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Zuckerman rag prints bald-faced lies on upcoming flotilla to Gaza
May 2, 2011
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Zuckerman rag prints bald-faced lies on upcoming flotilla to Gaza

NOVANEWS

 

THE NY DAILY NEWS PUTS THE LIES IN EDITORIALIZE 

 

by Alex Kane* and Nima Shirazi

 

NOTE: The following piece was co-written by Nima Shirazi and Alex Kane and was originally published onMondoweiss under the headline: “Zuckerman rag prints bald-faced lies on upcoming US flotilla to Gaza.”

Nima has added some more of his own observations on the New York Daily News editorial below:

 

MORT ZUCKERMAN — NY DAILY NEWS

It comes as no surprise that a newspaper owned by Mort Zuckerman, an ardent Zionist, would be anti-Palestinian and that it would strongly oppose efforts to break the Israeli naval blockade by sending a flotilla of ships to Gaza. But a recent editorial printed by the Zuckerman-owned New York Daily News is a particularly egregious example of U.S. media’s aversion to the facts on Israel/Palestine. The bald-faced lies–which follow recent Israeli pronouncements about the “terrorists” organizing the upcoming international flotilla to break the Israeli blockade–printed would be laughable only if it wasn’t going to be read by thousands of people.

The editorial states:

Sponsors of the flotilla are happily playing with fire, as they did a year ago in sailing into the blockade under the guise of delivering medicines and the like to Gaza. In fact, some of those ships carried suicidal fighters instead of useful goods. Nine of the brigands died when Israeli commandos were forced to board and came under assault.

New Yorkers take to the street in a Gaza Flotilla Demo!

To claim that those aboard the Mavi Marmara were the aggressors is to completely invert reality. The attack was conducted in international waters after Israel cut off all communications from the ships and surrounded the flotillawith over 20 naval vessels and warships, along with multiple helicopters. In addition to the 45 highly-trained and heavily-armed commandos who rappelled onto the largest ship, the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, murdering 9 civilians and wounding about 60 more, about 650 other Israeli troops, including surveillance and support troops alongside those who actually boarded the ships, took part in the illegal assault on the flotilla.

And then there’s these howlers:

No one of any credibility disputes that Israel’s blockade is legal under international law. In coordination with Egypt, Israel barred sea-going shipments into Gaza in 2009 after years of Palestinian mortar and rocket attacks on Jewish soil.

As a board of inquiry put it:

“Israel imposed the naval blockade on the Gaza Strip for military-security reasons, which mainly concerned the need to prevent weapons, terrorists and money” from entering.

The UN has recognized the blockade’s legitimacy under international law. Now, it must prevent this perilous propaganda ploy.

First of all, the naval blockade has been in place since 2007, along with the land and air blockade–not 2009 as the editorial claims. The “board of inquiry” the Daily News refers to is the Turkel Commission, the name for the Israeli investigation into the flotilla events–hardly a neutral source of facts about the blockade of Gaza.

And finally, it appears that Zuckerman’s newspaper likes to make up facts. The UN has not “recognized the blockade’s legitimacy under international law.” In fact, various UN reports have labeled the blockade illegal. The UN fact-finding mission on the 2008-09 Gaza conflict, known as the Goldstone report, stated that the blockade was a form of collective punishment and that it was therefore in “violation of the provisions of article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” The UN report on the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara also clearly states that the blockade is illegal. In 2009, the Associated Press reported that “U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay has accused Israel of violating the rules of war with its blockade stopping people and goods from moving in and out of the Gaza Strip.”

Alex Kane, a freelance journalist based in New York City, blogs on Israel/Palestine and Islamophobia in the United States at alexbkane.wordpress.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.

VISIT US TO GAZA BOAT

——–

UPDATE:

Clearly, the editors who wrote this piece of garbage know nothing of the actual goals of the flotilla organizers. For instance, the Free Gaza movement, which has sent numerous boats to Gaza in the past few years, states on their website that their intention is “to break Israel’s illegal stranglehold on1.5 million Palestinian civilians.” Furthermore, they continue that, along with their “coalition partners, the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza; IHH — the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights, Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief; the International Committee to End the Siege on Gaza; Ship to Gaza Sweden and Ship to Gaza Greece,” they seek to defy “Israel’s criminal closure of the Gaza Strip” and “sail as an expression of citizen nonviolent, direct action, confronting Israel’s ongoing abuses of Palestinian human and political rights.”

Free Gaza’s mission statement reveals, contrary to what the Daily News ignorantly claims, the actual goals set forth by the movement. Here is what they state:

We want to break the siege of Gaza. We want to raise international awareness about the prison-like closure of the Gaza Strip and pressure the international community to review its sanctions policy and end its support for continued Israeli occupation. We want to uphold Palestine’s right to welcome internationals as visitors, human rights observers, humanitarian aid workers, journalists, or otherwise.

We have not and will not ask for Israel’s permission. It is our intent to overcome this brutal siege through civil resistance and non-violent direct action, and establish a permanent sea lane between Gaza and the rest of the world.

Doesn’t sound much like their “only goal is to deliver humanitarian supplies.”

Likewise, the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza, which “advocates the fundamental right of the Palestinian people in Gaza to live in peace and dignity without being subjected to any form of collective punishment such as the cutting of supplies of food, fuel and medicine or their denial of free access to travel outside Gaza Strip,” declares its own goals this way:

[The ECESG] urges the participation of politicians and non-politicians alike to honor their duty to stop the suffering of one and a half million people trapped in Gaza under the most inhumane conditions. Supported by international and humanitarian law, the ECESG encourages all peoples of conscience and human rights advocates to intensify their efforts to highlight this life-threatening issue and end the catastrophe.

The U.S. Boat to Gaza describes the upcoming flotilla as an “international effort to break the blockade of Gaza and to end the occupation of Palestine.” Additionally, as an American delegation, the US Boat believes that “from the deck of The Audacity of Hope, we will be in a powerful and unique position to challenge U.S. foreign policy and affirm the universal obligation to uphold international law and human rights.”

In their mission statement, the U.S. Boat organizers declare that they “are taking action to help break the blockade which is suffocating the lives of the people of Gaza and denying them their liberty” and are joining “others from across the world to support an end to the collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza.”

All flotilla organizers stress, as the U.S. Boat does, that “we agree to adhere to the principles of nonviolence and nonviolent resistance in word and deed at all times.” Naturally, the editors of the Daily News are uninterested in these inconvenient facts, labeling the flotilla vessels “warships in disguise” and describe flotilla organizers as “terrorists…disguised as humanitarians.” Without providing any evidence, the article presents as fact the outrageous suggestion that the “ships carried suicidal fighters instead of useful goods.” Not only is the assertion that Hamas and al Qaeda operatives were aboard the flotilla ships untrue, it has been repeatedly proven false by journalists such as Max Blumenthal.

While the editorial describes the flotilla organizers as “Islamic extremists” seeking to smuggle weapons “under the guise of delivering medicines and the like to Gaza,” such allegations are absurd. The “brigands” it refers to are the nine unarmed Turkish citizens (including one Turkish American) who were executed by Israeli soldiers in international waters.

The writers also state, without hyperbole, that the nine activists “died when Israeli commandos were forced to board and came under assault.” Died? Forced to board? Came under assault? The nine passengers killed during the Israeli assault didn’t just “die,” they were shot to death by Israeli troops who illegally boarded their ship. To claim that the Israeli commandos “came under assault” is to outrageously invert the roles of aggressors and victims.

Last year, an UN report on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla massacre found, not only that the ongoing Israeli blockade of Gaza is illegal under international law and constitutes collective punishment (which is a war crime), but also:

“The conduct of the Israeli military and other personnel towards the flotilla passengers was not only disproportionate to the occasion but demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredible violence. It betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality. Such conduct cannot be justified or condoned on security or any other grounds. It constituted grave violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law.”

The report also found “clear evidence to support prosecutions of the following crimes within the terms of article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: willful killing; torture or inhuman treatment; willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health,” and stated that Israel had seriously violated its obligations under the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including the “right to life…torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment…right to liberty and security of the person and freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention…right of detainees to be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person…[and] freedom of expression.”

Additionally, in July 2010, domestic Israeli policy and its occupation conduct had been found to violate these very same statutes (among others) by the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

Based on both “forensic and firearm evidence,” the fact-finding panel concluded that the killing of American citizen Furkan Dogan and that of five Turkish citizens by the Israeli troops on the Mavi Marmara “can be characterized as extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions.”

Furthermore, even propagandistic Zionists such as the New York Times‘s Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner has admitted that all 10,000 tons of aid goods aboard the Mavi Marmara was “unquestionably humanitarian in nature.” The aid included 6,000 tons of cement, more than 2,000 tons of iron, 100 prefabricated houses, 500 wheelchairs, crutches, medical equipment, wood and glass for building, electric generators, water purifiers, a mobile dental care facility, and food. The cargo had also been confirmed not to be transporting any weaponry by authorities before its departure.

Another aid ship, the MV Rachel Corrie which carried 550 tons of cement, 20 tons of paper for printing school books, 25 tons of school supplies, 12 tons of sports equipment and 150 tons of medical supplies, was also illegally seizedby the Israeli Navy a few days after the Mavi Marmara massacre.

The need for medicine and health care supplies in Gaza is very real, despite what the editors of the Daily News may want their readers to believe. Since June 2007, “the number of Palestine refugees unable to access food and lacking the means to purchase even the most basic items, such as soap, school stationery and safe drinking water, has tripled” and over 80 UN and aid agencies agree that “the formal economy in Gaza has collapsed.” At the end of 2009, a UN report found that “insufficient food and medicine is reaching Gazans, producing a further deterioration of the mental and physical health of the entire civilian population since Israel launched Operation Cast Lead against the territory,” and “blamed the blockade for continued breakdowns of the electricity and sanitation systems due to the Israeli refusal to let spare parts needed for repair get through the crossings.” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has “called on Israel to end the blockade of Gaza,” stating, “In particular, the Government of Israel should allow unimpeded access to Gaza for humanitarian aid and the non-humanitarian goods needed for the reconstruction of properties and infrastructure.”

The United Nations – which the Daily News calls upon to stop the upcoming flotilla –reported in January 2010 that Gaza is in “socio-economic crisis” and is suffering from the “severe deterioration of the already precarious living conditions of the people in Gaza and have further eroded a weakened health system.” The UN’s World Health Organization warns specifically that the brutal Israeli blockade – a clear example of collective punishment, which is illegal under international law – and the 2008-2009 winter massacre of Gaza “have led to on-going deterioration in the social, economic and environmental determinants of health.” The report notes that “many specialized treatments, for example for complex heart surgery and certain types of cancer, are not available in Gaza and patients are therefore referred for treatment to hospitals outside Gaza” continuing that “many patients have had their applications for exit permits denied or delayed by the Israeli Authorities and have missed their appointments. Some have died while waiting for referral.”

The UN also points out that “there are often shortages” of drugs and disposables “on the ground mainly because of shortfalls in deliveries” and that “[d]elays of up to 2-3 months occur on the importation of certain types of medical equipment, such as x-ray machines and electronic devices. Clinical staff frequently lack the medical equipment they need. Medical devices are often broken, missing spare parts or out of date.”

Furthermore, the report notes that sixteen health workers were killed and twenty-five injured while on duty by Israeli strikes. Also, fifteen of Gaza’s twenty-seven hospitals, forty-five of its 110 Primary Health Care services, and twenty-nine of its 148 ambulances were either damaged or destroyed in the Israeli assault. None of these facilities have been able to be repaired in the past two years due to the fact that Israel refuses to allow building materials into Gaza.

In June 2010, the WHO said that medical equipment valued at $20 million, including “CT scanners, X-ray machines, fluoroscopes, infusion pumps, medical sterilization gases, laboratory equipment, UPS (uninterrupted power supply) batteries and spare parts for support systems such as elevators” and which were “urgently needed in Gaza had been piling up for a year waiting for clearance from Israel.”

The WHO also renewed its call “to allow for the unimpeded access into the Gaza Strip of life-saving medical supplies, including equipment and medicines, as well as more effective movement of people in and out of the territory for medical training and the repair of devices needed to deliver appropriate healthcare.” The statementcontinued:

“It is impossible to maintain a safe and effective health care system under the conditions of siege that have been in place now since June 2007,” Tony Laurance, the head of the WHO’s office for Gaza and the West Bank, said in the statement. “It is not enough to simply ensure supplies like drugs and consumables. Medical equipment and spare parts must be available and be properly maintained.”

By December 2010, the Ministry of Health in Gaza was warning that “137 types of medicine and 150 of essential medical supplies are out of stock in Gaza, among those supplies are drugs used to treat cancer and kidney patients” and that a mere “37% of required medical supplies reached the Strip this year so far.”

Thankfully, the Daily News didn’t burden its readers with these annoying facts.

The Daily News editors claim that “the true aim is to provoke a confrontation that serves as a rallying point in a drive to portray Israel as an amoral, oppressive force.” Anyone familiar with Israel history knows full well that no artificial provocation is required for Israel to be portrayed as “amoral” and “oppressive.” The actions of the Israeli government and military over the past six decades prove that such a depiction is accurate, if not woefully inadequate to describe the war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and institutionalized discrimination necessary to continue Zionist domination of Palestine.

It should also be pointed out that, when mentioning mortars and rockets shot from Gaza into Israel, the Daily Newsstates that the Palestinians were attacking “Jewish soil.”Jewish soil? Describing the State of Israel, which was established after years of massive (and illegal) Jewish immigration and months of deliberate and violent ethnic cleansing to eliminate the majority of native Muslim and Christian inhabitants from the area, as “Jewish soil” is disgusting. What does the Daily News think about the 20% of the Israeli population who are Palestinian Arabs and whose ancestors have owned and lived on the land for centuries if not longer? Whose “soil” are they living on?

Lastly, the photograph accompanying the Daily News piece shows a young Palestinian boy stocking shelves in a Gaza grocery store. The obvious implication is that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza and that the 1.5 million Palestinians there are in no need of humanitarian aid, let alone human rights solidarity.

Naturally, this suggestion ignores the fact that, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 61% of Gazans are “food insecure,” of which “65% are children under 18 years;” the level of anemia in infants is as high as 65.5%, about 70% of Gazans live on less than $1 a day, 75% rely on food aid, and 60% have no daily access to water. It also sidesteps the fact that, as Rebecca Sargent of the Peace and Collaborative Development Network has noted, “Much of the population remains unemployed and thus have no money to buy supplies for themselves. U.N. Resolution 1860 calls for the unfettered access of aid and commercial goods to Gaza, although it would appear this call has been mostly ignored by the Israeli government’s blockade.”

The photo of the Gaza grocery store is clearly another piece of propaganda meant to signify to the reader, “hey, with stores like these, can we really believe that Gaza’s inhabitants are victims of deliberate deprivation, discrimination, and occupation?”

Apparently, according to Zuckerman’s Daily News editors, where there’s a market, there’s no suffering, right? To answer this question, one need only look at these pictures of the Warsaw Ghetto marketplace in the 1940′s:




I suppose, if we are to believe the Daily News editors, there was nothing too offensive going on there, I mean, just look at all those warm coats, high heels, and storefronts!


And hey, if these children were smuggling food into the Ghetto, I suppose they had a good reason. But if Palestinians do the same in Gaza, clearly it’s because they are all murderous anti-Semites.


While the Daily News ends its piece by urging the UN to prevent the upcoming flotilla from sailing to Gaza this June, it is clear that the “perilous propaganda ploy” it warns against is actually its own unadulterated hasbara.

***

CORRECTION: Please excuse my unintentionally misleading use of “Mavi Marmara” as short-hand for all six flotilla ships. I should not have limited the phrase in question (and credited to Ethan Bronner) to only the Mavi Marmara. The 10,000 tons of aid was the cargo load of the entire flotilla, not of the Mavi Marmara alone. My attribution of all 10,000 tons of aid to the Mavi Marmara (when I should have written “the flotilla”) was indeed an error.

Nima Shirazi is a political commentator from New York City.  His analysis of United States foreign policy and Middle East issues is published on his website, WideAsleepInAmerica.com, and can also be found in numerous other online and print publications. Visit his website at: www.wideasleepinamerica.com. Follow him on Twitter@WideAsleepNima Contact him at wideasleepinamerica@gmail.com.

VISIT US TO GAZA BOAT

Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS
Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem
Chair of West Misland Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Egyptian military arrests gender-law scholar, accredited to NY bar and blogger for ‘NYT,’ at Sinai beach resort

Apr 29, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

Egyptian law scholar Amr Shalakany blogged for the NY Times during the revolution. From theDaily News of Egypt:

Law professor at the American University in Cairo Amr El-Shalakany was arrested two days ago and will be tried in a military court in Suez, according to rights activist and a member of “No for Military Trials for Civilians” campaign, Mona Saif,

El- Shalakany faces a possible sentence of 15 years in prison for “insulting the supreme military council” and causing riots and burning a police station.

Hailing from a family of prominent lawyers, El-Shalakany has not yet been officially charged. He was arrested when he attempted to drive in a restricted area near Neama Bay in Sharm El-Shiekh, one of Egypt’s top beach resorts in South Sinai.

Here’s Shalakany’s page at the American University. It says he’s a member of the New York bar. He studied at Harvard and at Columbia, in the law, gender and sexuality program. Ford Foundation, Carnegie. From one of his posts at the Times before Mubarak stepped down:

I write these lines from a post-Mubarak time zone.  I know in my heart that we are experiencing a national revolution that has nothing to do with any political party. This sweet taste of freedom is as undeniably beautiful and true as the surprisingly dignified voice I’ve rediscovered in myself, and in watching ordinary fellow Egyptians turn heroes before my eyes.

He was a board member of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a group that advocated for gays. Here’s his piece, On a Certain Queer Discomfort with Orientalism, in which he refreshingly takes on Joseph Massad’s anti-orientalist response to western ideas of gay rights in the Arab world. (Thanks to Lydda ’48)

      

The three sacred words of US-Israeli rejectionism

Apr 29, 2011

Tim Haughton

 

I have a confession. I love the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. I can, and often do, read it for hours. It is a treasure trove, home to some of the best propaganda on the planet.

The MFA website is also home to the three sacred words. Words, which when uttered correctly, underpin decades of US-Israeli rejection of a peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine. With reverence and hushed tone, I will now utter them:

Concession. Intransigence. Precondition.

The first two are usually used together with the correct qualifiers, and become “Israeli concessions” and “Palestinian intransigence”. This is the discursive framework we use to characterise the history of “negotiations” in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Israel will bend over backwards to try to find a solution but the stubborn Palestinians stick to their guns.

“Preconditions” are what the Palestinians use to avoid negotiations. Preconditions like insisting Israel gives up its right to settle in Judea and Samaria. Preconditions like insisting that negotiations be based upon international law.

These words are important, as they represent textbook truth inversions; reality turned on its head, or what Orwell would have termed doublespeak.

When asked, Israel’s supporters are hard pressed to name an actual Israeli concession since 1948. I often get two examples thrown at me:

  • We “gave back Gaza” in the interests of peace.

  • We “gave back the Sinai” in the interests of peace.

Both examples ignore the obvious point that it is a fundamental principle of international law that it is inadmissible to acquire territory through war, therefore they were never Israeli territory to begin with. You will note that any time Israel observes international law, it is framed as a “concession”. 

As for “Palestinian intransigence”, this is the term we use when Palestinian negotiators ask for their legal entitlements under international law. Historically, this is a rare event. We’ve seen from the Palestine Papers the extraordinary concessions offered by the Palestinians, concessions, that were flatly rejected by Israel.

Using the framework of international law renders Israel’s use of these terms ridiculous. The only framework in which they make sense is the framework of Israel’s territorial aspirations.

The sacred word “precondition” is used in even more impressive ways, and again, the use of the term makes sense only if we use Israel’s territorial ambitions as the reference point. If we use international law as our reference point, it becomes plain that it is Israel demanding the preconditions.

Israel’s extreme preconditions were, until recently:

  • Israel must be allowed to continue violating international law and international humanitarian law during the negotiations.

  • Israel must be allowed to continue stealing Palestinian land during the negotiations.

  • Israel must be allowed to continue its policy of ethnic cleansing during the negotiations.

Preconditions so extreme, that no self respecting negotiator could claim to represent his people’s best interests were he to accept them.

To the enormous credit of Israeli propagandists, and to the enormous shame of the corporate media, Israel has managed to successfully portray their extreme preconditions as beingPalestinian preconditions, rather than Israeli.

From the wonderful MFA website, I would like to quote the official Israeli position on preconditions for negotiations:

In Israel’s view, preconditions of this kind are counterproductive to peacemaking…

Peace talks should be used as an opportunity to solve differences, not to create new obstacles. Both the United States and Israel made [it] clear…that Israeli-Palestinian talks would be conducted without preconditions. While it is natural that both parties have complaints about the other’s actions, Israel does not use them as a threat to boycott talks…

Making preconditions is a Palestinian tactic, not used by Israel.

Emphasis mine.

Above, I used the qualifier “until recently” when detailing Israel’s extreme preconditions. While Israel always uses preconditions, it usually maintains the propaganda to keep reality inverted. Following the recent announcement of reconciliation between Hamas and Fateh, and the proposed formation of a unity government, the US-Israel alliance has dropped all pretenses and jumped straight in with a (slightly familiar) set of extra preconditions:

  • Hamas must recognise Israel / Israel’s right to exist.

  • Hamas must renounce violence.

As well as contradicting their own stated policies, Israel’s new preconditions are feebly asymmetric.

  • The US-Israel alliance demands that Hamas renounce violence, but Israel most definitely should be allowed to indulge in routine violence.

  • The US-Israel alliance demands that Hamas recognises Israel, but the suggestion that Israel should recognise Palestine is just silly.

There has also been increased reference to Hamas’ notoriously anti-Semitic charter. Conspicuously absent is any reference to Likud’s charter, which commits the party to the destruction of Palestine. 

To be fair, the Likud charter has much prettier language, but the intent is clear. It calls for the expansion of settlements in the West Bank of Palestine and flatly rejects the creation of a Palestinian state, at least one West of the River Jordan. In essence, it is the way in which “civilised” states advocate wiping another nation off the map.     

Congressmen threaten to cut off $400 million in US aid to Palestinians if PA cuts deal with Hamas

Apr 29, 2011

Kate

 

and other news from Today in Palestine:

 Army violence/raids/incursions
Video: Awarta 27-4-11
[in Arabic, but the pictures tell the story; a few subtitles. The beauty of this valley is amazing…] Wheels of Justice — Two Palestinians from Awarta were killed for coming within 500 meters of the fortified fencing of this colony. This is one of the many reasons why we are very convinced that the whole story about the killing of a settler family by two teenagers from the village of Awarta is a lie. But the killing of these settlers set stage for a ransacking of the village by the colonizing army of the state of Israel. Beating people, massive destruction, torture and more was inflicted on the village of 6000 people as collective punishment. It is hard to describe what we saw and heard. The video just reveals a glimpse of it … I was particularly shocked to hear from Um Adam, a 77 year old grandmother (14 living children, over 75 grandchildren). One of her children still held by the Israelis is the volunteer head of the municipal council. Another child is the only doctor in town. The homes of these two children, her home, and many other homes were ransacked and heavily damaged (the fascist soldiers had clearly come to destroy as an act of collective punishment). The doctor’s room and his medical books and supplies were not spared.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kmsI96i618
Gaza civilians wounded in Israeli attack
AJ 29 Apr — At least four people, including children, have been injured in Israeli tank fire in central Gaza, Israeli and Palestinian sources said. Witnesses said the Israeli army fired at least three rounds at an area east of the Al-Bureij refugee camp, wounding several Palestinians. Hamas officials said Israeli forces fired in the direction of a home after darkness fell on Thursday. Medical workers said four people including a woman and two children had been taken to a hospital with slight injuries.The Israeli military confirmed the incident, saying it targeted fighters “identified as planting an explosive near a border security fence” and that “uninvolved civilians were apparently injured in this incident”.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/04/201142911436609267.html
Medics: 3 teens injured by Israeli fire in Bil‘in
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — Three [one more than reported last yesterday] Palestinians were injured Thursday when Israeli troops raided the Bil‘in village in the West Bank, locals said.  One Palestinian sustained critical injuries when soldiers fired bullets and stun grenades during clashes around noon, medics said. Jamal Al-Khatib, 15, was injured in the mouth by a rubber-coated bullet. A 16-year-old, Nashmi Abu Rahma, was also hurt by a rubber-coated bullet that struck his foot, and Jaser Yasin, 14, was shot in the leg, medics said … An Israeli army spokeswoman said there was no use of force and no injuries were reported.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383119
B’Tselem demands IDF cease using attack dogs on undocumented Palestinian workers
28 Apr — Calling the IDF practice of siccing K-9 attack dogs on undocumented Palestinian workers (Hebrew) a “terror policy,” the Israeli NGO B’Tselem is appealing against its use to the army senior command.  It should be noted that the victims are not security suspects, but rather day laborers seeking to enter Israel to find work and who do not have the proper permits to do so (which are practically non-existent anyway). 
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2011/04/28/btselem-appeals-against-use-of-attack-dogs-on-illegal-palestinian-workers/
PCHR weekly report on Israeli human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory Apr 21-27
-A Palestinian worker from Hebron was wounded and arrested by IOF while trying to have access to Israel for work. -IOF continued to target Palestinian workers, farmers and fishermen in border areas in the Gaza Strip  -IOF continued to use force against peaceful protests in the West Bank. -IOF conducted 25 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and two incursions into the Gaza Strip … During the reporting period, IOF wounded eight civilians, including a child, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.  Five of the wounded, including a child and a Spanish human rights defender, were wounded in peaceful protests in the West Bank and a Palestinian worker was wounded in the far southwest of Hebron while trying to have access to Israel for work. In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian farmer was wounded when IOF fired at Palestinian farmers in the northern Gaza Strip. 
http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7411
Land theft / Ethnic cleansing / Settlers
Videos: Arab in Israel: Two stories from Lod
28 Apr  — These snapshots are excerpts from a reporter’s notebook — scenes encountered on the ground in their most raw form. 1) Resident Yousef Altory, 41, paints the scene in the video below of how raw sewage seeps into the streets — right outside the only school in the neighborhood for all the kids, aged five through 18. 2) When a Palestinian house is demolished, the bill is sent to the family whose home was turned to rubble. The only problem is, there’s no longer any address to which that letter can be sent.
http://www.neontommy.com/news/2011/04/arab-israel-two-stories-lod
Thousands visit Tomb of Joshua
Ynet 29 Apr — Thousands of Jewish worshippers visited the Tomb of Joshua in the Palestinian village of Kifl Hares near Ariel on Friday. The pilgrimage, marking the anniversary to Joshua’s death, was organized by the Shomron Regional Council and coordinated with the Israel Defense Forces, unlike the infiltration to Joseph’s Tomb earlier this week which resulted in the death of Yosef Ben Livnat … Local Palestinian residents were allowed to move freely and some even opened their shops for the worshipers to enjoy … A haredi man who purchased a water pipe in one of the Palestinian shops aroused angry responses by some of the worshipers who shouted “don’t buy in Arab shops.” 
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4062160,00.html
Stormy control in the entrance of Al Hadidiya
JVS 29 Apr — The sky is grey, cloudy, two volunteers from the Jordan Valley Solidarity Campaign, one Palestinian, the other French, are on their way to visit one of the members in Al Hadidiya community. They have programme to meet at the entrance to the area. The French volunteer decided to use the time to record some images of the surroundings. However, as soon as they got out of the car, two colonists from the Ro’i colony arrived in another vehicle and blocked the access door preventing the taxi from moving away. The colonists approached the two visitors and ordered them to stop filming. One of them, the older one, asked for their IDs and telephoned the Israeli authorities.
http://www.jordanvalleysolidarity.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=250
Gaza
Gaza govt welcomes new Rafah border measures
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — Gaza government spokesman Taher An-Nunu welcomed Friday the Egyptian foreign minister’s announcement that the Rafah crossing between the Strip and Egypt would be opened permanently [for people, not goods], saying it was for the best of the Palestinians. Reports emerged Thursday that Egypt was planning to open the crossing within ten days
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383197
Rafah smuggling tunnels to continue operating
Ynet 29 Apr — Egypt will open the Rafah crossing in 10 days for the first time since 2007 and will effectively end its siege of Gaza. But Palestinians are also hoping that the passage of goods between Gaza and Egypt will reopen as well. “We prefer trading with Arab and Islamic states rather than with Israel,” a source at the Gaza borders authority said. However, Rafah smuggling tunnels will continue to serve as the main route for the passage of goods into the Strip. 
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4062279,00.html
Gaza sole crossing closed
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — The sole goods crossing into Gaza was closed on Friday for two days, Israeli authorities informed Palestinian officials. Kerem Shalom … will be shut by Israeli authorities on Friday and Saturday, reopening Sunday
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383173
Video: Gazans suffering from frequent power cuts
Press TV 28 Apr — Blackouts of up to twelve hours have once again become part of life in Gaza since Tuesday night, as Israel doesn’t allow power lines to be repaired. Residents have access to electricity for only six hours before a twelve-hour power outage. This has disrupted life in the coastal enclave in a big way. Blackouts of twelve hours a day in many parts of the impoverished territory, are affecting the provision of essential services, including water supplies, medical treatment and even sewage disposal. In residential buildings, electrical water pumps cannot provide enough water, so people have no choice but to buy water from vendors. Israel says the presence of repair crews poses a security risk. Human rights groups have dismissed the claim as a lame excuse. 
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/177217.html
Video: Life or Death – medical referrals from Gaza
MAP 11 Mar 2010 — The strict closure of the Gaza Strip has impoverished and restricted medical services in Gaza. This increases the need to refer patients for treatment outside Gaza. The process of obtaining a referral document is not easy, and when a patient manages to obtain it, he or she then has to wait for a hospital appointment to come through, before applying to the Israeli Authorities for permission to leave Gaza. [the whole inhumane system that critically ill people have to go through – delays while their disease progresses beyond hope, very sick children forced to go without their parents, etc., patients only allowed through if they agree to become informers, etc.]
http://www.youtube.com/user/MedicalAidPalestine
Israel prevents return of Gazan to Gaza — Shabak punishing a collaborator who said ‘no’? / Richard Silverstein
Haaretz [Hebrew] reports  on the strange case of a mystery Gazan who the Shabak [Shin Bet] has prohibited from returning to his home there.  The man has a permit to visit Israel and normally travels back and forth from Gaza to Israel.  However, all of a sudden the secret police determined that it would endanger the man for him to return to Gaza.  They’re doing two things here: one, they’re substituting their own judgment about his safety for his own which is quite infantilizing; second, they’re implying that he’s an informer so he will definitely be killed if he returns.  So much for the kinder, gentler Shabak. The fact that the man has brought a case to the Supreme Court demanding that he be allowed to return to Gaza is a clear repudiation of the stupidity of Shabak’s claim that he is in danger if he returns.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2011/04/27/israel-prevents-return-of-gazan-to-gaza/
Security officials: Egypt soldier killed by smugglers
EL-ARISH, Egypt (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — An Egyptian soldier was killed Friday during a gun battle between forces and smugglers near the Gaza border, officials and medics said. Egyptian security sources and medics told Ma‘an that border guard Muhammad Reda, 22, was shot in the chest during clashes with Egyptian and Palestinian smugglers. Egyptian authorities are investigating the incident, security sources told Ma‘an. 
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383258
Unity
Masha‘al, Abbas to sign unity deal
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — Hamas chief Khaled Masha‘al will meet President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo on Thursday to sign a unity deal, said representative of independent politicians Yaser Wadeiyah. Fatah official Azzam Al-Ahmad said the signing ceremony would take place at the Arab League headquarters, and that Palestinian factions would also be present.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383248
Haniyeh calls on PLO to withdraw Israel recognition
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Friday called on the Palestinian Liberation Organization to withdraw its recognition of Israel. On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the announcement of a reconciliation deal between Hamas and Fatah by saying the Palestinian Authority must “choose between peace with Israel or peace with Hamas.” Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said Netanyahu “must choose between peace and settlements.” Speaking after the Friday prayer in Gaza City, Haniyeh said that the PLO should not only demand that Israel choose between settlements and peace, but should also withdraw its recognition of the state.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383280
Netanyahu presses for US action over Fatah-Hamas deal
Haaretz 29 Apr — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted Thursday in discussions with a visiting delegation of U.S. Congress members that the United States should consider stopping economic aid to the Palestinian Authority if a Hamas-Fatah unity government did not recognize Israel and renounce terror. Netanyahu also told the seven U.S. lawmakers that Israel would not recognize a Palestinian unity government if it did not meet these conditions. “Israel would not recognize any government in the world that included members from Al-Qa‘ida,” Netanyahu said.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/netanyahu-presses-for-u-s-action-over-fatah-hamas-deal-1.358706
Should the US stop funding the Palestinians? 
Yahoo.com New York 29 Apr — The rapprochement between Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel consider a terrorist group, and Fatah is imperiling Washington’s aid to the Palestinian Authority — The reconciliation deal reached by Fatah and Hamas this week could prove costly for the Palestinian Authority. Powerful members of Congress are threatening to cut off the $400 million in annual aid America sends the Palestinians if they form a new government that includes Hamas, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization. “U.S. taxpayer funds should not and must not be used to support those who threaten U.S. security, our interests, and our vital ally, Israel,” says Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Is cutting off aid the right thing to do? As things stand, the U.S. has no choice:“There really isn’t much wiggle room here,” says Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post. Congress can’t legally send a dime to any government that doesn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist, something Hamas refuses to do.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/theweek/20110429/cm_theweek/214776
PA: New unity government to prepare elections and rehabilitate Gaza
Haaretz 29 Apr — Abbas tells delegation representing a group promoting an Israeli peace initiative that Fatah would be in charge of policy and that he would not allow violence.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/pa-new-unity-government-to-prepare-elections-and-rehabilitate-gaza-1.358701
Zahar: Israeli intelligence ‘worthless’
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said Thursday that the Palestinian reconciliation deal signed in Cairo a day earlier came as a total surprise to Israeli intelligence, which he called “worthless.” 
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383138
IDF, PA forces still coordinating despite Fatah-Hamas pact
Haaretz 29 Apr — No decisions have been made by the Israel Defense Forces regarding any changes in security cooperation with Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank following the announcement of a reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. Contacts between IDF officers on the ground and their West Bank Palestinian counterparts are projecting business as usual. 
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/idf-pa-forces-still-coordinating-despite-fatah-hamas-pact-1.358708
Video: Cairo press conference
Press TV 28 Apr 8:19PM — Following a series of meetings mediated by Egyptian hosts, Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have reached an “understanding” to set up a transitional unity government and hold elections. with  Mousa Abu Marzook, Izzat al-Rishq (Hamas), Azzam Al-Ahmad (Fatah)
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/177219.html
Detention / Court action
Israel extends detention of Palestinian writer
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) 29 Apr — Palestinian human rights group Addameer on Thursday condemned the extension of Palestinian writer and intellectual Ahmad Qatamish’s detention by Israeli authorities. Israel’s Ofer military court told Qatamish on Thursday that he would remain behind bars for a further 6 days, after the military judge rejected a request by the police for an 11-day extension, a statement from the rights organization said. The judge said that the evidence was not sufficient to justify the longer period, but he would be held for further investigation, according to Addameer. 
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383056
Court allows 5 years for Cast Lead claims
Ynet 28 Apr — The High Court of Justice rejected on Thursday a petition by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which represents more than 1,000 residents of the Gaza Strip who demanded compensation for damages exacted by Israel during Operation Cast Lead … Claims for compensation over damage done by security forces in the West Bank and Gaza must be filed within two years, whereas other damages claims can be filed seven years after the fact. 
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4062105,00.html
Activism / Solidarity / BDS
Three injured, three arrested as troops attack West Bank anti-Wall protests
Ramallah (PNN) 29 Apr — Two children and a youth were injured, three Israeli activists arrested on Friday as  Israeli troops attacked the weekly anti-wall protests taking place in Bil‘in, Ni‘lin, al-Nabi Salleh, central West Bank, as well as al-Ma‘ssara village in the south. This week protesters welcomed the National Unity deal signed by Palestinian factions in Cairo on Wednesday.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9971&Itemid=56
Dr. Cornel West’s letter to the University of Arizona
TUCSON AZ (April 28) — In a stunning public move that may draw much criticism, Dr. Cornel West — probably the most well-known and renowned U.S. public intellectual — has called on the University of Arizona (UA) to divest from corporations profiting from Israel’s illegal settlement and occupation of Palestine as well as from the racist practices — particularly attacks on Ethnic Studies — against immigrant and indigenous peoples in AZ and nationwide.  
http://nomoredeaths.org/University-of-Arizona-NMD/west-ua-divestment.html
Racism / Discrimination / Attacks on Palestinian identity/history
Safed rabbi boasts that anti-Arab edict worked
Haaretz 29 Apr — Safed Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu yesterday boasted that his edict calling for people not to rent apartments to non-Jews was working, while a minster praised his efforts to maintain the Jewish nature of Israel. “The Jewish law is clear,” Eliyahu said at a conference organized by the rightist religious movement Komemiyut. “In Safed the halakhic ruling worked, people don’t sell land or rent or sell apartments to non-Jews.”
 http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/safed-rabbi-boasts-that-anti-arab-edict-worked-1.358721
Rattling the cage: Beware of flying Arabs! / Larry Derfner
JPost 27 Apr — The whole world has gone crazy with fear of terror in the air, but Israel stands out for its treatment of Arabs at the airport.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=218135
Palestinian identity under attack in Israel / Mya Guarnieri
Ma‘an 29 Apr — Earlier in April, the Israeli Ministry of Education decided to add a question about the Holocaust to the matriculation exam of Arab students. Because the state has banned any study of the Nakba– going so far as to strike the word from the textbooks– the move has drawn sharp criticism in Israel’s Palestinian community. The decision to add a question about the Holocaust comes in the wake of the “Nakba Law,” which was passed by the Knesset last month. The new legislation states that municipalities, public institutions, or organizations that receive public funds will be fined for marking the Nakba or expressing feelings of mourning about Israel’s establishment … Both the Nakba Law and the change to the matriculation exam come just months after a principal of a public school in Yafo, the historically Arab city that was annexed by the Tel Aviv municipality in 1950, forbade students from speaking Arabic.  About half of the school’s students are Palestinian citizens of Israel. While all classes are taught in Hebrew, the principal’s decision forbade Palestinian students from speaking Arabic amongst themselves.  Russian-speaking students, however, are allowed to use their mother tongue. 
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383323
Defiance, not denial / Amnon Be’eri Sulitzeanu
Are there any serious educators who believe that by means of a question on an exam it will be possible to arouse identification with the Jews and empathy for them among young Arabs? — In advance of the coming school year, the Education Ministry has decided that the matriculation exam in history in the Arabic-language school system will include a mandatory question about the Holocaust, and that it will be worth 24 points — almost a quarter of the maximum score … In a correct reading of the situation of Arab citizens, the ‘denial’ of the Holocaust should not be understood as a lack of knowledge of the subject or as a failure to recognize its importance for the Jewish people, but as simple defiance: “If you don’t recognize us and our pain, we will retaliate by not recognizing your pain.” 
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/defiance-not-denial-1.358759
Other news
Israel’s Egypt gas problem
Pal. Mon. 29 Apr — While leaders in Egypt, Syria, Israel, the EU, the US and Palestine react to the unification of Palestine’s political movements, Egyptians have demanded that their government stop piping natural gas to Israel for its occupation of Palestine. Israel gets nearly 40 percent of its natural gas from Egypt, at bargain prices … Israel’s infrastructure minister Uzi Landau, proponent of Operation Cast Lead II, said the attack was proof the country needed to find alternatives to Egyptian gas – like the gigantic Tamar natural gas field or disputed reserves offshore of Haifa, Tel Aviv and Gaza.
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1782
Abu Shabak seeks political asylum in Belgium
RAMALLAH, (PIC) 28 Apr — Rashid Abu Shabak and Sami Abu Samhadana, two chief figures in the security forces of Mohammed Dahlan, have submitted requests for political asylum in Belgium. The men are wanted by the Palestinian Authority for involvement in a large-scale corruption ring.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2b
Bee-keepers graduate in Hebron
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 29 Apr  — The Japanese Representative to the Palestinian Authority gave out awards to women trained under a beekeeping project in Hebron on Thursday, a statement said. The project, funded by the Government of Japan in September 2010, gave one year’s training in beekeeping skills to 120 women without an independent income, in three Hebron villages … the Japanese government gave a total of $1,068,288 for 11 projects in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the Japanese fiscal year 2010. 
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383167
Israel’s wildlife face extinction as open spaces disappear
Haaretz 29 Apr — A new study on Israeli nature has found that almost 60% of mammals in the country are at risk of extinction, with over 80% of amphibians facing a similar threat. Of the 206 species of birds that nest in Israel, over 20% are also in danger of extinction … Israel has 250 nature reserves and 76 national parks. When combined with forests in the country, 30% of Israel’s total area constitutes protected open space. However, 90% of the area under protection is concentrated in the south, and half of that expanse is used for military exercises
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-s-wildlife-face-extinction-as-open-spaces-disappear-1.358719
The belated battle to revive the dying Dead Sea
Haaretz 28 Apr — Forty years of wandering from bad decisions to neglect have done terrible damage to the lowest place on earth.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/the-belated-battle-to-revive-the-dying-dead-sea-1.358526
Analysis / Opinion
The legal tsunami is on its way / Michael Sfard
Haaretz 29 Apr — Israel’s cautious foreign policy on legal matters over the past 44 years is likely to collapse in September. The mechanisms of legal defense that it built since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, to combat the ‘danger’ of international jurisdiction about its conduct toward millions of people who are under its control, are likely to turn into dust at the stroke of the diplomatic moves. If indeed the international community recognizes a Palestinian state, the question whether officers in the Israel Defense Forces who are involved in assassinations, shooting at unarmed demonstrators and using phosphorus bombs will be interrogated and brought to trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and the question of whether international human rights treaties ‏(and other treaties‏) will obligate Israel during action in the territories, will no longer be decided in the government offices in Jerusalem but rather in the corridors of the Muqata‘a in Ramallah.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-legal-tsunami-is-on-its-way-1.358758
Unprincipled demands: time to treat Hamas and Likud equally / Yousef Munayyer
28 Apr — …I’m not a fan of Hamas’ charter, and I think it has ultimately done them more harm than good, but I also fully understand their reluctance to accept the principles their PLO counterparts accepted at the beginning of the Oslo process which has proved to be a complete failure. What are these three magic principles anyway? 1. Accepting Israel’s right to exist. 2. Renouncing Violence 3. Endorsing Prior Agreements with Israel … But shouldn’t all players at the table have to play by the same rules? While the talking heads will quote you the Hamas Charter, they don’t want you to see the Likud Charter.The Likud is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party. In fact, the Likud charter does not comply with any of the principles. Instead of recognizing Palestine’s right to exist, the Likud Charter states that the party “flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.” West of the Jordan river includes the West Bank and Gaza. In fact, when Likud and Netanyahu talk about a “two-state” solution, their charter indicates they are taking about a Palestinian state in Jordan. 
http://blog.thejerusalemfund.org/2011/04/unprincipled-demands-time-to-treat.html
Video: Saree Makdisi interviewed about new Fatah and Hamas unity deal
IMEU 29 Apr — For an analysis on the deal and media coverage, Democracy Now! interviews Saree Makdisi, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA and the author of several books including “Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation.” 
http://imeu.net/news/article0020821.shtml
The other shoe? Egypt moves to ease Gaza siege / Karl Vick
TIME blog 29 Apr — Egypt’s announcement that it will open its border crossing with the Gaza Strip —  loosening the siege of the Palestinian enclave Egypt has helped Israel carry out — has the sound of the other shoe dropping. Coming one day after word that the post-Mubarak government had brokered a tentative unity accord between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah, the announcement was difficult not to read as a reward to Hamas for signing on the dotted line.  In fact the agreement Hamas officials initialed on Wednesday turns out to be the same one Fatah signed two years ago.  In its decision to finally join its rival, Hamas surely found strong incentive in the inferno engulfing Syria, the nation that for years has given the organization’s top officials refuge from Israeli surveillance and drones (as well common ground for meeting Hamas’ Iranian sponsors).  Opening the crossing at Rafah, the poor and dusty town where Gaza abuts Egypt, sweetened the deal while also shoring up the Egyptians’ populist credentials.
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/04/29/the-other-shoe-egypt-moves-to-ease-gaza-seige/
In the absence of leaders, it’s up to Israelis to make peace / Akiva Eldar
Haaretz 29 Apr …the major obstacle [to peace] has been, and remains, Netanyahu’s refusal to utter the words “the borders of June 4, 1967, as a basis for a peace agreement” — wording which leaves open the possibility of exchanges of territory in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Whoever does not accept this principle by September will probably instead get the recognition, by more than 100 countries, of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders whose capital will be East Jerusalem. Without “on the basis of” and without “settlement blocs,” and without special arrangements in the Holy Basin. There is no third way. The “peace process” as a cover for gradual annexation of the territories is over … Netanyahu’s demand that Fatah concede its peace with Hamas in favor of peace with its neighbor is an indication mainly of hysteria.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/in-the-absence-of-leaders-it-s-up-for-israelis-to-make-peace-1.358755
Iraq

Thursday: 39 Iraqis killed, 51 wounded
At least 39 Iraqis were killed and 51 more were wounded across the country. Seventeen of the dead, however, were from a recently discovered mass grave. A U.S. soldier was also killed. U.S. Major General Bernard Champoux, who is a division commander, confirmed that less than 20,000 employees will continue to work at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, and more Iraqi workers will be hired, after the Dec. 31 withdrawal of troops deadline. Those employees include security officials and diplomats. In Diyala province, meanwhile, a Kurdistan Alliance official has asked U.S. troops remain there. The province is still one of the deadliest in Iraq, and parts of it are contested due to a large number of Kurdish residents. 
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2011/04/28/thursday-39-iraqis-killed-51-wounded/
     

American journalists want to see the Arab spring happening everywhere but Palestine

Apr 29, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

My theme today is denial, specifically as it involves the Arab revolutions: the failure of American media figures and Jewish leaders to recognize the huge spiritual-political effect of the Arab spring and the inevitability of that spirit coming to bear on the dire human-rights situation in Palestine. 

As Issandr El Amrani said the other night at the 92d Street Y, this revolution has the promise of the French revolution, and to seek to diminish it or to caricature it (the Muslim Brotherhood is going to take over Jordan, Yossi Klein Halevi warned at the American Jewish Committee today) is a terrible mistake.

And this denial is most profound inside American liberal Jewish life, in the failure of liberals to understand, Of course Palestinians will also want their spring. And they must have it.

I will give you two instances of this denial. The first was Terry Gross interviewing Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker on Fresh Air the other day, all about the Arab revolutions and Egypt and Obama’s foreign policy. And you will see from the transcript that Israel was mentioned only once, and tangentially. The conceit of this nearly-hour-long exchange was the idea, Well these Arab countries are finally going to try to be democratic, harrumph, and Obama must lend his hand. With no awareness at all that a, American support for Israel has militated against Arab democracy  and the idea of Arab self-determination forever, and b, that the thirst for democracy in the Middle East portends revolutionary change in one of the most repressive societies in the world, the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

For journalists not to reckon with this likelihood is a dereliction of the liberal values that I can only explain in Terry Gross’s case by saying that she must regard Israel’s creation as a great and necessary liberal historical advance, and therefore regard any threat to the status quo as concerning and to regard the call for multicultural democracy as so much irredentist, revolutionary murderous claptrap.

Now the second instance of denial was at the 92d Street Y the other night, when my good friend Jake Weisberg moderated a PEN panel on the Arab spring and was generous and celebratory about the revolutions. But because we were in a Jewish space, the meaning of the revolutions was circumscribed: they are unhorsing the tyrants and allowing writers to express themselves at last in Arab countries. The Arab intellectuals went along with this limitation and practiced a self-censorship. They did not refer to Palestine, except glancingly, Weisberg had the tact not to bring up Israel, and when El Amrani spoke movingly about Islamists and Christians and women working side by side in Tahrir to make their revolution, he did not say, And Palestinians and Jews also can build a new polity together.

The Palestine issue was directly addressed only once, by the Palestinian writer Rula Jebreal. Weisberg had introduced her as an “Israeli,” and a half hour into the discussion, Jebreal at last corrected him, when she spoke of anti-Arab prejudice in the west. 

The prejudice– it was very hard. It was very hard to talk about our countries after September 11. I am Palestinian. He said Israel but the truth is I am Palestinian. So I remember when I was hired in Italy, as an anchorwoman, the director said, can you please say that you are you Italo-Palestinian. Which I am. I said yes, but what is the problem? He said it will sound less harder on the ear.

And I’m saying this in the 92d Street Y because I know how delicate this subject matter and this issue is. But the truth– the prejudice against us–we have to fight our regimes, but abroad we have to fight the prejudice, the discrimination, and we have to fight something stronger, the idea that is in the head of the majority of the people in this room and in this country before Tahrir square, this idea that most of us, we are not liberal. We beat our women, that we marry more than once, whatever, and we are terrorists. If we are not terrorists, then we are potential terrorists. This idea started changing in Tahrir Square. So I really would like to thank these women and men who stood for three weeks asking for freedom and dignity and asking for a better life. They convinced all of us that we have a right to that, but I ithink they changed somehow the opinion in the western world.

Now this is a very moving statement, and Jebreal was applauded. But I would just like to note how much is under the surface. This prejudice is most strongly directed at Palestinians specifically. As Cecilie Surasky said at a Jewish Voice for Peace function in the city last night, nine years ago when JVP was formed, for many Jews “it was terrifying just to say the word Palestinian.”

And now in the context of the Arab spring, American media are experiencing that same prohibition, and so they are denying the power of this revolution to transform Israel and Palestine, and missing the story.     

How about banning Israeli politicians for supporting terrorism?

Apr 29, 2011

David Samel

 

Israeli leaders have condemned the nascent Palestinian reconciliation, considering the possible participation of Hamas members in any government to be unacceptable because of the party’s history of terrorism. To the great surprise of no one, American politicians have been competing for press attention to parrot the same line. What if Palestinian leaders, and our own Congress, did likewise, and demanded that Israel bar from elective office any member of a political party with a history of engaging in or supporting terrorism?

Of course, a full recital of Israeli attacks on civilians would fill a multi-volume treatise, but let’s content ourselves with a thumbnail sketch. First, consider Labor, the most liberal/left of Israel’s major parties. Anyone who supported the great peacemaker and Nobel laureate Yitzhak Rabin would be barred.

Rabin proudly boasted that as a young army officer in July, 1948, he executed Ben-Gurion’s order to ethnically cleanse the villages of Lydda and Ramle, forcing tens of thousands to march many miles in stifling summer heat to areas Israel did not (yet) claim as its own territory. A significant number did not survive. In 1987-88, as Defense Minister, Rabin ordered his troops to break the bones of children caught hurling stones toward well-protected soldiers who were defending Israel’s “right” to violate international law. In 1993, as Prime Minister, Rabin launched Operation Accountability, indiscriminately bombing civilians in southern Lebanon with the intent of killing enough of them to cause hundreds of thousands to flee northward in panic to send a signal to the Lebanese government.

Co-Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres, as Prime Minister in 1996, implemented a very similar operation, Grapes of Wrath. As long time leaders of the Labor Party, Rabin and Peres’s history of attacking civilians disqualifies all of their supporters from public office.

What about Kadima? The party was founded by Ariel Sharon, who commanded the 1953 massacre of scores of innocent civilians in the Jordanian village of Qibya (on the orders of the god-like Ben-Gurion). In 1982, Sharon, as Defense Minister, personally commanded Israeli troops on their rampage through Lebanon, slaughtering up to 20,000 civilians, apparently setting the Israeli record for personal responsibility for mass murder. His role in smiling benignly on the Sabra/Shattila massacres was merely bloody icing on his blood-soaked cake.

Then there’s Likud, whose founding members included Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, unapologetic and unashamed practitioners of terrorism for many decades, rewarded for their efforts with election to the highest office in the land.

How long must we wait before we hear Gary Ackerman or Ileana Ros-Lehtinen articulate their actual position, which is that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East that is free to elect terrorists? If Israel were to implement the same standards of disqualification-for-terrorism on its own politicians that it demands of the Palestinians, there would be virtually no one left to run the government.

Wait a minute, what about MK’s Ahmed Tibi and Hanin Zouabi?

 

‘NYT’ front-pages Egyptian shift in policy re northeastern neighbor

Apr 29, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

More about denial. The major denial in U.S. political culture right now is that the Arab spring does not affect Israel. When as Jack Ross wrote in the moment, it will likely end the idea of the Jewish state, and as Norman Finkelstein says, it has placed Egypt in the Turkey camp, no longer holding the bag for Israel.

Well, The New York Times is on the story, on the front page, “In Shift, Egypt Warms to … Israel’s Foes.” David Kirkpatrick:

Egypt’s shifts are likely to alter the balance of power in the region, allowing Iran new access to a previously implacable foe and creating distance between itself and Israel, which has been watching the changes with some alarm. “We are troubled by some of the recent actions coming out of Egypt,” said one senior Israeli official, citing a “rapprochement between Iran and Egypt” as well as “an upgrading of the relationship between Egypt and Hamas.”

Thanks to Irma !

Klein, Erakat, Travers, Flanders, Ratner to discuss Goldstone in NY

Apr 29, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

Save the date. We’re proud, this is our event, along with the Culture Project. Naomi Klein and Desmond Travers and Noura Erakat will traveling to New York next month to discuss the Goldstone Report and its reverberations. They’ll be joined by our co-editor on the volume, Lizzy Ratner, and moderated by Laura Flanders of Grit-TV. Yes a dazzling crew.

The hall is a big one on East 59th Street and it will cost you $11 to get in. Get over it— proceeds are going to the Palestine Centre for Human Rights, whose director Raji Sourani was a contributor to our Goldstone volume along with Naomi Klein.

Klein has emerged in the last year as a leader on the global warming issue, but she has made a point of keeping her hand in on Gaza and the Israel/Palestine conflict. Erakat is a Palestinian and a leading human-rights attorney in Washington and a spokesperson for the refugee resource center, Badil. Colonel Travers was a member of the UN Factfinding Mission on the Gaza Conflict; lately he and two other commissioners issued their statement standing by the report. I’m going to try and interview him while he’s in the Apple. And Ratner co-edited our volume and has been speaking widely on it, in a manner that defies ideologies, but seeks to replace “frenzy” with “depth,” as she wrote in our introduction.

The Nation, the Nation Institute, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Haymarket Books and CodePink are cosponsors. Please join us!     

Tweeting Hedy Epstein

Apr 29, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

Yesterday we posted a piece by Hedy Epstein about the upcoming anti-AIPAC conference, called “As a Holocaust survivor, AIPAC does not speak for me.” Ali Gharib then tweeted the piece. And look at the responses from some supporters of Israel. Interesting conversation. Real venom toward Epstein’s use of her own history as an explanation of her Palestinian solidarity work. Gharib: “These discussions reminded me of the long David Simon quotehighlighted here the other day. These twitterers seem to be the people that, as Simon put it, are ‘holding the Holocaust experience to be something beyond any possible point of comparison for other collective tragedy.’ But they not only see the Holocaust and its tragedy as solely the provenance of Jewish people, but also only Jewish people who agree with their politics”     

‘Equal rights for Palestinians’ billboard is deemed offensive in Seattle

Apr 29, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

I have only one theme today: the denial. The denial that my country and my community are engaged in, on a core issue of foreign policy. Writes a friend: “This censorship in Seattle is really something. It’s so flagrant you hope people not involved will start wondering what’s going on.” Seattle Times reporter Jim Brunner:

The same group that failed in a bid to place controversial ads alleging Israel “war crimes” on Metro buses is now losing billboards with a softer message decrying U.S. aid to Israel.

The billboard company doesn’t run ads that offend people. What do the ads say?

The ads show a Palestinian boy behind a fence and call for “Equal Rights for Palestinians” and for the U.S. to “stop funding the Israeli military.”

In canceling the ads, Clear Channel [Outdoor] did not object to those slogans. Instead, the company pointed to stronger language on the group’s website,www.stop30billion-seattle.org, which was prominently promoted on the ads. That site calls Israel’s Palestinian policies “war crimes” and “apartheid.”

I remember in November 2000 I was covering the protracted Gore-Bush election battle, before the Supreme Court stepped in, and there were big demonstrations near Blair House in Washington where Gore was living as vice president. There was a Catholic church in that avenue, and a guy picketing. He was old and a little odd, and he told me he came out every week, and he got a dogeared photograph from his shirt pocket of the priest who had molested him as a boy. I remember how disturbed I was by his story and I told an editor I wanted to write about it and she said, there are a million stories like that, and I didn’t write about it. And now the Palestinian issue is also going to burst into our national consciousness.

‘So you come to take Amina’ — a loving Syrian father saves his gay blogger daughter from the security services

Apr 29, 2011

A Gay Girl in Damascus

 

Editor’s note: Saleema told us to post “My father, the hero,” an astonishing post by Amina, A Gay Girl in Damascus, from two days back, and it being the internet, we’ve grabbed a lot of the post. Please read the full post at her site. It describes a nighttime visit from the “security services,” two men in their 20s in leather jackets. Amina, who is an out lesbian, and her father go to the door. 

“Really?” my father interrupts. “My daughter is a salafi?” he starts laughing. “Look at her: can’t you see that that is ridiculous? She doesn’t even cover any more … and if you have really read even half of what she has written, you know how ridiculous that is. When was the last time you heard a wahhabi, or even someone from the brotherhood say that wearing hijab is the woman’s choice only?”
he pauses, they don’t say anything.
“I did not think so,” he goes on. “When was the last time you saw one of those write that there should be no religion as religion of teh state?”
Again nothing.
“When was the last time you saw them saying that the gays should be allowed the right to marry, a man to a man or a woman to a woman?”
Nothing.
“And when you say nothing, you show,” he says, “that you have no reason to take my daughter.”
They say nothing. Then one whispers something to the other, he smiles.
“Uh huh,” the man says, “so your daughter tells you everything, huh?”
“Of course,” my father says.
“Did she tell you that she likes to sleep with women?” he grins, pure poison, feeling like he has made a hit. “That she is one of those faggots who fucks little girls?” (the arabic he used is far cruder … you get the idea)
My dad glances at me. I nod; we understand each other.
“She is my daughter,” he says and I can see the anger growing in his eyes, “and she is who she is and if you want her, you must take me as well.”
“Stupid city-fuckers,” says the same guy. “All you rich pansies are the same. No wonder she ends up fucking girls and kikes” (again, the Arabic is much rawer ,,,) 
He steps twoards me and puts his hand on my breast. 
“Maybe if you were with a real man,” he lears, “you’d stop this nonsense and lies; maybe we should show you now and let your pansy father watch so he understands how real men are.”
I am almost trembling with rage. My dad moves his head slightly to tell me to be silent.
“What are you?” he says. “Did the jackal sleep with the monkey before you were born? What are your names?”

They tell him. He nods
“Your father,” he says to the one who threatened to rape me, “does he know this is how you act? He was an officer, yes? And he served in …” (he mentions exactly and then turns to the other) “and your mother? Wasn’t she the daughter of …?”
They are both wide-eyed, yes, that is right,
“What would they think if they heard how you act? And my daughter? Let me tell you this about her; she has done many things that, if I had been her, I would not have done. But she has never once stopped being my daughter and I will never once let you do any harm to her. You will not take her from here. And, if you try, know that generations of her ancestors are looking down on you. Do you know what is our family name? You do? Then you know where we stood when Muhammad, peace be upon him, went to Medina, you know who it was who liberated al Quds, you know too, maybe, that my father fought to save this country from the foreigners and who he was, know who my uncles and my brothers were … and if that doesn’t shame you enough, you know my cousins and you will leave here.
“You will leave her alone and you will tell the rest of your gang to leave her alone. And I will tell you something now because I think maybe you are too stupid to figure this out on your own. You are alawiyeen; do not deny that, I know you both are. We are Sunni. You know that. And in your offices and in your villages they are telling you that all of you must stand shoulder to shoulder now because we are coming for you as soon as we can and we will serve you as they have served ours in the land of the two rivers. So you are scared. I would be too.
“So you come here to take Amina. Let me tell you something though. She is not the one you should fear; you should be heaping praises on her and on people like her. They are the ones saying alawi, sunni, arabi, kurdi, duruzi, christian, everyone is the same and will be equal in the new Syria; they are the ones who, if the revolution comes, will be saving Your mother and your sisters. They are the ones fighting the wahhabi most seriously. You idiots are, though, serving them by saying ‘every sunni is salafi, every protester is salafi, every one of them is an enemy’ because when you do that you make it so.
“Your Bashar and your Maher, they will not live forever, they will not rule forever, and you both know that. So, if you want good things for yourselves in the future, you will leave and you will not take Amina with you. You will go back and you will tell the rest of yours that the people like her are the best friends the Alawi could ever have and you will not come for her again.
“And right now, you two will both apologize for waking her and putting her through all this. Do you understand me?”
And time froze when he stopped speaking. Now, they would either smack him down and beat him, rape me, and take us both away … or …
the first one nodded, then the second one.
“Go back to sleep,” he said, “we are sorry for troubling you.”
And they left!
As soon as the gate shut ,,, I heard clapping; everyone in the house was awake now and had been watching from balconies and doorways and windows all around the courtyard … and everyone was cheering …
MY DAD had just defeated them! Not with weapons but with words … and they had left …
I hugged him and kissed him; I literally owe him my life now.
And everyone came down and hugged and kissed, every member of the family, and the servants and everyone … we had won … this time …
My father is a hero; I always knew that … but now I am sure ..

Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

Haniyeh says he is ready to step down as P.M. to further reconciliation

Apr 30, 2011

Kate

 

and other news from the Palestinian unity discussions, and from today in Palestine:

Palestinian Unity
Hamas PM ‘ready to resign’ for unity
GAZA CITY (AFP) 30 Apr — Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Islamist Hamas movement in power in the Gaza Strip, said on Saturday he was “ready to resign.” “I am prepared to tender my resignation as part of the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah,” the secular party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. “This agreement is very important and should boost efforts to end the divisions and encourage unity among Palestinians,” he added.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383565
UN chief welcomes Palestinian unity deal
Reuters 30 Apr — Ban Ki-moon says the unity agreement should not undermine peace with Israel and wants Abbas’ more moderate Fatah movement to lead any unity government.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/un-chief-welcomes-palestinian-unity-deal-1.358913
Aid agency welcomes Palestinian reconciliation
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — International aid agency Oxfam called on the international community Friday to support Palestinian reconciliation, and “avoid adopting policies that would set unity efforts back.” The agency’s International Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs, said in a statement that “ordinary people [are] paying the highest price for the divide between Fatah and Hamas.” 
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383174
Barak to UN chief: Hamas must recognize Israel
Reuters/Haaretz 30 Apr — Defense Minister Ehud Barak tells UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that the world should only support a joint Palestinian government if it accepts the Quartet’s conditions
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/barak-to-un-chief-hamas-must-recognize-israel-1.358986
Factions review unity deal in Gaza
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 30 Apr — Fatah and Hamas met with factions on Saturday in Gaza on Saturday to discuss the reconciliation agreement reached in Cairo to reunite the Palestinian territories. Islamic Jihad invited the parties to its Gaza City offices to review the details of the surprise agreement. It was the first meeting between Hamas and Fatah since the deal was announced in Cairo on Wednesday.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383518
Palestine Monitor editorial: The long road to unity
29 Apr — While the April 27 Cairo Agreement took much of the world by surprise, including the infamous security apparatus of Israel, the reunification of Palestine’s two major political factions was the work of years of careful diplomacy between Damascus, Ramallah, Gaza City and Cairo.
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1781
Gaza
Egypt warns Israel: Don’t interfere with opening of Gaza border crossing
Haaretz 29 Apr — Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces General Sami Anan warned Israel against interfering with Egypt’s plan to open the Rafah border crossing with Gaza on a permanent basis, saying it was not a matter of Israel’s concern, Army Radio reported on Saturday … The opening of Rafah will allow the flow of people and goods in and out of Gaza without Israeli permission or supervision, which has not been the case up until now. 
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/egypt-warns-israel-don-t-interfere-with-opening-of-gaza-border-crossing-1.358969
Meridor: We have no right to interfere in Rafah decision
JPost 30 Apr — Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, who is in charge of intelligence and atomic affairs, said Saturday that Israel has no right to interfere in the decision to open the border with Gaza in Rafah, Channel 2 News reported. His comments come in response to Egypt’s plans to open the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip. He implied that it is important to have good relations with surrounding countries.
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=218563
Egyptian foreign policy shifts to reflect popular opinion
France24 30 Apr — Egypt’s foreign policy direction has changed dramatically since former leader Hosni Mubarak was ousted and the new course will have a profound impact on its relationship with Israel and the US, according to Middle East experts. Scott MacLeod, editor of the Cairo Review of Global Affairs, said Egypt was reasserting its leadership in the Arab World and that its foreign policy would henceforth be “much more critical” of Israel … The Egyptian public at large was indignant over the blockade of Gaza, [Karim Bitar] said, and feels that in the post-Mubarak era, “business as usual cannot go on. Post-Revolutionary Egypt considers that Mubarak’s policy towards the Palestinian question was immoral and undignified,” he said. “He kowtowed to US pressures and that Egypt lost its historical standing in the region.”
http://www.france24.com/en/20110429-israel-egypt-foreign-policy-shift-hamas-fatah-gaza-MacLeod-Bitar
Gaza City homes flooded in downpour
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 30 Apr — Heavy rainfall flooded homes in Gaza City overnight Friday. Homes in Jaffa Street sustained damage as rainfall reached 50 centimeters within two hours of unusually stormy weather. Locals complained that water flooded their homes because drainage systems in the area were not functioning.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383386
Sponsor a runner in the UNRWA Gaza marathon 2011
This summer, UNRWA will provide its biggest and best Summer Games in Gaza yet. In order to raise much-needed funds for the Games, we will hold the first-ever UNRWA Gaza Marathon on 5 May 2011. The marathon will span the entire Gaza Strip, from Beit Hanoun to Rafah, with children running in relays along the route, while adults (from professional Gazan athletes training for the Olympics to amateur international staff) will run the full marathon, half marathon or 10km at the end. Make a donation:
http://www.unrwa.org/gazamarathon
Land, property, resources theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Settlers
Violence and mayhem ravages another Friday in Silwan
[many photos] Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 30 Apr — Violent clashes swept through Silwan yesterday following the midday prayer. Confrontations erupted after Israeli forces sealed off the main entrances to the village. An increased military presence was noted throughout the region, with several checkpoints established. Particularly militarised were the areas close to settlements, such as in Wadi Hilweh, ‘Ein Silwan, Baten al-Hawa and Wadi Rababa districts … Use of force was particularly heavy on the Israeli side, who employed heavy amounts of tear gas, rubber bullets and sound bombs. Palestinian youth responded by throwing stones … At least 5 [Palestinians] were injured by rubber bullets, including the Wadi Hilweh Information Center photographer Ahmed Siyam. One Israeli settler was also reported to have opened fire with an M16 rifle.
http://silwanic.net/?p=15276
Press TV: ‘Palestine, a possible mini-Dubai of ME’
29 Apr — Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and its aggressions against the Palestinians are aimed at plundering their natural wealth, says a Middle East expert. “… Given the opportunity, this small nucleus of two separate entities [Gaza Strip and the West Bank], if they come together, has got enough wealth to become what I call the mini-Dubai of the eastern Mediterranean –that is perfectly possible,” Eyre said. “People don’t understand that this conflict is also to do with natural resources because in the offshore Gaza area is vast reserves of natural gas,” Peter Eyre, a Middle East consultant in London, told Press TV on Thursday.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/177322.html
Detention
A minor, two others arrested amid West Bank raids
WEST BANK, (PIC) 30 Apr — Three Palestinians including a minor were assaulted amid Israeli occupation forces (IOF) raids sweeping the West Bank Saturday morning … IOF soldiers assaulted three men in Beit Ummar north of Al-Khalil on Friday evening. Among them was a youth aged 16. The minor was left with bruises all over his body after being severely beaten … Palestinian sources in Dora south of Al-Khalil said IOF soldiers opened fire at a Palestinian man before arresting him. The victim was transferred to a Beersheba hospital to receive treatment. Witnesses said police hounds were released against him and that he was severely beaten after his injury.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2b
Israeli police arrest dozens of Palestinian workers
JENIN, (PIC) 30 Apr — Israeli policemen arrested dozens of Palestinian workers in central Palestine occupied in 1948 after storming campaigns of workshops in Haifa, Khudera, and Tel Aviv. Workers in the West Bank told the PIC reporter on Saturday that more than 30 workers were arrested after chasing and assaulting some of them who escaped to nearby groves. They noted that most of those workers came from Jenin and nearby villages.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2BcO
Relative: 11-year-old detained in Jerusalem
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 30 Apr — Israeli forces detained Friday an 11-year-old boy from a village northwest of Jerusalem, a relative said. Muhammad Hushiyeh was walking in the Qatanna village when youths threw stones at Israeli soldiers, his cousin Lubna told Ma‘an. She said soldiers arrested the stone-throwers and swept up Muhammad as well. He was not involved beforehand, she insisted. The boy is already in a difficult situation; his father was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers a year earlier, Lubna pointed out.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383463
4 Palestinian detainees injured as Israeli forces raid prison
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 29 Apr — Four Palestinian detainees were injured Friday as Israeli forces raided Eshel prison, a prisoners’ society said. Clashes broke out when Israeli forces attacked detainee Imad Al-Mardawn, the society said, adding that forces threatened to use Taser guns. Detainees said they would go on hunger strike Saturday in protest over the incident, and would file a complaint to the Israel’s Supreme Court to demand an investigation.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383321
Hunger strikes in Ashkelon, Beersheba prisons
JENIN, (PIC) 30 Apr — Prisoners in the Ashkelon and Beersheba prisons have begun a hunger strike to protest the treatment of the Israeli Prison Service, the Ahrar prisoner studies center reported on Friday. Palestinians held at the Beersheba facility began fasting after several prisoners sustained injuries during a violent crackdown on section 10, said Ahrar director Fuad el-Khuffash.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2
Detainee released after 10 years in prison
JENIN (Ma‘an) 30 Apr — Israel released Thursday detainee Samir Al-Fayed, 40, after 10 years behind bars. Samir, from Jenin refugee camp, was detained in 2001, accused of transferring a militant to attack Israelis. He was sentenced to 17 years, reduced to 10. Jenin residents and members of factions gathered on Thursday to receive Samir, who was released from Israel’s Negev prison. Samir was taken by car on a tour of the northern West Bank city, amid fireworks, before praying at the Jenin martyrs’ cemetery.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383412
Report: Hamas military leader in Egypt for Shalit talks
Haaretz 30 Apr — Egypt may return to serve as mediator in talks between Israel and Hamas, Al-Hayat reports; parents of kidnapped IDF soldier meet new Israeli negotiator for their son’s release.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-hamas-military-leader-in-egypt-for-shalit-talks-1.358961
Other news
Hamas leader: Syria didn’t ask us to leave
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 30 Apr — A Hamas leader has denied media reports Saturday claiming Syria asked the movement to relocate its headquarters from Damascus to Qatar: “This is utterly false,” Salah Bardawil said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383491
Paris trial: Al-Durrah beats Israeli doctor
A French court ruled Friday against Dr. David Yehuda, an Israeli doctor who was sued for slander by Jamal al-Durrah, the father of Second Intifada symbol Muhammad al-Durrah.The Israeli doctor, an orthopedic surgeon who operated on Jamal al-Durrah, exposed details from his medical file and claimed that his scars were the result of a surgery, and were not caused by IDF fire. 
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4062368,00.html
Islamic Jihad mourns West Bank leader
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 30 Apr — Islamic Jihad mourned the death of leader Raed Aref Faid Al-Mugheir on Saturday. Al-Mugheir, from ‘Arraba near Jenin, died aged 39 from kidney failure, a statement from the movement said. He suffered a kidney infection while detained in Israel’s Ad-Damon prison in 2000 and had ongoing kidney problems since then. Israel had imprisoned Al-Mugheir three times. He was one of Islamic Jihad’s pioneering fighters in the West Bank, along with Isam Baramah, Iyad Al-Hardan and Anwar Hamaran, all of whom were killed by Israeli forces, the statement said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=383536
Yisrael Beiteinu website hacked by pro-Palestinian activists
[with screenshot] Haaretz 30 Apr — The website of the Yisrael Beiteinu political party was hacked on Saturday by pro-Palestinian activists. The hackers placed on the front page of the website a picture of a Palestinian flag with the Egyptian pyramids in the background and wrote a message referring to party leader Avigdor Lieberman.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/yisrael-beiteinu-website-hacked-by-pro-palestinian-activists-1.359000
Surviving the Shoah – and beating Israel’s bureaucracy
JPost 29 Apr — Many Holocaust survivors live in severe poverty, unaware of the benefits owed them, and must fight the system to realize their rights — David Silberman, co-founder of the nonprofit organization Aviv Lenitzolei Hashoah (Spring for Holocaust Survivors), does not mince words when he proclaims that roughly NIS 250 million in funds meant to assist Holocaust survivors living in Israel remains unclaimed each year. 
http://www.jpost.com/Features/FrontLines/Article.aspx?id=218345
Analysis / Opinion
The flawed premises: two decades of failed state-making / Alistair Crooke
Foreign Policy 28 Apr — Europe and America have shared a settled conviction over the last decades: It is that Israel, out of its own necessity, must seek to conserve a Jewish majority within Israel. And that with time, and a growing Palestinian population, Israel will at some point have to acquiesce to a Palestinian state in order to maintain that Jewish majority: that is, only by giving Palestinians their own state and thereby shedding a part of the Palestinians it controls, can Israel’s Jewish majority be preserved. This simple proposition has given us the security-first doctrine: Meeting Israel’s self-definition of its own security needs — it is presumed — stands as the unique and sufficient principle, allowing Israel to transition with confidence to the two-state solution. But Israel has not done this — despite many opportunities over the last 19 years — and does not seem any more disposed to “give” a Palestinian state now. Seldom is it asked why, if the logic is indeed so compelling, have two states not emerged?  
http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/04/27/the_flawed_premises_two_decades_failed_state_making
Publishing propaganda, ignoring fact: the NY Daily News puts the lies in editorialize / Nima Shirazi & Alex Kane
28 Apr …a recent editorial printed by the Zuckerman-owned New York Daily News is a particularly egregious example of U.S. media’s aversion to the facts on Israel/Palestine. The bald-faced lies — which follow recent Israeli pronouncements about the “terrorists” organizing the upcoming international flotilla to break the Israeli blockade — printed would be laughable only if it wasn’t going to be read by thousands of people. UPDATE – …The photo of the Gaza grocery store is clearly another piece of propaganda meant to signify to the reader, “hey, withstores like these, can we really believe that Gaza’s inhabitants are victims of deliberate deprivation, discrimination, and occupation?” Apparently, according to Zuckerman’s Daily Newseditors, where there’s a market, there’s no suffering, right? To answer this question, one need only look at these pictures of the Warsaw Ghetto marketplace in the 1940’s:
http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2011/04/publishing-propaganda-ignoring-facts-ny.html
One word / Uri Avnery
Gush Shalom 30 Apr — In one word: Bravo! The news about the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas is good for peace. If the final difficulties are ironed out and a full agreement is signed by the two leaders, it will be a huge step forward for the Palestinians — and for us. There is no sense in making peace with half a people. Making peace with the entire Palestinian people may be more difficult, but will be infinitely more fruitful. Therefore: Bravo! Binyamin Netanyahu also says Bravo. Since the government of Israel has declared Hamas a terrorist organization with whom there will be no dealings whatsoever, Netanyahu can now put an end to any talk about peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. What, peace with a Palestinian government that includes terrorists? Never! End of  discussion. Two bravos, but such a difference.
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1304110046/
Jerusalem, Flower of Cities — sung by Fayrouz
A great revolutionary song by a great singer.  English subtitles.  [from Wikipedia: Fairuz (Arabic: فيروز, also spelled Fairouz or Fayrouz) is a Lebanese singer who is widely considered to be the most famous living singer in the Arab world and one of the best known of all time. She was born in Jabal al Arz (Cedar Mountain) to a Syriac Catholic father and a Maronite mother]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQJuPb_AZ-c&feature=related

     

Cokie’s in Hadassah, Nelson’s in the Haggadah (and Israel’s in the West Bank)

Apr 30, 2011

Lydda Four Eight

 

With no accountability, context or synthesis to Palestine, Cokie Roberts’s husband Steve Roberts explains to an NPR interviewer that the politics of Zionism replaced Judaism/ Religion for Eastern European immigrants (though that question wasn’t the intention of the interview, they were promoting interfaith Haggadah). Listen to Steve and Cokie Roberts discuss seders, replacement religion/Zionism, interfaith, etc on NPR’s Talk of the Nation (3:00-4:30 or so), orread the NPR transcript below, or read my edited transcript further on.

ROBERTS: … When we got married, we agreed that we were going to be respecting and celebrating each other’s religions and traditions in our home. And after I went to my first Seder I loved it and understood that this was going to be something that I wanted to do. So, after a couple of years I got up the courage to do it myself and we’ve been doing it ever since.

Mr. ROBERTS: And you say that hard for Cokie, but in some ways is even harder for my mother. (Soundbite of laughter) As a Jewish woman who is deeply attached to her tribe and her culture but never darkened a synagogue, the whole notion of actually us celebrating the Seder was sort of strange to her. In fact, she often said, before she died last fall, that the first Seder she ever went to was organized by her Catholic daughter-in-law. So, go figure.

NEAL CONAN: So you were raised in a non-observant Jewish family…

Mr. ROBERTS: To say the least.

CONAN: …in Bayonne, New Jersey and these were people who were very political, and Zionist in some respects, but not necessarily Jewish.

Mr. ROBERTS: And that’s actually quite typical of the Jew…

ROBERTS: Well, they were very Jewish.

Mr. ROBERTS: Yeah.

ROBERTS: They just weren’t religious.

Mr. ROBERTS: Well, they were tribally and culturally Jewish. If you woke my mother up in the middle of the night and said Dorothy Roberts, what are you, she probably would have said mother first and Jew second. But she never, ever went to a synagogue. My grandfather, her father was never bar mitzvahed. Neither of my grandfathers were ever bar mitzvahed or participated in any religious ritual. But as you point out, in that world of Eastern European immigrate Jews, often politics replaced religion. Zionism, socialism, Bundism -they were all very powerful. I used to say that my grandfather, his real rabbi was actually Larry Spivak, who was the host of “Meet the Press,” when he was growing up. And my grandfather’s religious devotion was to listen to Rabbi Larry. It wasn’t to go…

ROBERTS: But that grandfather had gone to Palestine as a young man, as a pioneer. So he was very much a Zionist.

CONAN: Well, Steve described how his mother came to some revelations at your Seder. What about your mom?

ROBERTS: Oh, my mother loves Seder. My mother’s 95 and she comes all the time and loves it. The only year she missed was the year she was at the Vatican. But she found some Seders to go to there as well. She was very close friends with the Israeli ambassador.

Mr. ROBERTS: Ambassador, right.

ROBERTS: And so they celebrated Passover there as well.

Mr. ROBERTS: You know, it’s funny, Neal, because you mentioned my mother-in-law. I’ve often kidded that I’m the only Jew from Bayonne, New Jersey whose mother-in-law was an ambassador to the Vatican. But now I’m the only Jew whose mother-in-law was an ambassador to the Vatican, whose wife, the esteemed National Public Radio correspondent, Cokie Boggs Roberts, is now a life member of Hadassah – thanks to the good women of Boca Raton, Florida. So… 

CONAN: You mention that – I just wanted to read a short excerpt: Rabbi Jill Jacobs of the Jewish Funds for Justice, suggests asking guests to bring something that reminds them of the Passover story, a memento from their own family’s immigration to America, for example, or a news story about a contemporary liberation struggle.

And then you have quotes from Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Mohandas Gandhi, Sojourner Truth. It goes on and on and on.

Mr. ROBERTS: Well, it’s going to be easy this year. I mean, you know, you talk about – we’ve been kidding about this, but we do want to thank our new press agent, Hosni Mubarak, for reminding everybody how universal this story is. 

As Cokie says, it’s a Jewish holiday, but it’s a universal message, and your caller reinforced that, as well. And it is a year when the connection between the ancient Jewish story and the modern yearning for freedom is pretty tangible.

Ms. ROBERTS: In the first – in the early centuries, actually, Passover and Easter were the same celebration. Easter was a Passover celebration. And only in, you know, well into the establishment of the church, several centuries in, did Easter become a separate celebration.

my transcript with relevant points only:

“tribally and culturally Jewish … non-observant Jewish family … to say the least … you say it was hard for Cokie but it was hard for my mother, as Jewish woman who was very attached to her tribe and her culture but NEVER darkened a synagogue the whole notion of actually us celebrating (sarcastically gasping) who never set foot in a synagogue the notion of us actually celebrating the seder was as a Jewish woman deeply attached to tribe and culture … these were people who were very political and Zionist … that is actually quite typical … they were very Jewish just not religious … they were tribally and culturally Jewish … never went to a synagogue … never participated in any religious ritual … but as you point out in that world of Eastern European immigrant Jews often politics replaced religion –ionism, socialism, Bundism (replaced Judaism/ religion) … they were all very powerful I used to tell my grandfather his real Rabbi was actually Larry Spivak who was the host from Meet the Press when he was growing up … and my grandfather’s religious devotion was to listen to “Rabbi” Larry … but that grandfather had gone to Palestine as a young man and as a pioneer [pioneer? what!?] so he was very much a Zionist …”
    

Bad timing for ‘WSJ’ author who says Arab spring won’t leap the Sinai

Apr 30, 2011

Jeff Klein

 

The theme of posts here the other day was attitudes of “denial” regarding the Palestine issue. Nothing could illustrate this more than an op-ed a couple of days ago  by a “scholar” with a comfortable job at a right-wing think tank. Josef Joffe, former publisher of the influential German newspaper Die Zeit and now ensconced as the Marc and Anita Abramowitz Fellow in International Relations at the Hoover Institution. Joffe wrote a piece in the April 26 Wall Street Journal on The Arab Spring and The Palestine Distraction. His theme was to debunk the idea that the upheavals around the Arab world had anything to do with the Israel-Palestine conflict. (The subtitle was: Arab peoples aren’t obsessed with anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. It’s their rulers who are.)

Shoddy political theories—ideologies, really—never die because they are immune to the facts. The most glaring is this: These revolutions have unfolded without the usual anti-American and anti-Israeli screaming. It’s not that the demonstrators had run out of Stars and Stripes to trample, or were too concerned about the environment to burn Benjamin Netanyahu in effigy. It’s that their targets were Hosni Mubarak, Zine el Abidine Ben-Ali, Moammar Gadhafi and the others—no stooges of Zionism they. In Benghazi, the slogan was: “America is our friend!” . . .[Palestine] is not the core conflict that feeds the despotism; it is the despots who fan the conflict, even as they fondle their U.S.-made F-16s and quietly work with Israel. Their peoples are the victims of this power ploy, not its drivers. This is what the demonstrators of Tahrir Square and the rebels of Benghazi have told us with their silence on the Palestine issue.

Bad timing. The next day it was announced that the new Egyptian regime, spurred on by popular demand, had brokered a reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas — against the clear wishes of the US and Israeli governments. Fatah may well have felt pressured to agree by the loss of their political patron with the fall of Hosni Mubarak. (It was a common complaint from Fatah supporters I met in the West Bank recently that the US made a big mistake in “letting Mubarak go” or that the Egyptian uprising was some kind of CIA-Al Jazeera plot.) Then there were a series of marches to the Israeli embassy in Cairo in support of the Palestinians and demanding that the Egypt-Israel peace treaty be abrogated. And finally, the new Egyptian government announced that it was ending collaboration with Israel in maintaining the siege of Gaza and would be opening its border to all traffic, making the 2007 agreement with Israel on controlling the Rafah Crossing a dead letter. The Egyptian foreign minister pointedly warned Israel “not to interfere” with a decision that was an internal matter to his country.

Glenn Greenwald (Strong anti-American sentiment in Egypt) usefully compiled polling results from Egypt indicating overwhelming sentiment in support of Palestine – and hostility to the US for its unwavering backing of Israel. 

What’s most remarkable about that 20/79 favorability disparity toward the U.S. is that it’s worse now than it was during the Bush years (a worldwide Pew poll of public opinion found a 30% approval rating in Egypt for the U.S. in 2006 and 21% in 2007). In one of the most strategically important countries in that region — a nation that has been a close U.S. ally for decades — public opinion toward the U.S. is as low as (if not lower than) ever, more than two years into the Obama presidency. . .

. . .this new polling data [reveals] the huge gap between the views of the Arab dictators we prop up and the Arab citizenry generally: the reason why the U.S., despite its lofty rhetoric, wants anything but democracy in that part of the world. Consider, for instance, that “54 percent [of Egyptians] want to annul the peace treaty with Israel, compared with 36 percent who want to maintain it.” 

And strong popular opinion in favor of the Palestinians is by no means a phenomenon limited to Egypt. Noam Chomsky also cited similar polling results in the Arab world: 

The U.S. and its Western allies are sure to do whatever they can to prevent authentic democracy in the Arab world. To understand why, it is only necessary to look at the studies of Arab opinion conducted by U.S. polling agencies. . . . They reveal that by overwhelming majorities, Arabs regard the U.S. and Israel as the major threats they face: the U.S. is so regarded by 90% of Egyptians, in the region generally by over 75%. Some Arabs regard Iran as a threat: 10%. Opposition to U.S. policy is so strong that a majority believes that security would be improved if Iran had nuclear weapons — in Egypt, 80%. Other figures are similar.

Joffe, the author of the WSJ op-ed, is not a hard-core neocon. His academic and political associations suggest an alignment with the “realist” school of diplomacy. But on the Palestine issue, he should be more appropriately called “surrealist.” Or maybe it’s just denial.
     

When will the U.N. observe its own resolutions re borders and states?

Apr 30, 2011

Hostage

 

President Shimon Peres tells Ban ‘UN cannot remain neutral in light of the rockets fired from Gaza to Israel.’  In recent days Israel has been exploiting the attacks from both sides of the conflict and the Goldstone editorial in the Washington Post to demand that the UN Fact Finding report be retracted and to insist that the UN take action against the de facto government of Gaza. The UN Security Council has consistently violated neutrality and customary international practice by refusing to acknowledge the reports of its own human rights treaty monitoring bodies and fact finding missions that say the de facto government in Gaza is part of a belligerent community that is suffering the consequences of an illegal blockade. The rights and duties of the Hamas regime and the population of Gaza should be the same as those of any other State:

Once the decision has been taken to recognize an insurgent government as belligerent, the legal consequences of the decision are not limited to its concession of belligerent rights. So long as it maintains an independent existence, the insurgent government is considered to have all the normal rights and liabilities of a State. Its legal position is not merely that of a military occupant as defined by the Hague Convention No. IV, of 1907. — See Ti-chiang Chen, “The international law of recognition, with special reference to practice in Great Britain and the United States”, Nabu Press, 2010, page 307-308.

Chen also explained why non-recognition and collective punishment are not an acceptable solution. He said it could not be denied that a belligerent community enjoys authority in the territory under its control and that individuals living there have no choice but to submit to that authority. A third state can’t, without causing grievous hardships and inequities to the local inhabitants, deny the legal validity of the acts of the belligerent community which regulate life within its territory. UN Security Council Resolution 73 (1949):

Reaffirmed pending the final peace settlement, the order contained in its resolution 54 (1948) to the Governments and authorities concerned, pursuant to Article 40 [Chapter 7] of the Charter of the United Nations, to observe an unconditional cease-fire and, bearing in mind that the several Armistice Agreements include firm pledges against any further acts of hostility between the parties and also provide for their supervision by the parties themselves, relies upon the parties to ensure the continued application and observance of these Agreements;

The principles of international law codified in the UN Charter were subsequently studied and published by the General Assembly. The Charter principles establish that:

Every State… has the duty to refrain from the threat or use of force to violate international lines of demarcation, such as armistice lines, established by or pursuant to an international agreement to which it is a party or which it is otherwise bound to respect. …States have a duty to refrain from acts of reprisal involving the use of force. — See General Assembly resolution 2625 (XXV)“Declaration On Principles Of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations And Co-Operation Among States In Accordance With The Charter Of The United Nations”

Ironically, Israel refuses to withdraw its armed forces or recognize the armistice lines and has recently threatened unilateral steps if the UN Security Council recognizes them or a Palestinian state established in the Occupied Palestinian territory pending a final settlement. However, even legal experts who support the government of Israel, such as Professor Ruth Lapidot, haveexplained that:

Recognition of statehood is a political act, and every state has the right to decide for itself whether to recognize another state.

The General Assembly affirmed a long time ago that Palestinian statehood is not dependent on the peace process or subject to any veto. Judge Rosalyn Higgins advised:

This is not difficult – from Security Council resolution 242 (1967) through to Security Council resolution 1515 (2003), the key underlying requirements have remained the same – that Israel is entitled to exist, to be recognized, and to security, and that the Palestinian people are entitled to their territory, to exercise self-determination, and to have their own State.

Judge Theodor Meron was the Chief Legal Counsel of the Foreign Ministry and the Israeli government’s expert on international law in 1967 . He pointed out that responsibility for the outbreak of the Six Day War has never been authoritatively established. See “Henry’s wars and Shakespeare’s laws”, Oxford University Press, 1993, page 45-46. Israel frequently cites security or a state of necessity to justify the occupation and its other measures, but the International Court of Justice determined that Israel could not preclude the wrongfulness of its actions on those grounds because it had contributed to the state of necessity. In the Targeted Killings case, the Israeli Supreme Court established that a state of belligerency exists when itdetermined:

“that between Israel and the various terrorist organizations active in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip (hereinafter “the area”) a continuous situation of armed conflict has existed since the first intifada.”

Israel routinely submits formal complaints to the UN “as if” Hamas is a full member state with obligations under the UN Charter and international law. Israel officially designated Gaza an“enemy entity” after it had privately confided to the United States government that it would be would be “happy” if Hamas took over because the IDF could then deal with Gaza as a hostile state. Despite the fact that Israel has pursued a deliberate policy of isolating and separating Gaza from the West Bank, Israel’s representative at the UN asked who exactly is the “Palestinian side” that should follow-up on the Goldstone report in conducting an investigation? The Parliamentary Union of the Organization of the Islamic Conference member states haveurged the international community to recognize Hamas. Russia and Turkey have been criticized by Israel for suggesting that Hamas be included in the Middle East Peace process. Despite the fact that the majority of UN member states have formally recognized the State of Palestine, Israel still insists that it does not exist. Therefore, the Palestinian community as a whole does not enjoy the protections contained in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibit the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state or territory delimited by armistice lines. ________________ ______________ Both the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories have highlighted the fact that the Middle East Quartet, including the UN Secretary-General, are attempting to impose a lopsided final settlement on the Palestinians by working outside of the normative framework of the organization. In the process, the members of the Quartet are ignoring international law; the resolutions of the Security Council and General Assembly; and the advisory opinion of the UN’s own judicial organ. The Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process noted the lack of any formal mandate from the members or organs of the UN for the Secretary-General to participate as a member of the Quartet. He criticized the lack of normatively based and even-handed positions. In his 2007 “End of Mission Report”, Alvaro de Soto said:

Since the election of Hamas, I have been “The Secretary-General’s Personal Representative to the Palestinian Authority” for about ten or fifteen minutes in two phone calls and one handshake. …I could live with the arrangements until the point came when the Quartet started taking positions which are not likely to gather a majority in UN bodies, and which in any case are at odds with UN Security Council resolutions and/or international law or, when they aren’t expressly so, fall short of the minimum of even-handedness that must be the lifeblood of the diplomatic action of the Secretary-General.

John Dugard reported that UN participation in the Quartet under such circumstances was completely improper:

In 2004 the International Court of Justice handed down an advisory opinion in which it condemned as illegal not only the construction of the wall but many features of the Israeli administration of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The advisory opinion was endorsed by the General Assembly on 20 July 2004 in resolution ES-10/15. Since then little effort has been made by the international community to compel Israel to comply with its legal obligations as expounded by the International Court. The Quartet, comprising the United Nations, the European Union, the United States of America and the Russian Federation, appears to prefer to conduct its negotiations with Israel in terms of the so-called road map with no regard to the advisory opinion. The road map seems to contemplate the acceptance of certain sections of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the inclusion of major Jewish settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in Israeli territory. This process places the United Nations in an awkward situation as it clearly cannot be a party to negotiations that ignore the advisory opinion of its own judicial organ.

In a subsequent report Dugard advised that Israel’s occupation had taken on ominous characteristics of collective punishment, colonialism and apartheid. Worse still, he noted that the Quartet had taken Israel’s side and was behaving like a co-belligerent:

Gaza has become a besieged and imprisoned territory as a result of the economic sanctions imposed on the Occupied Palestinian Territory by Israel and the West, following Hamas’ success in the January 2006 elections… To aggravate matters the Quartet has gone along with this policy of political and financial isolation. …In effect, the Palestinian people have been subjected to economic sanctions – the first time an occupied people have been so treated. This is difficult to understand. Israel is in violation of major Security Council and General Assembly resolutions dealing with unlawful territorial change and the violation of human rights and has failed to implement the 2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, yet it escapes the imposition of sanctions. Instead, the Palestinian people, rather than the Palestinian Authority, have been subjected to possibly the most rigorous form of international sanctions imposed in modern times.

The most pressing problem is not that Hamas or Fatah lack legitimacy with the Palestinian people, or whether there ought to be one state or two. It is that the UN has been Israel’s willing accomplice in permitting acts to be perpetrated against the Palestinians that international law would otherwise prohibit if they had been directed toward another State.
     

The Reconciliation… and the football match

Apr 30, 2011

Sarah Ali

 

When I first read the news about the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, I simply thought the site I was surfing was outdated or something. It was not. On Wednesday 27 April, 2011, and to my surprise, the two major Palestinian parties, Fatah and Hamas, agreed on a reconciliation deal after secret meetings were held between the two groups. I felt shocked, happy and, of course, scared. “They’ve done this many times, but they never pulled if off,” everyone started to say. People were happy, though. I was happy.

I almost forgot about the match.. yeaaa.. the MATCH!

Most of the Gazans like to watch football games. I can never blame my people for “liking” to watch football. I simply can’t. Football seems to be one of the very few refuges the besieged Gazans resort to when they need a break (In case you’re not following: a break from being oppressed, shelled, murdered, injured.. every single day). Still, you can never tell how safe a refuge football is. You can get shot—while watching a football game.

A few hours after we knew of the reconciliation, there was this football game between Barcelona and Real Madrid, the two most famous Spanish teams. I’m not really interested in football, but I had to show some excitement as everyone (At that moment, it seemed to me that all Gazans were fans of Barcelona) was shouting and celebrating the 2 goals Barcelona scored. Yeah, Barcelona won the game.

Some streets got crowded, and people, say kids and young men, rushed to the streets yelling and screaming and shooting in the air (Yea shooting; we cannot help it). I couldn’t actually tell whether they were shouting because of the reconciliation or because of the match. They were shouting anyway. They were happy. I was happy.

Today, and because I am happy, I repeat the cliché which I’ve always loved, “We are all brothers.” Today I tell Fatah and Hamas, “Please, work it out.” Today I beg them, “Don’t disappoint us this time.”
Today I say, “Congratulations, Barcelona!”

crossposted @ Here We Are “I didn’t ask to be Palestinian; I just got lucky.”

 

It’s like fluoride, in the water (Mario Cuomo narrates Masada oratorio at Temple Emanu-El)

Apr 30, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

I was told that on Thursday former NY Governor Mario Cuomo, who happens to be the father of the current NY governor, was making public remarks about Masada, the mountain near the Dead Sea that was the scene of a mass suicide by Jewish soldiers after the destruction of the second temple and that today is used by the Israeli army for inducting soldiers. And oh ye of little faith, I did not believe that Cuomo was doing such a thing. But google said I was wrong:

On April 28, the Boris Lurie Art Foundation will present a free concert at New York’s historic Temple Emanu-El. On the program is the world premiere of Marvin David Levy’s oratorio Atonement, a reworking of three of Levy’s previous pieces that have never before been performed in New York City. Exploring three critical moments of Jewish history – “Holocaust”, “Inquisition”, and “Masada”, Atonement will be performed by Grammy Award-winning soprano Ana María Martínez and tenor Michael Fabiano, a Grand Prize Winner of the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, with narration by Mario M. Cuomo, former governor of the state of New York and father of current governor Andrew M. Cuomo. Eugene Kohn, who boasts an extensive recorded discography with Plácido Domingo, will lead a full choir and orchestra for the concert, which will be filmed for future television broadcasts on dates and networks to be announced. Full concert details follow below.

Mer Khamis will be memorialized by Kushner, Jabara, Aloni, Chalfant, Angelou, el-Ra’ee

Apr 30, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

I just got this update from the Friends of the Jenin Freedom Theatre about the celebration of Juliano Mer Kahmis on Tuesday night, May 4 in New York. Quite an evening: 

**CELEBRATION OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF JULIANO MER KHAMIS**
MAY 4, 2011, 7 P.M.
Church of St. Paul the Apostle, Columbus Avenue between 59th and 60th Streets
remarks by
TONY KUSHNER, UDI ALONI, ABDEEN JABARA, KATHLEEN CHALFANT and others
music by
SIMON SHAHEEN AND LIZ MAGNES
Video appearances by Nabeel el-Ra’ee of The Freedom Theater, Maya Angelou, and others
Doors open at 6:30 p.m., program starts promptly at 7 p.m.

Helen Thomas will cover Move Over AIPAC conference, doesn’t want to speak at it

Apr 30, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

The MoveOverAipac conference is in 3 weeks. The organizers have just issued a statement to endorsers explaining the Helen Thomas invitation, and Thomas’s withdrawal from the conference. Medea is Medea Benjamin of CodePink, who met with Helen Thomas yesterday, and Rae is Rae Abileah. Great women. Here it is:

Thank you for your support of Move Over AIPAC (www.MoveOverAIPAC.org) and your concern about Helen Thomas’ participation. We’d like to clarify what has happened to date since it seems there have been many versions of what happened.  CODEPINK has appreciated and admired Helen Thomas’ courageous journalism since our start, honoring her with a pink badge of courage, and being one of the groups that organized “Jews for Helen” after she was fired.  In inviting Helen Thomas to speak, it was our hope that her name would draw more attendance and excitement for the MOA events.  Unfortunately, we did not talk over this invitation with the other coalition members and only found out–after the fact–that several groups and individuals thought it was a bad move on our part because the press would focus on Helen and not our critique of AIPAC.  When we at CODEPINK told Helen’s assistant about these concerns, her assistant called back and said Helen preferred not to speak. We want to make it clear that no groups within the coalition pressured us to “disinvite” Helen and that she was never disinvited.  

This morning Medea met with Helen to make it clear to her that there was still an open, welcoming invitation for her to speak. Helen reaffirmed that she does not wish to speak at Move Over AIPAC and she did so on film, which we will post. She also stated she would prefer to attend the conference as a journalist and cover the events, and has agreed to speak at a post-AIPAC Policy Conference event at Bus Boys and Poets on May 4, which CODEPINK will help publicize. 
Senator James Abourezk, who wrote an article saying that Helen was disinvited, has now put out this statement: “I understand that Helen Thomas does not want to speak at Move Over AIPAC and instead wants to cover it as a journalist. I encourage everyone who agrees with the premise of this gathering to move forward and help make this a successful event.”
 
In reviewing the sequence of events, we realize that have erred in our communication with endorsing organizations and wish to apologize for this.  We are relatively new to this movement for justice in Israel/Palestine and have much to learn from those of you who have been doing this work for decades.  And we all have much to learn about how to work effectively, respectfully and in integrity with each other. 
Move Over AIPAC is a unique hybrid experience – CODEPINK is coordinating the conference, events and actions, and has asked for endorsements, most of which have been endorsements in name only thus far.  We assumed that there was trust in groups that we could make decisions about speakers, workshops, actions.  To date we’ve had two meetings in Washington DC, two conference calls, and have sent out numerous emails to endorsers inviting suggestions for speakers, performers, and creative actions. We are appreciative to the input we’re received thus far, but we hoped there would be more engagement from groups willing to help outreach and organize.  
We hope that if there is something positive to come out of this, in addition to the clarity around Helen’s wishes and her participation in Move Over AIPAC, it might be a renewed sense of interest in working together to make this event a success. So far we have only 130 registrants. We hope to reach 300 in the next three weeks and need everyone’s help to reach that goal.
Moving forward, we’d like to establish clear lines of communication, particularly with partnering groups that are sending members to the conference and organizing to make it a success.  ..
In Solidarity,
Medea, Rae and Shaden

Holbrooke couldn’t get a meeting with Obama because he saw Af/Pak surge as sabotaging Middle East policy

Apr 30, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

I haven’t read Ryan Lizza’s piece in the New Yorker on how the Arab spring has remade Obama’s foreign policy. ( was put off by the title, the Consequentialist, it sounded astrological, and isn’t this just a fancy way of saying Pragmatist?) I have to read it. But I have smart friends, and one sent this assessment along:

I felt the ghost of cuts. Especially around the division between the State Department and the WH in “the first two years” (i.e. almost all) of the administration. It seems to me that Lizza, who doesn’t care for Obama and who shows it more than he thinks (and as much as Remnick allows), portrays a foreign policy in nearly complete dishevelment, with the lack of co-ordination emanating from the top. It is astonishing that Holbrooke couldn’t be scheduled for a meeting with the president, and now we know why: the special envoy on Afghanistan/Pakistan was opposed to sending the additional 40,000 troops; he saw it as completely sabotaging Obama’s declared intentions in the Middle East, West Asia and China. (The Woodward book gave hints about Holbrooke’s doubts but pulled this punch.) The quotation from Brzezinski is precise and very damaging:

“I greatly admire [Obama’s] insights and understanding… [But] the rhetoric is
always terribly imperative and categorical: ‘You must do this,’ ‘He must do
that,’ ‘This is unacceptable.'”  Brzezinski added, “He doesn’t strategize. He
sermonizes.”

Lawyer at ‘Counterpunch’ validates Palestinian right of armed resistance to occupation

Apr 30, 2011

Philip Weiss

 

Lynda Burstein Brayer is a South African, Israeli-trained human rights lawyer. She has worked in the West Bank. This is at Counterpunch, in a takedown of the Goldstone reconsideration, a discussion of the Palestinian right to self-determination and thus, violent resistance. Others have said the same thing, of course; Michael Neumann said so, at Counterpunch during Cast Lead. Palestinians make this point too. And in our Goldstone volume, Jerry Slater wrote that Israel had no right to launch Cast Lead when it had an alternative response to the Hamas rockets, of negotiations.

There is one outstanding question and issue which Justice Goldstone chose not to address: neither in the original commission nor in his retraction. This is the question of the right of a people to resist an aggressor and/or an oppressor, and the legitimacy of such resistance. I would argue that according to international law today, Israel has no rights to or in the Occupied territories of Palestine. According to the same international law, the occupation ought to have ceased one year after its beginning, that is by June 1968. The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution requiring Israel to withdraw from all occupied territories, Resolution 242 in November 1967. 

I would contend that the continuing presence of Israel in these occupied territories, its building of settlements and the transfer of a huge Jewish population into it, and an infrastructure built from Palestinian assets to serve those settlements, its control over the use of land and water, and its continuing oppression of the indigenous population, should be classified as a colonialist venture. From the Palestinian point of view, the Israeli policies and practices are formulated and executed for the destruction of Palestinian society, private and public life, and their material assets.

In this situation of continuing oppression, dispossession, detention, killing and destruction of social frameworks, are Palestinians not permitted to resist all or any of this? If Israel is a colonizing power over and above its status as Military Occupier, precisely because of its settlement activity and control of the resources of the territory in Occupied Palestine then it would seem that the Declaration on Granting Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, 1960 General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV), December 14, 1960 applies to Palestinians today. I quote two relevant articles. 

1. The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation.

2. All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

Above and beyond the basic right of all human beings to resist their being killed and harmed, and a society to take armed actions to protect itself, this document legitimizes also national liberation struggles, including, at this time in history, most particularly, the Palestinian people’s struggle for its own freedom. It is this right which legitimizes all Palestinian attempts to lift the yoke of Israeli oppression from Palestine, including all the actions taken by the Palestinians during Operation Cast Lead.

And is not the right to resist oppression universal? Does this right not justify the American Revolut8ion and then the French Revolution and the wars of liberation in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

The accusation of anti-Semitism has long passed its sell-by date: Anthony Lawson

NOVANEWS

 
Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem
Chair of West Midland PSC
 
This is a very good interview abu ” Anti-Semitism” 
pro-zionist element’s in West Midland Palestine Solidarity Campaign worth reading this.
 
Interview by Kourosh Ziabari

Anthony Lawson

Without any redundant exaggeration, Anthony Lawson is an inimitable, conscientious and unique man. What he does can be described as professional and committed video-journalism. Lawson is a retired international-prize-winning commercials director, cameraman, ad agency creative director and voice over. He calls himself as a “stickler for accuracy” and his record demonstrates the rightfulness of this description. His articles and videos on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 9/11 attacks and U.S. foreign policy have appeared on a number of media outlets and news websites including Sabbah Report, Veterans Today, Salem News, Intifada Palestine, Media With Conscience, Rense.com and Ramllah Online.

“Suppressing free and open discussion on any subject is as bad as telling lies, and knowingly suppressing the truth is the biggest lie of all, because it is based, not on a mistake or a genuine error, but on a deliberate intention to deceive,” writes Anthony Lawson in one of his articles.

YouTube has recently removed two of Mr. Lawson’s most impressive video files about Holocaust and 9/11 attacks under the pretext that these video files have violated the copyright law; however, even a seven-year-old child can effortlessly recognize that the sensitive truths which Anthony Lawson has touched upon in his videos caused their removal from the pro-Zionist website.

The unprofessional and immoral decision of YouTube to remove Mr. Lawson’s videos provoked great controversy and showed to the world that those who boast of adhereing to freedom of speech and democracy are not honest and truthful in their baseless claims.

What follows is the complete text of my in-depth interview with Anthony Lawson in which we discussed a variety of issues including the concealed realities of 9/11, the Zionist influence over the U.S. administration and the freedom of mass media in the West.

Kourosh Ziabari:

In one of your articles, you have written that “the NTSB has confirmed that-apparently for the first time from its inception, in 1967, since when it has investigated more than 124,000 other aviation accidents-it took no part in investigating any of the air crashes which occurred on September 11, 2001.” Do you mean that the National Transportation Safety Board refused to investigate the 9/11 air crashes? Was it ordered by a superior authority to do so? What does the fact that NTSB didn’t investigate the 9/11 air crashes imply? You have mentioned that FBI similarly refused to release any information about any debris recovered from the crash sites under the Freedom of Information Act. Do you want to imply that the U.S. administrative organizations such as FBI and NTSB have been complicit in the 9/11 attacks?

Anthony Lawson:

That is correct. The NTSB did not take part in the painstaking procedure of examining what was left of the four aircraft to determine that they were indeed the same aircraft which were allegedly hijacked that morning. Two of the allegedly hijacked aircraft: American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were claimed, by the Bush administration, to have been the planes which impacted the North Tower and South Tower, respectively, each flown by Arabs who, it later transpired, had never flown a wide-bodied commercial jet before. Aircraft debris, including parts of an undercarriage and fuselage of the North Tower plane were certainly photographed, and the still-smoking core of what must have been the right engine of the South Tower plane can be seen, in several videos, arcing its way down towards Murray and Church streets, were it was videoed and photographed. Later, an identifiable photograph of this same engine core was released, by a former FEMA official photographer, as it was about to be buried in a landfill on Staten Island. This was an important section of a murder weapon, as were the aircraft parts found in or near the North Tower; the debris from the alleged crash site of United Flight 93 and that of American Airlines 77 which allegedly crashed into the Pentagon.

As to the second part of the question, I very much doubt that the NTSB would have been in a position to refuse to investigate the crashes. I should say that were dissuaded from doing so. The FBI, backed up by the Justice Department has refused to release any details about the aircraft parts or the serial numbers of the Black Boxes that may or may not have been found at the crash sites, although the contents of one of them—the Cockpit Voice Recorder from alleged United 93—formed the basis of several documentaries and an Academy-Award-winning movie, yet the transcript of the recording did not carry the serial number of the device on which it was, allegedly, recorded.

I try not to imply things that I have no proof about, because I think that it is up to the reader or viewer to make up their own mind about such things, but I will state, categorically, that the FBI must have been involved in the subsequent cover-up of important information about 9/11, and it is disappointing, but somewhat understandable, considering the power that the perpetrators must possess, that someone from the NTSB has not come forward with the reasons why these plane crashes, out of so many thousands, were not investigated by a government agency with such an outstanding success record.
(See my video: 9/11: The Unidentified Murder Weapons)

KZ:

In your articles, you have alluded to the fact that the U.S. mainstream media evaded and downplayed the truth about 9/11 and tried to cover up the reality behind it. Meanwhile, they laid the groundwork for the military expedition of the United States and its cronies to two independent, sovereign states. Why do the mainstream media in the United States, which you may admit that are mostly run by well-off Zionists, refused to investigate and analyse the 9/11 attacks objectively and impartially? Does it indicate that the U.S. media, contrary to the accepted wisdom of the public opinion, are not absolutely free to publish whatever they want?

AL:

It is no secret that today’s mainstream media and the major Hollywood production companies are owned or controlled by Jews, many of them Zionists, and that many if not most are almost certainly biased towards the well-being of the Jewish state of Israel. Of course there will be loud cries of “foul”, if one relates these factors to the obvious areas which should have been reported or looked into by the mainstream media, but were not. There are so many areas of obvious discrepancy, relating to the ongoing coverage of 9/11, two prime examples being the non-identification of the murder weapons, as explained above, and the fact that the strange collapse of WTC 7 was glossed over by the media and not even mentioned in the Commission’s report. This brought to light the virtual disappearance of what used to be called investigative journalism, while calls from independent researchers and public-opinion polls for a more thorough investigation of the obvious anomalies in the 9/11 Commission’s report have fallen on stony ground, because the mainstream media, quite clearly, will the not address these issues with any seriousness.

Once again, I can’t really give you a clear answer to the last part of question two, because I have no evidence that there is outside pressure on the media, but I’m inclined to think that, given AIPAC’s power and who owns the media, very little pressure would be required to prevent reports which may be detrimental to Israel from surfacing in the press or on T.V.

KZ:

on several occasions, you criticized the U.S. Congress for its overabundant loyalty and commitment to the Apartheid Regime of Israel. You have stated that “a majority of the curren membership of the United States congress are, in fact, traitors to their own nation, because they have indicated, time and time again, a desire to put the protection of the Apartheid State of Israel ahead of considerations for the safety and security of the realm to which they have been pledged their allegiance: The United States of America.” Is there any certain mechanism within the political structure of the United States which promotes pro-Israel politicians to Congress, Senate and other sensitive governmental positions? In an exclusive interview with me, the American political scientist Prof. Naseer Aruri expressed an interesting statement. He said that no politician with an anti-Zionist mindset could ever dream of living in the White House. Do you agree? Why is it so?

AL:

I totally agree with Professor Aruri. I cannot see anyone being voted in as Dog Catcher, if that is an elective position in any of the United States, where they are not prepared to show that they support Israel, 100%. The way that so many members of the House and Senate have signed letters which actually pledge their allegiance to Israel—even in the face of conflicting policies being stated by their own president—is evidence of their treason. Sure, some people will argue about the exact conditions which must apply for such pledges to amount to treason, but the U.S. is still engaged in two wars, if you count the war on terror, and the Libyan conflict could easily escalate into another war, whether declared or not, and Israel will be looking to further its own best interests in the region, which will almost certainly not coincide with America’s best interests—by which I mean the best interests of American citizens, not their administrators—and the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, in 1967, that killed 34 American servicemen, should be warning enough that

Israel is not to be trusted, when it feels threatened by anyone. So what would these pledges of allegiance or solidarity towards Israel mean, if a similar incident took place?

KZ:

Putting aside its militaristic and imperialistic face, United States is deemed by many nations of the world as a superpower which can benefit them in terms of economy and diplomacy. The United States maintains strong relations with so many countries in the world. Canada, China, Mexico, Japan and Germany are the top 5 trade partners of the United States. However, among the countries with which the U.S. maintains strong diplomatic, economic and cultural relations, Israel occupies a special berth. The United States has regularly vetoed any UNSC resolution critical of Israel, justified Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity, helped Israel extend its umbrella of occupation over the Palestinian nation and prevented the international community from investigating Israel’s illegal nuclear program. What has created such a strong and unbreakable linkage between Tel Aviv and Washington? What causes the United States to present itself as the unconditional supporter and patron of the Israeli regime?

Anthony:

As I have indicated in my video, Friends of Israel — Enemies Inside the Gates, there seem to be two basic reasons for the strong and unbreakable linkage between Tel Aviv and Washington: arcane beliefs and money. If a person is a Zionist, and believes that Israel really was promised to the Jews, in perpetuity, by their God, several thousand years ago, whether they are Jews or Zionists Christians, that would be reason enough to support Israel, come Hell or high water. But, I suspect the stronger reason is more likely to be money and power, which are pretty much the same thing or, at least, interchangeable. Referring back to Professor Aruri’s statement, I would broaden it to: “No politician with an anti-Zionist mindset could ever dream of living in the White House or of sitting in the House of Representatives or the Senate for any significant length of time.” The reason being that they could never buck the big bucks that AIPAC would put up to defeat them at the next election. And the magic of it all is that it doesn’t cost Israel a shekel, because the U.S. pays Israel $3.1 billion plus in aid, every year, so it can afford to back candidates from both parties. As long as they pledge to keep that “aid” money rolling towards Tel Aviv, it can be rolled right back into their own campaign funds at election time. This is a mind-boggling feed-back system that would have had the Founding Fathers foaming at their mouths, had they considered that such a thing might be a possibility. Democracy didn’t even exist in Ancient Greece, which was a slave state, and it certainly doesn’t exist in the United States, although so many U.S. presidents claim that it is an exportable commodity, if only at the point of an M16 carbine I guess the short answer is: Tel Aviv controls the U.S., not Washington.

KZ:

The critics of Israeli regime are always conveniently vilified as anti-Semitist and those who question the veracity of Holocaust accounts are offhandedly called neo-Nazis. Whoever dares criticize Israel for its crimes against humanity and brutal repression of the Palestinian nation is disrespectfully dismissed by the mainstream media. What has given the Israeli regime and the Zionist lobby around the world such an immense and enormous power to suffocate all of the critics and opponents by introducing them as the enemies of Judaism?

AL:

Money and dedication to a cause is what enables the perpetuation of these absurd and unwarranted insults. If something is repeated often enough, in the media, it is believed by those who lack the power to think for themselves. And it is the Zionist-owned media that can afford to repeat them, over and over. With regard to people who are unable to think for themselves, unfortunately, I think early religious teachings must take some of the blame for the underdevelopment of young minds, in the area of free thinking, because being encouraged to blindly believe in something that cannot be seen, heard or touched must affect the ability or willingness of a young person to question other things about their lives and relationships with others. Which means that their minds are wide open to other suggestions which may appear quite reasonable, but which are not, if they only gave them some thought. Whatever the cause of this lack of awareness in so many people, most people who are able to think for themselves must realise that the accusation of anti-Semitism has long passed its sell-by date, if it ever had a legitimate one. In fact it is a total misnomer, it doesn’t mean anti-Jewish, because the word Semitic refers to a group of languages, not a belief system. I counter this with my own word combination: Anti-NastyPeopleism. This is quite an okay emotion to have, and if one of those nasty people happens to be a Jew or a Zionist, that is not my problem it is theirs.

KZ:

Two of your impressive video files namely “Holocaust, Hate Speech & Were the Germans so Stupid?” and No-Fly Zone over Gaza were flagrantly removed by the YouTube in clear violation of the freedom of speech and democracy. By disabling the truth-seeking internet users to watch your insightful videos, YouTube demonstrated that it can be hardly trusted as a reliable and truthful source of information. Please explain for me and my readers about the contents of your video files and let us know about your idea regarding their removal from YouTube. Do you agree with the belief that the Western world is not that beacon of freedom and cradle of liberty which its statesmen claim?

AL:

An operation like YouTube is wide open to abuse from people who have no regard for freedom of speech and expression. Ever since the first video you mention was taken down, because of a false copyright-infringement claim, which was not looked into by the YouTube “Team”—even when I pointed out that the claimant had given an incorrect telephone number and the material it was claimed I was infringing is not even available on the Internet—I’ve given up trying to fight them, because that is what such people want me to do: waste my energy fighting a corporation which doesn’t care a damn about anyone or anything, except making money. It is a world sickness: never mind the quality of our operation, feel the money it makes. These days, I never use the word “believe” in relation to my thoughts, because it has the wrong connotation. People believe things that, quite obviously, may not have any basis in fact, so I prefer the word “think”. So the answer is that I don’t think that the Western world is a beacon of freedom or cradle of liberty. Most of its elements are as corrupt and as rotten to the core as any of the regimes which have already fallen or which are teetering, in the Arab world, right now.

Here’s a question for you, rhetorical I guess: Have you ever seen anything as gross as the royal wedding and the coverage given to it by the media? How much did all that cost to prop up the idea that monarchy still has something to offer in this day and age? The world didn’t stop when Israel invaded Gaza, but it stopped, as far as the BBC and CNN were concerned, when a couple of young people of no particular noteworthiness got married I cannot look at any of those pictures or listen to the inane commentaries without thinking of the massive degradation of decency that went into the planning of that appalling display of wealth, or the mental illness that makes certain people think that the frock worn by so-and-so has any meaning at all, in the wider picture of human decency and compassion for the suffering of others. It was a disgrace.

KZ:

According to the Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights which was highlighted in your video, everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression and there should be no exception to this rule. However, those who benefit from aggrandizing the story of Holocaust and exaggerating its extent are at odds with this inalienable freedom. Why has the Holocaust become a forbidden zone which nobody can enter? What’s your personal viewpoint regarding the accounts which have been given about Holocaust? Did the Nazi Germany under the leadership of Adolf Hitler exterminate 6 million Jews is gassing chambers?

AL:

It would be hard to answer in a single paragraph what I took a 30 minute video to examine. During WW II, atrocities of monumental proportions were committed by both sides. The thousand-bomber raids launched on the civilian population of Germany and the droppings of two atomic bombs on civilians in Japan are prime examples. There is no doubt in my mind that English and American politicians and military staff sat and cold-bloodedly planned those atrocities. They would have been classed as war criminals had Germany won the war. On the other hand, it seems that there is no solid evidence that Germany put in train a plan to systematically murder Jews using gas chambers. I have no doubt that some Germans were as cruel as some of those bombing-raid planners, and that a lot of unnecessary deaths resulted from that cruel streak, which seems to show itself in so many humans, but I do not think that the facts support the planned systematic-extermination scenario that the ever-growing number of Holocaust museums claim was perpetrated by the Germans. And I would add that the more I hear and see of the attempts to gag open discussion on this uniquely banned historical subject, the more I am convinced that some things are being covered up and others invented in order to perpetuate some of the Holocaust stories that would not stand up to a thorough and impartial examination.

 

Interivewer, Kourosh Ziabari

KZ:

Let’s take a glance at the developments taking place in the Middle East region. Almost all of the nations in the Persian Gulf region which are experiencing revolutions or semi-revolutions, from Egypt and Tunisia to Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, have been the staunch allies of Washington. One feature is common between all of these countries and that is their repressiveness and black human rights record. Why does the United States support and uphold brutal regimes such as Bahrain, Libya and Yemen who relentlessly massacre their own people and refuse to be held accountable before the international community?

AL:

I don’t claim to have anything more than a distant bystander’s knowledge of these issues, so all I can do is put two and two together from observing the diplomatic Merry-Go-Round between the various countries you mention, over the last few years. Clearly, the United States has no interest in these countries becoming democracies, or in the wellbeing of their citizens; the arming of Saudi Arabia demonstrating its blatant show of support for one of the most elitist regimes in the world. Bearing in mind the control exercised by Zionists in the U.S., I think it is almost a certainty that each potential flash-point is looked at, not from America’s point-of-view, but from Israel’s. The change of regime in Egypt, which has a common border and a long-standing peace pact with Israel, is going to be one of the most telling areas to watch, in view of the Egyptian people’s stated concerns about Gaza and the Palestinians. These recent uprisings and demonstrations of discontent must have sent tsunami-sized shock waves through whatever diplomatic damage-control systems the Washington-Tel Aviv axis had in place, so it would be a brave or foolhardy observer who would try to guess what is likely to happen, except to say that whatever does happen it is unlikely to be very pretty to watch on our TV screens or read about on the Internet.

KZ:

United States and its European allies have long accused Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program. They have lethally pressured Iran to give up its nuclear program and imposed hard-hitting sanctions against the country which have paralyzed the daily life of people here. At the same time and while almost everybody knows that Israel possesses up to 200 nuclear warheads, nobody dares question Israel on its nuclear program. How should one come to terms with this exercise of double standards?

AL:

I have tried to address this issue in several of my videos, the most pertinent being:
Iran and the International Bureau of Double Standards

and
Double Vendetta — The Insanity of the Iran Confrontation

The huge barrier to any common-sense approach to this problem is Zionist-controlled America’s and Britain’s unforgiving attitude, and, perhaps, even suppressed guilt for their imposition of the Shah on a nation struggling to achieve a working form of democracy, in 1953, while their most valuable natural resource was being plundered by foreign oil companies, and I can do no better in answering your question, than to copy some excerpts from the script of this video:

“Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI6 assisted [the CIA] in the coup to protect the interests of the Anglo Iranian Oil Company—now the newly-infamous British Petroleum. Under a disgracefully unbalanced agreement, the shareholders received 58% of the profits; the British collected 30%, in taxes, while Iran received a measly 12%. So the motive for overthrowing Dr. Mossadegh and Iran’s constitutionally-elected government was pure greed….”
 

” Perhaps to the surprise only of the tunnel-visioned British and American administrations, the Iranians decided, in 1979, that they’d had enough of the Shah and his vicious National Intelligence and Security Organization — SAVAK….”

“There followed the United States Embassy hostage crisis, destined to forever colour U.S./ Iranian relations. The Iranian regime was demanding the return of the recently-deposed Shah, to face trial, but he was allowed into the United States for medical treatment, and it was feared that this could mean that a CIA plot was being hatched to reinstate him. Approximately 90 people were taken hostage and 52 remained in captivity until the end of the crisis, four hundred and forty-four days later….”

“This incident still reverberates, within the collective American administrative psyche, as an insult. An insult yet to be expunged. Leaving what can be accurately described as: A vendetta against any Iranian regime which fails to do what it is told to do, by America.”

Thank you for asking me to take part in your interesting series of interviews; it has been a challenge, but also a great pleasure to share my thoughts with you.

Antony Loewenstein

NOVANEWS
  

How long will Cablegate last?

Posted: 01 May 2011 05:20 PM PDT

Julian Assange tells a Bulgarian publication of investigative journalism:

We are not yet sure exactly how long it will take to publish all the cables. Our system is to contact at least one media organisation in each country the cables originate from and give them cables that are of interest to their market. They then read, analyse and write on these, feeding us the redacted version of the cable. When we have worked with media in each country and various NGOs from around the world and they have all found as many stories of interest as they can, and have the resources to, then we shall do the work to publish each and every cable. This could be six months away, or over a year. We do not know as it depends on how many stories the media are discovering. Currently we are creating headlines around the world on a daily basis, so it certainly will not be any time soon.
…
I believe in the right to communicate and the inviolability of history, privacy for the weak and transparency for the powerful.

In case it wasn’t clear; Australia is America’s bitch

Posted: 01 May 2011 04:56 PM PDT

Really:

Australia secretly worked with the United States to weaken a key international treaty to ban cluster bombs, leaked US diplomatic cables show.
Despite taking a high-profile stance against cluster munitions – condemned as the cause of large numbers of civilian casualties – Australia was privately prepared to pull out of international negotiations on a global ban of the weapons if this threatened ties with US forces.
The US continues to use cluster munitions as ”a legitimate and useful weapon”, including in Afghanistan, and has affirmed that it will not sign the treaty to ban them. The disclosure comes as Federal Parliament prepares to consider a bill to ratify Australia’s signature of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. 
The draft legislation has attracted sharp criticism from non-government organisations for not matching the spirit of the treaty. One US group complained the legislation could be interpreted to ”allow Australian military personnel to load and aim the gun, so long as they did not pull the trigger”.
Diplomatic cables from the US embassy in Canberra – leaked to WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to the Herald – reveal Kevin Rudd’s newly elected government in 2007 immediately told the US it was prepared to withdraw from the negotiations if key ”red line” issues were not addressed – especially the inclusion of a loophole to allow signatories to the convention to co-operate with military forces using cluster bombs.
Opened for signature in Oslo in December 2008, the convention prohibits the use, transfer and stockpile of cluster bombs – weapons that deliver numerous smaller bombs into a target area. Cluster munitions have been condemned by humanitarian groups for remaining as explosive hazards for decades after the end of military conflicts.
The US embassy in Canberra expressed appreciation in February 2008 for Labor’s position, which was considered critical to efforts to defeat ”hardline” countries and non-government organisations which were seeking a comprehensive ban.
The US diplomatic reports show Australia secretly lobbied Asian countries, including Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, on the issue and Canberra sought advice from Washington regarding which African countries engaged in military co-operation with the US might be recruited to vote with Australia on key parts of the treaty text.
In December 2007, the US embassy reported that the then foreign affairs minister, Stephen Smith, and the defence minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, had agreed to such a negotiating position.
In April 2008, a Foreign Affairs arms control expert, Dr Ada Chueng, told the US embassy that Australia ”shared US frustration and concern with Germany’s obstinacy” on the issue of defence co-operation, and that Australia would make formal representations to Berlin once the US had provided Canberra with ”specific” points to raise.
Along with Britain, Canada and Japan, Australia was ultimately successful in securing the desired loophole on defence co-operation.
Foreign Affairs officials informed US diplomats that while Australian troops would not be permitted to use cluster munitions, personnel would be free to participate in ”tactical planning” for the deployment of such weapons.
 

We are supporting violent suppression of non-violent Palestinian resistance

Posted: 01 May 2011 08:26 AM PDT

 Read on.

Read here to understand why US created hatred post 9/11

Posted: 01 May 2011 06:37 AM PDT

The recently released Wikileaks files on Guantanamo Bay showed a US empire arrogant on fear and power.But here’s an insight from Lawrence Wilkerson, retired Army colonel who served as Colin Powell’s right-hand at the State Department, that explains a lot. From a speech in 2009 on the “mosaic philosophy”:

This philosophy held that it did not matter if a detainee were innocent. Indeed, because he lived in Afghanistan and was captured on or near the battle area, he must know something of importance (this general philosophy, in an even cruder form, prevailed in Iraq as well, helping to produce the nightmare at Abu Ghraib). All that was necessary was to extract everything possible from him and others like him, assemble it all in a computer program, and then look for cross-connections and serendipitous incidentals–in short, to have sufficient information about a village, a region, or a group of individuals, that dots could be connected and terrorists or their plots could be identified.
Thus, as many people as possible had to be kept in detention for as long as possible to allow this philosophy of intelligence gathering to work. The detainees’ innocence was inconsequential. After all, they were ignorant peasants for the most part and mostly Muslim to boot.

Israel either recognises Hamas/Fatah or becomes more of pariah state

Posted: 01 May 2011 06:11 AM PDT

Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz:

Israel’s Pavlovian response to Palestinian reconciliation, which included the usual threats of boycott, is the result of the ingrained anxiety of people who no longer control the process. For five years, Israel has done everything to change the outcome of Hamas’ watershed victory in the elections in the territories. It did not recognize the Hamas government or the unity government, and of course, it did not recognize the Hamas government that arose after that organization’s brutal takeover of the Gaza Strip.
Gaza became a synonym for Hamas; that is, for terror, and the West Bank stood for the land of unlimited possibilities. Israel made an enormous contribution toward building up Hamas into an institution, not only an organization. The cruel closure of Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, turning Gaza into a battle zone and the saga of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, with Israel continuing to negotiate with Hamas while striking out against it – all this has transformed Gaza into a symbol of the occupation and a focus of international empathy.
…
This self-delusion refuses to recognize the changing reality in the Middle East, the changing of the guard among leaders and peoples and the self-interested moves of Western powers that are longing for new partnerships in the Middle East to replace the ones that have disappeared. Israel is not included in that new address list. Its good name is being torn to shreds.
But Israel has a rare opportunity to rewind the film back five years – not only to understand that the two parts of the Palestinian people are one entity, but to correct the mistakes it made in 2006. It must deal with the entire Palestinian government, even if that government includes Hamas representatives. Israel can, of course, repeat its mistakes, but then Israel, and not the Palestinian state, will become a country that threatens its own citizens.

Gideon Levy, Haaretz:

The path to Palestinian reconciliation is still long, and the path to statehood even longer. In the alleys of Jenin and the tunnels of Rafah there is still nothing to celebrate. In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv there is still nothing to worry about, to feel threatened by or even to rejoice about – as if we have been given a public relations “asset.” If a unity government is set up, and if free elections are held, there will be a new possibility. Israel needs to welcome this, with the appropriate reservations.
How depressing was the South African Freedom Day party in Tel Aviv over the weekend. While South African ambassador Ismail Coovadia, a person who knows a thing or two about “terrorist organizations” with which it is “forbidden” to negotiate, and whose representatives have been governing for the past 20 years a free and relatively impressive country, spoke about the chances of Palestinian reconciliation, minister Benny Begin sought to frighten those present about the prospect of democratization in the Arab world, painting as black a picture as possible. That is because we are unchanged. The days go by, a year passes, but the song remains the same.

Israel can do what it wants to whomever it wants (says pro-settler Zionist)

Posted: 01 May 2011 05:01 AM PDT

Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick loves Zionist aggression…anywhere.In her latest column, she instructs Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to ignore the world, continue occupying Arabs and expanding the occupation. She even mentions Sydney’s Marrickville (brief) embrace of BDS:

The same people telling us to commit suicide now lest we face the firing squad in September would also have us believe that the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is the single greatest threat to the economy. But that lie was put paid this month with the demise of the Australian town of Marrickville’s BDS-inspired boycott.
Last December, the anti-Israel coalition running the town council voted to institute a trade, sports and academic boycott against Israel. Two weeks ago the council was forced to cancel its decision after it learned that it would cost $3.4 million to institute it. Cheaper Israeli products and services would have to be replaced with more expensive non-Israeli ones.
Both Israel’s booming foreign trade and the swift demise of the Marrickville boycott movement demonstrate that the specter of international isolation in the event that Israel extricates itself from the Palestinian peace process charade is nothing more than a bluff. The notion that Israel will be worse off it Netanyahu admits that Abbas has again chosen war against the Jews over peace with us has no credibility.
 

Killing our enemies from the comfort of a distant bunker

Posted: 30 Apr 2011 07:20 PM PDT

The future of warfare is largely privatised, unaccountable, designed to kill “terrorists” and almost guaranteed to convince US war planners that conflict is cost-free in terms of American lives:

Here’s how the U.S. Air Force wants to hunt the next generation of its enemies: A tiny drone sneaks up to a suspect, paints him with an unnoticed powder or goo that allows American forces to follow him everywhere he goes — until they train a missile on him.
On Tuesday, the Air Force issued a call for help making a miniature drone that could covertly drop a mysterious and unspecified tracking “dust” onto people, allowing them to be tracked from a distance. The proposal says its useful for all kinds of random things, from identifying friendly forces and civilians to tracking wildlife. But the motive behind a covert drone tagger likely has less to do with sneaking up on spotted owls and more to do with painting a target on the backs of tomorrow’s terrorists.
Effectively tracking foes has become a high priority — and deeply secret — research effort for the Pentagon, which has struggled at times to sort out insurgent from innocent in places like Afghanistan. The Navy has a $450 million contractwith Herndon, Virginia’s Blackbird Technologies, Inc. to produce tiny beacons to make terrorists trackable. The Defense Department has been pouring serious cash — $210 million that they’ll admit to — to find advanced new ways to do this so-called “Tagging, Tracking and Locating” work, as Danger Room co-founder Sharon Weinberger noted in Popular Science last year.
The research she cataloged is as mind-boggling as it is varied. Ideas range from uniquely-identifiable insect pheromones to infrared gear that tracks people with their “thermal fingerprint.” One company, Voxtel, makes tiny nanocrystals that can be hidden in clear liquids and seen through night vision goggles.
A 2007 briefing from U.S. Special Operations Command on targeting technology stated that SOCOM was looking for “perfumes” and “stains” that would mark out bad guys from a distance. The presentation  listed a “bioreactive taggant” as a “current capability” next to a picture of what looks like a painted or bruised arm.
Another tracking technology is “smart dust” — a long-forecast cloud of tiny sensors that stick to target human or his clothes. And that seems to be what the Air Force wants its mini drone configured for.
The solicitation floats the idea of dropping a “dust-like” cloud of electromagnetic signal-radiating taggants, either on top of the target or in his path so that he’ll walk into it.  To do that, they’d need to either do some high-altitude “crop-dusting” of the target or launch a small munition that would blow out the taggant in mid-air when it was nearby.
It may be a signal that the smart-dust technology is at least feasible enough to plan a vehicle around. In her article, Weinberger notes that Darpa-funded researchers had drones that could drop clouds of taggants the size of a grain of rice as early as 2001.

Gadhafi ok but NATO strike kills his son

NOVANEWS

 

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi escaped a NATO missile strike in Tripoli, but his youngest son and three grandchildren under the age of 12 were killed, a government spokesman said.

 
In this photo taken on a government-organized tour, officials and journalists inspect a house at the site of Saturday's NATO missile attack in Tripoli, Libya.
By Darko Bandic, AP
In this photo taken on a government-organized tour, officials and journalists inspect a house at the site of Saturday’s NATO missile attack in Tripoli, Libya.

By Darko Bandic, AP
In this photo taken on a government-organized tour, officials and journalists inspect a house at the site of Saturday’s NATO missile attack in Tripoli, Libya.

Rebels honked horns and chanted “Allahu Akbar” or “God is great” while speeding through the western city of Misrata, which Gadhafi’s forces have besieged and subjected to random shelling for two months, killing hundreds. Fireworks were set off in front of the central Hikma hospital, causing a brief panic that the light would draw fire from Gadhafi’s forces.

The attack struck the house of Gadhafi’s youngest son, Seif al-Arab, when the Libyan leader and his wife were inside. White House spokesman Shin Inouye declined to comment on the developments in Libya, referring questions to NATO. Alliance officials in Brussels said a statement would be issued later Sunday but did not say when.

Seif al-Arab Gadhafi, 29, was the youngest son of Gadhafi and brother of the better known Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, who had been touted as a reformist before the uprising began in mid-February. The younger Gadhafi had spent much of his time in Germany in recent years.

Moammar Gadhafi and his wife were in the Tripoli house of his 29-year-old son when it was hit by at least one bomb dropped from a NATO warplane, according to Libyan spokesman Moussa Ibrahim.

“The leader himself is in good health,” Ibrahim said. “He was not harmed. The wife is also in good health.”

NATO warplanes have been carrying out airstrikes in Libya for the past month as part of a U.N. mandate to protect Libyan civilians. Saturday’s strike marked the first time Gadhafi’s family was being targeted directly.

Armed rebels have been battling Gadhafi loyalists for more than two months in an attempt to oust Libya’s ruler of nearly 42 years. Standing outside an improvised triage unit in a tent in the parking lot, rebel fighter Abdel-Aziz Bilhaj, 22, welcomed the attack, saying it would make Gadhafi think twice about how he dealt with his people.

“It could make him more willing to back down on certain parts of his plan,” Bilhaj said.

Medic Abdel-Monem Ibsheir considered the strike a form of justice.

“Gadhafi was not far away, meaning he’s not safe,” he said as occasional explosions could be heard throughout the city. “It’s just like our children getting hit here. Now his children are getting hit there.”

Eleven dead had reached the hospital morgue by midnight, including two brothers, ages 11 and 16. Two more had arrived by 1:30 a.m., and four more at another hospital.

On Tuesday, British Defense Minister Liam Fox and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters at the Pentagon that NATO planes were not targeting Gadhafi specifically but would continue to attack his command centers.

Ibrahim said Seif al-Arab had studied at a German university but had not yet completed his studies.

Seif al-Arab “was playing and talking with his father and mother and his nieces and nephews and other visitors when he was attacked for no crimes committed,” Ibrahim said.

Journalists taken to the walled complex of one-story buildings in a residential Tripoli neighborhood saw heavy bomb damage. The blast had torn down the ceiling of one building and left a huge pile of rubble and twisted metal on the ground.

Ibrahim said the airstrike was an attempt to “assassinate the leader of this country,” which he said violated international law.

Heavy bursts of gunfire were heard in Tripoli after the attack.

Gadhafi had seven sons and one daughter. Seif al-Arab was the youngest son.

The Libyan leader also had an adopted daughter who was killed in a 1986 U.S. airstrike on his Bab al-Aziziya residential compound, which was separate from the area struck on Saturday. That strike came in retaliation for the bombing attack on a German disco in which two U.S. servicemen were killed. The U.S. at the time blamed Libya for the disco blast.

Seif’s mother is Safiya Farkash, Gadhafi’s second wife and a former nurse.

The fatal airstrike came just hours after Gadhafi called for a mutual cease-fire and negotiations with NATO powers to end a six-week bombing campaign.

In a rambling pre-dawn speech Saturday, Gadhafi said “the door to peace is open.”

“You are the aggressors. We will negotiate with you. Come, France, Italy, U.K., America, come to negotiate with us. Why are you attacking us?” he asked.

He also railed against foreign intervention, saying Libyans have the right to choose their own political system, but not under the threat of NATO bombings.

In Brussels, a NATO official said before Saturday’s fatal strike that the alliance needed “to see not words but actions,” and vowed the alliance would keep up the pressure until the U.N. Security Council mandate on Libya is fulfilled. NATO has promised to continue operations until all attacks and threats against civilians have ceased, all of Gadhafi’s forces have returned to bases and full humanitarian access is granted.

The NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity according to policy, noted that Gadhafi’s forces had shelled Misrata and tried to mine the city’s port just hours before his speech.

“The regime has announced cease-fires several times before and continued attacking cities and civilians,” the official said.

“All this has to stop, and it has to stop now,” the official said.

Rebel leaders have said they will lay down their arms and begin talks only after Gadhafi and his sons step aside. Gadhafi has repeatedly refused to resign.

A rebel spokesman, Jalal al-Galal, called the cease-fire offer a publicity stunt.

“We don’t believe that there is a solution that includes him or any member of his family. So it is well past any discussions. The only solution is for him to depart,” he said.

NATO Strike Killed Gadhafi’s Son, Three Grandkids

NOVANEWS

 

Officials Say Gadhafi Was Present During Strike But Uninjured

Antiwar.com

 

According to Libyan government officials, a NATO air strike which destroyed a home in Tripoli killed Moammar Gadhafi’s youngest son, Saif al-Arab al-Gadhafi, as well as three of his grandchildren. Officials also claimed Gadhafi himself was present during the strike, but escaped unharmed.

NATO denied targeting either of them, saying what they blew up was a “command centre” and not a residence. Libyan rebels celebrated in Benghazi. Officials for the rebel faction claimed the story was probably a trick to try to garner sympathy. The White House claimed to be aware of the reports but to have no information beyond this.

Saif al-Arab (not to be confused with Saif al-Islam al-Gadhafi, Moammar’s second son) was the least public of the long-time dictator’s children, and spent much of the past several years as a student in Germany. There have been no reports of him attending pro-regime rallies or making public statements in favor of his father’s rule.

Indeed, the most high profile incident the slain Gadhafi was ever involved in came in 2008, when his Ferrari was impounded by German police because of a noisy exhaust. The strike, along with the bombing of a school for disabled children, suggest NATO’s escalation of the war is leading to more questionable targets being chosen.

Libya disabled children school hit in NATO strike

NOVANEWS

 
Reuters
  
TRIPOLI, April 30 (Reuters) – Shattered glass litters the carpet at the Libyan Down’s Syndrome Society, and dust covers pictures of grinning children that adorn the hallway, thrown into darkness by a NATO strike early on Saturday.
It was unclear what the target of the strike was, though Libyan officials said it was Muammar Gaddafi himself, who was giving a live television address at the time.
“They maybe wanted to hit the television. This is a non-military, non-governmental building,” said Mohammed al-Mehdi, head of the civil societies council, which licenses and oversees civil groups in Libya.
The missile completely destroyed an adjoining office in the compound that houses the government’s commission for children.
The force of the blast blew in windows and doors in the parent-funded school for children with Down’s Syndrome and officials said it damaged an orphanage on the floor above.
“I felt sad really. I kept thinking, what are we going to do with these children?” said Ismail Seddigh, who set up the school 17 years ago after his own daughter was born with Down’s.
“This is not the place we left on Thursday afternoon.”
There were no children at the school when the missiles hit early on Saturday morning, since Friday begins the weekend in Libya. Children had been due to come in on Saturday morning.
A mound of rubble was all that remained of one wing of the main building that adjoined the school, though an antenna of some kind protruded from the ruins.
Both Mehdi and Seddigh said they had assumed that the antenna on the building was there to strengthen mobile phone signals and were not aware of any other use.
In the rubble of the main building, a shredding machine packed with sliced up documents lay on its side. A fax and phone were nearby and shelves of files could be seen.
The Libyan government has repeatedly said that NATO airstrikes have hurt and killed civilians but has not responded to requests by journalists to visit the hospitals, making it tough to verify casualty figures.
NATO has hit inside or near Gaddafi’s compound before, or struck military or logisitical sites. Saturday’s government-organised visit was the first to bring journalists — whom government minders watch closely — to a civilian site.
Inside the school, the power had been knocked out by the strikes, the floor was wet because of a leaking pipe and desks were covered in glass and debris.
Seddigh’s school prepared children with Down’s Syndrome up to the age of 6 to go to normal schools, giving them speech therapy, handicrafts and sports sessions and teaching them to read and write. It handles 50 to 60 children a day. (Reporting by Lin Noueihed)

Regional armies on alert as Libya crisis deepens

NOVANEWS

by crescentandcross 

 

 BAMAKO (AFP) – Army chiefs from Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Algeria are on alert as the crisis in nearby Libya deteriorates, placing the entire region at risk, a military source said on Saturday.

Speaking after a meeting Friday between the four army heads, a Malian officer who attended said: “The situation in Libya is of great concern. There is a risk of destabilising the entire region.”

The meeting was to reinforce the fight against insecurity in a region threatened by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

“Moreover, because of the Libyan crisis, the security situation in the Sahel has deteriorated, so it is necessary to be careful. We are all on alert and we keep each other informed,” he added.

According to a document from one of the participating countries, seen by AFP, “there is now no doubt, several Al-Qaeda fighters are involved in the Libya fighting.”

These included “Libyan Islamists who were released by the government a few weeks before the outbreak of the conflict” in mid-February.

The document adds that among the insurgents fighting Moamer Kadhafi’s regime are Libyan combatants from Afghanistan and those who had fought for AQIM in the Sahel.

It urged Sahel countries not to allow weapons from Libya to fall into the hands of “terrorists in the Sahel” and strengthen the Al-Qaeda army.

In late March, Mali and Niger security sources said AQIM had taken advantage of the Libyan conflict to accumulate heavy weapons, such as anti-aircraft missiles, described as “a real danger for the whole area.”

Algeria’s army chief of staff Ahmed Gaïd Salah, told Algerian press agency APS, that no Sahel country could work alone, as stability in the sub-region was closely linked to regional co-operation.

“More than ever it is time for co-operation, mutual aid and linked efforts to fight terrorism, curb risk, subversion and instability to save our countries from the adverse consequences they cause,” he said.

The vast Sahel desert zone is a base and hunting ground for AQIM which has stepped up activities in recent years, carrying out kidnappings of mostly foreign citizens, executions and drug trafficking.

 

Dorothy Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

 

Dear Friends,

 

So much information today.  Difficult to decide what to send, what to omit. And I haven’t even begun to check messages in my inbox.  Who knows what I’ll find there.  These are tumultuous times.  In any event, have selected 6 items.  But don’t guarantee that later I won’t forward some item from my email when I get to it.

 

This evening began the Memorial rites for those who died in the Holocaust.  It is therefore fitting that you know that the rites however touching they are, are hypocritical.  The first item helps explain why I say this.  I don’t say that we should not remember the dead.  My own spouse lost most of his family in the camps.  But I do insist that we should also remember the living, those who survived that horror!  Why, in Israel, of all places, do 25% of these aged people live in poverty and isolation?  Why!  Because the governments of this so-called Jewish country don’t give a damn about the survivors.  They only want to work on our emotions so that we will  condone the theft of a country and dispossession of its indigenous inhabitants for the sake of Jews.  That, I will not do!  The way that Israeli governments have treated the survivors of the camps is disgusting and criminal!  Likewise regarding the Palestinians.

 

Most of the remaining items are about current events—Gideon Levy in item 2 scolds the Israel government for not giving Hamas a chance. 

 

Indeed, while much of the world sees the Hamas-Fatah unification (if it holds) as positive, Israel’s leaders bemoan it.  Of course!  When there were 2 separate entities, Israel’s leaders could shout ‘we have no one to talk to.’  Now, that they might have someone to talk to, they really have a problem! What excuse can they use not to talk.  Don’t worry, the government will find dozens of reasons.

 

Item 3 is one of these.  3a reports that Israel’s finance minister is holding back monies that Israel owes the Palestinians.  In item 3b the Palestinians respond that notwithstanding Israel’s act of withholding the cash, the Palestinians will forge ahead.

 

In item 4 we are told that Israeli leaders are worried that a truce between Hamas and Fatah will not lessen pressure on Israel.  And in item 5 we learn that Hamas is ready for peace talks!  I can only imagine how Israel’s PM and others in his government are squirming!

 

Item 6 is a brief run down of recent events in the West Bank

 

All the best, and hopefully there will be better times some day,

Dorothy

==================================

 

1. Ynet Sunday, May 1, 2011 

 Food distribution for Holocaust survivors Photo: Noam Moskowitz

 

    Over 25% of Holocaust survivors live in poverty

 

Report published ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day indicates some 208,000 victims of Nazi atrocities remain in Israel; poll reveals 40% of survivors feel lonely, while half say they are in need of financial aid

 

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4062637,00.html

 

Omri Efraim 

A report published Sunday morning ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day reveals that 60,000 out of 208,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel are indigent, despite a 160% increase in the scope of financial aid given to survivors of Nazi atrocities.

 

The report, published by The Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims, also shows that some 10% of Holocaust survivors receive nursing aid in addition to a social security pension. 

 

In Memory

 

According to the data, some 13,000 survivors died in 2011, and the number of survivors is estimated to decrease by more than 30% to about 145,000 by the year 2015.

 

A recent poll indicates that some 40% of survivors feel lonely frequently, and a similar number find it difficult to leave the house for errands and shopping. 

 

Some 20% of survivors suffer from the cold weather in winter and lack proper equipment to heat their apartment, while 5% reported that they suffer from shortage of food. Half of Holocaust survivors said they require financial aid and some 30% are also in need of nursing. 

 

Following the publication of the report, The Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Chairman Elazar Stern warned that “the younger generation will not forgive us if we don’t give the older generation the proper care it deserves.” 

 

Pua Horovitz, the coordinator of an aid program for Holocaust survivors on behalf of humanitarian aid organization Latet, told Ynet that “survivors suffer from loneliness, which is made much worse by their financial situation. Some live in dire conditions of poverty and deprivation, which are noticeable as soon as you enter their homes. 

 

“After working with survivors for three years, I can confidently say that the State is not involved enough. Some Holocaust victims need to struggle to get recognized as survivors by the state. We need to remember that they are all adult people who cannot fight these bureaucratic wars,” she said.

================================

2.   Haaretz Sunday, May 1, 2011 

Hamas should be given a chance

Palestinian reconciliation is not good for Israel according to the distorted zero sum game that we have been playing forever: What is good for them is bad for us.

 

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/hamas-should-be-given-a-chance-1.359064

 

By Gideon Levy

 Why should we bother with elections, changing prime ministers and parties? For what do we need all this unnecessary trouble if Israel’s response will always be the same, government after government on autopilot? Why is it that every time there appears to be a chance for positive change,Israel is quick to make a sour face, to scaremonger and hunker down behind its rejectionism. Why? Because that is how we are.

 

The reporters have not even managed to deliver their stories from the press conference of Azam al-Ahmed and Musa Abu Marzuk, and Benjamin Netanyahu was already in his media room to send out a public sour face. Even before he was done, the national chorus embarked on its song of rejectionism, which has become the national anthem, while in the background the orchestra of threats is playing. Like the wreckage of the school bus that was hit by a missile from Gaza, which is being sent abroad on a “public relations campaign,” the propagandists are now trying to score another fabricated point: Danger – Palestinian reconciliation. There is still no reconciliation, but the cries of the Israeli rejectionists are already being heard.

 

The texts are the same texts, word for word, like in the ’70s and the ’80s: a terrorist organization with which we will never negotiate. Then it was Fatah and now it is Hamas. The defense minister placed so many conditions on Hamas for it to be regarded as an interlocutor, that he simply means no. And Shimon Peres, who is now in favor of peace without removing settlements, made a presidential declaration: “The reconciliation will prevent a Palestinian state,” – as if this is the Fatah position, as if Israel is about to leave the territories, and only this terrible, last minute development is preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.

 

Hamas, not Fatah, changed its position. This is (perhaps ) the good news. It is still too early to assess how serious it is and the burden of proof is on Hamas to show that it has turned moderate. But it should be given a chance. For two years we presented impossible conditions to Mahmoud Abbas, and now we miss him. “It’s either us or Hamas,” Netanyahu declares like some betrayed lover, as if the option of “us” was ever on the table.

 

The agreement that was initialed includes a promise for democratization and elections. Is that not what we always wanted? That is what the right demanded, is it not? All those who now say that it is a good thing that we did not make peace with the Arab tyrants should now be interested in peace with the entire Palestinian nation and not only with its rulers. This is their chance. All those who complain that Abbas is about to include a radical partner in his government should probably first look at the composition of our government. And all those who said that the Palestinians are divided and Abbas is weak, not a partner, should be pleased with the chance for a representative, powerful government.

 

But no. Palestinian reconciliation is not good for Israel according to the distorted zero sum game that we have been playing forever: What is good for them is bad for us. Listen to the reverberating words of Noam Chomsky in an interview with Gadi Algazi on Israel Social TV: The basic hypothesis of a democratic Israel must be a chance for a democratic Palestine. Is this not true?

 

The path to Palestinian reconciliation is still long, and the path to statehood even longer. In the alleys of Jenin and the tunnels of Rafah there is still nothing to celebrate. In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv there is still nothing to worry about, to feel threatened by or even to rejoice about – as if we have been given a public relations “asset.” If a unity government is set up, and if free elections are held, there will be a new possibility. Israel needs to welcome this, with the appropriate reservations.

 

How depressing was the South African Freedom Day party in Tel Aviv over the weekend. While South African ambassador Ismail Coovadia, a person who knows a thing or two about “terrorist organizations” with which it is “forbidden” to negotiate, and whose representatives have been governing for the past 20 years a free and relatively impressive country, spoke about the chances of Palestinian reconciliation, minister Benny Begin sought to frighten those present about the prospect of democratization in the Arab world, painting as black a picture as possible. That is because we are unchanged. The days go by, a year passes, but the song remains the same.

=========================

3a.  Haaretz Sunday, May 1, 2011 

Israel freezes cash transfer to Palestinians due to Fatah-Hamas unity deal

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz says he will hold up transfer of $89 million in Palestinian tax funds and customs fees until it was clear it would not reach Hamas militants; PA condemns the move.

 

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-freezes-cash-transfer-to-palestinians-due-to-fatah-hamas-unity-deal-1.359123

 

By The Associated Press

Tags: Israel news Hamas

 

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz says he is delaying a cash transfer to the Palestinian Authority because of a new unity deal between rival Palestinian factions.

 

Steinitz says he will hold up the transfer of $89 million in Palestinian tax funds and customs fees that Israel collects on the Palestinians’ behalf.

 

Steinitz told Army Radio on Sunday that the money was supposed to be transferred this week but would remain in Israeli hands until it was clear it would not reach the militants of Hamas.

 

Last week the Palestinians announced a new unity deal between the Western-backed Palestinian Authority and the Iran-backed Hamas, which rejects any accommodation with Israel.

 

The Israeli government says it will not negotiate with a government that includes Hamas.

 

A senior Palestinian official in the West Bank condemned the move, saying Israel had no right to withhold Palestinian funds.

 

“Israel has started a war even before the formation of the government,” senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said.

 

The finance minister said that the issue could be reconsidered “if the Palestinians can prove to us … that there is not a joint fund between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza.”

 

“We ask the entire world not to fund Hamas, so we must not do so, even indirectly,” he said.

 

Steinitz noted that Israel had withheld the tax revenues in the past, during a Palestinian uprising that began in 2000.

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently hinted to a visiting delegation of U.S. Congress members that the United States should consider stopping economic aid to the Palestinian Authority if a Hamas-Fatah unity government did not recognize Israel and renounce terror.

 

Speaking to the American legislators, Netanyahu quoted remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in April 2009, that Israel would not hold talks with or economically support a Palestinian government, including Hamas, until Hamas recognized Israel and abandoned violence.

————-

3b. Jerusalem Post Sunday

 

May 21, 2011 16:52 IST   

  Photo by: REUTERS/Abed Omar Qusini

 

 

Fayyad: Israeli suspension of funds to PA won’t stop unity 

 

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=218641

 

By REUTERS AND JPOST.COM STAFF

01/05/2011  

 

PA prime minister says Israeli economic sanctions in response to Hamas-Fatah reconciliation won’t stop Palestinian unity deal; Erekat: “Israel has started a war even before the formation of the government.” 

  

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad on Sunday said that Israel’s decision to withhold tax revenues from the PA will not prevent the unity agreement between Hamas and Fatah from occurring.

 

Fayyad said the PA was “in contact with all international influential forces and parties to stop Israel from taking these measures”, the official WAFA news agency reported.

 

“Threats … will not deter us from concluding our reconciliation process. It is our policy and we must work harder to end our divisions as soon as possible,” added Fayyad.

 

Earlier on Sunday, Israel said it has suspended tax transfers to the Palestinians in response to PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s bid to forge an alliance with rival Hamas terrorist group who are opposed to peace talks.

 

A senior Palestinian official in the West Bank condemned the move, saying Israel had no right to withhold Palestinian funds.

 

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said he had suspended a routine handover of NIS 300 million ($88 million) in customs and other levies that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians under interim peace deals.

 

In an interview on Army Radio, Steinitz said that Israel feared the money would be used to fund Hamas, an Islamist terrorist group that runs the Gaza Strip and whose founding charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

 

Israel had threatened sanctions last week in response to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s surprise announcement of a unity deal with Hamas that envisages the formation of an interim government and elections.

 

The tax transfer mechanism provides Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, with $1 billion to $1.4 billion annually — two-thirds of its budget.

 

“If the Palestinians can prove to us … that there is not a joint fund between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza, I believe that we will reconsider the matter,” Steinitz said.

 

“We ask the entire world not to fund Hamas, so we must not do so, even indirectly,” he said.

 

Asked about Israel’s decision, Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, said: “Israel has started a war even before the formation of the government.”

 

Steinitz noted that Israel had withheld the tax revenues in the past, during the second intifada that began in 2000. 

=========================

4.  Ynet,

May 1, 2011

 

 Abbas with Haniyeh. For unity Photo: AFP

 

    Officials: Truce will not lessen pressure on Israel

 

Israeli officials fear Europe opting to give joint Hamas-Fatah government chance, will soon resume pressure on Israel to present plan for peace talks. US support expected to wane by PA statehood declaration in September

 

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4062599,00.html

 

Attila Somfalvi

 

Though Israeli officials had hoped the truce agreement between Hamas and Fatah would lessen international pressure for peace talks, many now fear world leaders – especially in Europe – will soon put the ball back in Israel’s court.

 

“It seems that it has not been easy convincing the Europeans to adopt the Israeli tack regarding Hamas as a partner in the Palestinian government,” one state official told Ynet Saturday evening. 

 

“The fear is that within a short while the ball will return to our court and Israel will be required to present a plan and clear goals in the field of talks.” 

 

The US has so far toed the line with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s views on Hamas, but officials say this will not last until September – when the Palestinians plan to make a UN-backed statehood declaration.

 

“The Palestinians will claim that now that there is unity within the authority the declaration of statehood is more appropriate than ever before, because Abbas will need help ahead of the February elections in the (Palestinian) Authority – from the international community as well as from Israel,” one state official said. 

 

“Whoever thought there will now be a few months of calm will be disproven; because the European inclination is to give the truce and unity government a chance – and this will certainly not make life easy for Israel.”

 

=======================

5.  Ynet,

 

May 1, 2011

 

 

    ‘Hamas ready for peace talks with Israel’

 

Palestinian billionaire Munib al-Masri, who helped mediate Hamas-Fatah unity pact, says Gaza leadership willing to agree to comprehensive peace deal based on 1967 borders

 

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4062868,00.html

 

Elior Levy

 

 

While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday continued to warn of the threats behind the Palestinian factions’ reconciliation, one of the mediators in the Hamas-Fatah unity talks expressed surprising optimism.

 

Palestinian businessman and billionaire Munib al-Masri, who was one of the mediators in the reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah, told Ynet that Hamas would be willing to negotiate a peace deal with Israel, based on the 1967 borders. 

 

Peace Talks

 

“During conversations I had with Khaled Mashal and Mousa Abu Marzook, they said that they want to establish a strong government that can achieve a comprehensive peace based on 1967 border,” said al-Masri, who has been named as a candidate to head the new government.

 

Al-Masri, second from right (Photo: Elior Levy)

 

When asked to clarify Hamas’ intentions, al-Masri stressed the Islamic faction does not refer to a “hudna” – a long-term ceasefire that has already been discussed in the past – but rather a comprehensive agreement. However, he did not mention the issue of recognizing Israel. 

 

Inside Palestinian halls of power, al-Masri is considered a plausible candidate to head the interim “technocrats’ government” both by Hamas and Fatah, and is regarded as an distinguished and independent figure in the Palestinian Authority.

 

When asked if he would accept the position, al-Masri replied, “I am an old man and there are younger people who can do it,” but added that if both sides asked him to assume the role – he will not say no. 

 

The Palestinian billionaire noted that he supports the re-nomination of Salam Fayyad as prime minister. “I hope it happens,” al-Masri said, but noted that Hamas would have to also support to move. 

=======================

6 .  A Few Events on the West Bank

 

Palestine Telegraph Sun

May 1, 2011

 

 

    RSS Palestinian child detained by Israeli forces in Jerusalem Sunday, 01 May 2011 06:45 Samar Mohaisen Hits: 161   

 

http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/west-bank/9044-palestinian-child-detained-by-israeli-forces-in-jerusalem.html

 

West Bank, (Pal Telegraph)-Israeli occupation forces detained yesterday at night a Palestinian child known as Mohammed Houshia, 12, after raiding his house in Jerusalem under the pretext of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers existed near the Separation Wall.

 

The Palestinian prisoner club confirmed that Israeli army recently escalated its illegal detention of Palestinian children. There are nearly 200 Palestinian children inside Israeli jails who are subjected to different types of tortures.

 

The prisoner club claimed Israeli ongoing detention that targeted Palestinian children  with no sin, demanding the human rights organizations to urgently intervene to stop those violations.

 

====================================

Palestine News and Information Agency WAFA

 

Americans for Peace Now Urges Obama to Support Palestinian Reconciliation Date : 30/4/2011   Time : 14:14   

 

http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=16011

 

WASHINGTON, April 30, 2011 (WAFA) – Americans for Peace Now (APN) welcomed on Thursday news of a Fatah-Hamas deal and urged US President Barack Obama and his administration not to squander this opportunity, according to a statement.

 

APN President and CEO Debra DeLee said that the deal to form a government and to hold new elections “is good news, and we hope that the agreement is implemented.”

 

She said that “While we still don’t know all the details of the agreement, we know that a Palestinian government representing all Palestinians, with security and governance capacity in both the West Bank and Gaza, is vital to the achievement of a peace agreement.”

 

APN said that “five years of US, Israeli, and international efforts to sideline Hamas have failed. The reality today is that the Gaza-West Bank split is a hurdle to peace efforts, raising questions about the capacity of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to implement an agreement.”

 

It said, ‘For years the U.S. has made the mistake of opposing Palestinian reconciliation rather than encouraging it; it should not compound this mistake by wasting this opportunity to engage a new Palestinian government. It should do so making clear that U.S. relations with this government — including decisions about the future of our foreign assistance program for the Palestinians — will be based solely on the positions and actions of the government.”

 

APN called on Obama to “redouble his own commitment to peace by laying out his own plan for peace — including presenting substantive peace parameters and his plan of action for moving forward.”

 

It said, “Obama has the opportunity to re-assert credible U.S. leadership, to forestall action at the UN in September, and to take the true measure of both the Israeli and the Palestinian governments’ commitments to peace. He should not miss this opportunity.’

 

M.A.

===================================

Israeli Forces Injure Two Palestinians near Jerusalem

Date : 1/5/2011    

 

JERUSALEM, May 1, 2011 (WAFA)- Israeli Forces Sunday beat and moderately injured two Palestinian workers near Bethany, east of Jerusalem, according to relatives.

 

The two Palestinians, one 18 years and the other 26, residents of the village of Al-Obediya, east of Bethlehem, were apparently trying to get to Jerusalem to work when an Israeli border guard patrol spotted them.

 

The father of the 18-year-old said that the border guards had severely beaten his son and the other worker when they were near the separation wall dividing Bethany from Jerusalem. They were on their way to look for work in Jerusalem, he said.

 

The two were transferred to Beit Jala hospital for treatment.

 

Y.Y./M.A.

====================================

[From Es]

On Thursday, April 28, two Israeli military jeeps invaded the village of
Bil’in in the early afternoon, and shot stun grenades and tear gas,
leaving three children injured.

According to villagers, IOF troups that were stationed at the Apartheid
Wall began shooting life ammunition when children passed near them on
their way home from school. Suddenly, two jeeps sped rapidly into the
area of the village near the mosque and began randomly shooting
rubber-coated steel bullets and stun grenades.  They hit one child, who
prefers to remain anonymous, in his hand, 15 year old Nashmi  Abu Rahme
in his right foot, and 14 year old Jamal Khateeb in his stomach and in
his mouth,  piercing his lip and knocking out three tooth. Nashmi and
Jamal were immediately hospitalized in Ramallah. Nashmi was released
later Thursday evening reportedly with a fracture to one of his toes; he
now walks with the aid of crutches. At the time of writing this report,
Jamal remains in hospital, unable to eat solid food.  Reportedly, his
stomach is hard to the touch  due to blood under his stomach muscle.
Relatives estimate that Jamal will carry a life-long handicap from this
injury.

According to a villager, some children have been throwing stones at the
invading army vehicles. Jamal and Nashmi however, were returning from a
meeting at the Local Committee for Children organized for the children
of Bil’in by the Christian Youth Association. On their way home, they
were taken by surprise by the invading jeeps and tried to escape the
army’s random attacks in vain.

On two separate occasions, Jamal had previously been beaten and twice
detained by the Israeli Occupation Forces when he was playing near the
Apartheid Wall inside his village.

 

Press release: American Women Hospitalied for Head Injury by Gestapo's

NOVANEWS

 

01 May 2011

American Women Hospitalized with Head Injury and Three International
Activists Arrested in West Bank Protest.

An American 60 year-old women was evacuated to an Israeli hospital
this afternoon, after Israeli soldiers caused her a serious head
injury as they demolished a protest tent in the West Bank village of
Izbet al-Tabib near Qalqilya. A Swede and two British activists were
arrested during the protest.Israeli soldiers, accompanied by bulldozers and other heavy machinery
entered the village of Izbet al-Tabib south of Qalqilya earlier today,
to demolish a protest tent set up only yesterday by the villagers and
begin the construction of a fence that would cut the villagers off
from Highway 55 and of their agricultural land.
During the eviction of the tent, the soldiers violently arrested two
British activists and a Swedish activist. They have also cause a
bleeding head injury to a 60 year-old American woman, who also
suffered blows to her wrist, which is suspected to be broken. She has
been evacuated to an Israeli hospital.
The violent arrests were made solely under the pretext of declaring
the area a “closed military zone”. However, the soldiers and Border
Police officers carried out the arrests without having shown any
document declaring the area as such, as the law requires them to do.
The three are still in custody and are currently held at the Ariel
police station.
During today’s protest, Bayan Tabib, the head of the village council,
has received a promise from an Israeli Civil Administration officer,
that the fence will only be erected on the far end of Highway 55, thus
not cutting off the village’s access to the road or their land. Tabib
attributed the promise to today’s protest, saying the “The protest
today is the only reason that they agreed to move the fence.”
The village of Izbet al-Tabib, which consists of 45 structures and is
home to 247 residents, was built in the 1920’s and is located entirely
in area C according to the 1995 Interim Agreement (Oslo II). Israeli
authorities do not recognize the village and 32 out of its 45 houses,
as well as its school, have been served demolition orders in recent
years. Izbet al-Tabib is the fifth poorest village in the West Bank
and villagers have already lost 45% of their land due to the
construction of Israel’s Separation Barrier.
Photos available
Media contact:
Jonathan Pollak +972-54-632-7736
Janni, Swedish, situated in Izbat At Tabib, +970 568747205,
Anna, ISM Media Coordinator, situated in Izbat At Tabib,  +970
597606276

Judge Goldstone's Bogus Test of War Time Culpability

NOVANEWS
 

Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem

Chair of West Midland Palestine Solidarity Campaign

This is a response to Goldstone long but well worth reading. Dorothy

 

By LYNDA BURSTEIN BRAYER

 

Wikileaks has once again brought attention to the question of Israel’s war crime culpability in the military “Operation Cast Lead”  it conducted from 27th Dec 2008 – 18th Jan 2009, a period of twenty three days, against the Palestinian population living in the Gaza Strip.  The American Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, unsuccessfully tried to prevent a commission of inquiry into this war because of an obvious finding of culpability. Now, more that one and a half years later, Justice Goldstone, the head of that UN Commission seeks to introduce a peculiar twist into his original findings by raising the question of Israel’s intentions with respect to the killing of Palestinian civilians during that war.

Approximately 1,417 Palestinian civilians and 9 Israeli soldiers were killed by Israeli fire, whilst one soldier and three civilians were killed by Palestinians.  The Israeli war machine also caused massive material loss, damage and destruction in Gaza, estimated at a cost of 2 billion dollars, while Israel suffered almost no damage.  Justice Goldstone informs the reader that now he would write a different report with respect to Israel, but not to the Palestinians, in which he would seriously minimize its culpability.  So how does he come to such a conclusion?

Let me quote him in his own words:

“The final report by the U.N. committee of independent experts — chaired by former New York judge Mary McGowan Davis — that followed up on the recommendations of the Goldstone Report has found that ‘Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza’ while ‘the de facto authorities (i.e., Hamas) have not conducted any investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.’

“Our report found evidence of potential war crimes and ‘possibly crimes against humanity’ by both Israel and Hamas. That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.
“The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.”

His new position does not rest on any new facts about that war, but rather on the notion of Israel’s intentionality or lack thereof.  According to him, the fact that Israel set up investigating committees to find out whether or how war crimes and crimes against humanity occurred, or could have occurred, indicates, a priori, that the Israeli government had no intention of committing such crimes, even if it found that some had been committed. These crimes occurred therefore, either unintentionally or by some “bad apples” in the army, who would be brought to trial. Therefore, no culpability may be laid upon the Israeli government. It might be apposite to highlight the fact that more than two years after that war, no-one in Israel has been brought to trial for a war crime or a crime against humanity.  On the other hand, Justice Goldstone excoriates Hamas, unhesitatingly and incontrovertibly attributing to this group an “intention” to kill civilians, because they did not set up commissions to investigate the intentions of their resistance fighters. The fact that they have neither money, nor resources, nor the obligation to do so, was not mentioned.

Here I shall concentrate on two issues: 1) the speciousness of the parity equation between the sovereign state of Israel and the besieged and imprisoned Palestinian population confined to the military-occupied Gaza Strip and 2) the legal defects of the “intentionality” argument.

I.   The presumption of parity between Israel and the Occupied Territories of Palestine

It is a sine qua non of all legal systems worthy of that name, that for justice to prevail, equals must be treated equally. But its corollary is just as essential:  unequal parties or situations may not be treated equally, but rather appropriately or in adequatio.  Inequality in real life, as a principle of non-identity, is not merely recognized in law, but is integral to it where it is appropriate, in order for law to be administered in a just and fair manner. For example, the legal definition of a minor recognizes the incompetence of young children to bear the same responsibility or liability that is imposed upon an adult. Therefore when a child or young person commits a crime, the laws and procedures are different from those for an adult.

The element of intentionality itself reflects different applications of the law for what, ostensibly are the same facts. For instance, if a person is found dead and forensic examination determines that the person was killed, it is often impossible to know from the actual death, the circumstances of the death and the motivations of the person who might have killed the victim. It is only after the trial of an accused, in which all the evidence is brought to bear, that it may be determined whether the death was a murder, manslaughter, a mistake, the result of self-defense, or simply committed by someone else, because the accused had an alibi.  The question of the particular legal matrix of an occurrence is essential to the application of the law.   Without preserving such distinctions, the law becomes either nonsense or a weapon of the rich and powerful.

However, this understanding and practice has often been undermined by the demand of even-handedness in dealing with two or more opponents.  This is a formal model and presumes no moral content, its purported aim being the achievement of neutrality, itself taken to be an indication of fairness and lack of prejudice.  One is advised to hear “both sides out” working on the presumption of equality of opponents, although this equality is not spelled out.

There also seems to be a presumption that a surface explanation is sufficient, without need for background and/or historical information.  Father Albert Nolan op, a South African liberation theologian whose main work was done during the apartheid regime, wrote an article called “Taking Sides” in which he maintains that the demand for treating equally the two opposing sides of a political conflict is based on three misunderstandings. 

The first assumes that a consensus can be (always) be reached, the second that neutrality is essential, and the third that a conflict is worse than the oppression which gives rise to it. He argues that if one adopts any one of these positions, the result will favor the oppressor rather than the oppressed, the strong over the weak, and possibly injustice over justice. 

In contrast, Father Nolan argues that it is precisely to avoid unfairness, prejudice, deception and falsehood, that one may not treat equally that which is not equal. One cannot equate an oppressor with the oppressed, nor an aggressor with a victim.  In the particular case of apartheid South Africa, it was a travesty of justice to equate apartheid, a legal system which enshrined racism and inequality, with the values of liberty, equality and fraternity.  The demands of morality required that sides be taken in that struggle.  

In Jewish law, or Halacha, prejudice invalidates automatically a legal opinion. The term “prejudice” which etymologically means to pre-judge, is recognized as an irremediable fault.  The Hebrew expression is maso panim,  the “lifting up of the face”.  It refers to the fact that those who appeared in court were required to lie down facing the ground so that the judge could not identify any of the parties.  Such anonymity necessarily requires the judge to base his decision solely upon the facts and the law, without respect to the persons involved.  The example given in Jewish law is that favor may not be shown to the rich man over the poor man, because of their obvious inequality of status, means and ability to protect themselves.  In other words, steps must be taken to compensate for existing inequalities, much in the manner that affirmative action was introduced into US law.

This brings us back to the question of legal and moral parity with respect to Israel and the Gaza Strip.  Here is a very brief overview of the comparative strengths and weakness of these opponents.

Israel is an independent sovereign state the population of which can be distinguished into military personnel and civilians.  It boasts one of the best-equipped armies in the world;  it has the 24th largest economy and is ranked 15th among 169 world nations on the UN’s Human Development Index, placing it in the category of a “Very Highly Developed” nation.  Among the world’s most economically developed nations, its economy ranks 17th, according to IMD’s World Competitiveness Yearbook rankings.  The median household income per annum is $37,000 for 2009.  The size of Israel is 20,700 sq km and the population density is 292 per sq km. 

The Gaza Strip, on the other hand, is not a sovereign state and enjoys no independence.  Because it has no army all its inhabitants fall into the civilian category, although strictly speaking their status resembles more that of a prisoner of war status, because it does not enjoy peace. The area is a sealed military-occupied and controlled territory, the population of which is not only forbidden to raise an army, but has no money to do.  It cannot be ranked on the list of world nations, nor is it mentioned on the UN’s Human Development Index.  Its median household income per annum does not appear on the CIA list, but it is incorporated with the figures for the West Bank where the standard of living is somewhat higher.  I am of the opinion that the statistics are so bad that it is not in the interests of the US to make them available.  Seventy per cent of the population lives under the poverty line, and over 80 per cent  lives on humanitarian aid.  Its economy is at the bottom of the ladder ranking at 175. Nearly 70 per cent of its population has refugee status.  Its total area is 360 sq km and its population density is just under 9,700 people per sq km.  Hamas, an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, has been put under sanctions by the West with no financial aid being sent by Western governments. 

There is a further question to be raised concerning parity touching on questions of prejudice and good faith.  It is the question of the treatment of the realm of the ius ad bellum – the laws governing the resort to armed force.  The Goldstone report ignored completely the exponentially huge differentials in power between the parties, and the total subservience of the Palestinians in Gaza to Israeli might and force.  Here is a blatant instance of amala fide equalization of that which is not equal, and it is clear that it was used in order to relieve Israel of the charge of opening a war of aggression.  This would have led to the conclusion that Operation Cast Lead was a war of aggression and therefore a crime against the peace. Furthermore, because Israel is responsible in international law for the well-being of the Gazans as the military occupier of that territory, the actual deliberate bombings, shootings and shellings could be interpreted as an intended massacre. In this context the home-made rockets cannot be classified in any category of military hardware!

II.  Intentionality and the framework of  law

Any action of an individual is an exercise of power.  We all must act, and therefore we all exercise power. The underlying rationale of all law is to limit the exercise of power, particularly in its raw form of violence.   This applies to both individuals and states, because the exercise of power has the potential to be destructive by hurting, maiming or killing people, or depriving them of their livelihood or property.  When exercised by a state it can cause massive death and destruction.  The law seeks to contain and restrict the use of power in the interests of the well-being of the population.   A priori it is assumed that when damage has been caused, avenues must be provided for reparations of some sort. The law makes various provisions for an understanding and application of the intent to harm, in the interests of either stopping the use of power, or apportioning liability with the intent of restoring a status quo ante or paying damages for the loss and harm caused.

Intentionality with respect to individuals in private law

Intention is a subjective necessary element required in the many areas of the law in order to establish first responsibility and then, depending on the circumstances, culpability and then liability where a breach of the law has caused damage.  It is one of the main elements required in order to assign responsibility, because the intention of an agent indicates both his foreseeing the outcome of his actions and his desiring that outcome. The proven absence of intention may relieve a person of responsibility, culpability and liability.  The element of intention appears in both civil and criminal laws.  A breach of certain civil laws or the commission of most crimes gives rise to  presumptiones hominis vel facti, which is a presumption of fact that an agent/person acted intentionally.  This presumption however is not conclusive and can be rebutted by factual evidence.

The main categories which provide a defense against the presumption of intention include mistake, misrepresentation, exploitation and legal or mental incompetency in the civil law.  In the criminal law the defenses are widened to include self-defense, alibi, fraud, necessity, duress, justification, and mental illness. The laws of evidence of the civil and criminal laws require different standards of proof, but for the purposes of this essay, they are irrelevant.  There is a category of liability known as “strict liability” according to which there is no evidence which can be brought to defray either culpability or liability.  This would be the case in the trial of a spy, whose intentions are conclusively imputed because of the acts of spying he has carried out. The act of spying is a reflection of the intention to spy.  Similarly if treason is found to have been committed, then the intention to betray may be conclusively imputed. 

Intentionality in public law as it pertains to government in its various branches

The question of intention in public law, which is almost identical in all western legal systems, is quite different from that in private law.  First of all, it is obvious that the powers of government must be closely regulated and limited because the power it wields is exponentially greater than that wielded by individuals, and therefore there is a far greater potential for harm.  The strictures and constraints placed upon government are expressed in the presumptions which govern its actions.  They are called presumptio de iuris et de iure and are presumed to prevail at all times and are irrebutable, or irrefutable. This means that any and all government activity takes place under the conditions of these presumptions.  These include the presumptions of legality, intentionality, rationality, morality and honesty, fairness and good faith. It also includes the presumption that all government activity is for the benefit of the population. When a statutory body acts outside of the powers given to it, it can be held to have acted ultra vires, and its actions may be deprived of validity or it may be required to restore a status quo ante or to pay damages. This is the doctrine of limited power within administrative law and provides a legal avenue to sue the government.

There is no possibility for a statutory body to defend itself by arguing that here was a lack of intentionality on the part of that body.  Similarly there is no defense of illegality, or bad faith or ignorance of the law. In fact, such arguments are prima facie absurd.  Consequently, the government can never be relieved of  its responsibility and/or culpability and its consequent liability by “proving” that it did not intend the particular harm resulting from the actions of one of its branches, even if that might be the case in fact.   Rather, such an argument would be taken to reflect government incompetency, and depending on its severity, could lead to its fall.

General government responsibility does not automatically disqualify a particular official from being found responsible for the harm caused by the government.  This principle of responsibility and liability of a government is most clearly seen in ministerial responsibility, which does not include any element of intentionality at all.  It does not even require knowledge on the part of the Minister.

Thus, even if the minister himself might have had nothing to do with the breach of the law and the subsequent damage caused by his ministry, he is often required to resign in recognition of his personal responsibility as chief office holder. This occurred in Israel after the invasion into Lebanon 1982, when Ariel Sharon was found culpable for the Sabra and Shatilla massacres – not personally, but as the Minister of Defense and when Dan Halutz, the chief of staff stepped down after the Lebanese war of 2006 as a result of the findings of a lack of preparedness of the Israeli army by a commission of inquiry.

Intentionality presumed for government actions entailing government responsibility

The reasons for this state of affairs should be fairly obvious, but they bear explication.  When a government acts, it does not just “do something it wants to do”.  Its power has been delegated to it by the citizenry and all government actions consist in the wielding of power in order to serve that citizenry. This is why governments need to explain, or more often, justify their decisions.  They must act in order to bring about those ends for which they were delegated power in order to legitimize their power. The power delegated through elections is given for very specific purposes, and it imposes upon the government the duty and obligation of exercising its power for the administration of goods and services of the population and for its protection.  One of the breakdowns in the Western legal systems is that governments no longer respond adequately to the wishes of their populations.  The dismantling of the English welfare system and the wars conducted by the USA are not actions supported by the vast majority of their populations.

Intentionality and the conduct of an army

The army is a branch of government governed by both the presumptio de iuris et de iure as well as by the laws of war which have been developed over centuries in order to restrict the use of violence and not merely power.  In a sense, these laws operate similarly to the ultra vires doctrine in peace time. The army is guilty of war crimes when it violates the laws of war.  The two main categories qualifying the exercise of violent force are proportionality, which relates to the amount of force used and discrimination, the manner in which it is exercised. These categories are incorporated into the three basic principles governing warfare: the principle of necessity, or military necessity, the principle of humanity and the principle of chivalry.  Except for the special case of Geneva Convention on Genocide of 1948, where certain acts of killing and destruction are taken to be acts of genocide if it is found that a government intended to commit genocide, none of the laws of war deal with intent.

Not all acts of war fall into the categories of crimes against the peace, war crimes or crimes against humanity.  These crimes have been delineated and described in the laws of war and the manner of evaluating an army’s actions is objective according to its actual activity and the actual state of affairs it has caused.  The intention of the army is quite irrelevant.  This ought to be apparent in that it is obvious that an army conducts warfare, its business is to kill and destroy, its weapons and tactics and strategies are all developed with this in mind.  An army is simply the killing machine of the state.  Therefore to ask what it intends to do when it engages in warfare, is absurd.  

When a government wants to protest its culpability it may argue that it carried out the acts of war in self-defense.  It cannot argue that it did not intend to kill or destroy.  If an inhabited area is bombed and shelled, once again, it is absurd to argue that the killing and maiming and property destruction that resulted was not intended!  Therefore, the logic of the self-defense argument is a confirmation that acts of war were carried out, death and destruction resulted, but, and here it is stressed, all these actions were acts of defense.  They were acts carried out in response to aggression and therefore justified.  This is the essence of the “Just War” theory.  This is the main defense against the charge that the opening of hostilities is a crime against the peace.  Similarly this is the argument for the actual conduct of the war itself.  An army or government may not, however, use the defense of “military necessity” to justify a breach of the laws of war, because the laws themselves have taken into consideration such “military necessity” when they were formulated and applied. 

The original Goldstone report found that “potential war crimes” had been committed by Israel. I am not sure what he meant.  Could he have meant that objectively speaking, Israel could plausibly use, or have used, the argument of self-defense to clear it of the charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as the crime against the peace by beginning the war? Could he have meant that Israel was threatened by the huge and overpowering army of Hamas, by its overwhelming fire power? By its fighter bomber capacities, its hundreds of tanks and shells, its navy warships, its infantry and land to land missiles? And that in the face of such threats and previous attacks, Israel had to respond to the dangers Hamas posed to its safety and security?  Or did he expect that Israel would or could argue that it began Operation Cast Lead as a “pre-emptive war” in order to paralyze the huge military arsenal of the Palestinian government and army in the Gaza Strip?

The state of Israel wishes to relieve itself of any culpability by transferring the culpability of the state, over to individuals, when it sets up its investigating committees.  What Justice Goldstone has chosen to either overlook or not understand, is that such individual culpability occurs in addition to, but not in the alternative, that is, it does not come in place of state culpability.  Even if particular persons are found to be guilty in specific instances, the overall responsibility always lies with the government which conducted the war, and it remains liable for its actions and the damages these actions incurred. It is on these grounds that reparations are demanded from a country, and not from those who might have been found guilty for war crimes or crimes against humanity. 

In the light of what I have written, Justice Goldstone’s retraction has no basis in the laws of war. I would go further and argue that Israel did not commit “potential war crimes” but is in violation of all the three categories of the laws of war.  

III.   Resistance and self-defense: heroism and legality

There is one outstanding question and issue which Justice Goldstone chose not to address:  neither in the original commission nor in his retraction.  This is the question of the right of a people to resist an aggressor and/or an oppressor, and the legitimacy of such resistance.  I would argue that according to international law today, Israel has no rights to or in the Occupied territories of Palestine.  According to the same international law, the occupation ought to have ceased one year after its beginning, that is by June 1968.  The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution requiring Israel to withdraw from all occupied territories, Resolution 242 in November 1967. 

I would contend that the continuing presence of Israel in these occupied territories, its building of settlements and the transfer of a huge Jewish population into it, and an infrastructure built from Palestinian assets to serve those settlements, its control over the use of land and water, and its continuing oppression of the indigenous population, should be classified as a colonialist venture.  From the Palestinian point of view, the Israeli policies and practices are formulated and executed for the destruction of Palestinian society, private and public life, and their material assets. 

In this situation of continuing oppression, dispossession, detention, killing and destruction of social frameworks, are Palestinians not permitted to resist all or any of this?  If Israel is a colonizing power over and above its status as Military Occupier, precisely because of its settlement activity and control of the resources of the territory in Occupied Palestine then it would seem that the Declaration on Granting Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, 1960  General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV), December 14, 1960 applies to Palestinians today.  I quote two relevant articles.

1. The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation.

2.   All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

Above and beyond the basic right of all human beings to resist their being killed and harmed, and a society to take armed actions to protect itself, this document legitimizes also national liberation struggles, including, at this time in history, most particularly, the Palestinian people’s struggle for its own freedom.  It is this right which legitimizes all Palestinian attempts to lift the yoke of Israeli oppression from Palestine, including all the actions taken by the Palestinians during Operation Cast Lead. 

And is not the right to resist oppression universal? Does this right not justify the American Revolut8ion and then the French Revolution and the wars of liberation in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Nelson Mandela is a hero because of his resistance to, not because of his subservience to apartheid repression. And the Warsaw Ghetto uprising by the Jewish population against the Nazi repression is a beacon of pride in modern Jewish history.  it is also a fact that Jews who joined the resistance, say in Poland or other places under Nazi occupation, are heroes for the Jewish people. I would contend that one cannot deny that right of resistance to Palestinians which the Jews appropriated to themselves, and which is the right of all peoples living under military occupation and/or colonialist regimes. 

That Israel is not innocent of the crimes which Goldstone has bent over backwards to whitewash, can be found in this article in the leading Hebrew newspaper, Haaretz. (http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/mean-street-1.357617)