by Saed Bannoura
Late Sunday night, Israeli tanks, bulldozers and armored vehicles invaded the southern Gaza Strip, east of Rafah, and began bulldozing land in the An-Nahda neighborhood.
A spokesperson for the Al-Aqsa Brigades, the armed wing of the Fateh party, said its fighters exchanged fire with the invading Israeli soldiers, leading the troops to retreat back to their base on the southern Gaza border.
The Israeli military did not confirm the incident, but did report that one mortar shell was fired Monday morning from the Gaza Strip into an open field in southern Israel.
Israeli invasions of Gaza are common, despite the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Rafah is a frequent target of invasions, and has seen thousands of home demolitions by Israeli forces attempting to create a 'security zone' between the city and the border.
Source:
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Despite Israeli protests, Russia won't halt arms sale to Syria
Haaretz reported on Friday that PM Benjamin Netanyahu had asked Russian PM Vladimir Putin to cancel the sale of long-range surface-to-sea cruise missiles to the Syrian Army.
By Barak Ravid
Despite Israel's objections, Russia will not cancel its sale of advanced missiles to Syria, the Kremlin announced on Sunday.
Haaretz reported on Friday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had asked his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to cancel the sale of long-range surface-to-sea cruise missiles to the Syrian Army.
Following the Haaretz report, Sergei Prikhodko, a senior adviser to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, told the state-run Russian news agency RIA Novosti that Moscow would fulfill all agreements it had made with foreign countries and would not halt the deal.
"Lately, some Israeli media outlets have been actively disseminating information distorting Russia's position on the implementation of its obligations to Syria, including in the sphere of military and technical cooperation," Prikhodko said. "I would like to stress that the Russian Federation honors all the agreements that were previously signed between Russia and Syria."
The agreement in question is for P-800 Yakhont missiles, a highly accurate Russian weapon with a 300-kilometer range capable of carrying a warhead of up to 200 kilograms.
Israel is concerned the projectiles could significantly improve the Syrian military's ability to target its naval ships. The Chinese-made C-802 missile Syria currently has is less accurate, has a range of just 102 kilometers and can carry a warhead of no more than 150 kilograms.
Jerusalem also fears the more advanced missiles could fall into the hands of Hezbollah, the Syrian- and Iranian-supported Lebanese militia, which would create a significant threat to naval ships in Israeli ports and the Mediterranean Sea.
Source:
By Barak Ravid
Despite Israel's objections, Russia will not cancel its sale of advanced missiles to Syria, the Kremlin announced on Sunday.
Haaretz reported on Friday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had asked his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to cancel the sale of long-range surface-to-sea cruise missiles to the Syrian Army.
Following the Haaretz report, Sergei Prikhodko, a senior adviser to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, told the state-run Russian news agency RIA Novosti that Moscow would fulfill all agreements it had made with foreign countries and would not halt the deal.
"Lately, some Israeli media outlets have been actively disseminating information distorting Russia's position on the implementation of its obligations to Syria, including in the sphere of military and technical cooperation," Prikhodko said. "I would like to stress that the Russian Federation honors all the agreements that were previously signed between Russia and Syria."
The agreement in question is for P-800 Yakhont missiles, a highly accurate Russian weapon with a 300-kilometer range capable of carrying a warhead of up to 200 kilograms.
Israel is concerned the projectiles could significantly improve the Syrian military's ability to target its naval ships. The Chinese-made C-802 missile Syria currently has is less accurate, has a range of just 102 kilometers and can carry a warhead of no more than 150 kilograms.
Jerusalem also fears the more advanced missiles could fall into the hands of Hezbollah, the Syrian- and Iranian-supported Lebanese militia, which would create a significant threat to naval ships in Israeli ports and the Mediterranean Sea.
Source:
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Free Gaza Mission Vows Escalation of Struggle Against Israel
Ken O'Keefe
by Michael Leon
- We Americans are all Palestinians. From the two small boats that landed on August 23, 2008, we grew to six ships in the last flotilla that saw nine of our brothers murdered, and will have nine to twelve ships in the flotilla this Fall as we go back to Gaza. To borrow from Dr. King who gave a beautiful anthem for justice in Washington D.C. that lives on today, the Free Gaza movement knows that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. Let us see the day when we can say: “Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” -
The international effort to break the illegal Israeli siege of Gaza, shine light on the apartheid system in the occupied territories continues, and gain independence as free men and women will not fail.
Even in the face of mass murder, piracy and assassination, the Free Gaza mission will not back down as a new flotilla prepares for the next freedom voyage to Gaza in which human rights workers will risk their lives for freedom and justice.
Only two-years-old, the Free Gaza mission has changed the world. To the imprisoned, the oppressed, and the murdered in the occupied territories, we say: You are not forgotten. Your suffering will end.
The backlash against us in lies and smears, and the propaganda campaign by Israel has been extraordinary even by the standards of the pariah state.
But as human rights worker, Ken O’Keefe, writes in these pages:
I will not abandon my brothers and sisters who resist war and occupation. By being labeled a ‘terrorist’ myself, I join you, falsely accused and persecuted, the Arabs, the Muslims, Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress, the Founding Fathers of America, the eco-warriors, the people of conscience past and present. And so be it, I am a terrorist in the eyes of the American and Canadian Government who puts me on their so-called ‘terror watch list.’Veterans Today calls on all American veterans, supporters and advocates to resist Israel’s clear and present danger to the national security of America and the safety of the civilized world. Israel must be stopped, it must be stopped now.
Even as the farce of next week’s direct peace talks are played out, the serious work for justice goes on.
For updates on the forthcoming human rights mission, see Veterans Today, Witness Gaza, the Free Gaza Mission, Cultures of Resistance and Al Jazeera.
Source:
Israeli Education Ministry Approves New 'whites-only' Settlement School
by IMEMC Staff
Several months ago, a religious school in the illegal Israeli settlement of Immanuel was criticized for segregating white Jewish students from non-white Jewish students in classes.
Originally, the school was fined for this policy of racial segregation, because the school was state funded. Now, the Israeli education ministry has agreed with the white parents' request to allow the school to continue with its racial discrimination under private funding.
There is no law preventing racial discrimination by private organizations, even schools, in Israel.
The Israeli court has interpreted these laws to also apply to illegal West bank settlements, like Immanuel, which are located in areas that are supposed to be under Palestinian control. The Palestinian Authority does not allow racial discrimination, but due to the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian Territories, it has no authority over the area in question.
74 white girls who have been studying in a building next to the school will now be allowed to study in whites-only classrooms that are privately funded, as their parents claim they do not want their girls to study in racially-mixed classrooms.
Source:
Several months ago, a religious school in the illegal Israeli settlement of Immanuel was criticized for segregating white Jewish students from non-white Jewish students in classes.
Ethiopian Jewish student - not allowed to study at new school (photo by Jewish Middlesex)
Originally, the school was fined for this policy of racial segregation, because the school was state funded. Now, the Israeli education ministry has agreed with the white parents' request to allow the school to continue with its racial discrimination under private funding.
There is no law preventing racial discrimination by private organizations, even schools, in Israel.
The Israeli court has interpreted these laws to also apply to illegal West bank settlements, like Immanuel, which are located in areas that are supposed to be under Palestinian control. The Palestinian Authority does not allow racial discrimination, but due to the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian Territories, it has no authority over the area in question.
74 white girls who have been studying in a building next to the school will now be allowed to study in whites-only classrooms that are privately funded, as their parents claim they do not want their girls to study in racially-mixed classrooms.
Source:
Happy Birthday Free Gaza
Happy Birthday Free GazaTwo years have passed since the week we landed in Gaza
August 23-August 28
Report: Israel planning to attack Hezbollah arms depots in Syria
Let us pray this won't happen.
The Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai reports that Israel is preparing to strike Hezbollah targets in Syria; Al-Arabi Al-Quds reports that western diplomats have asked Bashar Assad to refrain from interfering with Israel-PA direct peace talks.
By Jack Khoury and Haaretz Service
Israel is planning to attack Hezbollah arms depots and weapons manufacturing plants in Syria, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai reported on Saturday.
The report is based on Western sources who asserted that Israel has increased its military force level along the northern border in the Golan Heights and Mount Dov areas.
The report cited European sources who claimed that recent Israeli unmanned aerial drone flights over Lebanon and Syria signal Israel's intentions to carry out operations in the area.
According to the report, Israel plans to attack Hezbollah weapons depots, including ones deep inside Syria that store long-range rockets.
The Al Rai report said that the situation on the Israel-Syria border is tense and that Syria could respond immediately to any Israeli attack and not demonstrate the restraint that it did after the Israeli Air Force bombed a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria in the fall of 2007.
According to the report, Syria's military is on high alert and is strengthening its anti-aircraft defenses along the border with Israel and at strategic sites within Syria.
Western diplomats to Assad: Don't interfere in Israel-PA talks
Also on Saturday, the Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper reported that western nations, including the United States, have in recent days asked Syria to refrain from negatively interfering with the upcoming direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, set to open next week in Washington.
According to the report, American officials expressed their firm opposition to Syrian President Bashar Assad taking any position or exerting any influence on the talks, as they fear that another failure of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians could lead to even graver consequences than did past failed talks.
The report said that Assad was also asked to restrain Palestinian militant organizations that operate on Syrian territory, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Source:
The Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai reports that Israel is preparing to strike Hezbollah targets in Syria; Al-Arabi Al-Quds reports that western diplomats have asked Bashar Assad to refrain from interfering with Israel-PA direct peace talks.
By Jack Khoury and Haaretz Service
Israel is planning to attack Hezbollah arms depots and weapons manufacturing plants in Syria, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai reported on Saturday.
The report is based on Western sources who asserted that Israel has increased its military force level along the northern border in the Golan Heights and Mount Dov areas.
The report cited European sources who claimed that recent Israeli unmanned aerial drone flights over Lebanon and Syria signal Israel's intentions to carry out operations in the area.
According to the report, Israel plans to attack Hezbollah weapons depots, including ones deep inside Syria that store long-range rockets.
The Al Rai report said that the situation on the Israel-Syria border is tense and that Syria could respond immediately to any Israeli attack and not demonstrate the restraint that it did after the Israeli Air Force bombed a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria in the fall of 2007.
According to the report, Syria's military is on high alert and is strengthening its anti-aircraft defenses along the border with Israel and at strategic sites within Syria.
Western diplomats to Assad: Don't interfere in Israel-PA talks
Also on Saturday, the Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper reported that western nations, including the United States, have in recent days asked Syria to refrain from negatively interfering with the upcoming direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, set to open next week in Washington.
According to the report, American officials expressed their firm opposition to Syrian President Bashar Assad taking any position or exerting any influence on the talks, as they fear that another failure of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians could lead to even graver consequences than did past failed talks.
The report said that Assad was also asked to restrain Palestinian militant organizations that operate on Syrian territory, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Source:
Friday, August 27, 2010
Israel warns Palestinians about mobilizing international support against the occupation
The Israeli government has issued a statement warning Palestinians of the consequences of their efforts to extend a permanent appeal to the international community about Israel's occupation. Issued by the Foreign Ministry, the document warns against Palestinian efforts to draw the attention of various UN agencies to Israel's practices and human rights violations in the occupied territories and inside Israel itself.
According to the Ministry's statement, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah is also preparing to submit an appeal to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, asking for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails and detention camps to be declared "prisoners of war".
In a telling link to the current settlement "freeze", due to end next month, the document drew attention to the Palestinians' threat of what the Foreign Ministry calls "civil disobedience" in response to the expected resumption of settlement construction.
Source:
According to the Ministry's statement, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah is also preparing to submit an appeal to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, asking for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails and detention camps to be declared "prisoners of war".
In a telling link to the current settlement "freeze", due to end next month, the document drew attention to the Palestinians' threat of what the Foreign Ministry calls "civil disobedience" in response to the expected resumption of settlement construction.
Source:
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Israeli intelligence steps up its activity in the U.S. — and gets away with it.
By Philip Giraldi
Israeli government claims that it does not spy on the United States are intended for the media and popular consumption. The reality is that Israel’s intelligence agencies target the United States intensively, particularly in pursuit of military and dual-use civilian technology. Among nations considered to be friendly to Washington, Israel leads all others in its active espionage directed against American companies and the Defense Department. It also dominates two commercial sectors that enable it to extend its reach inside America’s domestic infrastructure: airline and telecommunications security. Israel is believed to have the ability to monitor nearly all phone records originating in the United States, while numerous Israeli air-travel security companies are known to act as the local Mossad stations.
As tensions with Iran increase, sources in the counterintelligence community report that Israeli agents have become more aggressive in targeting Muslims living in the United States as well as in operating against critics. There have been a number of cases reported to the FBI about Mossad officers who have approached leaders in Arab-American communities and have falsely represented themselves as “U.S. intelligence.” Because few Muslims would assist an Israeli, this is done to increase the likelihood that the target will cooperate. It’s referred to as a “false flag” operation.
Mossad officers sought to recruit Arab-Americans as sources willing to inform on their associates and neighbors. The approaches, which took place in New York and New Jersey, were reportedly handled clumsily, making the targets of the operation suspicious. These Arab-Americans turned down the requests for cooperation, and some of the contacts were eventually reported to the FBI, which has determined that at least two of the Mossad officers are, ironically, Israeli Arabs operating out of Israel’s mission to the United Nations in New York under cover as consular assistants.
In another bizarre case, U.S.S. Liberty survivor Phil Tourney was recently accosted in Southern California by a foreigner who eventually identified himself as an Israeli government representative. Tourney was taunted, and the Israeli threatened both him and journalist Mark Glenn, who has been reporting on the Liberty story. Tourney was approached in a hotel lounge, and it is not completely clear how the Israeli was able to identify him. But he knew exactly who Tourney was, as the official referred to the Liberty, saying that the people who had been killed on board had gotten what they deserved. There were a number of witnesses to the incident, including Tourney’s wife. The threat has been reported to the FBI, which is investigating, but Tourney and Glenn believe that the incident is not being taken seriously by the bureau.
FBI sources indicate that the increase in Mossad activity is a major problem, particularly when Israelis are posing as U.S. government officials, but they also note that there is little they can do to stop it as the Justice Department refuses to initiate any punitive action or prosecutions of the Mossad officers who have been identified as involved in the illegal activity.
In another ongoing Israeli spy case, Stewart Nozette appears to be headed towards eventual freedom as his case drags on through the District of Columbia courts. Nozette, an aerospace scientist with a top secret clearance and access to highly sensitive information, offered to sell classified material to a man he believed to be a Mossad officer, but who instead turned out to be with the FBI. Nozette has been in jail since October, but he has now been granted an additional 90-day delay so his lawyers can review the documents in the government’s case, many of which are classified. If Nozette demands that sensitive information be used in his defense, his case will likely follow the pattern set in the nine-times-postponed trial of AIPAC spies Steve Rosen and, who were ultimately acquitted in April 2009 when prosecutors determined that they could not make their case without doing significant damage to national security. A month after Rosen and Weissman were freed, Ben-Ami Kadish, who admitted to providing defense secrets to Israel while working as an engineer at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, walked out of a Manhattan court after paying a fine. He did no jail time and continues to receive his substantial Defense Department pension.
The mainstream media reported the Rosen and Weissman trial intermittently, but there was virtually no coverage of Ben-Ami Kadish, and there has been even less of Nozette. Compare that with the recent reporting on the Russian spies who, by all accounts, did almost nothing and never obtained any classified information. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that spying for Israel is consequence free.
Source: The American Conservative via My Catbirdseat
Israeli government claims that it does not spy on the United States are intended for the media and popular consumption. The reality is that Israel’s intelligence agencies target the United States intensively, particularly in pursuit of military and dual-use civilian technology. Among nations considered to be friendly to Washington, Israel leads all others in its active espionage directed against American companies and the Defense Department. It also dominates two commercial sectors that enable it to extend its reach inside America’s domestic infrastructure: airline and telecommunications security. Israel is believed to have the ability to monitor nearly all phone records originating in the United States, while numerous Israeli air-travel security companies are known to act as the local Mossad stations.
As tensions with Iran increase, sources in the counterintelligence community report that Israeli agents have become more aggressive in targeting Muslims living in the United States as well as in operating against critics. There have been a number of cases reported to the FBI about Mossad officers who have approached leaders in Arab-American communities and have falsely represented themselves as “U.S. intelligence.” Because few Muslims would assist an Israeli, this is done to increase the likelihood that the target will cooperate. It’s referred to as a “false flag” operation.
Mossad officers sought to recruit Arab-Americans as sources willing to inform on their associates and neighbors. The approaches, which took place in New York and New Jersey, were reportedly handled clumsily, making the targets of the operation suspicious. These Arab-Americans turned down the requests for cooperation, and some of the contacts were eventually reported to the FBI, which has determined that at least two of the Mossad officers are, ironically, Israeli Arabs operating out of Israel’s mission to the United Nations in New York under cover as consular assistants.
In another bizarre case, U.S.S. Liberty survivor Phil Tourney was recently accosted in Southern California by a foreigner who eventually identified himself as an Israeli government representative. Tourney was taunted, and the Israeli threatened both him and journalist Mark Glenn, who has been reporting on the Liberty story. Tourney was approached in a hotel lounge, and it is not completely clear how the Israeli was able to identify him. But he knew exactly who Tourney was, as the official referred to the Liberty, saying that the people who had been killed on board had gotten what they deserved. There were a number of witnesses to the incident, including Tourney’s wife. The threat has been reported to the FBI, which is investigating, but Tourney and Glenn believe that the incident is not being taken seriously by the bureau.
FBI sources indicate that the increase in Mossad activity is a major problem, particularly when Israelis are posing as U.S. government officials, but they also note that there is little they can do to stop it as the Justice Department refuses to initiate any punitive action or prosecutions of the Mossad officers who have been identified as involved in the illegal activity.
In another ongoing Israeli spy case, Stewart Nozette appears to be headed towards eventual freedom as his case drags on through the District of Columbia courts. Nozette, an aerospace scientist with a top secret clearance and access to highly sensitive information, offered to sell classified material to a man he believed to be a Mossad officer, but who instead turned out to be with the FBI. Nozette has been in jail since October, but he has now been granted an additional 90-day delay so his lawyers can review the documents in the government’s case, many of which are classified. If Nozette demands that sensitive information be used in his defense, his case will likely follow the pattern set in the nine-times-postponed trial of AIPAC spies Steve Rosen and, who were ultimately acquitted in April 2009 when prosecutors determined that they could not make their case without doing significant damage to national security. A month after Rosen and Weissman were freed, Ben-Ami Kadish, who admitted to providing defense secrets to Israel while working as an engineer at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, walked out of a Manhattan court after paying a fine. He did no jail time and continues to receive his substantial Defense Department pension.
The mainstream media reported the Rosen and Weissman trial intermittently, but there was virtually no coverage of Ben-Ami Kadish, and there has been even less of Nozette. Compare that with the recent reporting on the Russian spies who, by all accounts, did almost nothing and never obtained any classified information. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that spying for Israel is consequence free.
Source: The American Conservative via My Catbirdseat
Leaked CIA memo cites U.S. Jews among exporters of terrorism
Wikileaks releases a CIA memo titled 'What if Foreigners See the United States as an Exporter of Terrorism?' in which American Jews in Israel was one of four groups mentioned.
By Haaretz Service
The Wikileaks website released a CIA document on Wednesday that examines the trend of Americans committing terrorist acts overseas, including American Jews in Israel.
American Jews in Israel were one of four groups mentioned in the classified report, titled "What if Foreigners See the United States as an Exporter of Terrorism?"
"Some American Jews have supported and even engaged in violent acts against perceived enemies of Israel," the report reads. "In 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an American Jewish doctor from New York, emigrated to Israel, joined the extremist group Kach, and killed 29 Palestinians during their prayers in the mosque at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron which helped trigger a wave of bus bombings by Hamas in early 1995."
Other groups mentioned were Irish-Americans who supported the Irish Republican Army; a group of Muslim-American men who traveled to Pakistan last year to engage in Jihad; and a Pakistani-American man, David Headley, who conducted surveillance for the Lashkar-i-Tayyiba terrorist group ahead of the attack in Mumbai, India in November 2008 that killed more than 160 people.
The leaked report was compiled in February 2010 by the CIA's Red Cell, which, according to the memorandum, was tasked with "taking a pronounced 'out-of-the-box' approach that will provoke thought and offer an alternative viewpoint on the full range of analytic issues."
Wikileaks, an online whistle-blowing website, recently published tens of thousands of classified military documents related to the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Source:
By Haaretz Service
The Wikileaks website released a CIA document on Wednesday that examines the trend of Americans committing terrorist acts overseas, including American Jews in Israel.
American Jews in Israel were one of four groups mentioned in the classified report, titled "What if Foreigners See the United States as an Exporter of Terrorism?"
"Some American Jews have supported and even engaged in violent acts against perceived enemies of Israel," the report reads. "In 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an American Jewish doctor from New York, emigrated to Israel, joined the extremist group Kach, and killed 29 Palestinians during their prayers in the mosque at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron which helped trigger a wave of bus bombings by Hamas in early 1995."
Other groups mentioned were Irish-Americans who supported the Irish Republican Army; a group of Muslim-American men who traveled to Pakistan last year to engage in Jihad; and a Pakistani-American man, David Headley, who conducted surveillance for the Lashkar-i-Tayyiba terrorist group ahead of the attack in Mumbai, India in November 2008 that killed more than 160 people.
The leaked report was compiled in February 2010 by the CIA's Red Cell, which, according to the memorandum, was tasked with "taking a pronounced 'out-of-the-box' approach that will provoke thought and offer an alternative viewpoint on the full range of analytic issues."
Wikileaks, an online whistle-blowing website, recently published tens of thousands of classified military documents related to the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Source:
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Palestine - YOU ARE NOT ALONE
The People of the World want Palestinians to know "YOU ARE NOT ALONE"!
Hundreds of Thousands of people around the world rose up and demonstrated against occupation, human rights violations, and the deaths of women, child and civilians; while the world leaders ignore the atrocities that the Palestinians have to endure on a daily basis. DEMAND THE WORLD LEADERS CONDEMN ISRAEL CRIMES !!!!!! DEMAND JUSTICE FOR PALESTINIANS!!!!
Viva Palestine!!
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Justice for wrongfully prosecuted Muslims
Please sign the petition. There must be justice for all. Thank you in advance.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/letter_07/signatures?page=12
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/letter_07/signatures?page=12
Monday, August 23, 2010
Norway government-run pension fund drops Africa Israel group shares
Says group firm Danya Cebus violates Geneva convention.
By Reuters and Shuki Sadeh
Norway’s 450 billion euro oil-riches fund has excluded two Israeli firms involved in developing settlements, as well as a Malaysian forestry firm, on ethical grounds, Norway’s finance ministry said yesterday. The excluded companies are Africa Israel Investments and its engineering subsidiary Danya Cebus, both of which are controlled by energy and real estate magnate Lev Leviev. The Malaysian firm is Samling Global.
The ministry said that the oil fund, which is essentially a form of pension fund, has already sold all its holdings in these companies.
The central bank-managed fund follows ethical guidelines set by the government and does not invest in companies that produce nuclear weapons or cluster munitions, damage the environment or abuse workers’ rights. Nor will it invest in companies that build in the settlements, it appears.
Africa Israel controls Danya Cebus, “a construction company involved in developing settlements in occupied Palestinian territory,” the fund said in a statement.
Danya Cebus has carried out construction projects, as a hired contractor, in Har Homa, a Jewish neighborhood in east Jerusalem, and in the settlements Ma’aleh Adumim, Modi’in Ilit (shown in the picture) and Adam.
The vast fund, which invests the Nordic nation’s oil and gas wealth in foreign stocks and bonds to save for future generations, holds more than 1% of all global stocks. It owned shares worth 7.2 million Norwegian crowns (€1.16 million) in Africa Israel Investments at year-end 2009.
“The Council on Ethics emphasizes that the construction of settlements in occupied areas is a violation of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War,” it said.
“Several United Nations Security Council resolutions and an International Court of Justice advisory opinion have concluded that the construction of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory is prohibited under this Convention,” Finance Minister Sigbjoern Johnsen said in the statement.
The ministry said it had excluded forestry company Samling Global based on the environmental impact of its forest operations in Malaysia and Guyana. The fund owned shares worth 8.1 million crowns in Samling Global at year end 2009.
“The Council on Ethics has assessed Samling Global, and concluded that the company’s forest operations in the rainforests of Sarawak and Guyana contribute to illegal logging and severe environmental damage,” Johnsen said.
Africa Israel stated that it and its subsidiaries have not been involved for a long time in real estate development or housing construction in the towns of the West Bank. Therefore, the company said, the claims made by the fund are groundless.
This is not the first time Africa Israel has taken arrows for building in the territories. A year and a half ago, following pressure by pro-Palestinian groups, the British embassy in Israel eschewed moving to a building owned by Africa Israel in Tel Aviv, because of its activity in the territories.
A year ago this same Norwegian oil fund dropped its investment in Elbit Systems, a defense electronics company, because of its involvement in building the separation fence, which the fund said violated human rights.
Source:
By Reuters and Shuki Sadeh
Norway’s 450 billion euro oil-riches fund has excluded two Israeli firms involved in developing settlements, as well as a Malaysian forestry firm, on ethical grounds, Norway’s finance ministry said yesterday. The excluded companies are Africa Israel Investments and its engineering subsidiary Danya Cebus, both of which are controlled by energy and real estate magnate Lev Leviev. The Malaysian firm is Samling Global.
The ministry said that the oil fund, which is essentially a form of pension fund, has already sold all its holdings in these companies.
The central bank-managed fund follows ethical guidelines set by the government and does not invest in companies that produce nuclear weapons or cluster munitions, damage the environment or abuse workers’ rights. Nor will it invest in companies that build in the settlements, it appears.
Africa Israel controls Danya Cebus, “a construction company involved in developing settlements in occupied Palestinian territory,” the fund said in a statement.
Danya Cebus has carried out construction projects, as a hired contractor, in Har Homa, a Jewish neighborhood in east Jerusalem, and in the settlements Ma’aleh Adumim, Modi’in Ilit (shown in the picture) and Adam.
The vast fund, which invests the Nordic nation’s oil and gas wealth in foreign stocks and bonds to save for future generations, holds more than 1% of all global stocks. It owned shares worth 7.2 million Norwegian crowns (€1.16 million) in Africa Israel Investments at year-end 2009.
“The Council on Ethics emphasizes that the construction of settlements in occupied areas is a violation of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War,” it said.
“Several United Nations Security Council resolutions and an International Court of Justice advisory opinion have concluded that the construction of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory is prohibited under this Convention,” Finance Minister Sigbjoern Johnsen said in the statement.
The ministry said it had excluded forestry company Samling Global based on the environmental impact of its forest operations in Malaysia and Guyana. The fund owned shares worth 8.1 million crowns in Samling Global at year end 2009.
“The Council on Ethics has assessed Samling Global, and concluded that the company’s forest operations in the rainforests of Sarawak and Guyana contribute to illegal logging and severe environmental damage,” Johnsen said.
Africa Israel stated that it and its subsidiaries have not been involved for a long time in real estate development or housing construction in the towns of the West Bank. Therefore, the company said, the claims made by the fund are groundless.
This is not the first time Africa Israel has taken arrows for building in the territories. A year and a half ago, following pressure by pro-Palestinian groups, the British embassy in Israel eschewed moving to a building owned by Africa Israel in Tel Aviv, because of its activity in the territories.
A year ago this same Norwegian oil fund dropped its investment in Elbit Systems, a defense electronics company, because of its involvement in building the separation fence, which the fund said violated human rights.
Source:
VOICE THE VOICELESS - YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!!
Help Laila Yaghi
JUST DO IT by Signing this Petition and OTHERS - by Voicing the Voiceless, Injustice and Inhumanity CONSTANTLY - by Sending Mails to the people in charge DAILY - and by even just Calling THEM!!!!! :oDDD
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?GVFJAHR&1
Please go to
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=info&gid=212624343942 to read more about Laila's son and what has happened to him.
JUST DO IT by Signing this Petition and OTHERS - by Voicing the Voiceless, Injustice and Inhumanity CONSTANTLY - by Sending Mails to the people in charge DAILY - and by even just Calling THEM!!!!! :oDDD
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?GVFJAHR&1
Please go to
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=info&gid=212624343942 to read more about Laila's son and what has happened to him.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
An open letter to Israel
By Lauren Booth, one of 44 passengers on board the first voyage, August 23, two years ago.
“This morning I set out to write a piece about the looting of the aid Flotilla to Gaza, by your soldiers. As you may have read, an Israel Defense Forces officer, has been remanded by a military court, suspected of stealing laptop computers from passengers. Interestingly, Haretz newspaper, now refers to the fleet as an ‘aid flotilla.’ Which it was. Rather than the ‘terror’ fleet your leaders would have had you call it. But I digress.
So, there I was, all ready to write my piece, when I came across an article on ynetnews. It sought to spell out the shock perhaps felt by some about the looted goods. A senior Israel Defense Forces officer said of the flotilla thefts: ‘there must be a serious problem in the IDF in terms of values."
I looked at those words for a long time. And, instead of writing my piece, decided to write to you instead. Because I can’t help wondering, who on earth still has any reserves of ‘shock’ to spare for the behaviour of your military? I mean really, come on guys. Beyond the comfortable avenues of Tel Aviv, the rest of the world finds the phrase ‘Moral Army,’ when applied to the IDF, nothing short of a huge, (sadly catastrophic), global sized joke. One on the same level as, say, climate change denial or George Bush’s presidency.
Now, here I’ve done it again. I’ve made you really mad at me. But please, just give me a moment or two to explain why I’m writing this letter. Because I didn’t set out to, nor do I want to insult you. Certainly not anymore than I have in the past. I’m sit here with washing up undone and housework piling up, to ask you one question. As a mother and as a fellow human being I need to know why you don’t see the evil that’s being done in your name?
How can you not see?
As you may already know, I was on the first Freegaza mission in 2008. This means that I not only have the pleasure of knowing personally the fine ladies who founded the FGM (Freegaza Movement). It also means that I had many friends and colleagues on the Flotilla that your military attacked in May.
You know, (again just for a second see me as a mum and not an ‘enemy’) not one of those fine people is a terrorist, wanting to run weapons to ‘extremists’. They are to a man (and to a woman) kind, concerned citizens of the world. People, who simply cannot go about their normal daily lives whilst your state, your army, your settlers torment other human beings. Every minute of every day. Of every month. Of every year. For sixty two years.
I don’t mean to be rude guys. But there comes a time when saying ‘I didn’t know what was going on’ wears a bit thin. You know what I mean? This whole charade about being ‘shocked’ by your soldiers' bad behavior, it makes non Israeli’s...well...it makes us laugh.
Because, this week's looting by your soldiers, it’s not the first of its kind. is it? Come on. Think back. There have been an awful, awful lot of others. Forgotten? Let me help you. Get to a computer and type the words ‘IDF looting’ into google's search engine. You may (or may not be surprised) when this search produces more than 64,000 results. Now before you go off the deep end, crying ‘our enemies are telling lies about us.’ Please, I beg you. Read just some of the results on the first page. It won’t take you long. Okay why not spend the whole morning reading them? After all it’s kind of your duty to know what’s being done in your name isn’t it? I mean, when military crimes are being committed with YOUR tax shekels, you have a right to know.
One of the google results reveals that an Israel Defense Forces soldier confessed to stealing a credit card from a home in northern Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. Remember that? The soldier in the Givati infantry unit's reconnaissance battalion used it to withdraw NIS 1,600 in Israel. A small criminal act.
Part of a much wider crime.
A crime against humanity, that you’ve been either ignoring. Or have been deliberately blinded to by your leaders.
As I have already said though, you have access to the internet, you don’t have to remain in the darkness. Unless of course you’re comfortable there.
The most recent looting by the IDF of civilian goods, made me think of the Al Samouni women, I met them last year, on the rubble of their homes in Al Zaytoun (I’ve attached some photos for you to see). You may, vaguely recognize that name ‘Al Samouni’. Let me jog your memory. On Saturday, 3 January 2009, the Israeli incursion into Al Zaytoun neighbourhood began.
The following day, on 4 January 2009, your forces bombed the same area.
On Monday at 7:00 Am, 5 January 2009, again your forces bombed the very same area of Hay (neighborhood) Al Zaytoun. One of the missiles struck the third floor of Tallal Hilmi Al Samouni’s home. Then came the soldiers shooting to kill.
Overall, 26 members of the Al Samouni family were killed, including 10 children and 7 women. The Red Cross was only allowed entry three days later to evacuate the dead and injured, the majority of whom were so critical that they were taken to Belgium, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia for treatment.
Allow me, if you don’t mind to give you their names as you probably don’t know them. As kind human beings, I’m sure you’ll wish to pay them your respects, and perhaps pray for them.
Names of children killed
• Azza Salah Al Samouni, 3 years of age
• Waleed Rashad Al Samouni, 17 years of age
• Ishaq Ibrahim Al Samouni, 14 years of age
• Ismail Ibrahim Al Samouni, 16 years of age
• Rifka Wael Al Samouni, 8 years of age
• Fares Wael Al Samouni, 12 years of age
• Huda Nael Al Samouni, 17 years of age
• Ahmad Atieh Al Samouni, 14 years of age
• Mu’tassim Mohammed Al Samouni, 6 years of age
• Mohammed Hilmi Al Samouni, 5 years of age
Names of Women Killed
• Rahma Mohammed Al Samouni, 50 years of age
• Safa’ Hilmi Al Samouni, 25 years of age
• Maha Mohammed Al Samouni, 22 years of age
• Rabbab Azzat Al Samouni, 32 years of age
• Laila Nabih Al Samouni, 40 years of age
• Rifqa Mohammed Al Samouni, 50 years of age
• Hannan Khamis Al Samouni, 36 years of age
Names of Men Killed
• Tallal Hilmi Al Samouni, 55 years of age
• Attieh Hilmi Al Samouni, 25 years of age
• Rashad Hilmi Al Samouni, 42 years of age
• Tawfiq Rashad Al Samouni, 23 years of age
• Mohammed Ibrahim, 26 years of age
• Ziyad Izzat Al Samouni, 28 years of age
• Nidal Ahmad Al Samouni, 30 years of age
• Hamdi Maher Al Samouni, 23 years of age
• Hamdi Mahmoud Al Samouni, 70 years of age
Last March I was shown around the rubble of their community by the surviving women and children. I saw the racist grafitti left behind on the walls of the room where a teenage girl still had to sleep. Left for her by your ‘Moral Army’ no less. It said in places in Hebrew, in places English stuff like ‘we’ll be back’ and there was a coarse cartoon of a house exploding with the words ‘you are here’ wittily added. A beautiful young woman, told me of how she was about to get married before the attack. Her family had saved several thousand dollars for her dowry (many people of one family saving for a very, very long time, as you can imagine). It had been hidden under a bed in a suitcase for the happy event. Her mother had a few ancient pieces of jewelery that had been passed down through the generations in gold as well. Well, you see, your soldiers bombed these people, then shot their children, then finally looted everything the survivors owned. I swear to you, look on google, look into your own hearts, you know, this happens.
You know this is how your army deliberately treats Palestinians.
Before you scream ‘lies!’ or ‘anti Semite!’ please, I beg you. Parent to parent. Human to human. in the name of the God of all faiths, take a breathe, suspend your disbelief a while longer, then read on. Because, oh Israel. What if, just suppose, I’m not the anti Semite your wiki trained extremist supporters try to paint me as? And what if, just ten per cent of the 64,000 google entries for “IDF looting’ are utterly true? What then? What does that make you complicit in? What will you do if just for a second the truth that the rest of the world sees about your leaders barbarism fills your mind and your hearts as it one day surely must?
My words, as an outsider will no doubt seem harsh, even naive. This then, is from today's Jerusalem Post:
“According to information analyzed by the human rights organization Yesh Din, between September 2000 and the end of 2009, less than six percent of nearly 2,000 investigations opened against IDF soldiers suspected of crimes against Palestinians ended in indictments.
During the same period, according to various estimates, thousands of Palestinian civilians were killed as a result of IDF activities. How many of these fatalities resulted in convictions? Four. Not four percent – just four.”
It’s becoming increasingly clear that your young men and women are being trained to behave like animals. These events, the looting, the photos posted online by Eden Abergil, they can’t be explained away as ‘one off’’s any longer.
It’s for you to ask yourselves what they mean.
I’m truly sorry if my words have offended you. I just wanted to talk with you directly for once.
By the way there are an estimated 400 laptops, 600 mobile phones plus other personal cash and effects, which your military still has not returned to the passengers of the aid flotilla. You see, when then they set sail. For some reason, those good people, didn’t think the IDF would steal from them.
Yours in Hope Lauren Booth
“This morning I set out to write a piece about the looting of the aid Flotilla to Gaza, by your soldiers. As you may have read, an Israel Defense Forces officer, has been remanded by a military court, suspected of stealing laptop computers from passengers. Interestingly, Haretz newspaper, now refers to the fleet as an ‘aid flotilla.’ Which it was. Rather than the ‘terror’ fleet your leaders would have had you call it. But I digress.
So, there I was, all ready to write my piece, when I came across an article on ynetnews. It sought to spell out the shock perhaps felt by some about the looted goods. A senior Israel Defense Forces officer said of the flotilla thefts: ‘there must be a serious problem in the IDF in terms of values."
I looked at those words for a long time. And, instead of writing my piece, decided to write to you instead. Because I can’t help wondering, who on earth still has any reserves of ‘shock’ to spare for the behaviour of your military? I mean really, come on guys. Beyond the comfortable avenues of Tel Aviv, the rest of the world finds the phrase ‘Moral Army,’ when applied to the IDF, nothing short of a huge, (sadly catastrophic), global sized joke. One on the same level as, say, climate change denial or George Bush’s presidency.
Now, here I’ve done it again. I’ve made you really mad at me. But please, just give me a moment or two to explain why I’m writing this letter. Because I didn’t set out to, nor do I want to insult you. Certainly not anymore than I have in the past. I’m sit here with washing up undone and housework piling up, to ask you one question. As a mother and as a fellow human being I need to know why you don’t see the evil that’s being done in your name?
How can you not see?
As you may already know, I was on the first Freegaza mission in 2008. This means that I not only have the pleasure of knowing personally the fine ladies who founded the FGM (Freegaza Movement). It also means that I had many friends and colleagues on the Flotilla that your military attacked in May.
You know, (again just for a second see me as a mum and not an ‘enemy’) not one of those fine people is a terrorist, wanting to run weapons to ‘extremists’. They are to a man (and to a woman) kind, concerned citizens of the world. People, who simply cannot go about their normal daily lives whilst your state, your army, your settlers torment other human beings. Every minute of every day. Of every month. Of every year. For sixty two years.
I don’t mean to be rude guys. But there comes a time when saying ‘I didn’t know what was going on’ wears a bit thin. You know what I mean? This whole charade about being ‘shocked’ by your soldiers' bad behavior, it makes non Israeli’s...well...it makes us laugh.
Because, this week's looting by your soldiers, it’s not the first of its kind. is it? Come on. Think back. There have been an awful, awful lot of others. Forgotten? Let me help you. Get to a computer and type the words ‘IDF looting’ into google's search engine. You may (or may not be surprised) when this search produces more than 64,000 results. Now before you go off the deep end, crying ‘our enemies are telling lies about us.’ Please, I beg you. Read just some of the results on the first page. It won’t take you long. Okay why not spend the whole morning reading them? After all it’s kind of your duty to know what’s being done in your name isn’t it? I mean, when military crimes are being committed with YOUR tax shekels, you have a right to know.
One of the google results reveals that an Israel Defense Forces soldier confessed to stealing a credit card from a home in northern Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. Remember that? The soldier in the Givati infantry unit's reconnaissance battalion used it to withdraw NIS 1,600 in Israel. A small criminal act.
Part of a much wider crime.
A crime against humanity, that you’ve been either ignoring. Or have been deliberately blinded to by your leaders.
As I have already said though, you have access to the internet, you don’t have to remain in the darkness. Unless of course you’re comfortable there.
The most recent looting by the IDF of civilian goods, made me think of the Al Samouni women, I met them last year, on the rubble of their homes in Al Zaytoun (I’ve attached some photos for you to see). You may, vaguely recognize that name ‘Al Samouni’. Let me jog your memory. On Saturday, 3 January 2009, the Israeli incursion into Al Zaytoun neighbourhood began.
The following day, on 4 January 2009, your forces bombed the same area.
On Monday at 7:00 Am, 5 January 2009, again your forces bombed the very same area of Hay (neighborhood) Al Zaytoun. One of the missiles struck the third floor of Tallal Hilmi Al Samouni’s home. Then came the soldiers shooting to kill.
Overall, 26 members of the Al Samouni family were killed, including 10 children and 7 women. The Red Cross was only allowed entry three days later to evacuate the dead and injured, the majority of whom were so critical that they were taken to Belgium, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia for treatment.
Allow me, if you don’t mind to give you their names as you probably don’t know them. As kind human beings, I’m sure you’ll wish to pay them your respects, and perhaps pray for them.
Names of children killed
• Azza Salah Al Samouni, 3 years of age
• Waleed Rashad Al Samouni, 17 years of age
• Ishaq Ibrahim Al Samouni, 14 years of age
• Ismail Ibrahim Al Samouni, 16 years of age
• Rifka Wael Al Samouni, 8 years of age
• Fares Wael Al Samouni, 12 years of age
• Huda Nael Al Samouni, 17 years of age
• Ahmad Atieh Al Samouni, 14 years of age
• Mu’tassim Mohammed Al Samouni, 6 years of age
• Mohammed Hilmi Al Samouni, 5 years of age
Names of Women Killed
• Rahma Mohammed Al Samouni, 50 years of age
• Safa’ Hilmi Al Samouni, 25 years of age
• Maha Mohammed Al Samouni, 22 years of age
• Rabbab Azzat Al Samouni, 32 years of age
• Laila Nabih Al Samouni, 40 years of age
• Rifqa Mohammed Al Samouni, 50 years of age
• Hannan Khamis Al Samouni, 36 years of age
Names of Men Killed
• Tallal Hilmi Al Samouni, 55 years of age
• Attieh Hilmi Al Samouni, 25 years of age
• Rashad Hilmi Al Samouni, 42 years of age
• Tawfiq Rashad Al Samouni, 23 years of age
• Mohammed Ibrahim, 26 years of age
• Ziyad Izzat Al Samouni, 28 years of age
• Nidal Ahmad Al Samouni, 30 years of age
• Hamdi Maher Al Samouni, 23 years of age
• Hamdi Mahmoud Al Samouni, 70 years of age
Last March I was shown around the rubble of their community by the surviving women and children. I saw the racist grafitti left behind on the walls of the room where a teenage girl still had to sleep. Left for her by your ‘Moral Army’ no less. It said in places in Hebrew, in places English stuff like ‘we’ll be back’ and there was a coarse cartoon of a house exploding with the words ‘you are here’ wittily added. A beautiful young woman, told me of how she was about to get married before the attack. Her family had saved several thousand dollars for her dowry (many people of one family saving for a very, very long time, as you can imagine). It had been hidden under a bed in a suitcase for the happy event. Her mother had a few ancient pieces of jewelery that had been passed down through the generations in gold as well. Well, you see, your soldiers bombed these people, then shot their children, then finally looted everything the survivors owned. I swear to you, look on google, look into your own hearts, you know, this happens.
You know this is how your army deliberately treats Palestinians.
Before you scream ‘lies!’ or ‘anti Semite!’ please, I beg you. Parent to parent. Human to human. in the name of the God of all faiths, take a breathe, suspend your disbelief a while longer, then read on. Because, oh Israel. What if, just suppose, I’m not the anti Semite your wiki trained extremist supporters try to paint me as? And what if, just ten per cent of the 64,000 google entries for “IDF looting’ are utterly true? What then? What does that make you complicit in? What will you do if just for a second the truth that the rest of the world sees about your leaders barbarism fills your mind and your hearts as it one day surely must?
My words, as an outsider will no doubt seem harsh, even naive. This then, is from today's Jerusalem Post:
“According to information analyzed by the human rights organization Yesh Din, between September 2000 and the end of 2009, less than six percent of nearly 2,000 investigations opened against IDF soldiers suspected of crimes against Palestinians ended in indictments.
During the same period, according to various estimates, thousands of Palestinian civilians were killed as a result of IDF activities. How many of these fatalities resulted in convictions? Four. Not four percent – just four.”
It’s becoming increasingly clear that your young men and women are being trained to behave like animals. These events, the looting, the photos posted online by Eden Abergil, they can’t be explained away as ‘one off’’s any longer.
It’s for you to ask yourselves what they mean.
I’m truly sorry if my words have offended you. I just wanted to talk with you directly for once.
By the way there are an estimated 400 laptops, 600 mobile phones plus other personal cash and effects, which your military still has not returned to the passengers of the aid flotilla. You see, when then they set sail. For some reason, those good people, didn’t think the IDF would steal from them.
Yours in Hope Lauren Booth
Friday, August 20, 2010
The Audacity of Hope: U.S. Boat to Gaza: New York City Fundraiser
We are a coalition of organizations and a grassroots campaign of individuals who together are joining to launch a U.S. BOAT TO GAZA. When the U.S. boat, THE AUDACITY OF HOPE, sails it will take its place in the next Freedom Flotilla to participate in the great international effort to break the blockade of Gaza and to end the occupation of Palestine. From the deck of The Audacity of Hope, we will be in a powerful and unique position to challenge U.S. foreign policy and affirm the universal obligation to uphold international law and human rights.
Economic emptiness in Palestine and Israel
By Sam Bahour, business management consultant
Israelis and Palestinians have agreed to enter direct negotiations (yet again) in Washington on September 2. The Obama administration is sure to hail this as a significant breakthrough. Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, and borders will all be on the table. But substantive Palestinian economic growth must also be addressed with guarantees that the Palestinian economy won’t be choked off as is currently the case.
The lead-up to these talks saw both Palestinian and Israeli leaders touting economic growth as a prelude to moving the political process forward. The growth they cite is hard to comprehend.
Palestinians were dispossessed from 78 percent of our homeland, 60 percent of Palestinians are internally displaced or dwell in refugee camps just hours from their homes and properties, 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza survive under siege conditions, hundreds of thousands have been illegally detained by Israel, and the economy is micro-managed by a foreign military. Yet leaders, foreign and domestic, laud the temporary West Bank economic growth that results from a brief respite in a harsh crackdown.
Very few in the U.S. Congress have done their homework to gauge if US policy is helping or actively impeding the prospects for peace. One brave congressman who has gone the extra mile is Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA). Rep. Baird sets a prime example of a legislator willing to challenge the current unhelpful US path. At a recent speaking engagement organized by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Baird advocated that his colleagues visit the West Bank and Gaza and see firsthand the results of the current policy. He noted that “they’re certainly ignorant about what’s happening on the ground in Gaza because they’ve never been” and they’re nearly as “ignorant about what’s happening in the West Bank because they haven’t been to a checkpoint, they’ve never seen Bethlehem as it is now surrounded…” He also expressed frustration with the constant “litmus tests” on the issue, referring to the pro-Israel lobby that uses heavy-handed tactics to push Congress to speak and act as if they were part of Israel’s far right.
I relocated from a comfortable life in Ohio to be part of building a Palestinian state. I advise some of the most strategic investors in Palestine. If my experience as a business consultant is any indication, Palestine’s investment community remains in a wait-and-see mode. More peace talks will not spark the significant investments required to build an economy that can serve an emerging state. Serious state-building economic development requires land, water, access, movement, ports, and spectrum, which Israel remains in full control of today. My clients, and many like them, refuse to be misled, yet again, by another round of empty talk from politicians as settlements go up in East Jerusalem.
Following the last meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House, President Obama declared, “…if we continue to make progress on that [economic] front, then Palestinians can see in very concrete terms what peace can bring that rhetoric and violence cannot bring – and that is people actually having an opportunity to raise their children, and make a living, and buy and sell goods, and build a life for themselves, which is ultimately what people in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories want.”
Fine words, but he ignores entirely the context of occupation and domination. What Palestinians “ultimately” want is their freedom and independence.
Israel, in extolling its virtues, skips the fact that the land and water it has acquired required military aggression in 1948 and 1967, compounded by the further illegal annexation of Jerusalem in 1980. Without the U.S. bankrolling Israel – approximately $3 billion per year – and exonerating Israeli military adventurism, its economy would be as feeble as its politics.
Palestinian banks hold over $8 billion in assets. Private sector credit from the banking sector was $1.56 billion at the end of January 2010. The loan-to-deposit ratio was 36 percent. To compare, the world average loan-to-deposit ratio hovers around 87 percent. Forty companies are listed on the Palestine Securities Exchange with a total market capitalization of approximately $2.4 billion. This is one of the smallest, yet most profitable, exchanges in the world. I estimate that 100 more companies would publicly list if indications on the ground pointed to a real end to occupation. And we have scarcely tapped the potential of Palestine’s diaspora community. What Palestine needs is not more peace process but an end to military occupation, which is delaying real progress.
A report titled, The Untapped Potential, conducted by the Peres Center for Peace and PalTrade (Palestine Trade Center) in December 2006 tried to quantify the missed economic opportunities if occupation persists. It noted, “The value of Palestinian exports could cumulatively rise to some US$11 billion per annum (compared to US$500 million in 2005). The cumulative contribution to the Palestinian GDP (in value added terms) would amount to approximately US$8 billion, thereby tripling the GDP from some US$4 billion in 2005 to approximately US$12 billion.”
But it is not only Palestine that stands to gain by ending the occupation. The Israeli economy would benefit significantly as well. Regarding Israel, the report noted, “The value of Israeli exports could cumulatively rise by over US$17 billion...Israeli employment would potentially benefit from the creation of more than 400,000 new jobs. In value-added terms, the contribution of economic cooperation to the Israeli GDP is estimated at approximately US$12 billion; this is the equivalent to approximately 10% of the current Israeli GDP.”
From the American side, President Obama is not in this peace-making effort alone. Like Rep. Baird, every member of Congress has a responsibility to put aside the tired politics of the Israel lobby in the interest of pursing a more equitable approach to the conflict. Arming and massively funding one side of the conflict will almost certainly result in Israel refusing to negotiate in good faith and further entrenching its military occupation.
Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American business management consultant living in Ramallah. He blogs at www.epalestine.com.
Source:
Israelis and Palestinians have agreed to enter direct negotiations (yet again) in Washington on September 2. The Obama administration is sure to hail this as a significant breakthrough. Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, and borders will all be on the table. But substantive Palestinian economic growth must also be addressed with guarantees that the Palestinian economy won’t be choked off as is currently the case.
The lead-up to these talks saw both Palestinian and Israeli leaders touting economic growth as a prelude to moving the political process forward. The growth they cite is hard to comprehend.
Palestinians were dispossessed from 78 percent of our homeland, 60 percent of Palestinians are internally displaced or dwell in refugee camps just hours from their homes and properties, 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza survive under siege conditions, hundreds of thousands have been illegally detained by Israel, and the economy is micro-managed by a foreign military. Yet leaders, foreign and domestic, laud the temporary West Bank economic growth that results from a brief respite in a harsh crackdown.
Very few in the U.S. Congress have done their homework to gauge if US policy is helping or actively impeding the prospects for peace. One brave congressman who has gone the extra mile is Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA). Rep. Baird sets a prime example of a legislator willing to challenge the current unhelpful US path. At a recent speaking engagement organized by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Baird advocated that his colleagues visit the West Bank and Gaza and see firsthand the results of the current policy. He noted that “they’re certainly ignorant about what’s happening on the ground in Gaza because they’ve never been” and they’re nearly as “ignorant about what’s happening in the West Bank because they haven’t been to a checkpoint, they’ve never seen Bethlehem as it is now surrounded…” He also expressed frustration with the constant “litmus tests” on the issue, referring to the pro-Israel lobby that uses heavy-handed tactics to push Congress to speak and act as if they were part of Israel’s far right.
I relocated from a comfortable life in Ohio to be part of building a Palestinian state. I advise some of the most strategic investors in Palestine. If my experience as a business consultant is any indication, Palestine’s investment community remains in a wait-and-see mode. More peace talks will not spark the significant investments required to build an economy that can serve an emerging state. Serious state-building economic development requires land, water, access, movement, ports, and spectrum, which Israel remains in full control of today. My clients, and many like them, refuse to be misled, yet again, by another round of empty talk from politicians as settlements go up in East Jerusalem.
Following the last meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House, President Obama declared, “…if we continue to make progress on that [economic] front, then Palestinians can see in very concrete terms what peace can bring that rhetoric and violence cannot bring – and that is people actually having an opportunity to raise their children, and make a living, and buy and sell goods, and build a life for themselves, which is ultimately what people in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories want.”
Fine words, but he ignores entirely the context of occupation and domination. What Palestinians “ultimately” want is their freedom and independence.
Israel, in extolling its virtues, skips the fact that the land and water it has acquired required military aggression in 1948 and 1967, compounded by the further illegal annexation of Jerusalem in 1980. Without the U.S. bankrolling Israel – approximately $3 billion per year – and exonerating Israeli military adventurism, its economy would be as feeble as its politics.
Palestinian banks hold over $8 billion in assets. Private sector credit from the banking sector was $1.56 billion at the end of January 2010. The loan-to-deposit ratio was 36 percent. To compare, the world average loan-to-deposit ratio hovers around 87 percent. Forty companies are listed on the Palestine Securities Exchange with a total market capitalization of approximately $2.4 billion. This is one of the smallest, yet most profitable, exchanges in the world. I estimate that 100 more companies would publicly list if indications on the ground pointed to a real end to occupation. And we have scarcely tapped the potential of Palestine’s diaspora community. What Palestine needs is not more peace process but an end to military occupation, which is delaying real progress.
A report titled, The Untapped Potential, conducted by the Peres Center for Peace and PalTrade (Palestine Trade Center) in December 2006 tried to quantify the missed economic opportunities if occupation persists. It noted, “The value of Palestinian exports could cumulatively rise to some US$11 billion per annum (compared to US$500 million in 2005). The cumulative contribution to the Palestinian GDP (in value added terms) would amount to approximately US$8 billion, thereby tripling the GDP from some US$4 billion in 2005 to approximately US$12 billion.”
But it is not only Palestine that stands to gain by ending the occupation. The Israeli economy would benefit significantly as well. Regarding Israel, the report noted, “The value of Israeli exports could cumulatively rise by over US$17 billion...Israeli employment would potentially benefit from the creation of more than 400,000 new jobs. In value-added terms, the contribution of economic cooperation to the Israeli GDP is estimated at approximately US$12 billion; this is the equivalent to approximately 10% of the current Israeli GDP.”
From the American side, President Obama is not in this peace-making effort alone. Like Rep. Baird, every member of Congress has a responsibility to put aside the tired politics of the Israel lobby in the interest of pursing a more equitable approach to the conflict. Arming and massively funding one side of the conflict will almost certainly result in Israel refusing to negotiate in good faith and further entrenching its military occupation.
Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American business management consultant living in Ramallah. He blogs at www.epalestine.com.
Source:
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
U.S. support for Israel is decreasing, new poll shows
Survey conducted by U.S.-Jewish group the Israel Project asked Americans and Europeans about their views on Israel.
By Barak Ravid
American support for Israel is waning, a poll presented to senior Israeli officials in Jerusalem last week revealed.
The survey was carried out by pollster and strategist Stanley Greenberg and sponsored by the American Jewish organization the Israel Project, which organizes and executes pro-Israel public relations campaigns with a focus on North America.
Greenberg, along with Israel Project heads, presented the poll's findings to senior Israeli officials, including President Shimon Peres, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, as well as officials from the Prime Minister's office.
One of the questions that the poll presented was "Does the U.S. need to support Israel?" In August of 2009, 63% of Americans polled said that the U.S. does need to support Israel. In June of this year, 58% of respondents shared the same view; by July only 51% of respondents said the U.S. needed to support Israel.
Another question posed by the pole was "Is the Israeli government committed to peace with the Palestinians?" In December of 2007, 66% of respondents said that the government, then led by Ehud Olmert, was committed to peace with the Palestinians. In June of 2009, a month after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House, only 46% of Americans said they believed the Netanyahu government was committed to peace.
In the months of May and June, there appeared to be a positive change in American public opinion on the matter, with 53% of respondents saying they believe Netanyahu seeks peace. However, in July, only 45% of American said they felt Netanyahu was committed to the peace process. Thirty-nine percent responded that Netanyahu and his administration are not committed to seeking peace with the Palestinians.
Greenberg has analyzed the poll results and says that the section of the American public where Israel is most rapidly losing support is among Liberal Americans who align themselves with the Democratic Party.
Greenberg's data showed similar findings among public opinion in Germany and Sweden.
Only 19% of German respondents said they felt "warm" or "very warm" feelings toward Israel, while 50% responded they experienced "very cold" or unfavorable feelings toward Israel.
The survey also showed Germans favored Palestinians over Israel, with 26% percent saying they felt "warm" or "very warm" feelings toward them and 39% feeling "cold" or "very cold" feelings toward Palestinians.
Greenberg conducted similar surveys in European countries and said the data reflects the worst time for Israel with regard to German public opinion since 2008.
In France, the data were a little better, but Israel did not achieve widespread public support there either: 24% said they felt "warm" or "very warm" feelings toward Israel, while 31% felt "cold" or "very cold" feelings toward it.
Greenberg noted, however, that these findings have remained stable over the last three years.
Meanwhile, in Sweden, the situation was similar to that in Germany, with 49% percent saying their feelings toward Israel were "cold" or "very cold."
Source:
By Barak Ravid
American support for Israel is waning, a poll presented to senior Israeli officials in Jerusalem last week revealed.
The survey was carried out by pollster and strategist Stanley Greenberg and sponsored by the American Jewish organization the Israel Project, which organizes and executes pro-Israel public relations campaigns with a focus on North America.
Greenberg, along with Israel Project heads, presented the poll's findings to senior Israeli officials, including President Shimon Peres, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, as well as officials from the Prime Minister's office.
One of the questions that the poll presented was "Does the U.S. need to support Israel?" In August of 2009, 63% of Americans polled said that the U.S. does need to support Israel. In June of this year, 58% of respondents shared the same view; by July only 51% of respondents said the U.S. needed to support Israel.
Another question posed by the pole was "Is the Israeli government committed to peace with the Palestinians?" In December of 2007, 66% of respondents said that the government, then led by Ehud Olmert, was committed to peace with the Palestinians. In June of 2009, a month after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House, only 46% of Americans said they believed the Netanyahu government was committed to peace.
In the months of May and June, there appeared to be a positive change in American public opinion on the matter, with 53% of respondents saying they believe Netanyahu seeks peace. However, in July, only 45% of American said they felt Netanyahu was committed to the peace process. Thirty-nine percent responded that Netanyahu and his administration are not committed to seeking peace with the Palestinians.
Greenberg has analyzed the poll results and says that the section of the American public where Israel is most rapidly losing support is among Liberal Americans who align themselves with the Democratic Party.
Greenberg's data showed similar findings among public opinion in Germany and Sweden.
Only 19% of German respondents said they felt "warm" or "very warm" feelings toward Israel, while 50% responded they experienced "very cold" or unfavorable feelings toward Israel.
The survey also showed Germans favored Palestinians over Israel, with 26% percent saying they felt "warm" or "very warm" feelings toward them and 39% feeling "cold" or "very cold" feelings toward Palestinians.
Greenberg conducted similar surveys in European countries and said the data reflects the worst time for Israel with regard to German public opinion since 2008.
In France, the data were a little better, but Israel did not achieve widespread public support there either: 24% said they felt "warm" or "very warm" feelings toward Israel, while 31% felt "cold" or "very cold" feelings toward it.
Greenberg noted, however, that these findings have remained stable over the last three years.
Meanwhile, in Sweden, the situation was similar to that in Germany, with 49% percent saying their feelings toward Israel were "cold" or "very cold."
Source:
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Top ministers: Israel will reject any Quartet preconditions for direct talks
Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators expected to announce resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, call for Palestinian state within two years.
By Barak Ravid
Israel will reject any preconditions set forth by the Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators in regard to scheduled resumption of direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians, a forum of seven senior cabinet ministers, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, decided Sunday evening.
The Quartet - the U.S., the United Nations, the European Union and Russia – was expected to make an announcement regarding the resumption of direct talks on Monday.
U.S. sources said Sunday that the Quartet would call for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders within a year or two.
A senior government source said Sunday that "the Quartet announcement could serve as camouflage for Palestinian preconditions, and that is unacceptable."
He added that the U.S. administration will issue another announcement later in the week, defining the terms of the negotiations and serving as a compromise between the Israeli and the Palestinian viewpoints.
Meanwhile Sunday, a senior official in the Obama administration told Haaretz that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would announce the start of direct peace talks in only "a matter of days."
A number of minor details still need to be clarified with Abbas and Netanyahu that will open the way for direct talks, the official added.
Source:
By Barak Ravid
Israel will reject any preconditions set forth by the Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators in regard to scheduled resumption of direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians, a forum of seven senior cabinet ministers, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, decided Sunday evening.
The Quartet - the U.S., the United Nations, the European Union and Russia – was expected to make an announcement regarding the resumption of direct talks on Monday.
U.S. sources said Sunday that the Quartet would call for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders within a year or two.
A senior government source said Sunday that "the Quartet announcement could serve as camouflage for Palestinian preconditions, and that is unacceptable."
He added that the U.S. administration will issue another announcement later in the week, defining the terms of the negotiations and serving as a compromise between the Israeli and the Palestinian viewpoints.
Meanwhile Sunday, a senior official in the Obama administration told Haaretz that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would announce the start of direct peace talks in only "a matter of days."
A number of minor details still need to be clarified with Abbas and Netanyahu that will open the way for direct talks, the official added.
Source:
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Will Israel really attack Iran within a year?
After interviewing dozens of Israeli, American and Arab officials, Atlantic Magazine correspondent concludes Israel may not even ask for American 'green light' to attack Iran nuclear sites.
By Natasha Mozgovaya
Israel might attack Iranian nuclear sites within a year, if Iran stays the current course and the U.S. administration doesn't succeed in persuading Israel's leadership that U.S. President Barack Obama is ready to stop Iran by force if necessary, so argues Jeffrey Goldberg in Atlantic magazine's September cover story, obtained by Haaretz ahead of publication.
Based on dozens of interviews the Atlantic correspondent conducted in recent months with Israeli, American and Arab officials, Goldberg came to the conclusion that the likelihood of an Israeli strike has crossed the 50 percent mark. And Israel might not even ask for the famous "green light" from the U.S. - or even give couple of false pre-attack alerts, so that Washington won't try to stop the unilateral operation.
"…one day next spring, the Israeli national-security adviser, Uzi Arad, and the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, will simultaneously telephone their counterparts at the White House and the Pentagon, to inform them that their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has just ordered roughly one hundred F-15Es, F-16Is, F-16Cs, and other aircraft of the Israeli air force to fly east toward Iran - possibly by crossing Saudi Arabia, possibly by threading the border between Syria and Turkey, and possibly by traveling directly through Iraq's airspace, though it is crowded with American aircraft…," Goldberg paints a possible scenario.
The repercussions of such a strike, which could include the bombing of the Iranian facilities in Natanz, Qom, Esfahan, and maybe even the Russian-built reactor in Bushehr, are less than clear, despite the endless discussions and several simulations. American experts speculate that attacking Iran's nuclear facilities will only slightly delay the nuclear program, whereas some Israelis, according to Goldberg, are a bit more optimistic, in light of the successful Israeli operations against Iraqi and Syrian reactors in the past.
The results might be dire: It's likely that the Israeli air force won't have much time to waste in Iran, as Hezbollah will probably retaliate against Israel in the North and the fighter jets will be needed there. The unilateral operation might throw relations between Jerusalem and Washington into an unprecedented crisis, and might even unleash full-scale regional war with possible economic repercussions for the whole world, not to mention the cost of human lives.
The timetable in this issue is an evasive one - the red lines were pushed back again and again, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told New York Times reporters this week: "Based on my conversations with allies, it's not so much the timing of when or how the Iranians might pursue the nuclear weapons, it's whether they do so. And so whether it would take six months, a year, or five years, it's that deep concern about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons that is the preoccupation of our friends and partners. And we would be pursuing the path we're pursuing regardless of any issue of timing because we think it's got the best potential for changing Iranian behavior."
According to Goldberg, for Israel the red lines are clear. The end of December is Netanyahu's deadline to estimate the success of "non-military methods to stop Iran."
And while Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, reminded Goldberg that "the expression 'All options are on the table' means that all options are on the table," - the Israeli interviewees repeatedly questioned Obama's resolve to actually do it. Some even asked Goldberg if he thought the American president was actually an anti-Semite, forcing the reporter to explain that Obama is probably "the first Jewish President" – but not necessarily Likud's idea of a Jew.
But the reply he got from one official was: "This is the problem. If he is a J Street Jew, we are in trouble."
Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, stressed that "This president has shown again and again that when he believes it is necessary to use force to protect American national security interests, he has done so" - but the Israeli government might need stronger assurances.
Israel is trying to convey the message not only through the official channels - Israeli military intelligence chief Major General Amos Yadlin visited Chicago recently to meet with the billionaire Lester Crown, one of Obama’s supporters, and asked to him to convey Israel's concerns to the American President, Goldberg reports.
"If the choice is between allowing Iran to go nuclear, or trying for ourselves what Obama won't try, then we probably have to try,” one senior Israeli official told Goldberg. Basically, the Israeli military officials agreed that it would be tough for Israel to do it alone – but on the other hand, the conclusion is Netanyahu might well risk this operation and alienation of his closest ally if he becomes convinced Iran's nuclear bomb "represents a threat like a Shoah."
Goldberg delves into Netanyahu’s relations with his father – the historical lessons he learned from Ben-Zion Netanyahu – and his eagerness not to disappoint him. He also offers a long list of Iran's verbal hostilities toward Israel to remind his readers that Israel is not personally obsessed with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"I once asked Ali Asghar Soltanieh, a leading Iranian diplomat who is now Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, why the leadership of Iran persistently described Israel not as a mere regional malefactor but as a kind of infectious disease. 'Do you disagree?' he asked. 'Do you not see that this is true?'" Goldberg writes.
A recent poll conducted in six Arab countries showed a shift of opinion in favor of the Iranian nuclear weapon – views that the Arab leadership clearly doesn’t share with the street.
For Netanyahu, it's clear the bomb will not only strengthen Iran's proxies, but will undermine Israel’s status as a safe haven for Jews, embolden terrorists all over the word, and make the Arab countries more reluctant to make peace with Israel.
According to Goldberg, all the Arab officials he spoke to didn’t think that the U.S. administration truly understood Iran's ambitions. “The best way to avoid striking Iran is to make Iran think that the U.S. is about to strike Iran. We have to know the president’s intentions on this matter. We are his allies," one Arab minister told Goldberg.
Dennis Ross, special adviser to the U.S. president, told the Atlantic that imposing sanctions on Iran could work, despite Israeli doubts, because the Iranian government already faces public alienation. "They are looking at the costs of trying to maintain control over a disaffected public. They wanted to head off sanctions because they knew that sanctions would be a problem. There is real potential here to affect their calculus. We’re pursuing a path right now that has some potential."
Last week, Obama unexpectedly joined a White House briefing for a small group of senior reporters in Washington, raising questions whether he intended to convey some new message to Iran or hint at some new initiative. The accounts of the meetings were somewhat different, and the final impression was that there still is no answer for the question, what President Obama is ready to do if sanctions fail.
David Sanger, the New York Times reporter, heard from the White House sources that during his latest visit to Washington Netanyahu didn't list Iran as one of his top agenda items "whereas at the previous meetings when he has come here, [Iran] was the number one, two, and three issue," on the agenda, which might indicate that Netanyahu got some clear reassurances from the U.S. administration.
Source:
By Natasha Mozgovaya
Israel might attack Iranian nuclear sites within a year, if Iran stays the current course and the U.S. administration doesn't succeed in persuading Israel's leadership that U.S. President Barack Obama is ready to stop Iran by force if necessary, so argues Jeffrey Goldberg in Atlantic magazine's September cover story, obtained by Haaretz ahead of publication.
Based on dozens of interviews the Atlantic correspondent conducted in recent months with Israeli, American and Arab officials, Goldberg came to the conclusion that the likelihood of an Israeli strike has crossed the 50 percent mark. And Israel might not even ask for the famous "green light" from the U.S. - or even give couple of false pre-attack alerts, so that Washington won't try to stop the unilateral operation.
"…one day next spring, the Israeli national-security adviser, Uzi Arad, and the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, will simultaneously telephone their counterparts at the White House and the Pentagon, to inform them that their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has just ordered roughly one hundred F-15Es, F-16Is, F-16Cs, and other aircraft of the Israeli air force to fly east toward Iran - possibly by crossing Saudi Arabia, possibly by threading the border between Syria and Turkey, and possibly by traveling directly through Iraq's airspace, though it is crowded with American aircraft…," Goldberg paints a possible scenario.
The repercussions of such a strike, which could include the bombing of the Iranian facilities in Natanz, Qom, Esfahan, and maybe even the Russian-built reactor in Bushehr, are less than clear, despite the endless discussions and several simulations. American experts speculate that attacking Iran's nuclear facilities will only slightly delay the nuclear program, whereas some Israelis, according to Goldberg, are a bit more optimistic, in light of the successful Israeli operations against Iraqi and Syrian reactors in the past.
The results might be dire: It's likely that the Israeli air force won't have much time to waste in Iran, as Hezbollah will probably retaliate against Israel in the North and the fighter jets will be needed there. The unilateral operation might throw relations between Jerusalem and Washington into an unprecedented crisis, and might even unleash full-scale regional war with possible economic repercussions for the whole world, not to mention the cost of human lives.
The timetable in this issue is an evasive one - the red lines were pushed back again and again, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told New York Times reporters this week: "Based on my conversations with allies, it's not so much the timing of when or how the Iranians might pursue the nuclear weapons, it's whether they do so. And so whether it would take six months, a year, or five years, it's that deep concern about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons that is the preoccupation of our friends and partners. And we would be pursuing the path we're pursuing regardless of any issue of timing because we think it's got the best potential for changing Iranian behavior."
According to Goldberg, for Israel the red lines are clear. The end of December is Netanyahu's deadline to estimate the success of "non-military methods to stop Iran."
And while Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, reminded Goldberg that "the expression 'All options are on the table' means that all options are on the table," - the Israeli interviewees repeatedly questioned Obama's resolve to actually do it. Some even asked Goldberg if he thought the American president was actually an anti-Semite, forcing the reporter to explain that Obama is probably "the first Jewish President" – but not necessarily Likud's idea of a Jew.
But the reply he got from one official was: "This is the problem. If he is a J Street Jew, we are in trouble."
Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, stressed that "This president has shown again and again that when he believes it is necessary to use force to protect American national security interests, he has done so" - but the Israeli government might need stronger assurances.
Israel is trying to convey the message not only through the official channels - Israeli military intelligence chief Major General Amos Yadlin visited Chicago recently to meet with the billionaire Lester Crown, one of Obama’s supporters, and asked to him to convey Israel's concerns to the American President, Goldberg reports.
"If the choice is between allowing Iran to go nuclear, or trying for ourselves what Obama won't try, then we probably have to try,” one senior Israeli official told Goldberg. Basically, the Israeli military officials agreed that it would be tough for Israel to do it alone – but on the other hand, the conclusion is Netanyahu might well risk this operation and alienation of his closest ally if he becomes convinced Iran's nuclear bomb "represents a threat like a Shoah."
Goldberg delves into Netanyahu’s relations with his father – the historical lessons he learned from Ben-Zion Netanyahu – and his eagerness not to disappoint him. He also offers a long list of Iran's verbal hostilities toward Israel to remind his readers that Israel is not personally obsessed with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"I once asked Ali Asghar Soltanieh, a leading Iranian diplomat who is now Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, why the leadership of Iran persistently described Israel not as a mere regional malefactor but as a kind of infectious disease. 'Do you disagree?' he asked. 'Do you not see that this is true?'" Goldberg writes.
A recent poll conducted in six Arab countries showed a shift of opinion in favor of the Iranian nuclear weapon – views that the Arab leadership clearly doesn’t share with the street.
For Netanyahu, it's clear the bomb will not only strengthen Iran's proxies, but will undermine Israel’s status as a safe haven for Jews, embolden terrorists all over the word, and make the Arab countries more reluctant to make peace with Israel.
According to Goldberg, all the Arab officials he spoke to didn’t think that the U.S. administration truly understood Iran's ambitions. “The best way to avoid striking Iran is to make Iran think that the U.S. is about to strike Iran. We have to know the president’s intentions on this matter. We are his allies," one Arab minister told Goldberg.
Dennis Ross, special adviser to the U.S. president, told the Atlantic that imposing sanctions on Iran could work, despite Israeli doubts, because the Iranian government already faces public alienation. "They are looking at the costs of trying to maintain control over a disaffected public. They wanted to head off sanctions because they knew that sanctions would be a problem. There is real potential here to affect their calculus. We’re pursuing a path right now that has some potential."
Last week, Obama unexpectedly joined a White House briefing for a small group of senior reporters in Washington, raising questions whether he intended to convey some new message to Iran or hint at some new initiative. The accounts of the meetings were somewhat different, and the final impression was that there still is no answer for the question, what President Obama is ready to do if sanctions fail.
David Sanger, the New York Times reporter, heard from the White House sources that during his latest visit to Washington Netanyahu didn't list Iran as one of his top agenda items "whereas at the previous meetings when he has come here, [Iran] was the number one, two, and three issue," on the agenda, which might indicate that Netanyahu got some clear reassurances from the U.S. administration.
Source:
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
The Bad Old Days
Wednesday 11 August 2010
by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
Someone once told me that I'm the kind of guy who runs toward a fight. He said it like it was a bad thing - pretty much because I was fighting with him at the time - but I never forgot it, and have since taken it as a badge of honor. There's nothing wrong with running to the sound of the guns if the struggle is brutal, vital, and in need of another body, especially if one more person can make a difference.
It is high summer, the slow time in this business, so I've been thinking quite a bit about running toward fights, about how many fights I've charged into, and especially about how many others charged in with me. You were there, and if you weren't, you know someone who was. There were millions of us, and every time I ran to the sound of those guns, I rubbed shoulders with the best people this country has to offer.
You remember how bad a time it was, right? It started with Bush v. Gore, and went from there into a bunch of faith-based baloney, a huge tax cut for rich people who didn't need it then and need it less now, a ban on stem cell research because sick people can screw themselves...and that was only nine months and ten days into the beginning of the last decade.
It got so much worse on the eleventh day.
After the Towers came down, everyone looked at the blue sky above as if it was the enemy itself while retrieving their mail with oven mitts because someone put anthrax into the system and totally got away with it.
The American Taliban got on their horse - represented chiefly by an attorney general who couldn't stomach bare breasts on a statue - and passed the PATRIOT Act, the Homeland Security Act, withdrew from the ABM treaty, all the while smiling a "What, me worry?" smile through the Enron collapse (which was, by the by, a fairly accurate road sign for what we're dealing with today).
Yeah, the fear. Remember? Back when having a flag on your car or house or lapel was required, and anyone who asked questions or cautioned restraint was part of the "other" and maybe on a list? Remember plastic sheeting and duct tape? I do. I specifically remember talking to a hotel manager in upstate New York in her office about an event, and piled in the corner were several bales of sheeting surrounded by three full bricks of gray tape, and I was aghast, and she didn't understand why, because, well, the president said she needed it to protect herself, and that was that.
It was the fear that put us in Afghanistan, and never mind the Turkmenistan pipeline. It was the fear that put us in Iraq, the vacant threat of weapons of mass destruction that some of us called "Bullshit!" on to little or no avail. Paul Wellstone maybe could have done something to stop it, but he died on the doorstep of the war. I was passing through a tollbooth on the way to a pre-war anti-war protest when I got the word that he was gone; I can close my eyes and see that shattering moment as if it happened yesterday.
After that? Daniel Pearl. The Chavez coup attempt. The DC snipers. Sharks. Colin Powell lying to the UN and the world. The invasion, again, and Mission Accomplished. Mad cow. Madrid. Abu Ghraib. Nick Berg's head. Jeddah. The 9/11 Commission and whitewash for all, because "No one could have anticipated." Bush wins again. Giuliana Sgrena is assassinated. London is bombed. The Danes deal with Mohammed riots. Bali. The Kashmir earthquake. Bird flu. Mumbai. Lebanon. Oil hits $100 a barrel. The US economy collapses. Thousands, millions, die with no justice, dozens a day at minimum, every day, over all these years.
You get the idea. You were there. Like as not, you charged in against these things, some or all, like I did.
In these hot, quiet summer moments, I've been remembering all those damnable awful things. I wrote about every single one of them, every day, and survived the madness by being here at Truthout. I read everything, just like you, tried to figure it all out, and was better for the effort.
A guy once said I run toward fights. Damn straight I do. Always have, always will.
What’s the alternative?
Source:
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
Someone once told me that I'm the kind of guy who runs toward a fight. He said it like it was a bad thing - pretty much because I was fighting with him at the time - but I never forgot it, and have since taken it as a badge of honor. There's nothing wrong with running to the sound of the guns if the struggle is brutal, vital, and in need of another body, especially if one more person can make a difference.
It is high summer, the slow time in this business, so I've been thinking quite a bit about running toward fights, about how many fights I've charged into, and especially about how many others charged in with me. You were there, and if you weren't, you know someone who was. There were millions of us, and every time I ran to the sound of those guns, I rubbed shoulders with the best people this country has to offer.
You remember how bad a time it was, right? It started with Bush v. Gore, and went from there into a bunch of faith-based baloney, a huge tax cut for rich people who didn't need it then and need it less now, a ban on stem cell research because sick people can screw themselves...and that was only nine months and ten days into the beginning of the last decade.
It got so much worse on the eleventh day.
After the Towers came down, everyone looked at the blue sky above as if it was the enemy itself while retrieving their mail with oven mitts because someone put anthrax into the system and totally got away with it.
The American Taliban got on their horse - represented chiefly by an attorney general who couldn't stomach bare breasts on a statue - and passed the PATRIOT Act, the Homeland Security Act, withdrew from the ABM treaty, all the while smiling a "What, me worry?" smile through the Enron collapse (which was, by the by, a fairly accurate road sign for what we're dealing with today).
Yeah, the fear. Remember? Back when having a flag on your car or house or lapel was required, and anyone who asked questions or cautioned restraint was part of the "other" and maybe on a list? Remember plastic sheeting and duct tape? I do. I specifically remember talking to a hotel manager in upstate New York in her office about an event, and piled in the corner were several bales of sheeting surrounded by three full bricks of gray tape, and I was aghast, and she didn't understand why, because, well, the president said she needed it to protect herself, and that was that.
It was the fear that put us in Afghanistan, and never mind the Turkmenistan pipeline. It was the fear that put us in Iraq, the vacant threat of weapons of mass destruction that some of us called "Bullshit!" on to little or no avail. Paul Wellstone maybe could have done something to stop it, but he died on the doorstep of the war. I was passing through a tollbooth on the way to a pre-war anti-war protest when I got the word that he was gone; I can close my eyes and see that shattering moment as if it happened yesterday.
After that? Daniel Pearl. The Chavez coup attempt. The DC snipers. Sharks. Colin Powell lying to the UN and the world. The invasion, again, and Mission Accomplished. Mad cow. Madrid. Abu Ghraib. Nick Berg's head. Jeddah. The 9/11 Commission and whitewash for all, because "No one could have anticipated." Bush wins again. Giuliana Sgrena is assassinated. London is bombed. The Danes deal with Mohammed riots. Bali. The Kashmir earthquake. Bird flu. Mumbai. Lebanon. Oil hits $100 a barrel. The US economy collapses. Thousands, millions, die with no justice, dozens a day at minimum, every day, over all these years.
You get the idea. You were there. Like as not, you charged in against these things, some or all, like I did.
In these hot, quiet summer moments, I've been remembering all those damnable awful things. I wrote about every single one of them, every day, and survived the madness by being here at Truthout. I read everything, just like you, tried to figure it all out, and was better for the effort.
A guy once said I run toward fights. Damn straight I do. Always have, always will.
What’s the alternative?
Source:
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Palestinian women smuggled into Tel Aviv for day of fun
Israeli women bring 12 Palestinian women, 4 children out to eat in Jaffa restaurant, swimming in the Mediterranean, and home via Jerusalem.
By Jonathan Lis
A group of Israeli women smuggled 12 Palestinian woman and four children, among them a year-old baby, into Tel Aviv for a day of fun about two weeks ago. The women, among them writers Ilana Hammerman and Klil Zisapel, picked up the women from their villages, following two earlier meetings with them.
Avoiding the security forces at West Bank checkpoints, they took the women out to eat in a restaurant in Jaffa, swimming in the Mediterranean, and took them home via Jerusalem where they could see the Old City walls from afar.
Hammerman undertook a similar trip in which she brought three teenage Palestinian girls to Tel Aviv for the day, which she described in an article in Haaretz Magazine in May. Following publication of the article, the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel demanded that the attorney general investigate Hammerman for smuggling illegal residents into Israel.
After the complaint was filed, peace activists with whom Hammerman is acquainted approached her with the idea of doing another trip, but more extensive this time.
Hammerman and her friends then began to seek women in West Bank villages who would be willing to take a chance on getting caught to take part in such a trip, Hammerman said yesterday and eventually, the 28 Israeli and Palestinian women and children made their way into Israel.
"We all came, we met the women, we took them in our own cars. We pulled a fast one on the army," Hammerman said.
Most of the Palestinians had never seen the sea or visited certain holy places. None of them had permits to enter Israel.
"We passed the checkpoints in our cars, knowingly breaking the laws of entry into Israel," the Israeli women wrote in an ad published in the Hebrew weekend edition of Haaretz.
"We don't recognize the legality of the entry law into Israel, which allows every Israeli and every Jew to move freely throughout most of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, and denies this right to the Palestinians, to whom this land also belongs."
The ad also said the Israeli women had been greatly privileged "to experience in our country that lives by its sword one of the most beautiful and exciting days in our lives; to get to know brave Palestinian women who love life and the joy of life, and to spend time with them and to be free with them if only for one day."
Hammerman said the Israeli women wanted to spark debate in Israeli society. "None of us are anarchists, yet we broke the law. That is a symbolic act," she said.
Hammerman said the possible two-year prison term for smuggling people into Israel did not deter her.
Zisapel said yesterday that the women had wanted to "show the absurdity of this situation, of this law and what it does. The wall and the checkpoints do not keep illegal aliens, and certainly not terrorists, out of Israel."
Zisapel said some of the women wanted to see the sea, some the shops or the high-rises. One said she just wanted to breath.
Source:
By Jonathan Lis
A group of Israeli women smuggled 12 Palestinian woman and four children, among them a year-old baby, into Tel Aviv for a day of fun about two weeks ago. The women, among them writers Ilana Hammerman and Klil Zisapel, picked up the women from their villages, following two earlier meetings with them.
Avoiding the security forces at West Bank checkpoints, they took the women out to eat in a restaurant in Jaffa, swimming in the Mediterranean, and took them home via Jerusalem where they could see the Old City walls from afar.
Hammerman undertook a similar trip in which she brought three teenage Palestinian girls to Tel Aviv for the day, which she described in an article in Haaretz Magazine in May. Following publication of the article, the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel demanded that the attorney general investigate Hammerman for smuggling illegal residents into Israel.
After the complaint was filed, peace activists with whom Hammerman is acquainted approached her with the idea of doing another trip, but more extensive this time.
Hammerman and her friends then began to seek women in West Bank villages who would be willing to take a chance on getting caught to take part in such a trip, Hammerman said yesterday and eventually, the 28 Israeli and Palestinian women and children made their way into Israel.
"We all came, we met the women, we took them in our own cars. We pulled a fast one on the army," Hammerman said.
Most of the Palestinians had never seen the sea or visited certain holy places. None of them had permits to enter Israel.
"We passed the checkpoints in our cars, knowingly breaking the laws of entry into Israel," the Israeli women wrote in an ad published in the Hebrew weekend edition of Haaretz.
"We don't recognize the legality of the entry law into Israel, which allows every Israeli and every Jew to move freely throughout most of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, and denies this right to the Palestinians, to whom this land also belongs."
The ad also said the Israeli women had been greatly privileged "to experience in our country that lives by its sword one of the most beautiful and exciting days in our lives; to get to know brave Palestinian women who love life and the joy of life, and to spend time with them and to be free with them if only for one day."
Hammerman said the Israeli women wanted to spark debate in Israeli society. "None of us are anarchists, yet we broke the law. That is a symbolic act," she said.
Hammerman said the possible two-year prison term for smuggling people into Israel did not deter her.
Zisapel said yesterday that the women had wanted to "show the absurdity of this situation, of this law and what it does. The wall and the checkpoints do not keep illegal aliens, and certainly not terrorists, out of Israel."
Zisapel said some of the women wanted to see the sea, some the shops or the high-rises. One said she just wanted to breath.
Source:
Sunday, August 8, 2010
IDF confirms firing at a Lebanon fishing boat
Statement comes less than a week after an IDF officer was killed in the most serious cross border incident since Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah.
By Haaretz Service
An Israel Navy vassal opened fire at a Lebanese fishing boat over the weekend, Army Radio reported on Sunday, adding that none of the crew had been hurt.
Full Story:
By Haaretz Service
An Israel Navy vassal opened fire at a Lebanese fishing boat over the weekend, Army Radio reported on Sunday, adding that none of the crew had been hurt.
Full Story:
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Clinton Refuses to Answer My Questions About Gaza Flotilla
Friday 06 August 2010
by: Ann Wright, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
Dear Secretary of State Clinton,
I am a retired US Army reserve colonel with 29 years in the US Army and Army Reserves, and a former US diplomat who resigned after 16 years in the US State Department in opposition to the war on Iraq.
I was one of fourteen American citizens on the Gaza flotilla.
On June 14, 2010, I delivered to the Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of American Citizen Services a letter to you requesting investigation of the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla in which one unarmed American citizen was killed by Israeli commandos and fourteen other American citizens were kidnapped from international waters and taken to Israel against their will, imprisoned, and their personal possessions stolen by Israeli commandos.
Despite numerous inquiries to the State Department about the status of the response to my letter, after seven weeks I have not received a response to the letter, nor to the 80 questions that I requested that the United States government pose to the Israeli government concerning their attack on the Gaza flotilla.
As an American citizen, I am distressed that no one in the State Department government will respond to this request for assistance.
As a former US diplomat who worked for 16 years in the State Department and served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan (I helped reopen the US Embassy in December, 2001) and Mongolia, and who received an award for heroism from the State Department for actions during the evacuation of the US Embassy and the international community during the Sierra Leone civil war, I am deeply saddened by the lack of professionalism in my former organization in responding to such a request.
Now that your daughter Chelsea's wedding is over, could you please ask the State Department's inspector general to determine why after seven weeks there has been no response to my June 14, 2010 letter?
Could you also determine if the State Department has made a demarche to the Israeli government concerning the circumstances surrounding the commandos deadly shooting of unarmed 19-year-old American citizen Furkan Dogan, who was shot 5 times, several times to the head?
Of much less importance, but still of concern because of evidence contained, I want to know if a demarch was made for the return of our personal possessions, including cameras, cellphones and computers taken when the Israeli commandos forcefully boarded all six of the ships in the flotilla.
We returned to the United States with the clothes on our backs and our passports. Despite lists of our possessions being given to US consular officers during a June 2 visit to us while we were in prison in Israel, and to US consular officers in Istanbul, Turkey, during our brief stay after being deported from Israel and to American Citizen Services officials at the State Department in Washington, DC, virtually nothing has been returned to us (I did receive a diary sent from the US Consulate in Istanbul, but nothing else - no computer, camera, cellphone, clothing, handbag, address book, $800 in cash, backpack, suitcase, etc.). Phone calls in Israel have been made on cellphones in the possession of the Israeli government.
In case the State Department bureaucracy did not make you aware of my June 14, 2010, letter to you, I am copying it for you below.
Signed,
Ann Wright, former US diplomat and retired US Army Reserve Colonel
-----
June 14, 2010
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Department of State
Washington, DC 20001
Dear Secretary Clinton,
I am a retired US Army reserve colonel and a former US diplomat (deputy chief of mission at U.S. Embassies in Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia) who resigned in March 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq.
I was one of twelve US citizens that were on the Gaza Flotilla. I have just returned to the United States from having been kidnapped and imprisoned by the Israeli government.
I appeal to you to institute a US investigation into the murder by Israeli military forces of American citizen Furkan Dogan, a 19-year-old high school student on the Mavi Marmara ship.
I also ask that the United States demand the return of one US-flagged vessels that were seized in international waters in an act of international piracy by the Israeli military.
I ask that the State Department assist in the location of the personal possessions that were stolen from American citizens in international waters by the Israeli military including computers, cameras, cell phones, identification, credit cards (one credit card has been used in Israel for over $20,000 in purchases), clothing, miscellaneous items such as notebooks, diaries and other personal papers.
I also ask that the United States demand that the Israeli government cooperate with the offer of the European Union to inspect ships and cargo destined for Gaza, which would allow the siege to end and commerce to begin.
I ask that an investigation into whether US made military equipment or equipment purchased with/through US funding was used in the attacks on the six civilian, unarmed vessels, and if so, that sanctions against Israel available through the U.S. Arms and Export Control Act be implemented.
I am attaching a list of 80 questions that an inquiry should answer. The list of questions comes from Uri Averny, who heads the Israeli human rights organization Gush Shalom.
I also ask that US funding for the reconstruction of Gaza be disbursed immediately. There are many non-governmental organizations in Gaza that can assist in the reconstruction activities if they have funding.
Sincerely,
Ann Wright
Honolulu, Hawaii 96826
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Source:
by: Ann Wright, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
Dear Secretary of State Clinton,
I am a retired US Army reserve colonel with 29 years in the US Army and Army Reserves, and a former US diplomat who resigned after 16 years in the US State Department in opposition to the war on Iraq.
I was one of fourteen American citizens on the Gaza flotilla.
On June 14, 2010, I delivered to the Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of American Citizen Services a letter to you requesting investigation of the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla in which one unarmed American citizen was killed by Israeli commandos and fourteen other American citizens were kidnapped from international waters and taken to Israel against their will, imprisoned, and their personal possessions stolen by Israeli commandos.
Despite numerous inquiries to the State Department about the status of the response to my letter, after seven weeks I have not received a response to the letter, nor to the 80 questions that I requested that the United States government pose to the Israeli government concerning their attack on the Gaza flotilla.
As an American citizen, I am distressed that no one in the State Department government will respond to this request for assistance.
As a former US diplomat who worked for 16 years in the State Department and served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan (I helped reopen the US Embassy in December, 2001) and Mongolia, and who received an award for heroism from the State Department for actions during the evacuation of the US Embassy and the international community during the Sierra Leone civil war, I am deeply saddened by the lack of professionalism in my former organization in responding to such a request.
Now that your daughter Chelsea's wedding is over, could you please ask the State Department's inspector general to determine why after seven weeks there has been no response to my June 14, 2010 letter?
Could you also determine if the State Department has made a demarche to the Israeli government concerning the circumstances surrounding the commandos deadly shooting of unarmed 19-year-old American citizen Furkan Dogan, who was shot 5 times, several times to the head?
Of much less importance, but still of concern because of evidence contained, I want to know if a demarch was made for the return of our personal possessions, including cameras, cellphones and computers taken when the Israeli commandos forcefully boarded all six of the ships in the flotilla.
We returned to the United States with the clothes on our backs and our passports. Despite lists of our possessions being given to US consular officers during a June 2 visit to us while we were in prison in Israel, and to US consular officers in Istanbul, Turkey, during our brief stay after being deported from Israel and to American Citizen Services officials at the State Department in Washington, DC, virtually nothing has been returned to us (I did receive a diary sent from the US Consulate in Istanbul, but nothing else - no computer, camera, cellphone, clothing, handbag, address book, $800 in cash, backpack, suitcase, etc.). Phone calls in Israel have been made on cellphones in the possession of the Israeli government.
In case the State Department bureaucracy did not make you aware of my June 14, 2010, letter to you, I am copying it for you below.
Signed,
Ann Wright, former US diplomat and retired US Army Reserve Colonel
-----
June 14, 2010
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Department of State
Washington, DC 20001
Dear Secretary Clinton,
I am a retired US Army reserve colonel and a former US diplomat (deputy chief of mission at U.S. Embassies in Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia) who resigned in March 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq.
I was one of twelve US citizens that were on the Gaza Flotilla. I have just returned to the United States from having been kidnapped and imprisoned by the Israeli government.
I appeal to you to institute a US investigation into the murder by Israeli military forces of American citizen Furkan Dogan, a 19-year-old high school student on the Mavi Marmara ship.
I also ask that the United States demand the return of one US-flagged vessels that were seized in international waters in an act of international piracy by the Israeli military.
I ask that the State Department assist in the location of the personal possessions that were stolen from American citizens in international waters by the Israeli military including computers, cameras, cell phones, identification, credit cards (one credit card has been used in Israel for over $20,000 in purchases), clothing, miscellaneous items such as notebooks, diaries and other personal papers.
I also ask that the United States demand that the Israeli government cooperate with the offer of the European Union to inspect ships and cargo destined for Gaza, which would allow the siege to end and commerce to begin.
I ask that an investigation into whether US made military equipment or equipment purchased with/through US funding was used in the attacks on the six civilian, unarmed vessels, and if so, that sanctions against Israel available through the U.S. Arms and Export Control Act be implemented.
I am attaching a list of 80 questions that an inquiry should answer. The list of questions comes from Uri Averny, who heads the Israeli human rights organization Gush Shalom.
I also ask that US funding for the reconstruction of Gaza be disbursed immediately. There are many non-governmental organizations in Gaza that can assist in the reconstruction activities if they have funding.
Sincerely,
Ann Wright
Honolulu, Hawaii 96826
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Source:
ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL.......PRINT SUCCESS!!! BRAVO~~
Col. Ann Wright spoke in Albuquerque last week. Several days later, a reporter interviewed the Israeli mouthpiece for the region, Asher Yarden, consul general of Israel to the Southwest and never asked him a single probing question. One of Free Gaza's long time supporters, Miriam Adams, wrote me outraged over the accusations in the article. She suggested I write a short oped in response to Yarden's lies, one of them so outrageous, stating that they had video tapes of martyr statements from two of the men they murdered. These 'alleged' tapes were in Turkey.
Between my writing and Miriam's writing, we got the piece published today. More importantly are her comments to me below. If you are discouraged or you think they aren't out their listening, they are. The information is below in the link. If any of you want to write and thank the Albuquerque Journal for printing the oped, please do. They need to hear from us.
Greta
On sat. Aug. 7, 2010 at 6:13 PM, madams12 madams12@earthlink.net wrote:
Dear Greta,
Success!!!!....your OpEd piece WAS published....given Front and Center placement on rightside Editorial page with very large headline above and Cartoon to its Right....thus prominently placed in today's (Sat) paper....all thanks to you!! thank you for taking time to ensure that these guys WOULD respect your affiliation with FGM and thus your words, since they rarely if EVER publish local Ltr to Ed from me or others....This is nothing less than a rousing success for GAZA!!...many thanks/blessings/salaams/hugs, Miriam.
The followinng cartoon was published next to Greta's superb OpEd in today's paper however the Albq Journal doesn't 'allow' syndicated cartoons to viewed on their website. (this image can be found on http://www.intoon.com/#86655 Mike Keefe cartoons in case you cannot see the image)...
Journal Staff Writer Lloyd Jojola's interview with Asher Yarden, consul general of Israel to the Southwest, proves they think they can spin the story of piracy at sea to sympathetic journalists who will ask no probing questions, but merely spout back what the apologists say.
So let's look at the facts instead of Israel's spin.
1. We were in international waters, 65 miles off the coast of Israel on our way to deliver supplies to the people of Gaza that Israel refuses to allow into Gaza.
2. The people on board all six boats were attacked by Israeli terrorists, not just the Mavi Marmara.
3. International law says Israel's siege on 1.5 million Palestinians is illegal, and that is the main reason we were sailing, to break Israel's illegal blockade.
4. As members of civil society, we have the right to hold Israel accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity since governments refuse to stand up to Israeli illegal actions, and
5. We have the right to self defense if attacked, defending our friends, families and boats.
We faced a highly armed militia that deliberately attacked us in the early morning hours. Their commandos murdered us, beat us, dragged us into a port where we had no intention of going, deprived us of lawyers for hours, stole all of our equipment and tapes, lied about the audiotapes they issued, and are now lying about some so-called video tapes made in Turkey. The men who were killed ranged between 33-61 with one American Turkish young man of 19 who wanted to be a doctor who was shot five times in the head and back. There are autopsy reports available ... and there are descriptions of who they were, why they were going and how many times they were shot on our website at http://www.freegaza.org/.
Your reporter never asked the tough questions of this Israeli mouthpiece.
Why didn't the Navy wait until morning? Why did they attack a civilian caravan in international waters? Why did they murder nine men with 31 bullets, many to the head? Why did they maim and wound people on board the other boats, several of them beaten so badly they had broken bones?
Why not ask for the truth instead of Israel's spin? Why believe this man, Asher Yarden, when people can hear the testimony of those passengers who were on board, many of them threatened with bodily harm?...
Who are you going to believe? A decorated U.S. war veteran, Ann Wright, who participated in the flotilla and recently spoke in Albuquerque, as reported in the Journal, or a mouthpiece for Israel?
Greta Berlin, Co-Founder
+33 607 374 512
witnessgaza.com
http://www.freegaza.org/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/freegaza
Between my writing and Miriam's writing, we got the piece published today. More importantly are her comments to me below. If you are discouraged or you think they aren't out their listening, they are. The information is below in the link. If any of you want to write and thank the Albuquerque Journal for printing the oped, please do. They need to hear from us.
Greta
On sat. Aug. 7, 2010 at 6:13 PM, madams12 madams12@earthlink.net wrote:
Dear Greta,
Success!!!!....your OpEd piece WAS published....given Front and Center placement on rightside Editorial page with very large headline above and Cartoon to its Right....thus prominently placed in today's (Sat) paper....all thanks to you!! thank you for taking time to ensure that these guys WOULD respect your affiliation with FGM and thus your words, since they rarely if EVER publish local Ltr to Ed from me or others....This is nothing less than a rousing success for GAZA!!...many thanks/blessings/salaams/hugs, Miriam.
The followinng cartoon was published next to Greta's superb OpEd in today's paper however the Albq Journal doesn't 'allow' syndicated cartoons to viewed on their website. (this image can be found on http://www.intoon.com/#86655 Mike Keefe cartoons in case you cannot see the image)...
Printed from ABQjournal.com, A service of the Albuquerque Journel.
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Israeli Consul Spins Attack on Flotilla
By Greta Berlin
Co-founder, Free Gaza Movement
Once again, Israel commits war crimes against a civilian population on board six ships in international waters then whines that it is the victim of a PR smear.
Journal Staff Writer Lloyd Jojola's interview with Asher Yarden, consul general of Israel to the Southwest, proves they think they can spin the story of piracy at sea to sympathetic journalists who will ask no probing questions, but merely spout back what the apologists say.
So let's look at the facts instead of Israel's spin.
1. We were in international waters, 65 miles off the coast of Israel on our way to deliver supplies to the people of Gaza that Israel refuses to allow into Gaza.
2. The people on board all six boats were attacked by Israeli terrorists, not just the Mavi Marmara.
3. International law says Israel's siege on 1.5 million Palestinians is illegal, and that is the main reason we were sailing, to break Israel's illegal blockade.
4. As members of civil society, we have the right to hold Israel accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity since governments refuse to stand up to Israeli illegal actions, and
5. We have the right to self defense if attacked, defending our friends, families and boats.
We faced a highly armed militia that deliberately attacked us in the early morning hours. Their commandos murdered us, beat us, dragged us into a port where we had no intention of going, deprived us of lawyers for hours, stole all of our equipment and tapes, lied about the audiotapes they issued, and are now lying about some so-called video tapes made in Turkey. The men who were killed ranged between 33-61 with one American Turkish young man of 19 who wanted to be a doctor who was shot five times in the head and back. There are autopsy reports available ... and there are descriptions of who they were, why they were going and how many times they were shot on our website at http://www.freegaza.org/.
Your reporter never asked the tough questions of this Israeli mouthpiece.
Why didn't the Navy wait until morning? Why did they attack a civilian caravan in international waters? Why did they murder nine men with 31 bullets, many to the head? Why did they maim and wound people on board the other boats, several of them beaten so badly they had broken bones?
Why not ask for the truth instead of Israel's spin? Why believe this man, Asher Yarden, when people can hear the testimony of those passengers who were on board, many of them threatened with bodily harm?...
Who are you going to believe? A decorated U.S. war veteran, Ann Wright, who participated in the flotilla and recently spoke in Albuquerque, as reported in the Journal, or a mouthpiece for Israel?
Greta Berlin, Co-Founder
+33 607 374 512
witnessgaza.com
http://www.freegaza.org/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/freegaza
Friday, August 6, 2010
All Aboard the Mavi Marmara
David Rovics has written an evocative song called "All Aboard the Mavi Marmara." The Free Gaza team has added images in tribute to the nine brave men on board who gave their lives in pursuit of justice for the Palestinians.
Bedouins lose yet another village to Israeli forces
Jonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent
Last Updated: August 06. 2010 12:16AM UAE / August 5. 2010 8:16PM GMT
The National
AL ARAQIB, NEGEV // Israeli security forces destroyed a Bedouin village this week for the second time in a matter of days, leaving 300 inhabitants homeless again after they and dozens of Jewish and Arab volunteers had begun rebuilding the 45 homes.
Human rights groups warned that these appeared to be the opening shots in a long-threatened campaign by the Israeli government to begin mass forced removals of tens of thousands of Bedouin from their ancestral lands in the southern Negev.
The High Follow-Up Committee, the main political body for Israel’s Arab minority, vowed this week to help rebuild the village for a second time and said it would call on the UN to investigate Israel’s treatment of the Bedouin.
Al Araqib village, which is a few kilometres north of the Negev’s main city Beersheva, has become a symbol of the struggle by about 90,000 Bedouin to win recognition for dozens of communities the government claims are built on state land.
In a test case before the Israeli courts, an inhabitant of al Araqib has been presenting documents and expert testimony to show his ancestors owned and lived on the village’s lands many decades before Israel’s establishment in 1948. The judge is expected to rule within months.
“Tearing down an entire village and leaving its inhabitants homeless without exhausting all other options for settling longstanding land claims is outrageous,” said Joe Stork, the deputy Middle East director of Human Rights Watch.
A force of 1,500 police, including a special riot squad wearing black balaclavas, entered the village early on Wednesday to pull down a dozen wooden shacks and a half-built concrete home. The local Aturi tribe had been in the process of rebuilding the village after it was razed by bulldozers a week earlier.
The Israeli forces also uprooted 850 olive trees, said Ortal Tzabar, a spokeswoman for the government’s Land Administration.
Yesterday Adalah, a legal group for Israel’s 1.3 million Arab citizens, demanded a criminal investigation into what it called “police brutality” during both demolition operations.
Sawsan Zaher, a lawyer, said assaults on villagers, confiscation of their property and the security forces’ decision to cover their faces and not wear identity tags were all designed to “instil fear” in the residents.
Taleb a-Sanaa, a Bedouin member of the Israeli parliament who was left unconscious on Wednesday after police dragged him from a tent in which he was staging a protest, warned that the government was risking “an uprising in the Negev”.
Six village leaders were arrested shortly afterwards when they refused to sign a paper committing not to return to al Araqib.
Awad Abu Freih, a village spokesman, said they remained defiant. “The authorities want to break our connection to this land so it can be turned over to Jews. They can keep destroying, but we will continue rebuilding. We will not leave.”
The first demolition of the village, late last month, came shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned his cabinet that the growth of the country’s Arab minority, already a fifth of the population, posed a “palpable threat” to the state’s Jewishness.
“The effect could be that different elements will demand national rights within Israel – for example, in the Negev – if we allow for a region without a Jewish majority.”
The Bedouin’s increasing assertiveness about their indigenous status, which is backed by international groups, has led to a backlash from officials, who regularly refer to the Bedouin as “squatters” and “invaders” of state land.
The government’s conflict with the Bedouin dates back to Israel’s founding, when most of the Negev’s population were driven out of the new state.
With the highest birth rate in Israel, the surviving tribes have grown rapidly and now number 180,000, more than a quarter of the Negev’s population despite waves of state-sponsored Jewish migration.
Israel has refused to recognise the Bedouin’s traditional communities and insists they move into seven deprived townships built by the government several decades ago. Only about half have done so, with the rest insisting on their right to continue with their pastoral way of life.
Like 45 other unrecognised villages, al Araqib is deprived of all services, including water and electricity, and its buildings are illegal.
A recent government commission found that tens of thousands of Bedouin buildings are subject to demolition orders, though until now individual buildings have been targeted, not whole communities.
Last month the Beersheva planning committee approved a scheme to recognise 13 Bedouin villages and force the other inhabitants into the townships. In that plan, al Araqib’s lands are designated for a “peace forest”, a move Mr Abu Freih said was designed to prevent the villagers’ return.
Ms Baruch said the authorities were demanding the inhabitants move to Rahat, even though no homes were provided for them.
Mr Abu Freih said other parts of the tribe’s lands nearby had been secretly settled by Jews in 2004..
jcook@thenational.ae
Last Updated: August 06. 2010 12:16AM UAE / August 5. 2010 8:16PM GMT
The National
AL ARAQIB, NEGEV // Israeli security forces destroyed a Bedouin village this week for the second time in a matter of days, leaving 300 inhabitants homeless again after they and dozens of Jewish and Arab volunteers had begun rebuilding the 45 homes.
Human rights groups warned that these appeared to be the opening shots in a long-threatened campaign by the Israeli government to begin mass forced removals of tens of thousands of Bedouin from their ancestral lands in the southern Negev.
The High Follow-Up Committee, the main political body for Israel’s Arab minority, vowed this week to help rebuild the village for a second time and said it would call on the UN to investigate Israel’s treatment of the Bedouin.
Al Araqib village, which is a few kilometres north of the Negev’s main city Beersheva, has become a symbol of the struggle by about 90,000 Bedouin to win recognition for dozens of communities the government claims are built on state land.
In a test case before the Israeli courts, an inhabitant of al Araqib has been presenting documents and expert testimony to show his ancestors owned and lived on the village’s lands many decades before Israel’s establishment in 1948. The judge is expected to rule within months.
“Tearing down an entire village and leaving its inhabitants homeless without exhausting all other options for settling longstanding land claims is outrageous,” said Joe Stork, the deputy Middle East director of Human Rights Watch.
A force of 1,500 police, including a special riot squad wearing black balaclavas, entered the village early on Wednesday to pull down a dozen wooden shacks and a half-built concrete home. The local Aturi tribe had been in the process of rebuilding the village after it was razed by bulldozers a week earlier.
The Israeli forces also uprooted 850 olive trees, said Ortal Tzabar, a spokeswoman for the government’s Land Administration.
Yesterday Adalah, a legal group for Israel’s 1.3 million Arab citizens, demanded a criminal investigation into what it called “police brutality” during both demolition operations.
Sawsan Zaher, a lawyer, said assaults on villagers, confiscation of their property and the security forces’ decision to cover their faces and not wear identity tags were all designed to “instil fear” in the residents.
Taleb a-Sanaa, a Bedouin member of the Israeli parliament who was left unconscious on Wednesday after police dragged him from a tent in which he was staging a protest, warned that the government was risking “an uprising in the Negev”.
Six village leaders were arrested shortly afterwards when they refused to sign a paper committing not to return to al Araqib.
Awad Abu Freih, a village spokesman, said they remained defiant. “The authorities want to break our connection to this land so it can be turned over to Jews. They can keep destroying, but we will continue rebuilding. We will not leave.”
The first demolition of the village, late last month, came shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned his cabinet that the growth of the country’s Arab minority, already a fifth of the population, posed a “palpable threat” to the state’s Jewishness.
“The effect could be that different elements will demand national rights within Israel – for example, in the Negev – if we allow for a region without a Jewish majority.”
The Bedouin’s increasing assertiveness about their indigenous status, which is backed by international groups, has led to a backlash from officials, who regularly refer to the Bedouin as “squatters” and “invaders” of state land.
The government’s conflict with the Bedouin dates back to Israel’s founding, when most of the Negev’s population were driven out of the new state.
With the highest birth rate in Israel, the surviving tribes have grown rapidly and now number 180,000, more than a quarter of the Negev’s population despite waves of state-sponsored Jewish migration.
Israel has refused to recognise the Bedouin’s traditional communities and insists they move into seven deprived townships built by the government several decades ago. Only about half have done so, with the rest insisting on their right to continue with their pastoral way of life.
Like 45 other unrecognised villages, al Araqib is deprived of all services, including water and electricity, and its buildings are illegal.
A recent government commission found that tens of thousands of Bedouin buildings are subject to demolition orders, though until now individual buildings have been targeted, not whole communities.
Last month the Beersheva planning committee approved a scheme to recognise 13 Bedouin villages and force the other inhabitants into the townships. In that plan, al Araqib’s lands are designated for a “peace forest”, a move Mr Abu Freih said was designed to prevent the villagers’ return.
Ms Baruch said the authorities were demanding the inhabitants move to Rahat, even though no homes were provided for them.
Mr Abu Freih said other parts of the tribe’s lands nearby had been secretly settled by Jews in 2004..
jcook@thenational.ae
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Only we're allowed
After Tuesday's border clash, Israel will continue to ignore UNIFIL and the Lebanese army.
By Gideon Levy
Those bastards, the Lebanese, changed the rules. Scandalous. Word is, they have a brigade commander who's determined to protect his country's sovereignty. Scandalous.
The explanation here was that he's "indoctrinating his troops" - only we're allowed to do that, of course - and that this was "the spirit of the commander" and that he's "close to Hezbollah." The nerve.
And now that we've recited ad nauseum the explanations of Israel Defense Forces propaganda for what happened Tuesday at the northern border, the facts should also be looked at.
On Tuesday morning, Israel requested "coordination" with UNIFIL to carry out another "exposing" operation on the border fence. UNIFIL asked the IDF to postpone the operation, because its commander is abroad. The IDF didn't care. UNIFIL won't stop us.
At noon the tree-cutters set out. The Lebanese and UNIFIL soldiers shouted at them to stop. In Lebanon they say their soldiers also fired warning shots in the air. If they did, it didn't stop the IDF.
The tree branches were cut and blood was shed on both sides of the border. Shed in vain.
True, Israel maintains that the area across the fence is its territory, and UNIFIL officially confirmed that yesterday. But a fence is a fence: In Gaza it's enough to get near the fence for us to shoot to kill. In the West Bank the fence's route bears no resemblance to the Green Line, and still Palestinians are forbidden from crossing it.
In Lebanon we made different rules: the fence is just a fence, we're allowed to cross it and do whatever we like on the other side, sometimes in sovereign Lebanese territory. We can routinely fly in Lebanese airspace and sometimes invade as well.
This area was under Israeli occupation for 18 years, without us ever acknowledging it. It was an occupation no less brutal than the one in the territories, but whitewashed well. "The security zone," we called it. So now, as well, we can do what we like.
But suddenly there was a change. How did our analysts put it? Recently there's been "abnormal firing" at Israeli aircraft. After all, order must be maintained: We're allowed to fly in Lebanese airspace, they are not permitted to shoot.
But Tuesday's incident, which was blown out of proportion here as if it were cause for a war that only the famed Israeli "restraint" prevented, should be seen in its wider context. For months now the drums of war have been beating here again. Rat-a-tat, danger, Scuds from Syria, war in the north.
No one asks why and wherefore, it's just that summer's here, and with it our usual threats of war. But a UN report published this week held Israel fully responsible for creating this dangerous tension.
In this overheated atmosphere the IDF should have been careful when lighting its matches. UNIFIL requests a delay of an operation? The area is explosive? The work should have been postponed. Maybe the Lebanese Army is more determined now to protect its country's sovereignty - that is not only its right, but its duty - and a Lebanese commander who sees the IDF operating across the fence might give an order to shoot, even unjustifiably.
Who better than the IDF knows the pattern of shooting at any real or imagined violation? Just ask the soldiers at the separation fence or guarding Gaza. But Israel arrogantly dismissed UNIFIL's request for a delay.
It's the same arrogance behind the demand that the U.S. and France stop arming the Lebanese military. Only our military is allowed to build up arms. After years in which Israel demanded that the Lebanese Army take responsibility for what is happening in southern Lebanon, it is now doing so and we've changed our tune. Why? Because it stopped behaving like Israel's subcontractor and is starting to act like the army of a sovereign state.
And that's forbidden, of course. After the guns fall silent, the cry goes up again here to strike another "heavy blow" against Lebanon to "deter" it - maybe some more of the destruction that was inflicted on Beirut's Dahiya neighborhood.
Three Lebanese killed, including a journalist, are not enough of a response to the killing of our battalion commander. We want more. Lebanon must learn a lesson, and we will teach it.
And what about us? We don't have any lessons to learn. We'll continue to ignore UNIFIL, ignore the Lebanese Army and its new brigade commander, who has the nerve to think that his job is to protect his country's sovereignty.
Source:
By Gideon Levy
Those bastards, the Lebanese, changed the rules. Scandalous. Word is, they have a brigade commander who's determined to protect his country's sovereignty. Scandalous.
The explanation here was that he's "indoctrinating his troops" - only we're allowed to do that, of course - and that this was "the spirit of the commander" and that he's "close to Hezbollah." The nerve.
And now that we've recited ad nauseum the explanations of Israel Defense Forces propaganda for what happened Tuesday at the northern border, the facts should also be looked at.
On Tuesday morning, Israel requested "coordination" with UNIFIL to carry out another "exposing" operation on the border fence. UNIFIL asked the IDF to postpone the operation, because its commander is abroad. The IDF didn't care. UNIFIL won't stop us.
At noon the tree-cutters set out. The Lebanese and UNIFIL soldiers shouted at them to stop. In Lebanon they say their soldiers also fired warning shots in the air. If they did, it didn't stop the IDF.
The tree branches were cut and blood was shed on both sides of the border. Shed in vain.
True, Israel maintains that the area across the fence is its territory, and UNIFIL officially confirmed that yesterday. But a fence is a fence: In Gaza it's enough to get near the fence for us to shoot to kill. In the West Bank the fence's route bears no resemblance to the Green Line, and still Palestinians are forbidden from crossing it.
In Lebanon we made different rules: the fence is just a fence, we're allowed to cross it and do whatever we like on the other side, sometimes in sovereign Lebanese territory. We can routinely fly in Lebanese airspace and sometimes invade as well.
This area was under Israeli occupation for 18 years, without us ever acknowledging it. It was an occupation no less brutal than the one in the territories, but whitewashed well. "The security zone," we called it. So now, as well, we can do what we like.
But suddenly there was a change. How did our analysts put it? Recently there's been "abnormal firing" at Israeli aircraft. After all, order must be maintained: We're allowed to fly in Lebanese airspace, they are not permitted to shoot.
But Tuesday's incident, which was blown out of proportion here as if it were cause for a war that only the famed Israeli "restraint" prevented, should be seen in its wider context. For months now the drums of war have been beating here again. Rat-a-tat, danger, Scuds from Syria, war in the north.
No one asks why and wherefore, it's just that summer's here, and with it our usual threats of war. But a UN report published this week held Israel fully responsible for creating this dangerous tension.
In this overheated atmosphere the IDF should have been careful when lighting its matches. UNIFIL requests a delay of an operation? The area is explosive? The work should have been postponed. Maybe the Lebanese Army is more determined now to protect its country's sovereignty - that is not only its right, but its duty - and a Lebanese commander who sees the IDF operating across the fence might give an order to shoot, even unjustifiably.
Who better than the IDF knows the pattern of shooting at any real or imagined violation? Just ask the soldiers at the separation fence or guarding Gaza. But Israel arrogantly dismissed UNIFIL's request for a delay.
It's the same arrogance behind the demand that the U.S. and France stop arming the Lebanese military. Only our military is allowed to build up arms. After years in which Israel demanded that the Lebanese Army take responsibility for what is happening in southern Lebanon, it is now doing so and we've changed our tune. Why? Because it stopped behaving like Israel's subcontractor and is starting to act like the army of a sovereign state.
And that's forbidden, of course. After the guns fall silent, the cry goes up again here to strike another "heavy blow" against Lebanon to "deter" it - maybe some more of the destruction that was inflicted on Beirut's Dahiya neighborhood.
Three Lebanese killed, including a journalist, are not enough of a response to the killing of our battalion commander. We want more. Lebanon must learn a lesson, and we will teach it.
And what about us? We don't have any lessons to learn. We'll continue to ignore UNIFIL, ignore the Lebanese Army and its new brigade commander, who has the nerve to think that his job is to protect his country's sovereignty.
Source:
Palestinian boy upset by father's arrest garners international media attention
Border Police arrested Fadel Jaber, claiming he and his family had attacked police who were disconnecting their illegal water connection.
By Liel Kyzer
Video footage of a 5-year-old Palestinian boy weeping as his father is arrested by Border Police officers near Hebron this week has been making waves internationally and garnering attention from media outlets worldwide.
In the clip, the boy, Khaled Jaber, chases after his father during the latter's arrest, calling out "baba, baba." A Border Police officer approaches the boy, takes him by the arm to separate him from his father, who is driven away from the family home in a police car.
Border Police said the family staged the scenario and instructed the child to run after his father and cry in front of the cameras.
The boy's father Fadel Jaber and another family member were arrested on Monday on suspicion of attacking police and interfering with police activity. According to Border Police and Civil Administration authorities, the family members hurled stones at and attacked Hebron police officers, who were investigating the family's alleged illegal connection to a local water pipe.
Fadel Jaber's brother-in-law said that he saw police first thing in the morning, saying they disassembled the irrigation system from his crops. "I told my family to stay in the house, and then they [the police] came into my house and attacked my children and the rest of the family. My brother-in-law tried to protect my 16-year-old son. He asked them, 'What do you want from him?' and they arrested him."
Fadel Jaber's brother-in-law also responded to Border Police claims the family instructed 5-year-old Khaled to cry and run after his father. "It is an outright lie," he said. "A boy sees his father and uncle getting beaten and being treated like dogs, and this is a natural reaction. Who could tell a small child to go and confront grown soldiers?"
Border Police issued a statement saying, "In the course of enforcement activities against water thieves in the southern Hebron Hills, the force was attacked with stones and two people were arrested for disturbing the peace and attacking police."
Police went on to say that pictures from the incident show "that the family chose to make cynical use of a 5-year-old boy" and that "he was well instructed and directed."
"Instead of the family acting responsibly toward a child and removing him from the situation, they chose to make cheap anti-Israel propaganda, whose sole purpose is to present us in a negative light around the world. As is seen in the pictures, and in order to remove any doubt, the authorities on site acted lawfully against the unacceptable phenomenon of water theft."
Source:
By Liel Kyzer
Video footage of a 5-year-old Palestinian boy weeping as his father is arrested by Border Police officers near Hebron this week has been making waves internationally and garnering attention from media outlets worldwide.
In the clip, the boy, Khaled Jaber, chases after his father during the latter's arrest, calling out "baba, baba." A Border Police officer approaches the boy, takes him by the arm to separate him from his father, who is driven away from the family home in a police car.
Border Police said the family staged the scenario and instructed the child to run after his father and cry in front of the cameras.
The boy's father Fadel Jaber and another family member were arrested on Monday on suspicion of attacking police and interfering with police activity. According to Border Police and Civil Administration authorities, the family members hurled stones at and attacked Hebron police officers, who were investigating the family's alleged illegal connection to a local water pipe.
Fadel Jaber's brother-in-law said that he saw police first thing in the morning, saying they disassembled the irrigation system from his crops. "I told my family to stay in the house, and then they [the police] came into my house and attacked my children and the rest of the family. My brother-in-law tried to protect my 16-year-old son. He asked them, 'What do you want from him?' and they arrested him."
Fadel Jaber's brother-in-law also responded to Border Police claims the family instructed 5-year-old Khaled to cry and run after his father. "It is an outright lie," he said. "A boy sees his father and uncle getting beaten and being treated like dogs, and this is a natural reaction. Who could tell a small child to go and confront grown soldiers?"
Border Police issued a statement saying, "In the course of enforcement activities against water thieves in the southern Hebron Hills, the force was attacked with stones and two people were arrested for disturbing the peace and attacking police."
Police went on to say that pictures from the incident show "that the family chose to make cynical use of a 5-year-old boy" and that "he was well instructed and directed."
"Instead of the family acting responsibly toward a child and removing him from the situation, they chose to make cheap anti-Israel propaganda, whose sole purpose is to present us in a negative light around the world. As is seen in the pictures, and in order to remove any doubt, the authorities on site acted lawfully against the unacceptable phenomenon of water theft."
Source:
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
STONING SENTENCE - A RESOUNDING NO TO BARBARISM!
Convicted of adultery after a reportedly coerced confession in 2006, 99 lashes was evidently not enough punishment for Sakineh Ashtiani. The Sharia-based court that reexamined her case decided that, really, being stoned to death was more fitting. Oops on the fact that she was lashed, already. Protests have been organized in DC and elsewhere. Psychology Today blogs about Sakineh and other young women who have been sentenced to such horrible fates as does the International Campaign for Human Rights.
Men are seldom stoned. And in a charming little twist of design fate, women are buried up to their necks for stoning while men only to their waists. Why? If the stoning victim manages to escape their pit during stoning, they are set free, because after all, it must be God's will that allows them to escape. Unless they've got those two X chromosomes, of course. Then you have to make sure it's much harder because after all, women are the root of all evil and even God could be tricked. Right? So let's make the decision for him.
No word on what happened to the men who allegedly committed adultery with Sakineh. I guess the local mullah gave them what for. Maybe they had to pray a bit extra? Fast a bit? Promise to pick out some nice single girl and get Nikah_mut‘ah or sigheh married (which, like baad, you all just know I have the highest opinion of...) instead, next time, okay?
As Maryam Namazie says, attacking Sharia isn't attacking religion. It is rather, a defense of basic human rights. And, from my view, pursuit of equality of justice, as well. But then, these sentences clearly aren't about justice at all. They are about controlling women and holding power, specifically the power of fear, over them.
Join the Facebook page for Sakineh here.
And don't think you're done with the topic. Azar Bagheri, 19, and Marian Ghorbanzadeh, 25, are convicted and sentenced to the same fate, along with, reportedly, many others. Azar was convicted as a minor but now that she's 19, she's old enough to murder execute.
Source:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
