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Abu Khdeir suspects to plead insanity

By Jonathon Cook | July 14, 2014

Three Israeli suspects who have confessed to the gruesome killing of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, who was abducted in East Jerusalem and later burnt to death, are going to plead “temporary insanity”, according to Haaretz. Mohammed’s father guessed as much last week, when asked whether he trusted Israel’s judicial system: “I think they will say that [the murderers] were insane and give them a year or two and that’s all.”

That’s not because Hussein Abu Khdeir has incredible prescience; it’s because this is how it works in Israel. Palestinians who kill Israelis are terrorists, and Israelis who kill Palestinians are either heroes, if they are doing it in an official capacity, or deeply damaged individuals on the “fringes of society”, if they act on their own. Either way, they are not meaningfully held to account.

As Hussein also implies, the three, if convicted, will probably get a lenient sentence and then be pardoned when the fuss dies down in a year or two.

Notice also that the three other suspects arrested last week have been released, even though the police say they were part of the cell believed to have organised the kidnapping. So why not charge them with conspiracy to murder, or membership of a terrorist organisation, or one of the other charges that would be used if the suspects were Palestinian, including Palestinian citizens of Israel?

And here’s another question: how can we take seriously a claim of “temporary insanity” among an organised group (“a cell”) that has a wider membership and whose creation presumably predated the general mood of revenge that permeated Israeli society following news that three Israeli teens had been abducted on June 12? What was this cell organised to do if not to harm Palestinians? And if this is the case, how can “insanity” apply to the group collectively and how can it be termed “temporary”?

I expect none of these questions to be addressed, let alone answered, in the trial – assuming, of course, we get one and this is not hushed up in a closed hearing at which they are committed to psychiatric care.

Instead, Israeli officials will doubtless assent to the deranged notion of “insanity” propagated by the far-right legal group, Honenu, defending the three suspects. It says:

Given the crazy, abnormal situation in the country, it’s natural that among the many people who approach us, some have been emotionally scarred by the security situation or by difficult personal circumstances and responded accordingly.

Remember, “accordingly” here refers to a decision to abduct a child, force-feed him a flammable liquid and then set him on fire. Maybe “insanity” in this case has a much wider application than just to three individuals.

July 14, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Revolving Door at Human Rights Watch

By MAIREAD MAGUIRE, ADOLFO PEREZ ESQUIVEL, RICHARD FALK, HANS von SPONECK & KEANE BHATT | CounterPunch | July 11, 2014

Dear Kenneth Roth,

While we welcome your stated commitment to Human Rights Watch’s independence and credibility, we are dismayed by your rejection of our common-sense suggestion for strengthening them: bar those who have crafted or executed U.S. foreign policy from serving as HRW staff, advisors or board members—or, at a bare minimum, mandate lengthy “cooling-off” periods before and after any associate moves between HRW and the foreign-policy divisions of the U.S. government.

Before addressing your letter’s objections to the three instances of HRW’s advocacy that suggest a conflict of interest, we would like to reiterate that they were “limited to only recent history,” and that other cases could have been raised as well. One obvious example of HRW’s failure to appropriately criticize U.S. crimes occurred after the 2004 coup d’état against the democratically elected government of Haiti. The U.S. government essentially kidnapped Haiti’s president; thousands of people were killed under the ensuing coup regime; and deposed officials of the constitutional government were jailed.

In the face of what were likely the worst human rights abuses of any country in the Western hemisphere at the time, HRW barely lifted a finger. HRW never hosted a press conference criticizing the coup or post-coup atrocities. In contrast to HRW’s appeals to the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Democratic Charter for Venezuela and Cuba, HRW never publicly invoked the Charter in the case of Haiti, even as Articles 20 and 21 afforded multilateral measures “in the event of an unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime.” HRW never placed an op-ed about the overthrow in a prominent newspaper. (In 2004 The New York Times alone published at least five HRW opinion pieces and four HRW letters on other subjects.) It is reasonable for outside observers to question whether this lack of response from HRW to such large-scale human rights violations had anything to do with U.S. foreign-policy priorities.

The very existence of such questions regarding HRW’s advocacy should be reason enough to impose sharp restrictions on HRW’s close ties to the U.S. government. Given the impact of global perceptions on HRW’s ability to carry out its work, simply the appearance of impropriety can impede HRW’s effectiveness. Closing HRW’s revolving door would be an important first step to allaying or preempting concerns that HRW’s priorities are compromised.

Concrete evidence of a revolving-door phenomenon between HRW and the U.S. government renders crucially incomplete your admission that “it is true that some served in the US government before or after their involvement with Human Rights Watch.” We provided examples of those who served in the U.S. government both before and after their involvement with HRW, a norm widely recognized to generate perverse incentives and undermine an institution’s reputation for independence.

For instance, you may disagree with our view that a former official of the Central Intelligence Agency—one of the world’s greatest institutional human rights violators over the past half-century—has no standing to advise on human rights issues for your organization. Surely you must concede, however, that a conflict of interest was raised when Miguel Díaz, the ex-CIA analyst in question, exploited the eight years of experience and relationships he accumulated within HRW’s advisory committee for his subsequent role as the U.S. State Department’s “interlocutor between the intelligence community and non-government experts.”

Your colleague, HRW Counsel and Spokesperson Reed Brody, seemed to misunderstand the nature of our proposal, arguing in a June 11 debate on Democracy Now! that “Miguel Díaz never worked at Human Rights Watch,” and that the organization is “a big tent—we’ve got people on the right; we’ve got people on the left.” In fact, our letter suggested prohibitions or cooling-off periods for “any associate,” including advisory-committee members like Díaz. Secondly, our proposals would not impact political diversity; rather, they would make it more difficult for those previously employed by human rights-abusing organizations like the CIA from adversely influencing HRW’s priorities or damaging HRW’s reputation.

It is important to further clarify our request, as Brody made two mutually irreconcilable claims: that “there is no revolving door,” and that “this revolving-door policy, if we implemented it, would have changed one person at Human Rights Watch.” Both statements are untrue. A cooling-off period, which all HRW associates would accept, would have prevented both Díaz and former HRW Washington director Tom Malinowski from almost immediately entering the U.S. State Department (Malinowski is now Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor), and would have also applied to Nik Steinberg, a senior researcher in HRW’s Americas division as of May 2014.

Just one week after you received our May 12 letter, Mr. Steinberg announced that he was leaving HRW to take a position with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, which he described as an “extraordinary opportunity.” This is disturbing from a human rights perspective, because Ms. Power’s July 17, 2013 confirmation hearing was riddled with provocative comments, including her evidence-free claim of an Iranian “nuclear weapons program,” her promise to “never apologize for America,” and her commitment to “work tirelessly to defend” Israel. After assuming her post, she advocated in favor of a U.S. strike against Syria in 2013, defending it as “legitimate” while tacitly acknowledging its illegality. She later declared that the United States has “nothing to apologize for” in Afghanistan, despite its record of numerous atrocities. Most recently, Ms. Power engaged in a coordinated media event with Henry Kissinger, whom Mr. Brody once referred to as a war criminal.

HRW’s proximity to Ms. Power damages HRW’s stated independence in light of her declarations that “the United States is the greatest country on Earth,” “the leader in human rights,” and “the leader in human dignity.” Shortly after leaving HRW, Malinowski similarly lauded the “bipartisan consensus for America’s defense of liberty around the world” and the “exceptional” nature of the United States at his own September 24, 2013 confirmation hearing.

Mr. Roth, we are deeply worried that Mr. Steinberg’s announced transition to Ms. Power’s office—a week after your receipt of our letter—is just one of many more revolving-door episodes that will continue to create perverse incentive structures within the organization. How can we expect HRW associates to be completely unafraid to hold human rights violators in the U.S. government accountable for their offenses and crimes when they are hoping to work for some of these very same functionaries immediately upon leaving HRW? That is the question that you must answer, Mr. Roth, in light of the transitions of Malinowski, Díaz and Steinberg to the U.S. State Department.

If you nevertheless object to prohibiting the involvement of U.S. foreign-policy officials at HRW or instituting cooling-off periods for them, we suggest, in parallel, an even narrower proposal: bar the participation at HRW of those who bear a direct responsibility for violating international humanitarian law. Javier Solana, currently a member of HRW’s board of directors, served as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Secretary General during its 1999 military campaign in Yugoslavia. NATO’s use of cluster munitions and its bombing of civilian targets in Yugoslavia led HRW itself to conclude that the organization “committed violations of international humanitarian law.”

Solana is therefore a poor choice for HRW’s board of directors. His removal from your board would signal HRW’s good-faith effort to bolster its independence and credibility as an advocate for human rights. When Mr. Brody was asked on Democracy Now! to respond to the argument that “those who bear direct responsibility for human rights violations should not be on the board of directors of an independent human rights organization,” Mr. Brody said, “I would agree with that.” We hope you concur with your colleague.

We will now address in turn your responses to the three cases of problematic HRW advocacy mentioned in our letter:

First, you objected to our concerns over the 2009 statements made by Tom Malinowski as HRW’s Washington director to the LA Times. He contended that “under limited circumstances” there was a “legitimate place” for renditions. You argue that our letter “mistakenly claims he was supporting unlawful CIA renditions,” and that “Malinowski was certainly not endorsing the CIA’s illegal rendition program, which entailed transferring individuals without due process protections to countries where they faced torture.” You further define renditions as simply “the transfer of a person in custody from one jurisdiction to another, which is legal under certain circumstances,” and cite extraditions as a legitimate form of rendition.

We appreciate your attempt to clarify Malinowski’s statement, which at the time provoked public consternation from law professors specializing in constitutional law and international law, such as Darren Hutchinson and Kenneth Anderson. This reaction arose because the LA Times article in question focused exclusively on CIA renditions and President Barack Obama’s executive order, which preserved them through a redefinition that allowed the transfer of suspects on a “short-term, transitory basis.” All CIA renditions, whether long- or short-term, whether they lead to torture or not, deny suspects the right to legal proceedings in which they can challenge their transfer from the country in question. Unlike commonplace extraditions, CIA renditions—extraordinary or otherwise—do not guarantee the detainees’ right to legal counsel or access to the court system of the country where they are seized.

In our previous letter to you, we cited Obama’s “preservation of renditions” as a serious human rights concern, and hyperlinked to a widely cited Open Society Justice Initiative report from 2013 which observed that Obama’s 2009 “executive order did not repudiate extraordinary rendition,” and that “it appears that the Obama administration did not end extraordinary rendition.” In light of this and the fact that the LA Times solely focused on an executive order pertaining to CIA renditions, Malinowski’s comment on their “legitimate place” was troubling and remains so, especially given his now-senior position within the Obama administration. Controversy around the practice persists, as exemplified by the headline of a 2013 Washington Post news article: “Renditions continue under Obama, despite due-process concerns.”

Malinowski’s subsequent statement to the LA Times was perhaps even more dubious, for additional reasons. As HRW’s Washington director, he paraphrased the Obama administration’s claim that designing an alternative to “people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured” was “going to take some time,” without questioning whether a gradual approach to ending such abuses was justifiable or even legal. For an organization that operates under the principle that human rights are absolute rights, not rights to be traded away for expediency or other political goals—which is the only way that a credible human rights organization can or should operate—such a statement should be deeply alarming. In fact, the Obama administration did proceed to “take some time,” sustaining the use of such “foreign dungeons” for years—likely up to the present day.

Numerous eye-witness testimonies led to articles by Der Spiegel in 2009 and the BBC in 2010 that reported on torture conducted under Obama’s presidency at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where detainees have had no right to habeas corpus. A 2011 Nation investigative piece detailed the conditions of an underground “secret prison” in Somalia used by the CIA, which serves as a destination for U.S.-assisted renditions. U.S. officials are said to conduct joint “debriefings,” or interrogations, at the site. The report’s author, Jeremy Scahill, found that the prisoners were unable to be seen by the Red Cross, and “they are not ever presented with charges.”

We note with interest that none of the HRW reports on rendition that you listed and hyperlinked to in your letter refer to torture, CIA renditions, or long-term detention without due process that have occurred under the Obama administration. While we welcome HRW’s call for criminal investigations regarding Bush-era human rights abuses, it appears that HRW has not advocated for criminal investigations into any of these Obama-era abuses. In fact, two HRW researchers have publicly fretted over the U.S. handover of the Bagram base to the Afghan government due to concerns over Afghanistan’s use of torture, without ever mentioning Obama-era, U.S.-directed torture at the same base. There may be some legitimate reason for HRW’s very different positions regarding the two administrations, but combined with the existence of HRW’s revolving door, they reinforce a reasonable suspicion that Malinowski’s inappropriate comments in 2009 as an HRW employee were influenced by his intention to serve in the Obama administration, and that HRW’s decidedly more muted position today on Obama’s policies is perhaps related to its ties to the administration.

Your second point pertains to our argument that in light of HRW’s 2012 letter to President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela questioning the country’s suitability as a candidate for the UN Human Rights Council, HRW had reason to write a similar letter to President Obama expressing reservations over the U.S. position in the same council. In our previous letter to you, we cited the U.S. record of human rights abuses that include a secret, global assassination program and the illegal detention of individuals at Guantánamo Bay. You have countered by avoiding a discussion of comparative abuses between the two countries, and have instead argued that for HRW, a “central concern on council membership is whether a government takes the council and its special procedures seriously,” and that Venezuela, unlike the United States, does not.

However, under no objective standard was this a “central concern” of the 2012 letter to Chávez signed by your colleagues José Miguel Vivanco and Peggy Hicks that we originally cited. After asserting in their introduction that “Venezuela currently falls far short of acceptable standards” in “promoting and protecting human rights,” Vivanco and Hicks outlined specific “policies and practices of [the Chávez] administration” and argued for their reversal. Their letter then dedicated the next 10 paragraphs to arguing that Venezuela has failed in the areas of judicial independence, media freedom and civil society. Before concluding their letter, Vivanco and Hicks devoted only one paragraph to “cooperation with the Human Rights Council.”

Given the broad scope of the content and priorities of HRW’s letter to Chávez, HRW simply has no tenable justification for its continued support of the U.S. presence on the UN Human Rights Council. Aside from its far grimmer human rights record than Venezuela, “[t]he United States is the only country to vote against all the Council’s resolutions focusing on the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories,” admits HRW. “The US rejection of any resolution focusing on Israel and the [Occupied Palestinian Territories] and Israel [sic] exposes its double standards.” HRW’s own finding, coupled with the U.S. role in blocking the implementation of the Council’s recommendations of the Goldstone Report on Israeli war crimes during the Gaza attack of 2008-09, certainly weakens your letter’s claim that “on balance, the United States has played a constructive role at the Human Rights Council.”

It is not too late for HRW to demonstrate its independence from the U.S. government by writing a letter to President Obama outlining the most egregious U.S. human rights violations that should be reversed in order for the country to serve as a credible member of the UN Human Rights Council. HRW’s letter could demand an end to the Obama’s extrajudicial “kill list,” an authoritarian U.S. policy for which a Venezuelan analogue is nonexistent and inconceivable, and the letter could also condemn U.S. intransigence within the Council, particularly toward Palestinian human rights.

Our third and final example questioned HRW’s lack of opposition to Obama’s consideration of a missile strike on Syria in 2013—a violation of the UN Charter’s prohibition on the unilateral “threat or use of force” in international affairs. We appreciate your clarification of HRW’s mandate, “which is to monitor governments’ adherence to international human rights and humanitarian law.” We would urge HRW to consider expanding its purview to adopt the UN Charter as a foundation for its legal determinations due to the inevitable human rights violations that occur as a result of a war of aggression, considered the “supreme international crime” by the Nuremberg Tribunal.

We express our concern, however, that HRW’s stated neutrality on matters of war and peace is compromised by your public statements of questionable judgment. At the height of intense pressure for a U.S. bombing campaign on Syria in late August of 2013, you all but advocated military intervention on social media, while maintaining plausible deniability in the context of a climate of warmongering. A sampling of your tweets include:

* To justify #Syria inaction, top US general trots out age-old ethnic animosities line. Heard that B4? Bosnia. Rwanda. trib.al/qSzrz1N

* Top general suggests US is more interested in a geopolitical partner in #Syria than saving civilians from slaughter. trib.al/WElNRGM

* It took chemical attack to convince Obama/Kerry that Assad isn’t interested in negotiated solution!? No more excuses. trib.al/viu2scd

* If the appalling slaughter in #Syria won’t get Obama to act, maybe ridicule will: trib.al/gp7HDo1

* If Obama decides to strike #Syria, will he settle for symbolism or do something that will help protect civilians? trib.al/hl6QhA1

Such behavior is unbecoming for the head of a major human rights organization and runs counter to the spirit of HRW’s official neutrality toward the impending intervention in Syria. We encourage you to demonstrate greater tact and responsibility in light of the near-inevitability that U.S. missile strikes would have led to violations of international humanitarian law, including the killing, maiming, and displacement of many innocent civilians—as shown by the U.S. bombings of Yugoslavia in 1999, and of Iraq during the 2003 invasion and subsequent years of war.

HRW’s official abstention from endorsing or opposing wars also appeared to be broken by Tom Malinowski’s March 27, 2011 article in The New Republic on NATO’s Libya intervention. The piece was originally titled “Why Isn’t Obama Getting Credit For Stopping An Atrocity?” and contended that “NATO acted more quickly [than in Bosnia] to stop atrocities in Kosovo.” In the case of Kosovo, “we could see and feel the difference Clinton and NATO had made.” Malinowski then celebrated NATO’s intervention in Libya as “the most rapid multinational military response to an impending human rights crisis in history” for which “we should be grateful.”

As Washington director for HRW at the time of the article, Malinowski offered no disclosure of his previous responsibilities in foreign-policy speech-writing as the Senior Director of the White House’s National Security Council during Clinton’s bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Nor did his sanitized portrayal of those actions include his own organization’s inconvenient conclusion that “NATO committed violations of international humanitarian law.” Malinowski’s piece also omitted the clearly unconstitutional nature of Obama’s military intervention in Libya. Furthermore, he excluded evidence that the NATO coalition quickly had moved away from the scope of the civilian-protection mandate provided in UN Resolution 1973 and toward the aim of regime change, which conformed with Obama’s comments weeks prior that “it’s time for Qaddafi to go.”

More egregiously, the following year—months after your organization’s report, “Unacknowledged Deaths: Civilian Casualties in NATO’s Air Campaign in Libya,” examined eight NATO strikes that killed 72 civilians—Malinowski offered unalloyed praise for the NATO intervention. He argued that “Barack Obama’s administration made its most unequivocal stand on behalf of an Arab Spring uprising” in Libya, where the destabilizing consequences of the administration’s support in arming rebel forces continue to be felt. Completely ignoring the issue of civilian deaths at the hands of NATO (confirmed by HRW itself), Malinowski claimed in this October 2, 2012 Foreign Policy article that “recent events have reinforced, not weakened, the rationale for supporting political change in the Arab world.”

Advocacy divorced from HRW’s own empirical findings, unconditionally applauding U.S.-NATO military actions in Libya and endorsing their suitability elsewhere, is a predictable outcome for a former Clinton official who became HRW’s chief lobbyist in Washington, and who may have aspired to a position in the Obama administration as he wrote such statements. However, such advocacy is unhelpful to HRW’s stated concerns over NATO’s airstrikes and its failure “to acknowledge these casualties or to examine how and why they occurred.”

We are heartened, Mr. Roth, by your expressed willingness to “speak out, as we have done” in Kosovo and elsewhere. But HRW’s track record for holding NATO accountable for its violations of international humanitarian law is wholly inadequate. Javier Solana initiated a war in violation of the UN Charter in 1999 and presided over the deliberate NATO bombing of a Serbian television station, a war crime that killed 16 civilians including a make-up artist, a cameraman, an editor, and a program director.

In your May 1999 letter to Solana, which mentioned that bombing, you urged that “these issues be scrutinized promptly and rigorously,” and that “disciplinary or criminal investigations be launched.” NATO implemented none of your suggestions and has held no one to account for that atrocity or for any other crime in Yugoslavia. And yet Solana was awarded a position on HRW’s board in 2011. It is hard to escape the conclusion that HRW’s admonishments of NATO’s behavior are toothless, and that Solana’s subsequent leadership role at HRW signals to former and future NATO leaders who violate international law that they should be undeterred by HRW’s objections and inquiries.

Finally, you responded to our emphasis on HRW’s ties to the United States by mentioning the involvement of former government officials of Mexico, Peru, South Africa, and other countries at HRW. But our focus is HRW’s ties to the foreign-policy divisions of the U.S. government, which, unlike the foreign-policy arms of many of the governments you cite, are continuously engaged in massive human rights abuses. This is a consequence of the status of the United States as the world’s sole military superpower, which frequently violates international law with impunity, and, as in the case of its invasion of Iraq, is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. As a recent poll showed, the rest of the globe sees the United States as “the greatest threat to peace in the world today” by a wide margin, so HRW’s unabashed closeness to that government is understandably viewed as an extremely political decision.

One of us would be delighted to meet with you whenever convenient at your New York offices to discuss these matters further and to personally deliver a petition signed by over 15,500 people so far, along with their individual comments in support of the following demand:

The credibility of a global human-rights organization depends on its independence. Human Rights Watch has done important, critical work, but it can do better. It should implement at least a five-year “cooling-off” period before and after its associates move between HRW and the U.S. government’s foreign-policy divisions. Human Rights Watch associates should concentrate on protecting human rights. They should not have conflicts of interest with past or future careers in branches of the U.S. government that may themselves be involved in human-rights violations.

We eagerly await your reply, and believe that HRW’s implementation of cooling-off periods for its associates and its removal of Solana from its board of directors will represent valuable first steps toward greater independence. Thank you for engaging with us on issues that we believe are essential to the pursuit of human rights throughout the world.

Sincerely,

Mairead Maguire – Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (1977)

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel – Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (1980)

Richard Falk – United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 (2008-14)

Hans von Sponeck – United Nations Assistant Secretary General (1998-2000)

Keane Bhatt – activist, writer

 

July 11, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

British Foreign Office Claims Documents Relating to CIA Abduction Program were “Accidentally” Destroyed

By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | July 11, 2014

The British government has resorted to what some critics are calling a pathetic excuse to explain why it will not be turning over documents that could show officials were more involved last decade in the United States’ secret rendition program targeting terrorist threats than previously known.

Just how involved may never be known, now that the British Foreign Office has said that secret files documenting Britain’s role in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program were destroyed by “water damage.”

The information in question purportedly contained details about CIA flights in 2002 carrying detainees to and from the secret military installation known as Diego Garcia, located in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The British-controlled island, which the U.S. has long used for military operations, may have also housed a “black site” prison operated by the CIA for the purpose of interrogating detainees.

London has long insisted that it was unaware of any rendition activity on Diego Garcia until 2008, the last year of the George W. Bush administration that launched the war-on-terror program. At that time, the British Labour party admitted that assurances given by Tony Blair, while serving as Prime Minister, and by Jack Straw while Foreign Secretary, that the island had not been used for the U.S. rendition program were wrong. In fact, two rendition flights had stopped at the island, but only to refuel, reported the British government in its correction.

The timing of the latest British announcement was particularly alarming to critics, including human rights groups that have sought a full accounting of the country’s role in the renditions.

A U.S. Senate committee that investigated the CIA’s clandestine counterterrorism efforts is expected to release its findings soon, and with it, more news about Britain’s level of knowledge and participation in the controversial effort to neutralize al Qaeda operatives.

The Senate report, in fact, may even reveal that the shadowy activities on Diego Garcia were carried out with the “full co-operation” of the British government, The Independent reported.

“It’s looking worse and worse for the UK government on Diego Garcia,” Cori Crider, a director of the legal charity Reprieve, told the British newspaper. “First we learn the Senate’s upcoming torture report says detainees were held on the island, and now, conveniently, a pile of key documents turn up missing with ‘water damage?’”

Crider added: “The Government might as well have said the dog ate their homework. This smacks of a cover up. They now need to come clean about how, when and where this evidence was lost.”

To Learn More:

Government Needs to ‘Come Clean’ about Extent of Its Knowledge of US Activities on UK Soil, Campaigners Say (by Cahal Milmo, The Independent)

Files on UK Role in CIA Rendition Accidentally Destroyed, Says Minister (by Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian)

Newly-Discovered Documents Reveal CIA Helped Gaddafi against His Opponents (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)

July 11, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Egypt closes Rafah crossing

Ma’an – July 11, 2014

GAZA CITY – Egyptian authorities closed the Rafah crossing with Gaza on Friday, having opened it for one day to allow Palestinians injured in Israel’s military assault to seek treatment.

“We received orders from the Egyptian authorities to close the Rafah crossing after we partially opened it on Thursday,” spokesman for Gaza’s interior ministry Iyad al-Buzm told Ma’an.

The ministry strongly condemned the decision by Egypt as it had prepared buses and ambulances to take wounded Palestinians to the crossing.

Only 11 Palestinians were able to cross Rafah on Thursday when Egypt opened the crossing, al-Buzm added.

Over 600 Palestinians have been injured in Israel’s assault on Gaza with hospitals in the besieged enclave struggling to cope with the amount of casualties.

During Israel’s 2012 assault on Gaza, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi condemned “Israeli aggression” and sent his prime minister to Gaza in a show of support for the Palestinians.

Since the military overthrew him in July 2013, Cairo has cracked down on smuggling tunnels to the Gaza Strip and accused Hamas of aiding the Brotherhood in militant attacks inside Egypt.

July 11, 2014 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

UN chief calls for ceasefire in Gaza Strip

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu: a ceasefire with Palestinians is not “even on the agenda”

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Press TV – July 10, 2014

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for a ceasefire between Israelis and Palestinians, asking the international community to take actions to stop the violence in Gaza.

“It is now more urgent than ever to try to find common ground for a return to calm,” Ban said at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Thursday.

The UN chief expressed his concerns over the “Palestinian deaths and injuries as a result of Israeli operations.” He said, Israel has carried out more than 500 air strikes and that the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas responded with firing more than 550 rockets.

Ban said some 900 Palestinians have been displaced in the besieged Gaza Strip since Israel began its offensive on Tuesday, while 150 homes were destroyed. He put the death toll at 88 and noted that about 340 others were injured.

“It is clear that the international community must accelerate efforts to achieve an immediate halt to this escalation and reach a durable ceasefire,” he also told the council.

Ban’s remarks came only hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Knesset’s foreign affairs and military committee that a ceasefire with Palestinians is not “even on the agenda.”

Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour has said Tel Aviv began the violence in the enclave.

“They started the attack against our people … and the rockets started after that,” he said after briefing the council.

He stressed that Palestinians would honor any ceasefire in Gaza, but it is clear that Israelis “are not interested in a ceasefire and stopping the rockets.”

“The Palestinian people are united … and we hope the Security Council can act in accordance with its responsibilities,” Mansour added.

July 10, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli-Palestinian MKs cower to Netanyahu’s calls to end the protests

By Jamal Sweid | Al-Akhbar | July 8, 2014

The sight of protests and burning garbage containers bothered some Israeli-Palestinian MKs in the Israeli Knesset, who made a call to “stop the violence and put an end to the protests.” Along with several party leaders and municipality officials, they responded to Netanyahu’s calls to pacify the street despite popular demands.

Haifa – The charred body of Mohammed Abu Khudair from Jerusalem, which was left outside of Deir Yassin, brings back memories of the massacre in the same village which took place in 1948. The slaughter symbolized Israel’s brutality in the Palestinian psyche, causing popular unrest from Jerusalem to the occupied territories.

Clashes erupted in the occupied capital’s neighborhoods before Abu Khudair’s body was recovered and continued after his funeral. They quickly spread to the cities of 1948 occupied Palestine, but remained subject to a relative media blackout in an effort to contain them.

However, with the continued and escalating clashes in Jerusalem, the demonstrations in the cities and towns near Haifa turned into real clashes. They spread north to Umm al-Fahm and Wadi Ara, whose main road – considered a main artery linking central occupied Palestine with its north – was blocked.

On Saturday, confrontations between Palestinian youths and the occupation police extended to Nazareth in northern occupied Palestine. The streets of Nazareth seemed to be witnessing a war. By Sunday night, Israeli police were deployed in the remaining villages and cities of Galilee, such as Shafa Amr, Tamra, Arraba, Kfar Manda, and others.

This brought back memories of al-Aqsa [second] intifada in the minds of Israelis, who fell into a state of confusion following the end of the 48-hour ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. This forced them to extend the deadline as they looked for a solution in what they call [in reference to Gaza] the “soft spot,” which threatened to evolve into a full-blown intifada and spread to the West Bank.

As a result of this pressure, the conflict between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Foreign Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman became public. “Throwing rocks at soldiers and the police in the state of Israel will not be allowed,” Netanyahu warned in a strongly worded statement addressed to Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. He requested from “leaders of the Arab community in Israel” to “restore the calm to its previous state.”

Netanyahu’s orders were implemented immediately. Successive statements were issued by Arab parties and movements calling for calm in the streets. They denounced what they termed “violence and destruction of public property.”

While there was no evidence of a single assault by demonstrators against public utilities, some Israeli-Palestinian Knesset members strongly denounced setting garbage containers on fire. Similarly, Nazareth Mayor Ali Salam described the confrontations as “rioting carried out by thugs,” calling for “calm and an end to the vandalism.”

On the other hand, head of the national committee of the High Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, Mazen Ghanayem, called on Netanyahu to take measures against “members of the mini-cabinet who incite against the Arab public in Israel.” He was referring to ministers such as Lieberman during a meeting with Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who promised to inform the cabinet of financial troubles faced by Arab local authorities.

Commenting on the situation, secretary of the Popular Committee for Solidarity with the Leadership and People of the Interior, Wasfi Abdul-Ghani, described such calls as “attempts to silence the streets.” However, he was confident about “the awareness of our youth and our people and their ability to separate the wheat from the chaff.”

The Palestinian reaction “was in condemnation of the heinous crime and to prevent the occupation authorities from covering up the scene as usual when it comes to crimes by settler gangs,” Abdul-Ghani explained to Al-Akhbar. “The reaction was spontaneous and not supported by the [Palestinian National] Authority or the leaders of the interior of all backgrounds.”

The anger in the streets seemed to embarrass Arab officials in the national committee and the various parties. Their statements seemed shy and awkward, squeezed between public fury and Netanyahu’s threats.

The recent events over the weekend led to hundreds detained and large numbers of people injured. No martyrs have fallen yet, due to fears by Israeli police that this would ignite an intifada. However, the Israeli government as a whole is demanding that Arab leadership stifle any popular mobilization, preventing from spreading and continuing.

In an attempt to calm the situation, Israeli radio mentioned that Netanyahu had called Hussein Abu Khudair, Mohammed’s father, and expressed “his shock and the shock of Israeli citizens for the abominable killing of his son.” Netanyahu promised to prosecute the killers and “rejects their brutal behavior.”

Abu Khudair commented on the news, telling the media the he “received dozens of calls from foreigners and Israelis,” but was not aware that the Israeli prime minister was one of them. He was surprised to see the story in the news. However, he rejected Netanyahu’s condolences since “he is the one giving the orders to kill Palestinians.”

July 8, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Jewish settlers attack Palestinian villages in Nablus, Ramallah

Ma’an – 07/07/2014

RAMALLAH – Settlers attacked Palestinian villagers in Ramallah and Nablus late Sunday and early Monday, locals said.

Witnesses told Ma’an that settlers began hurling stones at Palestinian vehicles traveling near the illegal Halamish settlement, located opposite the village of Deir Nidam.

DataFiles-Cache-TempImgs-2014-1-images_News_2014_05_11_settlers_300_0Dozens of settlers then raided the village, but were confronted by Palestinian villagers, who threw stones and empty bottles.

Israeli forces were present at the scene and opened fire at the villagers, locals said.

On Sunday, settlers from Halamish attempted to raid the nearby Nabi Saleh village but were blocked by locals.

Meanwhile, fierce clashes broke out late Sunday between Palestinians and settlers in the Nablus village of Einabus.

Dozens of settlers from Yizhar raided the village and attempted to attack houses, but were chased away by villagers.

Israeli military vehicles arrived at the scene and fired tear gas canisters at Palestinian residents, lightly injuring several people.

In 2013, there were 399 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Nearly all settler attacks go unpunished by Israeli authorities.

See also:

Jewish Mob in Jerusalem: ‘Death to Arabs!’

July 7, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

9 Palestinians killed, several injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | July 7, 2014

Palestinian medical sources have reported that nine Palestinians have been killed by Israeli missiles and shells in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, and Monday at dawn.

Seven of the slain Palestinians are members of the al-Qassam Brigades of the Hamas movement.

The Brigades stated the six fighters have been killed when the Israeli army fired missiles into a siege-busting tunnel in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Their bodies were found on Monday, at dawn.

The fighters have been identified as Ibrahim al-Bal’aawy, 24, Abdul-Rahman az-Zamely, 22, Mustafa Abu Morr, 22, his twin brother Khaled, Yousef Sharaf Ghannam, 22, and Jom’a Abu Shallouf, 24.

A Qassam fighter, identified as Ibrahim ‘Abdeen, died of wounds suffered during an earlier shelling in Rafah.

Sami Abu Zohri, spokesperson of the Hamas movement, stated the assassination of the fighters is a serious escalation, adding that “the enemy will pay a heavy price”.

Dr. Ashraf al-Qodra, spokesperson of the Ministry Of Health in Gaza, stated that five Palestinians, including a child and two young girls, have been injured when an Israeli missile detonated near their homes, in Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza.

Another airstrike targeted al-Qarara town, east of Khan Younis in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

Missiles have also been fired into agricultural lands in Shekh Radwan in Gaza, causing damage but no injuries.

Two fighters, identified as Mazen al-Jedya and Marwan Salim, have been killed by Israeli missiles in al-Boreij refugee camp. Their bodies have been severely mutilated.

Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza claimed responsibility for firing dozens of shells into adjacent Israeli areas in retaliation to the Israeli military escalation.

July 7, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas calls on Abbas to cancel participation in Israeli conference

dr-sami-abu-zuhri-2

Hamas’ Sami Abu Zuhri
MEMO | July 6, 2014

Hamas has called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to withdraw from participation at the Israel Peace Conference scheduled for Tuesday in Tel Aviv.

In a press statement on Saturday, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that Abbas’s participation “would constitute an insult to the feelings of the Palestinian people,” in the aftermath of the lynching of a Palestinian boy in occupied East Jerusalem last Tuesday, as well as the ruthless beating of his cousin two days later.

Abu Zuhri added that Abbas’s participation would give Israel a chance to “beautify its image” after international anger at its “heinous crimes.”

Haaretz has published the agenda of the conference, which includes a pre-recorded speech by Abbas.

Palestinian chief negotiator and senior Fatah official Saeb Erekat turned down an invitation to attend the same conference “out of respect for the feelings of Palestinians and their plight”.

The Israel Peace Conference is an annual event organised by Haaretz to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how to bring about peace.

July 6, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

An Eye for An Eye

By Missie Beattie | CounterPunch | July 4, 2014

A broad moral gulf separates us from our enemies. They sanctify death; we sanctify life. They sanctify cruelty, and we mercy and compassion. That is the secret of our strength. –Benjamin Netanyahu, at the funeral of three slain Israeli teenagers.

WTF?

Israel shows no morality, no mercy, and no compassion for Palestinians. Israel’s strength is not a mystery. Their power is dependent on their belief that they are God’s Chosen, on sophisticated weaponry, US tax dollars, and bipartisan Congressional support of Zionism that renders any “peace process” a charade.

During the funeral, right-wing protestors screamed for blood, “Death to Arabs.”

“There is no forgiveness for murderers of children,” said Israeli Economy Minister Naphtali Bennett. “Now is a time for actions, not words.” And action it was, has been for years, and is. Without due process, the Israeli military exploded family homes of two suspects—an uncivilized reaction that continues a cycle of retribution. Go door-to-door, terrorizing men, women, and children. Destroy homes. Bomb them. Strike Gaza. Don’t investigate to determine who’s responsible for the kidnapping and deaths of Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Fraenkel, and Gilad Shaar. And announce with chutzpa, as Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Avalon just did, that settlements will be built to memorialize the three slain teens. Yes, they’d have taken this measure regardless, any excuse, but now it’s exceedingly opportune—exploiting the deaths of the young as a sacrosanct right to seize more land.

Of course Barack Obama issued a statement:

As a father, I cannot imagine the indescribable pain that the parents of these teenage boys are experiencing. The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms this senseless act of terror against innocent youth.

Interesting. Seems Obama’s forgotten Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the teenager and US citizen on his Kill List, incinerated in a CIA-led drone strike. Obama can’t imagine the indescribable pain that this young man’s parent (singular) feels. That’s singular because the boy’s father, Anwar al-Awlaki also was on Obama’s Kill List and droned two weeks before the death of his son. The attack in Yemen on Oct 14, 2011 that killed the young al-Awalaki also killed his teenage cousin and at least five other civilians as they sat in a restaurant. Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was 16, the same age as two of the Israelis, but the murder of al-Awlaki was, well, sensible, to Obama.

Earlier today, Tuesday, I was in the lobby of my building where a TV is tuned daily to CNN. I stopped to view the faces of the three Israeli teenagers.

In May, two Palestinian teenagers were shot and killed in separate incidents by Israeli troops. Later, film from a surveillance camera was examined, providing evidence that neither teen posed a threat. Did world leaders speak to this horror? Call for justice? Of course not. Never do we see the faces of Palestinian children kidnapped and killed by the IDF—at least not on mainstream news networks. Nor do we see the wretchedness, the inhumanity, of Gaza.

Identical to American exceptionalism’s sadism, Israel’s violent acts are legitimized by righteousness and a response to the aggressor’s (?) viciousness.

The message is hypocritically clear: Some lives are more valuable than others. We hear the cries of the Jewish parents, the family members, their friends, and we feel their suffering. But let us understand that mothers and fathers, whether they’re Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan, Syrian, Yemini, in the lands ravaged by US greed, anywhere, love their children as much as we love ours. Let us love not only the children of those we call our allies and our own but all children. Let us value all life.

Let us value all life was supposed to be the closing sentence in this piece. I should start over, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll just add more paragraphs.

The death of 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian, has been reported by US mainstream news venues. On Wednesday morning, the teenager was kidnapped, his burned body found a couple of hours later—apparently a reprisal killing. His cousin has demanded that the Israeli police and Israeli government do what they did in Hebron: “Demolish and blow the settler houses who have done this crime.”

Netanyahu, fearful of individual retaliations, this time has called for an investigation, issuing a statement that Israel is a country of laws and “Everyone is ordered to act according to the law”—despite the lawlessness unleashed after the kidnapping of the Israeli teens and further lawlessness after their bodies were discovered. Despite no inquiry to determine who killed them but instead a rampage of terror against the Palestinians.

Reading a New York Times article, I gasped that a Facebook group was created to promote revenge for the deaths of the Israeli teens. A photo was posted of two girls, holding a sign: “Hating Arabs is not racism, it’s values!”

This is eye for an eye. And everyone will be blind.

 

July 6, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Four families grieve. One is under assault

By Jonathon Cook | The Blog From Nazareth | July 5, 2014

The families of the three Israeli teens killed by their abductors have been the focus of a huge outpouring of national sympathy.

But what about the family of 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir, who was burnt alive by his abductors? How have they been treated by Israel since the devastating news of Muhammad’s murder in Jerusalem last week?

Here, in short, is what has happened to them.

They have been subjected to a campaign, secretly waged by the Israeli police, to discredit them by suggesting that Muhammad was a closet gay and killed in a family feud.

The father and close relatives have been forced to submit to intense and distressing questioning in police cells from the Israeli security services, all in an attempt to give greater plausibility to their planted rumours with “confessions” from the family.

And now it emerges that a 15-year-old cousin of Muhammad’s, visiting for the summer from the US, was the victim in video footage of a savage beating by armed Israeli police. They kicked and punched him relentlessly after he was cuffed and lying on the ground. He is still under arrest, apparently without charge.

The US state department – so eloquent in denouncing the killing of the three Israeli teens – is apparently lost for words when it comes to the mistreatment of one of its citizens.

Here is the horrifying video of Tarek Abu Khdeir’s beating:

Is this what Netanyahu meant when he said of Israel’s response to the abductions: “The devil himself has not yet created vengeance for the blood of a small child”?

July 5, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Farming under siege: Working the land in Gaza

By Tom Anderson and Therezia Cooper | Corporate Watch | July 5, 2014

Corporate Watch researchers visited the Gaza Strip during November and December 2013 and carried out interviews with farmers in Beit Hanoun, Al Zaytoun, Khaza’a, Al Maghazi and Rafah, as well as with representatives from Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), Palestine Crops and the Gaza Agricultural Co-operative in Beit Lahiya. This is the first of two articles highlighting what their experiences show: that Palestinians face significant and diverse difficulties when it comes to farming their land and harvesting and exporting their produce under siege, and that Israel enforces what amounts to a de facto boycott of produce from the Gaza Strip.

The land and the buffer zones

“There is a 300 meter ‘buffer zone’ in our area. It is common that people get shot at directly if they enter it. Within 500 meters people often get shot at. It is unsafe within 1500 metres of the fence”

Saber Al Zaneen from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative

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Since the withdrawal of settlers and the end of a permanent presence of ground troops from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel insists that the area is no longer under occupation. However, as well as still controlling Gaza’s air space, coastline and exports, Israel effectively occupies the area commonly referred to as the ‘buffer zone’, located all the way down the strip along the border with Israel. A buffer area has existed in Gaza since the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993, when 50 meters on the Gaza side of the border was designated a no-go area for Palestinians. Since then, Israel has unilaterally expanded this zone on numerous occasions, including to 150 metres during the Intifada in 2000 and to changeable and unclear parameters since 2009.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs (OCHA) the buffer zone takes up 17% of Gaza’s total land, making up to 35% of available farmland unsafe for Palestinians to use, with the areas nearest the border fence being the most restricted. Calling the boundaries of the zone ‘vague, unpredictable’ and ‘uncertain’, OCHA has divided the the zone into two danger grades: ‘no-go’ areas where Palestinians risk their lives if they enter as they are considered free fire zones by Israel (within 500 metres of the fence) and ‘high-risk’ areas, where the restricted access still has a severe consequences for farmers and where property destruction and levelling of the land occurs on a regular basis (within 500 and up to 1500 meters of the fence). These areas are kept under heavy surveillance by Israel, through the use of military border patrols and equipment as well as surveillance balloons and drone technology. There are regular incursions by Israeli troops into the buffer zone, sometimes as often as a few times a week.

In the ceasefire agreement during Operation Pillar of Cloud in 2012, Israel agreed to ease restrictions on some Palestinian farmland and allow access up to 100 meters from the fence but this promise appears to have had limited impact on Palestinians. There has been no official announcement regarding the easing of the restrictions and as the Israeli human rights organisation Gisha (part of Legal Center for Freedom Of Movement) has pointed out, advice from Israeli sources is often contradictory, citing the no go areas as sometimes 100 meters, sometimes 300 meters with no way for farmers to be sure. What is clear, however, is that Palestinians keep getting shot at from a greater distance than 300 metres and that anyone going closer than 500 metres from the border is putting themselves in danger. It is also clear that with so much of their land being out of bounds, farmers have no choice but to continue to work, at least partly, in areas which are unsafe.

Since 2008 over 50 Palestinians have been killed in the buffer zone and, although things have calmed down slightly since the truce in 2012, four Palestinian civilians have been killed and over 60 wounded by Israeli forces in the buffer zone so far this year, with five killed and approximately 60 wounded in 2013 according to Human Rights Watch. Most of these deaths have occurred when farmers have been trying to reach their land within, or near to, the buffer zone, or during demonstrations where communities have tried to assert their right so reach their fields. One role of international solidarity activists in the Gaza Strip is to accompany farmers wanting to access and farm their land. Sa’ad Ziada from UAWC estimates that the number of agricultural workers in Gaza has decreased from 55.000 to 30.000 as a result of the siege, with many of the remaining farmers unable to earn enough to survive from their crops.

As well as threatening life, the buffer zone has had a disastrous impact on Palestinians’ ability to make a living in the Gaza Strip, with not only fields but also property and water resources heavily affected. The Diakonia International Humanitarian Law Resource Centre states that since Israel’s supposed disengagement in 2005 ’305 water wells, 197 chicken farms, 6,377 sheep farms, 996 complete houses, 371 partial houses, three mosques, three schools, and six factories have been destroyed within the “buffer zone”’, and a total of 24.4 square kilometres of cultivated land has been levelled.

Destroying livelihoods in Khuza’a

“We can see the Israelis farming the land, and we cannot farm our land”

Hassan, farmer from Khuza’a

Surveillance of the barren fields in the Khuza'a buffer zone, occupied Gaza Strip. Photo by Corporate Watch, November 2013

Khuza’a is a village in the southern Gaza Strip, just east of Khan Younis. It is located only 500 metres from the border fence with Israel and 70% of the population are farmers. The town has suffered greatly from the Israeli Occupation Forces’ enforcement of the buffer zone and from repeated air attacks. During Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009, the village was targeted with white phosphorous, leaving farmland temporarily contaminated. During Corporate Watch’s visit to Khuza’a we talked to farmers representing several generations: Osama, Ahmed, Mohammed, Jihad, Salam and Hassan.

Hassan is 51 years old and has been a farmer in Khuza’a for over 30 years. He owns three different pieces of land, two dunams next to the border fence, two and a half dunams 400 metres from the fence and four dunams 620 metres from the border. He used to have olive trees on the plot by the border, but the land was levelled during an expansion of the buffer zone in 2000. In 2008 his other two pieces of land were bulldozed, including his greenhouses. In 2009 his house was partially burned by white phosphorous, which also affected the land next to him. “The farmers are the victims here” Hassan told us, “when resistance fighters are targeted on the farmland it destroys everything”.

Hassan is now trying to grow tomatoes and olives on the two pieces of land furthest from the fence with the support of Unadikum and other international volunteers, who accompany farmers in in the hope that their presence will make the work less dangerous. However, all the Khuzra’a farmers reported that they frequently get shot at even when working on land over 500 metres away from the border. “We have no choice, when the Israelis shoot we have to leave the land”, Hassan said.

According to the men we talked to in Khuza’a the economic situation for farmers in the Gaza Strip is the hardest it has ever been -not only are none of them making any money, but the siege is slowly killing their ability to be agriculturally self sufficient. Hassan used to earn approximately $1000 a month from his fields before he lost his first bit of land in 2000. Now he has got debts of $60.000 instead and no way of making money. We were told that farmers generally get seeds to plant from the traders which they then pay for after harvest season, but harvests in the Gaza Strip are highly unpredictable: land anywhere near the buffer zones can become impossible to farm at any point and some years whole crops are destroyed during Israeli attacks.

None of the farmers in Khuza’a are currently able to export the produce they do succeed in growing. There has been a near total ban on exports from the Strip since the tightening of the siege in 2007 with only a minimal amount of agricultural produce being allowed for export through Israeli companies every year. No Gaza produce is allowed to be sold in Israel or the West Bank, which has traditionally been Gaza farmers’ biggest market. Salam told us that he used to be able to market his produce for sale in Europe but that it had to be done through Agrexco and Arava, Israeli agricultural export companies, and that the last time he managed to export anything was almost ten years ago.

“I have been farming here for 30 years and all the lands have been destroyed” Hassan said with a shrug. “I used to produce 20 tanks of olive oil from my trees every year, but now I have to buy oil even for myself. Should we have to constantly rebuild everything? What will the future for my sons be? I am always arguing with my sons. They want to go to Algeria to find work, and then I will lose my sons too”. All these farmers want is the chance to have a future on their land.

Surveillance tower in the buffer zone in Khuza'a, occupied Gaza Strip. Photo by Corporate Watch, November 2013

Standing in the middle of the fields of Khuza’a, looking past the barren Palestinian land next to the fence and past the military watch tower, you can clearly see healthy looking green crops on the Israeli side of the border. The Israeli fields are close enough for us to hear the low humming of their fertilising plane as we leave.

Uprooting families in Beit Hanoun

Beit Hanoun has been one of the towns hit the hardest by Israel’s enforcement of the buffer zone. Located in the far north east of the Gaza Strip, only six kilometres from the Israeli city of Sderot and close to the Beit Hanoun (Erez) border crossing to Israel, the population is exposed to frequent incursions by the Israeli Occupation Forces and it shows. Approaching the buffer zone you walk past a big crater in the ground, the result of a 2012 F16 strike, and house rubble can be seen in the distance. The area is under constant heavy surveillance by Israel and several surveillance ‘balloons’ monitor everything that goes on on the ground. According to Saber Al Zaneen from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative Israel bulldozed 9000 dunums of Beit Hanoun’s land between 2001 and 2009 including 70 houses. Most of it was farmland. As a result over 350 people living in the area have been displaced from their land. The Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, set up in 2007, is a grassroots group working with, and supporting, marginalised families and farmers living close to the buffer zone with the aim of helping them remain on their land.

Damaged building in the Beit Hanoun buffer zone, occupied Gaza Strip. Photo by Corporate Watch, November 2013

In the past farmers in the area used to grow olives, lemons and oranges close to the border but all the trees haven now been bulldozed. “Communities now grow potatoes, peppers, tomatoes and watermelons on the outskirts of the buffer zone” Saber told us. “You can not grow anything tall at all, no trees are allowed. If plants get higher than about 80 centimetres they will be levelled”. Shortly after we visited the area, the Local Initiative assisted the planting of some new wheat fields nearer the fence, challenging the restrictions in the buffer zone.

On top of the access restrictions and the personal danger involved, farmers working the land face the big challenge of being able to access water for their crops. Approximately 60 water wells in the vicinity of the Beit Hanoun buffer zone were bulldozed or bombed between 2001-2009 and finding enough water to grow healthy produce is now a constant struggle for the community. The area we visited had one small mobile water tank for the fields but locals told us that as it requires either electricity or fuel to run they were not always able to use it. Instead they relied on a makeshift pit dug in the field and lined with tarpaulin in order to collect rain water. Gaza suffers from a severe and drawn out fuel crisis which, during our visit at the end of 2013, resulted in mains electricity only being available around 12 hours a day on a six hour off/six hour on basis at best. As a result fuel for personal use is both expensive and hard to come by (for an expanded explanation of the fuel crisis in Gaza see Corporate Watch’s briefing Besieging Health Services in Gaza: A Profitable Business)

Pit collecting rain water for crops in Beit Hanoun, occupied Gaza Strip. Photo by Corporate Watch, November 2013

House demolitions in Al Zaytoun

“We plant our plants here to claim our rights to the land. We are not making a profit, we are working for nothing”

Ahmad from Al Zaytoun

We met the farmers Ali, Rafat, Nasser, Ahmad, Jawad and Ishmael outside Ahmad’s house next to the Malaka intersection area of eastern Al Zaytoun just south of Gaza City. There used to be a three storey family home on this plot, but there is now a much smaller house next door. This is the result of continuous targeting of the area by the Israeli Occupation Forces, who have a military base close by. Ahmad, who was born on this land, told us that his family’s house had been demolished three times: in 2004, 2005 and during Operation Cast Lead in 2008.

“In 2008 they destroyed everything around here”, Ahmed said, “they even destroyed my jars of olive oil. We did not have time to bring hardly any of our things. The Israelis came through a gate in the fence in the buffer zone with 14 tanks and four military bulldozers. They were shooting a lot to make us leave before they arrived. We have had to rebuild our home three times”.

As in other buffer zone communities, it is not only property which is frequently targeted by Israel -it is anyone who attempts to farm the land. All the farmers we talked to in Al Zaytoun had some land within 300 metres of the fence. The last shooting incident had occurred just four days before our visit. When there is instability happening in the area, everyday activities for farmers become even more precarious.

Preparing to re-cultivate land near the buffer zone in Al Zaytoun, occupied Gaza Strip. Photo by Corporate Watch, November 2013

The story of the farmers in Al Zaytoun is a familiar one: before the tightening of the siege in 2007 they all used to be able to make a decent profit from their land, with some farmers getting close to $30.000 a year but now they make no profit at all. Some of them used to export part of their produce, albeit through Israeli companies, but now none of them are able to export anything and all their goods go to the local Gaza market. “No-one has any money so we hardly make anything” said Ahmed. “Sometimes we have to feed some of the vegetables to the animals”.

Mustapha told us that farmers in this area have had some help from Norwegian People’s Aid who provided them with an irrigation system for the fields, and they also have a tractor but even with equipment taking care of the land is a challenge under siege. Just like the farmers in Beit Hanoun, they rely on access to electricity for the water pump and petrol for the tractor and those things are often not available. “The water is so salty here that we can only plant very specific plants like aubergines olive trees, potatoes, cabbage and spinach. Cucumbers and tomatoes can’t be planted”, said Mustapha. The salty water is the result of the Gaza aquifer having been contaminated by sea and sewage water, partly through a decline in ground water levels and partly as a result of infrastructure damage during Israeli air attacks in 2009. According to the UN 90% of the water from the aquifer, Gaza’s only water resource, is not safe to drink.

After the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the middle of 2013, life for Gaza’s farmers has become even harder. The men in Al Zaytoun said that they used to be able to be able to buy cheap fertilizers which had come through the tunnels from Egypt at the local market. However, since the tunnels were destroyed this is no longer possible. Products are now both harder to get hold of and more expensive as they have to come through Israel which means that there are no cheap choices and that tax will be added.

Despite all the problems they face the people of Al Zaytoun continue to work their land, they have no other option. As we walked around their fields they showed us how they have started to re-cultivate land nearer and nearer the fence, moving the area of cultivation forward by around ten metres per week. In Gaza simply farming the land has turned into an act of resistance.

Uprooting history in Al Maghazi

“It is not the uprooting of the trees themselves that is the worst, it is the uprooting of our history”

Abu Mousab from Al Maghazi

Abu Mousab on his family's land in Al Maghazi, occupied Gaza Strip. Photo by Corporate Watch, November 2013

For Palestinians, the buffer zones do not only create financial hardship and humanitarian crises, they also sever people’s connection with their history. In Al Maghazi, a primarily agricultural community in the central Gaza Strip, we met Abu Mousab, a farmer who also holds down a job as an iron wielder in order to make a living. Al Maghazi is a refugee camp established in 1949 and according to Mohammed Rasi el Betany from the Al Maghazi refugee council approximately 95% of the population are refugees. However, Abu Mousab’s family have lived on the same piece of land for generations. When we visited, his father, who is in his late 90′s and who used to work for the British Mandate before the creation of Israel, was asleep in the room next door.

Staying steadfast on the farmland has not been easy for Abu Mousab and his family. Their land is located approximately 300 metres from the border fence and, despite the fact that conditions have become a little bit safer since 2012, working the land is dangerous. “We have to play a kind of cat and mouse game with the soldiers” Abu Mousab said. “When the soldiers go away we turn on the water and quickly irrigate our plants, but as soon as they start shooting we have to leave”. Only a week before our visit Abu Mousab’s nephew Medhat had been shot at with live ammunition warning shots when he was trying to weed some crops on the part of the family’s farmland nearest the fence. Some years the family have been able to access their land so infrequently that the crops have failed, leaving them with no income from their land. During good years when they do manage to harvest their barley, wheat, almonds, citrus fruits, olives and apricots they sell their produce to the local market in the Gaza Strip.

However, many people do not feel able to risk their life to work on the land. One of them is Mousa Abu Jamal, another farmer from Al Maghazi. He used to have ten dunums of farmland planted with olive trees within the buffer zone, all of which have been uprooted by Israel. When he tried to go back to re-cultivate his land in the middle of 2012 he was shot at. He has not been back since.

“I was always told by my father that he who has been raised on his farmland must stick with his farmland until he dies and that is what we are doing” Abu Mousab said. His family are so determined not to give up their heritage that during the bombardment of the Gaza Strip in 2012 they made a decision not to leave the area for relative safety further away from the border. “Ten years ago the Israelis came with Caterpillar bulldozers and destroyed olive trees and several 200 year old sycamore trees on my land. Those were trees my grandfather used to sit under”, Abu Mousab said. “They had to use two of their bulldozers to uproot just one tree, they were so rooted in our history.”

Boycott Divestment and Sanctions

Israel’s siege of Gaza is slowly strangling life in the Strip. It affects farmers’ access to land, crops, water and electricity. It also limits people in Gaza’s ability to buy food grown in Gaza and makes people more reliant on imports of Israeli goods. The situation for exporters is even worse: only a tiny amount of agricultural produce gets exported each year, all of which has to go through Israeli companies. The ban on Gaza produce being sold in Israel and the West Bank amounts to a de facto boycott of Gaza’s export industry by Israel.

What can the solidarity movement do?

During Corporate Watch’s visit to the Gaza Strip the people we interviewed made their hopes very clear: they want boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel, but they also want opportunities to trade and make a living. This presents a challenge to the BDS movement. As the tiny amount of Palestinian produce that is being exported from the Gaza Strip is currently exported through Israeli companies it means that any boycott of, for example Arava, will boycott Palestinian produce too. When asked about this implications of this, farmers were still supportive of a boycott, as they hoped the pressure would be more beneficial to them in the long term than the minuscule benefits the current export levels achieve. “What we need is people to stand with us against the occupation”, said Mustapha from Al Zaytoun. “By supporting BDS you support the farmers, both directly and indirectly and this is a good thing for people here in Gaza”.

Farmers all over the Gaza Strip were particularly keen on getting the right to label their produce as Palestinian, ideally with its own country code, even if they have to export through Israel. Country of origin labels for Gaza goods is something the solidarity movement could lobby for.

There was strong support amongst farmers for increased action against Israeli arms manufacturers, as they are often on the receiving end of their weapons.

Mohsen Aby Ramadan, from the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network suggested that one good way forward could be to engage farming unions across the world and get them to endorse the BDS call in solidarity with Palestinian farmers -an avenue that has not as yet been properly explored.

Part two of this series of articles will look at the problems faced by Gaza’s export industry.

July 5, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

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