Today, there’s yet another ‘deeply disappointing’ from the UK foreign minister as Israel swipes more Palestinian land to sprout illegal Jews-only housing.
Israel’s interior ministry announced its sanction of 1,600 new homes in Ramat Shlomo, and impending approval of 2,000 more in Givat Hamatos and 700 in Pisgat Zeev on Thursday, a week after 900 housing units were announced in Har Homa.
On August 11, the US was ‘deeply disappointed’ with Israel’s new East Jerusalem construction plan, on April 6, Catherine Ashton arched an eyebrow and sighed she was ‘deeply disappointed’ at previous land theft.
Without concerted action, this ‘deep disappointment’ is shallow. When will there be a ‘totally despicable’ and ‘we are going to sanction and divest from you until you stop stealing land from Palestinians, end your illegal occupation and apartheid?’
Disability and Palestine
RT @Tweet_Palestine: i wish we had people fighting for disabled peoples’ rights here there is no regards to disability despite large numbers
RT @Tweet_Palestine: 1of the biggest problems now is that the PA is not paying all benefits to those with disability which are very low to start with Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
@occpal also read Art 30, 2nd paragraph, of 1949 Geneva Convention III :Special facilities shall be afforded for the care …etc”
RT @Budouroddick: Disability rights in Pal are criminally overlooked. I tried to start an empowerment project, but none helped. Help this radio station in Gaza get equipment for blind reporters
The US state department is fully complicit with Israeli criminality, with similar contempt for international law and human life. Nor does it have any idea of the medical “diet” which Israel has malignantly inflicted on the people of Gaza and the state of medical emergency declared by the Gaza health ministry on the 8th June with shortages of medical supplies since January 2011 noted by the World Health Organisation this month. There seems no comprehension by the US State Department of the impact of Israel’s illegal blockade on the people of Gaza. The tawdry ‘special relationship’ is cemented in the negation of the human needs of the civilian Palestinian population which under the Hague and Geneva Conventions should be met by the belligerent occupier, Israel.
“The U.S. State Department said Friday that attempts to break the blockade are “irresponsible and provocative” and that Israel has well-established means of delivering assistance to the Palestinian residents of Gaza. It noted that the territory is run by the militant Hamas group, a U.S. designated foreign terrorist organization, and that Americans providing support to it are subject to fines and jail.
Israel’s ‘well-established means of delivering assistance’ are open to limited numbers of trucks with aid from Sunday to Thursday. Predictably, Israel ramped up deliveries yesterday (Thursday) no doubt to create a tenuous facade that 300 trucks a day are ‘normal’. Some weeks the crossings are completely closed. While Egypt opened the Rafah crossing for people several weeks ago, it closed it again after a few days. As revealed at Electronic Intifada:
There is no legal basis for Israel to intercept ships and prevent them from delivering humanitarian supplies, say experts in international law.
“Israel only has jurisdiction over its territorial waters of 12 nautical miles, and neither the waters off Gaza nor international waters are under its authority,” University of the Basque Country professor of international law Juan Soroeta told IPS.
“No UN resolution authorizes the Gaza blockade,” said Soroeta. “On the contrary, it is an illegal, unilateral measure imposed by force by Israel in the context of an equally illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.”
UN Security Council Resolution 1860, adopted on 8 January 2009, calls for “the unimpeded provision and distribution throughout Gaza of humanitarian assistance, including of food, fuel and medical treatment.”
But reports from the international humanitarian organizations working on the ground there confirm that this point is not being fulfilled.
The US State Department further rages:
Groups that seek to break Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza are taking irresponsible and provocative actions that risk the safety of their passengers. Established and efficient mechanisms exist to transfer humanitarian assistance to Gaza. For example, humanitarian assistance can be delivered at the Israeli port of Ashdod, where cargo can be offloaded, inspected, and transported to Gaza.”
On past record, there is no guarantee that aid if delivered to Ashdod will reach Gaza.
The 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid carried by the first Freedom Flotilla was confiscated by Israel along with the personal effects of the passengers and the reporters’ equipment.
None of the items were ever returned, making it “booty in the best pirate tradition,” said Spanish lawyer Enrique Santiago, who was involved in preparing the charges against Israel for the assault on the flotilla in international waters.
Oren attacked the organizers of the flotilla as “radical anti-Israel organizations…known also for anti-American activities.” He cited statements by the US State Department and UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon criticizing or condemning their actions. Then Oren claimed that the flotilla could simply deliver its aid through a “responsible organization” like UNRWA, or bring their materials through El Arish and allow Israel to offload it. “It’s not a fight between us and the people of Gaza,” Oren claimed. “It’s between us and the group Hamas which is determined to destroy the state of Israel.” (Never mind this Israeli government document). He went on to claim that Israel’s maritime blockade was “in full accord with international law,” though he did not explain how besieging a civilian population that was not actively engaged in a full-scale war against Israel comported with the 4th Geneva Convention or the San Remo Accords.
The US boat to Gaza is carrying letters of hope and compassion for the beleaguered citizens of Gaza, who have been subjected to Israel’s horrific collective punishment, a crime against humanity, for the past 1,473 days.
Author Alice Walker who is on the US boat writes “We will be carrying letters … expressing solidarity and love”. Other vessels with the flotilla will bear humanitarian aid, including construction materials, medical supplies and educational materials.
Such are the frightening things which according to Israel’s premier hasbara source, the IDF Spokesman, threaten Israeli civilians.
and since the world Establishment, including the US government, is enabling it, it is only natural that upstanding Americans and members of other nations want to challenge it. . It should be remembered that the Civil Rights movement in the United States was mostly illegal and its activists were frequently jailed, beaten, bitten by police dogs, and sometimes shot down by law enforcement.
Early this morning, I discovered that a ‘private compliant’ had been filed against the US boat to Gaza. The compliant, it is still unclear who filed it, stated that the US boat to Gaza is not ’sea worthy’ and requires a detailed inspection.The harbor master where the boat is in port has declared that until the compliant is resolved the boat is not permitted to leave. Currently, lawyers representing the US boat are looking into the origins of the compliant and weather it was filed as a result of Israeli economic or diplomatic pressure on the Greek government. The boat is US flagged and registered in the United States.
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10 ships are expected to sail as part of the Gaza aid flotilla. Currently three ships, including the US boat, have had complaints levied against them. US boat organizers believe that Greece will attempt to delay the ships indefinitely by using a serious of bureaucratic measures such as endless safety checks and cargo inspections.
despite overall calm over the past 10 weeks, two rockets and two mortars had been fired into Israel from Gaza in the past month. Israel had conducted six incursions and one air strike, a Palestinian civilian had been killed by mortar fire while approaching the border fence at night, and two others had been injured by Israeli forces.
However, Mr. Pascoe welcomed Israel’s approval, earlier this week, of $100 million to build 1,100 housing units in Khan Younis and Rafah, as well as 18 schools of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), among other construction projects. It had brought the total value of approved United Nations reconstruction in the past 15 months to $265 million. “We continue to stress that the market in aggregate, steel bar and cement can and should be liberalized by the Israeli authorities,” he said.
He noted that on 25 May, Egypt had announced extended working hours and eased procedures at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, but the Egyptian and de facto Hamas authorities had faced difficulties in implementing the changes. Efforts to combat weapons smuggling through the tunnels continued. On illegal settlement activity, he said that, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, 1,774 units had been under construction in the West Bank during the first quarter of 2011, excluding East Jerusalem. In the past month, the Ministry of Defence had approved an additional 294 units in the settlement of Beitar Ilit, he said, adding that settlement activity also continued in East Jerusalem.
Expressing concern that continued demolitions in Area C were displacing Palestinians from their communities, he said the Israel Defense Forces had destroyed 81 Palestinian structures in the West Bank, including two in East Jerusalem, displacing 260 people. In addition, Israeli settlers had attacked Palestinians and their property in the West Bank, resulting in 13 Palestinian injuries and extensive material damage
commenting two days after Israel announced it would allow the UN to bring in material for school and housing construction, said the blockade is “a deliberate policy of collective punishment which is legally indefensible and morally reprehensible.”
On Tuesday, the Israeli Government approved the delivery of $100 million in building materials for 1,200 homes and 18 schools in UN-run projects in Gaza. Yesterday Robert Serry, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, called the announcement a “significant step.”
Referring to the recent media reports of widespread health problems in Gaza, Mr. Falk said the situation of health care there is “as nothing short of catastrophic.”
“Israel has pulled out the stops in trying to get the flotilla to stop before it begins by threatening the Greek economy,“ said Ann Wright, a retired State Department official and former Army colonel who is the main organizer of the US boat to Gaza. Sitting in the lobby of the noisy Athens hotel, she added, “Greece is caught in the middle. There is tremendous public support for the flotilla, but the government is getting pounded by the Israelis.” Not naming her sources, Wright, visibly exhausted from a year of organizing for the flotilla, contended that “Israel is going to try to sink the Greek economy if they allow the flotilla to sail from Greek ports.”
In response to the growing pressure, the Greek foreign ministry released a public statement on June 22 regarding its own citizens sailing with the flotilla. According to the statement, the ministry “urges Greek citizens as well as Greek-registered vessels not to participate in the new flotilla headed for the Gaza port.”
“Everything is explained in great detail,” foreign ministry spokesman Georgy Delavekouras told me over the phone from his office in Athens, referring to the statement. However, the statement is vague and does not say whether Greece will stop Gaza-bound ships registered in other countries.
Confirming that meetings between Greece and Israel have taken place recently over “many issues, including the flotilla,” Delavekouras said the Israeli government has not applied economic pressure. When pressed on the nature of the Israeli-Greek discussions, he simply referred to the statement.
Israel is doing everything possible to avoid a repeat of last year’s flotilla debacle, when Israeli commandos stormed the largest of six boats, the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, and killed nine passengers, including one Turkish-American citizen, as they seized control of the ship.’
“Apparently, the State Department subscribes to the view that Israel’s anticipated violence against unarmed protesters is an immutable act of nature,” said Hagit Borer, a professor of Linguistics at the University of Southern California and a passenger on the U.S. boat. “This is a remarkable attitude, coming from a government that provides the Israeli government with billions of dollars in military aid…’
?’Does Israel have the right to intercept the expected flotilla?
As an occupying power in the Gaza Strip, Israel may prevent ships from reaching the Gaza shoreline. However, exercising this power imposes on Israel an obligation to allow the passage of goods and people through other means, in order to respect the rights of Gaza residents to a normal life, including the right to engage in dignified, productive work and economic, educational and cultural development. The overall closure policy, of which the maritime closure is part, is unlawful due to the restrictions it places on civilians.’
An expert legal opinion on International Maritime Law and the Gaza blockade’
‘”The legal position is plain. A vessel outwith the territorial waters (12 mile limit) of a coastal state is on the high seas under the sole jurisdiction of the flag state of the vessel. The ship has a positive right of passage on the high seas. The coastal state can regulate economic activity exploiting the resources of the seas and continental shelf up to 200 miles, the extent of the continental shelf, or the agreed boundary, but there is no indication of fishing, oil drilling or analagous economic activity in this case. The vessel is entitled to free passage.”
‘”This right of free passage is guaranteed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas, to which the United States is a full party. Any incident which takes place upon a US flagged ship on the High Seas is subject to United States legal jurisdiction. A ship is entitled to look to its flag state for protection from attack on the High Seas.”
“Israel has declared a blockade on Gaza and justified previous fatal attacks on neutral civilian vessels on the High Seas in terms of enforcing that embargo, under the legal cover given by the San Remo Manual of International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea.”
“There are however fundamental flaws in this line of argument. It falls completely on one fact alone. San Remo only applies to blockade in times of armed conflict. Israel is not currently engaged in an armed conflict, and presumably does not wish to be. San Remo does not confer any right to impose a permanent blockade outwith times of armed conflict, and in fact specifically excludes as illegal a general blockade on an entire population.”
“It should not be denied that Israel suffers from sporadic terrorist attacks emanating from Gaza.
However this does not come close to reaching the bar of armed conflict that would trigger the right to impose a limited naval blockade in terms of San Remo. To make a comparison, in the 1970’s and 1980’s the United Kingdom suffered continued terrorist attack from the Irish Republican Army, with much more murderous impact causing many more deaths than anything Israel has suffered in recent years from Gaza. However nobody would seek to argue that the UK would have had the right to mount a general naval blockade of the Republic of Ireland in the 1970’s and 1980’s, even though the Republic was undoubtedly the base for much IRA supply and operations. Justifications of Israeli naval action against neutral civilian ships by San Remo is based on special pleading and an impossibly strained definition of the term “armed conflict”.’
In a deliberate bid to co-mingle sex, violence, and nationalism — do these people plan to imitate the SS, or does it just happen? — Birthright’s planners self-consciously try to bind Jewish youth to Israeli youth in the most visceral way possible.
Appearing before the Israeli military court in Ofer, Palestine rights leader Bassem Tamimi reads as much of his statement as the judge permits him. It is stirring and to the point, describing how the Israeli authorities have treated him and his family during previous periods of incarceration for non-violent protest of the illegal Israeli Occupation.
Your Honor, I hold this speech out of belief in peace, justice, freedom, the right to live in dignity, and out of respect for free thought in the absence of Just Laws.
Every time I am called to appear before your courts, I become nervous and afraid. Eighteen years ago, my sister was killed by in a courtroom such as this, by a staff member. In my lifetime, I have been nine times imprisoned for an overall of almost 3 years, though I was never charged or convicted. During my imprisonment, I was paralyzed as a result of torture by your investigators. My wife was detained, my children were wounded, my land was stolen by settlers, and now my house is slated for demolition.
I was born at the same time as the Occupation and have been living under its inherent inhumanity, inequality, racism and lack of freedom ever since. Yet, despite all this, my belief in human values and the need for peace in this land have never been shaken. Suffering and oppression did not fill my heart with hatred for anyone, nor did they kindle feelings of revenge. To the contrary, they reinforced my belief in peace and national standing as an adequate response to the inhumanity of Occupation.
International law guarantees the right of occupied people to resist Occupation. In practicing my right, I have called for and organized peaceful popular demonstrations against the Occupation, settler attacks and the theft of more than half of the land of my village, Nabi Saleh, where the graves of my ancestors have lain since time immemorial.
I organized these peaceful demonstrations in order to defend our land and our people. I do not know if my actions violate your Occupation laws. As far as I am concerned, these laws do not apply to me and are devoid of meaning. Having been enacted by Occupation authorities, I reject them and cannot recognize their validity.
Despite claiming to be the only democracy in the Middle East you are trying me under military laws which lack any legitimacy; laws that are enacted by authorities that I have not elected and do not represent me. I am accused of organizing peaceful civil demonstrations that have no military aspects and are legal under international law.
We have the right to express our rejection of Occupation in all of its forms; to defend our freedom and dignity as a people and to seek justice and peace in our land in order to protect our children and secure their future.
The civil nature of our actions is the light that will overcome the darkness of the Occupation, bringing a dawn of freedom that will warm the cold wrists in chains, sweep despair from the soul and end decades of oppression.
These actions are what will expose the true face of the Occupation, where soldiers point their guns at a woman walking to her fields or at checkpoints; at a child who wants to drink from the sweet water of his ancestors’ fabled spring; against an old man who wants to sit in the shade of an olive tree, once mother to him, now burnt by settlers.
We have exhausted all possible actions to stop attacks by settlers, who refuse to adhere to your courts’ decisions, which time and again have confirmed that we are the owners of the land, ordering the removal of the fence erected by them.
Each time we tried to approach our land, implementing these decisions, we were attacked by settlers, who prevented us from reaching it as if it were their own.
Our demonstrations are in protest of injustice. We work hand in hand with Israeli and international activists who believe, like us, that had it not been for the Occupation, we could all live in peace on this land. I do not know which laws are upheld by generals who are inhibited by fear and insecurity, nor do I know their thoughts on the civil resistance of women, children and old men who carry hope and olive branches.
But I know what justice and reason are. Land theft and tree-burning is unjust. Violent repression of our demonstrations and protests and your detention camps are not evidence of the illegality of our actions. It is unfair to be tried under a law forced upon us. I know that I have rights and my actions are just.
The military prosecutor accuses me of inciting the protesters to throw stones at the soldiers. This is not true. What incites protesters to throw stones is the sound of bullets, the Occupation’s bulldozers as they destroy the land, the smell of teargas and the smoke coming from burnt houses. I did not incite anyone to throw stones, but I am not responsible for the security of your soldiers who invade my village and attack my people with all the weapons of death and the equipment of terror.
These demonstrations that I organize have had a positive influence over my beliefs; they allowed me to see people from the other side who believe in peace and share my struggle for freedom. Those freedom fighters have rid their conscious from the Occupation and put their hands in ours in peaceful demonstrations against our common enemy, the Occupation. They have become friends, sisters and brothers. We fight together for a better future for our children and theirs.
If released by the judge will I be convinced thereby that justice still prevails in your courts? Regardless of how just or unjust this ruling will be, and despite all your racist and inhumane practices and Occupation, we will continue to believe in peace, justice and human values. We will still raise our children to love; love the land and the people without discrimination of race, religion or ethnicity; embodying thus the message of the Messenger of Peace, Jesus Christ, who urged us to “love our enemy.” With love and justice, we make peace and build the future.
The liberal Zionist vision is indeed motivated by moral concerns. The vision recognizes that it is morally wrong, not just inexpedient, for Israel to have day to day control over the lives of Palestinians. It is less concerned with the measure of effective control Israel will have over the future Palestinian state, and indirectly, on the lives of the Palestinians living within it. I don’t think it is concerned with that at all.
In 2005, Cox agreed to serve as “Co-President” of The Jerusalem Summit, an Israeli Zionist organization that denies the Nakba and which has advocated the ethnic cleansing, or transfer of Palestinians and espouses extreme Islamophobic views.
‘Children often watch with their parents as their homes are demolished. A house is a place of safety and comfort for most children around the world. A home demolished is a future destroyed’.
Oblivious to Nutanyahoo’s murder of the two state solution (again) this week before the US Congress, Australian politician Melissa Parke keeps flogging a dead horse. Melissa’s speech is notable though for its recognition of the oppression of Israel’s occupation, a rare occurrence in the Australian Parliament. She meanders down the fallacious imperialist/zionist path of the formation of two states being central to the US national security interest and further drags Australia’s national security interest into the mix.
Is Zionism set to implode at last, unable to resolve its racist contradictions? The just rights demanded by Palestinian people in their call to boycott, divest and sanction apartheid Israel bypass and supercede the Israeli and western imperialists’ obsession with protecting racist privilege through a mythological quest for a ‘peace process’ focused on two states for two ‘peoples’, ignoring the facts that 20% of Israel’s population are not jewish, and there are half a million jewish settlers illegally squatting in the Occupied Territories. It is not the West’s ‘national security interests’ which are at stake here – how racist is it to place Palestinians’ human and political rights in the context of ‘national security’? – but credibility as purveyor of the enlightened values of democracy and human rights the developed world claims to embrace.
As Rae Abileah says: ‘Before we go preaching democracy abroad, we should make our own democracy more responsive to the public good, not the wishes of wealthy lobbyists.’ And by reference to this quote, I don’t just mean the zionist lobby, but the entire capitalist corporate lobby behemoth whose imperialist interests coincide.
‘We call on all Palestinian and Arab community associations, societies and committees, student organizations, solidarity campaigns, to reject fully and unequivocally the Statehood initiative as a distraction that unjustifiably and irresponsibly endangers Palestinian rights and institution.’
‘Like the BNC, the USPCN statement emphasizes that fundamental Palestinian rights, not “statehood” remain the core of Palestinian efforts:
As has been recently revealed, this initiative in no way protects nor advances our inalienable, and internationally recognized, rights—fundamental of which are our right to return to the homes and properties from which we were forcibly expelled, our right to self-determination, and our right to resist the settler colonial regime that has occupied our land for more than 63 years.
The Palestinian people, wherever they are, hold these rights. They are non-negotiable. No one can barter them away for false promises of “peace” and “stability.” The cynical irony of turning a UN resolution enshrining our right to return under international law (UNGA Res. 194) into a rhetorical ploy should give anyone pause. That it is being advanced at a time when the PA does not even have the political mandate of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza through Palestinian Legislative Council elections must also give us pause.;
‘Goodwin-Gill’s memo and an interview he gave explaining its implications have heightened concern among Palestinians about the PA’s ill-thought out and desperate step which comes after the complete failure of the US-sponsored “peace process” on which the PA bet all its cards.’
‘But more importantly, the South African comparison helps illuminate why the ambitious projects of pacification, “institution building” and economic development that the Ramallah PA and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have whole-heartedly embarked upon are not actually exercises in “state-building.” Rather, they emulate with frightening closeness and consistency South Africa’s policies and stages in building the Bantustan/Homelands. Indeed, Fayyad’s project to achieve political stability through economic development is the same process that was openly formalized in the South African
He insisted in the interview that Palestinians would not be able to force the right of return for Palestinian refugees on Israelis within the context of a peace agreement, but that he seeks a “just solution.”
There are three major conditions needed for a free viable Palestinian state. The first is national unity – the Palestinian state needs to represent all Palestinians as one people whether inside or outside of Occupied Palestine. A second component is economic viability – a Palestinian state needs be able to make its own decisions on sovereign matters and not be held hostage to foreign aid and the will of donor countries. A third and major component of a Palestinian state is security – it needs to have the strength to claim the land and protect is people either through an army or some form of international guarantees.’
Of course, in traditional Christianity and in Orthodox Judaism, hostility to gays exceeds the few vague references in the Qur’an. But Israeli writers, very much like classical anti-Semites, are so obsessed with their hatred of Islam and Muslims that they have to bring it in no matter what. Furthermore, openly or semi openly “gay” leaders (like Sultan Qaboos) have served as heads of state in Arab and Muslim lands but not in Israel.
‘the power of secular pro-democracy movements throughout the region now reverberate in Palestine as a validation of grassroots resistance.
If that feedback loop can be harnessed to reinvigorate the idea of Palestinian liberation, then we might finally see the ends and the means match up in the struggle to defeat imperialism, violence and dictatorship.’
Zionism and imperialism – two heads of the same grotesque beast, which advances the cause of robber barons who defend their own interests under the holy shibboleth of capitalism.
“At 700 kilometres long, with 85 per cent of its route inside the West Bank, the Barrier cuts off communities from basic services, denies people access to their homes, and leaves thousands of people dependent on humanitarian handouts.”
Recounting a meeting she had with Palestinians who had been evicted from their homes in East Jerusalem to make way for Israeli settlements, Ms. Amos said they faced daily violence and threats from settlers, noting the attacks on Palestinians are rarely prosecuted.
Thousands of Palestinians had lost their right to live in East Jerusalem and those in the West Bank struggled to access specialized education and reach medical facilities that are only available in Jerusalem.
Fact-checking Netanyahu’s Speech DePaul vote on Sabra hummus a victory for human rights: SJP’s strategy is not predicated on the elimination of an Israeli state. Rather, it deals purely with human rights. The logic is simple; boycotting Sabra hummus and other similarly problematic products sends a strong signal to owners of the companies that make them, which is that any profiteering from human rights violations will not be tolerated.
