Human Rights

December 30, 2010December 11, 2020

Global Military Industrial Disease

The US Military Industrial spiderweb, with the Pentagon trillion dollar budget at its disposal, makes the Israel lobby look like a corner shop. Nearly every US state hosts significant MIC plant and associated jobs -.no potential or incumbent political candidate can afford to ignore this. The Pentagon is enmeshed incestuously with the armaments and associated industries.

As Andrew Sullivan relates:

“In some years, the move from general staff to industry is a virtual clean sweep. Thirty-four out of 39 three- and four-star generals and admirals who retired in 2007 are now working in defense roles — nearly 90 percent. And in many cases there is nothing subtle about what the generals have to sell — Martin’s firm is called The Four Star Group, for example. The revolving-door culture of Capitol Hill — where former lawmakers and staffers commonly market their insider knowledge to lobbying firms – is now pervasive at the senior rungs of the military leadership.”

It is in the interests of US defence industries, though not the US people, to provoke conflict between nations and within civil societies including within the US itself. In the US, covert rule by the military industrial plutocracy seems accepted as a bearable consequence of imperial dominance – the military and its ventures are a primary focus for super-nationalistic reverence. Americans are conditioned to support their troops without questioning whose bidding they are actually doing and for what ends. Sometimes, those in denial of the involvement of wealthy WASPs, the ‘Establishment’ and the Pentagon in the MIC plutocracy blame the Israel lobby or “the jews”.

Yet there is no contradiction between the interests of the US and Israeli ruling classes. US and Israeli society are both diseased with militarism. While Israel is voraciously expansionist with designs for regional preeminence, the US is preoccupied with maintaining ‘global security’, code for strategic placement of military force at 900 plus bases and several conflict zones to support current or potential resource exploitation and contain the rise of any competing power. The US has not relinquished the doctrine of full spectrum dominance.

Despite Netanyahu’s protestations that he, and Israel, are for peace, Israel’s ruling Likud party retains its opposition to a Palestinian state within its platform.

Self-Rule

The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.

The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state. Thus, for example, in matters of foreign affairs, security, immigration and ecology, their activity shall be limited in accordance with imperatives of Israel’s existence, security and national needs.

Jerusalem

Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel. The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem, including the plan to divide the city presented to the Knesset by the Arab factions and supported by many members of Labor and Meretz. The government firmly rejects attempts of various sources in the world, some anti-Semitic in origin, to question Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital, and the 3,000-year-old special connection between the Jewish people and its capital. To ensure this, the government will continue the firm policies it has adopted until now:

No diplomatic activity will be permitted at Orient House. The government stopped the stream of visits by heads of state and ministers at Orient House, begun under the left-wing government.

The presence of the Israeli police in eastern Jerusalem will be increased. This in addition to the new police posts and reinforcements in the neighborhoods.

The Likud government will act with vigor to continue Jewish habitation and strengthen Israeli sovereignty in the eastern parts of the city, while emphasizing improvements in the welfare and security of the Arab residents. Despite protests from the left, the Likud government consistently approved the continuation of Jewish living within the Old City and in ‘City of David’.

The Jordan River as a Permanent Border

The Jordan Valley and the territories that dominate it shall be under Israeli sovereignty. The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel. The Kingdom of Jordan is a desirable partner in the permanent status arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians in matters that will be agreed upon.

Security Areas

The government succeeded in significantly reducing the extent of territory that the Palestinians expected to receive in the interim arrangement. The government will insist that security areas essential to Israel’s defense, including the western security area and the Jewish settlements, shall remain under Israeli rule.

Israeli expansionism in the form of land theft in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Negev is facilitated further by associating the peace process facade with Palestinians toward a fictitious two state solution with an equally fictitious ‘existential threat’ from Iran. The rightwing and extremist settler dominated Knesset continues to pass oppressive, racist laws which undermine the prospect for human rights and peace. The PA and Hamas are both tasked by Israel with official and unofficial de facto collaboration respectively for security in the West Bank and Gaza. Thus both major Palestinian factions support the Israeli Occupation and ensure the Israeli milsec incubator is perpetuated.

Military industrialism is a common, complementary denominator between Israel and the US. Israel’s manufactured conflict with the people of Gaza and occupation in the West Bank incubates imported US and local milsec which is then used in barrios and on reservations in the US. Israel also serves as a milsec incubator for other countries, including “China, which imports Israel’s methods of propaganda and repression”.

The number one export for the US, UK, France, Germany and Italy is armaments – and as David Cronin documents, the EU is in bed with the Israeli arms industry alongside the US.

… senior EU figures have consistently shown “cowardice” in refusing to pursue the Israeli military for the cost of European-funded infrastructure projects which have been damaged or destroyed in repeated Israeli invasions. “Privately, EU officials acknowledge that the aid policies they are implementing have become hugely problematic. ‘Are we subsidizing activities that should fall on Israel as a consequence of its responsibilities as an occupying power?’ a well-placed Brussels source said to me. ‘The answer is unquestionably yes,'” writes Cronin.

While the EU’s continued aid to the PA is said to be part of a “tacit division of labor” with the US, whereby Washington holds the political reins and Europe the financial ones, Cronin provides examples of US refusal to allow joint donor statements which criticized Israel for damage to donor-funded projects illustrating the EU’s junior role in that relationship. In the meantime, the EU’s “aid” is also revealed by Cronin’s writings — both in the book and for The Electronic Intifada — to include the far-from-benign training given by European police organizations to PA security forces.

With its snout well and truly in the military industrial trough, the global ruling class is an auto-immune disease of human society.

UPDATE

Considering Israel’s nuclear posture, pursuant to a release from the British archives revealing that the British feared Israel would nuke the Arabs, Paul Barratt, past Secretary of Defence, Primary Industries and Energy Departments in Australia shared some insights:

@phbarratt : Israelis mobilised nuclear force in ’73. Americans petrified, airfreighted previously unreleased weapons out of Wiesbaden. #

@phbarratt : That is something US has had to weigh up ever since whenever Israelis demand access to latest weaponry. #

@Jinjirrie : so in essence, the qualitative military edge law is just icing on the cake #

@phbarratt : Alternative to unconditional US guarantee of Israeli security is more ready reliance by Israel on its nuclear force. #

@phbarratt : You will not that US does not get anything by way of gratitude, acknowledgement or cooperation for this guarantee. #

@Jinjirrie : how realistic though really is the samson option? any use of nukes by israel will blowback on them hard #

@Jinjirrie : physically as well as metaphorically #

@phbarratt : Nuclear weapons a very blunt instrument. Israel and Iran have gone for studied ambiguity – implied deterrence all round. #

@Jinjirrie : Threats make better threats when implied 🙂 i see israeli nuke posture as defiant symbolism against europe as well #

@Jinjirrie : yes, implied deterrence plays into militarisation by other means in the region, suits US/EU defence industries fine #

Story Related Links

Australian Defence White Paper 2009 Appraisal
Clausewitz vs. Sun Tzu
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute – Arms Trades
Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from Iran and Iraq
Andrew J. Bacevich on Douglas Feith
Exercises – Central Command
Choke Point : The Straits of Hormuz
Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz
International Security
Military Resistance 9A 2 : “Why We Fight”
WikiLeaks cables: Mauritius sues UK for control of Chagos islands
The Big (Military) Taboo
The Tyranny of Defense Inc. (Andrew J. Bacevich)
The US Senate is a complete joke (and what to do about it)
Lockheed Martin’s Shadow Government
“Washington Rules” is a tough-minded, bracing and intelligent polemic against some 60 years of American militarism.
The Tyranny of Defense Inc.
U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel Jeremy M. Sharp, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, September 16, 2010

Palestine / Israel Links for Today

Rotim Settlers Seize Land Near Tubas; Minister Arrested in Hebron
Hatem, 17, was shot in the head while purchasing strawberries to sell at market in the Gaza Strip, about 800 metres from the border fence with Israel.
Israel’s Qassam strikes on Gaza : Amira Hass
Several rabbis from Tiberias have called for a boycott of the Poriya hospital following a decision by the hospital to establish a mosque on its campus
Rabbi Dov Lior, one of the most senior deciders of Jewish law in religious Zionism, has determined that Jewish women are not allowed to obtain a sperm sample from non-Jewish men. Rabbi Lior said that the resulting infant would suffer adverse genetic traits.
Ex-President Katsav guilty of two counts of rape and sexual assault
Israeli society is falling into a deep, dark pit of racism and xenophobia
A report by the Central Bureau for Statistics shows that the school drop-out rate of students in the South is 16% higher for Arabs than for Jewish students. However, the report also shows a 20% fall in the drop-out rate of Arab students from schools between 1980 and today.
Israeli leftists have a racist past, too
Knesset Member Yariv Levin (Likud), chair of the Knesset Committee, has proposed a new law that would permit the Minister of the Interior to expel from Israel any foreign citizen who calls for the boycott of Israel of of anything produced in a settlement, and any person who calls for international trials for soldiers who will be involved in carrying out war crimes. Under the proposal, the Minister of the Interior will be able to bar such people from entering the country or expel them from Israel.
Gaza Youth Breaks Out
Diamond Exchange expels member over blood stones
Warped EDL psycho incites violence towards a Pro-Palestine protest.
Book Review: Europe’s Alliance with Israel
Shlaim shills for empire
SJP statement on FBI intimidation: ‘We live in an age in which silence is not only criminal but suicidal – we shall, therefore, make as much noise as we can’
British feared Israel would nuke Arabs: archives
Selective Law Enforcement Against Activist for Bedouins
Israeli Troops Arrest Seven Overnight, Allegedly Beat Woman
Am I allowed to be a Palestinian Jew?
Judaization of Jerusalem includes “defacing walls of the Old City”
Palestine Today: A Reality of Justice Denied

Wikileaks Links for Today

Sweden, Assange and the USA : It is almost a certainty that the editor of WikiLeaks will be turned over to the United States if he is extradited to Sweden [.pdf]
From Ion Cannon to BotTorrent: Potential new paradigm in hactivism
2010-12-30 Updated New Whistleblowing Sites and Games
Corruption combating online project is officially released
Untouchables swoop on Anonymous network
The Julian Assange Investigation — Let’s Clear the Air of Misinformation
Omar Bongo pocketed millions in embezzled funds, claims US cable
Leaked: Cuban Government Fears Bloggers More Than Activists
How Is Leaking Like Getting a Job?
2010-12-29 Amnesty: Sweeping new media law threatens freedom of expression in Hungary
NPR Apologizes for WikiLeaks Mistake; Nina Totenberg and Teena Marie
Christmas With Julian
[AFP] WikiLeaks seulement à “un cinquantième” de sa mission selon Assange

Other Links for Today

Poll: Vast Majority of Americans Oppose Attacking Iran
US refuses to co-operate in probe over alleged CIA secret prisons
‘Pentagon enjoys US unemployment’
Australia’s Business Council self-defines as anti-democratic
Davis resigns Ivory Coast contract
US military investigates ‘death squad’ accused of murdering Afghans
Tunisia : Arabic Pinochet Government Respond to Peaceful Protests by Live Ammunition Orchestrating AlJazeera and Seizing AlMowqef Newspaper
Israel: the next war : The US’s failure under Barack Obama to impose peace between Israel and the Palestinians makes a new war likely
No country should be immune from war crimes prosecutions, including Sri Lanka
Britain always sees its role as imperial power
The “Family” – Who Really Is Behind This Secret Organization?
Research links rise in Falluja birth defects and cancers to US assault
The Final Chapter… : Poem by Layla Anwar
End human rights imperialism now
Israel is not able to endure a long war with a powerful regional opponent due to its geographical restrictions, Director of IGA (Institute for [Persian] Gulf Affairs) Ali al-Ahmed says.

December 30, 2010December 11, 2020

Israeli Courts Used As Instruments of Political Coercion

Two recent ‘show trials’ provide clear evidence that the course of justice is being perverted in Israel, with coercion applied purposefully to intimidate those who challenge zionist brutality, land theft and ethnic cleansing.

High profile Jewish activist, Jonathan Pollak, attended court two days ago. Bearing witness in court were a throng of journalists and supporters. Joseph Dana provides an excellent account of Jonathan’s trial.

Tel Aviv Magistrates court judge Yitzhak Yitzhak convicted Israeli leftist Jonathan Pollak of illegal assembly for his participation in a January 2008 Critical Mass ride against the siege on Gaza and then sentenced him to three months imprisonment that will begin on January 11th, 2011. Pollak was the only one detained at the said protest, and was accused of doing nothing other than riding his bicycle in the same manner as the rest of the protesters.
…

During the trial, an Israeli supporter of Pollak was violently removed from the courthouse for wearing a shirt that said “there is no pride in occupation.” After the verdict was handed down, supporters began chanting in the courtroom against Israeli fascism and the occupation. They were forcibly removed one by one from the courthouse and subsequently held a demonstration on the sidewalk.

Despite evidence of Israeli wrongdoing in the course of the Gaza war, the only Israeli sentenced to jail so far is a leftist who choose to ride his bike through Tel Aviv in non-violent protest. The state of Israel sent a clear message with this verdict: that it will not tolerate dissent from the left. In fact, the state persecutor asked for a severe sentence in order to ‘make an example out of Pollak and those who engage in similar anti-occupation work.” Pollak said that he will continue to work with Palestinians against the occupation and repeatedly cited the much harsher verdicts given to Palestinians involved in non-violent protests. The only remorse that he showed was that he did not do enough to express dissent about the siege of Gaza. If peacefully riding a bike against violent aggression is a crime, Pollak said that we will happily go to jail.

Less well-known, and unreported in the western media, was the trial yesterday of Nuri al-Uqbi, a 68 year old Bedouin father of 8 children. Like Jonathan Pollak, Nuri was arbitrarily charged with a petty offence. Nuri’s punishment was increased by the magistrate to ‘seven months in prison for “running a business without a license”‘ to send a deliberate, vicious political message to other Bedouins who might have the temerity to oppose their dispossession. Five years ago, Nuri commenced a legal challenge against the state to regain his family’s lands in the Negev.

al-Uqbi’s expert, Oren Yiftachel, of Ben Gurion University in Beersheva, has countered that there was a well-established system of Bedouin land ownership and crop cultivation in the Negev long before Israel’s creation.

He says Bedouin deeds — though never formally recorded — were recognized by the Ottomans, the British and even early Zionist organizations such as the JNF, which bought land from the Bedouin.

A 1921 document from the public records office in London unearthed by Yiftachel shows that Winston Churchill, the colonies minister, signed an agreement with Bedouin in the Beersheva area that exempted them from registering their lands and set up a special tribal court to settle land disputes.

Al-Uqbi has kept a large store of documents passed on to him, showing that his father cultivated crops on the land and paid regular tithes on the profits to the Ottoman and British authorities.

He also has a copy of the treaty signed in 1948 between 16 Bedouin tribes, including the Uqbi, and the new Israeli army, pledging loyalty in return for a guarantee that they could continue living on their lands.

Clearly, the magistrate’s intimidatory message to Nuri and the outrageously harsh sentence relays the racist, predatory concerns of the zionist state. Will Nuri’s sentence be used against him by the state in his pending land rights case?

The Negev, constituting nearly two-thirds of Israel’s territory, has been almost entirely nationalized by the state, with the land held in trust for world Jewry. But the Bedouin have outstanding legal claims on nearly 80,000 hectares of ancestral property.

In recent months, the Israeli government has ramped up demolitions of Bedouin homes in the Negev to clear the way for more Jewish colonialists and Jewish National Fund pine forests. The village of al-Araqib was bulldozed for the eighth time since July last week, along with homes of 20 people in al Sadier village. Bedouins say Israel is demolishing homes “on a daily basis”.

Below is a google translation of the original Hebrew piece relating Nuri’s trial, pending a better version.

The judge wrote in the verdict: “worsened with the Okbi to deliver a message for the Negev Bedouin
by Noa Levy on Tuesday, 28 December 2010 at 21:28

Nuri al Okbi, rights activist Negev Bedouin Arab residents

Sentenced to seven months in prison for “running a business without a license”

The judge wrote in the verdict: “worsened with the Okbi to deliver a message for the Negev Bedouin”

Nuri al Okbi, chairman of the Association to protect the rights of the Bedouins who is also active in defense of rights and Arab residents of Lod many of them Bedouin origin, was sentenced today to seven months in prison for possession of a business without a license. Judge Zachary Yemini Ramle Magistrate’s Court verdict explicitly wrote that he had decided to aggravate the sentence – Okbi for being active in the Bedouin rights, and that the sentence is intended to “send a message Bedouin diaspora.”

After which the – Okbi guilty guilty several weeks ago the court referred him to community service, and – Okbi already expressed willingness in this work for the public good in a soup kitchen in Ramla was interested to receive it. But surprisingly, the judge decided to worsen and cut him seven months in prison instead of six which can be converted to community service.

Attorney Avi Dubin, lawyer of the Okbi, asked the court to delay the execution to allow the filing of an appeal, but the judge conditioned the implementation delay immediate deposit of thirty thousand dollars the court fund, a sum that is in his hands – and he was taken immediately imprisonment. In addition to imprisonment imposed on the court Nuri al – Okbi fine of forty thousand shekels or four hundred days in prison for them.

Business without a license is accused managed to – Okbi is a garage that opened in 1964 to Okbi Hasmonean 11th Street in Lod, when passed, like many other Bedouins from the Negev, to live in it. Over the years, changed the policy of the Municipality of Lod, which some in the garage and gave license to – Okbi other years denied him. “I feel discrimination and intimidation taken against me for political reasons, to keep me open my mouth and fight against the policy of the municipality – for example the destruction of seven homes of Arab residents about a week ago. I received a certificate from the Police, Fire Department, the Ministry of Interior Ministry of the Environment workshop working properly, but City Hall deprived me of the license while the people around me got business licenses started many years after my garage. I am convinced that if I was ready to walk the line dictated by the Town Hall, I had no problem obtaining a license. My garage is not their real problem, but a public activity.

UPDATE

Nuri al-Oqbi was hospitalised with his heart condition shortly after the trial – he collapsed after sentencing.

Following the harsh verdict, al-Okbi – who is 68 years old and suffers from a heart condition – felt bad and was hospitalized at the Assaf Harofeh Hospital, where he is hospitalized under police supervision and his hands and feet handcuffed to the bed. The police also prevented al-Okbi’s son, who came to the hospital, from talking to him.

Today’s Palestine / Israel Links

Two years after Operation Cast Lead, Gaza remains imprisoned
How much racism can a “democracy” take?
Israel blocks essential medical supplies for Gaza hospitals
China imports Israel’s methods of propaganda and repression
Israeli politician urges “a shot in the head” for Bedouins
Bedouin-Jewish Justice in Israel
Cablegate – Mastercard numbers used by the Mossad Dubai killers 10ABUDHABI103
Some Israelis Question Benefits for Ultra-Religious
TIBI: The tragedy of a two-state solution
Christian extremists assist Israel in displacing Negev Bedouin
Gaza farmers pack strawberries and hope for export
Conspiracy Theories Linking Israel to WikiLeaks Circulate on the Internet
Israeli army: leave Khirbet Tana or else
Shelling Reported in Gaza City
Students for Justice in Palestine condemns US government witch hunt
Israeli leaders, soldiers fear arrest over Gaza War Crimes
Culture Group Rebuffs Bid To Condemn Boycotts
Barrier separates Palestinian farmers from their land
Detained journalist questions right to freedom of speech for Palestinians
CNN reports on racist letters emanating from ultra-orthodox rabbis or their wives in Israel.

Other Links

How thick is your grey matter? The grey matter was found to be thicker in people who described themselves as liberal or Left-wing and thinner in those who said they were conservative or Right-wing.
The Australian : A “serious” newspaper debases itself
Backing extremists is fine if you work for CNN

December 28, 2010August 24, 2022

The Death Throes of Israel’s Tyranny

Let’s count the triumphs for justice from the grassroots up – the bands, musicians, authors, filmmakers, speakers, unions, societies, academics, universities, cooperatives and corporations who have said NO to the iniquity of Israeli apartheid and genocide. Salute to the flash mobs in department stores and on the streets, activists in the weekly resistance protests at Bi’lin, Ni’lin, Nabih Saleh, Sheik Jarrah and elsewhere in the Occupied Territories and the courageous flotillas to Gaza.

Emphatic solidarity for Palestinian human rights resounds across social networks and blogs – boycotts, divestments and sanctions are burgeoning throughout the world despite the pernicious ziocolonial hasbara proliferated by Israel and its reactionary ziolobby groups. In the mainstream media too, there has been progress, with publication of high profile stories of Palestinian resistance and solidarity, peaceful flotillas to break Israel’s evil, illegal siege on Gaza, powerful visions for the only real solution – one state and support for BDS.

Ending the apartheid of South Africa took 34 years from 1960 to 1994, yet since 2005 when boycotts, divestments and sanctions were declared by Palestinian civil society, progress toward the end of racist Israel’s crimes against humanity is accelerating far more rapidly. Hanging on by a thread to their ethnosupremacist dreams, Israel’s vile leaders are increasingly dismayed, attempting desperately to hide their abominations behind the deceitful canard of ‘self-defence’, counter-productively ramping up oppression, land theft and ethnic cleansing.

Yet with every spiteful conniption, denial of responsibility for atrocities, new fascist law, repressive act toward human rights activists, torture of prisoners and detainment of peaceful resistance leaders, Israel’s repellent tyranny moves closer to self-extinction. Apartheid Israel is delegitimising itself, its cheerleaders and their supporters are caught in the paradox of fascism, unaware they are active participants who embrace an oppressor state as “normal”. In our irrevocably connected world, this paradox is unsustainable. The fulfillment of the Palestinian peoples’ legitimate claims are now within reach.

Let’s continue to hold the banner for justice high, intensify boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israeli apartheid, and remember Gandhi’s prescient words:

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall – think of it, always.”

Palestine / Israel Links

Make no mistake – Israelis have always been racist
‘Shin Bet tortures prisoners and denies access to lawyers’
The invisible Palestinian liberation struggle
Ayalon Prison: Inmate commits suicide, then disappears
Israeli military targets Palestinian paramedics during clashes
GAZA: TWO YEARS AFTER THE HORROR – BY HAIDAR EID
Gaza Two Years Later: A little girl
Ethnic cleansing in Silwan
Karma – Racist Grinch ‘We’ll have No Christmas trees here’ Upper Nazareth mayor arrested on graft charge
PM: Israel won’t apologize to Turkey for Gaza flotilla raid
Activism roundup: world to commemorate Gaza massacre anniversary
Right-wing Israelis parade through East Jerusalem sparking clashes
Israel Set To Build And Market 5000 Units In East Jerusalem and the West Bank
Gaza families recall horror two years after Israel’s assault
ISRAEL: Neighbors watchful as Israel demarcates maritime borders with Cyprus
Palestine: Gaza aftermath – Photos
Israeli secret service targets Israeli BDS organizers, claiming “terrorist activity”
The Gaza “Cast Lead” Massacre
Iran, Syria stress support for resistance
20 Israeli contractors for construction of Rawabi effectively join settlements BDS
A Provocative Blueprint for Peace in the Mideast

Palestinians Reject Piecemeal Talks offered by Israel
Israeli navy tracks ship carrying aid for Gaza
Thug Lieberman has taken over the Israeli government
Britain risks Israeli anger by extending diplomatic recognition to Palestinians (why should the UK care about risking Israeli anger?)
BDS 2010: More Powerful Than the Sword
Nutanyahoo’s number 1 & racist demand for negotiations – that Israel be recognised as a jewish state
Israel disregards its legal obligation towards civilians, including patients in Gaza [Al Mezan]
Gaza Rubble and Scrap Collectors – Deliberate Attacks and Lack of Protection
The power of the alliance between Netanyahu and the religious extremists is an invitation to a dramatic change. But anyone who lifts their eyes from the peas scattered on the floor will see that a forest greater than Birnam Wood can move.

Wikilinks

Zimbabwe: Wikileaks Could Quicken Demise of GNU
Open letter to those inciting murder upon Julian Assange and/or members of his family
Morgan Tsvangirai faces possible Zimbabwe treason charge
Jailed Soldier Has Support of Resisters
The Embarrassment of the Wikileaks Links – cartoon
Belarus Updates: How Many Thousands Protested on 19 December?
Robert Fisk: WikiLeaks exposed US and Hillary’s hopelessness
The unofficial Wikileaks metawiki
Game Changer – Why Wikileaks will be the death of big business and big government.
The worsening journalistic disgrace at Wired

Other Links

Dick Cheney’s $250-Million ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ Card
While it’s been raining cats and dogs here in Jinland and we’re cut off from anywhere, at least we haven’t had to chance the perils of a long car trip to nowhere. Derek Barry takes us for a ride through the floods of Queensland
Top Ten Myths about Afghanistan, 2010
The Rise and Rise of Super Fascism
Hitchens on Kissinger
The Norwegian government’s controversial but arguably predictable decision to buy new fighter jets from its most important ally, the US, has been hit with another major cost issue. Documents leaked to WikiLeaks and reported in newspaper Aftenposten indicate the price tag has jumped by 66 percent and may cost Norwegian taxpayers another NOK 12 billion.
The JSF program sets new benchmarks for exceeding initially intended Unit Procurement Costs in a weapon system being developed.

December 27, 2010December 11, 2020

Two Years Later, Israeli Cast Lead War Criminals Elude Justice

Accompanying an alarming metastasis of racism within Israel, baleful, triumphalist zionist rhetoric directed at the defenceless people of the Gaza gulag is building ominously once more.

The scenario for the next round is unfolding in front of our eyes and it resembles depressingly the same deterioration that preceded the massacre of Gaza two years ago: daily bombardment on the Strip and a policy that tries to provoke Hamas so that more expanded assaults would be justified. As one general explained, there is now a need to take into account the damaging effect of the Goldstone report: namely the next major attack should look more plausible than the 2009 one (but this concern may not be that crucial to this particular government; nor would it serve as an obstacle).

Today, on the anniversary of the commencement of Israel’s attack of the people of Gaza, many of us reflect on the events of two years ago in mourning and regret that its criminal progenitors have eluded justice, courtesy of the largesse and impunity lent by Israel’s blinkered, biased imperial benefactor, the US and its bevy of colonialist toadies, including Australia.

Then acting Australian PM Julia Gillard disgracefully cheerled the Israeli massacre:

Israel’s attack upon Gaza was met with a curious indifference by most of the so-called leaders of Western nations. As acting Prime Minister of Australia at the time, the ill-informed Julia Gillard refused to criticise, let alone condemn the actions of Israel. Supposedly speaking on behalf of the Australian people, she said: “Australia recognises the right of Israel to defend itself.” That comment was made on the third of January 2009, by which time it was widely known that 430 Gazans had already been killed and 2,300 wounded in 750 individual strikes carried out by air and by sea over the previous five days.

The Cast Lead massacre was committed with malice aforethought on an imprisoned Gaza population of 1.5 million people, 55% of whom were under the age of 18 years. Israel broke its truce with Hamas on November 5th, 2008 although there had been no actual Hamas rockets during the ceasefire. Nor had Israel cooperated with the spirit if not actual terms of the truce by easing its illegal blockade. Israel automagically, conveniently blames Hamas for any rockets fired from the oppressed Gazan sliver of land. In revenge, Israel inflicts ongoing indiscriminate collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza, whom it has now incarcerated for 1,293 days.

Yet the truce was working, as during the final couple of months, there were practically no rockets fired from Gaza at all. After breaking the truce ,.Israel refused to renew it, even though Hamas expressed its willingness to renegotiate provided the siege was eased. Israel attacked on the 27th December, 2008. During the 22 infamous days of Operation Cast Lead, Israel killed 1417 Palestinian people, 352 of whom were children.

Flaunting the Geneva Conventions, Israel fiendishly, illegally targeted and destroyed ambulances, hospitals, schools, universities, the sole electric power and sewerage plants, chicken farms, dairy farms, crops, trees, police stations, homes and whole villages. Israel made around 50,000 Gazans homeless during winter, then for 18 months after the end of its 22 day attack, malevolently disallowed materials for rebuilding to enter Gaza. Two years later:

Israel has so far only approved the import of materials for 25 UNRWA[2] construction projects for schools and clinics, a mere seven per cent of UNRWA’s entire reconstruction plan for Gaza. Even for these approved projects, only a small fraction of the required construction materials have actually been permitted to enter Gaza so far.

More generally, says the report, the UN has estimated that Gaza needs 670,000 truckloads of construction materials for housing alone in Gaza. An average of only 715 truckloads of construction materials have entered the Gaza Strip per month since the ‘easing’ announcement, says the report. At this rate, it would take many decades to build the needed homes. And because UNRWA has been unable to get construction materials to build new schools, 40,000 eligible children could not be enrolled at UN schools at the start of the new academic year.

“Only a fraction of the aid needed has made it to the civilians trapped in Gaza by the blockade”, said Jeremy Hobbs, Director of Oxfam International. “Israel’s failure to live up to its commitments and the lack of international action to lift the blockade are depriving Palestinians in Gaza of access to clean water, electricity, jobs and a peaceful future.”

Altogether in the Occupied Territories, between 29th September, 2000 and 30th November, 2010, around 1313 Palestinian children have been slaughtered by Israeli security forces, according to B’TSelem.

According to an Al Mezan report from December 2010, over 21,000 people remain displaced two years after the end of Operation Cast Lead. Israel has committed more grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 147) as

careful documentation indicates that the IOF destroyed at least 1,723 shelters after the end of hostilities when they had come under Israel’s effective control. These shelters could not be deemed military objectives. Nor were they near any other legitimate military targets. Their destruction was therefore illegal, violating fundamental international humanitarian law principles, and amounting to war crimes.

Thanks to rejection by the credulous zionist sycophants in the US congress of the painstaking research within the UN-commissioned Goldstone Report into Cast Lead war crimes, Israeli war criminals responsible for the planning and execution of the heinous Cast Lead massacre still walk free, with no justice attained for, nor compensation paid to Israel’s civilian victims.

‘Despite its listing count after count of international law contraventions, Israeli “war crimes” and “possible crimes against humanity,” the European Union, the United Nations, the Red Cross, and all major Human Rights Organizations have called for an end to the illegal, medieval siege, it carries on unabated. On 11th November 2010 UNRWA head John Ging said, “There’s been no material change for the people on the ground here in terms of their status, the aid dependency, the absence of any recovery or reconstruction, no economy…The easing, as it was described, has been nothing more than a political easing of the pressure on Israel and Egypt.’

Though the resistance of Palestinians who endure it is unflinching, and international boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israeli apartheid and occupation are flourishing, Israel’s pitiless, illegal siege remains.

Israel’s harvest from its vindictive, cruel folly is bitter – as Nelson Mandela said, “A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he’s locked behind bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness.” Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their freedom. How much hatred, prejudice and narrow-mindedness imprisons Israel?

Palestinians deserve long overdue justice to be brought to their oppressors, for the hideous illegal siege to be lifted completely and for Israel’s aggression and expansionism to end. Join the #Gaza2 Campaign on twitter and post on your blog to remind the people of Palestine that neither they nor the calamities and evils inflicted on them during Operation Cast Lead by Israel and its collaborators are forgotten.

Palestine / Israel Links

The toxic downfall of the Jewish dream of a safe homeland
An Open Letter from Gaza: Two Years after the Massacre, a Demand for Justice
Israel’s image campaign a facade
Israeli foreign minister: Peace deal ‘impossible,’ ‘forbidden’
Dennis Ross Bats For Netanyahu
Hillary’s Envoy : Not Everyone is Cheering
New Mossad Chief Makes Nice to Brits
In Pictures: the slaughter of Gazan children – Victims of the Israeli occupation forces in the tenth day of their attacks on Gaza Strip – January 5, 2009
The drums of war are heard again in Israel
Davuto?lu blames Israel for failure to mend ties
And What Rough Beast Slouches Towards Gaza? Operation Cast Lead and the Dismembering of a People
Sorry, ‘Mother Jones’ but you’re piping the Israeli narrative of Gaza ‘war’
How long will American Jews deny this crushing reality?
Rabbi threatens civil war if settlements are evacuated
IDF warns troops: Facebook can bring terrorists to you
Jewish activist faces jail for West Bank resistance
Nomads No More: Israel evicts Indigenous Bedouins for more sterile racist settlements
Groundbreaking report details Israel’s inhumane conditions for isolated prisoners
UK considers recognizing PA diplomats
Palestinian group launches ‘Gaza Holocaust’ website
Another Gaza war?
Vigil outside the Israeli embassy in London to mark the second anniversary of the start of Operation Cast Lead
“To shoot an elephant” is an eye witness account from The Gaza Strip. December 27th, 2008, Operation Cast Lead. 21 days shooting elephants. Urgent, insomniac, dirty, shuddering images from the only foreigners who decided and managed to stay embedded inside Gaza strip ambulances, with Palestinian civilians.
The Gaza massacre and the struggle for justice
Suheir Hammad: 2. Rafah
Stuttgart Declaration
An Open Letter from Gaza: Two Years after the Massacre, a Demand for Justice
Operation Cast Lead 2 Years On
Leftist Yonatan Pollak sentenced to 3 months in jail
Shin Bet puts Israeli ‘anarchists’ in crosshairs
Israeli activist sentenced to 3 months in prison for protesting Gaza war

Wikileaks Links

WikiLeaks founder baffled by sex assault claims
THE WIKILEAKS NEWS & VIEWS BLOG, Special Holiday Weekend Edition!
Saving Private Manning
Beyond WikiLeaks: The Privatization of War
Austria and the WikiLeaks Diplomatic Cables
WikiLeaks tells why drug king is still free
Wikileaks: State Department Lied, Denying Dubai Asked for Assistance in Tracking Mossad Assassins
Wikileaks cables have revealed a disturbing development in the African uranium mining industry: abysmal safety and security standards in the mines, nuclear research centres, and border customs are enabling international companies to exploit the mines and smuggle dangerous radioactive material across continents.
EX-CIA SPOOK CALLS FOR “COVERT ACTION” VS. ASSANGE
WikiLeaks may spawn new sedition act

Other Links

Afghanistan denounces deadly NATO-led raid
America in Decline: Why Germans Think We’re Insane
Can Gillard Last?

December 26, 2010December 11, 2020

Zionist Exceptionalism For Extrajudicial Executions

The new Mossad chief will apologise to the UK for the use of its passports in its Dubai extrajudicial assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in January 2010.

David Milliband, then foreign secretary, told MPs that Israel had shown a “profound disregard” for British sovereignty, adding: “The fact that this was done by a country which is a friend, with significant diplomatic, cultural, business and personal ties to the UK, only adds insult to injury.”

Will Pardo’s magnanimity extend to Australia, Ireland, France and Germany, whose passports were also abused by Mossad?

The duplicitous use of foreign passports is not the primary crime committed by Israel. Extrajudicial executions are outlawed by the Second Additional Protocol of the Geneva Conventions (1977) that states:

“No sentence shall be passed and no penalty shall be executed on a person found guilty of an offence except pursuant to a conviction pronounced by a court offering the essential guarantees of independence and impartiality.” (Second Protocol of the Geneva Conventions (1977) Art 6.2)

Zionist exceptionalism is enabled and paralleled by that of its indulgent sponsor, the US, with its disgraceful preemptive strike policy and legal permissiveness for extrajudicial assassinations even of its own citizens.

In December 2006, Israel’s High Court of Justice outrageously declared the legality of the extrajudicial executions of Palestinian activists suspected of being “unlawful combatants.”

The taking of life based on suspicions against a person, represents a gross violation of fundamental principles of law and morality. It is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, and further, is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal Court. These legal-moral principles are applicable to every country, organization and person, whether or not they are an official party to these instruments.

In this ruling, the Israeli High Court indiscriminately adopts the Israeli government’s practice that strips “unlawful combatants” of their legal and human rights. International law does not recognize a category of “unlawful combatants” who do not enjoy either the rights of combatants in the battlefield or those of protected civilians. The Court did not question the prevailing modus operandi of Israel’s security forces, which declares that all Palestinian civilians are “unlawful combatants” a posteriori, after an execution has been made, again without any legal review or oversight.
…

The Fourth Geneva Convention relates to the protection of civilian population in time of war. Article 146 of the Convention obligates the High Contracting Parties to enact effective penal sanctions for persons who have committed, or ordered to be committed, “grave breaches” of the Convention. Article 147 defines “grave breaches” to include “willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment.”

As Israeli scholar Tanya Reinhart says: “Under military rule, Israel has become a leading force in the destruction of the very protections that humankind has established, out of World War Two, for its own preservation, protections that we too may need one day, as history has already shown us”.

For how long will the world turn a blind eye to Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity which overshadow mere passport abuse, and that include ongoing brazen slaughter of civilians, ethnic cleansing in the Occupied Territories and within Israel itself?

Palestine / Israel Links

SEATTLE, USA: King County executive prevents “Israeli War Crimes” bus ads from appearing
King Co. rejects Israeli-Gaza bus ad
GISHA REPORT: “Reconstructing the Closure” Dec10 [.pdf]
Israeli demolitions traumatic for Palestinian children, says UN official
Inflaming racist rhetoric
Israelis kill Gazan shepherd, wound three – medics
UN envoys criticise Israel home demolitions
1932 is already here
Fuel for racism
US should recognize Palestine – John Quigley
Israeli racial purity
Turkey set on improving Israel ties, but insists on apology for Gaza flotilla raid
Anger after Nazareth suburb bans Christmas tree
The Palestinian ‘legitimacy war’
Jeffrey Goldberg’s Anti-Boycott Bluster & Blunder
Israeli Foreign Ministry Plans New Hasbara Effort Against Palestinians

STL-PSC Flash Mob: Boycott Israeli Apartheid in Palestine! (YouTube Censors the Video)
The Holy Land is on a tourism high
Jerusalem & Babylon / Demons on the streets of Israel
No legitimate Palestinian leader can negotiate with Israel while it continues to colonize Palestinian land.
Lieberman’s Great Big Palestinian Land Heist Plan
Christmas and New Year’s Eve: More Homeless Palestinian children
Senior Labor minister: Without peace talks, even U.S. may soon recognize Palestinian state
World may recognise Palestine soon: Israel minister
Delegitimizing Israel: the dictionary
Israel mobilizing forces in Silwan for possible eviction of non-violent leader
French activists arrested at West Bank protest
Gaza doctor takes Israel to court
The Gaza Strip is a castle that will defend Palestinian rights and resist occupation
Deputy FM: ‘The state of Facebook’ is more real than Palestine
Israeli diplomat ambushed by NY Times staff
Max Ajl returns to Gaza and locates Palestinian freedom – ‘it’s under an Israeli-American jackboot’
‘Asylum seekers trying to reach Israel are being trapped and tortured in Sinai’
Steve Rosen’s Plaint against AIPAC
Texas Tea Party : anti-Semitic and pro-Zionist
Lieberman: Israel’s governing coalition unable to agree on peace deal with Palestinians
In Israel, parenthood is perceived of as a national mission
Kuala Lumpur-Malaysia: 26th of December 2010 : Flashmob/freeze scene
Gaza aid ship returns to Turkey
Gaza: Two years after the horror of Operation Cast Lead