Iran to “accelerate” arming of Palestinians after Israeli drone downed
Al-Akhbar | August 25, 2014
Tehran will “accelerate” arming Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in retaliation for Israel deploying a spy drone over Iran, which was shot down, a military commander said on Monday.
“We will accelerate the arming of the West Bank and we reserve the right to give any response,” said General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, commander of aerial forces of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, in a statement on their official website sepahnews.com.
The warning comes a day after the Guards said they had brought down an Israeli stealth drone above the Natanz uranium enrichment site in the centre of the country.
“A spy drone of the Zionist regime (Israel) was brought down by a missile… This stealth drone was trying to approach the Natanz nuclear zone,” the corps said in a statement on sepahnews.com.
(AFP)
Supporting ‘terror tourism’ to Israel gets Canadian tax credits
By Yves Engler | August 23, 2014
When is a Canadian who leaves this country to join a foreign military force and participate in the killing of innocent civilians, including children, called a “terror tourist” and sent to jail? The answer is: Only when that person joins a military force the Conservative government disagrees with.
Numerous ministers in the current federal government have loudly denounced the radicalization of Canadian youth in foreign wars. Last year, the Conservatives passed a law that sets a maximum fifteen year prison sentence for “leaving or attempting to leave Canada” to commit terrorism. Jason Kenney, the minister for multiculturalism, recently said the government is trying “to monitor networks that recruit and radicalize youth.”
Last month, Somali-Canadian Mohamed Hersi was sentenced to ten years in prison for attempting to join the al-Shabab militia in Somalia. Arrested at Toronto’s Pearson airport before leaving, Hersi was not found guilty of committing or plotting a specific act of violence, but according to the presiding judge, was “poised to become a terror tourist.”
Yet our government does nothing to hundreds of other Canadians who join a different foreign military force which daily terrorizes millions of people and often uses explosives to kill thousands — most of whom are civilians.
It’s unknown exactly how many Canadians are participating in Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza but an Israeli military spokesperson has said there were 139 Canadians in the Israeli military in 2013. The Nefesh B’Nefesh Lone Soldiers Program, an organization supporting the Israeli military, has referred to 145 Canadians in the Israeli military. That figure, however, only refers to what the organization calls Canadian “lone soldiers” — soldiers without family in Israel.
Breaking the stereotype of radicalized youth who join terror groups, recent media reports suggest that most of the Canadians joining the Israeli military are children of lawyers, doctors and other professionals. When thirty individuals attended the 2012 launch of a Toronto support group for Parents of Lone Soldiers, it took place at the home of Perla and Ron Riesenbach. The latter is a vice-president at the University of Toronto’s Baycrest Health Sciences Centre.
Earlier this month the French language website La Presse quoted a McGill University law student, Menachem Freedman, who recently completed a stint with the Israeli military and now does legal work for the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association.
A partner in a Toronto law firm, Audrey Shecter has two kids with Israeli military experience. According to the National Post, Shecter’s son completed 27 months with the Israeli military in February and her daughter, Orli Broer, currently serves on a base in the illegally occupied West Bank.
Broer, a 19-year-old Torontonian, who is in a unit that processes visas and other paperwork, helps to deny Palestinians freedom of movement in their own homeland. “It’s my home and I have to protect my home,” the Canadian born and raised Broer told the National Post.
While the Foreign Enlistment Act technically prohibits Canadians from recruiting for a foreign army, there are a number of organizations that help individuals enlist in the Israeli military. At its Toronto office, the Friends of Israeli Scouts’ Garin Tzabar program provides Hebrew lessons and support services, as well as help with transport and accommodation in Israel, for twenty-five to thirty Canadian “lone soldiers” each year.
According to a Garin Tzabar spokesperson who spoke to La Presse, the recent killing and destruction in Gaza has prompted a flood of inquiries about joining the Israeli military.
Part of the tab for lone soldier support services is picked up by Canadian taxpayers through tax credits for “charitable” donations. The Israel-based Lone Soldier Center has Canadian charitable status through the Ne’eman Foundation. So does the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, which has, according to its website, sponsored “fun activities” for “lone soldiers.”
Financial backing for lone soldiers reaches the top echelons of the Canadian business world. Billionaire Toronto couple Gerry Schwartz and Heather Reisman created the Heseg Foundation for Lone Soldiers. Reisman and Schwartz provide up to $3 million per year for post-military scholarships for these non-Israeli soldiers.
Members of the Israeli high command — Heseg’s board has included a number of generals and a former head of the secret service Mossad — say “lone soldiers” are of value beyond their military capacities. Foreigners volunteering to fight for Israel are a powerful symbol to reassure Israelis weary of their country’s violent behavior. Schwartz and Reisman’s support for Heseg has spurred a campaign to boycott the Indigo, Chapters and Cole bookstore chain they own.
Canadians in the Israeli military benefit from various Canadian-financed support programs and may also find other Canadians stocking their equipment. Approximately 150 Canadians serve as volunteers on Israeli army supply bases each year through the Zionist organization Sar-El. That organization takes out ads in the Canadian Jewish News calling on individuals to “Express your Zionism by serving as a civilian volunteer on an Israeli army supply base.”
There are a number of other registered Canadian “charities” that aid the Israeli army. Money sent to Disabled Veterans of Israel or Beit Halochem (Canada) and Canadian Magen David Adom for Israel support the Israeli military in different ways. Established in 1971, the Association for the Soldiers of Israel – Canada, which gives tax receipts through the Canadian Zionist Cultural Association, provides financial and “moral” support to active duty soldiers.
Various Canadian organizations have long supported the Israeli military and individuals from this country have directly participated in its violence. At least 25 volunteers from the Greater Toronto Area fought in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, the three-week assault in late 2008 and early 2009, which left some 1,400 Palestinians dead.
Canada’s military contribution to the conquest of Palestine predates the creation of Israel.
During the First World War, Québec City-born Lieutenant General Sir Charles MacPherson Dobell, fresh from leading the Anglo-French conquest of German West Africa, was given a command position in the 1917 Egyptian expeditionary force sent to seize Gaza from the Ottomans. Additionally, as many as four hundred Canadians (approximately half recruited specifically for the task) fought in British General Edmund Allenby’s Jewish Legion that helped conquer Palestine.
A number of Canadians, with at least tacit support from the Ottawa authorities, played a direct role in “de-Arabizing” Palestine in 1947 and 1948. Representatives from the Haganah, the primary Zionist military force behind the Nakba — the ethnic cleansing leading to Israel’s foundation — recruited three hundred experienced Canadian soldiers.
The heir to the menswear firm Tip Top Tailors, Ben Dunkelman, was Haganah’s main recruiter in Canada. He claimed that “about 1,000” Canadians “fought to establish Israel.” During the Nakba, Israel’s small air force was almost entirely foreign, with at least 53 Canadians, including 15 non-Jews, enlisted.
Given this country’s past, perhaps today’s double standard about “terror tourism” is not surprising. But those of us who want a just Canadian foreign policy must nonetheless expose our government’s hypocrisy.
While al-Shabab has committed many reprehensible acts and espouses a terribly repressive ideology, the group’s growth and radicalization is largely a response to the 2006 US-sponsored foreign invasion of Somalia that has left tens of thousands of Somalis dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.
On the other hand, it’s as if the Canadians fighting with Israel are unsatisfied with their and their ancestors’ dispossession of First Nations in North America and now want to help colonize yet another indigenous people.
The double standard is extreme. It is illegal for Somali Canadians to fight in that country but it is okay for Canadian Jews to kill Palestinians in Gaza. And the government will give you a charitable tax credit if you give money to support the latter.
Fortunately, activists in one country have made strides on this issue. A Palestine solidarity group in South Africa recently launched a case against citizens of that country who have served in the Israeli military.
Some have suggested another solution. Eminent Canadian historian Jack Granatstein recently said: “In my view, no one who is a Canadian should be able to enlist in some other country’s military and keep his Canadian citizenship.”
Canadians of good conscience must at least insist upon fairness and an end to an outrageous double standard.
Former Israeli AG: Our government staged the assassination of Al-Daif
MEMO | August 24, 2014
In the biggest blow to Israeli propaganda, which claimed that Hamas broke the ceasefire, former Israeli Attorney General Michael Ben Yair has said that “it was Israel who staged the alleged Hamas breach of the ceasefire in order to create the conditions for assassinating Muhammad Al-Daif, Commander-in-Chief of Hamas’s military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades.
The website of Makor Rishon newspaper said that Ben Yair, who also worked as a judge in the Israeli supreme court, tweeted on his twitter account the following: “There is no agreement and hostilities have been renewed, but who is the culprit? Hamas who wants an agreement with accomplishments or Israel who staged the breach of the ceasefire in order to justify the assassination of Muhammad Al-Daif?”
The significance of this testimony lies in the fact that Ben Yair, by virtue of his former position, had knowledge of the fine details of the secret Zionist intelligence work. He conducted investigations into the various aspects of the activities carried out by Israel’s Security Agency, the Shabak, which is responsible for intelligence about resistance leaders named for liquidation.
Ben Yair’s testimony is also significant because it comes in the wake of the adoption by Europe and the United States of America of the Israeli narrative as a result of which they held Hamas responsible for breaching the ceasefire.
It is worth mentioning that the Israeli government’s judicial advisor is also in charge of prosecution in the country.
Ben Yair is considered to be a serious person who is highly respectable within Israel, thanks to his revolutionary decisions during the time when he was in office. It is worth noting that Ha’aretz military commentator Amir Oren alluded in an article he published last Wednesday that there were indications that Israel had an interest in the collapse of the ceasefire so as to justify liquidating Al-Daif after receiving intelligence about his whereabouts.
Oren ruled out the possibility that Hamas was the one who violated the ceasefire, noting that what Israel was in need of was a context that justifies the assassination of Al-Daif after receiving valuable intelligence about his whereabouts.
Source: Arabi21
Hamas clarifies press remarks by Mishaal on three settlers killed last June
Palestine Information Center – 24/08/2014
DOHA – The Hamas Movement said it had had no idea at first who kidnapped and killed three Jewish settlers in the West Bank last June, but it described what happened to them as a natural and legitimate act against the illegitimate Israeli occupation.
This came in an explanatory statement released by the Movement on Saturday evening to clarify inaccurate and incomplete media and press interpretations of remarks made on Friday by head of its political bureau Khaled Mishaal in an interview conducted by Yahoo News.
“We did not have prior knowledge of this act which was done by a group of Hamas members, but we do know that any distressed people living under occupation and oppression could do anything to defend themselves,” the Hamas Movement explained.
“The soldiers and settlers in the West Bank are considered ‘assailants’ and live illegally on usurped and occupied Palestinian land, so the Palestinians have the right to resist them,” the Movement reiterated some of what Mishaal said in the interview.
The Movement also included in its statement some of the remarks that were made by Mishaal during the interview in Arabic. The Palestinian Information Center translated these remarks as follows:
“This group of Hamas members are in Al-Khalil and the Israeli investigations have unveiled lately that they had carried out this operation against those armed settlers who practiced, as thousands of other settlers do, their violence in all Palestinian areas. However, we, as the leadership of Hamas, did not know about that. This was known later on.”
“This is part of the [Palestinian] reaction to the occupation and settlement, because as you know the West Bank is an occupied territory according to the international law and the American standards, and the right to self-defense is guaranteed for all.”
“I am talking about something that has been announced as a result of the recent Israeli investigations. We in the political leadership of Hamas are not sure about that, but if that was true, it would be in the context of self-defense against Israeli occupiers whether they are soldiers or settlers. They are not civilians living in other places; they are living in Jerusalem and the West Bank which are occupied territories in accordance with the international law and the American standards.”
In a related context, member of Hamas’s political bureau Saleh Al-Aruri said that what he had previously stated about the kidnapping of three settlers in the West Bank was not a declaration of responsibility for the operation.
Aruri stated in a press release on Saturday that he had made his remarks in this regard based on the results of the recent Israeli investigations.
“The leadership of the Movement had no idea at the time about the group or the operation, but later it turned out that they were a group of Hamas fighters, and about this context was my talk,” the Hamas official explained.
Palestine Supporters Block Israeli Ships in Washington and Los Angeles
By Celine Hagbard | IMEMC News | August 24, 2014
Following a four-day long port blockade action in Oakland, California, in which activists delayed and blocked an Israeli ship from unloading its goods, Palestine supporters in Tacoma, Washington and Los Angeles, California have continued the action on Friday and Saturday by blocking two ships from the Israeli Zim line.
The activists are following a call from hundreds of Palestinian civil society groups to boycott Israeli goods, as part of a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions aimed at pressuring Israel through economic means to comply with its obligations under international law, and end its attacks and discrimination against the Palestinian people.
Protesters coordinated their actions with the start and stop times of the shifts of dockworkers, most of whom are unionized with the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse workers Union). They hoped that, by forming a picket line in front of the port entrances, they would be able to create a situation in which the unionized workers would be able to say that crossing the picket could endanger their safety. If that condition exists, the union workers are permitted to go home without carrying out the work of unloading the ship.
This happened on a number of the shifts during the four-day long blockade in Oakland and, apparently, occurred for several of the shifts at the port of Los Angeles and the Port of Tacoma as well. The ships only have a few days in which they can remain in port in order to keep their schedule, so, there is a good possibility that, because of the delays and ‘health and safety’ issues, many of the goods on the ships were not unloaded at all.
Among those participating in the port blockade in Tacoma, Washington are the parents of the late Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003, at the age of 23, while standing in front of a Palestinian doctor’s home to try to stop the Israeli military from demolishing it.
Zim Integrated Shipping Services is an Israeli firm specializing in shipping Israeli products to ports around the world. It is the largest Israeli international shipping company. The company was founded in 1945 by the Jewish Agency and the Histadrut (General Federation of Laborers in the Land of Israel). When Israel was created in 1948, the government of Israel held a controlling share in the firm until 2008, when the controlling share was sold to the Israel Corporation.
The Israel Corporation was originally founded by the government of Israel, and was exempted from taxes for decades – it is now controlled by the Ofer Brothers.
One of the Oakland action organizers, Reem Assil, said, “It’s not just about the military offensive in Gaza. That sparked an international outrage, but we know this is nothing new. The ceasefire is still up in the air, and we want to make sure to use this point in our history to make sure this never happens again. Part of doing that is to isolate Israel.”
She said that activists in Oakland worked closely with union members to try to build support for their action, adding, “This is the kick-off of what we hope to be many. We hope this is the beginning of a continued coordinated strategy of working with local rank and file and educating union members.”
The exact products on board the Zim ships are unknown, but they are likely to include Sodastream, a do-it-yourself soda-making device which is manufactured in an Israeli settlement on illegally-seized Palestinian land; Ahava dead sea salts, which are seized from Palestinian land in violation of the Dead Sea Agreement, and Osem brand food products, some of which are manufactured and packaged in Israeli settlements on illegally-seized Palestinian land, in the West Bank.
Following the successful actions in Oakland, Tacoma and Los Angeles, Palestine supporters in other cities say they are preparing for potential blockades of Israeli ships from the Zim line in Seattle, Washington, Dublin, Ireland (August 29th), and Valencia, Spain (August 24th).
Gaza tower collapses after Israel strike, several injured
Press TV – August 23, 2014
The Tel Aviv regime has bombed a 12-story residential building in the center of the beleaguered Gaza Strip, leaving several wounded.
The Zafer Tower, located in Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in southern Gaza City, was toppled by Israel’s warplanes on Saturday.
Two missiles hit the tower within seconds causing a massive fireball, which was followed by smoke billowing into the sky.
The strikes, which shook the neighboring high-rises in the area, brought down the entire tower with 44 apartments.
“People started shouting Allahu Akbar, and women and kids were screaming,” said, a resident, adding, “This is crazy. The state of Israel has resorted to madness. In less than a minute, 44 families have become displaced … They lost everything, their house, their money, their memories and their security.”
According to some reports, 22 people were wounded, including 11 children and five women.
The Israeli military said it targeted a room belonging to Palestinian resistance movement Hamas in the building.
Press TV’s correspondent in Gaza said the collateral damage was immense, adding, the residents of two nearby buildings had also been warned to evacuate for impending airstrikes.
Israeli warplanes and tanks have been pounding the blockaded enclave since early July, inflicting heavy losses on the Palestinian land.
Some 2,100 people, mostly civilians, have lost their lives and over 10,200 have been injured despite pressure from the international community on the Tel Aviv regime to end aggression against Palestinians.
Nearly 400,000 Palestinian children are in immediate need of psychological help due to “catastrophic and tragic impact” of the Israeli war, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, has been launching retaliatory attacks against Israel.
UNRWA criticizes false Israeli claim that shelter was used to fire mortar
Ma’an – 23/08/2014
BETHLEHEM – The UN’s Palestine refugee agency UNRWA on Saturday criticized the Israeli military for publishing allegations — that have since been retracted — that Hamas militants fired a rocket from one of their schools in Gaza the day before.
In a statement, the organization called upon “Israeli military spokespersons and other official sources to ensure the accuracy of their facts before going public,” highlighting that the organization maintained the “highest standards of neutrality.”
The Israeli military said in a statement late Friday that a mortar that killed a four-year-old child in southern Israel was launched from an UNRWA school being used to shelter displaced Gazan families.
It added that it had “conveyed a severe message” to UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority regarding Hamas’ supposed “exploitation of civilian and UN facilities as a human shield.”
Less than two hours later, however, the military retracted the claim, saying that in fact the mortar had been launched from a school under the administration of Hamas authorities, without offering evidence.
The UNRWA statement criticized the “false” reports spread throughout the Israeli media, adding: “The same media outlets that rushed to report the incident without seeking confirmation from UNRWA are required and called upon to also report the Israeli army retraction.”
Israeli forces have bombed UNRWA schools being used as shelters at least seven times in the last six weeks, killing dozens of Palestinians.
The international community has blasted Israel for the attacks, and the agency has repeatedly stressed that it has given the coordinates of all of its shelters — currently holding around 485,000 displaced people — to Israeli military authorities.
Israel regularly criticizes Hamas for using Palestinians as “human shields” when launching rockets, and Israel has killed hundreds of civilians in attacks targeting Hamas officials or fighters.
Largest Canadian students’ union joins boycott of Israel
MEMO | August 22, 2014
The Canadian Federation of Students – Ontario, the largest student union in Canada, has decided to boycott Israel because of its ongoing aggression towards Gaza.
The decision was made unanimously by the participants of the union’s General Assembly meeting which was held at the Ryerson University, Toronto, and affects all 300,000 members.
Anna Goldfinch, a member of the union’s Board of Directors, said the decision to include the boycott of Israel, divestment and the application of sanctions was taken to show solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The President of the Students Union of the University of Ryerson, Rajean Hoilett said Israel had committed war crimes against the Palestinian people, and the Canadian universities that maintain relations with Israel also engage in war crimes.
F-16 Missile Attacks Venezuelan Humanitarian Aid Mission in Gaza
TeleSur | August 21, 2014
Venezuelan ambassador to Egypt, Juan Antonio Hernandez, denounced on Wednesday that an Israeli aircraft attacked the Venezuelan humanitarian delegation in Rameh along the border post between Egypt and Palestine. No one was injured during the attack.
The F-16 airplane dropped a missile very close to the humanitarian site but did not explode. The ambassador confirmed that the missile fell approximately 50 to 70 meters from the site.
The Venezuelan humanitarian delegation delivered twelve tons of aid to the Palestinian people.
Hernandez referred to the action as “an act of intimidation, which is not a coincidence and it proves that Tel Aviv is trying to halt humanitarian aid, because right now Venezuela is an important beacon for the Palestinian people”.
El Universal reported that Roni Kaplan, the spokesperson of the Israel Defense Forces, asserted that “there was no attack by the Israeli forces on the Egyptian side of Gaza. The air force has not attacked nor launched sound bombs to any humanitarian convoy on its way to Gaza from Egypt.”
The ICC Should Live Up To Its Mandate
By Cesar Chelala | CounterPunch | August 21, 2014
The 1998 Rome Statute, the International Criminal Court’s founding charter, states that one of the critical ICC’s tasks is that “the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole must not go unpunished.” However, under pressure from the US and the European Community, the ICC has avoided opening an investigation into alleged war crimes in Gaza. By doing so, the ICC is not living up to its mandate.
Lawyers for the Palestinians -whose civilian population has been most punished by the ongoing war in Gaza- state that the ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, has the legal authority to launch an investigation based on a Palestinian request in 2009. However, Bensouda claims that she needs a new Palestinian declaration to do it.
Luis Moreno Ocampo, who was the ICC prosecutor at the time of the Palestinian declaration, supports Bensouda’s position. However, The Guardian quotes a former official from the ICC prosecutor’s office stating, “They are trying to hide behind legal jargon to disguise what is a political decision, to rule out competence and not get involved.”
Moreno Ocampo took three years to decide on the status of the 2009 Palestinian request for an investigation, following the tragic events of the Israeli offensive on Gaza, called Cast Lead. During that time, both the US and Israel intensely pressured him not to allow an investigation, warning him that the future of the ICC was at stake.
According to legal experts, Palestinians were misled in 2009 into thinking that their request for a war crimes investigation would remain open pending confirmation of statehood. However, no investigation was launched after the UN General Assembly (UNGA) voted in November 2012 to grant Palestine the status of non-member observer state.
Although Bensouda initially appeared open to review the standing Palestinian request, in 2010 she issued a statement saying that the UNGA vote made no difference to the “legal validity” of the 2009 request. She has been accused of being under pressure from the US and its European allies (mainly France and the United Kingdom -the ICC’s main contributors to the ICC budget- to prevent the investigation.
The Rome Statute established four main international crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. Those crimes “shall not be subject to any statute of limitations.” Furthermore, under the Rome Statute, the ICC can only investigate and prosecute the four core international crimes in situations where states are “unable” or “unwilling” to do so themselves.
The court has jurisdiction over crimes only if they are carried out in the territory of a state party or if they are committed in the territory of a state party or if they are committed by a national of a state party. However, an exception to this rule is that the ICC may also have jurisdiction over crimes if its jurisdiction is authorized by the United Nations Security Council.
It is conceivable that Israel, to a certain extent Hamas and even the US could be tried under the Rome Statute. In the case of Israel, because it carried out actions that amount to war crimes, and in the case of the United States by lending Israel financial and military support. Palestinians argue that the small number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas couldn’t amount to a war crime.
On January 2013 Israel became the first country refusing to participate in a “universal periodic review” of the human rights records of the UN’s 193 member states conducted by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups sharply criticized Israel for its refusal to participate stating that this conduct sets a “dangerous precedent… that could be followed by other states refusing to engage with the UN in order to avoid critical appraisals.” Although from a different context, these words could easily apply now to Israel and the US’s blocking of any investigation into the ongoing Gaza tragedy.
