Israel releases ice-cream equipment damaged and unusable
Ma’an – July 30, 2010
Gaza – A factory owner in Gaza was shocked to find that equipment he ordered from overseas, which was held in an Israeli port for several years, has been dismantled, with some parts missing and others broken.
Mohammad Al-Telbani, owner of Al-Auda ice-cream and biscuit factory, hoped to develop new lines of potato chips and biscuits with the equipment, which Israeli authorities have held in Ashdod for the last four years. The damaged equipment was worth more than €1.5 million.
Al-Telbani said, “after all of this suffering and all of these huge losses I received the machines dismantled, broken, and with missing parts from the Israelis who released them after being pressured by International and Israeli organizations.” He added that he will not be able to use the machines.
The businessman said his losses were compounded as he had paid more than 1500 shekels ($400) in storage fees while Israeli authorities impounded his goods.
Israeli officials said they withheld the machinery as its pipes could have been used to manufacture home-made projectiles.
The ice-cream manufacturer noted that Israel’s claims to have eased the siege are misleading attempts to improve its public image, and urged international organizations to pressure the Israeli government to release all of his machinery, including the missing parts, so he can upgrade his factory.
Sacked IDF Torturer to Direct Police Relations With East Jerusalem Arabs
By Richard Silverstein | July 27, 2010
If anyone ever wants to know why relations between Israel and the Arabs are so incredibly messed up, you have but to examine the story I’m about to tell. It will show you that Israel’s police, military and political leader are clueless when it comes to really understanding their Arab neighbors. In fact, one could say that decisions like the one described below indicate that Israel doesn’t want to understand Arabs, but rather wants to dominate them by force and even torture if necessary.
In 1994, the IDF kidnapped the alleged chief of security for Amal because he was believed to have held captured IDF Capt. Ran Arad for two years. They spirited Dirani to Israel for questioning. He was held for eight years. Mustafa Dirani afterward alleged that he was continuously tortured for one month by soldiers under the command of a “Captain George.” (For the life of me I can’t understand why Haaretz can’t fully identify a man who is now nothing but a police officer. Does his former status as a military intelligence officer confer lifetime anonymity? Or would revealing his identity reopen the embarrassing story of torture at Camp 1391?)
Here is how the victim described his treatment:
In 2004, he testified in court about being raped with a baton by soldiers under “George’s” command. Dirani said he was threatened not to reveal what had happened to him, had suffered continuous torture for a month and throughout that period was not allowed any clothes, only adult diapers.
“George” denied Dirani’s claims, except to confirm that one soldier had been sent into the prisoner’s cell wearing only underwear to threaten him with a sexual act. The Military Police investigation did not result in an indictment.
George was a senior office in Unit 504 of IDF military intelligence. He served at the notorious top-secret military torture facility (Abu Graibh anyone?) called Camp 1391 located near Kibbutz Barkai. The prison became so notorious that Israel closed it down. But not before the damage it did to Dirani and countless others. If you read Hebrew, you can regale yourself with the full panoply of torture techniques used by George and his boys there.
Dirani sued Israel for $1.5-million, but subsequently was released and left Israel. And poor Captain George was sacked. Unfortunately, the case is now dormant.
But here’s the kicker. Capt. George left military service and transferred to the Israeli police, where he was just promoted to be the official liaison between the Jerusalem police force and the city’s Arab community. So get this, an intelligence agent accused of conducting the brutal torture interrogation of an Arab is now performing a job described thus:
“The adviser must be an accepted and welcome figure in the Arab community, with excellent interpersonal skills – someone they feel they can trust, otherwise he cannot succeed in the job,” a senior police officer said.
Given his reputation as a butcher, the police appear highly satisfied with his work so far:
The police said: “There is no link between the previous role held by Major D. [“George”] and his current position. The officer is carrying out his duties to Franco’s satisfaction, and is contributing a great deal to the good relationship between Jerusalem police and the Arabs of East Jerusalem.”
You bet there’s a link. He was a torturer before and he’ll be a torturer again. If the police think this man can have anything but a bitter relationship with any self-respecting Arab in East Jerusalem, they’ve taken leave of their senses. But the statement above is window-dressing. What the police really want George to do is be as brutal with the local Arabs as he was with the Hezbollah prisoner. Brutality. That is what wins awards as far as Israel is concerned. The Arabs according to this code can’t be reasoned with. They can only be dominated. Weakness is death. Overwhelming force commands respect. That’s the ethos of Captain George and his fellow torturers.
And this, in a nutshell, is why there has not been peace and may never be peace between the two peoples.
Gaza children shelled by flechette bombs
Adie Mormech writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 27 July 2010
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Flechette darts |
“She came in through the front door and it wasn’t clear she was injured. Suddenly a lot of blood came from her nose and she vomited, all of the family saw this — her little brothers were very scared. She had just been playing in the front of the house.”
That is how Nihed al-Massry describes what happened to her daughter, nine-year-old Samah Eid al-Massry, after the Israeli army reportedly shelled and fired four bombs into and around a residential area in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, on 21 July. Samah is now being hospitalized in serious condition, suffering from extensive blood loss and very low haemoglobin. She was hit by shrapnel and flechettes from a nail bomb that landed 100 meters away, causing internal bleeding to the chest and severe head trauma. Nails are now embedded throughout her body.
Shells containing flechettes are illegal under international law if fired into densely-populated civilian areas. Three other children were wounded in the attack.
Two young men were killed; Muhammad al-Kafarneh, 23, suffered severe shrapnel injuries to the back and chest and Kasim al-Shinbary, 19, was wounded by nails embedded in his skull and shrapnel his back. It was unclear earlier whether they were resistance fighters or if they were civilians.
Haitham Thaer Qasem, a four-year-old boy and an only child, was asleep on a hospital bed, occasionally gasping for breath through the apparatus around his nose. He had suffered deep nasal trauma, and flechette darts from the bomb were still embedded in his tiny body, through his back, right elbow and right leg. He was 200 meters from the impact of the bomb.
Haitham’s mother was standing off to the side, quietly crying while one of his aunts at his bedside explained what happened.
“We had asked Haitham to get shopping for [his mother] from the market, then we heard the bombings and somebody came to our home and told our family that he was in the hospital and was injured in the bombing. We came quickly to the hospital.”
Meanwhile, Samah’s doctor explained that the girl’s blood loss was a major concern. Her injuries are exacerbated by the fact that she, like three of her brothers, already suffers from the blood condition thalassemia and the drug to treat the condition, Exjade, is scarce because of the Israeli blockade. She was clearly in pain and confused, trying to remove the nasal tubes. Her mother showed us the bandages on her chest.
Her doctor, Muhammad Abu Hassan, described her situation as “semi-critical.”
“She was in very bad condition when she arrived — it’s difficult for children and very traumatic to insert a chest tube for small children — very painful. Blood was mainly coming from the chest. We will have to perform surgery and we will further explore her abdominal pain,” he explained.
The al-Massry family has been affected by Israeli attacks before. Samah’s four-year-old brother Ryad was injured during Israel’s three weeks of attacks on the Gaza Strip during winter 2008-09 when more than 400 Palestinian children were killed.
“Our house was hit during the war, a neighbor was killed inside and our son suffered severe head injuries. He wasn’t cared for and because of this his sight is now permanently damaged.”
As we left Samah, she had begun to cry, moaning in serious discomfort and confusion. There were two more injured children in the hospital from the attack, also from the al-Massry family in Beit Hanoun: Azzam Muhammad al-Massry, 11, who suffered a severely fractured left elbow and Ibrahim Wasseem al-Massry, 4, with light injuries to his abdomen.
The previous week in Gaza, Nema Abu Said, a 33-year-old mother of five, was killed by Israeli shelling as she went outside frantically looking for her youngest son after a previous round of shelling. Three more family members were injured by the flechette shells, many of the darts remaining permanently embedded in their bodies.
Adie Mormech is a human rights advocate based in the Gaza Strip who was previously abducted by the Israeli navy from the eighth Free Gaza Movement boat, the Spirit of Humanity. He volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement.
Son of PA official detained while father abroad
Ma’an – 27/07/2010
Qalqiliya – Israeli forces raided the house of the Ministry of Civil Affairs Undersecretary Ma’rouf Zahran in Qalqiliya on Monday morning, detaining his 18-year-old son, family members said.
The undersecretary was not at home during the raid and remains abroad on an official visit to Turkey. Two of his children and sister were in the home, however, with daughter Hadil telling Ma’an that 25 soldiers entered the house at 4 a.m.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said one arrest was made in Qalqiliya overnight. The individual was taken for questioning, she said.
Hadil said her brother Adam was not questioned at the home, but detained and taken along with some of the papers from the building, which she said was thoroughly searched.
During the search, Hadil said, she, her aunt, and her brother were taken into one room and were not asked any questions as soldiers searched the home. Afterwards, soldiers took her brother, she said.
Oxfam calls for compensation from Israel
Ma’an – 26/07/2010
Bethlehem – The international aid agency Oxfam demanded Monday that Israel compensate Palestinians in a northern Jordan Valley village after soldiers destroyed at least $29,000 of aid.
In a statement, the charity said villagers in Al-Farisiya were forced into poverty when soldiers demolished 79 structures in the village, including homes, stables, sheds, water tanks, two tons of animal fodder, fertilizer and wheat.
An initial assessment by Oxfam and other NGOs in the area calculated that the demolitions affected 113 Palestinians, half of them children and identified as some of the poorest in the area. Water tanks and irrigation pipes provided by Oxfam were among the damaged goods.
Oxfam’s advocacy officer, Cara Flowers, said the area looked “a natural disaster had taken place,” adding that “With no access to shelter, water or fodder for their goat and sheep herds, an entire community is being forced to leave their land.”
Under zoning regulations established under the 1994 Oslo Accords, Al-Farisiya falls in “Area C,” the 60 percent of the West Bank which is under full Israeli administrative and military control.
Last year, Israeli authorities declared village land a “military zone,” and some residents who have lived in the village for decades were issued eviction notices in June.
The UN has reported an increase in demolitions across Area C, and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions recently reported that Israel has “returned with a vengeance” to its policy of demolishing Palestinian homes.
Flowers said “The Israeli authorities are obliged to protect the lives, property and livelihoods of civilians under their occupation. The authorities should now offer alternative accommodation and compensation for damage done, some of it to internationally donated material, but more importantly, to the lives of Al-Farisiya’s residents.”
The Gaza “shopping mall”: reality and hasbara
By Ali Abunimah | July 25, 2010
When he came to Washington a few months ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was touting the multiplex cinemas and shopping malls that have supposedly sprouted up in the West Bank as evidence of the “economic renaissance” going on there. There is no such economic renaissance — it is a mirage promoted by Israel and its collaborators — under the rubric of “economic peace.” In fact, in large parts of the West Bank, people are poorer even than in Gaza, which is saying something given the wretched poverty and unemployment in Gaza.
Now, Israel’s supporters have leapt on a minor story — the opening of a shopping “mall” in Gaza — to perform a similar hasbara trick: ‘there is no poverty in Gaza, no siege, no hunger, no malnutrition. Just look at them, they are living better than we do!’ I have seen such messages on many right-wing and pro-Israel sites.
Israel’s Ynet reported:
While Hamas continues to demand a full lifting of the blockade, the Gaza market seems to be doing alright. Gaza Mall, the first ever shopping center in the Strip was opened last Saturday with masses storming the new attraction.
The two-floor compound, each stretching over roughly 9,700 sq. ft, offers international brands as well as much-needed air conditioning. Tens of thousands of shoppers from Rafah to Beit Hanoun have already visited the site within a matter of days, making the center Gaza’s new craze.
First, note that the reported size is about 20,000 square feet (1,850 square meters). To put this in perspective, the average size of a Wal-Mart store in the US is five times larger than the entire Gaza “mall”: 108,000 square feet (with the largest Wal-Mart stores going up to 185,000 square feet!).
Now I have received this eyewitness account from a source in Gaza:
“I found out about the Gaza mall. Yes it exists. The goods in there are very expensive and it’s not a real mall, barely bigger than a little supermarket. It has 4 sections, one sells vegetables grown in Gaza, the 2nd section sells clothes and shoes, a 3rd section is like a huge supermarket with things brought to Gaza through the tunnels, and the last sells electric materials, TVs, stereos… The owners are very rich people in the Gaza Strip. Most of the stuff being sold are either made in Gaza, or brought via tunnels. And there are no thousands visitors, when I went there, I saw about 15-20 people only.”
Gaza is a territory with 1.5 million people. They ought to have a normal life. That this small store is being celebrated as a major achievement shows just how hard the Israeli siege is biting. It also shows — as I reported in a previous blog post — that the siege is producing a small wealthy economic elite, while the vast majority suffers.
Suspect in murder of four Palestinians was Shin Bet agent
By Jonathan Cook | The National | July 24. 2010
NAZARETH // The arrest by the Israeli internal security service, the Shin Bet, of an Israeli Jew accused of killing at least four Palestinians has thrown a rare light on the secret police, including claims that it tried to enlist the accused to assassinate a Palestinian spiritual leader.
Chaim Pearlman, who was arrested on July 13, has been charged with murdering four Palestinians in Jerusalem and injuring at least seven others in a series of knife attacks that began more than a decade ago. Police are still investigating whether he was involved in additional attacks.
Although Mr Pearlman had been denied access to a lawyer until Friday, since his arrest far-right groups have rapidly come to his aid, waging what the Shin Bet officials have described as “psychological warfare” by releasing damaging details about the case.
Ties between the Shin Bet and illegal settler organisations have come to light after Mr Pearlman’s arrest. The Shin Bet have been cornered into admitting that they recruited Mr Pearlman as an agent in 2000, in the midst of his alleged stabbing spree, despite the fact that he was a known member of Kach, an outlawed group calling for the expulsion of Palestinians from “Greater Israel”.
In addition, Mr Pearlman has also released tape recordings he secretly made of recent conversations with an undercover Shin Bet agent who tried to get Mr Pearlman to incriminate himself.
The agent, who befriended Mr Pearlman and was known as “Dada”, can be heard exhorting him both to go to an “Arab village” to “turn it into a fireworks display” and to execute Sheikh Raed Salah, a leader of the Islamic Movement and a recent participant in the aid flotilla to Gaza that was attacked by Israel.
In the 20 hours of recordings with Dada, some of which have been broadcast on Israeli television, the undercover agent can be heard repeatedly inciting Mr Pearlman to kill Sheikh Salah,
Dada says: “Why haven’t soldiers killed Raed Salah, may he die? Someone should take care of him, send him to the next world.”
He then suggests Mr Pearlman shoot at the sheikh’s car or put a bomb under it. “That’s the classic one. Nothing’s left, everything goes everywhere,” he says on the recording.
Dada’s advice came after Sheikh Salah had stated that Israeli commandos aboard Mavi Marmara ship had tried to kill him. Mr Pearlman, who apparently suspected he was being investigated, sent the recorded conversations with Dada to local media to be broadcast in the event of his detention.
In another blow to the Shin Bet, Mr Pearlman’s supporters have released a secretly filmed video of the head of the agency’s Jewish division, which arrested Mr Pearlman, naming him and identifying where he lives.
Although the agent is in charge of handling “Jewish terror” cases, the video states that he lives in Kfar Adumim, a West Bank settlement.
It is a criminal offence to identify any employee of the Shin Bet, but the release of details about such a senior figure is certain to provoke fears among officials that he may be in danger, including revenge attacks or future prosecution in an international tribunal.
Mr Pearlman’s supporters have posted the video on YouTube and other overseas websites, making it difficult for the Shin Bet to remove.
Nadia Matar, the leader of the pro-settler group Women in Green, told the Jerusalem Post last week that the Shin Bet divisional head “has to know that there is a price to stabbing Jewish brothers in the back. People have to be loyal or bear the consequences.”
The Shin Bet’s modus operandi was exposed in part by a rare decision from the judge supervising the investigation to partially revoke a gag order immediately after Mr Pearlman’s arrest.
Abir Baker, a lawyer with Adalah, a legal centre that handles Palestinian security cases, said: “The Shin Bet is facing an internal crisis over this arrest and the settlers are trying to exploit that with their campaign.
“Many members of the Shin Bet are settlers themselves and think of these extremists as their colleagues, not as the enemy. The line between the Shin Bet and these extremist organisations is very blurred.”
Unlike in the case of Palestinian attacks on Israelis, attacks by Jews on Palestinians are rarely solved, leading to criticism that the Shin Bet is not serious about tackling the problem of Jewish terror.
Amir Oren, a columnist for the liberal Haaretz newspaper, accused the Shin Bet of having “chains on its feet and weights around its neck” when it investigated such cases.
Yaakov Teitel, a settler who was arrested by the Shin Bet last year, was accused of his first murder of a Palestinian 14 years ago. Some observers have suggested he was only arrested after he started attacking left-wing Jews, including placing a bomb at the home of a prominent academic in 2008.
Ms Baker said Jewish terrorists often found it easy to evade the Shin Bet because they had learnt about the organisation’s investigation techniques while working as agents.
Although Mr Pearlman, 30, was living in the Israeli town Yavne, north of Ashdod, at the time of his arrest, he was raised on a settlement and spent time living in Kfar Tapuach, which is closely identified with the Kach movement. Despite being illegal, Kach operates relatively openly in settlements and Mr Pearlman’s connections to the group may explain the well-organised campaign quickly mounted in his defence.
Itamar Ben Gvir, a parliamentary aide to Michael Ben Ari, an MP who has maintained ties to Kach, was reported by the Israeli press to be behind the media campaign against Shin Bet. Mr Pearlman is also being helped by Honenu, a legal organisation that defends Jews accused of attacking Palestinians.
Anonymous Shin Bet officials told Channel 2 television that the campaign being waged against them by the far-right was “a completely different game” from previous confrontations.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
Gaza’s strawberries spoil under siege
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 22 July 2010
The northern Gaza Strip area of Beit Lahiya is famous for its agriculture. The climate, the sandy clay soil and the fresh water supply create an ideal environment for growing fruit here, and the practice has become a deeply-engrained way of life for Beit Lahiya farmers like Abdulfattah al-Khateeb, who has been growing strawberries here for more than 25 years. Although the Gaza Strip is amongst the most densely-populated places on earth, here luscious green fields spread out in vast tracts. Yet it is clear that as Abdulfattah gazes out onto his land his minds is troubled: Abdulfattah’s concern is unique in that it is not with growing his crops, but rather whether his crops will be able to reach the market once they are grown.
In order to realize even a modest profit, Abdulfattah must sell his strawberries in the West Bank, Israel and Europe, as he did for over 20 years. Since 2007, however, Israel has enforced a complete and continuous closure of all border crossings into and out of the Gaza Strip, effectively cutting the coastal territory off from the rest of the world. Now, like the countless tons of his strawberries which have since been left to rot while waiting in vain at the Israeli border, he fears that his business and his livelihood may perish as a result of the closure.
Before the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip in 1967, this area was so renowned for its citrus production that the fruit produced here was known throughout Palestine as “yellow gold.” Under the control of Israel, however, itself a major citrus producer, farmers in Beit Lahiya and throughout Gaza were forced to abandon their crops — many orange groves were bulldozed by Israeli forces — and instead grow flowers and strawberries and other crops that adhere to Israel’s “security concerns.” The Beit Lahiya farmers adapted, and soon they were producing strawberries of such a high quality that their fruit was being exported to Israel, the West Bank and upscale retailers in Europe; they are “the best strawberries in the world,” according to Abdulfattah, who also used to head the Beit Lahiya Strawberry Farmers Society.
Now, however, Abdulfattah and other farmers in Gaza are being forced by Israel to abandon their crops yet again, although this time there is no recourse in shifting production to another, “safer,” fruit or vegetable. Under the current form of the illegal Israeli-imposed closure, farmers in Gaza can no longer export their produce outside the Gaza Strip, and they are facing further restrictions on the types and amounts of products they can grow. The effects have been disastrous. Before the imposition of the total closure of the Gaza Strip on 14 June 2007 — itself only a more stringent form of a closure policy in place since the early 1990s — the Gaza Strip produced almost 400,000 tons of agricultural products annually, one third of which was intended for export. Despite the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which set a target for exports for Gaza at 400 trucks per day, only 259 trucks have left the Gaza Strip with goods in the last three years. Accordingly, since 2007, farmers in Gaza have reported a 40 percent decrease in income: in 2008 alone, farmers in the Gaza Strip lost an estimated US $6.5 million.
Without the ability to export their products to markets in the West Bank, Israel and Europe, farmers like Abdulfattah face a domestic market for agriculture characterized by artificially inflated supply, which in turn drives prices so low that Abdulfattah says he cannot survive on them: “Before 2007, one kilogram of strawberries used to cost 24 shekels on the Gaza market; now it only costs three. I can hardly continue my life with prices so low. I have to live from season-to-season, hoping that I can get good prices or maybe export some goods, and since 2007 I am forced to rely on handouts and aid,” says Abdulfattah.
At the same time, Abdulfattah is facing greater restrictions imposed by the Israeli government on his farming operation in Beit Lahiya, which contribute to rising costs of production. “The Israelis tell us how and what to plant, what to use to plant it, and where the plants we use must come from,” explains Abdulfattah. “We are forced to use Israeli strawberry plants, even though they are more expensive [15 shekels as opposed to four shekels for Palestinian plants] and not as good [as the Palestinian plants which produced the famous Gazan strawberries]. But we use them anyways, and we even obtain the certificate that proves it, which is expensive. Even though we follow all the specifications, the Israelis don’t let our strawberries pass through the border.” Encapsulating the plight of all farmers in Gaza under Israeli occupation, Abdulfattah adds emphatically: “when we do what the Israelis want, they just create another problem.”
The consequences of the closure for farmers like Abdulfattah are more than just tough economic times: the closure threatens their livelihoods and way of life. Approximately 2,500 dunams (a dunam is the equivalent of 1,000 square meters) of land were planted with strawberry fields before 2007; this year some 1,500 remain unplanted, representing at least 300 families who will be without an income for the year. More than likely, these families will be forced to give up strawberry cultivation; half of all strawberry farmers in Gaza have already done so. Some of them will find other work, but — with unemployment in the Gaza Strip approaching 55 percent — others will surely not.
Indeed the Israel policy towards strawberry farming in Gaza, and particularly their exports, is a demonstration in the economics of occupation. The crops permitted to grow in Gaza are directly linked to the crops produced by Israel. Because of their quality — and the high consumer demand this quality creates — agricultural products from the Gaza Strip, like strawberries, are not allowed to compete with Israeli products in the Israeli markets or in markets abroad. At the same time, surplus agricultural goods produced in Israel are pushed onto the market in Gaza, further driving down prices for local farmers.
Making matters significantly worse for farmers in the Gaza Strip are the consequences of the latest Israeli military offensive, which destroyed approximately 46 percent of all agricultural lands in the Gaza Strip, estimated at approximately $269,000,000 in damages, and over $84,000,000 in damages to plant production, specifically. Not only have farmers received no compensation from the perpetrators of the damage, but Israel prevents the entry of farming equipment and machinery needed in order to rehabilitate the land.
On 4 July, the Israeli government formally announced an “easing” of the border crossings into the Gaza Strip in response to the international condemnation of the 31 May attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. While there will be an increase in the type and amount of goods that are allowed into Gaza under the new arrangement, the issue of exports remains ignored. For Abdulfattah, thus, the new restrictions represent only a marginal change in the modalities of the occupation that is suffocating his business and his way of life: “I expect nothing new [from the new Israeli policy]. Even if the Israelis decided to allow exports, I probably would not be able to follow the new restrictions they would invent for me to do so,” Abdulfattah explains, “but it won’t open anyways.”
This report is part of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’ Narratives Under Siege series.
Reprieve Demands Resignation of “Fatally Compromised” Head of UK Torture Inquiry
By Andy Worthington | 20.7.10
In a detailed and strongly-worded letter to Sir Peter Gibson, chosen by Prime Minster David Cameron to lead an inquiry into British complicity in the torture of British nationals and residents abroad, Clive Stafford Smith, the director of the legal action charity Reprieve, has called on Gibson to step down from his role as the judge in charge of the inquiry, complaining that “his impartiality is fatally compromised.” A copy of the letter was also sent to 10 Downing Street.
Reprieve’s analysis is certainly accurate, given that, “As the Intelligence Services Commissioner (ISC), it has been Sir Peter’s job for more than four years to oversee the Security Services,” and “he cannot now be the judge whether his own work was effective.”
Reprieve identified three particular reasons why Gibson’s recusal is required. The first is because it appears that, in a recent interview with Andrew Neil, the Prime Minister admitted that Gibson had “already conducted a secret inquiry, at the previous government’s request, into allegations of misconduct,” but “because it is secret, none of us may know what his conclusions were.”
The second reason is because, in three annual reports (from 2006 to 2008), Gibson concluded that all members of the Security Services were “trustworthy, conscientious and dependable.” As a result, in Reprieve’s words, he was “entirely prejudging the issues before the inquiry.” Reprieve also contrasted Gibson’s analysis with that of Lord Neuberger, the Master of the Rolls, in February this year, when, in ordering the government to release US documents establishing that British resident Binyam Mohamed had been tortured while in custody in Pakistan in 2002, he asserted that MI5 did not respect human rights, had not renounced participation in “coercive interrogation” techniques, deliberately misled MPs and peers on the intelligence and security committee, which is supposed to be able to scrutinize its activities, and had a “culture of suppression” in its dealings with [former foreign secretary David] Miliband and the court.”
The third reason, as Reprieve explained, is that “part of Sir Peter’s job, as ISC, was to oversee ministerial authorizations that would allow the Security Services to violate the law abroad, including sanctioning British involvement in abusive interrogations. Since evidence will be presented that such interrogations have continued during Sir Peter’s tenure, he either validated these actions, or he has been hoodwinked as ISC. Either way, he should be a witness at the inquiry.”
This is a pretty devastating analysis of Sir Peter Gibson’s unsuitably for the job, although Reprieve’s press conference today to announce its very public and very vocal opposition to his appointment drew only a bland response from Downing Street, where a spokesman “said that the Prime Minister had full confidence in Gibson.”
In his letter, Clive Stafford Smith asked Gibson:
Please could you explain how you are able to preside over an inquiry about British complicity in torture during the time period in which you were responsible for the statutory oversight of the security and intelligence services? The allegation that you will have to rule on is (with apologies for putting it so frankly) that you were either asleep on your watch or were hoodwinked. Out of fairness to victims of torture, the security services and yourself, do you believe that you can rule fairly on such issues?
At today’s press conference he reiterated his complaints, stating, as the Guardian explained, that there was a “patently obvious basis for a judge to remove himself,” and adding that, given Gibson’s evident conflict of interest, the request for his recusal was “an incredibly uncontentious issue.”
Adding that he had not “received the first whisper of a response” from the Prime Minister regarding his complaints, Stafford Smith then threw down a gauntlet to the government, stating, “If they refuse to discuss this in private, then we will spend the rest of the summer discussing it in public.”
He also confirmed that Reprieve “would look at its legal options if Sir Peter refused to step down,” as the Guardian explained, and stated:
Welcome though the torture inquiry is, the current structure is a sham. Sir Peter Gibson was perhaps the least appropriate judge to evaluate the security services. The government must get serious about learning the mistakes of the past, rather than try to cover them up, or we are in for a long, hot summer.
Bring it on, Clive! Let’s have a proper inquiry under the Inquiries Act of 2005, with a judge able to “balance the need for national security against the need for transparency,” as Reprieve requested two weeks ago — and if David Cameron refuses, let’s rally some support for a long hot summer of protest. As I explained last week, when a series of damning documents regarding British complicity in torture were released by the High Court, in connection with an ongoing civil claim for damages filed by six former Guantánamo prisoners:
The time for silence, and the time for secrecy are over. To clear the air, and to draw a line under this most lamentable period in our recent history, we need an inquiry presided over by someone who is able to “balance the need for national security against the need for transparency.” For too long now — and with baleful results — the need for national security has been allowed to override everything else, inflicting grave damage on our claims to be a civilized country, and leading to devastating effects for those caught up in a “War on Terror” with few checks and balances.
Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK)
Israel releases British rapper detained at airport
Ma’an – 21/07/2010
Bethlehem – Israeli airport authorities have released a British-Iraqi rapper who was held for half a day at Ben Gurion International Airport, the musician’s fan page reported Wednesday.
Lowkey was detained Tuesday upon arrival in Tel Aviv en route to play a number of concerts and hold a series of musical workshops in refugee camps in the West Bank as part of the Hip Hop Bus Tour, composed of members from the Existence is Resistance, The South West Youth Collaborative, and the University of Hip Hop Chicago.
Fans started an online petition shortly after Lowkey’s detention calling on the Israeli government to release the musician and allow him to play in Palestine.
A spokeswoman for Israel’s Interior Ministry immigration department did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment. An email to Lowkey’s booking representative was not immediately returned.
In February 2009, Lowkey was detained at the airport en route to several Palestinian charity concerts to help raise funds to rebuild Gaza following the war.
Born Kareem Dennis to an Iraqi mother and English father in Tooting, London, Lowkey’s Gaza anti-war song reached number 1 in the UK charts in January.
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Secret document reveals plans for civil war in Lebanon, Israeli false flags, and invasion
By Randi Nord | Geopolitics Alert | April 5, 2019
Beirut – During his visit with US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, Lebanese President Michael Aoun reportedly received a US-Israeli document detailing plans for creating a civil war in Lebanon with covert false flag operations and possible Israeli invasion.
Although the source of the document is Israeli and created in partnership with Washington, no one knows who presented it to Aoun. The Lebanese TV station, Al-Jadeed, initially reported the document on Lebanese TV and a video on its website. Geopolitics Alert translated the report for this article. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- ‘Distance yourselves from Israel’: IRGC urges US population to question govt policies
- America’s Greenland deal has a radioactive backstory
- The RAF Fairford ‘terror plot’: Unpacking escalation in the UK echo-chamber
- EU Council Advances Chat Control 2.0 Scanning Proposal
- Ex-Greek MEP files complaint against Israeli spyware firm over alleged Pegasus surveillance
- Troubling ideas throughout the Torah, Talmud, Mishneh Torah and Tanya
- ‘Grave, alarming’: Iran mission on Trump’s UNGA ‘annihilation’ threats
- Najaf airport to reopen to Iranian flights within 24 hours: Ambassador
- From ‘How Will This End For Iran’ to ‘When America Walks Away’: A tale of two Economist covers
- Tehran blasts ‘baseless’ speculation linking Iran to alleged bomb plot at UK air base
- If Americans Knew
- Ex-Biden officials are desperate for a Gaza scapegoat
- Israeli “settlers” Invade Al-Aqsa; Pour Boiling Water on 75-Year-Old
- Israel Has Kidnapped Another American Teenager
- US arms sales to Israel worth $21.6 billion in 20 months
- Three Palestinians Killed in Israeli Attacks on Gaza
- Revealed: German “Anti-Semitism Expert” Driving Crackdown on Palestine Solidarity is Former Israeli Spy
- Egypt’s Warning to Israel Before Oct 7
- Israel’s siege signals another cruel winter for 1.8 million Gazans – Daily Update
- Netanyahu Asked UAE Leader to Deny Report on Oct. 7 Warning in Secret Visit, Sources Say
- CNN Chief Int’l Correspondent Clarissa Ward on Journalists in Gaza
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
