Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Israeli attacks kill 12 Palestinians, wound 21

Palestine Information Center – 10/03/2012

GAZA — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) launched a series of air raids on the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours killing 12 Palestinians and wounding 21 others.

The IOF warplanes bombed a civilian car in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza at dawn Saturday killing a 26-year-old man and injuring four others.

Medical sources earlier said that Ahmed Hajjaj died of his wounds suffered in Friday’s raids.

The PIC reporter said that IOF warplanes blasted a house in Beit Lahia, north of the Gaza Strip, in a pre-dawn raid that killed two members of the Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad movement.

He said that the warplanes fired a missile at a house north of Gaza city wounding four people including a child.

IOF artillery shelling on Friday night killed a member of the Quds Brigades while another citizen was wounded.

An earlier aerial raid on Friday night targeted a two-story building in Tufah, a suburb of Gaza city, wounding two citizens.

The fresh Israeli military escalation on the coastal enclave started earlier on Friday when the IOF warplanes assassinated the secretary general of the popular resistance committees, Zuhair Al-Qaisi, and his assistant Mahmoud Hananne, who was deported form the West Bank to Gaza a few years back.

Before midnight Friday IOF warplanes launched five raids on various areas in the Strip while Israeli artillery fired at all eastern areas of Gaza and gunboats fired at the western areas of the enclave.

In response to the fresh Israeli crimes, Palestinian resistance factions fired dozens of crude rockets at nearby Israeli targets.

The Quds Brigades announced that its fighters fired 44 rockets at Israeli positions and settlements adjacent to the Strip in retaliation to the Israeli crimes.

The popular resistance committees’ armed wing, the Nasser Salahuddin Brigades, fired 12 projectiles at Israeli settlements and the armed wing of the Ahrar movement fired ten rockets at similar targets.

Israeli military sources said that the rockets injured a number of settlers and caused material damage.

Related articles

March 10, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , | Leave a comment

Israeli Troops Kill a Palestinian Youth; Injure and Arrest Another

By Ghassan Bannoura | IMEMC News | March 08, 2012

Twenty-two year old Zakariay Abu Iram was killed while Mohamed Rashid, 18, was injured and arrested by Israeli troops as they attacked the southern West Bank village of Yatta on Thursday afternoon.

Residents told IMEMC that Israeli troops stormed the village and tried to arrest Khalied Makhamreh. He is a Palestinian political prisoner that got released from Israeli military detention last October as part of the Egyptian mediated swap deal between Palestinian groups and Israel.

“ Soldiers stormed the house of the released prisoner to arrest him. All the village rushed to stop the military.” Mohamed from Yatta who witnessed the attack told IMEMC.

The Israeli military said that one soldier was stabbed by youth before troops opened fire killing Abu Iram and injuring Rashid. “ I did not see anybody who even tried to stab the soldier” Mohamed told IMEMC.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society announced that Zakariay Abu Iram was shot in the head and died on location while Mohamed Rashid got hit with a bullet in his abdomen.

Medics added soldiers did not allow them to help Rashid at first but later troops allowed medics to give him first aid after leaving him to bleed on the ground for some time. Troops then arrested Rashid and took him to an Israeli military hospital.

Related articles

March 8, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Inside the TV channel raided by Israel

By Daoud Kuttab | Ma’an | March 4, 2012

In the summer of 1996, I was excited to hear the good news. The Palestinian Ministry of Information had agreed to a request to grant us a license for an educational television station to broadcast in Ramallah.

With little funding and tremendous passion we began building up the station with trained staff, equipment and production capacity.

Having grown up in the US, I tried to run the new Palestinian station as a hybrid between PBS and C-Span.

In April 1997 we launched the first season ever of Sharaa Simsim, the Palestinian version of Sesame Street. It was a humble production with twenty 15-minute episodes, but for us it was huge.

That summer I tried something that I thought was much more mundane: broadcasting live sessions of the newly elected Palestinian Legislative Council. This proved to be extremely dangerous to the Palestinian leadership.

After broadcasting a session of the newly elected legislature talking about corruption in the Palestinian Authority, I was called in and incarcerated by the Palestinian police. My arrest, reportedly on orders from senior Palestinian leaders, lasted a week, but brought significant publicity to our nascent station, Al Quds Educational Television.

In 2002 our station was once again in the news. As part of Israel’s reoccupation of Ramallah during the second intifada, the Israeli army’s engineering corps decided that the structure housing our station would make a convenient temporary headquarters.

Nineteen days later we were allowed back to our looted and destroyed building. Expensive camera and computer mother boards were stolen and several monitors had bullet holes in them.

This week Al Quds Educational Television and another local station, Wattan TV, were raided. Israeli troops sneaked into the city overnight, barged into the two stations and confiscated the stations’ transmitters.

Israeli officials defended their actions deep in areas supposedly under Palestinian sovereign control by asserting that the stations were “operating without a license on frequencies that could disrupt communications with planes taking off and landing at Ben-Gurion International Airport.”

Later, and under scrutiny of a reporter, officials dropped the interference with the airport justification and issued a statement by an army spokesman that “the raid followed numerous requests by the Communications Ministry that the stations cease broadcasting because of interference with Israeli broadcasting signals.”

Israel has made no claim about the content of what is broadcast on these two stations.

Palestinian Ministry of Communications officials vehemently denied that Israel ever complained about these two stations’ frequencies.

Suleiman Zuheiri, Undersecretary of Telecommunications, called the airport interference claim false. “Airport range is very different from the range used by TV stations.”

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad visited the stations and called the Israeli action a “clear aggression.”

The Oslo Accords signed in 1993 state that a joint committee of technical experts representing both Israelis and Palestinians should address such issues.

But Israel essentially vetoed its work by refusing to hold meetings. Palestinians were left with no choice but to issue licenses for local broadcasters. The two stations’ frequencies were officially submitted with the International Telecommunications Union in 2004 when the PA was invited as a member.

Some argue that the latest act against a Palestinian broadcaster was an attempt to appease Jewish settlers and right-wing Israelis. The international community (and the Israeli High Court) has been pressing the Israeli government to dismantle settler outposts built without licenses, though international law regards as illegal all settlements built in areas occupied in 1967.

Settlers, however, have demanded that the Israeli army first demolish Palestinian homes built without a license issued by the occupation authority.

Recently, Israeli military forces accompanied by bulldozers demolished seven Palestinian houses and five animal pens near the town of Zaheria, south of Hebron in the West Bank. More than 100 Palestinians lived in these houses, which Israel says were not licensed. The bulldozed units are close to the Jewish settlement of “Tina” which is located on the periphery of Zaheria.

The latest raid on two small television stations illustrates the arrogance of the Israeli occupiers and their inference in every aspect of Palestinian life.

The unilateral nature of the raid also highlights the absence of communication between Israelis and Palestinians. No attempt was even made through Israel’s American allies or the office of Tony Blair, the international community’s peace envoy.

As the US busies itself with elections, Israel is creating facts on the ground and in the air. Palestinian aspirations to be free of foreign military occupation and to live in peace and independence alongside the state of Israel are being severely challenged.

Diplomacy and nonviolent struggle remain the keys to advancing Palestinian freedom. But with the US focused elsewhere and the Israeli government plowing ahead with illegal activities, there is a very real possibility of a return to the violence of a decade ago.

Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian journalist and former Ferris professor of journalism at Princeton University. He was the director of Al Quds Educational Television until 2007.

Related articles

March 4, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Afghans turn on occupiers

By Eric S. Margolis | Khaleej Times | 4 March 2012

Shock, incomprehension, fury. Americans are feeling these raw emotions as news keeps coming in of more attacks by Afghan government soldiers and officials on US and NATO troops. Six US troops were killed last week as a result of protests across Afghanistan following the burning of the Holy Quran by incredibly dim-witted American soldiers.

“Aren’t they supposed to be our allies? We are over there to save them! What outrageous ingratitude,” ask angry, confused Americans.

Angry Britons asked the same questions in 1857 when “sepoys,” individual mercenary soldiers of Britain’s Imperial Indian Army, then entire units rebelled and began attacking British military garrisons and their families. British history calls it the “Indian Mutiny.” Indians call it the “Great Rebellion” marking India’s first striving for freedom from the British Raj and the Indian vassal princes who so dutifully served it.

Britons were outraged by the “perfidy” and “treachery” of their Indian sepoys who were assumed to be totally loyal because they were fighting for the king’s shilling. Victorian Britain reeled from accounts of frightful massacres of Britons at places like Lucknow, Cawnpore, Delhi, and Calcutta’s infamous “black hole.”

As Karl Marx observed watching the ghastly events in India, western democracies cease practicing what they preach in their colonies. British forces in India, backed by loyal native units, mercilessly crushed the Indian rebels. Rebel ringleaders were tied to the mouths of cannon and blown to bits, or hanged en masse.

Today’s Afghanistan recalls Imperial India. Forces of the US-installed Kabul government, numbering about 310,000 men, are composed of Tajiks and Uzbeks from the north, some Shia Hazaras, and a hodgepodge of rogue Pashtun and mercenary groups. Ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks served the Soviets when they occupied Afghanistan as well as the puppet Afghan Communist Party. Today, as then, Tajiks and Uzbeks form the core of government armed forces and secret police. They are the blood enemies of the majority Pashtun, who fill the ranks of Taleban and its allies in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan.

But half the Afghan armed forces and police serve only to support their families. The Afghan economy under NATO’s rule is now so bad that even in Kabul, thousands are starving or dying from intense cold. Half of Afghans are unemployed and must seek work from the US-financed government.

But loyal they are not. While covering the 1980’s jihad against Soviet occupation, I saw everywhere that soldiers and officials supposedly loyal to the Communist Najibullah regime in Kabul kept in constant touch with the anti-Soviet mujahidin and reported all Soviet and government troops movements well in advance. The same thing occurs today in Afghanistan. Taleban know about most NATO troops operations before they leave their fortified bases. Among Afghans, the strongest bonds of loyalty are family, clan and tribal connections. They cut across all politics and ideology.

Afghans are a proud, prickly people who, as I often saw, take offense all too easily. Pashtuns are infamous for never forgetting an offense, real or imagines, and biding their time to strike back. This is precisely what has been happening in Afghanistan, where arrogant, culturally ignorant US and NATO ‘advisors’ – who are really modern versions of the British Raj’s “white officers leading native troops”- offend and outrage the combustible Afghans. Those who believe 20-year old American soldiers from the Hillbilly Ozarks can win the hearts and minds of Pashtun tribesmen are fools.

Proud Pashtun Afghans can take just so much from unloved, often detested foreign “infidels” advisors before exploding and exacting revenge. This also happened during the Soviet era. But some Soviet officers at least had more refined cultural sensibilities in dealing with Afghan. US-Afghan relations are not going to flowers when American troops call the Afghans “sand niggers” and “towel heads.” Many US GI’s hail from the deep south.

Many Afghans have just had enough of their foreign occupiers. The Americans have lost their Afghan War. As the Imperial British used to say: you can only rent Afghans for so long. One day they will turn and cut your throat.

Related articles

March 4, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Homes Destroyed, Lives Shattered: Criminal Displacement in Occupied Palestine

By Graham Peebles | March 3, 2012

Within the catalog of criminality that is Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the destruction of Palestinian homes must rank as one of the most cynical and heinous.

“Some 90,000 people are currently reported to be at risk of displacement as a result of Israeli policies such as restrictive and discriminatory planning, the revocation of residency rights, the expansion of settlements and the construction of the West Bank Separation Wall.” (Internal-displacement.org)

Home, a refuge from the world, safe and secure, somewhere to relax with family and friends, and breath easy, free from fear. This simple image of normality is unknown to many Palestinians living under brutal illegal occupation by Israel.

“The Israeli practice of demolishing homes, basic infrastructure and sources of livelihood continues to devastate Palestinian families and communities in East Jerusalem and the 60 per cent of the West Bank controlled by Israel, known as Area C. Many of the people affected already live in poverty, and demolitions are a leading cause of their on-going displacement and dispossession in the West Bank.” (Unrwa.org)

Last year (2011) saw more homes demolished than in the previous six years, and record numbers of people made homeless and displaced, “by November 2011 Israeli authorities had demolished 467 Palestinian homes and other buildings in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), displacing 869 people.” (HRW.org) The UN puts the figure even higher, at 1000. (HRWHD) Alongside the illegal destruction of Palestinian homes, the settlement expansion has accelerated, and with it, according to Human Rights Watch “an escalation of violence perpetrated by settlers.”

The total number or recorded house demolitions since the occupation began in 1967, is estimated to be “24,813.” (IAK) With Palestinians perversely being forced to either demolish their own home or face a charge for the  Israeli ‘Defence’ Force (IDF) to do it, some homeowners undertake the task themselves, “it [the family] is liable for the costs of the house demolition which can run up to tens of thousands of dollars. To avoid these costs, Palestinians subject to administrative house demolitions may “opt” to undertake the demolition of their own home -it is not known how many Palestinians choose this route.”1 These ‘homemade’ demolitions are not included in the IAK figure quoted above, making the actual total much higher.

Ponder for a moment the absurdity of living under the cloud of an illegal authority that forces families to bulldoze their own home.

Lives Demolished

The impact on the families whose homes are demolished and the effects, immediate and long-term, are devastating. Children are particularly vulnerable, as too are pregnant women and the elderly.

Families are displaced and separated, children made homeless, frightened and unsettled for years. “Children who have had their home demolished fare significantly worse on a range of mental health indicators, including: withdrawal, somatic complaints, depression/anxiety, social difficulties, higher rates of delusional, obsessive, compulsive and psychotic thoughts, attention behavior – even six months after the demolition. They cry more, are afraid to go to school, feel they are not loved or that others are bad to them, feel guilty, nervous and are very tense.“2

House demolitions add to the numbers of Palestinian refugees, who constitute the largest single group of refugees in the World, “In 2007, there were an estimated seven million Palestinian refugees worldwide and 450,000 internally displaced in Israel and the OPT.”3

Propaganda Permitting Violence

As well as the demolition of homes, places of work, businesses and sources of livelihood are destroyed, in addition to basic groundwork, “wells, rainwater harvesting cisterns, and other essential structures.” When in the West bank in 2009 I witnessed numerous roadside market stalls outside Hebron being demolished. I counted eight smashed to ruin or in the process of being destroyed at the hands of the IDF, America’s occupying security force. “Most demolitions in 2011 affected livelihood structures, negatively affecting the sources of income and living standards of some 1,300 people.” The reasons given, “Palestinians set up shop without the required official permits.” (ISOPT)

Israeli explanations justifying demolitions serve only as propaganda, seeking to justify the unjust, the illegal, the inhumane. The nonsense of permits tramples on sanity. It is the Israeli authorities that grant, or refuse to grant permits for a variety of aspects of daily life; Housing, importing goods, travel, trading and infrastructure development, such as water pipes, electrical lines, communication etc. We only destroy homes that are built without a permit “13%” (BH), or for ‘military reasons’ “41%” (BH), claims the IDF. Disingenuous nonsense. The locution of the deceiver attempting to trap the right minded into legitimizing the actions of the IDF and validating its illegitimate authority.

This bureaucratic maze of madness, established, maintained and administered as instruments of control adds to the armory employed by Israel to bring Palestinians to their physical and emotional knees. “Military law (that) systematically deprives Palestinians of their rights and denies them the ability to have any real effect on shaping the policy regarding the land space in which they live and with respect to their rights.” The two-tier legal structure installed by the occupying force is designed and implemented to maximize the suffering of the Palestinians, leaving them with no choice but to live outside the system. “Israel’s discriminatory planning restrictions result in the lack of building permits for the Palestinian population in the West Bank forcing them to build without permits and live under the constant threat of eviction and demolition.“ (ISOPT)

Flouting Conventions

Whilst Palestinian homes and essential structures are destroyed, Israelis living comfortably and secure within the illegal settlements are allowed to flout the law. Peace Now has documented “a dramatic increase in the number of new illegal buildings in the settlements, construction is proceeding according to plans that were never approved by the IDF. At least 507 unapproved housing units are currently being built in 29 settlements,” these (Israeli) developments are not subject to a demolition order, even though they are building without the necessary permits ‘compulsory’ under Israeli law. “House demolitions exercised exclusively against Palestinians have displaced thousands of families, while neglecting to enforce the planning laws on Israeli settlers.” (ISOPT) Contradictions coil around the IDF, strangling its actions within a web of dishonesty and deceit as they justify atrocities with bureaucracy, whilst supporting criminality.

Israel has no legitimacy under international law, to build themselves, creating subsidized settler ghettos, or to destroy structures of those that do so without their permission. Full and complete domination of Palestinians is the aim, with all land under Israeli control. Israeli leader Menachem Begin said “the return of even one bit of earth to the Arab would be a betrayal of the nation.”(MM)

Demolitions of Homes, infrastructure and places of livelihood, are illegal under international law, “The systematic policy of house demolitions carried out against Palestinian residents in Jerusalem contravenes the 4th Geneva Convention which forbids “any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons” except where such destruction is rendered “absolutely necessary by military operations.” (ICAHD)

Furthermore, “extensive destruction of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly constitutes a grave breach to the Convention, which can theoretically be prosecuted under the universal jurisdiction of States party to the convention.” (Stanford)

Theory needs to turn into action, collective complacency giving way to international outrage. Implement and enforce the law.

Add to the above a raft of relevant articles in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, where we find “Article 9, 1 – States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his/her parents against their will, Articles 24, 1 – States Parties recognize the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health.

Article 27. 1 – States Parties recognize the right of every child to a standard of living adequate for the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development.

Article 31 – The right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts, and crucially Article 38 – States parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for rules of international humanitarian law applicable to them in armed conflicts which are relevant to the child.” All are implicitly relevant in the impact of house demolitions on children. A plethora of International law engulfs Israel. What is required, and most urgently, is the implementation and enforcement of the law.

‘Quit Transfer’

The demolition policy is a tool of terror in a planned campaign, with the clear intention of subjugation, control and intimidation. House demolitions are tied in with the overall Zionist strategy of expansion by Israel which includes the continuing illegal settlement building and violence at the hands of settlers and the IDF “Israel has continued to flout agreements for a moratorium on illegal construction in Israeli settlements, evictions of Palestinian families to make way for incoming settlers continue apace”, “throughout the eastern half of the city [Jerusalem] nonstop pressure is applied as part of “quiet transfer”. (GHD)

The ‘quiet transfer’ is far from quiet or peaceful. It is the violent, forced eviction and displacement of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem. ‘Quiet Transfer’ refers to the technique by the IDF of dis-empowering the Palestinian’s and extinguishing all hope by making daily life tortuous, leading to the ‘transfer’ of East Jerusalem citizens out of the city into the West bank. “The increasing rate of settlement expansion and house demolitions is pushing Palestinians to the brink, destroying their livelihoods and prospects for a just and durable peace.” (AI) Just after Christmas last year, “Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat announced plans to strip IDs from 70,000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, and transfer them to the West Bank civil administration. Though not a physical transfer, this stripping of IDs will mark the largest en masse stripping of citizenship rights, since 1967.” The process of ethnic cleansing, continues apace in Jerusalem. It is illegal, enforce and implement the law.

Intimidation, unjust house building controls, the theft and rationing of water and the issuing of demolition notices constitute a methodology of suffering underpinning the policy of ‘quiet transfer’ in East Jerusalem. Eventually wearing the people down, until sooner or later they simply give up.

“Once they leave, they rescind their rights to Jerusalem ID papers, destroying any hopes of employment in Israel proper – effectively keeping them caged in the poverty of the West Bank forever.” (GHD) Homes, infra structure, and businesses are demolished within East Jerusalem and Area C of the West Bank, ‘C’ for cleansing – ethnic cleansing it is, “the rate and the method of house demolitions show that this is more a policy of gradual ethnic cleansing than anything else, with clear political and strategic purposes.”

Everything Israel does inside the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT’s) forms a constituent part to an overall plan, a vision of total domination. Demolitions are no exception to this rule. “Each demolition is a microcosm of the occupation: why they are demolishing a particular house in a particular area exposes how the wider occupation works and how the process of house demolitions is contributing to the wider occupation.

We want to unmask the way Israel frames the occupation as a conflict of security. The policy of house demolitions shows exactly the opposite. In more than 90% of the cases the family whose house was demolished didn’t have a security record. House demolitions go hand in hand with land expropriation for settlements expansion.”

Settlement building is illegal under international law. Implement and enforce the law.

Partners in Crime

Israel disregards international law, with the support and involvement of their chief criminal ally and partner in crime, America. Every time a Caterpillar bulldozer from the US storehouse of suffering smashes into a Palestinian home, Israel commits another illegal act and the US corporate giant is an accessory to a crime, causing ever more human agony and distress.

“Caterpillar’s [has a] long history of complicity in widespread human rights violations within the occupied Palestinian Territories. Caterpillar routinely provides Israel with equipment designed specifically for military use knowing it is used to demolish Palestinian homes, to kill and injure Palestinian and international civilians, to destroy olive trees and farmland, and to facilitate expropriation of Palestinian territory through construction of Jewish-only settlements and Israel’s apartheid wall.” (RCF)

America is the supplier of all that destroys and contaminates in the OPT’s, from white prosperous bombs burning the children of Gaza to Caterpillar bulldozers demolishing their homes. “The U.S. is providing Israel with at least $8.2 million each day” (IAK) in military aid alone. Amnesty International’s report Fueling Conflict states, “transferring weapons to a consistent violator of human rights is illegal under international law.” Norman Finkelstein referring to Amnesty’s findings, “Israel is a consistent violator of human rights, and therefore there has to be a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel.” The consistent supplying of arms by America to Israel maintains and sustains the occupation, “the US is by far the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel; supplying those weapons to Israel is not only illegal under international law, it’s illegal under domestic US law .” Implement and enforce the law, international and domestic, within America and the OPT’s,

‘The US has blocked the two state-vision supported by virtually the entire World since the mid 1970’s’

Those sitting in comfort, shrouded in complacency within the White House know well where US arms are deployed, what US corporations are supporting and what consecutive US administrations’ silence is allowing to continue. By their support the US is condoning the steady on-going demolition of homes and the destruction of lives too many to count. And what words of condemnation issue from the Obama administration, that plays lip service only to justice and the rule of law, Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton, “described the demolitions as ‘unhelpful’,”4 noting that they violated Israel’s obligations under the US “road map” for peace.” The US ‘road map for peace’ is a blood splattered road of rubble leading directly and swiftly nowhere, at the hands of a broker, whose vision is not of peace, but of extended hegemony and dominance, throughout the Middle East and the World.

Any ‘road map’ to peace, could be swiftly navigated and gently traversed were America to withdraw the manifest support it gives to Israel, the diplomatic, economic and military tools that are fueling the illegal occupation and causing untold suffering to the Palestinian people.

The days are numbered for such tyranny and injustice. A growing movement of solidarity and cooperation daily builds in strength throughout the World. Shining light into the darkest corners, and there are few darker than Israel, sustaining all those who call for justice, freedom and unity. All that would pervert and soil the life of men women and children everywhere shall be exposed. Goodness will ought, justice shall be done. Implement and enforce the law is the cry.

Notes

1 Broken Homes. Addressing the Impact of house demolitions on Palestinian children and families.
2 Ibid
3 Ibid
4 Noam Chomsky. Hegemony or Survival, Americas quest for Global Dominance.

~

– Graham Peebles is Director of The Create Trust, a UK registered charity, supporting fundamental social change and the human rights of individuals in acute need.

Related articles

March 3, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

Soldiers raiding Palestinian homes: ‘We want peace’

By Haggai Matar | +972 | February 28 2012

A new video from Nabi Saleh shows a night-time raid on the home of activist Bilal Tamimi, during which soldiers claim they just want peace – as they take all the children out from their beds.

Nightly raids on the homes of Palestinian activists in the popular struggle are nothing new. The people of each and every village where demonstrations take place on a regular basis know that at one point or another – their houses are likely to get raided in the dead of night, at times turned upside down, at times leading to arrests, but often just for the sake of intrusion and intimidation. In certain villages, like Bil’in, soldiers would just roam the streets at night, throwing around stun and tear gas grenades into front yards. As Noam Sheizaf recently wrote – it’s just another part of the routine of occupation.

The video documentation of these raids, taken on by the villagers themselves, gives a unique look into the way soldiers think and work while parading through civilians homes in large groups, armed from head to toe. In the latest video, shot by Bilal Tamimi in his own home during a raid that took place between Sunday and Monday night, the soldiers are seen entering the house and asking that all residents be concentrated in one room. When asked why they are doing this, the officer leading the operation gives the amazing answer: “Of course. Because we want peace, and you are always throwing stones on our roads,” and later adds that they just came “for a  visit.”

As the recording proceeds the soldiers enter the house, ask to wake all the children up and put them all in one room. Confronted with the fact that some of the children are but 5 years old, the officer insists they are all to stay in one place. While performing a short search of the house the soldiers are glad to find empty tear standard tear gas canisters, shot by the army at demonstrators and often kept by activists as memorabilia. In the past, Bil’in’s Abdallah Abu-Rahme was actually charged with illegal possession of weapons for holding such a stash – worthless as an actual weapon, of course.

By the end of the video the officer is also seen questioning two of the children if they have “anything that is prohibited,” going through a school bag, and leaving with a “good night” greeting to the family. When entering another house, where a woman tells them that she is alone and that this is the twentieth time they’ve come to her house, some of the soldiers stop Tamimi from filming.

The most amazing thing about this short peep into the raids’ routine is the soldiers’ apparent complete lack of self-awareness. Standing there inside a family’s house, in the dead of night, pointing guns at civilians young and old, they try to act natural and even nice, and of course – all in the name of their genuine intent for peace.

Related articles

March 1, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Israel raids Ramallah TV stations

Ma’an – 29/02/2012

RAMALLAH – Israeli forces raided two Palestinian television networks early Wednesday in Ramallah and briefly detained four employees, journalists said.

Soldiers confiscated computers used by editors and reporters in Watan TV’s newsroom and general offices as well as administrative and financial files, the network said.

Troops also raided Al-Quds Educational TV in Al-Bireh and confiscated its broadcasting equipment, the head of its TV department Haroun Abu Irreh told Ma’an.

“This attack is nothing but piracy under a policy of systematic attack targeting Palestinian media organizations and journalists,” Watan TV said in a statement.

The network “deplores this aggressive behavior against an efficient and effective media organization,” and said it will restore the stolen equipment and transmitters and to try to resume broadcasts.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said soldiers were accompanying an operation by the country’s communications ministry, which had determined that the networks were broadcasting illegally.

They had been asked to cease their broadcasting “which significantly interrupts other legal broadcasting stations,” an army spokeswoman told Ma’an. “During the operation and in accordance with law, the communications ministry confiscated several transmitters.”

“Illegal broadcasting interfered with aircraft communication, which is very, very dangerous.”

Abu Irreh of Al-Quds Educational TV called the events of Wednesday morning “harassment to media and education stations and a way to shut the mouths of media and reporters.”

Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti condemned the raids in a statement.

“This act is not only a violation of human rights and humanitarian law,” he said, “but also a breach of the agreements that forbid the Israeli military forces from entering or carrying out operations” in Area A.

“We will campaign worldwide to repel the Israeli aggression,” he said.

Watan TV identified the four employees who were detained as head of production Abdul Rahman Thaher, correspondent Hamza Salaymeh, graphics expert Ibrahim Milhim and broadcaster Ahmad Zaki.

They were released after several hours, the network said.

February 29, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

Israeli government confirms plan for segregated settler train system

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | February 28, 2012

On Monday, Israeli officials announced their intention to construct a train system for Israeli settlers living in violation of international law in the West Bank.

Although Israel’s Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz said that the proposed rail lines would eventually also serve the Palestinian population, the proposed 475 kilometers of rail lines would cross any existing or negotiated territorial lines between Israel and Palestine, and would essentially impose Israeli sovereignty over the entire West Bank.

According to a map of the proposed rail system obtained by the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, the 11 proposed train lines would include a line from Rosh Ha’ayin (northeast of Tel Aviv in Israel) through the settlement of Ariel, in the northern part of the West Bank. One proposal also includes a continuation of the line with a tunnel under the Palestinian city of Nablus, to reach Israeli settlements constructed on stolen Palestinian land east of the city.

The proposed rail lines would also include a north-south line running between Israeli settlements near Jenin, Ramallah, Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and a parallel line running on the eastern edge of the West Bank, connecting cities inside Israel with illegal settlements constructed in violation of both international and Israeli law in the occupied Palestinian territory.

According to the Ha’aretz report, the national rail system of Israel, Israel Railways, paid engineer Gidon Yerushalmi one million Israeli shekels to create the plan. But most sections of the proposed railway would violate signed agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and would also violate international law.

Still, the Israeli Transportation Minister voiced his hope that the plan would move forward, and has already authorized funding for a section of railway running from the northeast of Tel Aviv to the illegal Israeli settlement of Ariel.

February 28, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | | Leave a comment

Green Party conference calls for revocation of JNF UK charitable status

By Asa Winstanley – The Electronic Intifada – 02/27/2012

The annual conference of the Green Party of England and Wales this weekend passed a motion endorsing the Stop the JNF campaign and calling for the Jewish National Fund to have its charitable status revoked in the UK.

 Motion passed at the Green Party of England and Wales Spring conference on 26th February 2012

  • The Green Party of England and Wales condemns the Jewish National Fund for its activities in excluding non-Jews from Israeli land and denounces the organisation for claiming to be an ecological agency.
  • The GPEW endorses the international call for action against the JNF and supports efforts to revoke its charitable status in the UK.
  • The GPEW will add its name to the list of signatories of the ‘Stop the JNF Campaign’.(http://www.stopthejnf.org/).

As I reported last week, the campaign against the JNF (led by the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign) has been making impressive gains recently.

The Green Party has now followed the lead of the Scottish Green Party who made a similar move in October last year. The move is the latest blow to the JNF, which is accused by Palestinian citizens of Israel of ethnic cleansing and maintaining a system of land-apartheid that discriminates against non-Jews. The JNF describes itself as “the caretaker of the land of Israel, on behalf of its owners — Jewish people everywhere”.

Read the full Stop the JNF press release for more details.

Related articles

February 27, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Japanese Distributer Ends Contract With AHAVA

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | February 27, 2012

DaitoCrea, Japanese agent of the Israeli cosmetics firm, AHAVA, announced on their Webpage that it has ended all sales of AHAVA products for what it attributed to “financial reasons”. The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement said that decision is the outcome of direct action and protests.

The company stopped all AHAVA sales starting on January 31, 2012. The victory was that of the persistent efforts of a 2-year campaign conducted by the BDS movement that calls for boycotting all Israeli products made in Israel’s illegal settlements in occupied Palestine.

The Forum added that its activists informed the firm, by direct action and advocacy, of the illegality of AHAVA goods and the suffering it inflicts on the Palestinian people.

An Executive at the DaitoCrea told the Palestine-Forum campaign that the company had no idea about the background of AHAVA when they started dealing with them, and had no idea about the location where AHAVA products are made.

AHAVA – Israel products are made in a settlement in the occupied Palestinian West Bank; settlements are illegal under International Law.

AHAVA uses Dead Sea minerals and resources while the Palestinians are kept out of the Dead Sea area due to Israel’s illegal policies.

The campaign informed the distributor that AHAVA labels their products as “Made In Israel” while in fact it is made in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied territories.
In May 2010, the campaign held a meeting with officials of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and they stated that in is not appropriate for AHAVA to labels its goods as made in Israel while they are made in a settlement.

In 2010, the MUJI beauty products in Japan decided to cancel its plans to open stores in Israel for what they described as “financial reasons”. The BDS movement said that the decision was made after a seven-month campaign against opening the store.

THE BDS movement in different parts of the world is active on different levels, including the boycott of Israeli settlements goods, information about the illegal Israeli occupation, and on cultural and intellectual levels to raise awareness on the Israeli violations against the Palestinian people.

These violations affect every aspect of the life of the Palestinians, and deprive them from their rights in their homeland and their right to their natural resources.

Related articles

February 27, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

People’s struggle for existence in the Jordan Valley

| February 26, 2012

The film addresses the story of Israel’s illegal appropriation of Palestinian land and water resources in the Jordan Valley since 1967 and how Israeli policies, historically and through the present day, seek to minimise the number of Palestinians in the area’.

Related articles

February 26, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

‘Water occupation’ of Palestine

By Stuart Littlewood | Al-Ahram | February 16, 2012

There are few crimes more despicable than stealing your neighbour’s water, and polluting what’s left, then watching him and his children suffer thirst, disease and ruin. Most of us would want nothing to do with the perpetrators of such evil.

British Water describes itself as the voice of the water industry. It talks about best practice and corporate responsibility, and lobbies governments and regulators on behalf of its members. No doubt it does a good job. It also has international ambitions including in the Middle East. So presumably it knows what’s going on water-wise in the Holy Land.

British Water should know, for example, that the 400-mile long structure known worldwide as Israel’s Apartheid Wall bites deep into the Palestinian West Bank dividing and isolating communities and stealing their lands and water.

If the wall was simply for security, as Israel claims, it would have been built along the internationally-recognised 1949 Armistice Green Line, although not even this is an official border. The wall’s purpose is plainly to annex plum Palestinian land and water resources for illegal Israeli settlements, and to that end it closely follows the line of the Western Aquifer.

In 2004 the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled that the construction of the wall is “contrary to international law” and Israel must dismantle it and make reparation for damage caused. The ICJ also ruled that “all states are under an obligation not to recognise the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction”.

But the wall marches on, aided by American tax dollars and America’s protective veto, so that Israel can wield complete control over the water resources it sees as necessary to the regime’s present and future needs. This makes the Palestinians, who sit on top of enough water to be self-sufficient, entirely dependent on Israel for God’s life-giver. Israel also consumes most of the water from the Jordan River despite only three per cent of the river falling within its pre-1967 borders. Palestinians now have no access to it whatsoever due to Israeli closures.

Most of the Coastal Aquifer, on which Gaza’s inhabitants rely for water, is contaminated by sewage and nitrates, and is unfit for human consumption. Children particularly are at great risk. The aquifer is depleted and in danger of collapse. The damage could take generations to reverse, say experts.

During Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza (Operation Cast Lead) in 2008-09 over 30km of water networks were damaged or destroyed in addition to 11 wells. A UN fact-finding mission (the Goldstone Report) considered the destruction “deliberate and systematic”. Proper repairs have been impossible these last three years because Israel blocks the import of spare parts.

“Thirsting for Justice” is an aptly-named campaign by the Emergency Water Sanitation and Hygiene group, a coalition of 30 Palestinian and European humanitarian organisations, including Oxfam. It calls on European governments to put pressure on Israel to respect international law and the Palestinians’ basic rights to water and sanitation.

Under the warped arrangements of the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (1995) Palestinians are only allowed to extract 20 per cent of the “estimated potential” of the mountain aquifer beneath the West Bank. Israel not only takes the balance (80 per cent) but overdraws its sustainable yield often by more than 50 per cent. A Joint Water Committee was set up to implement the agreement but Israel was given veto power and the final say on decisions. As a result, a number of essential projects for Palestinians have been denied or delayed. To make up for part of the supply shortfall, Palestinians are forced to buy water from the Israeli national water company Mekorot, some of which is extracted from wells within the Palestinian West Bank. In other words they are having to buy their own water, and at inflated prices.

Oxfam, which is very active on the ground in Gaza, confirms that 90-95 per cent of water from Gaza’s only source, the Coastal Aquifer, is undrinkable. At the current rate the aquifer will be unusable by 2016 and the damage irreversible by 2020.

Gaza residents are restricted to an average of 91 litres of water per day compared to 280 litres used by Israelis. 100-150 litres a day are required to meet health needs, says the World Health Organisation. Marginalised Palestinian communities in the West Bank survive on less than 20 litres per capita per day, the minimum amount recommended by WHO to sustain life in an emergency.

Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are said to have full legal rights to nearly 750 million cubic metres of water but they have to make do with a trickle, or go without, while Israelis fill their swimming pools, sprinkle their lawns and wash their cars. In Bethlehem’s Aida refugee camp the water is turned off for days. When the street taps come on again, usually for a few hours, there’s a desperate scramble to refill domestic tanks and other containers before the next cut.

Haaretz last month reported the French parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee findings on the geopolitical impact of water in confrontation zones like Israel-Palestine.

According to the report, water has become “a weapon serving the new apartheid. Some 450,000 Israeli settlers on the West Bank use more water than the 2.3 million Palestinians that live there. In times of drought, in contravention of international law, the [illegal] settlers get priority for water”.

Israel is waging a “water occupation” against the Palestinians, says the report accusing the Israelis of “systematically destroying wells that were dug by Palestinians on the West Bank” as well as deliberately bombing reservoirs in the Gaza Strip in 2008-09. Furthermore, “many water purification facilities planned by the Palestinian Water Ministry are being blocked by the Israeli administration.”

Head of the Palestinian Water Authority Shaddad Attili observed: “Palestinians need to be able to access and control our rightful share of water in accordance with international law. The Oslo Accords did not achieve this. Without water, and without ensuring Palestinian water rights, there can be no viable or sovereign Palestinian state.”

Not content with robbing the Palestinians of their water, the Israelis are in the habit of flooding Palestinian fields and villages with untreated sewage from their hilltop settlements.

Against this background British Water has decided to cooperate with MATIMOP, an Israeli government agency that has been ordered to enter into international agreements and “aggressively expand opportunities for Israel’s industry”.

Always eager to oblige, the UK Trade and Investment Department’s briefing on Environment Opportunities in Israel contains this advice: “Israeli companies are keen to form alliances with companies abroad, and this is where the UK can benefit. In addition, growing development and marketing costs compel Israeli environmental companies to seek cooperation with foreign partners. The UK are world leaders in many aspects of the environment and so the UK and Israel complement each other and have much to offer each other in this sector. Teaming up with Israeli environment companies will give UK companies access to innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. UK companies can also benefit by providing their experience in marketing and management for Israeli companies.”

British Water signed a Memorandum of Understanding with MATIMOP on 21 December, so close to the Christmas holidays that it went unnoticed here. The event was not even recorded on British Water’s website but it was proudly featured on the embassy of Israel site and treated by the Israeli press as a triumph. MATIMOP calls it “a strategic cooperation agreement”. Executive Director Israel Shamay said: “We are pleased to be working closer with British Water than we have worked with any foreign trade organisation before. The UK water sector is well respected internationally for its world-leading capabilities, solutions and services, making it the perfect partner to help commercialise and market Israeli innovation and R&D in this sector.”

British Water agreed the text for an announcement by the Embassy of Israel but didn’t release it themselves, apparently happy for Tel Aviv’s propaganda boys to take care of it. In the press release MATIMOP says: “Israel has been coping with water scarcity since its founding.” Yes, coping by thieving.

The Palestinians have been subjected to the longest and most brutal military occupation in modern times and are held prisoner within the fragmented remnants of their own country, unable to develop its resources or travel freely within it to find work, attend university, visit family, or worship at their holy places in Jerusalem. Is helping Israel to become a water superpower really the right thing for British Water to be doing?

British Water’s CEO David Neil-Gallacher was asked: “EU agreements require Israel to show “respect for human rights and democratic principles” and provide for the agreement to be suspended otherwise. Does the MATIMOP agreement include similar good behaviour conditions?”

His reply: “The agreement with MATIMOP is a Memorandum of Understanding. Both parties are professional organisations with admirable aims and objectives.”

Another question: “British Water will be aware that Israel illegally occupies its neighbour Palestine and has seized control of its water resources. The path of Israel’s 400-mile separation wall closely follows the line of the Western Aquifer and encloses key supplies. In 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled that the construction of the wall in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, is ‘contrary to international law’ and ‘all states are under an obligation not to recognise the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction’. In the circumstances, should ethically-minded British companies allow themselves to become embroiled?”

Neil-Gallacher was unfazed: “I’m not sure what you mean by ’embroiled’ or ‘ethically-minded’. The aim of the MoU is for businesses to work together for the good of the global water industry. It’s no part of our role to exchange philosophical concepts with you. The arrangement with MATIMOP is one of commercial intent for the benefit of UK and Israeli companies.”

Finally, “is British Water being evenhanded in this Holy Land confrontation zone? Are you offering help to the Palestinian Water Authority? Have you responded positively to the sea-water desalination project for Gaza and other programmes for West Bank towns and villages?”

Neil-Gallacher: “We notify our member companies of potential commercial opportunities wherever they may arise, leaving them — as they’re best-qualified — to weigh the relative attractiveness of different markets.”

David Neil-Gallacher is also Director-General of Aqua Europa, which does the same sort of job on a Europe-wide basis. This was his parting shot:

“Regions of tension are bound to engender strong views and conflicting principles, and it’s usually notoriously difficult to discern unequivocal moral ascendancy on the part of any of those involved. In my dealings with our companies active in the region, however, I’ve never seen any evidence that they are lacking in principle or moral locus. British Water’s perspective has to be a commercial one. We do our best to conduct our activities in the best interests of our part of British industry and strictly within the requirements of the law.”

How will British Water avoid complicity with Israel’s endless oppression of the Palestinians and the deadly strife with its other neighbours in the region? Perhaps Neil-Gallacher should ask one of his own member companies, Veolia, what can happen if caught up in Israeli projects that violate international law. Veolia dumps Israeli waste on Palestinian land and is helping to build and run a tramway connecting Jerusalem with illegal Israeli settlements. The company must rue the day it crossed the line to fall foul of those nice folks at BDS — the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions movement.

Related articles

February 23, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »