palestinian voices are a threat</h2>
<p>The pro-Israel community has every reason to worry about the
airing of Palestinian voices like Tariq’s, Suha’s and Leila
El-Haddad’s. </p>
<p>Their experiences are undeniable proof of the supremacist
ideology that governs Israeli society and subjugates
Palestinians, even those who hold American passports. Indeed, it
is because Tariq is American that his story is so powerful. </p>
<p>In the United States, he is afforded basic rights that he was
violently denied in occupied Palestine simply because he is
Palestinian, a paradox that shatters the myth of Israel as a
democratic state. </p>
<h2>A family under attack</h2>
<p>“The Palestinian people, they don’t have rights,” said Tariq at
the hearing. “When I visited over there, I actually forgot that
I had freedom. And for my cousins, I really wish that they had
the same freedoms that I have living in America.”</p>
<p>Tariq later explained to The Electronic Intifada that his
cousins and friends who were beaten and arrested alongside him
in early July are still languishing in Israeli jails.</p>
<p>One cousin in particular, Mahmoud, is Tariq’s closest friend
and was beaten and arrested while trying to help Tariq. </p>
<p>“Mahmoud is 15 and a half like me,” Tariq told The Electronic
Intifada. “Him and Mohammed [Abu Khudair], God rest his soul,
were my first two friends that I made in Palestine. I hung out
with Mahmoud and Muhammad every day.”</p>
<p>Hours after learning that their best friend was forced to drink
gasoline and burned alive, Tariq and Mahmoud were chased and
tackled by Israeli police as part of the Israeli government’s
ongoing war on Muhammed Abu Khudair’s entire extended family in
the <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/shuafat">Shuafat</a>
neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem. </p>
<p>“Mahmoud got away but he came back to help me and got grabbed
and punched and kicked and just like me,” recounted Tariq.</p>
<p>The arrest and terror campaign inflicted on the extended Abu
Khudair family by the Israeli government has denied them an
opportunity to truly mourn the loss of Muhammad.</p>
<p>“Tariq was not able to grieve his cousin’s death as a result of
the beating Israeli police gave him that same day that his
cousin was brutally murdered by Israeli extremists,” said Suha
Abu Abukhdeir. “Instead of the police protecting us they taunted
us and told us that Muhammad was just the first to be killed and
that 300 Palestinians would be killed for the three Israeli
teenagers who were killed.”</p>
<p>It appears they made good on that promise in Gaza, where more
than 1,800 Palestinians, overwhelmingly civilians, have been
mercilessly slaughtered in one Israeli massacre after another. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Israeli government has intensified its attack on
Tariq’s family. </p>
<p>“The day after I left Palestine, they arrested all the males in
the house I was staying in, without any charges,” said Tariq,
whose family home in occupied East Jerusalem was <a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/relatives-apparent-revenge.html">raided
by Israeli police</a> hours after he departed the country. </p>
<h2>Another American teen in Israeli jail </h2>
<p>One panelist after another reminded the audience that the only
exceptional things about Tariq’s beating were that it was caught
on film, and he has an American passport. Otherwise, what
happened to him is routine for Palestinian children living under
Israeli occupation.</p>
<p>Perhaps the lack of video footage can help explain the ongoing
imprisonment of 15-year-old Mohammed Abu Nie, an American
citizen who is still in Israeli jail after he was arrested with
Tariq in early July. </p>
<p>Tariq told The Electronic Intifada that he, Abu Nie and his
cousin Mahmoud were together watching the protests when they
were chased, tackled and arrested by Israeli police. </p>
<p>Abu Nie’s imprisonment was largely unheard of until the <a
href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2014/07/229855.htm">daily
US State Department press briefing</a> on 28 July. </p>
<p>In response to a question about the status of Abu Nie’s case,
US State Department spokesperson <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/jennifer-psaki">Jennifer
Psaki</a> revealed that the American teen “was arrested on
July 3rd during protests in the Shuafat neighborhood in East
Jerusalem” and, like Tariq, stands accused of “rock-throwing,
attacking police, carrying a knife, and leading protests,” all
of which is untrue, according to Tariq, who insists they were
only watching not participating in the protests. </p>
<p>According to the State Department, Abu Nie has not seen his
parents since the night he was detained and there are
allegations that he has been beaten while in custody. </p>
<p>Psaki said that the US is “gravely concerned about the
detention of an American citizen child” but is “calling for a
speedy resolution” rather than Abu Nie’s release. </p>
<h2>“My tax dollars killed my family”</h2>
<p>Laila El-Haddad, a Gaza City native who lives in Columbia,
Maryland, opened her speech with a soul crushing statement.</p>
<p>“My tax dollars killed eight members of my family this
morning,” said El-Haddad. She went on to list the names and ages
of her slaughtered relatives, seven members of the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/israeli-airstrike-massacres-family-prominent-physician-and-author">El-Farra
family</a>. Among them were three children. Two of them were
fleeing when they were killed by a second Israeli air strike. </p>
<p>El-Hadded proceeded to deliver a short and damning history
lesson about the population that Israel has ghettoized in the
Gaza Strip. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The reality is Gaza right now is being bombarded. It is
completely blocked out, besieged and blockaded. This is a
situation unheard of in modern history for a population that
is already largely refugees, that is already besieged, that is
already stateless to then be bombarded mercilessly with no
intervention.</p>
<p>Gaza is roughly twice the size of Washington, DC, where we
all sit today. It has a little over a million and half
inhabitants, 1.7 going-on 1.8. Most of those inhabitants are
under the age of 18. Three-quarters of them are refugees,
meaning they are not from the place they are compelled to
live. They are from towns and villages, many of them
depopulated, destroyed, ethnically cleansed by Zionist
militias prior to 1948 and they sought refuge in Gaza and they
were besieged in Gaza and they are not allowed to return to
their native lands.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thanks to Senator Boxer’s lengthy tirade, El-Haddad’s testimony
did not air.</p>
<p>But at least one lawmaker heard her story.</p>
<p>Democratic Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota — who
recently issued a call in The Washington Post for an <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/keith-ellison-end-the-gaza-blockade-to-achieve-peace/2014/07/29/e5e707c4-16a1-11e4-85b6-c1451e622637_story.html">end
to the crippling blockade</a> on Gaza, a rare and risky move
for any American politician — was the only elected official to
attend the hearing.</p>
<p>Signifying a tiny but important crack in unwavering support for
Israeli crimes among US elected officials, Ellison also made an
appearance at an event featuring Tariq later that evening at
Busboys and Poets, a DC restaurant that often serves as a
progressive meeting spot.</p>
<p>“I’m embarrassed we haven’t done more,” he told the crowd that
night. </p>
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