[R-G] 'Israel occupation worse than swine flu'

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=94054&sectionid=351020202

'Israel occupation worse than swine flu'
Fri, 08 May 2009 17:53:26 GMT

The Israeli crackdown on a Bilin protest
Activists have taken up the cudgels on behalf of a free homeland,  
claiming that the swine flu-ridden Palestine would hurt less than the  
one under the occupation of Israel.

On Friday, the Palestinian and foreign activists in the West Bank  
village of Bilin renewed their complaint of the Israeli occupation,  
AFP reported.

"The world today is extremely interested in swine flu because it has  
killed people but it has forgotten that what we suffer from is worse,"  
one protester, Abdullah Abu Rahmeh was quoted as saying.

"We are trying to draw the world's attention to a virus that is much  
more dangerous than swine flu, the virus of the Israeli occupation  
that has caused the deaths of thousands of Palestinians," he added.

They wore protective masks and unfurled banners reading "put an end to  
occupation flu."

The demonstrators usually protest at Tel Aviv's erection of a 723- 
kilometer separation wall in the nearby village of Ni'lin. The barrier  
encroaches upon vast expanses of the Palestinian land under the  
pretext of 'protecting' Israeli settlers - who on the same day had  
killed a Palestinian.

Israel, which has detected seven cases of affliction with the A(H1N1)  
strain of the flu, was the first to report sufferers in the Middle East.

Since its April outbreak, the viral disease has reportedly hit 2,371  
people the world over.

The US-based anti-Semitism watch, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL),  
has accused the Arab media of taking advantage of the contagion to  
provoke aversion towards the Jews, Jerusalem Post reported on Tuesday.

The center targeted dailies such as the Qatari Al-Watan and UK-based  
Al-Quds al-Arabi's publication of cartoons which depicted the Israeli  
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a swine.

HN/MD