Death of a Proud, Self-Avowed Terrorist: Former Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir Goes to the Great Hague in the Sky
By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | June 30, 2012
Palestine Police Force Wanted Poster offering rewards for the capture of Stern Gang members, including (at center) Yitzhak Yezernitzky
Sometimes terrible people live long lives. Such is the case with Icchak Yezernitsky, a Russian-born racist, terrorist and eager ethnic cleanser who is better known to the world as former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. Shamir died today, June 30, 2012, at a Tel Aviv nursing home from Alzheimer’s Disease at the ripe old age of 96. One can only wonder if he had forgotten all the war crimes he had committed.
Nearly every mainstream media outlet has eulogized Shamir with encomiums, or at least profound respect. Here are some of Shamir’s greatest hits, most of which have been omitted from most of the media’s effusive obituaries:
Shamir was one of the leaders of Lehi (also known as The Stern Gang), a Zionist terrorist militia which rampaged through Palestine in the 1940s. Were anyone to dispute that Lehi was a terrorist group, Shamir proudly affirmed that particular description in a 1943 article he wrote entitled “Terror.” Shamir wrote,
Neither Jewish morality nor Jewish tradition can be used to disallow terror as a means of war… We are very far from any moral hesitations when concerned with the national struggle.
First and foremost, terror is for us a part of the political war appropriate for the circumstances of today, and its task is a major one: it demonstrates in the clearest language, heard throughout the world including by our unfortunate brethren outside the gates of this country, our war against the occupier.
The Zionist terror campaign of Plan Dalet, put into effect in early 1948 and described by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, consisted of “large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding population centres; setting fires to homes, properties, and goods; expulsion; demolition; and finally, planting mines among the rubble to prevent any of the expelled inhabitants from returning.”
Shamir seemed to relish the opportunity to terrorize, murder and ethnically cleanse Palestine of its indigenous population in order to make room for the nascent state of Israel. The massacre of Deir Yassin in April 1948, during which over 100 unarmed villagers were murdered, was carried out by Zionist commandos of Shamir’s Lehi and Menachem Begin’s Irgun (of which Shamir was a former member).
Following Israel’s unilateral declaration of independence in May 1948, the United Nations reassessed its approach to the partition of Palestine and appointed a mediator, Swedish diplomat Folke Bernadotte, to come up with new proposal while taking into account “the aspirations of the Jews, the political difficulties and differences of opinion of the Arab leaders, the strategic interests of Great Britain, the financial commitment of the United States and the Soviet Union, the outcome of the war, and finally the authority and prestige of the United Nations.” Notice that the rights of the indigenous Palestinians were not included in this mandate.
Nevertheless, while Bernadotte’s second proposal was produced in consultation with British and American emissaries, then-President Harry Truman undermined its progress in the UN due to pre-election Zionist influence in the United States. When Bernadotte finally presented his progress report, “Mediation, Truce Supervision, Refugees, Proposals for Peaceful Settlement,” on September 16, 1948, it included this unequivocal statement:
It is not yet known what the policy of the Provisional Government of Israel with regard to the return of Arab refugees will be when the final terms of settlement are reached. It is, however, undeniable that no settlement can be just and complete if recognition is not accorded to the right of the Arab refugee to return to the home from which he has been dislodged by the hazards and strategy of the armed conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. The majority of these refugees have come from territory which, under the Assembly resolution of 29 November, was to be included in the Jewish State. The exodus of Palestinian Arabs resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours concerning real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion. It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine, and, indeed, at least offer the threat of permanent replacement of the Arab refugees who have been rooted in the land for centuries. (A/648 1.V.6)
The very next day, September 17, 1948, Bernadotte was assassinated in West Jerusalem by members of Lehi, acting on Shamir’s explicit orders.
In 1969, Shamir formally joined Begin’s “Freedom Party” (Herut), which Jewish luminaries such as Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt had decried years earlier as “a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties” which “preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority.”
In April 1988, during the first Intifada, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir warned that any Palestinian caught protesting would have his “head smashed against the boulders and walls.” He continued, “We say to them from the heights of this mountain and from the perspective of thousands of years of history that they are like grasshoppers compared to us.”
Shamir was a committed colonialist. Even when, in September 1991, U.S. President George H.W. Bush threatened to withhold “loan guarantees sought by Israel unless the Israeli Government, which has ignored all of his previous appeals to halt settlement-building in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, freezes building activity,” Shamir never halted further colonization of Palestine.
In June 1993, after being voted out of office, Shamir stated his desire to deliberately subvert any efforts to establish a Palestinian state by carrying out peace talks under false pretenses. “I would have conducted the autonomy negotiations for 10 years, and in the meantime we would have reached half a million [Jewish] souls in Judea and Samaria.” Lamenting the end of his administration, Shamir said it was “painful that in the coming four years I won’t be able to increase settlements in Judea and Samaria and Gaza.”
In 2005, Israelis voted Shamir the 29th Greatest Israeli in a poll conducted by Ynet.
Despite Shamir’s history of despicable violence and willful abrogation of international law, Barack Obama’s press secretary Jay Carney released a statement on behalf of the White House at the news of Shamir’s death.
“Yitzhak Shamir dedicated his life to the State of Israel,” the statement read. “From his days working for Israel’s independence to his service as Prime Minister, he strengthened Israel’s security and advanced the partnership between the United States and Israel.”
It is unsurprising that Benjamin Netanyahu praised his Likud predecessor, saying, “He was a paragon of loyalty to the Land of Israel and the eternal values of the Jewish people,” adding that “Yitzhak Shamir belongs to a generation of giants, who founded the State of Israel and fought for the freedom of the Jewish people in its land.”
One should remind Netanyahu of Shamir’s proud justification of terrorism or perhaps simply note the words of the mayor of Tel Aviv under British Mandate, Israel Rokach, who in 1944 accused Shamir’s Zionist militia of “lacking even a spark of humanity and Jewish conscience” after Lehi gunmen murdered three British police officers in a public shooting.
Shamir’s daughter, Gilada Diamant, claimed her father “belonged to a different generation of leaders, people with values and beliefs. I hope that we have more people like him in the future.” Certainly anyone who values human rights, justice, sovereignty, and self-determination for the Palestinian people, the rule of law, the Geneva Conventions, and the Nuremberg Principles does not share Diamant’s hope.
Thomas Friedman once wrote that Shamir “exemplifies those Israeli leaders whose vision of tomorrow is yesterday.” For all those whose innocent lives were obliterated or whose families suffered at the hands of Yitzhak Shamir due to his commitment to ethnosupremacism, colonialism and mass murder, any more visions of violence and bigotry that he may have had thankfully died today.
*****
There’s also this:
Israeli Attorney General Refuses to Prosecute Jilani’s Police Killers
By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | June 30, 2012
Yesterday, Israel’s Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein announced his refusal to prosecute Border Police officers Maxim Vinogradov and Khir Al-Din Shadi, who executed East Jerusalem Palestinian Ziad Jilani in 2010, after a minor traffic accident on the city’s crowded streets. A lower court had earlier found insufficient evidence to prosecute Jilani. His widow, Moira, appealed to the Attorney General and his response today further confirms the impunity of Israeli security forces when it comes to the murder of Palestinian civilians.
Ziad Jilani’s surviving family: justice perverted and denied
Jilani was the father of three young daughters (see accompanying picture). He’d met and married Moira, a woman from Texas, and was making a life for himself in Palestine. One Friday afternoon after prayers, he was making his way home to take his family for an evening out, when he accidentally side-swiped a police vehicle. Thinking they might be under a terror attack, officers pursued Jilani, wounded him and, when he was immobile on the ground, fired shots into his brain at point-blank range.
Reading what the attorney general has to say about all this is instructive. One point that stands out is that despite a graphic description in the brief of the execution, the document talks of Jilani’s “death” rather than “murder.” They don’t even use the term “killing.”
The memorandum says there is insufficient evidence to bring the accused to justice. The officers took action in pursuing Jilani because they saw their comrades injured and believed they had witnessed a hit and run accident, though the actual injuries of the policemen were minor. Therefore in the initial part of this action the policemen acted according to their training and initially opening fire on Jilani followed proper procedure.
Do you know many other jurisdictions where policemen are allowed to open fire on a hit and run driver? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Pursuit, sure. But immediately opening fire? Never.
The State Prosecutor, Hila Gorani argues in her brief, that it could not prosecute Vinogradov because it could not be certain that he had sufficient intent to commit murder, since it could not with certainty determine his frame of mind when he fired the kill shots into Jilani. He could not determine whether he fired in the heat of the moment, amidst panic and fear the “deceased” would further endanger him. All of this must also be seen in the context of what the accused thought was a hit and run accident.
The brief says that the case against Vinogradov isn’t being closed because he’s found to have acted according to law. But because there is insufficient evidence to determine a criminal act. In other words, we’re not saying our boy Vinogradov was a Boy Scout. But a murderer? No way. Or at least we can’t (or don’t want to) prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
In an act of counting how many dead Palestinians can dance on the head of a pin, Gorani somehow finds it probative to refute eyewitness testimony that Jilani was murdered by shots fired mere centimeters from his head. Instead, she counters that the pathologist hired by the murdered man’s family found he died from shots fired from “over a meter [three feet] away.” Big fucking deal. That’s all I can say and all this deserves.
Another element of the policemen’s argument that makes no sense is that they argue that they believed Jilani, who lightly injured them in the course of the accident, was a terrorist. They continued to believe this after they shot and wounded him from a distance of about 10 feet, even though he was no longer in his van and they could see he was unarmed. They somehow believed when they shot him, that even though he was no longer capable of harming anyone, he was on his way to commit some unforeseen act of terror or that he might fire on them. They feared, if you believe this sack of lies, that he constituted a danger to others. This from a bunch who, in firing at Jilani, actually injured a bystander.
The policemen testified (only in their second interrogation, during the first they didn’t even mention this… hmmm) that after being wounded, Jilani “moved his hand” which they viewed as “suspicious.” Who knows, they surmised, maybe he had a knife, gun or explosive device. They derive this intelligence from a man who was wounded and lying immobile (except for that fluttering hand) on his stomach on the ground. They continued to believe it when they shot him twice in the head from a distance of a few inches. A terrorist? Really?
All of this constitutes an Israeli version of Stand Your Ground. Under this doctrine any police officer may kill anyone he believes (or claims he believes) is about to commit an act of terror. The threshold is quite low. You don’t have to do anything any normal person would find suspicious. You merely have to lose control of your van and sidesweep a police car and leave the scene of the crime. That’s enough to seal your death warrant in the Only Democracy in the Middle East. Let’s call this Driving While Palestinian. In the U.S. Driving While Black will land you in jail, perhaps. In Israel it will land you in the morgue.
The State prosecutor further supports her decision not to prosecute based on the supporting testimony of “numerous” police officers (no mention of the contradicting testimony of Palestinian eyewitnesses since they don’t amount to shit), who of course may be presumed always to tell the truth without favor.
Apparently, Weinstein also wasn’t sufficiently troubled by the fact that during the first interrogation, the commanding officer claimed he fired the kill shots and in the second, only after the family performed an autopsy which could determine with specificity who murdered him, did Vinogradov confess that he was the killer.
Nor did Vinogradov’s homicidal comments posted to his Facebook account shortly before the murder, in which he said the equivalent of, “Gonna go out and kill me some Ay-rabs,” rise to a sufficient level of concern that justified prosecution. Though of course the statements weren’t very nice.
Gorani attempts to argue that Jilani was murdered because he drove erratically. To support this, she even notes that the authorities performed tests of his vehicle and found it to be in good working order. Doing so, presumably would argue that Jilani’s mental state and indecipherable motives were the cause of his own execution.
The prosecutor concedes that there is sufficient grounds for disbelieving the testimony of the policemen that they fired the kill shots because they still felt Jilani might be a danger to them. But not enough to justify prosecuting them on criminal charges. Our boys may be liars, she appears to be saying, but we can’t (or don’t want to) prove it.
In rejecting the appeal of Jilani’s family, the State feared it couldn’t prove guilt. But is that any surprise in a legal system gamed against Palestinian victims? Is it a valid argument for a prosecutor in a country that disregards the rule of law regularly to say he can’t prosecute because his legal system would never find any policeman who murdered a Palestinian guilty? That’s essentially the argument here.
But you can be assured, Gorani tells us, that she didn’t arrive at this decision easily or cavalierly, but only after heavy consideration of the evidence. We looked at all the evidence, as did the police investigation and the State attorney’s investigation, she says. So you can rest assured that all that investigating covered all of our asses and arrived at the only and proper conclusion. The premise here seems to be that if you have a case in which an Israeli security officer behaves badly the more investigations you have the better. Not that the investigations will arrive at the truth or justice. They can and should all arrive at the same conclusion: permitting and justifying impunity. But merely having such a process, as kangaroo-like as it may be, serves a useful purpose that will presumably anesthetize the victims and indemnify the perpetrators. The underlying message is that the fix is in, but we’ll do our best to prove otherwise.
That “proper conclusion” I mentioned above is that while our boys didn’t behave terribly well, they did their job as best they could and a poor Palestinian suffered as a result. But in the greater scheme of things it’s far more important that we protect the boys who protect us, than that we protect the lives of innocent Palestinians. That’s the shameful sentiment in a nutshell. Impunity reigns triumphant. And the rule of law is prostituted.
Aqaba: Family of 12 receives home demolition order
28 June 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
On Sunday, June 24 in Aqaba, Muhammed and Nassa Al-Jabba received a demolition order by Israeli authorities demanding that they evacuate the premises of their home within the next 3 days. The Al-Jabba family have not evacuated the home as it is the sole residence for their family of 10 children. The Israeli military may arrive at any time to demolish the building in the Area C (Israeli civil and security control) village.
Upon arriving in the village of Aqaba, International Solidarity Movement (ISM) volunteers spoke with the mayor, Haj Sami, an older man left wheelchair bound after suffering 3 gunshots from Israeli soldiers while working on his farm in 1971. He was only 16 years old at the time and fortunate to survive.
Haj Sami introduced ISM volunteers to Nassa Al-Jabbar, the mother of 10 who has been faced with a demolition order, giving her only 3 days to abandon the premises before the Israeli army is able to arrive with bulldozers and raze her home.
Nassa and her husband Muhammed have spent 10 years building their home. When asked why it took them so long, Nassa replied that because a permit to build on their own land is impossible to attain from Israel, the house was built in 7 different stages in order to avoid the soldiers attention.
Nassa says that if Israeli forces demolish her home, she, her husband, and her 10 young sons and daughters will have no other place to go. They do not have the funds to build another home.
Muhammed states that regardless of the outcome, he will not leave his home. If demolished, their house will join the over 24,000 Palestinian homes that have been demolished since 1967.
Nassa and Muhammed’s home is not the only building that faces demolition. Four other shelters and a concrete factory have received orders as well.
The village of Aqaba has suffered extensively from the Israeli occupation. Of a population of 1000, 700 residents are internal refugees. The villagers live in constant threat of home demolition.
On September 15, 2011, two animal shelters and a home were demolished. There was no advance warning, not even a demolition order. The roads that provide easy access into the village were also destroyed by Israeli forces. On a weekly basis, Israeli forces hold military training near the village, subjecting Aqaba to the sound of gun shots. On Tuesday morning however, the Israeli military began also training with tanks. The explosions are resulting in stress and trauma for the villagers.
If allowed to happen, Nassa and Muhammed’s home will join the list of thousands of demolitions inflicted on Palestinians by the Israeli military occupation.
Related articles
- Five houses, and another five, and a bulldozer, and a prison cell (adam-keller2.blogspot.com)
- Israel Plans Demolition of Entire Palestinian Village (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Israeli military training in Al ‘Aqaba village, West Bank | #PHOTOS & #VIDEOS (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
- Al Aqaba (altahrir.wordpress.com)
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22 Elected Legislators Still Imprisoned By Israel
IMEMC & Agencies | June 29, 2012
Head of the Census Department at the Palestinian Ministry of Detainees, Abdul-Nasser Farawna, reported that the current number of elected Palestinian legislators imprisoned by Israel dropped to 22 after Israel released, on Thursday afternoon, two legislators, the Palestine News Network, PNN, reported.
The two legislators who were released Thursday are Khalil Ar-Rabaey from Hebron, and Nasser Abdul-Jawad from Salfit.
Farawna said that Israel released, over the past five days, five legislators identified as Anwar Zboun, Ayman Daraghma, and Mohammad At-Til, in addition to Ar-Rabaey and Abdul-Jawad.
He added that 22 legislators are still imprisoned by Israel, 19 of them are members of the Hamas Change and Reform parliamentary bloc, in addition to the Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, legislator Ahmad Saadat, legislator Marwan Barghouthi and legislator Jamal At-Terawi, both members of Fateh movement.
Farawna stated that the continued abduction and imprisonment of the elected legislators and officials is a direct violation of international law and basic principles of human rights, and a violation of the principles of democracy.
He added that kidnapping Palestinian officials is a rude Israeli meddling in internal Palestinian affairs, and called on Arab and international parliamentarian to act on obliging Israel to secure the release of all elected officials.
Related articles
- Israeli Government Fails to Carry Out Terms of Prisoner Agreement (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Palestinian prisoners’ conference declaration statement (windowintopalestine.blogspot.com)
- Israel arrests 800,000 Palestinians since 1948 (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Ecuador Will Cease Participation In School Of The Americas
School of the Americas Watch Statement on Ecuadoran Decision to Cease Participation in SOA/WHINSEC | June 28, 2012
This Wednesday, June 27, Ecuadoran President Rafaeal Correa, after hearing from a delegation of SOA Watch, has taken the decision to cease sending Ecuadoran soldiers to the School of the Americas.
We wish to express our happiness for this decision by the Ecuadoran government, convinced that the School of the Americas – now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation –indeed trained and trains Latin American soldiers under the doctrine of National Security, based on fighting the internal enemy. This doctrine has borne human rights violations throughout Latin America.
In 2010, in the Truth Commission Report that investigated human rights violations in Ecuador, the training that Ecuadoran soldiers had received at the School of the Americas was called to attention, and the report recommended that the State cease sending troops to the military school. Today that recommendation has been taken into account and we are happy.
The thousands of victims of human rights violations in Ecuador and all of Latin America have the right to know those responsible for the killings, forced disappearances and torture, and that they are brought to justice to pay for their crimes. At the same time, nations must give guarantees to society and survivors that this will not happen again. One concrete way to do this is to end military training at the SOA, that has caused so much damage and suffering to our people.
Ecuador joins Venezuela, Uruguay, Argentina and Bolivia, who have pulled out of the SOA. As a result, we call on the other countries of Latin America to stop sending their troops to the School of the Americas as soon as possible.
We congratulate President Rafael Correa for this sovereign decision and to finally protect the Ecuadoran people from being subject to future human rights violations.
In solidarity,
School of the Americas Watch
UK Report finds Israel breaches International Law in treatment of Palestinian children
By Julie Webb-Pullman – Scoop – 27/06/2012
A group of nine British lawyers lawyers from the fields of human rights, crime and child welfare released the Children in Military Custody report on Tuesday, concluding that Israel is in breach of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Fourth Geneva Convention in its treatment of Palestinian children.
The Report compared Israeli domestic law as it applies to Israeli children, and Israeli military law as it applies to Palestinian children, and found significant differences.
“What is important is that, whatever the offence charged, an Israeli child and a Palestinian child should from start to finish be treated by the Israeli justice system, whether civilian or military in form, according to the same principles and procedures,” the Report states.
Practices criticised in the report included discrimination, failure to observe the child’s best interests, premature resort to detention, confining children with adult prisoners, delayed access to lawyers, and the use of shackles. The group also considered that other practices they were informed of, if proven, would constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
The Report contains a litany of abuses of Palestinian children at every stage of the process, from arrest through interrogation, bail hearings and plea bargains, trial, sentencing, detention and complaints.
One section (Section 36, of the 120 in the Report) describing only the detention process, states:
“…those who have been identified as offenders or suspects are arrested by soldiers, usually in nighttime raids on their homes are blindfolded, and, with their wrists painfully bound behind them, are then transported to interrogation centres, sometimes face-down on the floor of military vehicles. The majority are verbally and / or physically abused and, without being informed of their right to silence or the right to see a lawyer, are sometimes held in solitary confinement, pressured to inculpate themselves and others, and are often made to sign statements which they cannot read because they are written in Hebrew. Interrogations are not, save on rare occasions, audio-visually recorded, and those tapes that do exist are almost impossible to obtain by defence lawyers representing the children.”
The details of these detentions, as well as the remand and jail conditions, make horrifying reading.
The project was funded by the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the reporting group was comprised by The Rt Hon Sir Stephen Sedley, The Rt Hon the Baroness Patricia Scotland of Asthal QC, Frances Oldham QC, Marianna Hildyard QC, Judy Khan QC, Jayne Harrill, Jude Lanchin, Greg Davies and Marc Mason.
The stature of the reporting group, and the fact that “a substantial and balanced body of relevant information was collated” from key parties, including Israeli Government departments and the military, Israeli and Palestinian NGOs, UN agencies, former Israeli soldiers and Palestinian children, gives some hope that international pressure will be brought upon Israel to end these illegal and inhumane practices.
Whether Israel bows to the pressure, and observes international law, is quite another matter.
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Israeli Government Fails to Carry Out Terms of Prisoner Agreement
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | June 28, 2012
Palestinian and international rights groups have condemned the Israeli government’s failure to live up to the agreement made one month ago in order to end the month-long hunger strike of over 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
The promises made by the Israeli government in order to end the hunger strike included an end to solitary confinement, improved living conditions for prisoners, proper medical care and increased family visits. A month after the hunger strike was declared over, however, the Israeli authorities have yet to implement these agreed-upon terms.
The one item that Israeli authorities did carry out was the return of 91 bodies from the so-called ‘Numbers’ cemetery in Israel – a cemetery made up of Palestinians who died or were killed inside Israel. Although Israel has always denied the existence of this cemetery, mocking those Palestinians who insisted that it did exist, the release of the bodies constituted an admission by the Israeli government that the Numbers cemetery does exist. Those 91 bodies are not all of the Palestinians buried in the Numbers cemetery, but no one on the Palestinian side knows how many bodies remain, and Israel has refused to release any data.
Some prisoner rights groups are blaming the Palestinian Authority for giving in to easily during negotiations with the Israelis regarding the hunger striking prisoners, and for failing to pressure Israel to live up to its end of the bargain.
In fact, there is no mechanism by which the Palestinian Authority can force Israel to carry out its promises regarding prisoners, as Palestinians have no legal recourse to take the Israeli government to court.
One of the promises made by the Israeli government was hailed at the time as a success for prisoners, but prisoner rights groups including Addameer have cautioned that it does not constitute a real change in policy. That is the decision to not extend so-called ‘administrative detention’ orders under which Palestinians are held without charges. The caveat, however, is that Israel can extend those orders if there is ‘new information’ in the case. Since the charges and trial in these cases are held in secret, with no possibility of mounting a defense, this caveat makes the change in policy virtually meaningless.
One representative of Addameer, Mourad Jadallah, told reporters with the Ma’an news agency, “Israel also does not want Palestinians to feel they reached something with the hunger strike or let the prisoners movement feel like they reached their demands. They want to say: We can control everything.”
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Why Do We Keep Building Needless Prisons?
By Amy Fettig, ACLU National Prison Project | June 26, 2012
Why are the Feds spending $250 million in taxpayer dollars to build an unnecessary and counter-productive prison for women in rural Aliceville, Alabama?
As the New York Times pointed out recently, most women in federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) custody are incarcerated for non-violent offenses; over half of them have minor children. Many of these women do not need to be incarcerated in order to protect public safety. Locking them up hundreds of miles away from their families, children and communities is exactly the wrong step to take if we want them to re-enter society successfully. Decades of research demonstrates the success of policies that keep prisoners near their homes – and for women especially, concern for their children is most often cited as a prime motivator for successful rehabilitation.
But visits to remote Aliceville by most prisoners’ family members and children will be difficult, if not impossible. And the increased recidivism and negative effects this will have on the women prisoners, their children, and the community will be devastating.
What could possibly justify a decision with such a predictably bad result? The BOP claims that its overcrowding problems continue to justify prison expansion, such as the Aliceville facility, but it’s hard to credit these claims – especially since the BOP has continually failed to implement sentencing reduction measures that would help alleviate overcrowding and lower the federal prison population at great savings to the taxpayer.
Here are just a few examples:
• BOP does not allow prisoners to take full advantage of its community corrections programs, so that prisoners now serve an average of only four of the available 12 months in the community authorized by the Second Chance Act.
• The Residential Drug Abuse Program incentive for nonviolent offenders is underutilized so that successful participants rarely receive the 12 month sentence reduction to which they are legally entitled.
• BOP rarely uses its authority to request sentence modifications for “extraordinary and compelling reasons,” often referred to as “compassionate release,” which deprives sentencing judges of the opportunity to shorten the terms of deserving prisoners, especially the elderly and infirm whose continued imprisonment involves some of the highest prison costs.
These management failures lead to both over-incarceration and overcrowding and they waste millions: just by increasing home confinement by three months, the BOP could save up to $111.4 million each year.
In condemning the Aliceville facility as an example of misguided and costly policy, the New York Times noted that in contrast to the BOP, state corrections systems are scaling back incarceration due to its crushing costs. A recent report by the ACLU, Smart Reform is Possible, highlighted reform efforts in several states, including New York and Texas, which were both able to stop building prisons, save money and lower crime rates by implementing sensible alternatives to incarceration.
It’s time for BOP leadership to look to the states for new ideas and approaches. Based on the successful reforms being implemented around the country it’s clear that we don’t need another federal prison for women in a remote corner of Alabama. We need leadership dedicated to producing the best, most cost-effective outcomes for women, their children and the community.
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Bedouins forced to leave their homes to make way for Israeli maneuvers
Palestine Information Center – 27/06/2012
JORDAN VALLEY — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) forced Bedouins inhabiting Wadi Al-Maleh in the northern Jordan Valley to leave their homes on Tuesday evening.
The municipal council of Al-Maleh and the Bedouin tribes said that the IOF command told the inhabitants that they should leave their homes for two days to make way for military exercises.
It said that the soldiers forcibly evacuated dozens of families from Wadi Al-Maleh.
The council said that the IOF regularly launches maneuvers near the area using live ammunition threatening lives of the inhabitants, adding that the Israeli army never launches such maneuvers near the Jewish settlements.
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Israeli ex-top diplomat backs boycott
Al Akhbar | June 27, 2012
Former top Israeli diplomat Alon Liel threw his backing behind renowned author Alice Walker’s decision to shun an Israeli publishing house, citing an international boycott against Israel for its oppression of Palestinians, the Times of Israel reported.
Liel, who served as Israel’s ambassador to South Africa between 1992 and 1994 and was also the director of Israel’s foreign ministry, said he supported the international campaign against Israel, adding that he too boycotted goods from illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“If nobody speaks about the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, nothing will happen. I think that such a move, boycotting products from Israeli factories in the settlements, is a kind of wake-up call,” he wrote in South Africa’s Business Day paper published on Sunday.
“I can understand the desire, by people of conscience, to reassert an agenda of justice, to remind Israelis that Palestinians exist. I can understand small but symbolic acts of protest that hold a mirror up to Israeli society,” he said
Liel went on to back Walker’s refusal to allow her best-selling novel “The Color Purple” be translated into Hebrew by an Israeli publishing firm to highlight the plight of the Palestinian people.
“I think it’s needed, yes. Unfortunately, I don’t see Israeli politicians waking up from these calls. But it’s better than nothing,” he said.
The former Israeli diplomat also defended South Africa’s decision to ban “Made in Israel” labels on products from the occupied West Bank.
“I cannot condemn the move to prevent goods made in the occupied Palestinian territory from being falsely classified as ‘Made in Israel.’ I support the South African government’s insistence on this distinction between Israel and its occupation,” he wrote in his column.
Palestinian children tortured
Britain is preparing to challenge Israel over alleged malpractices by the Jewish state of Palestinian children, which could amount to torture, The Independent newspaper reported on Wednesday.
An investigation by senior British lawyers – funded by the Foreign Office – included shocking acts of cruelty against detained Palestinian children, including solitary confinement, blindfolding and being forced to wear leg irons.
The findings, based largely on testimonies by Palestinian children from the West Bank, were published in Children in Military Custody.
“We were sitting in court and saw a section of a preliminary hearing when a very young looking child, a boy, was brought in wearing a brown uniform with leg irons on. We were shocked by that. This was a situation where we had been invited into the military courts for briefings from senior judges,” Greg Davies, a human rights barrister involved in the investigation wrote.
“To hold children routinely and for substantial periods in solitary confinement would, if it occurred, be capable of amounting to torture,” the report said.
The report also found Palestinian children were often dragged from the beds in the middle of the night, and subjected to verbal and physical abuse in jail in a bid to have them sign confessions they were not permitted to read, The Independent said.
Britain’s Foreign Office said it would “lobby” Israel “for further improvements” without clarifying.
“The UK government has had long-standing concerns about the treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli detention, and as a result decided to fund this independent report. While recognizing that some positive recent steps have been made by the Israeli authorities, we share many of the report’s concerns, and will continue to lobby for further improvements,” The Independent quoted the Foreign Office as saying.
Israel maintains a military occupation of the West Bank, and a siege on Gaza, subjecting the indigenous Palestinian population to extremely harsh measures that many activists have dubbed apartheid.
(Al-Akhbar, Times of Israel, The Independent)
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Jordan Valley: Palestinian family’s water confiscated, internationals arrested
25 June 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
On Thursday, June 21, Israeli forces confiscated a water tank from a Bedouin Palestinian family in the Jordan Valley, leaving them with no access to water. Three Swedish women were arrested for standing in solidarity with Palestinian women and children who peacefully protested by standing in between the Israeli military and the water tank at risk of theft.
Israeli soldiers deal violently with a Palestinian woman peacefully protesting the theft of her water tank
The Jordan valley is a fertile area ideal for agricultural production. When Israel took control of the West Bank, it immediately took hold of water resources and began to target Palestinian communities and empty them from the Jordan Valley. The villages left are isolated from each other not only by distance but by Israeli checkpoints, closed military zones, and other restrictions on movement. The Israeli military performs military training in proximity to many communities, putting them at constant risk.
The illegal occupation of water resources has made water access an urgent problem. The United Nations declares water a basic human right. The World Health Organization has declared that each individual needs access to 100 litres of water per day, but Palestinians use on average between 50 to 70 litres per day. Many Palestinians in the Jordan Valley however, receive as little as 10-20 litres per day. This is a figure lower than the absolute minimum daily consumption required to avoid ‘mass health epidemics.’ Families in the Jordan Valley are forced to buy water at incredibly inflated prices. Some households spend 40-50% of their income to buy water from Israeli companies.
“When we came to the Bedouin camp, children were crying and there were a lot of soldiers trying to drag them away from the tractor that they tried to block. There were no men, only women and children, and around 60 soldiers and policemen. The Bedouin men were scared to show any resistance because of the risk of administrative detention,” says Rosa Andersson, one of the women who was later arrested.
The Swedish women were released after 30 hours of arrest and they are now prohibited from being in the West Bank. No one, Palestinian or International, showed any violence. The Palestinian family dependent on the confiscated water tank now has no access to water as the driest season of the year has just begun.
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Israel’s recurring use of terror on civilians
By Bob Finch | January 26, 2009
Insanely disproportionate use of violence against unarmed civilians… continue
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