Gaza flotilla ship ‘sabotaged’ days before expected arrival
Ma’an – June 25, 2015
BETHLEHEM – One of the ships taking part in a flotilla headed towards the Gaza Strip was sabotaged south of Crete, an activist aboard one of the ships said Thursday.
Israeli-born Swedish activist Dror Feiler told Nazareth-based al-Shams radio that the ship had been sabotaged by professionals, and would have sunk if sailed at sea.
“Somebody went underneath the ship at night and sabotaged its propellers, just like they sabotaged the same ship in 2011,” Fieler said referring to similar damage that was inflicted upon a ship participating in a previous flotilla.
Feiler, who relinquished his Israeli citizenship after moving to Sweden, boarded the trawler Marianne of Gothenburg in Sweden with 18 other activists six weeks ago. The crew had refrained from stopping at European ports prior to avoid being held by authorities, but their trip was cut short after realizing that they might have drowned had they continued.
Despite the sabotage, the remainder of the flotilla convoy will move as planned with the ships expected arrive in Gaza in succession within three days, Feiler said.
The flotilla is the third of it’s kind to attempt to access the Gaza Strip by sea since 2010, aiming break the nearly nine-year Israeli blockade causing what is termed by rights organizations as a humanitarian crisis for the strip’s 1.8 million residents.
In May 2010, Israeli forces staged a raid on a six-ship flotilla which ended in bloodshed, claiming the lives of 10 Turkish rights activists and sparked a crisis with Ankara.
The participation in this year’s flotilla of Palestinian Knesset member Bassel Ghattas sparked an outcry among right wing members of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, who called for Ghattas to be stripped of immunity from prosecution for joining.
Similar response was given to Palestinian MK Hanin Zoabi who took part in the 2010 flotilla, when Israeli minister Miri Regev accused Zoabi for “joining terrorists.”
Israeli leaders say that joining efforts to break the Israeli military blockade of Gaza is directly working against the security of Israel.
“It is the gravest thing possible that an Israeli MP would join the flotilla whose aim is to help the Hamas terror organisation,” said Israeli Immigration Minister Zeev Elkin from the ruling right-wing Likud party earlier this week.
Ghattas will be joined by the former Tunisian president, European lawmakers, and activists in what the Freedom Flotilla Coalition described as “a peaceful, nonviolent action to break the illegal and inhumane blockade of the Gaza Strip.”
Foreign investments in Israel cut by half in 2014
Palestine Information Center – June 25, 2015
NAZARETH – Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Israel dropped by nearly 50% in 2014 compared to 2013, a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reveals.
The report tracks a sharp decrease in percentages of foreign investments in Israel. In 2014 $6.4 billion were invested in Israel, whereas in 2013 $11.8 billion were invested – a decline of about 46%.
Moreover, Israeli FDI investments abroad also decreased from $4.67 billion in 2013 to $3.97 billion, a decrease of 15%. These figures are significantly lower than the corresponding figures from 2007 to 2005, before the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008.
“We believe that what led to the drop in investment in Israel are Operation Protective Edge [in reference to Israel’s military aggression on blockaded Gaza] and the boycotts Israel is facing,” Roni Manos of the College of Management and one of the authors of the report’s summary told Ynet.
According to Manos, there is another reason for the decline.
“In the past there were large transactions such as Waze and ISCAR Metalworking which boosted investment, but over the past year there were not enough such deals.”
According to the UN report, world FDI investments during the past year amounted to only $1.23 trillion, a 16% drop compared to 2013 ($1.47 trillion dollars).
The main reason for this, according to the report’s authors, is weak global economic growth and uncertainty regarding economic and business policy in many countries, which deterred many investors. Among others, the uncertainty due to the rate of quantitative easing in the US and Europe, the Greek debt crisis and its impact on stability in the Eurozone, and the pace of economic growth in China.
Other factors influencing the decline in global FDI were geopolitical risks such as the conflict in Ukraine, which has calmed down in recent months, the worsening of relations between the West and Russia, and revolutions and regime changes in several countries in the Middle East.
US Senate votes to prevent boycotting Israel
Press TV | June 25, 2015
The US Senate has passed a controversial trade bill that contains provisions opposing the growing international boycott movement against Israel.
The Senate passed the measure as part of the Trade Promotion Authority legislation. The legislation was already passed by the House of Representatives and can now be signed into law by President Barack Obama.
The bill was passed under massive pressure from the powerful pro-Israel lobby in the United States.
The provisions require US negotiators to oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel during the ongoing free trade negotiations with the European Union.
The BDS campaign seeks to increase economic and political pressure on Israel until the regime ends the occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands and respect the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
“Today, for the first time in nearly four decades, Congress sent legislation to the president’s desk to combat efforts to isolate and delegitimize the ‘state’ of Israel,” US Representative Peter Roskam wrote in a statement released shortly after the Senate vote.
“After today, discouraging economic warfare against Israel will be central to our free trade negotiations with the European Union,” said Roskam, one of the lawmakers who sponsored the provisions.
This comes as several groups and organizations in the European states have already supported the campaign against Israel.
The boycott campaign against Israel began in July 2005 by 171 Palestinian organizations, calling for “various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law.”
In 2013, two US academic groups — the American Studies Association and the Association for Asian American Studies — supported the boycott.
Palestine to submit hundreds of documents to ICC for 1st time
Ma’an – June 25, 2015
BETHLEHEM – Palestinian Authority foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki is scheduled to make the State of Palestine’s first submission to the International Criminal Court in the Hague on Thursday in pursuit of war crime charges against Israel.
The PA foreign minister and a high-profile delegation are expected to arrive at the office of the prosecutor of the ICC at 3 p.m. and will deliver hundreds of pages of documents describing in detail Israeli breaches of international law, Palestinian ambassador to the Netherlands Nabil Abu Zneid told Ma’an.
“It will take the ICC a long time to take action, possibly 5-10 years as this is one out of a hundred steps,” Abu Zneid said.
The PLO will continue to collate information and testimonies to later be submitted to the ICC as evidence of Israeli crimes.
The report due to be submitted Thursday was prepared by a 45-member committee appointed by President Mahmoud Abbas in February and chaired by PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat.
The Higher National Committee includes PLO Executive Committee Members, political parties, security forces, unions, ministries and senior Hamas official in Gaza Ghazi Hamid.
A team led by five senior international lawyers commissioned by the PA guided the drafting of the report.
Committee member Mustafa Barghouthi, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, told Ma’an that Thursday is just the first step in removing Israel’s immunity for violations of international humanitarian law.
The documents will include violations committed by Israel from June 13, 2014 to May 31, 2015 in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.
Among the specific cases is the mass Israeli crackdown on the Hebron district in 2014, the war on Gaza last summer, and ongoing settlement activities and crimes against Palestinian prisoners, including administrative detention.
“Our goal is to prove that crimes were committed so as to convince the general prosecutor to start investigations,” Barghouthi said.
“We are also seeking to remove the immunity of Israel and its leaders as we seek to reach justice, protect the Palestinian people and make sure criminals do not avoid punishment.”
Such achievements will strengthen international solidarity with the Palestinian people, including the BDS movement, he added.
On Monday, a UN Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza conflict announced it had gathered “credible allegations” that both sides had committed war crimes during the conflict, which killed more than 2,140 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and 73 people on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers.
The PLO has been seeking to open criminal proceedings against Israel at the ICC as part of an increased focus on diplomatic maneuvering and appeals to international bodies.
Israel backs bill to allow secret police interrogations to continue
MEMO | June 24, 2015
The Israeli Knesset is to extend a temporary bill that permits police interrogators not to use audio or video recordings to document interrogations of people suspected of security offences, Arab48.com reported yesterday.
The Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (Adalah) condemned the measure and sent a letter to the Israeli Public Prosecutor and the government’s Judicial Advisor demanding they appeal against the bill.
“This amounts to severe violation of basic prisoners’ rights, including the legal right to remain dignified and have just judicial measures,” Adalah said. “Extending this bill clearly undermines any opportunity to monitor the legality of interrogation measures and confessions raised to the court.”
The Israeli Knesset approved a bill in 2002 demanding security services document the questioning of any prisoner who may get more than ten years in prison for his crimes. The bill included an article which made such documentation unnecessary in cases of security-related offences.
According to Adalah, this article was a temporary measure agreed to remain in place for six years. In 2008, the Knesset extended it until 2012 and then it was extended to 2015. Adalah said Palestinian prisoners are affected most by this article.
Israel issues 30 administrative detention orders during June
Palestine Information Center – June 24, 2015
AL-KHALIL – Israeli courts issued, since the beginning of June, 30 administrative detention orders against Palestinian prisoners from al-Khalil, Prisoners Media Center said.
The center stated that 43% of administrative detainees held currently without charge or trial in Israeli jails are from al-Khalil.
As a whole, there are 450 administrative detainees in Israeli jails including four MPs.
The center pointed out that Israeli administrative detention policy mainly targets youth activists, students, MPs, and prisoners’ defenders as an attempt to prevent them from exposing the reported Israeli human rights violations.
UNHRC report restricts Palestinian anti-colonial struggle
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | June 23, 2015
Following its insensitive and macabre efforts to downplay the repercussions and atrocities of Operation Protective Edge, Israel has now attempted to ridicule the UN Human Rights Council report on last summer’s aggression. The report, which Israel pronounced as “morally flawed”, has accused both Israel and Palestinian resistance groups of war crimes, contradicting Israel’s “internal investigation” that justified every intentionally targeted civilian death as collateral damage and thus, bequeathing impunity to the state’s false morality conjectures.
While drawing attention to state complicity with regard to war crimes committed by Israel, the report employs the same non-committal rhetoric that shifts evidence towards the realm of probability. “Directing attacks against civilians constitutes a violation of the principle of distinction and may amount to a war crime.” Such statements indicate that the report’s value will probably serve as some form of heightened awareness and confirmation of the massacre that took place last summer but fail to provide a foundation with which to hold Israel accountable for its premeditated actions.
A statement released by the Israeli Foreign Minister criticised the UNHRC report, stating it was “commissioned by a notoriously biased institution, given an obviously biased mandate.” Additionally, the statement attempts to reinforce the internationally-adopted drivel that seeks to create a false dimension of morality and terror. Quoted in the Times of Israel, the Israeli Foreign Ministry statement reads: “It is regrettable that the report fails to recognise the profound difference between Israel’s moral behaviour during Operation Protective Edge and the terror organisations it confronted.”
So moral, in fact, that the report juxtaposes widespread destruction, displacement and murder committed by the Israeli army, against the “trauma” allegedly endured by Israeli settlers of siren sounds and fear of being “attacked at any moment by gunmen bursting out of the ground” – the latter with reference to the tunnel network utilised by Palestinian resistance and which was annihilated by Israel in its quest to prevent Palestinians from making legitimate use of their territory within historic Palestine.
Predictably, Israel deemed the report biased, despite its refusal to participate and cooperate with the commission during its investigations. Netanyahu has instead accused the UNHRC of slander – a predictable response that is well ingrained in Israel’s international repertoire and also rendered evident in recent altercations with the organisation.
It is disconcerting, albeit expected, to observe that the UNHRC’s use of language falls into the same confines of affirming war crimes yet at the same time allowing Israel to navigate the obscure parameters that still provide impunity. This is particularly evident in the report’s recommendations to Israel, the Palestinian Authority, as well Palestinian resistance movements. Calling upon Israel to abide by international law when its very existence is an infringement of that law renders the recommendations ludicrous, allowing Israel the opportunity to colonise further territory as long as certain requirements and definitions are implemented.
Conversely, the UNHRC report expects Palestinians to relinquish their anti-colonial struggle – in other words, “to stop all rocket attacks and other actions that may spread terror among Israeli civilians.” The UNHRC report is indeed biased, yet employs hypocritical subtlety in order to disguise its role as part of the international agenda that makes no distinction between civilians and a settler population willingly complicit in Israeli state violence.
“Lack of public interest” in Jewish nationalist crimes
Yesh Din | June 23, 2015
We can see just how seriously the Israeli government takes nationalist crimes from the following case.
On July 26, 2010, a large group of Israeli marauders, whom eyewitnesses said came from the direction of the settlements of Yitzhar and Bracha, allegedly made their way to land belonging to the nearby Palestinian village of Burin. According to witnesses, the marauders burned hundreds of olive trees, some of them more than a century old. Furthermore, they attacked the villagers with stones and in a few cases with clubs, and stoned the houses of the village.
On that same day, some of the victims lodged a complaint with the Israeli police.
In August 2011, i.e. more than a year after the incident, the police informed Yesh Din that the case was turned to the attention of a prosecutor – that is the last we heard of the story for two years. In August 2013, the Shomron Prosecution Unit bothered to update us saying that they had closed the case back in December 2012. Three months later, we received the investigation material of a three-year-old incident, and tried to see whether there is any point in appealing the decision to close the case.
To the utter surprise of our attorneys, who were under the impression that the police closed the case for lack of evidence, the case files contained quite a bit of evidence. At the same time and place of the incident, three Border Policemen detained two Israeli civilians – A. and M. – after police officers testified that they saw them throwing stones at Palestinians.
The testimony of a cop, as well as the detention of suspects at the scene, is generally enough cause for prosecutorial action, particularly since the government takes nationalist crime seriously, as it keeps claiming. Therefore, we appealed the decision to close the case in December 2013, demanding of A. and M. be prosecuted on suspicion of throwing stones and assaulting an officer; we also demanded that the investigation into the question of who attacked one of our clients with an iron rod and set his olive grove on fire continue.
That’s when events took a surrealistic turn. In response to our appeal, the prosecution claimed that they are well aware that there is enough evidence to indict A. and M., but said it would not do so – since it sees no reason to interfere with the decision of the Police Prosecution Unit, which closed the case for lack of public interest.
According to the prosecution, since both sides engaged in stone throwing, and since there is no precise information about how the incident began, and since there was no equivalent interrogation of Palestinian suspects, there is simply no public interest in putting the Israeli marauders on trial.
To quote our sarcastic reply, sent in April by Attorney Noa Amrami:
“To sum, two Israeli civilians woke up one morning, arrived at the village of Burin and the homes and land of our clients, threw stones at them and beat them. Is there any doubt here as to who is the attacker and who the defender? With all due respect, we are not dealing with a kids’ squabble at school here, but with a criminal, methodical action of terrorizing the villagers of Burin, who suffer from the violence of the Israeli civilians residing in the region.”
What the government prefers to call nationalist crimes — and we call ideological crimes — has become a national scourge. As we emphasize here repeatedly, this is not an incident of random violence, but rather violence with a clear political goal: dispossessing Palestinians of their land so it may be transferred to Israeli civilians. The police’ failure at resolving these crimes is systematic and well documented: out of 1,045 investigation cases reviewed by Yesh Din in 2005-2014, only 7.4 percent turned into indictments. 85.2 percent of the cases were closed due to the police’s investigative failure, usually because the police failed in finding suspects or gathering enough evidence to try them.
The village of Burin is a stark example of criminal actions carried out by Israeli civilians: in the years 2005-2013 Yesh Din documented 103 incidents of criminal activity, mostly violent, by Israeli civilians against Palestinians from the village. Yesh Din documented a series of violent actions – both by Israeli forces and Israeli civilians – toward the villagers. If we were to take the official rhetoric about the need to fight ideological crime seriously, we would expect any incident in Burin would be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law.
Yet in practice, even when the police detain suspects and the prosecution has enough evidence to indict them, the case is somehow closed. This time the excuse was “lack of public interest.” Bear this in mind during the next press conference when solemn promises that the police will do its best will be made.
We have asked that the appeal be reconsidered. We’ll keep you posted.
Druze Attack Israeli Ambulance Carrying Wounded Al-Nusra Gunmen
Al-Manar | June 23, 2015
A wounded takfiri of Al-Nusra Front terrorist group was killed on Monday when a group of Druze in Majdal Shams attacked an Israeli military ambulance taking him and his fellow terrorist to hospital for treatment, occupation police said.
“A crowd attacked an ambulance with stones near Majdal Shams on the Golan Heights,” as it was transporting two wounded gunmen operating in Syria, a police statement said, adding that one of the injured “died after the attack”.
It said that the second Al-Nusra gunman was in a serious condition, and that two soldiers who were also inside the vehicle had been lightly wounded.
The Zionist Public radio earlier said that around 200 Druze from Majdal Shams had pelted the ambulance with stones, forcing it to stop, and dragged the wounded gunmen from the vehicle.
Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the incident “very serious” and vowed those behind the attack would be held to account.
“We will not let anyone take the law into their hands and prevent the army from carrying out its mission,” he said in a statement, appealing for leaders in the Druze community to maintain calm.
The attack came amid growing concern for the fate of Syria’s Druze minority who are surrounded by takfiris operating in the country.
Tensions have flared in Druze areas of northern occupied Palestine and the Zionist-occupied Golan Heights after Al-Nusra Front takfiri group surrounded a government-held Druze village on the Syrian side last week.
Monday’s attack came hours after another group of Druze also blocked and threw stones at an army vehicle they believed was transferring wounded mercenaries for treatment, Zionist police said.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the first incident happened in the northern Zionist settlement of Horfish and that the Druze tried to check the identities of those inside the ambulance.
The Druze threw stones at the vehicle as it tried to drive off, she said, adding that one Druze was moderately injured in the incident.
Officials say there are 110,000 Druze in northern Occupied Palestine, and another 20,000 in the Zionist-occupied Syrian Golan.
UN Report Delegitimizes NY Times Hype on “Terror Tunnels”
By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | June 22, 2015
The New York Times has had plenty to say about the infamous tunnels built from Gaza into Israel, providing us with photos, articles, videos and frequent talk of “terrorist attacks.” The presence of the tunnels, Times editors said, justified the bloody ground invasion of the strip last summer.
Today we find little mention of these threatening tunnels in a story by Jodi Rudoren about the just-released United Nations Human Rights Council report on the attacks. She tells us that the report “extensively discussed the tunnels militants had used to infiltrate Israeli territory,” but that is the end of it. [Note: this was expanded in later versions of the article.]
The report by the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza conflict had this to say about the tunnels: “The commission observes that during the period under examination, the tunnels were used only to conduct attacks directed at IDF positions in Israel in the vicinity of the Green Line, which are legitimate military targets.”
It seems that the Times has scant interest in telling readers that tunnels were used for legitimate purposes. The discussions Rudoren mentions have little to say except that Israelis were scared by the tunnel reports; the final tally shows that not a single civilian was harmed because of them.
The Times, however, bought into the hype of the Israeli government and army. At the beginning of the ground invasion, it ran an editorial claiming that troops were in Gaza to stop rockets and “terrorist attacks via underground tunnels” even though the newspaper had yet to report even one such assault.
The absence of civilian casualties or even of a single attack, however, did not stop the Times from publishing three articles (here, here and here), two of them with Rudoren’s byline, and two videos (here and here), which focused on the tunnels, all of this in addition to the editorial.
It later followed up with a piece about Hezbollah tunnels reportedly running from Lebanon into northern Israel. Again, the Hezbollah story has only Israeli fear to report and no hard evidence of either tunnels or their use in attacks.
The UN report notes such Israeli anxieties in its Concluding Observations: “The increased level of fear among Israeli civilians resulting from the use of the tunnels was palpable.” This is the full extent of damage from the notorious “terror tunnels”—they frightened people.
When the Israeli army and government eagerly played up this supposed evidence of Palestinian “terrorist” intentions, The New York Times (and the United States government) followed suit, citing the tunnels as justification for the invasion. With so much hysteria emanating from the media and officialdom, it is no wonder Israeli civilians were expressing fear.
With its alarmist focus on the Gaza-Israel tunnels, the Times played the role of propagandist for Israel. Now, with the UN report, it could place the issue in a more valid perspective, but Rudoren’s piece suggests that the newspaper would rather avoid the facts in favor of a false Israeli narrative.
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UK Researchers: Tax Food to Reduce Climate Change
I doubt these professors have anything to fear from a food tax
By Eric Worrall | Watts Up With That? | November 19, 2016
A group of researchers in Oxford University, England have suggested that imposing a massive tax on carbon intensive foods – specifically protein rich foods like meat and dairy – could help combat climate change. […]
This proposal, from a group of people who have probably never missed a meal in their lives, is totally obscene. High income countries often have a lot of poor people who would be hard hit by increases in the price of food.
Needlessly exacerbating the risk poor people don’t get enough to eat, especially children and pregnant mothers, who are especially vulnerable to adverse health impacts from lack of protein in their diet – if this ghastly proposal is ever implemented, future generations will look upon it as a crime against humanity. – Read full article
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