Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Monday declared that Israel would not stand by idly should Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad go ahead with his stated plan to declare a de-facto state within two years.
Lieberman told visiting UN envoy Tony Blair and European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana that such unilateral initiatives did not contribute to the creation of positive dialogue and vowed that Israel would respond.
He also said that a deadline should not yet be set on a future agreement between Israel and the Palestinians as past attempts to do so has only exacerbated the conflict.
Meanwhile, President Shimon Peres earlier Monday told Solana that Israel the Palestinians had both expressed willingness to enter negotiations and have agreed to work toward the principle of two states for two peoples.
Peres added that now was the time to move on peace talks, and suggested the sides launch two parallel negotiations, one on a permanent agreement the other on existing issues.
Fayyad said last week that the Palestinian Authority intends to establish a de-facto state by 2011, despite failing peace talks.
We have decided to be proactive, to expedite the end of the occupation by working very hard to build positive facts on the ground, consistent with having our state emerge as a fact that cannot be ignored," Fayyad told the Times of London. "This is our agenda, and we want to pursue it doggedly."
According to Fayyad, the idea would be to "end the occupation, despite the occupation."
The de facto state would include security forces, public services and a thriving economy, Fayyad told the Times, and would hopfully serve as the impetus to Israel to move foward on its own commitments.
Source:
Monday, August 31, 2009
IDF soldier suspected of killing Palestinian still hasn't been charged
A Military Police investigation into a soldier's killing of a Palestinian near Hebron in January has been going on for seven and a half months, and there is still no end in sight. Yet the sector commander has been giving briefings for the past few months based on his own inquiry into the incident, which he describes as "a serious failure in moral and professional terms."
On January 13, 2009, at the height of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, Yassir Tamizi, a resident of the village of Idna, was stopped by a patrol of reservists in the Hebron area and brought to an Israel Defense Forces post near Tarkumiya. The soldier guarding the entrance to the post was frightened by Tamizi, who was fighting his arrest because he was worried about his son, who had been left behind when he was taken away. The frightened soldier then shot Tamizi, who died a few hours later from his wounds.
The IDF opened a Military Police investigation, on its own initiative.
But seven and a half months later, no decision has been made over whether to charge the soldiers and officers involved.
At the same time, despite widely varying accounts of what happened, the sector commander, Hebron Brigade Commander Col. Udi Ben Moha, has already drawn his own conclusions based on inquiries he conducted into the event. Ben Moha presents these conclusions to all units operating in his sector.
Ben Moha said that at the beginning of Cast Lead, a reserve battalion was called up to replace the regular soldiers serving in the area. The patrol stopped Tamizi while he was working in a field near the separation fence. Since he did not have his identity card wit him, the soldiers decided to arrest him, even though his 7-year-old son was with him at the time. They put him in the jeep and left his son behind in the field.
The patrol then took Tamizi to the Tarkumiya post and left him - handcuffed and blindfolded - with the guard at the entrance to the post. They did not report the arrest to brigade or battalion headquarters.
Tamizi, who was worried about his son, tried to free himself from the handcuffs. He made a move toward the guard, who became alarmed and shot him three times. One bullet hit Tamizi in the chest, causing his death.
But soldiers from the company involved dispute Ben Moha's version. They claim Tamizi violently resisted arrest in the field, refused to give them his identity number so they could check on him by radio, and went wild while still in the jeep. At the entrance to the post, they said, Tamizi managed to free his hands and tried to steal the guard's weapon.
"There was no one to deal with the prisoner and no one to tell us what to do with him," said one of the soldiers. "They are turning the guard into a scapegoat."
The guard himself was questioned twice by the Military Police, the second time several months ago. He refused to speak with Haaretz.
The Military Police also questioned Palestinian witnesses, and the investigation has apparently been completed. However, no decision has yet been made on indictments.
The IDF Spokesman confirmed that the investigation is finished and said the case is now awaiting the military prosecution's decision.
As for Ben Moha's briefings, the spokesman said, it is normal for a sector commander to brief units new to the sector on recent events. However, at no point did he assign criminal responsibility to the soldier in question.
Source:
On January 13, 2009, at the height of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, Yassir Tamizi, a resident of the village of Idna, was stopped by a patrol of reservists in the Hebron area and brought to an Israel Defense Forces post near Tarkumiya. The soldier guarding the entrance to the post was frightened by Tamizi, who was fighting his arrest because he was worried about his son, who had been left behind when he was taken away. The frightened soldier then shot Tamizi, who died a few hours later from his wounds.
The IDF opened a Military Police investigation, on its own initiative.
But seven and a half months later, no decision has been made over whether to charge the soldiers and officers involved.
At the same time, despite widely varying accounts of what happened, the sector commander, Hebron Brigade Commander Col. Udi Ben Moha, has already drawn his own conclusions based on inquiries he conducted into the event. Ben Moha presents these conclusions to all units operating in his sector.
Ben Moha said that at the beginning of Cast Lead, a reserve battalion was called up to replace the regular soldiers serving in the area. The patrol stopped Tamizi while he was working in a field near the separation fence. Since he did not have his identity card wit him, the soldiers decided to arrest him, even though his 7-year-old son was with him at the time. They put him in the jeep and left his son behind in the field.
The patrol then took Tamizi to the Tarkumiya post and left him - handcuffed and blindfolded - with the guard at the entrance to the post. They did not report the arrest to brigade or battalion headquarters.
Tamizi, who was worried about his son, tried to free himself from the handcuffs. He made a move toward the guard, who became alarmed and shot him three times. One bullet hit Tamizi in the chest, causing his death.
But soldiers from the company involved dispute Ben Moha's version. They claim Tamizi violently resisted arrest in the field, refused to give them his identity number so they could check on him by radio, and went wild while still in the jeep. At the entrance to the post, they said, Tamizi managed to free his hands and tried to steal the guard's weapon.
"There was no one to deal with the prisoner and no one to tell us what to do with him," said one of the soldiers. "They are turning the guard into a scapegoat."
The guard himself was questioned twice by the Military Police, the second time several months ago. He refused to speak with Haaretz.
The Military Police also questioned Palestinian witnesses, and the investigation has apparently been completed. However, no decision has yet been made on indictments.
The IDF Spokesman confirmed that the investigation is finished and said the case is now awaiting the military prosecution's decision.
As for Ben Moha's briefings, the spokesman said, it is normal for a sector commander to brief units new to the sector on recent events. However, at no point did he assign criminal responsibility to the soldier in question.
Source:
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Return Gilad Shalit, but not at any price
There is no need to waste more words on everyone's desire to see Gilad Shalit return home. There is also no need to spare praise for the noble struggle his family has been waging. Shalit should have been released at any price, but the struggle for his release does not have to be conducted at any price. Last week the leaders of the campaign to free him faltered. The demonstration at the Megiddo prison that prevented visits by prisoners' families was in poor taste. A few weeks earlier they also demonstrated at the Erez crossing on the Gaza border and blocked the passage of food and medicine to the besieged Strip.
That's not how to do things. They should have called for visits for everyone: to Shalit and to the thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Under no circumstances should it have been the reverse. Israel cannot behave like Hamas. It is not only a matter of patently ineffective measures - the siege and prevention of visits will not bring Shalit's release - but also immoral acts. People who want prisoner visits to be prevented are equating Israel and Hamas; they are saying cruelty must be met with cruelty - inhumane treatment for everyone. Even at such a difficult time, one would have expected a more moral message from the leaders of the campaign to release Shalit, including the Shalit family.
About 7,700 Palestinians are imprisoned in Israel, including about 450 without the benefit of a trial. Most of them are not murderers, although they are all automatically labeled as such here. The demonstrators at Megiddo would do well to realize this. Some of the prisoners are political detainees in the full sense of the word, from members of the Palestinian parliament imprisoned without trial, which is a scandal in and of itself, to those behind bars because of their "affiliation." Innocent people are among them as well as political activists and nonviolent protesters.
Some prisoners received disproportionate sentences from the military justice system, treatment that in no way resembles a fair trial. At the Megiddo prison, at whose entrance the Shalit campaign's leaders demonstrated, minors are also imprisoned, and not in a separate facility as required. They were sometimes sentenced to a year in prison for every stone they threw, even if they didn't hit anyone and caused no damage. There are also wretched Palestinians who were caught staying in Israel illegally and were willing to risk everything for one day of work. Some also were falsely accused by soldiers or collaborators and were powerless to defend themselves in the military judicial system, which views every Palestinian as suspicious.
Some of the prisoners from Gaza have not had family visits or a single telephone call for at least three years. That's not Hamas. That's us. Not all prisoners from the West Bank are allowed visitors, and many of their families are "forbidden." The Israeli propaganda machine, which portrays prison as if it were a rest home, is also deceptive. It should be remembered that most of the Palestinian prisoners decided to take the fate of their people into their hands to fight a criminal occupation, even if they sometimes used methods that were even more criminal. According to the Palestinians, they are serving their people precisely as Shalit, a soldier, served his.
Hamas' current struggle to have the prisoners released began after all other avenues to secure their freedom proved fruitless. Israel should have moved to release most of the prisoners a long time ago as a confidence-building measure and goodwill demonstration, not as a subject for cruel bargaining and haggling, which sends the depressing message that we can only be dealt with by force. Israel chose to cut off other avenues, leaving only kidnappings and bargaining as an option.
Those fighting for Shalit's release should have been the first to sound the alarm: We should not act like Hamas. Shalit's plight will not improve because the plight of the prisoners and Gaza residents worsens. Shalit is one person and there are thousands of Palestinian prisoners, yet the whole world has been turned upside down only over the struggle for Shalit's release.
It is an important public-relations advantage, and we shouldn't spoil it with measures that are only meant to avenge, punish and outdo the other side in terms of cruelty. Everyone who holds the fate of Shalit and the State of Israel dear should aspire for the release of both the captive soldier and a large portion of the imprisoned Palestinians. We're talking about relief and joy for both the Shalit family and the Barghouti family.
Source:
That's not how to do things. They should have called for visits for everyone: to Shalit and to the thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Under no circumstances should it have been the reverse. Israel cannot behave like Hamas. It is not only a matter of patently ineffective measures - the siege and prevention of visits will not bring Shalit's release - but also immoral acts. People who want prisoner visits to be prevented are equating Israel and Hamas; they are saying cruelty must be met with cruelty - inhumane treatment for everyone. Even at such a difficult time, one would have expected a more moral message from the leaders of the campaign to release Shalit, including the Shalit family.
About 7,700 Palestinians are imprisoned in Israel, including about 450 without the benefit of a trial. Most of them are not murderers, although they are all automatically labeled as such here. The demonstrators at Megiddo would do well to realize this. Some of the prisoners are political detainees in the full sense of the word, from members of the Palestinian parliament imprisoned without trial, which is a scandal in and of itself, to those behind bars because of their "affiliation." Innocent people are among them as well as political activists and nonviolent protesters.
Some prisoners received disproportionate sentences from the military justice system, treatment that in no way resembles a fair trial. At the Megiddo prison, at whose entrance the Shalit campaign's leaders demonstrated, minors are also imprisoned, and not in a separate facility as required. They were sometimes sentenced to a year in prison for every stone they threw, even if they didn't hit anyone and caused no damage. There are also wretched Palestinians who were caught staying in Israel illegally and were willing to risk everything for one day of work. Some also were falsely accused by soldiers or collaborators and were powerless to defend themselves in the military judicial system, which views every Palestinian as suspicious.
Some of the prisoners from Gaza have not had family visits or a single telephone call for at least three years. That's not Hamas. That's us. Not all prisoners from the West Bank are allowed visitors, and many of their families are "forbidden." The Israeli propaganda machine, which portrays prison as if it were a rest home, is also deceptive. It should be remembered that most of the Palestinian prisoners decided to take the fate of their people into their hands to fight a criminal occupation, even if they sometimes used methods that were even more criminal. According to the Palestinians, they are serving their people precisely as Shalit, a soldier, served his.
Hamas' current struggle to have the prisoners released began after all other avenues to secure their freedom proved fruitless. Israel should have moved to release most of the prisoners a long time ago as a confidence-building measure and goodwill demonstration, not as a subject for cruel bargaining and haggling, which sends the depressing message that we can only be dealt with by force. Israel chose to cut off other avenues, leaving only kidnappings and bargaining as an option.
Those fighting for Shalit's release should have been the first to sound the alarm: We should not act like Hamas. Shalit's plight will not improve because the plight of the prisoners and Gaza residents worsens. Shalit is one person and there are thousands of Palestinian prisoners, yet the whole world has been turned upside down only over the struggle for Shalit's release.
It is an important public-relations advantage, and we shouldn't spoil it with measures that are only meant to avenge, punish and outdo the other side in terms of cruelty. Everyone who holds the fate of Shalit and the State of Israel dear should aspire for the release of both the captive soldier and a large portion of the imprisoned Palestinians. We're talking about relief and joy for both the Shalit family and the Barghouti family.
Source:
Friday, August 28, 2009
Filmmakers protest uncritical view of Tel Aviv at Toronto film festival
Several Canadian filmmakers plan to withdraw their movies from next month's Toronto International Film Festival to protest a weeklong cinematic homage to Tel Aviv.
They claim that the screenings will show Israel in a positive light instead of creating a critical forum in which to discuss the occupation.
The Tel Aviv-centric week launches the Toronto Festival's new City to City event and is intended to celebrate Tel Aviv's centennial.
According to the protesting artists, including culture critic Naomi Klein and director John Greyson, the problem is not the official participation of Israeli films at the festival but the character of the forum in which they will be screened.
They refer to an interview given last year by the Israeli consul in Toronto, Amir Gissin, to the Canadian Jewish News, in which he said that Israel's image would be improved by participating in the festival.
Among the films to be shown are "Kirot" ("Walls") by Danny Lerner, "Phobidilia" by Yoav and Doron Paz, "Bena" by Niv Klainer, "Jaffa" by Keren Yedaya, "The Bubble" by Eytan Fox, "A History of Israeli Cinema, Part I and II," by Raphael Nadjari, "Life According to Agfa" by Assi Dayan, "Big Eyes" by Uri Zohar, and "Big Dig," a 40-year-old film by Ephraim Kishon.
In a letter sent to the Toronto festival administration, Greyson wrote that the protest was not against Israeli films or filmmakers chosen for the festival.
He expressed admiration for film work by Israelis shown at previous festivals and said that he would attend Israeli films in the future.
Rather, he wrote, his protest was about the "spotlight" itself, the business-as-usual atmosphere advanced by the choice of Tel Aviv as a young, dynamic metropolis, in a celebration free of confrontation with less pleasant parts of Israel, such as what he termed the "brutal occupation."
Greyson questioned whether an uncritical celebration at this time might be compared to having held such affairs in 1991 in South Africa, or in 1963 in Montgomery, Alabama.
Israeli director Udi Aloni is supporting the Canadian protest and is calling on Israeli artists to take the same steps.
In a telephone interview from New York, Aloni told Haaretz that he had talked to the festival curator to try to convince him not to hold an event in a format so uncritical of Israel.
Not Foreign Ministry cadets
According to Aloni, Israeli artists need to rethink their participation in the festival.
"Wherever they appear they must decide if they are representatives of the Foreign Ministry or of an uncompromising opposition to occupation and racism in Israel," he said. "Israeli directors don't have to be defensive and ask 'Why are they attacking us?' but say to the Canadian directors: 'We're with you on this. We don't represent [Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman; we represent the opposition.' There are only two options. It's no longer possible to shoot and cry."
In a letter addressed to Eytan Fox and Gal Uchovsky, makers of "The Bubble," Aloni asked them: "Are Israeli artists Lieberman's new foreign service cadets?"
Gal Uchovsky said he preferred not to respond until he sees the letter in its entirety.
Source:
They claim that the screenings will show Israel in a positive light instead of creating a critical forum in which to discuss the occupation.
The Tel Aviv-centric week launches the Toronto Festival's new City to City event and is intended to celebrate Tel Aviv's centennial.
According to the protesting artists, including culture critic Naomi Klein and director John Greyson, the problem is not the official participation of Israeli films at the festival but the character of the forum in which they will be screened.
They refer to an interview given last year by the Israeli consul in Toronto, Amir Gissin, to the Canadian Jewish News, in which he said that Israel's image would be improved by participating in the festival.
Among the films to be shown are "Kirot" ("Walls") by Danny Lerner, "Phobidilia" by Yoav and Doron Paz, "Bena" by Niv Klainer, "Jaffa" by Keren Yedaya, "The Bubble" by Eytan Fox, "A History of Israeli Cinema, Part I and II," by Raphael Nadjari, "Life According to Agfa" by Assi Dayan, "Big Eyes" by Uri Zohar, and "Big Dig," a 40-year-old film by Ephraim Kishon.
In a letter sent to the Toronto festival administration, Greyson wrote that the protest was not against Israeli films or filmmakers chosen for the festival.
He expressed admiration for film work by Israelis shown at previous festivals and said that he would attend Israeli films in the future.
Rather, he wrote, his protest was about the "spotlight" itself, the business-as-usual atmosphere advanced by the choice of Tel Aviv as a young, dynamic metropolis, in a celebration free of confrontation with less pleasant parts of Israel, such as what he termed the "brutal occupation."
Greyson questioned whether an uncritical celebration at this time might be compared to having held such affairs in 1991 in South Africa, or in 1963 in Montgomery, Alabama.
Israeli director Udi Aloni is supporting the Canadian protest and is calling on Israeli artists to take the same steps.
In a telephone interview from New York, Aloni told Haaretz that he had talked to the festival curator to try to convince him not to hold an event in a format so uncritical of Israel.
Not Foreign Ministry cadets
According to Aloni, Israeli artists need to rethink their participation in the festival.
"Wherever they appear they must decide if they are representatives of the Foreign Ministry or of an uncompromising opposition to occupation and racism in Israel," he said. "Israeli directors don't have to be defensive and ask 'Why are they attacking us?' but say to the Canadian directors: 'We're with you on this. We don't represent [Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman; we represent the opposition.' There are only two options. It's no longer possible to shoot and cry."
In a letter addressed to Eytan Fox and Gal Uchovsky, makers of "The Bubble," Aloni asked them: "Are Israeli artists Lieberman's new foreign service cadets?"
Gal Uchovsky said he preferred not to respond until he sees the letter in its entirety.
Source:
Arabs paying the price of the Holocaust
"The lesson that Israel must learn from the Holocaust is that it can never get security through fences, walls and guns," Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa told Haaretz Thursday.
Commenting on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement in Germany Thursday that the lesson of the Holocaust is that Israel should always defend itself, Tutu noted that "in South Africa, they tried to get security from the barrel of a gun. They never got it. They got security when the human rights of all were recognized and respected."
The Nobel Prize laureate spoke to Haaretz in Jerusalem as the organization The Elders concluded its tour of Israel and the West Bank. He said the West was consumed with guilt and regret toward Israel because of the Holocaust, "as it should be."
"But who pays the penance? The penance is being paid by the Arabs, by the Palestinians. I once met a German ambassador who said Germany is guilty of two wrongs. One was what they did to the Jews. And now the suffering of the Palestinians."
He also slammed Jewish organizations in the United States, saying they intimidate anyone who criticizes the occupation and rush to accuse these critics of anti-Semitism. Tutu recalled how such organizations pressured U.S. universities to cancel his appearances on their campuses.
"That is unfortunate, because my own positions are actually derived from the Torah. You know God created you in God's image. And we have a God who is always biased in favor of the oppressed."
Tutu also commented on the call by Ben-Gurion University professor Neve Gordon to apply selective sanctions on Israel.
"I always say to people that sanctions were important in the South African case for several reasons. We had a sports boycott, and since we are a sports-mad country, it hit ordinary people. It was one of the most psychologically powerful instruments.
"Secondly, it actually did hit the pocket of the South African government. I mean, when we had the arms embargo and the economic boycott."
He said that when F.W. de Klerk became president he telephoned congratulations. "The very first thing he said to me was 'well now will you call off sanctions?' Although they kept saying, oh well, these things don't affect us at all. That was not true.
"And another important reason was that it gave hope to our people that the world cared. You know. That this was a form of identification."
Earlier in the day, Tutu and the rest of the delegation visited the village of Bil'in, where protests against the separation fence, built in part on the village's land, take place every week.
"We used to take our children in Swaziland and had to go through border checkpoints in South Africa and face almost the same conduct, where you're at the mercy of a police officer. They can decide when they're going to process you and they can turn you back for something inconsequential. But on the other hand, we didn't have collective punishment. We didn't have the demolition of homes because of the suspicion that one of the members of the household might or might not be a terrorist."
He said the activists in Bil'in reminded him of Ghandi, who managed to overthrow British rule in India by nonviolent means, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who took up the struggle of a black woman who was too tired to go to the back of a segregated bus.
He stressed his belief that no situation was hopeless, praising the success of the Northern Irish peace process. The process was mediated by Senator George Mitchell, who now serves as the special U.S. envoy to the Middle East.
Asked about the controversy in Petah Tikva, where several elementary schools have refused to receive Ethiopian school children, Tutu said that "I hope that your society will evolve."
Source:
Commenting on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement in Germany Thursday that the lesson of the Holocaust is that Israel should always defend itself, Tutu noted that "in South Africa, they tried to get security from the barrel of a gun. They never got it. They got security when the human rights of all were recognized and respected."
The Nobel Prize laureate spoke to Haaretz in Jerusalem as the organization The Elders concluded its tour of Israel and the West Bank. He said the West was consumed with guilt and regret toward Israel because of the Holocaust, "as it should be."
"But who pays the penance? The penance is being paid by the Arabs, by the Palestinians. I once met a German ambassador who said Germany is guilty of two wrongs. One was what they did to the Jews. And now the suffering of the Palestinians."
He also slammed Jewish organizations in the United States, saying they intimidate anyone who criticizes the occupation and rush to accuse these critics of anti-Semitism. Tutu recalled how such organizations pressured U.S. universities to cancel his appearances on their campuses.
"That is unfortunate, because my own positions are actually derived from the Torah. You know God created you in God's image. And we have a God who is always biased in favor of the oppressed."
Tutu also commented on the call by Ben-Gurion University professor Neve Gordon to apply selective sanctions on Israel.
"I always say to people that sanctions were important in the South African case for several reasons. We had a sports boycott, and since we are a sports-mad country, it hit ordinary people. It was one of the most psychologically powerful instruments.
"Secondly, it actually did hit the pocket of the South African government. I mean, when we had the arms embargo and the economic boycott."
He said that when F.W. de Klerk became president he telephoned congratulations. "The very first thing he said to me was 'well now will you call off sanctions?' Although they kept saying, oh well, these things don't affect us at all. That was not true.
"And another important reason was that it gave hope to our people that the world cared. You know. That this was a form of identification."
Earlier in the day, Tutu and the rest of the delegation visited the village of Bil'in, where protests against the separation fence, built in part on the village's land, take place every week.
"We used to take our children in Swaziland and had to go through border checkpoints in South Africa and face almost the same conduct, where you're at the mercy of a police officer. They can decide when they're going to process you and they can turn you back for something inconsequential. But on the other hand, we didn't have collective punishment. We didn't have the demolition of homes because of the suspicion that one of the members of the household might or might not be a terrorist."
He said the activists in Bil'in reminded him of Ghandi, who managed to overthrow British rule in India by nonviolent means, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who took up the struggle of a black woman who was too tired to go to the back of a segregated bus.
He stressed his belief that no situation was hopeless, praising the success of the Northern Irish peace process. The process was mediated by Senator George Mitchell, who now serves as the special U.S. envoy to the Middle East.
Asked about the controversy in Petah Tikva, where several elementary schools have refused to receive Ethiopian school children, Tutu said that "I hope that your society will evolve."
Source:
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Israel and US discuss settlements
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting US envoy George Mitchell in a renewed drive to reach a deal on Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The US has been pushing for a complete end to Israeli construction in the hope of kick-starting stalled peace talks.
The meeting in London follows talks with UK PM Gordon Brown, when Mr Netanyahu rejected any construction freeze in occupied East Jerusalem.
He repeated his demand the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state.
Mr Netanyahu says Israel will not build new settlements, but wants to continue building within existing ones to allow for the "natural growth" of the communities living there.
The Palestinians have refused to re-enter peace negotiations unless Israel completely halts all settlement activity.
Mr Netanyahu said he was seeking a "bridging formula which will enable us to launch a peace process and enable those residents (settlers) to live normal lives".
In recent months the US has also pressured Israel over a construction project in occupied East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians want the capital of their future state.
Israel annexed the area in 1981, in a move not recognised by the international community. It was captured by Israel, along with the West Bank and other territory during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Mr Netanyahu said Jerusalem was Israel's "indivisible" capital. "Jerusalem is not a settlement," he said.
He called for the Palestinians to be "be courageous partners for peace" and said he believed progress could be achieved that "may confront the cynics and surprise the world".
Dispute
The US pressure on Mr Netanyahu has strained normally close Israel-US ties.
After meeting Mr Mitchell in London, Mr Netanyahu is travelling to Berlin, the next stop on his four-day European tour.
Some 450,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
Israel agreed to freeze settlement activity as part of the 2003 staged international peace plan known as the roadmap.
But Israeli officials say there was an unwritten understanding with the administration of former US President George W Bush that allowed limited growth within existing settlements to continue.
Mr Netanyahu's right-leaning government has not published tenders for new housing units in settlements since it came to power in April.
But the left-wing Israeli group Peace Now, which monitors building in settlements, says government-backed projects make up only 40% of construction and that building has been continuing on the ground in many places.
Source:
The US has been pushing for a complete end to Israeli construction in the hope of kick-starting stalled peace talks.
The meeting in London follows talks with UK PM Gordon Brown, when Mr Netanyahu rejected any construction freeze in occupied East Jerusalem.
He repeated his demand the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state.
Mr Netanyahu says Israel will not build new settlements, but wants to continue building within existing ones to allow for the "natural growth" of the communities living there.
The Palestinians have refused to re-enter peace negotiations unless Israel completely halts all settlement activity.
Mr Netanyahu said he was seeking a "bridging formula which will enable us to launch a peace process and enable those residents (settlers) to live normal lives".
In recent months the US has also pressured Israel over a construction project in occupied East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians want the capital of their future state.
Israel annexed the area in 1981, in a move not recognised by the international community. It was captured by Israel, along with the West Bank and other territory during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Mr Netanyahu said Jerusalem was Israel's "indivisible" capital. "Jerusalem is not a settlement," he said.
He called for the Palestinians to be "be courageous partners for peace" and said he believed progress could be achieved that "may confront the cynics and surprise the world".
Dispute
The US pressure on Mr Netanyahu has strained normally close Israel-US ties.
After meeting Mr Mitchell in London, Mr Netanyahu is travelling to Berlin, the next stop on his four-day European tour.
Some 450,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
Israel agreed to freeze settlement activity as part of the 2003 staged international peace plan known as the roadmap.
But Israeli officials say there was an unwritten understanding with the administration of former US President George W Bush that allowed limited growth within existing settlements to continue.
Mr Netanyahu's right-leaning government has not published tenders for new housing units in settlements since it came to power in April.
But the left-wing Israeli group Peace Now, which monitors building in settlements, says government-backed projects make up only 40% of construction and that building has been continuing on the ground in many places.
Source:
Edward Kennedy dies at 77; 'liberal lion of the Senate'
The Massachusetts Democrat was the last surviving son in a legendary political family. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2008.
As the standard-bearer for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, the square-jawed "Ted" or "Teddy" Kennedy believed in government's ability to help solve people's problems. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat and icon of American liberal politics who was the last surviving brother of a legendary political family, died late Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass., his family announced. He was 77.
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Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Israel PM expects no breakthroughs in London talks
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expects no breakthroughs at a meeting this week with a US peace envoy, but hopes talks with the Palestinians can resume within two months, a spokesman said on Monday.
A right-winger in power since March, Netanyahu has resisted Western pressure to freeze Jewish settlements on occupied land where Palestinians seek statehood. The dispute has opened a rare rift between Israel and its top ally, the United States.
Speaking before a London visit during which Netanyahu is due to meet US envoy George Mitchell, his spokesman Nir Hefetz told reporters: "The prime minister expects there to be a certain degree of progress, but no breakthrough is expected." Mitchell has been trying to reach an agreement with Israel on a settlement freeze that US President Barack Obama has demanded in accordance with a 2003 peace "roadmap" that also calls on the Palestinians to rein in armed groups.
Netanyahu will make clear that Israel intends to "attend to the normal needs" of its settlers "alongside a political process that is to be launched in about two months' time", Hefetz said.
Media reports have spoken of a possible summit between Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, overseen by Obama, on the sidelines of next month's UN General Assembly in New York.
Netanyahu's four-day trip to London and Berlin includes talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Both leaders have been critical of Israel's settlement policy.
Abbas has made a resumption of peace talks with Israel, suspended since December, conditional on a settlement freeze.
"Anything short of complying with the demands of the roadmap, with the demands of President Obama ... [and] the Palestinians won't be able to go to any negotiations," said Nabil Abu Rudeina, an Abbas spokesman.
US assurances
Israeli media reports suggest a wide gap remains between Israel and Washington. Netanyahu is keen to limit any settlement freeze to a six-month period and continue projects already under way.
The United States wants at least a two-year suspension.
Netanyahu has also sought US assurances that a settlement deal would be accompanied by initial steps by Arab countries to normalise ties with Israel.
"The prime minister has not agreed to anything, and I don't know if he will agree," Israeli Culture Minister Limor Livnat said when asked in a radio interview about the US overtures.
But Netanyahu's talks could result in a deal "for a period of time [limiting] the launch of new construction projects" in West Bank settlements, Livnat told Israel Radio.
Some 500,000 Jews live in the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem, territory Israel captured in a 1967 war and also home to 2.5 million Palestinians. The World Court has branded the settlements illegal. Nor has Israel's claim to all of Jerusalem as its "eternal and undivided capital" been recognised abroad.
Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with its capital in Jerusalem. But Abbas' mandate is shaky, as rival Hamas Islamists who reject coexistence with the Jewish state seized control of Gaza in 2007.
Fayyad unveils plan
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad will on Tuesday unveil his plan for building the institutions and infrastructure of the state of Palestine, which he says can be readied in the next two years.
Not so much a blueprint as a wish-list, the 65-page plan calls for a new international airport in the Jordan Valley and new rail links to neighbouring states, and proposes a generous tax regime for foreign investors.
The Palestinian Authority which Fayyad heads is dependent on foreign assistance for most of its budget. A copy of the plan was obtained by Reuters ahead of publication.
The plan is short on detail, but setting out these objectives is a departure from Palestinian policy over the past 15 years, which focused exclusively on negotiations with Israel rather than building institutions.
Western-backed Fayyad says Palestinians must not wait for a final peace settlement with Israel but get on with creating their state.
"We call upon all our people to work together on the basis of full partnership in the process of completing and building the institutions of a free, democratic and stable state of Palestine," the plan states.
"The world should hear the clear and united position from all walks of Palestinian society ... that the Israeli occupation is the only obstacle that hinders the stability, prosperity and the progress of our people and their right to freedom, independence and a decent life." Fayyad, a technocrat with no significant political base, heads a newly aligned Cabinet with more ministers than before from Abbas’ dominant Fateh faction, whose Islamist Hamas rivals refuse to recognise the premier.
On the political level, the plan is in harmony with the position of Abbas, who wants to establish a state on all territories that Israel occupied after the 1967 war, with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital.
The document says the government will focus on improving the performance of Palestinian security services, as part of its commitment to crack down on fighters as stipulated in the internationally backed peace plan or "roadmap".
It speaks of building infrastructure, securing energy sources and water, and improving housing, education and agriculture. But no detailed prescriptions are included.
"The government will work on encouraging investment in Palestine through offering tax cuts to local and foreign investors [and] will review investment regulations and remove obstacles that hinder investment," says the document.
"Our national duty stipulates that we should do whatever we can to get our economy out of the cycle of dependency and alienation."
Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian on the Israel-Gaza border on Monday, Palestinian medical workers said, and fighters in the Gaza Strip fired two mortar bombs at southern Israel.
The medical workers identified the dead man as a farmer and said the Israeli army told them to come to the frontier - an area Israel has declared off-limits to Palestinians and where fighters have planted bombs in the past - to pick up his body.
A second Palestinian was wounded in the incident, the medical workers said, also identifying him as a farmer.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the shooting, but said two mortar bombs were fired from the northern Gaza Strip and struck Israel. Israeli media reports said a soldier was slightly wounded.
Source:
A right-winger in power since March, Netanyahu has resisted Western pressure to freeze Jewish settlements on occupied land where Palestinians seek statehood. The dispute has opened a rare rift between Israel and its top ally, the United States.
Speaking before a London visit during which Netanyahu is due to meet US envoy George Mitchell, his spokesman Nir Hefetz told reporters: "The prime minister expects there to be a certain degree of progress, but no breakthrough is expected." Mitchell has been trying to reach an agreement with Israel on a settlement freeze that US President Barack Obama has demanded in accordance with a 2003 peace "roadmap" that also calls on the Palestinians to rein in armed groups.
Netanyahu will make clear that Israel intends to "attend to the normal needs" of its settlers "alongside a political process that is to be launched in about two months' time", Hefetz said.
Media reports have spoken of a possible summit between Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, overseen by Obama, on the sidelines of next month's UN General Assembly in New York.
Netanyahu's four-day trip to London and Berlin includes talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Both leaders have been critical of Israel's settlement policy.
Abbas has made a resumption of peace talks with Israel, suspended since December, conditional on a settlement freeze.
"Anything short of complying with the demands of the roadmap, with the demands of President Obama ... [and] the Palestinians won't be able to go to any negotiations," said Nabil Abu Rudeina, an Abbas spokesman.
US assurances
Israeli media reports suggest a wide gap remains between Israel and Washington. Netanyahu is keen to limit any settlement freeze to a six-month period and continue projects already under way.
The United States wants at least a two-year suspension.
Netanyahu has also sought US assurances that a settlement deal would be accompanied by initial steps by Arab countries to normalise ties with Israel.
"The prime minister has not agreed to anything, and I don't know if he will agree," Israeli Culture Minister Limor Livnat said when asked in a radio interview about the US overtures.
But Netanyahu's talks could result in a deal "for a period of time [limiting] the launch of new construction projects" in West Bank settlements, Livnat told Israel Radio.
Some 500,000 Jews live in the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem, territory Israel captured in a 1967 war and also home to 2.5 million Palestinians. The World Court has branded the settlements illegal. Nor has Israel's claim to all of Jerusalem as its "eternal and undivided capital" been recognised abroad.
Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with its capital in Jerusalem. But Abbas' mandate is shaky, as rival Hamas Islamists who reject coexistence with the Jewish state seized control of Gaza in 2007.
Fayyad unveils plan
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad will on Tuesday unveil his plan for building the institutions and infrastructure of the state of Palestine, which he says can be readied in the next two years.
Not so much a blueprint as a wish-list, the 65-page plan calls for a new international airport in the Jordan Valley and new rail links to neighbouring states, and proposes a generous tax regime for foreign investors.
The Palestinian Authority which Fayyad heads is dependent on foreign assistance for most of its budget. A copy of the plan was obtained by Reuters ahead of publication.
The plan is short on detail, but setting out these objectives is a departure from Palestinian policy over the past 15 years, which focused exclusively on negotiations with Israel rather than building institutions.
Western-backed Fayyad says Palestinians must not wait for a final peace settlement with Israel but get on with creating their state.
"We call upon all our people to work together on the basis of full partnership in the process of completing and building the institutions of a free, democratic and stable state of Palestine," the plan states.
"The world should hear the clear and united position from all walks of Palestinian society ... that the Israeli occupation is the only obstacle that hinders the stability, prosperity and the progress of our people and their right to freedom, independence and a decent life." Fayyad, a technocrat with no significant political base, heads a newly aligned Cabinet with more ministers than before from Abbas’ dominant Fateh faction, whose Islamist Hamas rivals refuse to recognise the premier.
On the political level, the plan is in harmony with the position of Abbas, who wants to establish a state on all territories that Israel occupied after the 1967 war, with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital.
The document says the government will focus on improving the performance of Palestinian security services, as part of its commitment to crack down on fighters as stipulated in the internationally backed peace plan or "roadmap".
It speaks of building infrastructure, securing energy sources and water, and improving housing, education and agriculture. But no detailed prescriptions are included.
"The government will work on encouraging investment in Palestine through offering tax cuts to local and foreign investors [and] will review investment regulations and remove obstacles that hinder investment," says the document.
"Our national duty stipulates that we should do whatever we can to get our economy out of the cycle of dependency and alienation."
Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian on the Israel-Gaza border on Monday, Palestinian medical workers said, and fighters in the Gaza Strip fired two mortar bombs at southern Israel.
The medical workers identified the dead man as a farmer and said the Israeli army told them to come to the frontier - an area Israel has declared off-limits to Palestinians and where fighters have planted bombs in the past - to pick up his body.
A second Palestinian was wounded in the incident, the medical workers said, also identifying him as a farmer.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the shooting, but said two mortar bombs were fired from the northern Gaza Strip and struck Israel. Israeli media reports said a soldier was slightly wounded.
Source:
Monday, August 24, 2009
'What does it matter that we're black?'
At 8:45 A.M., Balta Zalka stood outside the Da'at Mevinim private religious school in Petah Tikva, waiting for a government official to confirm that his two daughters would indeed study there this year, as the municipality had promised. He was disappointed.
"The secretary took down our details and promised to call. I don't know what happened. They told us to come to register, but they're not accepting us," Zalka said. Meanwhile, an Israeli-born mother and her young son walked out of the school. From their conversation, it was apparent the child was allowed to enroll.
Private religious schools in Petah Tikva said this year they would not accept the students assigned by the municipality, and would enroll only those they felt were a good fit.
The scenes were strikingly similar outside the city's three private religious schools: parents and children waiting outside, accompanied by municipal officials, simply waiting their turn.
At each school - Da'at Mevinim, Darkei Noam and Merhav - the principal failed to show up, each for a different reason. Only one or two secretaries came, even though the municipality announced last week that school officials would be there to greet the students.
School representatives responded, "Nobody coordinated the visit with us," adding that the buildings were still closed for summer vacation.
The Zalka family moved to Petah Tikva several weeks ago from Safed. The two daughters, 6-year-old Habatam and 7-year-old Ambata, are among 100 or so Ethiopian-Israeli students who don't know where they will be attending school next week.
"We thought the problems of 'blacks' in Petah Tikva had been solved, or we wouldn't have bought an apartment here," Zalka said. "I tell the kids not to think about there being 'whites and blacks,' but to be good students, and then they'll be viewed as 'normal,'" Zalka said.
One official described the families' crisscrossing between the private religious schools as "a humiliation parade."
"The heads of the [educational] institutions are under tremendous pressure. They are citing different excuses and trying to buy time, and in the meantime pressuring the Education Ministry," said one official. "Only an unambiguous position by the ministry can solve the crisis. This is war," he said.
Darkei Noam is a large, impressive building. In the entrance hangs a huge poster bearing the line from Proverbs that is the religious school network's motto: "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."
"What does it matter that we're black?" asked Beza Waldahi, who is trying to enroll his son at the school. Waldahi's family immigrated to Israel three years ago, and last month moved to Mevasseret Zion.
"The kids always ask what will happen, and why they don't have a school. I don't know what to tell them. In a few years they'll go to the army," he said. "We're like everyone else in Israel - this is our school, our city, our country."
Source:
"The secretary took down our details and promised to call. I don't know what happened. They told us to come to register, but they're not accepting us," Zalka said. Meanwhile, an Israeli-born mother and her young son walked out of the school. From their conversation, it was apparent the child was allowed to enroll.
Private religious schools in Petah Tikva said this year they would not accept the students assigned by the municipality, and would enroll only those they felt were a good fit.
The scenes were strikingly similar outside the city's three private religious schools: parents and children waiting outside, accompanied by municipal officials, simply waiting their turn.
At each school - Da'at Mevinim, Darkei Noam and Merhav - the principal failed to show up, each for a different reason. Only one or two secretaries came, even though the municipality announced last week that school officials would be there to greet the students.
School representatives responded, "Nobody coordinated the visit with us," adding that the buildings were still closed for summer vacation.
The Zalka family moved to Petah Tikva several weeks ago from Safed. The two daughters, 6-year-old Habatam and 7-year-old Ambata, are among 100 or so Ethiopian-Israeli students who don't know where they will be attending school next week.
"We thought the problems of 'blacks' in Petah Tikva had been solved, or we wouldn't have bought an apartment here," Zalka said. "I tell the kids not to think about there being 'whites and blacks,' but to be good students, and then they'll be viewed as 'normal,'" Zalka said.
One official described the families' crisscrossing between the private religious schools as "a humiliation parade."
"The heads of the [educational] institutions are under tremendous pressure. They are citing different excuses and trying to buy time, and in the meantime pressuring the Education Ministry," said one official. "Only an unambiguous position by the ministry can solve the crisis. This is war," he said.
Darkei Noam is a large, impressive building. In the entrance hangs a huge poster bearing the line from Proverbs that is the religious school network's motto: "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."
"What does it matter that we're black?" asked Beza Waldahi, who is trying to enroll his son at the school. Waldahi's family immigrated to Israel three years ago, and last month moved to Mevasseret Zion.
"The kids always ask what will happen, and why they don't have a school. I don't know what to tell them. In a few years they'll go to the army," he said. "We're like everyone else in Israel - this is our school, our city, our country."
Source:
US launches probe into CIA abuses
A special US prosecutor has been appointed to investigate allegations of abuse of terror suspects.
The announcement of John Durham's selection came as a report was published detailing the allegations of abuse by CIA agents.
Agents threatened to kill a key terror suspect's children and sexually assault another's mother, it is claimed.
The report was made in 2004 but only a heavily censored version appeared and a judge ordered fuller disclosure.
The justice department is reported to be reopening about a dozen prisoner abuse cases.
Also on Monday, President Barack Obama approved a new elite team to question terror suspects.
Republican anger
John Durham, who is already investigating the destruction of videotapes of CIA interrogations, was picked by US Attorney General Eric Holder.
Mr Holder said: "I fully realise that my decision to commence this preliminary review will be controversial."
"In this case, given all of the information currently available, it is clear to me that this review is the only responsible course of action for me to take."
Special prosecutors in the US are independent figures appointed to investigate the possible wrongdoing of government officials or agencies.
Senior Republicans have already expressed anger at the decision.
Nine signatories of a letter to Mr Holder said they were "deeply disappointed" at a decision that "could have a chilling effect on the work of the intelligence community".
'Aggressive'
The declassified document released by the justice department said that one agent told key terror suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that "we're going to kill your children" if there were further attacks on the US.
Another agent allegedly told a second suspect the man's mother would be sexually assaulted in front of him. The agent has denied the allegation.
A third incident is said to have involved an agent pinching the carotid artery of a detainee. As the man was passing out, the agent shook him awake, then repeated the action twice.
Ahead of the document's release, CIA Director Leon Panetta wrote on the agency's website that the report was "in many ways an old story" and that he would make "no judgments on the accuracy of the report or the various views expressed about it".
He said it was clear that the CIA had "obtained intelligence from high-value detainees when inside information on al-Qaeda was in short supply".
Mr Panetta said the CIA had been "aggressive" in seeking regular legal advice from the department of justice on its techniques.
He said his primary concern was "to stand up for those officers who did what their country asked and who followed the legal guidance they were given. That is the president's position, too."
But Mr Panetta also said: "This agency made no excuses for behaviour, however rare, that went beyond the formal guidelines on counter-terrorism."
Earlier on Monday, deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton confirmed there would be a new interrogation team for key terror suspects.
Correspondents say Mr Obama was concerned at the number of different agencies involved and he wanted to bring them together.
The new team will be called the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group.
Source:
The announcement of John Durham's selection came as a report was published detailing the allegations of abuse by CIA agents.
Agents threatened to kill a key terror suspect's children and sexually assault another's mother, it is claimed.
The report was made in 2004 but only a heavily censored version appeared and a judge ordered fuller disclosure.
The justice department is reported to be reopening about a dozen prisoner abuse cases.
Also on Monday, President Barack Obama approved a new elite team to question terror suspects.
Republican anger
John Durham, who is already investigating the destruction of videotapes of CIA interrogations, was picked by US Attorney General Eric Holder.
Mr Holder said: "I fully realise that my decision to commence this preliminary review will be controversial."
"In this case, given all of the information currently available, it is clear to me that this review is the only responsible course of action for me to take."
Special prosecutors in the US are independent figures appointed to investigate the possible wrongdoing of government officials or agencies.
Senior Republicans have already expressed anger at the decision.
Nine signatories of a letter to Mr Holder said they were "deeply disappointed" at a decision that "could have a chilling effect on the work of the intelligence community".
'Aggressive'
The declassified document released by the justice department said that one agent told key terror suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that "we're going to kill your children" if there were further attacks on the US.
Another agent allegedly told a second suspect the man's mother would be sexually assaulted in front of him. The agent has denied the allegation.
A third incident is said to have involved an agent pinching the carotid artery of a detainee. As the man was passing out, the agent shook him awake, then repeated the action twice.
Ahead of the document's release, CIA Director Leon Panetta wrote on the agency's website that the report was "in many ways an old story" and that he would make "no judgments on the accuracy of the report or the various views expressed about it".
He said it was clear that the CIA had "obtained intelligence from high-value detainees when inside information on al-Qaeda was in short supply".
Mr Panetta said the CIA had been "aggressive" in seeking regular legal advice from the department of justice on its techniques.
He said his primary concern was "to stand up for those officers who did what their country asked and who followed the legal guidance they were given. That is the president's position, too."
But Mr Panetta also said: "This agency made no excuses for behaviour, however rare, that went beyond the formal guidelines on counter-terrorism."
Earlier on Monday, deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton confirmed there would be a new interrogation team for key terror suspects.
Correspondents say Mr Obama was concerned at the number of different agencies involved and he wanted to bring them together.
The new team will be called the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group.
Source:
Israeli Arab diplomat curb mooted
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has proposed a new regulation that would prevent most Israeli Arabs from becoming career diplomats.
He said that only those who complete military service should be eligible for training with the foreign ministry.
This would exclude most Arab citizens, who do not serve in the army, as well as ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are exempted from conscription.
Mr Lieberman said he would propose a law to parliament, if necessary.
Current Israeli law guarantees all citizens equal access to the civil service.
More than five Israeli Arabs, Muslims and Christians, currently work as diplomats in the foreign ministry, the Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported.
Mr Lieberman's proposal came at a foreign ministry administrative meeting.
Israeli Arabs, who make up about a fifth of Israel's population, roughly 1.45 million people, are of Palestinian Arab descent.
During the war that surrounded the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, hundreds of thousands of Arabs were forced from or fled their homes.
Those who remained within what became Israel, and their descendents, have been granted citizenship and are known as Israeli Arabs.
Israeli Arabs are citizens of Israel - although their "civic duty" differs as they are exempt from compulsory military service.
But Israeli Arabs frequently describe themselves as "second-class citizens" and say they face institutional and social discrimination.
Mr Lieberman, a hard-line nationalist, has previously tried to sponsor laws requiring Israeli Arabs to swear allegiance to Israel as a Jewish state and to ban Israeli Arabs from marking the Nakba - the Palestinian "catastrophe" of 1948.
These measures have not been enacted, though laws stopping state funding for organisations and activities that reject the existence of Israel as a Jewish state have.
Source:
He said that only those who complete military service should be eligible for training with the foreign ministry.
This would exclude most Arab citizens, who do not serve in the army, as well as ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are exempted from conscription.
Mr Lieberman said he would propose a law to parliament, if necessary.
Current Israeli law guarantees all citizens equal access to the civil service.
More than five Israeli Arabs, Muslims and Christians, currently work as diplomats in the foreign ministry, the Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported.
Mr Lieberman's proposal came at a foreign ministry administrative meeting.
Israeli Arabs, who make up about a fifth of Israel's population, roughly 1.45 million people, are of Palestinian Arab descent.
During the war that surrounded the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, hundreds of thousands of Arabs were forced from or fled their homes.
Those who remained within what became Israel, and their descendents, have been granted citizenship and are known as Israeli Arabs.
Israeli Arabs are citizens of Israel - although their "civic duty" differs as they are exempt from compulsory military service.
But Israeli Arabs frequently describe themselves as "second-class citizens" and say they face institutional and social discrimination.
Mr Lieberman, a hard-line nationalist, has previously tried to sponsor laws requiring Israeli Arabs to swear allegiance to Israel as a Jewish state and to ban Israeli Arabs from marking the Nakba - the Palestinian "catastrophe" of 1948.
These measures have not been enacted, though laws stopping state funding for organisations and activities that reject the existence of Israel as a Jewish state have.
Source:
Report to detail alleged abuse inside CIA secret prisons
Attorney General Eric Holder is considering appointing a prosecutor to investigate a CIA interrogation program.The gun and drill were used in two separate interrogation sessions against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, one of the sources said. Al-Nashiri is accused of plotting the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, which left 17 U.S. sailors dead.
The sources did not want to be identified because the report, completed by the CIA's inspector general in 2004, has not yet been made public. A federal judge in New York has ordered a redacted version of the report released Monday as part of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU.
The interrogations took place in the CIA's secret prisons before 2006, when then-President George W. Bush moved all detainees from such facilities to the federal prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, both sources said.
Details of the report were first published by Newsweek magazine late Friday.
Newsweek also said that, according to its sources citing the inspector-general's report, interrogators staged mock executions to try to frighten detainees into talking. In one instance, Newsweek reported, a gun was fired in a room next to one terrorism suspect so he would think another prisoner was being killed.
A CIA spokesman would not talk about specifics of the inspector-general's report but said all the incidents described in it have been reviewed by government prosecutors.
"The CIA in no way endorsed behavior -- no matter how infrequent -- that went beyond formal guidance. This has all been looked at; professionals in the Department of Justice decided if and when to pursue prosecution. That's how the system was supposed to work, and that's how it did work," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said.
One of the sources, a former intelligence official who is familiar with the report, said that while the report "reaffirmed" the interrogation program, it "also showed some had strayed off center."
The official said about a dozen cases of potential misconduct by interrogators were referred to the Justice Department. Of those, only one person was prosecuted, the official said, with the rest being referred to the CIA accountability board, an internal disciplinary board. Two people resigned rather than face the CIA board, the official said.
This official said that when CIA leadership found out about the drill incident, they were "angry as hell." The official called it "nickel-and-dime foolishness" that was not tolerated. The individual who used the drill was pulled from the program and "sharply reprimanded," the official said.
Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU, released a statement Sunday saying, "Leaked portions of the CIA Inspector General's report offer more proof that government officials committed serious crimes while interrogating prisoners. So-called 'enhanced interrogation techniques' like mock executions and threatening prisoners with guns and power drills are not only reprehensible but illegal."
In anticipation of the release of the report Monday, Romero added, "Releasing the report with minimal redactions is essential to knowing what crimes were committed and who was involved."
The release of the inspector-general's report comes as Attorney General Eric Holder is considering whether to appoint a prosecutor to investigate the CIA interrogation program, begun by the Bush administration after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Source:
Israel says shooting of unarmed American activist a justifiable act of war
The Israeli military has declared the shooting of an unarmed American peace activist an act of war. The activist, Tristan Anderson, was critically injured when Israeli soldiers fired a tear gas canister directly at his head in March. Anderson was taking part in a weekly nonviolent protest against Israels separation wall in the West Bank village of Nilin. The Israeli military says Anderson was involved in a hostile act, which would absolve the military of any liability for his injuries. Michael Sfard, an attorney for Andersons family, said, If [an] unarmed civilian demonstration is classified by Israel as an act of war, then clearly Israel admits that it is at war with civilians. The Anderson family has filed a criminal complaint with the Israeli government and also plans a civil suit.
Swedish Jews: Israel gave IDF organ harvesting claims center stage
BERLIN - Lena Posner, president of the Official Council of Jewish Communities in Sweden, said Sunday that Israel's demand that Sweden officially condemn the article that accused Israel Defense Forces of harvesting Palestinian organs "had blown the issue completely out of proportion.
"No one even noticed the article - which is, incidentally, anti-Semitic and absolutely untruthful - when it was buried in the last pages of Aftonbladet," Posner explained. "But the Israeli response pushed the journalist who wrote it, Daniel Bostrom, to the front of the stage and into the heart of the Swedish mainstream."
"What's even worse is that by making the preposterous demand for a government condemnation, the debate has changed from anti-Semitism to freedom of speech in Sweden: Instead of concentrating on debunking the story, they have made it a freedom of speech issue. The government is not going to condemn the article - freedom of speech here is sacrosanct," added Posner, who said she could see how the Swedish mainstream media, which at first attacked the tabloid for printing the piece, were now supporting it, based on the principle of preserving the freedom of speech.
The editorials in leading Swedish newspapers took a similar stand, rallying behind that principle and condemning the Israeli demands. "Freedom of speech is not something to apologize for," said a Svenska Dagbladet editorial this weekend. The daily also criticized the statement issued by the Swedish ambassador to Israel, Elisabeth Borsiin Bonnier, claiming the Swedish public was "appalled" by the article.
Sydsvenska Dagbladet also attacked the envoy, with an editorial that asked: "Since when was it the role of the government to represent, through its ambassador, the opinions of all Swedes, and to criticize the journalistic consideration of the free media?"
The results of a poll conducted by Svenska Dagbladet showed that 66 per cent of the 1,300 respondents ruled out offering any apology to Israel, 31 percent said the Aftonbladet should apologize, and only 3 percent supported a formal apology by the Swedish government. In addition, 92 percent of the 4,500 participants in a survey taken by the Dagens Nyheter newspaper said that Israel's demand for an apology was "unreasonable."
Source:
"No one even noticed the article - which is, incidentally, anti-Semitic and absolutely untruthful - when it was buried in the last pages of Aftonbladet," Posner explained. "But the Israeli response pushed the journalist who wrote it, Daniel Bostrom, to the front of the stage and into the heart of the Swedish mainstream."
"What's even worse is that by making the preposterous demand for a government condemnation, the debate has changed from anti-Semitism to freedom of speech in Sweden: Instead of concentrating on debunking the story, they have made it a freedom of speech issue. The government is not going to condemn the article - freedom of speech here is sacrosanct," added Posner, who said she could see how the Swedish mainstream media, which at first attacked the tabloid for printing the piece, were now supporting it, based on the principle of preserving the freedom of speech.
The editorials in leading Swedish newspapers took a similar stand, rallying behind that principle and condemning the Israeli demands. "Freedom of speech is not something to apologize for," said a Svenska Dagbladet editorial this weekend. The daily also criticized the statement issued by the Swedish ambassador to Israel, Elisabeth Borsiin Bonnier, claiming the Swedish public was "appalled" by the article.
Sydsvenska Dagbladet also attacked the envoy, with an editorial that asked: "Since when was it the role of the government to represent, through its ambassador, the opinions of all Swedes, and to criticize the journalistic consideration of the free media?"
The results of a poll conducted by Svenska Dagbladet showed that 66 per cent of the 1,300 respondents ruled out offering any apology to Israel, 31 percent said the Aftonbladet should apologize, and only 3 percent supported a formal apology by the Swedish government. In addition, 92 percent of the 4,500 participants in a survey taken by the Dagens Nyheter newspaper said that Israel's demand for an apology was "unreasonable."
Source:
Saturday, August 22, 2009
My Lai massacre hero dies at 62
This is what I consider a HERO! Mr. Thompson a warrant officer took action and stopped the My Lai massacre from being worse than it was. It is a disgrace that we had to have someone to put a stop to our troops killing innocent civilians. What happened then reminds me of what the IDF has been doing to the Palestinians.
Hugh Thompson Jnr, a former US military helicopter pilot who helped stop one of the most infamous massacres of the Vietnam War has died, aged 62.
Mr Thompson and his crew came upon US troops killing civilians at the village of My Lai on 16 March 1968.
He put his helicopter down between the soldiers and villagers, ordering his men to shoot their fellow Americans if they attacked the civilians.
"There was no way I could turn my back on them," he later said of the victims.
Mr Thompson, a warrant officer at the time, called in support from other US helicopters, and together they airlifted at least nine Vietnamese civilians - including a wounded boy - to safety.
He returned to headquarters, angrily telling his commanders what he had seen. They ordered soldiers in the area to stop shooting.
But Mr Thompson was shunned for years by fellow soldiers, received death threats, and was once told by a congressman that he was the only American who should be punished over My Lai.
A platoon commander, Lt William Calley, was later court-martialed and sentenced to life in prison for his role in the killings.
President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence to three years' house arrest.
Lobbying
Although the My Lai massacre became one of the best-known atrocities of the war - with journalist Seymour Hersh winning a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on it - little was known about Mr Thompson's actions for decades.
In the 1980s, Clemson University Professor David Egan saw him interviewed in a documentary and began to campaign on his behalf.
He persuaded people including Vietnam-era Secretary of State Dean Rusk to lobby the government to honour the helicopter crew.
Mr Thompson and his colleagues Lawrence Colburn and Glenn Andreotta were finally awarded the Soldier's Medal, the highest US miltiary award for bravery when not confronting an enemy.
Mr Thompson was close to tears as he accepted the award in 1998 "for all the men who served their country with honour on the battlefields of South-East Asia".
Mr Andreotta's award was posthumous. He was killed in Vietnam less than a month after My Lai.
Mr Colburn was at Mr Thompson's bedside when he died, the Associated Press reported.
Mr Thompson died of cancer. He had been ill for some time and was removed from life support earlier in the week.
Source:
Hugh Thompson Jnr, a former US military helicopter pilot who helped stop one of the most infamous massacres of the Vietnam War has died, aged 62.
Mr Thompson and his crew came upon US troops killing civilians at the village of My Lai on 16 March 1968.
He put his helicopter down between the soldiers and villagers, ordering his men to shoot their fellow Americans if they attacked the civilians.
"There was no way I could turn my back on them," he later said of the victims.
Mr Thompson, a warrant officer at the time, called in support from other US helicopters, and together they airlifted at least nine Vietnamese civilians - including a wounded boy - to safety.
He returned to headquarters, angrily telling his commanders what he had seen. They ordered soldiers in the area to stop shooting.
But Mr Thompson was shunned for years by fellow soldiers, received death threats, and was once told by a congressman that he was the only American who should be punished over My Lai.
A platoon commander, Lt William Calley, was later court-martialed and sentenced to life in prison for his role in the killings.
President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence to three years' house arrest.
Lobbying
Although the My Lai massacre became one of the best-known atrocities of the war - with journalist Seymour Hersh winning a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on it - little was known about Mr Thompson's actions for decades.
In the 1980s, Clemson University Professor David Egan saw him interviewed in a documentary and began to campaign on his behalf.
He persuaded people including Vietnam-era Secretary of State Dean Rusk to lobby the government to honour the helicopter crew.
Mr Thompson and his colleagues Lawrence Colburn and Glenn Andreotta were finally awarded the Soldier's Medal, the highest US miltiary award for bravery when not confronting an enemy.
Mr Thompson was close to tears as he accepted the award in 1998 "for all the men who served their country with honour on the battlefields of South-East Asia".
Mr Andreotta's award was posthumous. He was killed in Vietnam less than a month after My Lai.
Mr Colburn was at Mr Thompson's bedside when he died, the Associated Press reported.
Mr Thompson died of cancer. He had been ill for some time and was removed from life support earlier in the week.
Source:
Friday, August 21, 2009
Jerusalem shop owners close in protest of arbitrary Israeli fines
Jerusalem – Ma’an – Palestinian-owned shops in the Old City of Jerusalem closed on Wednesday protesting multiple arbitrary fines by West Jerusalem municipal officers who have invaded several shops and harassed owners.
Israeli municipal authorities recently began enforcing a law prohibiting shops to display their goods on tables and racks in front of the stores. Officers have barged into nearly a hundred stores, often knocking down displays and handing over fines of 1,000 shekels (260 US dollars).
Shopkeepers said this is the fifth time Israeli authorities have attempted to enforce the law, but said they have arbitrarily applied it. They also noted this time the enforcement comes ahead of the busy shopping month of Ramadan, as Muslims buy special ingredients for foods and gifts for children and relatives.
Source:
Israeli municipal authorities recently began enforcing a law prohibiting shops to display their goods on tables and racks in front of the stores. Officers have barged into nearly a hundred stores, often knocking down displays and handing over fines of 1,000 shekels (260 US dollars).
Shopkeepers said this is the fifth time Israeli authorities have attempted to enforce the law, but said they have arbitrarily applied it. They also noted this time the enforcement comes ahead of the busy shopping month of Ramadan, as Muslims buy special ingredients for foods and gifts for children and relatives.
Source:
Obama in Ramadan greeting: U.S. unyielding in support for Palestinian state
U.S. President Barack Obama said in a special message to the Muslim world Friday to mark the beginning of Ramadan that the U.S. is "unyielding" in its support for a two solution between Israel and the Palestinians.
Obama used the occasion to reiterate his desire to mend relations between the United States and Muslim countries, an effort he began with a major speech in Cairo in June to the Muslim world.
"Beyond America's borders, we are committed to keeping our responsibility to build a world that is more peaceful and secure," Obama said.
"That is why we are responsibly ending the war in Iraq. That is why we are isolating violent extremists while empowering the people in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is why we are unyielding in our support for a two-state solution that recognizes the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security.
"And that is why America will always stand for the universal rights of all people to speak their mind, practice their religion, contribute fully to society and have confidence in the rule of law."
Obama added that the U.S. will continue to isolate violent extremists while seeking to empower Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan and "responsibly ending the war in Iraq."
"America will always stand for the universal rights of all people to speak their mind, practice their religion, contribute fully to society and have confidence in the rule of law," Obama said.
Meanwhile, to mark Ramadan, Egyptian fruit sellers have named their best dates of the year after Obama in a sweet tribute to the American leader for his outreach to the Muslim world.
Dates are a traditional food for Ramadan - which begins Saturday in most of the Islamic world - since the Islamic Prophet Muhammad is said to have used them to break the month's sunrise-to-sunset fast each evening.
In Egypt, shops have created a new tradition of naming their best and worst dates to catch attention and boost sales - giving a little reflection of the political mood.
Obama's vault to the top of the Egyptian date-scale comes marks a shift in the public mood in Egypt since the reign of his predecessor, George W. Bush, whose name was given to the worst quality dates in Egypt in past Ramadans.
"We love Obama and so we named our best dates for him," said Atif Hashim at his busy shop in downtown Cairo.
Huge barrels in his shop were piled with Obama dates, selling for just under $2.50 a pound ($5 a kilogram). For an additional dollar, there is an even better date, labeled on a sign as Super Obama.
"We put a sweet date in Mr. Obama's mouth and a message in his ear," Hashim said. "Please help to bring peace to the world. We have a lot of hope in you."
Hashim named his poorer dates after Israeli Foreign Minister Avidgor Lieberman, who is particularly disliked in Egypt for once saying its president, Hosni Mubarak, can go to hell.
Other low-quality dates were named after Lieberman's predecessor, Tzipi Livni, and after Bush. They all go for about 17 cents a pound (36 cents a kilogram).
In 2006, many sellers in Egypt named their best dates after the leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, whose popularity soared among Arabs during the Second Lebanon War with Israel.
During the lunar month of Ramadan, observant Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex from sunrise to sunset. It is believed that God began revealing the Quran to Muhammad during Ramadan, and the faithful are supposed to spend the month in religious reflection, prayer and remembrance of the poor.
It's also a time of celebrations, late nights out with friends and family and elaborate meals for iftar, the sunset dinner that breaks the fast.
This year, Ramadan starts in August for the first time in 33 years - meaning a long, hot day for those fasting. In a bid to bring up the time for iftar, Egypt went off daylight savings time on Friday.
The fast begins Saturday for most of the Mideast and Asia, although Libya, Turkey, and some Lebanese Shiites began fasting Friday. The month begins when each Muslim country's Islamic authorities sight the crescent moon that marks the beginning of the lunar month - sometimes using only the naked eye, leading to some discrepancies in the timing.
In the West Bank town of Ramallah, Palestinians decorated their houses with lights in the shape of crescents and stars and shops began preparing special pastries and traditional Ramadan drinks like kharoub, made of carobs. The Israel Defense Forces military said it would keep checkpoints open longer hours to allow more people to cross.
In Hamas-controlled Gaza City, officials hung signs reading "Welcome Ramadan" and provided mosques with large carpets to accommodate the increased number of worshippers.
Shops sold little electric lamps, a traditional children's toy during Ramadan - made in China and brought through smuggling tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border to circumvent the blockade imposed on Gaza by Israel and Egypt after Hamas seized power two years ago.
Source:
Obama used the occasion to reiterate his desire to mend relations between the United States and Muslim countries, an effort he began with a major speech in Cairo in June to the Muslim world.
"Beyond America's borders, we are committed to keeping our responsibility to build a world that is more peaceful and secure," Obama said.
"That is why we are responsibly ending the war in Iraq. That is why we are isolating violent extremists while empowering the people in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is why we are unyielding in our support for a two-state solution that recognizes the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security.
"And that is why America will always stand for the universal rights of all people to speak their mind, practice their religion, contribute fully to society and have confidence in the rule of law."
Obama added that the U.S. will continue to isolate violent extremists while seeking to empower Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan and "responsibly ending the war in Iraq."
"America will always stand for the universal rights of all people to speak their mind, practice their religion, contribute fully to society and have confidence in the rule of law," Obama said.
Meanwhile, to mark Ramadan, Egyptian fruit sellers have named their best dates of the year after Obama in a sweet tribute to the American leader for his outreach to the Muslim world.
Dates are a traditional food for Ramadan - which begins Saturday in most of the Islamic world - since the Islamic Prophet Muhammad is said to have used them to break the month's sunrise-to-sunset fast each evening.
In Egypt, shops have created a new tradition of naming their best and worst dates to catch attention and boost sales - giving a little reflection of the political mood.
Obama's vault to the top of the Egyptian date-scale comes marks a shift in the public mood in Egypt since the reign of his predecessor, George W. Bush, whose name was given to the worst quality dates in Egypt in past Ramadans.
"We love Obama and so we named our best dates for him," said Atif Hashim at his busy shop in downtown Cairo.
Huge barrels in his shop were piled with Obama dates, selling for just under $2.50 a pound ($5 a kilogram). For an additional dollar, there is an even better date, labeled on a sign as Super Obama.
"We put a sweet date in Mr. Obama's mouth and a message in his ear," Hashim said. "Please help to bring peace to the world. We have a lot of hope in you."
Hashim named his poorer dates after Israeli Foreign Minister Avidgor Lieberman, who is particularly disliked in Egypt for once saying its president, Hosni Mubarak, can go to hell.
Other low-quality dates were named after Lieberman's predecessor, Tzipi Livni, and after Bush. They all go for about 17 cents a pound (36 cents a kilogram).
In 2006, many sellers in Egypt named their best dates after the leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, whose popularity soared among Arabs during the Second Lebanon War with Israel.
During the lunar month of Ramadan, observant Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex from sunrise to sunset. It is believed that God began revealing the Quran to Muhammad during Ramadan, and the faithful are supposed to spend the month in religious reflection, prayer and remembrance of the poor.
It's also a time of celebrations, late nights out with friends and family and elaborate meals for iftar, the sunset dinner that breaks the fast.
This year, Ramadan starts in August for the first time in 33 years - meaning a long, hot day for those fasting. In a bid to bring up the time for iftar, Egypt went off daylight savings time on Friday.
The fast begins Saturday for most of the Mideast and Asia, although Libya, Turkey, and some Lebanese Shiites began fasting Friday. The month begins when each Muslim country's Islamic authorities sight the crescent moon that marks the beginning of the lunar month - sometimes using only the naked eye, leading to some discrepancies in the timing.
In the West Bank town of Ramallah, Palestinians decorated their houses with lights in the shape of crescents and stars and shops began preparing special pastries and traditional Ramadan drinks like kharoub, made of carobs. The Israel Defense Forces military said it would keep checkpoints open longer hours to allow more people to cross.
In Hamas-controlled Gaza City, officials hung signs reading "Welcome Ramadan" and provided mosques with large carpets to accommodate the increased number of worshippers.
Shops sold little electric lamps, a traditional children's toy during Ramadan - made in China and brought through smuggling tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border to circumvent the blockade imposed on Gaza by Israel and Egypt after Hamas seized power two years ago.
Source:
Settler leader presses outpost residents to evacuate
Residents of an unauthorized outpost in the West Bank are expected to evacuate their caravans voluntarily, after a settlement council leader threatened to quit supplying them with gas for their generator.
The residents of Bnei Adam had agreed last week to voluntarily evacuate the three caravans, following advice of leading rabbis of the national religious movement.
The decision had come after the High Court of Justice ruled that the outpost would be evacuated within five days, after hearing a petition from Bnei Adam residents who oppose the move.
However, when the director of the Yesha settlement arm Amana, Ze'ev Haver, tried to get them to do so, he was expelled by the residents. On Thursday night, he told them that if they did not agree to evacuate, they would lose their electrical power.
Haver is considered "the father of the outposts," and Bnei Adam itself was established by Amana activists from the Yitzhar settlement and from the Land of Israel Youth movement. The mobile homes were not removed, and the ground is now set for a struggle.
Haver claims that as his movement started the outpost, all of the caravans in fact belong to him and he has every right to decide their fate.
Bnei Adam residents met Thursday evening with settler leaders and agreed that the cost of forcible evacuation would be too high. The residents said, however, that if they do leave their caravans, they plan to stay in the area and resettle a nearby hilltop.
Source:
The residents of Bnei Adam had agreed last week to voluntarily evacuate the three caravans, following advice of leading rabbis of the national religious movement.
The decision had come after the High Court of Justice ruled that the outpost would be evacuated within five days, after hearing a petition from Bnei Adam residents who oppose the move.
However, when the director of the Yesha settlement arm Amana, Ze'ev Haver, tried to get them to do so, he was expelled by the residents. On Thursday night, he told them that if they did not agree to evacuate, they would lose their electrical power.
Haver is considered "the father of the outposts," and Bnei Adam itself was established by Amana activists from the Yitzhar settlement and from the Land of Israel Youth movement. The mobile homes were not removed, and the ground is now set for a struggle.
Haver claims that as his movement started the outpost, all of the caravans in fact belong to him and he has every right to decide their fate.
Bnei Adam residents met Thursday evening with settler leaders and agreed that the cost of forcible evacuation would be too high. The residents said, however, that if they do leave their caravans, they plan to stay in the area and resettle a nearby hilltop.
Source:
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Settlers who were taped beating Palestinians evade arrest
Despite the video footage and the international public outcry it generated, the Judea and Samaria police are closing the case of a severe beating of three Palestinians by masked settlers, without having managed to produce even a single suspect, according to the complete investigation file obtained by Haaretz.
The beating, which was filmed by an eyewitness, took place on June 8, 2008 in a field near the settlement of Sussia. Tamam Nawaja, 57, her husband Khalil, 70, and their relative Amran were herding their flocks near their encampment, some three kilometers from Sussia. Three young men, residents of the area, two of them masked, approached them and requested that they leave. When they refused, the settlers walked away.
About half an hour later, four masked men came down from a nearby mountain, holding clubs, and began beating the Palestinians. Another family member who was nearby called for help. Soldiers who arrived in a military vehicle gave the victims first aid, and an ambulance took Tamam Nawaja to the Soroka University Hospital in Beer Sheva. The other injured Palestinians were taken to a hospital in Hebron.
The incident was filmed by a relative of Tamam, who had a camera given to her by the B'Tselem human rights group as part of their camera distribution project, in which cameras are handed out to Palestinians living in high-conflict areas. The video shows one settler approaching the area on a tractor, followed by the four masked men. The graphic footage, which shows the settlers swing their clubs into the shepherds, was transmitted in Israel and around the world and generated furious condemnation.
Although the police described the incident at the time as "grave," nine days passed before police forces came to search a nearby farm, detaining some potential suspects. The search also produced several shirts similar to the ones in the video clip, two picks with wooden handles resembling clubs, a map of the area, and five 9 mm bullets. However, the police forensics department had not been able to find blood traces on the findings, or to produce DNA from the shirts. The connection of the farm to the events first came up in the interrogation of a detained minor, a resident of one of the nearby settlements, who was in the area when the attack took place.
Minor: They called me on my cell phone and told me not to go south of Sussia, because there's a mess going down. I said fine, if there's a mess I won't go.
Interrogator: Who called you?
Minor: From the farm - one of the shepherds, he's new, I don't know his name.
Interrogator: Who told you about the incident?
Minor: The shepherds at the farm.
Interrogator: Who are the shepherds who told you about the incident and what did they tell you?
Minor: The shepherds were [names withheld]. They told me about the incident and said I shouldn't go there anymore.
Interrogator: Is there anything else you'd like to say?
Minor: When I call and I ask for a patrol they don't show up, when I'm herding and someone threatens me, they don't show up, but when an Arab calls everyone shows up.
Despite the lack of cooperation, the investigators did manage to compile a list of potential suspects, all local residents, who were interrogated some time later. The owner of the farm from which the suspects left, Dalia Har Sinai, was never interrogated or questioned.
Suspect A (all names are withheld), a 21-year-old shepherd from the farm, opened his interrogation with a statement:
A: I don't understand what links me to this story. I haven't broken any laws. It doesn't make sense to me that any person walking around Sussia is arrested and interrogated without any apparent reason.
Interrogator: What incident are you talking about?
A: I maintain the right to remain silent.
Interrogator: Why are you choosing maintain that right?
A: From what I read in the newspapers and from what I've heard, I don't have any trust in the police. Not you personally.
Interrogator: What were you doing in the area?
A: I'm not answering any questions.
Interrogator: What was your role in the incident?
A: I'm not answering any questions.
Interrogator: What friends do you have in Sussia?
A: A: I'm not answering any questions.
Interrogator: What made you and the others attack the complainants so violently?
A: I'm not answering any questions.
Three other suspects who were arrested also maintained the right to silence. A month later another suspect, E, 17, was also arrested and interrogated:
Interrogator: What is your response to the suspicions?
E: I didn't do it, I maintain the right to remain silent.
Interrogator: Where were you and what were you doing at that time?
E: I maintain the right to remain silent.
E was detained overnight, but seemed undaunted by the experience.
Interrogator: I suggest you cooperate and give us a full version [of the events]. What is your response?
E: I'm not saying anything and that's it, do you want me to say nonsense?
Interrogator: Even if you are, like you say, innocent, who then took part in attacking and wounding those Palestinians?
E: Does it say "rat" on my forehead? I maintain the right to remain silent.
After the interrogators despaired of any of the suspects giving up their right to silence, they tried to record a conversation between two suspects by pretending to have a flat tire as they were driving them back to the farm. However, the conversation that was recorded in the police car as the officers stepped out was hushed, and did not yield any new information.
Another lead investigated by police at the time was the tractor documented in the B'Tselem footage of the attack. Police twice examined the wrong tractor, before finally locating the right one near a house in the Mitzpeh Yair settlement. The owner of the house said teenagers from the region frequently used the vehicle, and it had recently been "involved in an unpleasant incident." The tractor owner was arrested, but told police he didn't own the machine and that its real owner was away.
In March, the investigations officer at the police station decided to close the case since "all the attackers were masked, and investigation based on collecting further information will not be helpful to solving the case." In June, the Nawaja family were told the assailants could not be found and that the case was closed.
"The owner of the farm, Dalia Har Sinai, knows the guys who beat me up. They work for her," Amran Nawaja told Haaretz this week. "There are pictures. How can they not know who it was? My head still hurts from the beating. My aunt, who was also beaten up, is still suffering pains. I don't understand how they didn't catch the guys who did this."
B'Tselem told Haaretz it intends to appeal against the decision to close the case. "The footage of the attack shocked the Israeli public, but nobody was ever brought to trial. This decision joins other cases in a disturbing trend of a lack of law enforcement, signaling to violent settlers that they can do anything they want," the organization's comment read.
Judea and Samaria police told Haaretz that "no evidence linking the owner of the farm to the event has been found. There was, indeed, footage documenting the violence, but all the assailants were masked. Nevertheless, police managed to locate seven suspects, of whom four were detained and one was brought to court for an extension of his remand. The tractor, which was filmed without license plates, was also located and its owner was interrogated."
Source:
The beating, which was filmed by an eyewitness, took place on June 8, 2008 in a field near the settlement of Sussia. Tamam Nawaja, 57, her husband Khalil, 70, and their relative Amran were herding their flocks near their encampment, some three kilometers from Sussia. Three young men, residents of the area, two of them masked, approached them and requested that they leave. When they refused, the settlers walked away.
About half an hour later, four masked men came down from a nearby mountain, holding clubs, and began beating the Palestinians. Another family member who was nearby called for help. Soldiers who arrived in a military vehicle gave the victims first aid, and an ambulance took Tamam Nawaja to the Soroka University Hospital in Beer Sheva. The other injured Palestinians were taken to a hospital in Hebron.
The incident was filmed by a relative of Tamam, who had a camera given to her by the B'Tselem human rights group as part of their camera distribution project, in which cameras are handed out to Palestinians living in high-conflict areas. The video shows one settler approaching the area on a tractor, followed by the four masked men. The graphic footage, which shows the settlers swing their clubs into the shepherds, was transmitted in Israel and around the world and generated furious condemnation.
Although the police described the incident at the time as "grave," nine days passed before police forces came to search a nearby farm, detaining some potential suspects. The search also produced several shirts similar to the ones in the video clip, two picks with wooden handles resembling clubs, a map of the area, and five 9 mm bullets. However, the police forensics department had not been able to find blood traces on the findings, or to produce DNA from the shirts. The connection of the farm to the events first came up in the interrogation of a detained minor, a resident of one of the nearby settlements, who was in the area when the attack took place.
Minor: They called me on my cell phone and told me not to go south of Sussia, because there's a mess going down. I said fine, if there's a mess I won't go.
Interrogator: Who called you?
Minor: From the farm - one of the shepherds, he's new, I don't know his name.
Interrogator: Who told you about the incident?
Minor: The shepherds at the farm.
Interrogator: Who are the shepherds who told you about the incident and what did they tell you?
Minor: The shepherds were [names withheld]. They told me about the incident and said I shouldn't go there anymore.
Interrogator: Is there anything else you'd like to say?
Minor: When I call and I ask for a patrol they don't show up, when I'm herding and someone threatens me, they don't show up, but when an Arab calls everyone shows up.
Despite the lack of cooperation, the investigators did manage to compile a list of potential suspects, all local residents, who were interrogated some time later. The owner of the farm from which the suspects left, Dalia Har Sinai, was never interrogated or questioned.
Suspect A (all names are withheld), a 21-year-old shepherd from the farm, opened his interrogation with a statement:
A: I don't understand what links me to this story. I haven't broken any laws. It doesn't make sense to me that any person walking around Sussia is arrested and interrogated without any apparent reason.
Interrogator: What incident are you talking about?
A: I maintain the right to remain silent.
Interrogator: Why are you choosing maintain that right?
A: From what I read in the newspapers and from what I've heard, I don't have any trust in the police. Not you personally.
Interrogator: What were you doing in the area?
A: I'm not answering any questions.
Interrogator: What was your role in the incident?
A: I'm not answering any questions.
Interrogator: What friends do you have in Sussia?
A: A: I'm not answering any questions.
Interrogator: What made you and the others attack the complainants so violently?
A: I'm not answering any questions.
Three other suspects who were arrested also maintained the right to silence. A month later another suspect, E, 17, was also arrested and interrogated:
Interrogator: What is your response to the suspicions?
E: I didn't do it, I maintain the right to remain silent.
Interrogator: Where were you and what were you doing at that time?
E: I maintain the right to remain silent.
E was detained overnight, but seemed undaunted by the experience.
Interrogator: I suggest you cooperate and give us a full version [of the events]. What is your response?
E: I'm not saying anything and that's it, do you want me to say nonsense?
Interrogator: Even if you are, like you say, innocent, who then took part in attacking and wounding those Palestinians?
E: Does it say "rat" on my forehead? I maintain the right to remain silent.
After the interrogators despaired of any of the suspects giving up their right to silence, they tried to record a conversation between two suspects by pretending to have a flat tire as they were driving them back to the farm. However, the conversation that was recorded in the police car as the officers stepped out was hushed, and did not yield any new information.
Another lead investigated by police at the time was the tractor documented in the B'Tselem footage of the attack. Police twice examined the wrong tractor, before finally locating the right one near a house in the Mitzpeh Yair settlement. The owner of the house said teenagers from the region frequently used the vehicle, and it had recently been "involved in an unpleasant incident." The tractor owner was arrested, but told police he didn't own the machine and that its real owner was away.
In March, the investigations officer at the police station decided to close the case since "all the attackers were masked, and investigation based on collecting further information will not be helpful to solving the case." In June, the Nawaja family were told the assailants could not be found and that the case was closed.
"The owner of the farm, Dalia Har Sinai, knows the guys who beat me up. They work for her," Amran Nawaja told Haaretz this week. "There are pictures. How can they not know who it was? My head still hurts from the beating. My aunt, who was also beaten up, is still suffering pains. I don't understand how they didn't catch the guys who did this."
B'Tselem told Haaretz it intends to appeal against the decision to close the case. "The footage of the attack shocked the Israeli public, but nobody was ever brought to trial. This decision joins other cases in a disturbing trend of a lack of law enforcement, signaling to violent settlers that they can do anything they want," the organization's comment read.
Judea and Samaria police told Haaretz that "no evidence linking the owner of the farm to the event has been found. There was, indeed, footage documenting the violence, but all the assailants were masked. Nevertheless, police managed to locate seven suspects, of whom four were detained and one was brought to court for an extension of his remand. The tractor, which was filmed without license plates, was also located and its owner was interrogated."
Source:
Boycott Israel
An Israeli comes to the painful conclusion that it's the only way to save his country.
Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv, and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokesperson, a British actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is gaining many followers around the world.
Not surprisingly, many Israelis -- even peaceniks -- aren't signing on. A global boycott can't help but contain echoes of anti-Semitism. It also brings up questions of a double standard (why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights?) and the seemingly contradictory position of approving a boycott of one's own nation.
It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.
I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country's future.
The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean Sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews -- whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel -- are citizens of the state of Israel.
The question that keeps me up at night, both as a parent and as a citizen, is how to ensure that my two children as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbors do not grow up in an apartheid regime.
There are only two moral ways of achieving this goal.
The first is the one-state solution: offering citizenship to all Palestinians and thus establishing a bi-national democracy within the entire area controlled by Israel. Given the demographics, this would amount to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state; for most Israeli Jews, it is anathema.
The second means of ending our apartheid is through the two-state solution, which entails Israel's withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders (with possible one-for-one land swaps), the division of Jerusalem, and a recognition of the Palestinian right of return with the stipulation that only a limited number of the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, while the rest can return to the new Palestinian state.
Geographically, the one-state solution appears much more feasible because Jews and Palestinians are already totally enmeshed; indeed, "on the ground," the one-state solution (in an apartheid manifestation) is a reality.
Ideologically, the two-state solution is more realistic because fewer than 1% of Jews and only a minority of Palestinians support binationalism.
For now, despite the concrete difficulties, it makes more sense to alter the geographic realities than the ideological ones. If at some future date the two peoples decide to share a state, they can do so, but currently this is not something they want.
So if the two-state solution is the way to stop the apartheid state, then how does one achieve this goal?
I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren't citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right.
It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.
I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.
In Bilbao, Spain, in 2008, a coalition of organizations from all over the world formulated the 10-point Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign meant to pressure Israel in a "gradual, sustainable manner that is sensitive to context and capacity." For example, the effort begins with sanctions on and divestment from Israeli firms operating in the occupied territories, followed by actions against those that help sustain and reinforce the occupation in a visible manner. Along similar lines, artists who come to Israel in order to draw attention to the occupation are welcome, while those who just want to perform are not.
Nothing else has worked. Putting massive international pressure on Israel is the only way to guarantee that the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians -- my two boys included -- does not grow up in an apartheid regime.
Neve Gordon is the author of "Israel's Occupation" and teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel.
Source:
Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv, and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokesperson, a British actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is gaining many followers around the world.
Not surprisingly, many Israelis -- even peaceniks -- aren't signing on. A global boycott can't help but contain echoes of anti-Semitism. It also brings up questions of a double standard (why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights?) and the seemingly contradictory position of approving a boycott of one's own nation.
It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.
I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country's future.
The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean Sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews -- whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel -- are citizens of the state of Israel.
The question that keeps me up at night, both as a parent and as a citizen, is how to ensure that my two children as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbors do not grow up in an apartheid regime.
There are only two moral ways of achieving this goal.
The first is the one-state solution: offering citizenship to all Palestinians and thus establishing a bi-national democracy within the entire area controlled by Israel. Given the demographics, this would amount to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state; for most Israeli Jews, it is anathema.
The second means of ending our apartheid is through the two-state solution, which entails Israel's withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders (with possible one-for-one land swaps), the division of Jerusalem, and a recognition of the Palestinian right of return with the stipulation that only a limited number of the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, while the rest can return to the new Palestinian state.
Geographically, the one-state solution appears much more feasible because Jews and Palestinians are already totally enmeshed; indeed, "on the ground," the one-state solution (in an apartheid manifestation) is a reality.
Ideologically, the two-state solution is more realistic because fewer than 1% of Jews and only a minority of Palestinians support binationalism.
For now, despite the concrete difficulties, it makes more sense to alter the geographic realities than the ideological ones. If at some future date the two peoples decide to share a state, they can do so, but currently this is not something they want.
So if the two-state solution is the way to stop the apartheid state, then how does one achieve this goal?
I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren't citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right.
It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.
I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.
In Bilbao, Spain, in 2008, a coalition of organizations from all over the world formulated the 10-point Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign meant to pressure Israel in a "gradual, sustainable manner that is sensitive to context and capacity." For example, the effort begins with sanctions on and divestment from Israeli firms operating in the occupied territories, followed by actions against those that help sustain and reinforce the occupation in a visible manner. Along similar lines, artists who come to Israel in order to draw attention to the occupation are welcome, while those who just want to perform are not.
Nothing else has worked. Putting massive international pressure on Israel is the only way to guarantee that the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians -- my two boys included -- does not grow up in an apartheid regime.
Neve Gordon is the author of "Israel's Occupation" and teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel.
Source:
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
‘Israel must end illegal measures in East Jerusalem’
ANKARA (Agencies) - Jordan and Turkey on Wednesday warned Israel that settlements in East Jerusalem threatened peace efforts, amid press reports that Israel is to revive construction plans in the occupied town.
At a joint press conference following a meeting with Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu, Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said: “We agreed that unilateral moves in East Jerusalem will harm the peace process because such moves are not only confidence shattering but also illegal,” according to Agence France-Presse.
Judeh was in Ankara to hand a letter from His Majesty King Abdullah to Turkish President Abdullah Gul.
The King reiterated that the challenges facing the region require that Jordan and Turkey maintain close coordination, and extended an invitation to the Turkish president to visit Jordan as soon as possible.
Gul said he is looking forward to visiting Jordan, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra.
“Israel needs to act with responsibility on the issue of settlers and especially developments in East Jerusalem,” said Davutoglu, quoted by AFP, adding: “If there is genuine will for peace, it is time to openly display it.”
Petra quoted Judeh as saying that the discussions “mainly dealt with regional and international efforts to launch serious and effective negotiations to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, foremost of which is the Palestinian issue, on the basis of the two-state solution, within the framework of a comprehensive, just and durable peace”.
Judeh added that it must be stressed that Israeli settlement policy and all unilateral measures in the Palestinian territories, and specifically in East Jerusalem, are “illegitimate, illegal and rejected and must be stopped immediately” to create a positive climate to launch negotiations.
These measures include house demolitions, Palestinian displacement and excavation works around and under Muslim and Christian holy places, Judeh said, noting the Hashemites’ historic role in defending Jerusalem and safeguarding its holy sites.
Discussions also addressed developments on the domestic Palestinian front, Judeh said. He also underlined the importance of achieving Palestinian national unity as soon as possible as well as Jordan’s support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at this critical stage.
On Iraq, Judeh stressed Jordan’s support for its sovereignty, and the unity of its people and land, saying talks addressed means to support the government in its efforts to secure peace and stability, as well as reconstruction efforts.
Talks also addressed issues that concern the Islamic world, highlighting the efforts exerted by Turkey to clarify the true image of Islam and enhance dialogue among religions and cultures.
“We have agreed on the importance of boosting cooperation between the two countries, in this regard,” Judeh said.
Source:
At a joint press conference following a meeting with Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu, Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said: “We agreed that unilateral moves in East Jerusalem will harm the peace process because such moves are not only confidence shattering but also illegal,” according to Agence France-Presse.
Judeh was in Ankara to hand a letter from His Majesty King Abdullah to Turkish President Abdullah Gul.
The King reiterated that the challenges facing the region require that Jordan and Turkey maintain close coordination, and extended an invitation to the Turkish president to visit Jordan as soon as possible.
Gul said he is looking forward to visiting Jordan, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra.
“Israel needs to act with responsibility on the issue of settlers and especially developments in East Jerusalem,” said Davutoglu, quoted by AFP, adding: “If there is genuine will for peace, it is time to openly display it.”
Petra quoted Judeh as saying that the discussions “mainly dealt with regional and international efforts to launch serious and effective negotiations to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, foremost of which is the Palestinian issue, on the basis of the two-state solution, within the framework of a comprehensive, just and durable peace”.
Judeh added that it must be stressed that Israeli settlement policy and all unilateral measures in the Palestinian territories, and specifically in East Jerusalem, are “illegitimate, illegal and rejected and must be stopped immediately” to create a positive climate to launch negotiations.
These measures include house demolitions, Palestinian displacement and excavation works around and under Muslim and Christian holy places, Judeh said, noting the Hashemites’ historic role in defending Jerusalem and safeguarding its holy sites.
Discussions also addressed developments on the domestic Palestinian front, Judeh said. He also underlined the importance of achieving Palestinian national unity as soon as possible as well as Jordan’s support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at this critical stage.
On Iraq, Judeh stressed Jordan’s support for its sovereignty, and the unity of its people and land, saying talks addressed means to support the government in its efforts to secure peace and stability, as well as reconstruction efforts.
Talks also addressed issues that concern the Islamic world, highlighting the efforts exerted by Turkey to clarify the true image of Islam and enhance dialogue among religions and cultures.
“We have agreed on the importance of boosting cooperation between the two countries, in this regard,” Judeh said.
Source:
U.S. blasts Israeli restrictions on American travelers in West Bank
The U.S. State Department on Wednesday criticized Israeli restrictions placed on foreign nationals entering the West Bank via the Allenby Bridge, calling the new regulations 'unacceptable'.
"We have repeatedly told the Government of Israel that the United States expects that all American citizens to be treated equally, regardless of their national origin or other citizenship," a statement issued by the State Department said Wednesday.
The statement added "we have let the government of Israel know that these restrictions unfairly impact Palestinian and Arab American travelers and are not acceptable."
For about the last three months, border control officials at the Allenby Bridge have been stamping visitors' passports with a visa and the additional words "Palestinian Authority only." Officials from the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), who are also present at the Allenby crossing, have in some cases told visitors that they must apply to the Civil Administration for a permit to leave the West Bank and enter Israel.
The new restrictions heavily affect foreign nationals who enter the country because they have family, work, business or academic ties in the West Bank. It now restricts their movements to "the Palestinian Authority only." The people concerned are citizens of countries that have diplomatic ties with Israel, mainly Western countries.
In imposing such restrictions, Israel is in breach of the Oslo Accords.
Source:
"We have repeatedly told the Government of Israel that the United States expects that all American citizens to be treated equally, regardless of their national origin or other citizenship," a statement issued by the State Department said Wednesday.
The statement added "we have let the government of Israel know that these restrictions unfairly impact Palestinian and Arab American travelers and are not acceptable."
For about the last three months, border control officials at the Allenby Bridge have been stamping visitors' passports with a visa and the additional words "Palestinian Authority only." Officials from the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), who are also present at the Allenby crossing, have in some cases told visitors that they must apply to the Civil Administration for a permit to leave the West Bank and enter Israel.
The new restrictions heavily affect foreign nationals who enter the country because they have family, work, business or academic ties in the West Bank. It now restricts their movements to "the Palestinian Authority only." The people concerned are citizens of countries that have diplomatic ties with Israel, mainly Western countries.
In imposing such restrictions, Israel is in breach of the Oslo Accords.
Source:
IDF: One-third of soldiers might refuse to evacuate outposts
Using Israel Defense Forces soldiers to enforce law among the Jewish population in the territories, especially during the evacuation of illegal outposts, might lead soldiers and even commanders to refuse orders, the commander of the Judea and Samaria division, Brig. Gen. Noam Tibon wrote three months ago in a memo.
The memo, distributed to commanders of units operating in the West Bank, states every unit might have a "bottom third of soldiers and commanders with difficulties," who would require "individual follow-up and conversations."
The memo calls on battalion and company commanders to draw "clear red lines" regarding refusing orders. Until orders are refused, commanders should treat soldiers with sensitivity, but once an order is refused, unambiguous action should be taken, the memo states.
Source:
The memo, distributed to commanders of units operating in the West Bank, states every unit might have a "bottom third of soldiers and commanders with difficulties," who would require "individual follow-up and conversations."
The memo calls on battalion and company commanders to draw "clear red lines" regarding refusing orders. Until orders are refused, commanders should treat soldiers with sensitivity, but once an order is refused, unambiguous action should be taken, the memo states.
Source:
Monday, August 17, 2009
Israel hands demolition orders to 17 Nablus-area families
17/08/2009
Nablus – Ma’an – Israeli authorities handed official notices to 17 Palestinian families in the northern West Bank informing them that their homes would be demolished, an official told Ma'an on Monday.
According to Ghassan Daghlas, the Palestinian Authority's official monitor of settler activity in the north, the notices were handed over in Salem, a village south of Nablus.
Daghlas identified some of the families whose homes were threatened as Ramiz Shtayya, Rami Shtayya, Wadi’ Muhammad, Raed Haydar, Murad Haydar, Muhtasib Karaki, Zahir Jabbour, Muhammad Shtayya, and Mus’ab Jabbour.
On Thursday night, Israeli troops overran the Jericho-area village of Fasayil and delivered a stop-work order on renovations ongoing in the home of one resident.
Muhammad Mahmoud An-Nawawreh, whose home is on the outskirts of the village, was building an addition on his home for his son, who was engaged this year and expected to marry next summer.
Troops surrounded his home and delivered the stop-work order, which is generally followed by a demolition order.
There are nine settlements surrounding the Jordan Valley village on four sides, with a single corridor less than 500 meters wide. They are also flanked by settlements for more than five kilometers, which close off the village from other Palestinian areas.
Source:
Nablus – Ma’an – Israeli authorities handed official notices to 17 Palestinian families in the northern West Bank informing them that their homes would be demolished, an official told Ma'an on Monday.
According to Ghassan Daghlas, the Palestinian Authority's official monitor of settler activity in the north, the notices were handed over in Salem, a village south of Nablus.
Daghlas identified some of the families whose homes were threatened as Ramiz Shtayya, Rami Shtayya, Wadi’ Muhammad, Raed Haydar, Murad Haydar, Muhtasib Karaki, Zahir Jabbour, Muhammad Shtayya, and Mus’ab Jabbour.
On Thursday night, Israeli troops overran the Jericho-area village of Fasayil and delivered a stop-work order on renovations ongoing in the home of one resident.
Muhammad Mahmoud An-Nawawreh, whose home is on the outskirts of the village, was building an addition on his home for his son, who was engaged this year and expected to marry next summer.
Troops surrounded his home and delivered the stop-work order, which is generally followed by a demolition order.
There are nine settlements surrounding the Jordan Valley village on four sides, with a single corridor less than 500 meters wide. They are also flanked by settlements for more than five kilometers, which close off the village from other Palestinian areas.
Source:
The Zionists Poisoned/Radiated 100,000 Sefardi Jewish Children.
by AZWO Monday, Mar. 05, 2007 at 3:28 AM
On August 14, at 9 PM, Israeli television station, Channel Ten, broke all convention and exposed the ugliest secret of Israel's Labor Zionist founders; the deliberate mass radiation poisoning of nearly all Sephardi youths.
The expose began with the presentation of a documentary film called, 100,000 Radiations, and concluded with a panel discussion moderated by TV host Dan Margalit, surprising because he is infamous for toeing the establishment line.
Film Details:
100,000 Radiations, released by Dimona Productions Ltd. in 2003.
Producer - Dudi Bergman Directors - Asher Khamias, David Balrosen
Panel Discussion Participants
A Moroccan singer was joined by David Edri, head of the Compensation Committee for Ringworm X-Ray Victims, and Boaz Lev, a spokesman for the Ministry Of Health.
Subject:
In 1951, the director general of the Israeli Health Ministry, Dr. Chaim Sheba flew to America and returned with 7 x-ray machines, supplied to him by the American army.
They were to be used in a mass atomic experiment with an entire generation of Sephardi youths to be used as guinea pigs. Every Sephardi child was to be given 35,000 times the maximum dose of x-rays through his head. For doing so, the American government paid the Israeli government 300,000 Israeli liras a year. The entire Health budget was 60,000 liras. The money paid by the Americans is equivalent to billions of dollars today.
To fool the parents of the victims, the children were taken away on "school trips" and their parents were later told the x-rays were a treatment for the scourge of scalpal ringworm. 6,000 of the children died shortly after their doses were given, the many of the rest developed cancers that killed them over time and are still killing them now. While living, the victims suffered from disorders such as epilepsy, amnesia, Alzheimer's disease, chronic headaches and psychosis.
Yes, that is the subject of the documentary in cold terms. It is another matter to see the victims on the screen. ie. To watch the Moroccan lady describe what getting 35,000 times the dose of allowable x-rays in her head feels like.
"I screamed make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. But it never went away."
To watch the bearded man walk hunched down the street.
"I'm in my fifties and everyone thinks I'm in my seventies. I have to stoop when I walk so I won't fall over. They took my youth away with those x-rays."
To watch the old lady who administered the doses to thousands of children.
"They brought them in lines. First their heads were shaved and smeared in burning gel. Then a ball was put between their legs and the children were ordered not to drop it, so they wouldn't move. The children weren't protected over the rest of their bodies. There were no lead vests for them. I was told I was doing good by helping to remove ringworm. If I knew what dangers the children were facing, I would never have cooperated. Never!"
Because the whole body was exposed to the rays, the genetic makeup of the children was often altered, affecting the next generation. We watch the woman with the distorted face explain, "All three of my children have the same cancers my family suffered. Are you going to tell me that's a coincidence?"
Everyone notices that Sephardi women in their fifties today, often have sparse patchy hair, which they try to cover with henna. Most of us assumed it was just a characteristic of Sephardi women. We watch the woman on the screen wearing a baseball-style hat. She places a picture of a lovely young teenager with flowing black hair opposite the lens. "That was me before my treatment. Now look at me." She removes her hat. Even the red henna can't cover the horrifying scarred bald spots.
The majority of the victims were Moroccan because they were the most numerous of the Sephardi immigrants. The generation that was poisoned became the country's perpetual poor and criminal class. It didn't make sense. The Moroccans who fled to France became prosperous and highly educated. The common explanation was that France got the rich, thus smart ones. The real explanation is that every French Moroccan child didn't have his brain cells fried with gamma rays.
The film made it perfectly plain that this operation was no accident. The dangers of x-rays had been known for over forty years. We read the official guidelines for x-ray treatment in 1952.
The maximum dose to be given a child in Israel was .5 rad. There was no mistake made. The children were deliberately poisoned. David Deri, makes the point that only Sephardi children received the x-rays.
"I was in class and the men came to take us on a tour. They asked our names. The Ashkenazi children were told to return to their seats. The dark children were put on the bus."
The film presents a historian who first gives a potted history of the eugenics movement. In a later sound bite, he declares that the ringworm operation was a eugenics program aimed at weeding out the perceived weak strains of society. The film now quotes two noted anti-Sephardi racist Jewish leaders, Nahum Goldmann and Levi Eshkol.
Goldmann spent the Holocaust years first in Switzerland, where he made sure few Jewish refugees were given shelter, then flew to New York to become head of the World Jewish Congress headed by Samuel Bronfman. According to Canadian writer Mordecai Richler, Bronfman had cut a deal with Prime Minister Mackenzie King to prevent the immigration of European Jews to Canada.
But Levi Eshkol's role in the Holocaust was far more minister than merely not saving lives. He was busy taking them instead. From a biography of Levi Eshkol from the Israeli government web site:
"In 1937 Levi Eshkol played a central role in the establishment of the Mekorot Water Company and in this role was instrumental in convincing the German government to allow Jews emigrating to Palestine to take with them some of their assets - mostly in the form of German-made equipment."
While world Jewry was boycotting the Nazi regime in the '30s, the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem was propping up Hitler. A deal, called The Transfer Agreement, was cut whereby the Nazis would chase Germany's Jews to Palestine, and the Labor Zionists would force the immigrants to use their assets to buy only German goods. Once the Jewish Agency got the German Jews it wanted, those they secretly indoctrinated in the anti-Judaism of Shabtai Tzvi and Jacob Frank, they let the Nazis take care of the rest of European Jewry. The Holocaust was a eugenics program and Levi Eshkol played a major role in it.
The Moroccan lady is back on the screen. "It was a Holocaust, a Sephardi Holocaust. And what I want to know is why no one stood up to stop it."
David Deri, on film and then as a panel member, relates the frustration he encountered when trying to find his childhood medical records.
"All I wanted to know was what they did to me. I wanted to know who authorized it. I wanted to trace the chain of command. But the Health Ministry told me my records were missing."
Boaz Lev, the Health Ministry's spokesman chimes in, "Almost all the records were burned in a fire."
So, let us help Mr. Deri trace the chain of command. But now I must intrude myself in the review.
About six years ago, I investigated the kidnapping of some 4500, mostly Yemenite immigrant infants and children, during the early years of the state. I met the leader of the Yemenite children's movement, Rabbi Uzi Meshulum, imprisoned for trying to get the truth out. He was later returned home in a vegetative state from which he has not emerged. He told me that the kidnapped children were sent to America to die cruelly in nuclear experiments.
The American government had banned human testing and needed guinea pigs. The Israeli government agreed to supply the humans in exchange for money and nuclear secrets. The initiator of Israel's nuclear program was Defence Ministry director-general Shimon Peres.
Rabbi David Sevilia of Jerusalem corroborated the crime and later, I even saw photos of the radiation scars on the few surviving children, and the cages the infants were shipped to America in.
Just over five years ago I published my belief on the internet, that Israel's Labor Zionist founders had conducted atomic experiments on Yemenite and other Sephardi children, killing thousands of them. Almost three years ago, I published the same assertion in my last book, Save Israel!. I suffered much scorn for doing so. However, I was right.
We return to the documentary. We are told that a US law in the late '40s put a stop to the human radiation experiments conducted on prisoners, the mentally feeble and the like. The American atomic program needed a new source of human lab rats and the Israeli government supplied it.
Here was the government cabinet at the time of the ringworm atrocities:
Prime Minister - David Ben Gurion Finance Minister - Eliezer Kaplan Settlement Minister - Levi Eshkol Foreign Minister - Moshe Sharrett Health Minister - Yosef Burg Labor Minister - Golda Meir Police Minister - Amos Ben Gurion
The highest ranking non-cabinet post belonged to the Director General Of The Defence Ministry, Shimon Peres.
That a program involving the equivalent of billions of dollars of American government funds should be unknown to the Prime Minister of cash-strapped Israel is ridiculous. Ben Gurion was in on the horrors and undoubtedly chose his son to be Police Minister in case anyone interfered with them.
Now let's have a quick glance at the other plotters, starting with the Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan. He handled the profits of the operation and was rewarded for eternity with a hospital named after him near Rehovot. But he's not alone in this honor.
The racist bigot Chaim Sheba, who ran Ringworm Incorporated, had a whole medical complex named after him. Needless to say, if there is an ounce of decency in the local medical profession, those hospital names will have to change.
Then there is Yosef Burg, who the leaders of the Yemenite Children's movement insist was the most responsible for the kidnappings of their infants. As Health Minister, he certainly played a pivotal role in the Ringworm murders. That would go a great way to explaining the peculiar behavior of his son, the peacemaker, Avraham Burg.
Let us not forget Moshe Sharrett, who had Rabbi Yoel Brand arrested in Aleppo in 1944 for proposing a practical way to save 800,000 Jews trapped in Hungary. Sharrett's most cited quote is, "If Shimon Peres ever enters this government, I will tear my clothes and start to mourn." Several Yemenite Children activists told me Sharrett was referring to the kidnapping of the Yemenite children when he made this statement.
And other amateur historians have told me that Levi Eshkol openly and proudly announced his belief in the tenets of Shabtai Tzvi, but try as I have, I haven't tracked down a citation. However, we do know of Eshkol, that during the period of the radiations, he served first as Settlement Minister, then took over from Kaplan as Finance Minister. From his bio:
"In 1951 Eshkol was appointed Minister of Agriculture and Development, and from 1952 to 1963 - a decade characterized by unprecedented economic growth despite the burden of financing immigrant absorption and the 1956 Sinai Campaign - he served as Minister of Finance. Between 1949 and 1963, Eshkol also served as head of the settlement division of the Jewish Agency. In the first four years of statehood, he was also treasurer of the Jewish Agency, largely responsible for obtaining the funds for the country's development, absorption of the massive waves of immigrants and equipment for the army."
In short, Eshkol was the person most responsible for Israel's immigrants, the ones he sent to radiation torture chambers. Finally, there is Golda Meir. We don't know her role, but she was in on the secret and rewarded for it. Note that every prime minister thereafter until 1977, when the honorable Menachem Begin was elected, came from this cabal. And note also, that no one from what is called the Right today, was privy to the slaughter of the Sephardi children.
Apply that lesson to a contemporary fact: It is the descendants of these butchers who brought us the Oslo "peace" and are determined to wipe out the settlers of Judea, Samaria and Gaza as surely as they had dealt with the inferior dark Jews who came into their clutches fifty years before. Now try and imagine it is 1952 and you are in a cabinet meeting. You will be debating whether to send the Yemenite babies to America for their final zapping, or whether to have them zapped here. That is what the Luciferian, satanic Sabbataian founders of our nation were prattling on about when they got together to discuss the affairs of state.
After the film ended, TV host Dan Margalit tried to put a better face on what he'd witnessed. Any face had to be better than what he had seen. He explained meekly, "But the state was poor. It was a matter of day to day survival." Then he stopped. He knew there was no excusing the atrocities the Sephardi children endured.
But it was the Moroccan singer who summed up the experience best. "It's going to hurt, but the truth has to be told. If not, the wounds will never heal."
There is one person alive who knows the truth and participated in the atrocities. He is Leader Of The Opposition Shimon Peres, the peacemaker. The only way to get to the truth and start the healing is to investigate him for his role in the kidnapping of 4500 Yemenite infants and the mass poisoning of over 100,000 Sephardi children and youths.
But here is why that won't happen. It is a miracle that 100,000 Radiations was broadcast at all. Clearly though, someone fought for it but had to agree to a compromise. The show was aired at the same time as the highest-rated show of the year, the final of Israel's, A Star Is Born. The next day, there was not a word about 100,000 Radiations in any paper, but the newly-born star's photo took up half the front pages.
That's how the truth is buried in Israel, and somehow, these tricks work. The same methods were used to cover up the Rabin assassination.
However, a few hundred thousand people saw the film on their screens and they will never forget the truth. If the Rabin assassination doesn't bury Labor Zionism for good, then 100,000 Radiations eventually will.
Source:
On August 14, at 9 PM, Israeli television station, Channel Ten, broke all convention and exposed the ugliest secret of Israel's Labor Zionist founders; the deliberate mass radiation poisoning of nearly all Sephardi youths.
The expose began with the presentation of a documentary film called, 100,000 Radiations, and concluded with a panel discussion moderated by TV host Dan Margalit, surprising because he is infamous for toeing the establishment line.
Film Details:
100,000 Radiations, released by Dimona Productions Ltd. in 2003.
Producer - Dudi Bergman Directors - Asher Khamias, David Balrosen
Panel Discussion Participants
A Moroccan singer was joined by David Edri, head of the Compensation Committee for Ringworm X-Ray Victims, and Boaz Lev, a spokesman for the Ministry Of Health.
Subject:
In 1951, the director general of the Israeli Health Ministry, Dr. Chaim Sheba flew to America and returned with 7 x-ray machines, supplied to him by the American army.
They were to be used in a mass atomic experiment with an entire generation of Sephardi youths to be used as guinea pigs. Every Sephardi child was to be given 35,000 times the maximum dose of x-rays through his head. For doing so, the American government paid the Israeli government 300,000 Israeli liras a year. The entire Health budget was 60,000 liras. The money paid by the Americans is equivalent to billions of dollars today.
To fool the parents of the victims, the children were taken away on "school trips" and their parents were later told the x-rays were a treatment for the scourge of scalpal ringworm. 6,000 of the children died shortly after their doses were given, the many of the rest developed cancers that killed them over time and are still killing them now. While living, the victims suffered from disorders such as epilepsy, amnesia, Alzheimer's disease, chronic headaches and psychosis.
Yes, that is the subject of the documentary in cold terms. It is another matter to see the victims on the screen. ie. To watch the Moroccan lady describe what getting 35,000 times the dose of allowable x-rays in her head feels like.
"I screamed make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. But it never went away."
To watch the bearded man walk hunched down the street.
"I'm in my fifties and everyone thinks I'm in my seventies. I have to stoop when I walk so I won't fall over. They took my youth away with those x-rays."
To watch the old lady who administered the doses to thousands of children.
"They brought them in lines. First their heads were shaved and smeared in burning gel. Then a ball was put between their legs and the children were ordered not to drop it, so they wouldn't move. The children weren't protected over the rest of their bodies. There were no lead vests for them. I was told I was doing good by helping to remove ringworm. If I knew what dangers the children were facing, I would never have cooperated. Never!"
Because the whole body was exposed to the rays, the genetic makeup of the children was often altered, affecting the next generation. We watch the woman with the distorted face explain, "All three of my children have the same cancers my family suffered. Are you going to tell me that's a coincidence?"
Everyone notices that Sephardi women in their fifties today, often have sparse patchy hair, which they try to cover with henna. Most of us assumed it was just a characteristic of Sephardi women. We watch the woman on the screen wearing a baseball-style hat. She places a picture of a lovely young teenager with flowing black hair opposite the lens. "That was me before my treatment. Now look at me." She removes her hat. Even the red henna can't cover the horrifying scarred bald spots.
The majority of the victims were Moroccan because they were the most numerous of the Sephardi immigrants. The generation that was poisoned became the country's perpetual poor and criminal class. It didn't make sense. The Moroccans who fled to France became prosperous and highly educated. The common explanation was that France got the rich, thus smart ones. The real explanation is that every French Moroccan child didn't have his brain cells fried with gamma rays.
The film made it perfectly plain that this operation was no accident. The dangers of x-rays had been known for over forty years. We read the official guidelines for x-ray treatment in 1952.
The maximum dose to be given a child in Israel was .5 rad. There was no mistake made. The children were deliberately poisoned. David Deri, makes the point that only Sephardi children received the x-rays.
"I was in class and the men came to take us on a tour. They asked our names. The Ashkenazi children were told to return to their seats. The dark children were put on the bus."
The film presents a historian who first gives a potted history of the eugenics movement. In a later sound bite, he declares that the ringworm operation was a eugenics program aimed at weeding out the perceived weak strains of society. The film now quotes two noted anti-Sephardi racist Jewish leaders, Nahum Goldmann and Levi Eshkol.
Goldmann spent the Holocaust years first in Switzerland, where he made sure few Jewish refugees were given shelter, then flew to New York to become head of the World Jewish Congress headed by Samuel Bronfman. According to Canadian writer Mordecai Richler, Bronfman had cut a deal with Prime Minister Mackenzie King to prevent the immigration of European Jews to Canada.
But Levi Eshkol's role in the Holocaust was far more minister than merely not saving lives. He was busy taking them instead. From a biography of Levi Eshkol from the Israeli government web site:
"In 1937 Levi Eshkol played a central role in the establishment of the Mekorot Water Company and in this role was instrumental in convincing the German government to allow Jews emigrating to Palestine to take with them some of their assets - mostly in the form of German-made equipment."
While world Jewry was boycotting the Nazi regime in the '30s, the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem was propping up Hitler. A deal, called The Transfer Agreement, was cut whereby the Nazis would chase Germany's Jews to Palestine, and the Labor Zionists would force the immigrants to use their assets to buy only German goods. Once the Jewish Agency got the German Jews it wanted, those they secretly indoctrinated in the anti-Judaism of Shabtai Tzvi and Jacob Frank, they let the Nazis take care of the rest of European Jewry. The Holocaust was a eugenics program and Levi Eshkol played a major role in it.
The Moroccan lady is back on the screen. "It was a Holocaust, a Sephardi Holocaust. And what I want to know is why no one stood up to stop it."
David Deri, on film and then as a panel member, relates the frustration he encountered when trying to find his childhood medical records.
"All I wanted to know was what they did to me. I wanted to know who authorized it. I wanted to trace the chain of command. But the Health Ministry told me my records were missing."
Boaz Lev, the Health Ministry's spokesman chimes in, "Almost all the records were burned in a fire."
So, let us help Mr. Deri trace the chain of command. But now I must intrude myself in the review.
About six years ago, I investigated the kidnapping of some 4500, mostly Yemenite immigrant infants and children, during the early years of the state. I met the leader of the Yemenite children's movement, Rabbi Uzi Meshulum, imprisoned for trying to get the truth out. He was later returned home in a vegetative state from which he has not emerged. He told me that the kidnapped children were sent to America to die cruelly in nuclear experiments.
The American government had banned human testing and needed guinea pigs. The Israeli government agreed to supply the humans in exchange for money and nuclear secrets. The initiator of Israel's nuclear program was Defence Ministry director-general Shimon Peres.
Rabbi David Sevilia of Jerusalem corroborated the crime and later, I even saw photos of the radiation scars on the few surviving children, and the cages the infants were shipped to America in.
Just over five years ago I published my belief on the internet, that Israel's Labor Zionist founders had conducted atomic experiments on Yemenite and other Sephardi children, killing thousands of them. Almost three years ago, I published the same assertion in my last book, Save Israel!. I suffered much scorn for doing so. However, I was right.
We return to the documentary. We are told that a US law in the late '40s put a stop to the human radiation experiments conducted on prisoners, the mentally feeble and the like. The American atomic program needed a new source of human lab rats and the Israeli government supplied it.
Here was the government cabinet at the time of the ringworm atrocities:
Prime Minister - David Ben Gurion Finance Minister - Eliezer Kaplan Settlement Minister - Levi Eshkol Foreign Minister - Moshe Sharrett Health Minister - Yosef Burg Labor Minister - Golda Meir Police Minister - Amos Ben Gurion
The highest ranking non-cabinet post belonged to the Director General Of The Defence Ministry, Shimon Peres.
That a program involving the equivalent of billions of dollars of American government funds should be unknown to the Prime Minister of cash-strapped Israel is ridiculous. Ben Gurion was in on the horrors and undoubtedly chose his son to be Police Minister in case anyone interfered with them.
Now let's have a quick glance at the other plotters, starting with the Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan. He handled the profits of the operation and was rewarded for eternity with a hospital named after him near Rehovot. But he's not alone in this honor.
The racist bigot Chaim Sheba, who ran Ringworm Incorporated, had a whole medical complex named after him. Needless to say, if there is an ounce of decency in the local medical profession, those hospital names will have to change.
Then there is Yosef Burg, who the leaders of the Yemenite Children's movement insist was the most responsible for the kidnappings of their infants. As Health Minister, he certainly played a pivotal role in the Ringworm murders. That would go a great way to explaining the peculiar behavior of his son, the peacemaker, Avraham Burg.
Let us not forget Moshe Sharrett, who had Rabbi Yoel Brand arrested in Aleppo in 1944 for proposing a practical way to save 800,000 Jews trapped in Hungary. Sharrett's most cited quote is, "If Shimon Peres ever enters this government, I will tear my clothes and start to mourn." Several Yemenite Children activists told me Sharrett was referring to the kidnapping of the Yemenite children when he made this statement.
And other amateur historians have told me that Levi Eshkol openly and proudly announced his belief in the tenets of Shabtai Tzvi, but try as I have, I haven't tracked down a citation. However, we do know of Eshkol, that during the period of the radiations, he served first as Settlement Minister, then took over from Kaplan as Finance Minister. From his bio:
"In 1951 Eshkol was appointed Minister of Agriculture and Development, and from 1952 to 1963 - a decade characterized by unprecedented economic growth despite the burden of financing immigrant absorption and the 1956 Sinai Campaign - he served as Minister of Finance. Between 1949 and 1963, Eshkol also served as head of the settlement division of the Jewish Agency. In the first four years of statehood, he was also treasurer of the Jewish Agency, largely responsible for obtaining the funds for the country's development, absorption of the massive waves of immigrants and equipment for the army."
In short, Eshkol was the person most responsible for Israel's immigrants, the ones he sent to radiation torture chambers. Finally, there is Golda Meir. We don't know her role, but she was in on the secret and rewarded for it. Note that every prime minister thereafter until 1977, when the honorable Menachem Begin was elected, came from this cabal. And note also, that no one from what is called the Right today, was privy to the slaughter of the Sephardi children.
Apply that lesson to a contemporary fact: It is the descendants of these butchers who brought us the Oslo "peace" and are determined to wipe out the settlers of Judea, Samaria and Gaza as surely as they had dealt with the inferior dark Jews who came into their clutches fifty years before. Now try and imagine it is 1952 and you are in a cabinet meeting. You will be debating whether to send the Yemenite babies to America for their final zapping, or whether to have them zapped here. That is what the Luciferian, satanic Sabbataian founders of our nation were prattling on about when they got together to discuss the affairs of state.
After the film ended, TV host Dan Margalit tried to put a better face on what he'd witnessed. Any face had to be better than what he had seen. He explained meekly, "But the state was poor. It was a matter of day to day survival." Then he stopped. He knew there was no excusing the atrocities the Sephardi children endured.
But it was the Moroccan singer who summed up the experience best. "It's going to hurt, but the truth has to be told. If not, the wounds will never heal."
There is one person alive who knows the truth and participated in the atrocities. He is Leader Of The Opposition Shimon Peres, the peacemaker. The only way to get to the truth and start the healing is to investigate him for his role in the kidnapping of 4500 Yemenite infants and the mass poisoning of over 100,000 Sephardi children and youths.
But here is why that won't happen. It is a miracle that 100,000 Radiations was broadcast at all. Clearly though, someone fought for it but had to agree to a compromise. The show was aired at the same time as the highest-rated show of the year, the final of Israel's, A Star Is Born. The next day, there was not a word about 100,000 Radiations in any paper, but the newly-born star's photo took up half the front pages.
That's how the truth is buried in Israel, and somehow, these tricks work. The same methods were used to cover up the Rabin assassination.
However, a few hundred thousand people saw the film on their screens and they will never forget the truth. If the Rabin assassination doesn't bury Labor Zionism for good, then 100,000 Radiations eventually will.
Source:
Sunday, August 16, 2009
New “Palestinian Areas Only” Visa Enrages Visitors
Written by Matthew Kalman
Published Sunday, August 16, 2009
Israel has clamped new restrictions on visitors to the Palestinian Authority, stamping their passports with a visa that bars them from entering Israel.
The new “Palestinian Authority Only” visa is the latest in a growing raft of measures imposed by Israel to restrict the movement of visitors to Palestinian-controlled areas.
Israel says it needs to make sure that people who pose a security risk are not free to wander around Israel. Critics say the new regulations are a violation of international law and the Oslo peace accords.
Betty Najjab, an American from Centreville, Virginia who married a Palestinian from Ramallah, told The Media Line she was horrified to discover that she had been given one of the new stamps after visiting her in-laws in Jordan for a family wedding.
“I have a round-trip ticket to Ben Gurion Airport and now I’m not sure whether I am allowed to enter Israel to take my flight back home to the States,” Najjab told The Media Line. “I can’t even go back to East Jerusalem. My ticket is expensive so I don’t want to lose it. I may have to go back to Jordan and re-enter Israel via one of the other crossings and get a new visa rather than lose the ticket.”
“This new policy is causing a lot of problems for a lot of people,” she said. “Last week I went to the Palestinian Ministry of the Interior but they said there was nothing they could do. They called the Israeli Ministry of the Interior who said there was nothing they could do either, but that I shouldn’t take it personally. If I lose my round-trip ticket, I will take it very personally.”
Salwa Duaibis, Coordinator for the Right to Enter Campaign in Ramallah, told The Media Line she hopes foreign governments would come to the aid of their citizens affected by the new policy, which she described as “a violation of international law.”
“For the first time, the violation is not targeting Palestinians living in the occupied territories, but the violation is targeting foreign nationals who declare their intention to enter,” Duaibis told The Media Line.
“This is extremely serious and deserves the highest possible attention from governments and we are hoping that because it affects their nationals directly, that something will be done about it,” she said.
Israeli restrictions on access to Palestinian-controlled areas have been gradually increased since the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada uprising in September 2000. At first, Israelis were barred from the Gaza Strip and Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank. After two British suicide bombers entered Israel, travelled to Gaza and then emerged from the strip to blow up a Tel Aviv bar in April 2003, killing three people, foreigners were also banned from entering or leaving the Gaza Strip via Israel except for diplomats, journalists and workers for humanitarian organizations. Access was further tightened after Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005.
Israelis are officially barred from entering West Bank Area “A” under full Palestinian control – including all the major cities like Bethlehem, Nablus and Ramallah – except with special permission from the army. With the lifting of many checkpoints in the past few months, however, there is little supervision of Israelis who wish to travel there.
“I think it is quite legitimate for Israel to be careful and protect its own citizens and to protect its security but it has to do this in a lawful manner,” said Duaibis of the Right to Enter Campaign. “If protecting Israel’s security infringes on somebody else’s rights, then there is a problem.”
“Israel wishes to strictly regulate travel of visitors who come to the country, especially those curious to see the West Bank,” said Toufic Haddad, a Palestinian-American activist who revealed the new policy on his blog in early August.
Haddad said the new visa was a violation of the 1995 Oslo II Accords, which state that: “Tourists to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from countries having diplomatic relations with Israel, who have passed through an international crossing, will not be required to pass any additional entry control before entry into Israel.”
“Israel appears to be issuing a visa for a Bantustan-like state, that is yet to be declared officially, but which de facto is being created by such bureaucratic measures,” Haddad said.
Information for travelers posted on the website of the U.S. Consulate-General in Jerusalem confirms the recent change in policy.
“Since the spring of 2009, Israeli border officials at both the Allenby border crossing and Ben Gurion Airport have begun using a new entry visa stamp that permits travel only in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas,” the Consulate-General warns. “Anyone indicating that they either have connections to the West Bank, or are planning to travel to the West Bank, may get this stamp, which does not permit them to enter into (or, in the case of Ben Gurion, return to) green-line Israel. The Consulate can do nothing to assist in getting this visa status changed; only Israeli liaison offices in the West Bank can assist -- but they rarely will. Travelers should be alert, and pay attention to which stamp they receive upon entry.”
The new visa being stamped in tourists’ passports is being criticized for unfairly restricting the movements of visitors with Palestinian relatives or friends whose first stop may be the West Bank but who intend to visit Israel as well. Many Americans of Palestinian origin but who do not have Palestinian citizenship have been turned back on arrival at Ben Gurion airport and told they can only enter from Jordan via the Allenby Bridge.
“For some time, the government of Israel has not permitted Americans with Palestinian nationality (or even, in some cases, the claim to it) to enter Israel via Ben Gurion Airport,” states the website of the U.S. Consulate. “Many are sent back to the U.S. upon arrival, though some are permitted in, but told they cannot depart Israel via Ben Gurion without special permission (which is rarely granted). Families have had to travel separately back to the United States in some cases, and some travelers have had to forfeit expensive airline tickets.”
“To save expense and time, you should travel via Allenby (and be aware of the issue of the "PA-only stamp" mentioned above). Again, this is not something the Consulate can assist with, since it is an Israeli government policy,” is the official advice.
It is not clear when or why the new visas were introduced. The Israeli Defense Ministry directed all inquiries to the Coordinator of Israeli Government Activities in the Territories. Guy Imbar, spokesman for the coordinator, said his office only handled humanitarian organizations bringing aid to the Palestinians and directed inquiries to the Israeli Interior Ministry. The Interior Ministry did not return calls for comment.
Source:
Published Sunday, August 16, 2009
Israel has clamped new restrictions on visitors to the Palestinian Authority, stamping their passports with a visa that bars them from entering Israel.
The new “Palestinian Authority Only” visa is the latest in a growing raft of measures imposed by Israel to restrict the movement of visitors to Palestinian-controlled areas.
Israel says it needs to make sure that people who pose a security risk are not free to wander around Israel. Critics say the new regulations are a violation of international law and the Oslo peace accords.
Betty Najjab, an American from Centreville, Virginia who married a Palestinian from Ramallah, told The Media Line she was horrified to discover that she had been given one of the new stamps after visiting her in-laws in Jordan for a family wedding.
“I have a round-trip ticket to Ben Gurion Airport and now I’m not sure whether I am allowed to enter Israel to take my flight back home to the States,” Najjab told The Media Line. “I can’t even go back to East Jerusalem. My ticket is expensive so I don’t want to lose it. I may have to go back to Jordan and re-enter Israel via one of the other crossings and get a new visa rather than lose the ticket.”
“This new policy is causing a lot of problems for a lot of people,” she said. “Last week I went to the Palestinian Ministry of the Interior but they said there was nothing they could do. They called the Israeli Ministry of the Interior who said there was nothing they could do either, but that I shouldn’t take it personally. If I lose my round-trip ticket, I will take it very personally.”
Salwa Duaibis, Coordinator for the Right to Enter Campaign in Ramallah, told The Media Line she hopes foreign governments would come to the aid of their citizens affected by the new policy, which she described as “a violation of international law.”
“For the first time, the violation is not targeting Palestinians living in the occupied territories, but the violation is targeting foreign nationals who declare their intention to enter,” Duaibis told The Media Line.
“This is extremely serious and deserves the highest possible attention from governments and we are hoping that because it affects their nationals directly, that something will be done about it,” she said.
Israeli restrictions on access to Palestinian-controlled areas have been gradually increased since the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada uprising in September 2000. At first, Israelis were barred from the Gaza Strip and Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank. After two British suicide bombers entered Israel, travelled to Gaza and then emerged from the strip to blow up a Tel Aviv bar in April 2003, killing three people, foreigners were also banned from entering or leaving the Gaza Strip via Israel except for diplomats, journalists and workers for humanitarian organizations. Access was further tightened after Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005.
Israelis are officially barred from entering West Bank Area “A” under full Palestinian control – including all the major cities like Bethlehem, Nablus and Ramallah – except with special permission from the army. With the lifting of many checkpoints in the past few months, however, there is little supervision of Israelis who wish to travel there.
“I think it is quite legitimate for Israel to be careful and protect its own citizens and to protect its security but it has to do this in a lawful manner,” said Duaibis of the Right to Enter Campaign. “If protecting Israel’s security infringes on somebody else’s rights, then there is a problem.”
“Israel wishes to strictly regulate travel of visitors who come to the country, especially those curious to see the West Bank,” said Toufic Haddad, a Palestinian-American activist who revealed the new policy on his blog in early August.
Haddad said the new visa was a violation of the 1995 Oslo II Accords, which state that: “Tourists to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from countries having diplomatic relations with Israel, who have passed through an international crossing, will not be required to pass any additional entry control before entry into Israel.”
“Israel appears to be issuing a visa for a Bantustan-like state, that is yet to be declared officially, but which de facto is being created by such bureaucratic measures,” Haddad said.
Information for travelers posted on the website of the U.S. Consulate-General in Jerusalem confirms the recent change in policy.
“Since the spring of 2009, Israeli border officials at both the Allenby border crossing and Ben Gurion Airport have begun using a new entry visa stamp that permits travel only in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas,” the Consulate-General warns. “Anyone indicating that they either have connections to the West Bank, or are planning to travel to the West Bank, may get this stamp, which does not permit them to enter into (or, in the case of Ben Gurion, return to) green-line Israel. The Consulate can do nothing to assist in getting this visa status changed; only Israeli liaison offices in the West Bank can assist -- but they rarely will. Travelers should be alert, and pay attention to which stamp they receive upon entry.”
The new visa being stamped in tourists’ passports is being criticized for unfairly restricting the movements of visitors with Palestinian relatives or friends whose first stop may be the West Bank but who intend to visit Israel as well. Many Americans of Palestinian origin but who do not have Palestinian citizenship have been turned back on arrival at Ben Gurion airport and told they can only enter from Jordan via the Allenby Bridge.
“For some time, the government of Israel has not permitted Americans with Palestinian nationality (or even, in some cases, the claim to it) to enter Israel via Ben Gurion Airport,” states the website of the U.S. Consulate. “Many are sent back to the U.S. upon arrival, though some are permitted in, but told they cannot depart Israel via Ben Gurion without special permission (which is rarely granted). Families have had to travel separately back to the United States in some cases, and some travelers have had to forfeit expensive airline tickets.”
“To save expense and time, you should travel via Allenby (and be aware of the issue of the "PA-only stamp" mentioned above). Again, this is not something the Consulate can assist with, since it is an Israeli government policy,” is the official advice.
It is not clear when or why the new visas were introduced. The Israeli Defense Ministry directed all inquiries to the Coordinator of Israeli Government Activities in the Territories. Guy Imbar, spokesman for the coordinator, said his office only handled humanitarian organizations bringing aid to the Palestinians and directed inquiries to the Israeli Interior Ministry. The Interior Ministry did not return calls for comment.
Source:
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