Davutoglu told reporters on Friday that Israel should apologize, pay compensation to families of the Turkish citizens killed during the boarding of the aid ship and end the embargo on Gaza. Otherwise, the minister stated, relations between Turkey and Israel will not be normalized.
Additionally Davutoglu extended Turkey’s criticism of the apartheid land-thieving entity:
“Israel should decide to be a part of either the problem or the solution,” Davutoglu told reporters. The minister also spoke out against other aspects of Israeli policy, criticizing Israel to for continuing its settlement policy. The minister concluded by emphasizing that Turkey would react positively if Israel pursued a less hawkish foreign policy.
From @leventbasturk: If it doesn’t remain firm on this issue, the new course of Turkish Frgn Pol in ME will be under great suspicion. #
In the US press, Davutoglu’s comments were under-reported, omitting the need for Israel to end its embargo on Gaza.
While the US hedges its bets and makes appropriate tut tuts, the SCAF in Egypt refuses to relinquish power. The Egyptian police have killed 38 protesters, for which deaths the ruling junta have apologised, with 3,256 people injured. Protesters have been targeted viciously by the military with tear gas courtesy from US suppliers, although the US denies it was purchased with aid money, well, not recently, at any rate, so its spokespeople say.
Medics have been overwhelmed with casualties from the tear gas, with canisters landing in the clinic in this Reuters story at least once a day.
“We get two to three to casualties per minute,” said Salem. “Sixty to 70 percent are suffocation, the rest are pellets or bullets,”
…
“We are seeing serious convulsions,” said Salem. Behind him, a casualty displayed just the symptoms he was describing. From his pocket, Salem pulled a handwritten note detailing the ingredients of “CS gas”, one of the types being used.
Many of the gas canisters collected by the activists are unmarked, fuelling speculation that more sinister weapons have been used. The military council on Wednesday denied the security forces had used anything poisonous.
Raafat Fouda, constitutional law professor at Cairo University, agreed saying that it was against the constitutional decree announced by SCAF in March.
“SCAF didn’t rule Egypt through a referendum, then they shouldn’t leave through a referendum either,” Fouda said.
“The people who accepted SCAF as their ruler during the transitional period can make it step down without a referendum,” he added.
However, Fouda favored the scenario where SCAF hands over power to the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC).
Fouda said that according to all the constitutions around the world, when the president fails to perform his duties and the parliament fails as well, the head of the SCC takes over.
“The head of the SCC doesn’t have the right to run for president and he is a respected member of the judiciary,” Fouda said.
The head of the SCC would then be responsible for appointing an interim government to draft the new constitution and hold the parliamentary elections.
Fouda also recommended handing over power to a presidential council.
“As long as the members of the presidential council include people with no specific political affiliation like presidential hopeful Mohamed ElBaradei for example,” he said.
Some protesters in Tahrir suggested that all prominent presidential hopefuls including ElBaradei, Adel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, Hazem Salah Abou Ismail and Amr Moussa be part of the council.
“The political scenarios are many, but the problem lies with whether SCAF is willing to heed to the people’s demands and leave power as soon as possible,” Fouda said.
UPDATE
Parliamentary elections to proceed? “Scaf also said elections would start as scheduled on Monday. There had been speculation that they might be delayed.”
Thus the prospects of peace could be fleeting or imminent, depending on which Israel decides to turn up to any future negotiations. In what can only be described as a blatant act of aggression, Israel has approved more settlement construction in September and October, thus the future of an independent Palestinians state is all but out the window upon examination of any map, particularly this most recent one from the UN.
Contrary to the often regurgitated myth that Palestinians use their children as human shields, it has never been proven – not once. Yet in October 2010, two Israeli soldiers were convicted of using a 9-year-old boy as a human shield during the infamous Operation Cast Lead of 2008/9. There are at least 15 other documented cases of children being used as human shields since 2004, with only the aforementioned case of the 9-year-old ever having been investigated.
Analysing the statistical data of child mistreatment by Israel is a horrific mission. The average number of Palestinian children in Israeli detention over the last 12 months is 212 – that is children aged 12 to 18 locked up on for the most minor indiscretion as Israel creates specific military orders that criminalise any form of opposition to the occupation.
Without doubt though, the statistic that should trouble any person of good conscience is the data relating to child fatalities. From 2000 to 2009, 1,329 children were killed by Israel. In real terms that means a Palestinian child was killed every three days, of every week, of every month, of every year, for 10 long years. How can this possibly be justified?
The international community has a moral obligation to hold Israel accountable for these crimes. Without the rule of law, and in this case we are talking about International Law and International Humanitarian Law, how can we possibly expect that the state of play will ever change?
Whether we like it or not, it is an undisputable fact that every single one of the 12 or so million people living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea (historic Palestine) are under Israel’s rule. Is it therefore acceptable, that in the 2011 we still have a system that deliberately privileges one people over another in the same land? Or should this current spawn of apartheid be also discarded to the annals of history in the same way it was for South Africa in 1989.
Israel’s use of Palestinian children as human shields is highlighted. The comments following the post which support zionism nearly all blame Palestinian children for their own incarceration. Yet are Israeli children who throw stones at Palestinians and others collectively punished or incarcerated by the Israeli state? No.
Aaron David Miller asks Erekat 10 questions about the peace negotiations back in November 2010, followed by questions from the audience.
Erekat reveals lots of interesting points from behind the scenes, including Hamas position that they have never challenged the authority of the PLO.
Most negative thing for negotiating for Palestinians was the US insisting on Palestinians recognise Israel without it defining its borders.
Do we have someone in Israel willing to engage in decisions?
“The state of Israel was recognised by us [in September 1993] … then they changed the wording to recognise Israel as the Jewish state. I will not become zionist, I will not.”
Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS call from within (Boycott from Within)
Tonight (16/11) in Tel Aviv, Israeli and international BDS supporters spent an hour standing outside the press conference held by the “Creative Coalition” Hollywood actors. The event, which was co-ordinated by AIPAC, took place at the Dan Intercontinental hotel. The group held banners which read “No Culture in Whitewashing Israeli Apartheid” and “Shame On You, Hollywood”, in order to remind the actors on the Hasbara (Israel advocacy) mission of the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel’s policies of racism, apartheid and occupation.
The banners drew much attention from pedestrians and drivers, as well as hotel residents, who took many photos. Reporters departing from the conference also expressed interest in the group. So did a Shabak (GSS, Israel’s security service) officer who hung around for a while, harassing the activists.
The organizers tried to hide the activists’ presence from the important guests, by moving their bus to the back door, but the activists relocated. Thus, as the actors boarded the bus they were confronted with the full meaning of their complicity.
No time to blog at present, annoyingly, so here’s a poem by Rafeef Ziadah “We Teach Life, Sir” which is receiving deserved accolades round the globe. Rafeef’s thoughts contrast with the colonising of the Occupy Wall Street movement by the liberal ziolobby, which claims legitimacy in the OWS since titularly it opposes the Israeli Occupation (though not the occupation and deprivileging of non-Jews in Israel itself) and so that instant solidarity becomes restricted by zionist-mediated checkpoints of the mind. More chains to break! Not enough people have broken through to the realisation that zionism is fully congruent with imperialism, both utilising the familiar tool of capitalism, both expansionist and colonialist.
Take your goons and bases home, Obama. You aren’t welcome here until you stop using Australia as a projection of US criminal imperialism.
Palestine / Israel Links
Palestinians express solidarity to NYC ‘Occupy’ camp before raid; Activist in tweet controversy linked to Israel PR groups Palestine solidarity activists in particular (as I can tell you from experience) have all too often been asked to check their politics at the door in various political coalitions in the US, in the interest of not “alienating” the mainstream (if we can speak frankly, this was a major issue in organizing against the Iraq war during the past decade). The recent response of Daniel Sieradski, a driving force between Occupy Judaism, to the controversy over support for Freedom Waves shows that this logic is still, unfortunately, current in parts of the Occupy movement Defense Minister Ehud Barak is under fire over a comment he made during an interview with PBS’ Charlie Rose on Wednesday. Asked by Rose whether he would strive for nuclear weapons had he been in Iran’s shoes, Barak said, “Probably…I don’t delude myself that they are doing it just because of Israel .”
‘”While India brutalises Kashmir in so many ways, that occupation brutalises the Indians.
It (the occupation) turns us into a people who are able to bear a kind of morally reprehensible behaviour done in our name, and the fact that so few Indians will stand up and say anything about it is such a sad thing.”‘
