PLO reports serious Israeli violations during week
Ma’an – 08/01/2011
JERUSALEM – The PLO’s Executive Committee issued a report Saturday documenting serious violations of Palestinians’ human rights during the first week of 2011.
The report highlighted three killings in the West Bank during the week. On Friday Israeli soldiers shot and killed 66-year-old Omar Qawasmi. The Hebron resident was killed in his bed in what the army later admitted was a mistake.
On Saturday an anti-wall protester died after inhaling large amounts of tear gas fired by Israeli soldiers at a rally in Bil’in. A day later, Israeli forces shot dead Ahmad Maslamani at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank. Maslamani was shot on his way to work in Israel.
Meanwhile in Jerusalem, Israeli authorities demolished two Palestinian homes and several Palestinian businesses. The PLO report detailed that Israeli forces bulldozed Nasser Yousif Siyam’s home in Sheikh Jarrah, and Nayif Uweida’s shop and home. The properties were destroyed under the pretext that they were built without the necessary licenses. Uweida said his home was built 10 years ago.
The report added that on Wednesday Israeli authorities destroyed two garages, a car wash and building materials belonging to Abed Al-Aziz Al-Khatib, a resident of Hizma northeast of Jerusalem. The buildings provided the main source of income for Al-Khatib’s 50-member family.
In Nablus district in the northern West Bank, the report added, Israeli settlers launched several attacks including ransacking the home of a Palestinian woman in Burin village. The woman was rescued by villagers who responded to her calls for help. Settlers also killed sheep in Qusra southeast Nablus, the PLO said.
Hebron district in the southern West Bank witnessed several Israeli violations by settlers and by Israeli forces. Bulldozers dug up lands belonging to residents of Yatta to expand the illegal Israeli settlement Karmi Zur. In the same area, Israeli forces declared a closed military zone on Palestinian agricultural lands, denying farmers access to their fields.
Some thoughts on Omar, Jawaher and Isabel
“[The] killing was the third death in the West Bank in a week for which the Palestinians blamed the Israelis.” – NYT
By Seham | Mondoweiss | January 8, 2011
Omar al-Qawsmi and Jawaher Abu Rahmah are this week’s unfortunate symbols of Israeli stupidity and short-sightedness. And not just those two brutal killings, but all of the actions that we see that defy logic, the law and morality that Israel undertakes, like forcing Palestinians to demolish their own homes, killing Palestinians that drink soda at checkpoints, imprisoning non-violent activists, depriving children of medical care, raiding universities and imprisoning children. It amounts to a systematic attempt at ethnic cleansing. They hope that the Palestinians will get fed up and leave but they haven’t figured out that the Palestinians aren’t going anywhere because they have nowhere else to go. They also fail to grasp that their actions make it possible that the demise of Israel might occur during my lifetime because they can’t seem to look past a day or two into their futures.
Also, I wasn’t surprised that Isabel Kershner of the NYT failed to question the morality or legality of breaking down a door and shooting a man to death as he lay on bed next to his wife because he is a suspected Hamas member. Maybe she doesn’t know that extra-judicial assassinations are illegal or maybe she doesn’t care because the victim was just a Palestinian.
She seems more concerned in explaining to readers that it was simply a matter of regrettable mistaken identity. Kershner also tells us that there is bickering among the Palestinians about who is responsible for the slaughter of al-Qawsmi:
The killing also heightened tensions between the authority, which the West backs, and Hamas, its militant Islamist rival. Hamas accused the Palestinian Authority of collaborating with Israel in the case and bearing joint responsibility for the man’s death. The authority has been reining in Hamas activists and militants in the West Bank since the Islamist group, which won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, seized full control of Gaza a year later. There, Hamas has detained loyalists of Fatah, the dominant party of the authority.
And then Kershner goes on to absolve Israel of all of the other murders that were prominent in the news this week:
The other recent deaths include the case of a Palestinian woman, 36, who died last Saturday after inhaling tear gas on the sidelines of a protest the day before in the West Bank, according to her family and Palestinian medical officials. Initially, Israeli military officials anonymously raised questions about whether those accounts were fabricated; Friday brought the first official comment. The army commander in the West Bank, Brig. Gen. Nitzan Alon, was quoted by Haaretz as saying the woman probably died not from tear gas but from other medical “complications, combined with problems in the medical care she received at the Palestinian hospital.”
On Sunday, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian man as he approached a checkpoint in the northern West Bank. The military said that he was holding a glass bottle, and that he had approached the checkpoint in an unauthorized lane and failed to heed orders to stop.
On that note, I end with Malcolm:
The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make a criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. — Malcolm X
Israeli parliament launches McCarthyist witch-hunt against human rights groups
By Uri Avnery | Redress | 8 January 2011
Uri Avnery views the alliance of racists and fascists behind a bill, recently adopted by the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, to investigate the funding sources of human rights and civil liberties groups but not the settler organizations that are financed by US evangelical sects and Russian mafiosi.
Good morning, Joe. At home in the US, your name is mud. But here in Israel you can really feel at home.
In your time, you succeeded in infecting all of the US with hysteria. You detected a Soviet agent under every bed. You waved a list of Soviet spies in the State Department (a list which nobody was ever shown). In a hundred languages around the world – including Hebrew – the name McCarthy, McCarthyism, has become a household word. Yes, you made your mark alright.
But you were, after all, only a plagiarist. Before you, the House Un-American Activities Committee terrorized the country, destroyed careers, hounded people into suicide and tarnished the reputation of the US throughout the democratic world. It “investigated” intellectuals and artists and branded many of them as “anti-American”.
I doubt that Faina Kirschenbaum ever heard about this committee. She was not born in the United States but in the Stalinist Soviet Union, and that’s her spiritual homeland. Her attitude towards democracy reflects this background.
The meaning of her Germanic name is “cherry tree”. But the fruits of this tree are poisonous.
This week, the Knesset adopted a bill tabled by Kirschenbaum, a settler who is also the director-general of Avigdor Lieberman’s party. The bill calls for the appointment of a parliamentary commission of inquiry to investigate whether international funds or foreign countries are financing organizations that “take part in the campaign to delegitimize IDF [Israel Defence Forces] soldiers”. A parallel bill tabled by Likud member Danny Danon demands that the inquiry commission investigate whether foreign governments finance Israeli “activities against the State of Israel”.
It is easy to guess what such an investigation by a committee composed of politicians, appointed by the rightist-racist majority of the Knesset, will look like. The infamous Un-American Activities Committee will look distinctly liberal in comparison.
It is very interesting to see who voted for and who against this. Among the 41 who voted for, there were not only the usual fascists of the extreme right, headed by the declared Kahanist Michael Ben-Ari, but also the chief Orthodox representative, Jacob Litzman, the former army spokeswoman, Miri Regev, and the former army chief of staff, Moshe Ya’alon. Special mention must go to Matan Vilnai, who once almost became chief of staff, a leading member of the Labour Party, at present the deputy minister of defence in charge of settlements.
Among the 17 who voted against were, of course, the Arab MKs [Members of the Knesset] who were present and all the Meretz members. A pleasant surprise was provided by Yitzhak Herzog, a candidate for the Labour Party chairmanship; the former Likud and present Kadima member Meir Sheetrit; and the Likud member Michael Eitan. Eitan is the last remnant of the Revisionist movement of Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky, which combined an extreme nationalist agenda in foreign affairs with a very liberal attitude in local matters.
All in all, 58 of the 120 members of the Knesset took part in the vote. Where were the other 62? They were in hiding. Binyamin Netanyahu disappeared. Ehud Barak disappeared. Tzipi Livni disappeared. Even Eli Yishai disappeared. Presumably, they all have a doctor’s certificate to cover their absence.
There are votes whose significance is greater even than the matter itself – votes that characterize an era and are looked upon, in retrospect, as decisive. This may well have been such a vote.
The first thing about this law that stands out is that it does not apply to all political associations in Israel.
If such an even-handed law had been enacted, I would have welcomed it. I am very curious about the origin of the money that supports the settlers and the other extreme-rightist organizations.
Huge sums, tens and hundreds of millions, are flowing to these bodies – many times more than the comparatively pitiful amounts received by the human rights and peace associations. Some of the recipients are devoted to the expulsion of Arabs from East Jerusalem. They offer Palestinian home-owners astronomical prices for their property and promise them new identities in the US so they can live there happily ever after. They use hired straw men, mostly Arab. The weak succumb to the temptation. That costs a lot of money, and one of the well-known donors is a famous billionaire who made his money as an owner of casinos. In Israel, incidentally, owning a casino is a felony.
It is known that the financiers of the extreme right include some of the heads of evangelical sects, born anti-Semites, who believe that Jesus will return to Earth when all the Jews are concentrated in this country. Then – either the Jews get baptized or they will be annihilated to the last man and woman. These adherents of the really-final solution are the main source of the money that finances many rightist associations.
This money nurtures openly fascist associations as well as more discreet ones, who advocate the dismissal of “leftist” professors from the universities, organize networks of student-spies who inform on their lecturers (another way of earning money for their studies). Some organizations monitor the media in order to cleanse them of people suspected of such misdemeanors as striving for peace. There is also a huge apparatus that combs all TV, radio and print media throughout the Arab world and provides our “correspondents for Arab affairs” (almost all of them army intelligence and Shin-Bet alumni) choice pieces, like something about a crazy Muslim preacher in Yemen or a particularly nasty statement in a Cairo salon. They are very successful in poisoning the wells of peace.
If a serious inquiry committee investigates the financing of the extreme right, it will discover that much of it comes straight from the pocket of the American taxpayer. That is one of the great scandals: the US government is financing many of the settlements. For dozens of years, it has turned a blind eye to the American organizations that are providing funds to the settlements – settlements that are illegal even in the official policy view of the US government. In the US, one can donate tax-free money for humanitarian purposes – but not for political purposes. Almost all the money flowing to the extreme right in Israel is officially marked as devoted to humanitarian purposes.
And what about the Russian mafiosi, who are intimately connected with the Israeli right? What about the various dictators in fragments of the former Soviet Union? Where does Lieberman, whose connections with these countries are well-known, get his money from? Police investigators have been trying for years to unravel this mystery, with no concrete results so far.
All this could keep several inquiry committees busy for years to come – and the initiators of the bills know this perfectly well. They are adamant: inquiry into leftist associations only, most definitely not rightist ones. (Rather like the lady who cried out in the darkness of a cinema: “Take your hands of me! Not you, YOU!”)
The initiators of the bills did not hide the identity of the associations they want to “investigate”. The list includes:
- B’Tselem (“In the Image”), a veteran outfit that monitors events in the occupied territories and is treated with respect even by the army;
- Shovrim Shtika (“Breaking the Silence”), a group of former soldiers that collects testimonies from soldiers;
- Yesh Din (“There is a Law”), which is active in matters of land ownership in the occupied territories as well as overseeing the military courts;
- Yesh Gvul (“There is a Limit”), which defends soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied territories;
- Machsom Watch (“Checkpoint Watch”), an organization of female volunteers who oversee what’s happening at the roadblocks;
- “Physicians for Human Rights”, who have just been awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize in Stockholm for activities in service of the sick in the occupied territories;
- Association for Human Rights, the New Fund, IR Arim (“City of Peoples”), which conducts legal fights against the penetration of settlers into East Jerusalem; and
- Shalom Achschav (“Peace Now”) for its important activities monitoring the building in the settlements…
There is nothing wrong with receiving funding from international governmental sources that are active in the field of human rights around the world. The Breaking the Silence group did not hide the fact that its recent book, a collection of the testimonies of 183 soldiers, was financed by the European Union. They boasted about it on the cover of the book.
Especially reprehensible is the pretence of the racists to be acting on behalf of the soldiers. They do not speak about the delegitimization of the settlers, or of the fascist right, or of the racist policies of our government – only about the “delegitimization of the IDF soldiers”.
That is a classic tactic of all fascist movements in the world. They wrap themselves in the flag of patriotism (“patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”) and claim to defend “our troops”.
Our troops come from all segments of society. They include rightists and leftists, the religious and the secular, settlers and the informants of Breaking the Silence. Who appointed this peddler of poisoned cherries to speak for “our troops”? Woe to the army that needs defenders like these!
The career of Joe McCarthy was suddenly cut short. It was buried under one sentence that made history.
Joseph Nye Welch, a respected lawyer representing the US army, who appeared before the McCarthy committee, was shocked by his tactics and cried out: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
The audience in the hall burst out in spontaneous applause. These few words electrified the American public. Suddenly the wheel turned. The McCarthy era ended, the public regained its sanity and since then, McCarthyism is remembered only as something to be ashamed of.
I am waiting now for a decent Israeli citizen to seal the open sewer in the Knesset that is threatening to submerge the entire country.
Mr Binyamin Netanyahu, sir, have you no sense of decency left?
Violent riots in Algeria take first toll
Press TV – January 8, 2011
An 18-year-old youth has been killed in riots in Algeria, becoming the first casualty since the outbreak of clashes over soaring food prices and rampant unemployment in the African country.
Azzedine Lebza was hit by a bullet in Ain Lahdjel in the M’Sila region, 300 kilometers (180 miles) southeast of Algiers and died instantly as youths clashed with police in the capital and several other towns, AFP reported on Saturday.
But Algerian authorities have not yet confirmed the death.
Citizens in the North African country started to protest nationwide when the government announced price increases for basic commodities such as oil and sugar at the beginning of this year.
The official APS news agency said protesters ransacked government buildings, bank branches and post offices in “several eastern cities” overnight, including Constantine, Jijel, Setif and Bouira.
On Friday afternoon, rioting youths set shops on fire in the capital and clashed with police in several other cities.
Meanwhile, police fired tear gas and water cannons at young people hurling stones and glass bottles at security forces.
The General Union of Algerian Traders and Artisans said consumer prices had increased 20% to 30% in recent days, especially the prices of sugar and oil.
The prices of flour, cooking oil, and sugar have doubled in Algeria over the past few months.
According to the International Monetary Fund, about 75 percent of Algerians are under the age of 30, and 20 percent of the youth are unemployed.
The still-unfolding riots have raised the specter of a political turmoil reminiscent of the 1990s that triggered 10 years of civil strife.
Israeli forces shoot Palestinian at checkpoint
Ma’an – 08/01/2011
NABLUS — Israeli troops stationed at Hamra checkpoint east of Nablus on Saturday shot and killed a Palestinian man, medics said.
Onlookers identified the victim as 25-year-old Khaldoun Sammoudi, of Al-Yamun village near Jenin.
Palestinian Red Crescent medics said forces initially declared the area a closed military zone and ordered ambulances to stay 300 meters away.
An Israeli military spokesman said a man approached the checkpoint in a taxi, then got out of the vehicle and ran towards forces holding a suspicious object and shouting “Allah Akbar.” He did not heed orders to stop and forces followed operational procedures and shot him, the army official said.
The spokesman said the man was carrying a pipe bomb, and that the area was declared a closed military zone while soldiers neutralized it.
Forces also found an explosive device and a knife on the man’s body, he added.
When the man left the taxi, all the other passengers fled the scene, the spokesman said.
An eyewitness told Ma’an’s correspondent that Sammoudi stepped out of a car and approached the checkpoint in a hurry. Some of the soldiers ran away while another soldier ordered Sammoudi to stop and then opened fire at him, the witness said.
He added that soldiers stripped the man of his clothes and left him to bleed to death.
Onlookers said forces also violently beat a Palestinian man identified as Amir Al-Kharraz at the checkpoint. Al-Kharraz is a guard at a nearby park, witnesses said.
A military spokesman was not aware of the incident.
Less than a week ago soldiers shot and killed a 21-year-old Palestinian at the same checkpoint. A military spokeswoman said Ahmad Maslamani approached soldiers in an unauthorized lane carrying a glass bottle and did not heed orders to stop. Soldiers followed operational procedure and opened fire, she said.
Witnesses said the victim approached the checkpoint carrying a coca-cola can, a female soldier shouted at him and two male soldiers immediately opened fire. Medics said Maslamani’s body was riddled with bullets.
Earlier on Saturday, soldiers closed the Container Checkpoint east of Bethlehem and inspected Palestinian cars.
Following the shooting, Israeli forces erected a flying checkpoint at the entrance to the northern West Bank village of Talluza and inspected all cars and passengers.
Israeli Soldier Killed Near Gaza Border
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – January 08, 2011
Israeli military sources reported that a soldier was killed by “friendly fire”, on Friday at night, during clashes that took place with Palestinian resistance fighters along the border with the Gaza Strip. Four soldiers were wounded, one seriously.
The sources stated that Israeli paratroopers exchanged fire with fighters who were trying to plant explosives on a border road used by the army, and that during the clashes, another military brigade accidentally fired rounds of live ammunition and mortars towards the soldiers killing one and wounding five others.
The wounded soldiers were airlifted to the Soroka Israeli hospital in Be’er Sheva. The extent of their wounds was not declared.
Following the clashes, Israeli soldiers and army choppers scouted the area searching for fighters and for explosives that could have been placed by the fighters.
The army also said that according to initial investigations, Palestinian fighters fired several mortars at soldiers, stationed at the Kissufim military base, and exchanged fire with them.
The National Resistance Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack, and said that the slain soldier and the four wounded were shot by Palestinian fire and not, as claimed by the army, by friendly fire.
Abu Khaled, spokesperson of the Brigades, said that the attack comes in retaliation to the ongoing Israeli aggression and the killing of Omar al-Qawasmy, 66 years old, who was killed while in his bed after being repeatedly shot by the army in al-Sheikh neighborhood in the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
On Friday evening, Israeli soldiers fired artillery shells into an area east of Al Buriej refugee camp in central Gaza. Israeli “Apache” helicopters also fired sounds of live ammunition into the area.
Palestinian sources reported that the attack targeted Juhr Ad Deek area causing excessive damage, no injuries.
Also, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), claimed responsibility for firing a mortar at soldiers invading Abu Al Ojein area, east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
US activists facing grand jury garner broad support
Report, The Electronic Intifada, 7 January 2011
Activists and concerned citizens around the United States are preparing for a national day of action on 25 January, the date that several Palestine solidarity activists and Palestinian American community organizers have been summoned to appear before a federal grand jury in Chicago. Meanwhile, dozens of civic, labor and student organizations in the United States and around the world have condemned the crackdown by US authorities on anti-war activists.
The activists have been subpoenaed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as part of what the US government calls an investigation into “material support” for groups the US State Department has unilaterally declared “foreign terrorist organizations.” On 24 September 2010 more than seventy federal agents in a coordinated early-morning raid burst into the homes and offices of prominent anti-war, labor and international solidarity activists in Chicago and Minneapolis.
Until now, a total of 23 activists have been subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury. No one has been arrested or charged with any crime, nor has the government specified any alleged crimes that it might be investigating.
A grand jury, no longer in use anywhere outside the US, is an investigative tool that allows the government to compel citizens to testify even if they are not suspected of any crime. The US government has historically abused the grand jury to intern slavery abolitionists during the pre-Civil War era, African American community leaders during the Reconstruction period, labor activists organizing for an eight-hour work day, civil rights organizers and in recent decades, Puerto Rico independence advocates.
One of the nine activists summoned to the grand jury on 25 January is Maureen Clare Murphy, an organizer with the Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago and Managing Editor of The Electronic Intifada.
In a 22 December 2010 editorial, The Electronic Intifada stated that “Although The Electronic Intifada itself has not been a target of any of the subpoenas — contrary to some media reports — we consider the grand jury investigation and all of the subpoenas to be part of a broad attack on the anti-war and Palestine solidarity movements and a threat to all of our rights.”
At a 23 December press conference outside the Dirksen Federal Building in downtown Chicago, where the grand jury convenes, Murphy told reporters and supporters that she does not intend to participate in what activists are describing as a “fishing expedition.” So far none of the activists previously summoned have consented to testify before the grand jury, though they risk being jailed for contempt of court for exercising their right against self-criminalization guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution.
“It is very clear that no crime has been committed and that the government’s motivation in issuing these subpoenas is to have us name the names of other activists not only here in the United States, but also in places like Palestine and Colombia, where many of us have traveled to learn about the human rights situations in those places,” Murphy said.
“We can only assume that the US government shares intelligence with the governments of Israel and Colombia, whose repressive military rule the US bankrolls at the US taxpayer’s expense. And it is essentially a prison sentence or worse for human rights activists in Palestine and Colombia to be singled out and identified in this way. And I have no intention in playing any role in that,” she added (Murphy’s full statement is published on the Mondoweiss website).
FBI agents in Chicago also telephoned Sarah Smith to question her about a trip she made last summer to the occupied West Bank. In a statement read by her father at a 6 December 2010 press conference in Chicago, Smith, a young Jewish woman, stated: “I went with two Palestinian-American friends. You would think Jews and Palestinians going together to visit Israel [and the occupied West Bank] is something the US government would encourage. Instead, all three of us are now being ordered by the FBI to go before a grand jury for going on that trip.”
“Top US government leaders meet with Palestinian leaders, so why does the FBI investigate us because we talked to average Palestinians on the street? I went there so I could make up my own mind and talk about what I saw. It seems to me our government wants to hide what Israel is doing to Palestinians,” Smith added (Smith’s full statement is available on the Committee to Stop FBI Repression website).
An attack on the Palestine support movement
Many of the others subpoenaed in Chicago during the past few weeks are Palestinian Americans who have organized within their community — Chicago is home to one of the largest Palestinian populations outside of the Middle East — and have played a role in the Palestine solidarity movement in the US.
In response to the government’s repression of activists, the United States Palestinian Community Network stated: “Federal harassment of our communities and associational life has grown precipitously during the last decade, as Arabs, Muslims and their allies continue to be persecuted for their lawful and necessary civic engagement. This suppression of civil rights and free speech seeks to criminalize and quell civic activism undertaken in support of Palestinian and other oppressed peoples’ struggles against US-funded occupation and war. This harassment must stop.”
The Electronic Intifada reported in November that the investigation targeting the subpoenaed activists is just the latest chapter in a long history of US government attempts to criminalize Palestine community organizing and support work in the country. In December 2001, it shut down the largest Muslim charity in the US, the Holy Land Foundation, which sent direct humanitarian aid to Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation, amongst other places. Five defendants prosecuted by the government in relation to the case are serving out lengthy prison sentences of 15 to 65 years (for more information, see the Holy Land Foundation case website).
Other prominent Palestinian community organizers in the US who have been put on trial in recent years because of their work educating Americans about the impact of US military aid to Israel and raising funds for humanitarian assistance for Palestinians living under occupation are Dr. Sami al-Arian, Muhammad Salah and Dr. Abdelhaleem Ashqar. All three were acquitted by juries of US citizens of all terrorism and racketeering-related charges but have been charged with or convicted of obstruction of justice and contempt of court for refusing to name the names of other Palestinian activists in the US and in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Defending rights, defending movements
As the repression of the Palestinian American community and the Palestine solidarity movement grows ever broader, so does the movement that has rallied around the targeted activists.
Trade unions representing more than half a million workers in the US have passed resolutions condemning the invasive investigation. On 5 January the Chicago Teachers Union — with more than 30,000 members — resolved to condemn the raids and grand jury investigation and to bring the resolution forward to the Illinois Federation of Teachers (the resolution is available on the Committee to Stop FBI Repression website).
Solidarity groups in Palestine and the US have also spoken out in defense of the 23 activists and the wider solidarity movement, including the occupied West Bank-based Palestine Solidarity Project, American Muslims for Palestine, the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, the Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign and Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network (solidarity statements are being indexed by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression).
Student groups representing more than fifty US campuses also issued a statement calling upon US Attorney General Eric Holder and US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald “to respect the civil rights and free speech of all those who support the Palestinian struggle for freedom by immediately withdrawing grand jury subpoenas which threaten the First Amendment rights of students and activists around the country.”
The student activists added “Today, America unfortunately stands behind Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people with money, weaponry and diplomatic support. We seek to reverse this situation so that American foreign policy stands on the side of people who work towards justice. We reject the government’s efforts to isolate the Palestinian people by severing them from their nonviolent supporters abroad.”
Three subpoenas reactivated
As more and more activists receive summons to appear before a grand jury, attorneys have said that three of the 14 activists subpoenaed on and around 24 September will have their subpoenas reactivated by the US attorney. The other activists targeted whose court dates have passed have been essentially put on hold by the US government.
Once they receive a court date, the three activists whose subpoenas are being reactivated — Tracy Molm, Anh Pham and Sarah Martin — are anticipated to be given the choice of testifying about the activity of other activists in the US as well as abroad, or immediate detention for contempt of court (profiles of Molm, Pham and Martin are available on the Committee to Stop FBI Repression website).
In its call to action, the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, which formed around the 24 September 2010 raids and the grand jury investigation, is calling supporters to stand with the three women as well as the nine activists most recently subpoenaed on 25 January “by protesting Patrick Fitzgerald and his use of the grand jury and FBI to repress anti-war and international solidarity activists” (“Join the National Day of Action on Tuesday January 25, 2011“).
Related Links
Security firm G4S confirms involvement in Israel’s occupation
Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 7 January 2011
The Danish-British security firm G4S recently confirmed in a letter its involvement in the Israeli occupation and violations of international law — reported on last month by The Electronic Intifada.
After the publication of The Electronic Intifada’s report on 15 December 2010, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre asked G4S to respond to the investigation as well as a 28 November 2010 article published by Press TV (“‘Firm sold torture instruments‘”).
Within a week G4S replied, confirming that it had withdrawn from contracts providing security officers to residential settlements in the West Bank in 2002. “However, we continue to serve major commercial customers, for instance supermarket chains, whose operations include the West Bank,” the company stated (the letter can be downloaded from the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s website).
G4S claims in its letter that the commercial clients in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank serve the general public. The company wrote that contracts include the provision of security officers to protect the premises of “commercial clients who serve the general public” in the occupied West Bank. However, G4S fails to address that Israeli settlements serve an exclusively Jewish population and are built illegally on occupied Palestinian land.
By providing security services to illegal settlement businesses, G4S facilitates Israel’s violations of international law. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) reaffirmed the illegality of the construction of the wall and settlement colonies in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. According to the ICJ, construction activities should stop immediately and the wall and settlements be dismantled.
G4S tries to downplay its involvement by stating that the number of security officers deployed in the West Bank is “generally less than twenty and currently stands at eight.” However, violation of international law remains a violation, no matter the size.
G4S further attempts to evade responsibility by stating that it does “not carry out police or military-style patrols anywhere in the West Bank.” The company provides security officers to protect police facilities “from time to time,” but they do not perform any kind of law enforcement or public security role, the company stated. G4S also confirmed it provided security equipment, including X-ray machines and body scanners, with associated maintenance services, to the Israeli police, prison service and Ministry of Defense. In its letter the company adds, “We do not control, nor are we necessarily aware, where this equipment is deployed as it may be moved around the country.”
The feigned ignorance about where the equipment is deployed is contrary to the detailed information mentioned in a G4S promotional brochure it distributed this summer.
In the brochure, published by the Danish watchdog DanWatch, G4S describes the supply of a perimeter defense system for the walls around the Ofer prison compound and the installation of a central command room to monitor the entire Ofer compound. In addition, the company writes it also provided all the security systems in Ketziot prison and a central command room in Megiddo prison (G4S delivers technology to Israeli prisons,” DanWatch, 21 November 2010).
G4S boasts that the three prisons can detain 2,700-3,700 “security” prisoners — the majority of whom are Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip illegally transferred to detention centers within Israel’s internationally-recognized boundary. International humanitarian law forbids an occupying power from transferring prisoners outside of the occupied territory and the conditions in Israeli prisons do not meet international legal standards. Accordingly, G4S’s involvement in the Israel Prison Service apparatus abets violations of international law.
G4S’s promotional material contradicts its claim that it does not know where its X-ray machines and body scanners are used. Who Profits? — a project of the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace — has also documented that G4S luggage scanning equipment and full body scanners are used at checkpoints in the occupied West Bank towns of Qalandiya, Bethlehem and Irtah. G4S also provided full body scanners to the Erez checkpoint at Gaza. Who Profits? told The Electronic Intifada that this information is published in G4S’s own website and brochures.
The ICJ affirmed in 2004 that Israel’s wall and checkpoint regime in the West Bank impede Palestinians of “the right to work, to health, to education and to an adequate standard of living” and are contrary to international law.
G4S also revealed in its letter to the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre that it sells security equipment “with associated maintenance services.” In order to provide maintenance service, G4S presumably must know where the equipment is deployed. By providing maintenance service for years after the installment of the security equipment, G4S continues to facilitate Israel’s violations of international law.
Meanwhile, new research by Who Profits? shows that in 2009 G4S won a tender for providing central control rooms to all the prisons and detention facilities of the Israeli Prison Authority (“G4S Technologies will provide security systems for the prisons and the detention facilities of the Israeli Prison Authority,” G4S website). Therefore, G4S security equipment is deployed in every Israeli prison and detention facility.
G4S’s response to the revelations of its involvement in human rights violations shows the company is not heeding the responsibilities that come with its endorsement of the principles of the UN Global Compact. According to the first two principles of the compact — is a strategic policy initiative launched in 2000 for businesses that are committed to sustainability and responsible business practices — G4S should support and respect the protection of international human rights within its spheres of influence and make sure it is not complicit in human rights abuses.
G4S can expect to come under pressure from the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions movement until it untangles itself from Israel’s brutal occupation.
Adri Nieuwhof is a consultant and human rights advocate.
Featured Video
Marandi: Threat of Seizing Kharg Island & the Use of Nuclear Weapons
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
Frlom the Archives
Iran War: United States Military Versus Israel Firsters
By James Petras | November 27, 2007
Why must Jewish organizations be and be seen as the loudest drum-beaters of all? Why can we not bring ourselves to say that military intervention is not on the table at all? Why not stash it under the table, out of sight and mount instead a diplomatic assault? – Leonard Fein, Forward
Introduction
As the White House and Congress escalate their economic sanctions and military threats against Iran, top military commanders and Pentagon officials have launched a counter-offensive, opposing a new Middle East War. While some commentators and journalists, like Chris Hedges (Truthdig, November 13, 2007), privy to this high stakes inter-elite conflict, attribute this to a White House cabal led by Vice President Cheney, a more stringent and accurate assessment puts the Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) in the center of the Iran war debate.
There is a great deal riding in this conflict – the future of the American empire as well as the balance of power in the Middle East. Equally important is the future of the US military and our already heavily constrained democratic freedoms. The outcome of the continuous and deepening confrontation between top US military officials and the Israel Firsters over US foreign policy in the Middle East has raised fundamental questions over self-determination, colonization, civilian primacy and military political intervention, empire or republic. These and related issues are far from being of academic interest only; they concern the future of the United States. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- How Zionist Control Is Hurting US Interests
- Iran warns it may target US missile launch sites in UAE cities
- American Military Failure in Afghanistan
- Friendly Skies of Georgia: Are Israeli-Linked Drones Launching False Flags from Georgian Territory?
- The Three Big Lies about Mammography Screening
- Ukrainian Embassy in Beirut sheltering top Mossad agent
- Palestinian family displaced after settlers violently attack them in Humsa, Jordan Valley
- The EU never learns – except for the wrong lessons
- Iran attacks on UAE leaves RSF militia high and dry
- Hosting Washington’s war: Bahrain faces the consequences
- If Americans Knew
- No let-up in attacks on Gaza as Israel takes on Iran, Lebanon – Not a ceasefire Day 155
- ‘Of Course’: IDF Drops Case Against Soldiers Accused of Raping Palestinian Prisoner
- Don’t Fall for the Regime Change Talk. Israel Is ‘Mowing the Lawn’ in Iran
- Will Israel and the US wreck the Gulf States along with Iran?
- US so far burned through ‘years’ of munitions in Iran war: Report
- How the Israeli Tail Wags the American Dog
- Outdated intel likely led to deadly U.S. strike on Iranian elementary school, sources say
- Pentagon insider says high U.S official Douglas Feith reported to Netanyahu
- In fond memory of Walid Khalidi, the historian of Palestine
- 6 more Americans killed, as Israel ‘mows the lawn’ in Iran – Not a ceasefire Day 154
- No Tricks Zone
- Storing Green Energy To Last Germany 10 Days Would Require A 60-Million Tonne Battery
- New Studies: UK Sea Levels Were 4 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Destructive Green New Deal: German Energy And Metal Group Warns Of Drastic Crisis
- New Study Documents A 20-Year Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Decline – Driven By Internal Variability
- Wake-up Call: Survey Shows Majority Of Germans Now Favor Postponing Climate Targets!
- Televised! Leading German Political Candidate Tells Schoolchildren CO2 Makes Sun Hotter!
- New Study: A Century Warming Of 1.1°C Is ‘Commonplace’ And ‘Not Unusual’ During This Interglacial
- New Study: ‘Internal Noise’ And Volcanic Forcing Can Trigger 10-15°C Warming Within Decades
- Glaciers Worldwide Are Suddendly Surging, Experts Blame Warming!
- Surprising Discovery: Sahara Is Greening…Billions Of Trees Where Once Thought To Be Barren
Aletho News 