Tag: Human Rights

Posted on

Watching the Blood-Stained Monster & Its Friends

Barak brands Livni as ‘dangerous’ – how’s that for a whopping Pot, Kettle, Black?

Netanyahoo is ahead in the Israeli election polls – Barak may be positioning himself in a future Knesset coalition.

Israeli voters do not like governments with bad relations with the US as would probably be the case if Mr Netanyahu relied solely on the right-wing parties. Instead he will probably bring in Labour or Kadima to give his coalition a more moderate image but without diluting his basic opposition to concessions to the Palestinians.

Far right Yisrael Beiteinu leader and genocidalist Avigdor Lieberman is suspected of money laundering with several associates including family members being arrested.

Anti-arab ethnic cleansing fervour is now rampant amongst Israeli youth –

anti-Arab sentiment in the country has never been greater. The Lieberman party “ultimately seeks a direct clash with the Arab citizens in Israel” he said. And he worries that “there’s no serious effort to stop it.”

The 100 people at the Yisrael Beitenu rally for English-speaking voters Thursday night in Jerusalem certainly don’t want to stop it. “It’s the clarity of it that’s so appealing,” said Yona Triestman, a thirtysomething who works helping new immigrants settle in Israel. And the message certainly is straightforward. At the end of the night, Uzi Landau, a former Likud cabinet minister now running for Yisrael Beitenu, leaned forward and wagged his index finger at the audience. “There’s just one thing you have to remember about our platform,” he said, “just one thing to tell your friends: ‘No loyalty, no citizenship.’ “

Mondoweiss draws attention to the actions of the International Coalition against Impunity (HOKOK), a non-governmental organization registered with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. The organisation has

submitted a “Letter of Notification and Referral” to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court outlining the case for the arrest of 15 Israeli political and military leaders for crimes committed in Gaza in violation of the Rome Statute and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

It has also issued an international appeal for information about the undermentioned war crimes suspects. Members of the public in Israel and throughout the world who have information about the travel plans or whereabouts of the undermentioned suspects when they are outside Israel should report this immediately to:

The Prosecutor
P.O. Box 19519
2500 Hague
Netherlands
Fax +31 70 515 8 555

The Israeli war crimes suspects are:

1. Ehud Barak
2. Amir Peretz
3. Binyamin Ben Eliezer
4. Avi Dichter
5. Carmi Gillon
6. Dan Halutz
7. Doron Almog
8. Ehud Olmert
9. Eliezer Shkedy
10. Gabi Ashkenazi
11. Giora Eiland
12. Matan Vilnai
13. Moshie Bogie Yaalon
14. Shaul Mofaz
15. Tzipi Livni

Uri Avnery points out that Israel Screwed Itself Over with Its Gaza Assault; the World Sees It as a ‘Blood-Stained Monster’

There is widespread anger in Egypt at Mubarak regime

Muhammad lights up a cigarette and quietly utters an oath directed at Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The 25-year-old expresses what many Egyptians think at present: “Mubarak is a swine who has worked together with Israel to turn Gaza into a prison and is responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians.”

The student from downtown Cairo continues to speak harshly about the government. Today, three days after Israeli troops began to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, he remains angry and criticizes the role played by Egypt in the Gaza conflict. “Probably Mubarak gave [Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi] Livni permission to attack Hamas, which he regards as a thorn in his side.”

In fact, Livni met Mubarak two days prior to the Israeli attack and, according to a report in the Israeli daily Haa’retz, Egyptian government officials were informed in advance of the planned offensive.

US Media Accused of Racist Gaza Coverage

Though Becker criticized the corporate media as a whole for its coverage of Gaza and Israel-Palestine issues, the Jan. 16th protest sponsored by ANSWER and MAS (the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation) demonstrated at the Post in particular because, at the height of Israel’s assault on Gaza, four major protests against Israel’s actions took place in Washington and the Post did not cover any of them.

“Not one word has been written about any of the protests”, Becker complained. While the Post is usually seen as one of the four most prestigious and influential newspapers in the U.S. and is expected to cover important national issues and debates on foreign policy, their news blackout on the protests also had a local component: “The Post prides itself on having very strong local coverage,” Becker claimed. “The Arab-American community, which is an important part of Washington, D.C., came out in tens of thousands and were totally ignored by the Post.”

More symptoms of Israeli fascism – Army rabbi ‘gave out hate leaflet to troops’

The Israeli army’s chief rabbinate gave soldiers preparing to enter the Gaza Strip a booklet implying that all Palestinians are their mortal enemies and advising them that cruelty is sometimes a “good attribute”.

…

In one section, Rabbi Aviner compares Palestinians to the Philistines, a people depicted in the Bible as a war-like menace and existential threat to Israel.

In another, the army rabbinate appears to be encouraging soldiers to disregard the international laws of war aimed at protecting civilians, according to Breaking the Silence, the group of Israeli ex-soldiers who disclosed its existence. The booklet cites the renowned medieval Jewish sage Maimonides as saying that “one must not be enticed by the folly of the Gentiles who have mercy for the cruel”.

Jimmy Carter has weighed into the conflagration stating:

Israel will face a “catastrophe” unless it revives the Mideast peace process and establishes an independent Palestinian state.

Carter pointed out in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday that Arabs will outnumber Jews in the Holy Land in the foreseeable future.

He said that would leave Israel with three options: expelling many Palestinians, keeping the Palestinians but depriving them of equal voting rights, or giving them equal voting rights, which would give the Palestinians a majority.

He said that with the third option, one would no longer have a Jewish state.

In Ynetnews, Carter’s comments are expanded:

Hamas can be trusted, former US President Jimmy Carter said Monday, in an interview on NBC’s ‘Today’ show. Carter spoke with NBC’s Meredith Vieira about his perspective on the Middle East conflict, and his new book, “We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land.”

According to the former president, Hamas never deviated from their commitments as per the ceasefire agreement. He said that, during his meetings with Hamas leaders in Damascus and Gaza, he was promised that Hamas would honor agreements between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel, as long as they were supported by public referendum.

Hamas did bad things. I’m not defending them. But they did adhere to the ceasefire fully, Carter maintained. He added that Israel has a choice between a one-state solution – which is, for Israel, a catastrophe, and a two-state solution, which everyone would support.

…

Sunday, Carter met with President Barack Obama’s new US envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell. While Carter is not certain Obama should speak directly with Hamas, he believes that Mitchell should, explaining that “there won’t be peace in the Middle East without Hamas involvement.”

But despite the obstacle of Hamas involvement, the former president expressed optimism for peace. “Despite the recent lack of progress, I see this as a unique time for hope, not despair. The outlines of a peace agreement are clear and have broad international support,” he told NBC.

“There is a remarkable compatibility among pertinent United Nations resolutions, previous peace agreements reached at Camp David and in Oslo, the publicly declared policy of the United States, the Geneva Accord, key goals of the International Quartet’s Roadmap for Peace, and tentative proposals made by all Arab nations for reconciliation with Israel,” he said.

“Perhaps most important, there is an overwhelming common desire for peaceful and prosperous lives among the citizens of Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt,” he added.

Francis A. Boyle discusses international law and Israel’s war on Gaza. He sets the agenda for an international legal response:

First, we must immediately move for the de facto suspension of Israel throughout the entirety of the United Nations system, including the General Assembly and all UN subsidiary organs and bodies. We must do to Israel what the UN General Assembly has done to the genocidal rump Yugoslavia and to the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa! Here the legal basis for the de facto suspension of Israel at the UN is quite simple:

As a condition for its admission to the United Nations Organization, Israel formally agreed to accept General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) (1947) (partition/Jerusalem trusteeship) and General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) (1948) (Palestinian right of return), inter alia. Nevertheless, the government of Israel has expressly repudiated both Resolution 181 (II) and Resolution 194 (III). Therefore, Israel has violated its conditions for admission to UN membership and thus must be suspended on a de facto basis from any participation throughout the entire United Nations system.

Second, any further negotiations with Israel must be conducted on the basis of Resolution 181 (II) and its borders; Resolution 194 (III); subsequent General Assembly resolutions and Security Council resolutions; the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949; the 1907 Hague Regulations; and other relevant principles of public international law.

Third, we must abandon the fiction and the fraud that the United States government is an “honest-broker.” The US government has never been an honest broker from well before the very outset of these negotiations in 1991. Rather, the US has invariably sided with Israel against the Palestinians. We need to establish some type of international framework to sponsor these negotiations where the Palestinian negotiators will not be subjected to the continual bullying, threats, harassment, intimidation and outright lies perpetrated by the United States government.

Fourth, we must move to have the UN General Assembly impose economic, diplomatic, and travel sanctions upon Israel pursuant to the terms of the Uniting for Peace Resolution (1950), whose Emergency Special Session on Palestine is now in recess.

Fifth, the provisional government of the State of Palestine must sue Israel before the International Court of Justice in The Hague for inflicting acts of genocide against the Palestinian People in violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention!

Sixth, An International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) can be established by the UN General Assembly as a “subsidiary organ” under Article 22 of the UN Charter. Article 22 states the UN General Assembly may establish such subsidiary organs as it deems necessary for the performance of its functions. The purpose of the ICTI would be to investigate and prosecute suspected Israeli war criminals for offenses against the Palestinian people.

On Jan. 4, 2009, Nobel Peace laureate, Mairead Maguire wrote to the UN Secretary- General, Ban Ki-moon and Father Miguel D’Escoto, president of United Nations General Assembly adding her voice to the many calls from international jurists, human rights organizations, and individuals, for the UN General Assembly to seriously consider establishing an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel in view of the ongoing Israeli atrocities against the people of Gaza and Palestine.

Maguire said:

“In November 2008 I visited Gaza and was shocked at the suffering of the people of Gaza, being under ‘siege’ as they are for over two years. This collective punishment by the Israeli government, has led to a great humanitarian crisis. Collective punishment of the civilian community by the Israeli government breaks the Geneva Convention, is illegal and is a war crime and crime against humanity.

“Instead of protecting the civilian community of Gaza and relieving their suffering by lifting the ‘siege’, the Israeli military have carried out 7 days of consecutive bombardment of civilians, by sea and air. Dropping Israeli bombs from the air and sea on unarmed civilians, many women and children, destroying mosques, hospitals, and homes, and infrastructure, is illegal and constitutes war crimes. The deaths of people in Gaza are now over 1,500 with over 5,500 people injured – many of them women and children. The infrastructure of Gaza has been destroyed, and the people cut off from the world – including journalists, humanitarian workers, locked out of Gaza, and unable to go to the aid of the people.

“The UN must help uphold human rights and justice for Palestinian people, by seriously considering establishing an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel, (ICTI) in order that Israeli government be held accountable for war crimes.”

The Fringe’s post on BBC partiality to Israel has been updated with numerous new sources detailing interference with the BBC by Israel.

Time Magazine reveals more about Israeli use of white phosphorus on civilians in Gaza.

“I saw my mother coming towards me. She was on fire. I threw a blanket around her to try to put out the flames but she kept on burning. I went to Saadallah who was lying on the ground with his three young kids wrapped inside his coat. He was trying to protect them. But the coat had caught fire, too. When I tried to pull the kids away, their flesh came off in my hands.”

With help from the neighbors, they got the burn victims into the back of a pick-up truck, but as Mahmoud said of his family: “They were hardly human. They were like coal.”

Their appalling luck got worse. As they were driving to the hospital, an Israeli sniper, possibly fearing suicide bombers, shot and killed the driver, Mahmoud says. His wife and daughter were also among the phosphorus victims, and still alive. “I pleaded with the soldiers not to shoot again. I explained that we were taking our family to the hospital. They made me take off my clothes and when they saw I didn’t have a bomb or a weapon, they let me carry my wife and daughter to the hospital –-on foot.”

Munir Chalabi’s article at ZNet makes better points on US support of its blood-stained policeman in the ME than Chomsky.

The overwhelming indications are that the Israeli war on Gaza was not just an attempt by the Israeli army to stop the home-made Hamas rockets being fired on Southern Israel, as the Israelis together with the US administration, European governments and the so-called ‘Coalition of Arab Moderates’ want us to believe.

It was a pre-planned war by all the above parties in this US/Israeli-led alliance against the Palestinian people and their resistance movements in Palestine. It represents the final attempt by the US neo-conservatives, before the Bush administration leaves office, to resolve the Palestinian problem once and for all. The Israeli war on Gaza was only another step in the plan of the US, Israel and the ‘Coalition of Arab Moderates’ to build their ‘New Middle East’.

The scale of this war was an indication of its goals, and the steps taken and statements made by the many leaders in this camp, including the public statements by King Abdulla of Jordan and Middle East envoy Tony Blair during and prior to the start of the war, corroborate such a conclusion.[1]

The war on Gaza is the second stage in the plan. The first stage was the 18 month economic siege of Gaza by Israel, Egypt and Mahmoud Abbas’s corrupt and illegal government in Ramallah, which aimed to topple Hamas and all the other Palestinian resistance movements by using the blockade on all of life’s basic necessities to the 1.5 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza, in order to force them to surrender.

In this plan against the Palestinian resistance, Egypt moved to become one of the most significant players by openly taking on a major supporting role. The siege of Gaza was not only an Israeli blockade, but also a well coordinated blockade by Egypt, following complete closure of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.

In order to understand how the Israeli war on Gaza was an integral part of this plan, we have to stop and have a more comprehensive look at the political map of the Middle East and the strategies of all the parties involved.

Since the neo-conservatives took control of all the positions of power in the US, both battle grounds in the Middle East — the Israeli/Palestinian/Arab region and the Arab/Persian gulf region — became deeply divided into two political camps, with two opposing strategies, and no prospect for peace in the foreseeable future.

The first camp is the US/Israeli-led camp or, as it is called in the West, ‘The Moderate’s alliance’, which consists mainly of three devoted and corrupt pro-western Arab regimes. The first is the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, with their financial might, headed by King Abdulla and his foreign minister Prince Faisal, and from behind the scenes, by Prince ‘Bender bin Sultan,’ the head of the Saudi intelligence services, who is a close friend of the Bush family. The second is the Egyptian regime headed up since 1981 by the Egyptian ruler and air force General President Mubarak, his chief of the intelligence service, General Suleiman, together with their foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.[2] The third is the Jordanian regime, where all the power is in the hands of the King, assisted by his well established internal security forces.

As well as the above three main Arab partners of the US/Israeli plan, there stand several Arab governments and political groups within a number of other Middle Eastern countries.

First among them is the pro-Oslo illegitimately ruling Palestinian group in Ramallah (part of the old Fatah movement’s traditional leadership, which were spared their lives by Israel for political reasons), which is headed by President Mahmud Abbas with his illegally appointed Palestinian government of Salam Fayyad in Ramallah. The second is the 14th of March group in Lebanon which is in command of the existing Lebanese government and headed by the Saudi/Lebanese young Sheikh, Al-Hariri. The third are the US friends in the ‘front of the moderates’ government in Iraq, whose role is restricted to the Gulf area, but the US has difficulties with them as they cannot trust all of their Iraqi acquaintances in the long term. There are other governments in the Arab world which are part of this camp: They include five of the kingdoms and states of the ‘Gulf Council States’ and the North African Arab governments.

The main objectives of the US/Israeli strategy for this alliance is to integrate Israel so it becomes part of the Middle East region, and at the same time continue their old policy of ensuring that Israel will be developed more effectively as the US’s policeman for the area, using its military and economic superiority as the main tool. In order to do so, they first needed to constitute Israel as the check on Iran, which was portrayed as a looming threat to the Arab world. This undertaking, which is part of America’s project for a “New Middle East,” was kicked off prior to Israel’s war against Lebanon in July 2006 and was presented as the concluding phase of the neo-conservatives’ plan for the area.

That is why we are able to recognise a number of similarities between US and Israeli policy, similarities that are clearly apparent in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon — the three countries representing the front lines of the war. These are under either full or partial US or Israeli occupation and the Israeli policies here are dominated by the US Administration.

All the US/Israeli policies are based on increasing the political divisions in every Arab and Muslim country and creating two separate and opposing fronts. The first, which is influenced by them, is called the “moderate front,” and the second, which is opposed to their policies, they call the “terrorist front” or the front which is controlled by Iran.

In all three countries, the US/Israeli policies involve pressurising their allies to take full control of the political arena, instigating conflicts between the two sides in each country to bring it to the edge of armed conflict or even start violent confrontations between them. They attempt to play on the sectarian divisions, as in the cases of Iraq and Lebanon — and where such divisions do not exist, they will instead use political divisions, as in the case of Palestine.

It is also noticeable that the divisions between the two fronts in most cases are between the political parties and movements who are opposed to the US and Israeli military occupation and the ones who are ready to accept their influence and co-operate with them.

The second camp is the resistance camp and in it stands a coalition of governments and movements which to diverse degrees reject the US/Israeli domination plans and are called ‘the terrorists’ by the US and Israelis, or ‘the extremist’ governments and movements by most of the European governments. This alliance includes the Iranians, the Syrian government, the democratically elected government of Hamas and their allies, Al-Jihad Al Islami movement in Palestine, together with Hezbollah and their 8th of March political alliance in Lebanon. It also comprises the Sadr movement in Iraq and the Muslim brotherhood movement in Egypt, together with many other smaller political parties and groups. However, the most important asset this alliance has comes from the increasing support given to them by the vast majority of ordinary people around the Arab and Islamic world.[3]

The developing strategy of the core of this resistance camp is that they consider the US and Israel to be the key enemies to the people in the area. They believe that the US is a foreign imperialistic power, which wants to control the destiny of the region’s people by using Israel as its main instrument, and their friends, the Arab rulers in the ‘coalition of the moderates’ as a secondary, but important internal tool to implement the neo-conservative strategy.

The main driving force of this camp is Iran, Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas. Iran is like any other country in the Middle East that wants to stay independent from US control but is today surrounded by US forces on all sides, which creates a very real threat to them. They are always considered by the US to be the “Great Satan” and Israel is its principal enemy in the Middle East. Most of the other parties in this alliance share this belief, but to various degrees. All of the US administrations and Israeli governments have considered the Iranian and Syrian governments, Hezbollah and Hamas as their main enemies and the major obstacle to their control of the Arab and Islamic world.

The war on Gaza has widened the support for the resistance camp, gathering additional backing from other Muslim people and governments who previously felt that this struggle was not part of their political agenda. Of most significance has been the support from the Qatari government and the massive support from the millions of ordinary Turkish people and their government to the Palestinian people. This further support has strengthened this camp, but on the other hand these additional elements should not be counted as internal parts of the resistance alliance.

The division between the two camps which exists in the Palestinian occupied territory, the alliance of all the Palestinian resistance movements on the one hand and the pro-Oslo group lead by Abbas, who hijacked the leadership of Fatah movement and the control of the West Bank on the other, is deepening.

This is evident when we look at the division between Gaza and the West Bank of Palestine. The Gaza strip is now represented by the Palestinian resistance movements and the legally elected Palestinian government of Mr. Haniya. Conversely, we see that the West Bank is ruled by the pro-Oslo group led by Abbas and the illegally appointed government of Salam Fayyad — which utilises over 10,000 armed personnel (trained by Egyptian and Jordanian security services), the so-called ‘National Palestinian police force’ and ‘Presidential guards’ who are under the control of US General Dayton with the assistance of another two US generals and in full co-operation with the Israeli security services. Over 1,000 prisoners from Hamas and other resistance movements have been put in Abbas’s jails, in addition to over 13,000 political prisoners in Israeli prisons.

So how should we envisage relations between these two camps developing?

Throughout the Arab and Islamic world many are calling for a united front involving all the Arab and Islamic states in the area, in the struggle against the US/Israeli policies in the region. But with the two opposing strategies of both camps and with one camp being a vital part of US/Israeli plans, it is becoming an impossible task to achieve. Some of these calls are coming from the pro-US camp who want to keep the upper hand in controlling official Arab policies with the Arab moderates, and in particular, in the organisation of the ‘Arab League’ which has been controlled by the Egyptians and the Saudis for a long time. However, there are also other calls coming from some Arab nationalists who have stated that public disunity will inevitably harm both sides.

Many in the resistance camp believe that what is needed today is not in fact a call for unity — which is unlikely to be achieved, but instead an attempt to ensure that none of the internal national, political, ethnic or sectarian disagreements, which exist deeply within the Arab and Islamic world, should lead to the use of force or the shedding of blood between the two national sides, and that the fight should be on the political front only, using any democratic methods available.

This understanding would exclude the fight against the foreign powers including Israel, which came to occupy or control the area.

This could be achieved in a comparable way to the existing means which are being carried out today in Lebanon by Hezbollah and their 8th of March political alliance. At the same time, the methods used during the Iraqi experience should be avoided at all costs, i.e. where the Iraqi Baathists, together with their new friends Al Qaida, used the weaknesses prevalent throughout multi-sectarian Iraqi society to create a bloody sectarian division with the help and the participation of the US occupying forces and their foreign mercenaries.[4]

Conclusions:

1. The US backed Israeli war on Gaza was the final attempt by the neo-conservatives before the Bush/Cheney administration left office, to succeed in their failing effort to create the ‘New Middle East’ — A Middle East which would be controlled by the US and policed by Israel and would end once and for all the Palestinian dream to set up their own state.

2. The failure of the Israeli war on Gaza to achieve any of Israel’s political goals including the destruction of Hamas and all the resistance movements, ending control of Gaza by Hamas and finally stopping the firing of resistance home-made rockets on Israel, represent a political success for Hamas and the Palestinian resistance camp.

All that Israel managed to achieve during its war on Gaza was the killing and injuring of thousands of Palestinian civilians, the destruction of over 20,000 civilian houses, government buildings, police stations and a large number of schools and private businesses.[5] Many Israeli government and military leaders are now facing the possibility of being charged in International criminal courts.[6]

3. The Israeli war on Gaza has helped the resistance camp a great deal and created the conditions for it to grow faster than ever before. The ideological divisions between the two camps are deepening.

The whole of the Middle East is now divided into two political camps with two opposing strategies, developing in to one large battle ground between the two ideologies.

The two battle fronts of the Arab/Persian Gulf and the Arab/Israeli region are very much interlinked today. Any failure or success to either camp in one region will reflect on their strength on the other front.

4. It looks that corruption is a common quality among all in the pro-US/Israeli camp .It is very obvious that all the governments who are part of the ‘coalition of the moderates’ are dictatorial and enormously corrupt. It is also noticeable that the corruption is a characteristic of the latest two Israeli governments and the Bush/Cheney’s administration.

5. We should not expect any genuine changes in the US strategy from the new Obama/Biden administration towards the Middle East. It is very likely that the new US administration will continues Bush/Cheney’s policies.[7]

6. There is a strong belief that for the first time in the Middle East, the formation of this anti-US/Israeli/moderate Arab front will give some hope and optimism to the ordinary people in the Arab and Islamic world and will be a big setback to the Islamic terrorist ideologies of Al Qaida.

It has reduced the level of desperation felt by the majority of the ordinary Arab and Muslim people when they see that there is a sizable resistance front from Muslim and Christian sectors — as in Lebanon — which is growing in strength in their societies to resist and stop the US/Israeli plans. Therefore, the disappointment resulting from the growth in size and strength of the resistance camp will affect not just the neo-conservative’s Christian and Zionist Jewish terrorist ideologies, but also Al Qaida’s Muslim terrorist ideology.

7. There is a growing belief within the Arab population that for the first time in the Palestinian people’s history, there is genuine public understanding and recognition in the West concerning the rights of the Palestinian people to have their own state and against the US/Israeli attempt to deny them this right. However, there is also recognition that this change is not reflected in the policies of the western governments as support by the European governments for the Israeli aggression not only continued but increased.

The Arab TV stations have played a very important role in exposing the real face of Zionism during the war on Gaza. For the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims, the mass killings of civilians and the size of the destruction of civilian properties in Gaza, revealed that the Zionist ideology today is no different from the Nazi ideology of the Second World War.[8]

In Gaza, UNRWA is struggling to cope with human needs.

It is estimated that $2 billion is needed to repair the 21,000 homes damaged or destroyed, along with factories and government buildings, in the three-week Israeli attack to end Hamas’ rocket-firing. Fundraising has hardly begun, and the question of how the money will be funneled remains unanswered.

“We’re delivering the services of a state, until the state is established,” John Ging, the head of Gaza operations for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, told The Associated Press this weekend.

…

The organization is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions from countries, its largest donors include the United States, the European Union, Sweden and Britain. Louis Michel, the European Union’s humanitarian chief, said the EU is by far the largest overall donor to the Palestinians.

Ging says UNRWA is able to take on the daunting task of rebuilding Gaza refugee camps. But, he says, this will only be possible if Israel allows the blockaded territory to receive enough of the humanitarian aid already piling up at its border.

Paul Woodward comments on Osama Hamdan’s, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon statement that the peace process is irreversibly over –

Hamas on the other hand, in spite of the devastation of Gaza, is still committed to politics.

The political imperative of the moment is one of clarification. Hamas sees that Palestinian unity and a Palestinian national movement cannot be built on an illusory foundation.

Meanwhile, Tzipi Livni claims that the carnage in Gaza has advanced the peace process. This is an Orwellian, obscene, and outrageous insult to common sense. It displays a sociopathic view of human suffering.

But it also serves as a reminder and confirmation that Osama Hamdan is right: the peace process is irreversibly over.

If this is a conclusion which can commonly be agreed upon, where do we go from here? Is this not a conclusion that will feed utter despair or a justification for endless conflict?

I believe not.

Political change can only gain traction when it is rooted in objective reality. We can only advance from the conditions we actually inhabit.

For several years now the peace process has floundered because of a glaring contradiction between Israel’s stated aim — a two-state solution — and its actions, which consistently advanced in the opposite direction.

By its own choice, Israel has abandoned the goal of a two-state solution. The so-called peace process has provided the water and the sustenance that has allowed the occupation to flourish.

America has been the enabler. It has provided a stage upon which a pantomime of peace could be performed. It has quite effectively silenced those who would disrupt the performance and insisted that we all silently enjoy a show whose tedious enactment perpetually held out the promise of a happy ending.

“When Israel supports a solution of two states for two people, the pressure won’t be on Israel,” Tzipi Livni correctly observed over the weekend.

George Mitchell’s duty, the duty of the international community and of all Palestinian leaders, is to say: the game is up, the show is over. The charade has gone on for long enough. Israel has stated its position on the ground. It’s words have proved to be of no consequence.

Posted on

More Evidence of White Phosphorus Use Against Civilians by Israel

From Al Jazeera (one of the few principled, competent broadcasters left in our media-nobbled world):

Daniel Friedman, the Israeli justice minister, has been appointed to lead a defence team should war crimes charges be brought following the 22-day war on Gaza.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, confirmed to Al Jazeera on Friday that Friedman would lead an inter-ministerial team to co-ordinate a legal defence for civilians and the military.

Israel has been criticised by many human rights organisations for using excessive force, including flame-generating chemical munitions, in densely populated areas during its aerial, naval and ground assault on the coastal strip, which began on December 27.

The Israeli army has already banned the publication of the identity of military leaders who fought Hamas in Gaza.

Ali Kashan, the Palestinian justice minister, met Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, in The Hague on Thursday to discuss “allegations of crimes”, a special adviser to the prosecutor said.

Gaza medics put the death toll in Gaza at 1,330 with at least 5,450 wounded following Israel’s attacks. About 65 per cent of the dead were civilians, including 400 children and 100 women.

Eight Israeli human rights groups have called on the Israeli government to investigate allegations of war crimes given the scale of the casualties, describing the number of dead women and children as “terrifying”.

Richard Falk, a UN human rights expert, said on Thursday that there was evidence that Israel violated humanitarian law by conducting the offensive “against an essentially defenseless population”.

Phosphorus burns

20th January 2009
It is time for Ayman’s dressing to be changed. He cries out as the bandages are removed. A scarlet red wad of gauze is teased out of a deep hole in his back which it is filling in order to stem the bleeding. Five days after the attack, his wounds are still bleeding profusely. These are not normal burns. The wounds cover his upper back and right arm and his ankle has a deep wound down to the bone. He will need extensive plastic surgery. Shrapnel which entered Ayman’s back penetrated one of his lungs and he has undergone surgery to repair several tears. He screams as iodine solution is applied. It is unbearable to watch his suffering.

Ayman is a civilian, a minor. He was at home with his family when they were attacked. Israel claims its bloody war has been on Hamas. Ayman, Alaa’ and their grandfather were not Hamas operatives, neither were the thousands of other civilians killed and injured. Israel would call them “collateral damage”. However, the atrocities committed against them amount to war crimes, especially if weapons have been used illegally. What exactly is the substance which has inflicted such wounds – not on Ayman alone but countless others also? Israel won’t admit to the nature or composition of some of the less conventional weapons its military has been using on the population of Gaza.
– Photo & text courtesy of Rafahkid

Prosecuting the Israeli war criminals may not be easy – Al Jazeera’s Anita Rice reports on the difficulties of Gaza victims of Israeli aggression gaining justice.

Gaza is not formally recognised as a state by the UN and “the US, and perhaps other [security council] member states, would veto any resolution that would ask for the ICC to investigate Israel,” says Ellis.

“The ICC option is effectively closed.”

The second route would be for the UN General Assembly to request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also based in The Hague, on the legality of specific actions taken by states.

However, the ICJ has no enforcement powers, as was witnessed by its inability to act following its ruling that Israel’s construction of a separation barrier breached aspects of international law.

The ICJ requested Israel rectify elements of the construction, which Tel Aviv ignored – something any state can choose to do, Ellis notes.

The third option involves states trying their own citizens or soldiers for war crimes – a requirement under the Geneva Conventions.

“That’s unlikely to happen on both sides, but that is still a responsibility of the state, body, or entity that’s responsible for, or has authority over, the individuals who have committed these crimes,” says Ellis.

Finally, Ellis points to a legal concept referred to as “universal jurisdiction”, where any state can choose to launch legal proceedings against any person, anywhere in the world, who is suspected of committing crimes such as genocide, torture, and other grave breaches of international law.

But states have already proven themselves reluctant to take responsibility for holding individuals to account for crimes committed in other countries and Ellis believes it is “highly unlikely that a third party is going to step up and bring actions against Israeli or Palestinian individuals”.

Despite this, lawyers across the globe, and particularly in the Arab world, are seeking ways to take legal action in relation to events they believe constitute war crimes.

Dr Abdullah Al-Ashal, a professor of international law at the American University in Cairo and a former Egyptian foreign minister, belongs to both the Arab Bar Association and the Arab Federation of Lawyers (AFL).

He believes that Israel has breached all four Geneva Conventions that cover conduct during armed conflict with relation to civilians, prisoners of war, sick and injured combatants, weapons used and how troops engaged in fighting.

Al-Ashal claims that Jordan, the Comoros Islands and Djibouti – all signatories to the Rome Statute – have committed themselves to bringing war crimes cases against Israel to the ICC if needs be, following the recent Kuwait-hosted Arab summit on Gaza.

In addition, members of the AFL are set to meet in Tunis on Thursday, January 29, to “discuss how to progress the prosecution of Israel for war crimes”, and Al-Ashal said that Arab lawyers are “seriously pursuing” all options to put Israelis on trial.

Meanwhile, both sides say they acted in self-defence and within the confines of international law.

Mark Regev, the spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, insists Israel takes “extremely seriously any allegation of either improper or illegal behaviour by servicemen in combat” and carries out its own investigations.

On Israel’s refusal to sign up to the Rome Statute, he cites Israeli concern over “the politisation of the international human rights mechanisms in the international judicial system”, a reference to resolutions that Israel regards as hostile and were passed by UN bodies without the backing of western states.

Going back to Ellis’ “accountability gap”, the IBA chief puts the blame squarely on nation states – including the US – for failing to accept the legitimacy of the ICC.

“The ICC is probably the most important body with regard to individual responsibility for these crimes … it is the responsibility of all civilised nations to agree that if these types of crimes have been committed, they should be brought to justice.

“Ultimately, that’s where we want to be and we are a long way from that today,” he says.

Israel to approve aid for IDF officers accused of Gaza war crimes

UN human rights official: Gaza evokes memories of Warsaw Ghetto

[Richard Falk said there was] compelling evidence that Israel’s actions in Gaza violated international humanitarian law required an independent investigation into whether they amounted to war crimes.
Advertisement
“I believe that there is the prima facie case for reaching that conclusion,” he told a Geneva news conference.

Falk said Israel had made no effort to allow civilians to escape the fighting.

“To lock people into a war zone is something that evokes the worst kind of international memories of the Warsaw Ghetto, and sieges that occur unintentionally during a period of wartime,” Falk, who is Jewish, said, referring to the starvation and murder of Warsaw’s Jews by Nazi Germany in World War II.

“There could have been temporary provision at least made for children, disabled, sick civilians to leave, even if where they left to was southern Israel,” the U.S. professor said.

Falk said the entire Gaza population, which had been trapped in a war zone with no possibility to leave as refugees, may have been mentally scarred for life. If so, the definition of casualty could be extended to the entire civilian population.

UNRWA calls for independent probe into alleged Gaza crimes

John Ging, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, called on Friday for the establishment of an independent international investigation into the alleged war crimes committed during Operation Cast Lead.

At a press conference held in Geneva, Ging said that a credible investigation of the death and destruction in Gaza was necessary especially in light of the growing anger of Gazans, the increasing number of extremists in the Strip and their lack of faith in the rule of law, Reuters reported.

It is urgent to establish accountability for death and the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure through a credible mechanism which would “channel this emotion to confidence in the rule of law,” Ging reportedly said.

Ging told reporters that the number of extremists in the Strip had grown as a result of the three-week operation against Hamas, and stressed that it was important to prove that justice could be delivered in a lawful way.

The extremists “are very confident in their rhetoric that there should be no expectation that justice will be delivered through the rule of law. Now we must prove that wrong,” he reportedly said.

According to the report, the UNRWA head noted that Israeli civilians had also suffered, and therefore, the investigation had to examine “legitimate allegations” on both sides.

Ging expressed his hopes that new US Middle East envoy George Mitchell will talk to ordinary people in Gaza as part of a “new track” in diplomacy.

“My first request to the US administration is talk to the ordinary people in Gaza. Come to Gaza and talk to the ordinary people — the mothers, fathers, leaders of civil society, the people who are not involved in politics,” said Ging.

Flashpoint live report from Gaza – Middle East Childrens’ Alliance director Barbara Lubin bears witness to the devastation in the Gaza Strip; Nora Barrows-Friedman reports from occupied Palestine and Israel. The broadcast also includes discussion with Professor Hatem Bazian about the illegitimacy of Abbas’s position as his term as President expired on the 9th January.

More opinion on procedure to bring Israeli war criminals to justice by Paul Rafferty:

The best recourse, however, is through the International Court of Justice, ICJ or “The World Court”, an integral part of the United Nations system. Since Israel is a Member-State of the U.N. and therefore bound to observe the Charter of the United Nations, any ICJ Decision is binding.

Any and all U.N. Member-States (plus some U.N. agencies) may apply to the World Court for a Hearing on Gaza and Israel. (4)

Of course, ICJ Decisions must be implemented by the Security Council of the U.N. and since the U.S., as one of the five Permanent members of the Security Council, holds Veto Power over any proposed Security Council Resolution, there is little chance that Israel will be forced to do anything, whatever happens.

Nevertheless, all World Court Decisions carry a Moral Authority and should Israel be found Guilty of War Crimes, this in itself MIGHT help change the situation.

It didn’t after the non-binding ICJ Advisory Opinion on the “Separation Wall”, but who knows what may happen, in future ? (5)

Israel may welcome an opportunity to explain its actions, in an open impartial Courtroom.

Regev loses it on Channel 4 – nicely skewered and roasted to a crisp by Jon Snow. Then watch the translation of the interview at “Inside the Mind of Mark Regev”.

Ban Ki Moon is treading delicately through the hasbara mines on the UN Security Council.

New York (UNN) Division among the Security Council members regrding Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he is seeking the body’s advice on how to investigate the latest hostilities in Gaza and southern Israel.

Briefing the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement on his latest trip to the Middle East, including Gaza, Ban said he has not taken a decision regarding an inquiry into the conduct of the parties to the Gaza conflict before and during hostilities but he has asked the council to guide him.

“I have not taken a decision but have raised the issue with the Security Council and have asked its members to give serious consideration to the question, and to advise me of their views, Ban siid.

He reiterated his conviction that there should be a thorough investigation, full explanation and, where it is required, accountability.

He also told NAM he already asked Israel to investigate itself about the bombing of UNRWA schools and other UN facilities in Gaza, and once he gets the results “I will then decide on appropriate follow up action.” He added that an investigation into the damage to UNRWA facilities will be undertaken by the UN Secretariat, but the “precise format and the identity of the panel or members comprising the inquiry has not been determined as yet” although it is receiving consideration.

Posted on

The BBC – biased against humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza

In an inexplicable move, citing issues of impartiality and in contradiction with previous policy on humanitarian appeals, the BBC has refused to provide free airtime for the Disasters Emergency Committee’s apolitical appeal for aid for stricken Gazan people.

But the BBC made a rare breach of an agreement dating to 1963, saying it would not give free airtime to the appeal. Other broadcasters followed suit. Previously, broadcasters had agreed on the video and script to be used with the DEC, to be shown after primetime news bulletins.

The BBC, which has been criticised in the past over alleged bias in its coverage of the Middle East, said it did not want to risk public confidence in its impartiality. A BBC spokesperson said: “The decision was made because of question marks about the delivery of aid in a volatile situation and also to avoid any risk of compromising public confidence in the BBC’s impartiality in the context of [a] news story.”

The DEC’s chief executive, Brendan Gormley, said: “We are totally apolitical … this appeal is a response to humanitarian principles. The BBC seems to be confusing impartiality with equal airtime.”

Why is the alleviation of the suffering experienced by Gazan people unworthy of BBC assistance? what is partial about humanitarian aid? are there lobbyists with dark agendas working on the old Beeb?

Register your complaint with the BBC now.

Direct donations to the DEC, a group of 13 aid charities, to help the people of Gaza can be made here.

Protests against the BBC decision are underway –

The BBC’s chief operating officer, Caroline Thomson, said it had to be “very careful” over the broadcast of such appeals.

‘Impartiality’

“It’s important to remember that broadcasting appeals like this is a unique thing we do,” she said.

“And we have to be very clear about two things when we do it – firstly, that that money will go to the people it’s intended for.

“But secondly, that we can do it within our own editorial principles and without affecting and impinging on the audience’s perception of our impartiality.

“And clearly – in conflicts as controversial as this – that is a real issue for us.”

Mr Bradshaw said the BBC’s reasoning was flawed.

“First, the one about delivery – the British government is giving £25m to Gazan relief, we don’t have a problem getting it in. There’s no reason why there should be any problem getting the relief in.

“Secondly, this nervousness about being biased. I’m afraid the BBC has to stand up to the Israeli authorities occasionally.”

Mr Benn will address the pro-Palestinian rally called by the Stop the War Coalition, and is expected to say the BBC’s refusal is a “betrayal” of its obligations.

‘Disgraceful decision’

Mr Benn will say: “The decision of the BBC to refuse to broadcast a national humanitarian appeal for Gaza, which has left aid agencies with a potential shortfall of millions of pounds in donations, is a betrayal of the obligation which it owes as a public service.

“To deny the help that the aid agencies and the UN need at this moment in time is incomprehensible and it follows the bias in BBC reporting of this crisis, which has been widely criticised.

“I appeal to the chairman of the BBC Trust to intervene to reverse this decision to save the lives of those who are now in acute danger of dying through a lack of food, fuel, water and medical supplies.”

Mohammed Sawalha, president of the British Muslim Initiative, said turning down the appeal was a “disgraceful decision”.

He added: “The BBC should be ashamed for its coverage of the Israeli aggression which failed to address the catastrophic suffering on the Palestinian side, and now it’s concerned about its impartiality.

“Never was the BBC impartial throughout this crisis”.

Following Mr Benn’s speech, the demonstrators intend to march to Trafalgar Square via Downing Street.

Significantly, the web page above contains a small ad for the DEC appeal – good work, BBC web team!.

A little recent history – the BBC’s coverage of the Israeli massacre of the Gazan people has been described as weak.

With some honourable exceptions (a post-holiday Jeremy Paxman and Newsnight), the questioning of Israeli spokespeople has been weak. Compare, for example, Channel 4 News’s grilling of Mark Regev, the Israeli government’s chief spokesman, on 8 January, with much of the BBC output. Alex Thomson asked Regev “in the name of humanity” to apologise for the refusal of the Israeli army to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to get to “starving children”. Thomson put it to Regev that the Red Cross workers had to “walk one kilometre” to reach the scene. Regev stonewalled, but Thomson did not relent. It was good, objective, non-hedged questioning.

Compare that with various BBC outlets, including similar allegations put on The World at One on 9 January to another Israeli spokesman, Yigal Palmor. Palmor was allowed to fob off the charges with relative ease in an interview with the usually rigorous Brian Hanrahan. These spokespeople, along with Major Avital Leibovich of the Israeli army, have been ever present on the news channel, but rarely have they been truly pressed.

During the massacre, the BBC operated out of Jerusalem:

[Jeremy] Bowen is now operating out of the BBC office in Jerusalem, writing in his online diary that this made it easier to co-ordinate newsgathering and talk to people.

This has meant Abu, who is a familiar voice on the BBC Arabic radio service and worked alongside correspondent Alan Johnston before his kidnap in 2007, has become the unlikely face of the BBC’s Gaza coverage.

The IDF did allow a BBC cameraman and three Israeli journalists to accompany one if its patrols into Gaza during the lull last Wednesday.

“This is one of those stories where putting the global pieces together helps tell the story better. It is one of those stories that plays to the strengths of the BBC,” Jon Williams, the BBC’s head of world news-gathering, told MediaGuardian.co.uk.

The BBC continues to hold out on humanitarian for the Palestinian people, despite Channel 4 and ITV now offering free airtime.

The management of that once august organisation has now been embarrassed and exposed as subject to the influence of the Israeli Lobby.

Director general Mark Thompson last week decided not to allow a broadcast by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), an umbrella group of charities, calling for donations to its Gaza relief fund. His reason, supported by chief operating officer Caroline Thomson, is that such a broadcast would risk undermining public confidence in the corporation’s impartiality.

That might feasibly be true if it could be shown, or even credibly argued, that the broadcast was anything other than a genuine humanitarian appeal; if there was evidence that the DEC was intent on mobilising people’s charitable instincts for some covert political end. But there is no such evidence.

An alternative interpretation, and one that is ultimately much more damaging to the BBC’s reputation, is that any humanitarian intervention in Gaza, by definition, expresses a political position in the long-running conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. In other words, collecting charity for Palestinians is a kind of hostility to Israel.

By that logic, there can never be victims in a war zone, even among civilians, since to designate anyone as such would offend one of the combatant sides. That is patently absurd and inhumane.

Mr Thompson’s decision is also quite insulting to the BBC’s audience. It implies that viewers might fail to distinguish between a charity appeal and a political message, so it is best not to broadcast the former in case it is mistaken for the latter.

Maintaining impartiality in the Middle East conflict has never been easy for the BBC. Israeli and Palestinian groups both regularly accuse the corporation of institutional bias, which is probably a crude indication that, in its journalism, the BBC gets the balance about right. But the decision over the DEC appeal was taken not by journalists, but by managers.

If the BBC now shows the appeal, as it should, it will doubtless be accused of caving in to political pressure. Thus, not for the first time, the corporation has manoeuvred itself into controversy where, whatever its next move, it cannot win. And, not for the first time, the fault lies not in bad journalism, but weak management.

From Tim Llewellyn, on the Guardian:

This pusillanimous obeisance to some imagined governmental threat has aroused unprecedented anger across the BBC. Reporters and correspondents still on the staff, and who will not name themselves, are beside themselves with rage against a corporation that is traducing the very ideals it is supposed to uphold, and for which the director-general seemed to speak in Westminster Abbey.

This is what one former BBC World Service current affairs producer wrote to his colleagues yesterday: “… I am rarely moved to comment on aspects of the BBC I can no longer influence. But I confess I am deeply saddened and confused – and frankly pleased to be distanced from such decisions – after listening to Caroline Thomson’s obfuscating defence on Today of the refusal to broadcast the joint charity appeal on behalf of the suffering in Gaza. The question of partiality is a red herring. It is for the general public to respond to a humanitarian disaster as they choose.”

Having dealt with different news managers at the BBC over the past 30 years or so, I can safely say that the modern BBC has become a body of lions led by donkeys. Reporters of the calibre of Jeremy Bowen, David Lloyn, Lyse Doucet, experts in their field and brave people all, will be appalled by the directions they are being given. Edward Stourton and the Today programme rightly produced Tony Benn yesterday morning because they knew he would articulate what their bosses have failed to: reason and humanity.

The big question that remains is this: what are the suits scared of? Why do BBC managers try to second-guess our government and even outreach it in grovelling to the United States and Israel?

BBC journalists, extant and retired, not the “usual suspects”, not disaffected radicals and high-octane lefties, are incandescent with rage over this extraordinary piece of institutional cowardice.

The episode makes a travesty of the institution’s posturing in Westminster Abbey last week, and discredits the honest reporters the BBC still has on its books and in the field.

And still more from the Guardian:

The BBC was in crisis tonight as politicians including government ministers, religious leaders and senior members of its own staff condemned the decision not to broadcast a charity appeal to help the stricken people of Gaza rebuild their homes.

The corporation’s director general, Mark Thompson, was left isolated as rival broadcasters ITV and Channel 4 agreed to put out the plea for aid made jointly by 13 British charities. The BBC has decided the broadcast of the appeal might be seen as evidence of bias on a highly sensitive political issue.

The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, has accused the broadcaster of “taking sides”. He said yesterday: “This is not a row about impartiality but rather about humanity.

“This situation is akin to that of British military hospitals who treat prisoners of war as a result of their duty under the Geneva convention. They do so because they identify need rather than cause. This is not an appeal by Hamas asking for arms but by the Disasters Emergency Committee asking for relief. By declining their request, the BBC has already taken sides and forsaken impartiality,” the archbishop added.

Communities secretary Hazel Blears said: “The BBC’s decision should not discourage the public from donating to this important appeal. I sincerely hope the BBC will urgently review its decision.”

Jon Snow, the journalist who presents Channel 4 news, said the BBC should have been prepared to accept the judgment of the aid experts of the DEC. “It is a ludicrous decision. That is what public service broadcasting is for. I think it was a decision founded on complete ignorance and I am absolutely amazed they have stuck to it.”

Snow said he suspected a BBC bureaucrat had “panicked” and he called upon Mark Thompson to put the situation right. Martin Bell, the former BBC foreign correspondent, said the BBC should admit it had made a mistake. He claimed “a culture of timidity had crept” into the corporation. “I am completely appalled,” he said. “It is a grave humanitarian crisis and the people who are suffering are children. They have been caught out on this question of balance.”

But Greg Dyke, Thompson’s predecessor as director general of the BBC, said the issue put the BBC in a “no win situation”. He added: “Outside of Iraq, the single biggest issue that caused complaints was the coverage of Israel. I can understand why the BBC has taken this decision, because on a subject as sensitive as the Middle East it is absolutely essential that the audience cannot see any evidence at all of a bias.”

Douglas Alexander, the international development secretary, who has attacked the BBC’s decision, today welcomed commercial broadcasters’ decision to break ranks and urged the BBC to think again. “I welcome this decision. The DEC appeal is crucial to help alleviate the suffering of people injured, displaced and hungry in Gaza.”

The BBC also faces demands for an explanation from within the Commons international development select committee.

Further updates in the Independent:

Channel 4, Five, ITV and al-Jazeera English announced they will be airing the DEC appeal tomorrow, after initially falling in behind the BBC. Sky News was considering its position last night.

The health minister Ben Bradshaw, a former BBC journalist, said the decision was “inexplicable” and called the corporation’s justification “completely feeble”. The Communities and Local Government Secretary, Hazel Blears, added: “I sincerely hope the BBC will urgently review its decision.”

A motion has been tabled in the Commons for tomorrow expressing astonishment at the corporation’s judgement in blocking airtime from the coalition of major aid charities, including the British Red Cross.

It is understood that it was Mr Thompson’s decision, and chief operating officer Caroline Thomson was ordered to go on radio – initially on Friday on Radio 4’s The World Tonight – to defend the position. A source close to the row said: “Because she [Ms Thomson] has gone so strongly on editorial independence, it is very difficult to see how they can back down.”

Ms Thomson said yesterday: “It is important to remember that broadcasting appeals like this is a unique thing we do and we have to be clear about two things when we do it. First, that that money will go to the people it is intended for; but second, that we can do it within our own impartiality principles and without affecting and impinging on the audience’s perception of our impartiality.”

Protocol dictates that the BBC leads the way on deciding a consensus on DEC appeals with other channels. But rival channels allege the corporation made an announcement on Thursday before consulting them, forcing them to break with the convention.

The DEC is an apolitical umbrella organisation made up of UK major aid organisations ActionAid, British Red Cross, Cafod, Care International UK, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Help the Aged, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision.

Mr Alexander welcomed the move by rival broadcasters to air the appeal: “The DEC appeal is crucial to help alleviate the suffering of people injured, displaced and hungry in Gaza.”

The BBC is used to being accused of anti-Israel bias, but in 2004 it was jolted by a study that said BBC1 and ITV news were guilty, if unthinkingly, of under-reporting the Palestinian cause. Worse, the Glasgow Media Unit found viewers thought the “occupation” of the West Bank and Gaza referred to the Palestinians, not Israeli settlers.

At the same time, the BBC fell foul of the Israeli authorities over an interview with the nuclear whistleblower Mordecai Vanunu, released in 2004 after 18 years in prison, which was smuggled out of Israel. The BBC’s then deputy bureau chief, Simon Wilson, had his work permit withdrawn and was barred from the country. He was allowed back in after the BBC bowed to demands that he make a written apology to the Israeli government for dodging its censors.

The BBC appointed a senior broadcaster, Malcolm Balen, to “take stock” of Middle East coverage, in his words. He drew up an internal report that has never been released, but one result appeared to be the appointment, in mid-2005, of Jeremy Bowen as the BBC’s Middle East editor. His stated role was to supply context amid the footage of bloodshed and mayhem.

Why critics accuse the BBC of losing its nerve is because, several times during the present conflict, almost as much airtime has been given to the chief Israeli spokesman, Mark Regev, as if by allowing him his say, the BBC is supplying the necessary “balance” to the images of Palestinian victims. A live “two-way” between Mr Regev and Jon Snow of ‘Channel 4 News’ became a shouting match, but this has never happened on the BBC.

Jeremy Bowen’s diary entry from Jerusalem is insightful:

It allows Israel to say that one of its main ceasefire demands has been satisfied. Add that to the army’s conviction that it has done serious harm to Hamas, and they can tell themselves they have a convincing basis on which to declare victory.

Israel doesn’t want to bestow any legitimacy on Hamas by making an agreement with it. But to me that smacks of spin control. The reality is that Hamas is part of the Palestinian landscape. It has played a full part in the ceasefire talks that have been mediated by Egypt.

Cairo has passed on the views of Hamas to Israel. When this is over, and when Israeli troops pull out, Hamas will still be in charge in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas has its own demands for a ceasefire. It wants Israeli troops out within a week and the end of the Israeli blockade of Gaza which destroyed the economy long before the war started.

Balen’s appointment received mainly positive acclaim from Israeli representatives:

Welcoming the BBC move, an Israeli embassy spokesman declared: “It seems that the character of our recent relations with the BBC has had its impact. Maybe it means that they understand that there is something in our claims of bias and that they really need to monitor what they do.”

Lee Petar, acting director of the Britain-Israel Communications and Research Centre, said: “It seems the BBC has finally acknowledged the coverage issue. It is a positive first step.” Board of Deputies director-general Neville Nagler termed the appointment of Mr. Balen “interesting, but overdue.”

In his view, the BBC “must have been rattled by the criticism they have received.” Zionist Federation director Alan Aziz supported “any move that could lead to more accurate reporting” of the Middle East.

Meanwhile, there appeared to be further evidence of thawing relations. A BBC World TV inteview with Deputy Premier Ehud Olmert last week was the first time that an official Israeli spokesman had appeared on the BBC since Israel announced it was “withdrawing co-operation” four months ago.

Jews sans Frontieres reported at the time:

Yesterday’s Jewish Chronicle. opened in high spirits in the (probably justified) belief that the BBC will be even more pro-Israel in future than it has been in the past. This follows the completion of Malcolm Balen’s (the BBC’s Zionism tsar’s) report into BBC coverage of the Middle East. The report is secret, that is, it is being kept from the public, but the JC. has been crowing for months about what it clearly sees as a Zionist victory by having the tsar imposed on the Beeb in the first place. The BBC itself has done nothing to distance itself from the Zionist belief that the recruiting of Malcolm Balen has been a victory for Zionism in the UK. For its part, the BBC has announced, somewhat enigmatically, that it is to “enhance” its coverage of Middle East issues. What the JC. has been hoping for is that any Israeli atrocity will either not be reported at all or will be put into “context”. What “context”? Well they want any report on Israel to be accompanied by reports on suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. Now, there should be a problem here. If they report the suicide bombing, what about the context? If the bomber comes from Jenin will the BBC say that Jenin is a refugee camp? If they say it’s a refugee camp, will they say where the refugees came from? The answer to that one is Haifa. Will they say that Haifa was ethnically cleansed in order to give Israel a Jewish majority that it wouldn’t have without said ethnic cleansing? Would the JC. be so thrilled with the appointment of Malcolm Balen and the proposed “enhancement” if this was the case? I think not.

Balen’s report was covered up:

The Beeb has spent an estimated £250,000 in licence-fee money to cover up the report. HonestReporting’s Freedom of Information request for a copy of Balen’s examination of the BBC’s Mideast coverage was also turned down

Numerous appeals have been made to reveal the contents of the report which Israeli pundits claim will prove anti-Israel bias in the Beeb.

.Pro-Palestinian groups on the other hand found the BBC to be more sympathetic to the Israeli narrative.

This is a vast topic with various, equally valid theories which could fill an entire book. As such, I will not delve into it, but instead direct readers to a chapter entitled “Why the BBC Ducks the Palestinian Story” by Tim Llewellyn, a patron of AMW and former BBC Middle East correspondent. The chapter is available on the internet and contained in an excellent book published in January this year entitled “Tell Me Lies: Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq”, which is available at a 20% discount on the AMW website.

What I can say for certain, however, is that the BBC cannot claim it has not been told. AMW members – including Llewellyn – have been highlighting their concerns to the corporation for years, and since last October we have had
several meetings with senior BBC officials and sent them periodic summaries of trends in the corporation’s coverage, which highlighted the same problems illustrated in this article.

However, at one such meeting Richard Sambrook, then head of news and now director of the World Service and global news division, stressed the importance of both sides maintaining open channels of dialogue, and then failed to reply to several of my subsequent e-mails and monitoring summaries.

BBC chairman Michael Grade replied in May to a letter by AMW director Judith Brown that “since the views of your organisation are well known to BBC News, I hope you will understand that it would be inappropriate for me to fulfil your request for a meeting.” We have yet to understand.

Greg Philo & “Bad News From Israel”

Our findings echo those of a major three-year study by Professor Greg Philo, research director of the Glasgow University Media Group, into British people’s understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the output of
the UK’s broadcasters, including the BBC. His findings, contained in his book “Bad News from Israel”, published on June 22 this year and available on the AMW website at a 30% discount, are shocking: Only 9% of people knew that the Israelis were the occupiers and settlers – 11% believed it was the Palestinians! Only 30% knew that the Palestinians had suffered more fatalities than the Israelis, and 80% did not know where the Palestinian refugees had come from or how they had become dispossessed.

After Israel’s last Lebanon debacle, Israel formed its oily hasbara machine, the National Information Directorate, to insert whinging points, distorted narrative and outright barefaced lies into existing tentacles of the Israeli media octopus in an attempt to polish up Israel’s media image. Correcting supposed anti-Israel ‘bias’ is part of its mandate.

The body, known as the National Information Directorate, was set up eight months ago following recommendations from an Israeli inquiry into the 2006 Lebanon war. Its role is to deal with hasbara – meaning, in Hebrew, “explanation”, and referring variously to information, spin, and propaganda.

The directorate’s chief, Yarden Vatikai, said: “The hasbara apparatus needed a body that would co-ordinate its agencies, coordinate the messages and become a platform for co-operation between all the agencies that deal with communication relations and public diplomacy.”

The directorate acts across ministries and decides key messages on a daily basis.

…

The hasbara directive also liaises over core messages with bodies such as friendship leagues, Jewish communities, bloggers and backers using online networks.

However as we’ve illustrated several times on this blog, the hasbara machine has proved inept in defending its distortions and lies in the face of new social media.

The fight by Steven Sugar to gain access to the Balen Report continues:

A lawyer is considering the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) as his last legal option in a two-year campaign to force the BBC to publish its 2004 report investigating its Middle Eastern coverage.

Steven Sugar is waiting to hear the House of Lords’ judgement on his latest attempt to force publication of the Balen Report, written by BBC senior editor Malcolm Balen.

But if the Law Lords reject his appeal, the Putney solicitor says he “will certainly consider” taking the case to Strasbourg.

Mr Sugar said: “There is every indication that the BBC wants to fight this,” adding: “Parliament might want to re-consider its freedom of information laws.”

The BBC has spent up to half a million pounds of licence payers’ money on lawyers in its determination to keep the report secret, while Mr Sugar has spent two years working on the case. The significance, he says, is that it might reveal a BBC anti-Israel bias.

The corporation has so far relied on a legal loophole in the Freedom of Information Act, which says information does not have to be shared if it is for “journalism, art or literature”.

Might the above be a contributory factor as to why the BBC is so reticent, citing grounds of ‘impartiality’, to air the DEC appeal? or has the BBC really rolled over with its legs in the air for the already exposed hasbara machine?

UPDATES

Jan 26

The Archbishop of Canterbury today added to criticism of the BBC

Dozens of protesters who occupied the BBC’s Glasgow headquarters over its refusal to air an aid appeal for Gaza have left the building.

The corporation has said it has received “approximately” 1,000 telephone complaints and a further 10,000 by email.

Rival broadcasters ITV, Channel 4 and Five have now agreed to air the appeal. Sky is still considering its position.

At the heart of BBC row, the homeless of Gaza

BBC ‘open to Gaza appeal rethink’

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has said it is open to reconsidering its earlier decision not to telecast a charity appeal for funds for Palestinians in Gaza.

The chief operating officer of the BBC, under fire for its refusal to air the appeal, said a reversal of the decision was possible if another request to air the appeal was made.

“We never say never and clearly, if the DEC (Disasters Emergency Committee) came to us with another request when things have calmed down and we didn’t have the same worries about the controversial nature of this, we would look at it again in that light,” Caroline Thompson told Al Jazeera on Sunday.

Jillian C. York: BBC: “Just trying to stay neutral”

The BBC has long kowtowed to pressure; As Nigel Fountain points out in an otherwise unintelligible Guardian op-ed, the BBC has been here before. Fountain reminds us of a 1974 airing of a South African apartheid propaganda film on the BBC.

Fundamentally, the problem here is the BBC’s impression that their desire is to remain “neutral.” By implying that they must ignore the humanitarian crisis and the victims in Gaza in order to err on the side of neutrality in fact implies that not offending Israel is more important than helping the over 5,000 injured, and countless who have lost homes or livelihood thanks to Israel’s massacre.

Jan 27

Questions have been raised about BBC Director General Mark Thompson’s bias toward Israel.

That Mark Thompson has been supporting Zionist leaders is no secret. In fact, Mark Thompson’s wife, Jane, is Jewish and a fanatic supporter of Zionist policies. Is Mark simply trying to appease his wife? If he is, then this has to be one of the most outrageous acts in the history of British media. The glaring disregard for human suffering, however, can only be explained by Mark Thompson’s close relationship with Israeli leaders. In 2005, Mr. Thompson broke all rules of independent journalism when he travelled to Jerusalem and met former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in order to “build bridges” between the BBC and Israel. This unprecedented move was not covered by Western media, but the Israeli press gave it significant importance.

More evidence of Sharon’s influence over Mark Thompson and thus the BBC is coming to light –

I have no doubt that the decision by the BBC to pull their Middle East correspondent Orla Guerin out of the region and send her to South Africa was part of the normal rotation of BBC news correspondents around the world. However it was pretty bad timing to announce it within days of Director General Mark Thompson’s visit to Israel where he had a meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Sharon has never hidden his intense dislike of Guerin or the BBC’s reporting of the Middle East and Guerin was recently accused of being “anti-semitic” and of “identifying with the goals and methods of the Palestinian terror groups” by a former Israeli minister.

At the very least the BBC should have foreseen the suspicions that would arise from the two events – Thompson’s visit and Guerin’s departure – and separated them by several months. As it is, the timing of the announcement to move Guerin inevitably raises the question of how much pressure the Israeli Government put on the BBC, which in turn allows some to question the BBC’s impartiality.

Lenin’s Tomb unearths more relevant history:

“The BBC is often accused of an anti-Israeli bias in its coverage of the Middle East, and recently censured reporter Barbara Plett for saying she ‘started to cry’ when Yasser Arafat left Palestine shortly before his death.

Fascinating, then, to learn that its director general, Mark Thompson, has recently returned from Jerusalem, where he held a face-to-face meeting with the hardine Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Although the diplomatic visit was not publicised on these shores, it has been seized upon in Israel as evidence that Thompson, who took office in 2004, intends to build bridges with the country’s political class.

Sources at the Beeb also suspect that it heralds a “softening” to the corporation’s unofficial editorial line on the Middle East.

‘This was the first visit of its kind by any serving director general, so it’s clearly a significant development,’ I’m told.

‘Not many people know this, but Mark is actually a deeply religious man. He’s a Catholic, but his wife is Jewish, and he has a far greater regard for the Israeli cause than some of his predecessors.'”

Barbaric Document follows up on what happened to Orla Guerlin after Sharon’s fingering of Mark Thompson:

What’s missing from this is what happened to BBC correspondent Orla Guerin just days after Mark Thompson had his cosy tete-a-tete with that obese blood-drenched old brute Ariel Sharon. Before Thompson took up his position as Director General of the BBC, the Guardian had reported on the ferocious pressure being exerted on news organisations by the Israeli government, including complaints about individual reporters:

The Israeli government has written to the BBC accusing its Middle East correspondent, Orla Guerin, of anti-semitism and “total identification with the goals and methods of the Palestinian terror groups”.

Orla Guerin’s offence was to run stories not just about the grief of Israeli families who had lost family members to suicide bombers but also stories about the grief and suffering of ordinary Palestinian families. As one blogger put it at the time:

Guerin’s real sin, of course, is to show some sympathy for the victims of the Israeli bombing (that’s enough to brand her a “terrorist”).

Within days of Thompson meeting Sharon, Guerin was sacked as BBC TV Middle East correspondent and transferred to Africa.

Mondoweiss has yet another theory on the BBC’s reticience to participate in the aid appeal for the people of Gaza.

Second that BBC is reliant on American advertising and therefore… Well, I don’t know.

A movement builds against Israel’s apartheid

STUDENT ACTIVISTS in Britain have occupied 16 universities in solidarity with the people of Gaza, and antiwar forces are pressuring the BBC for refusing to air an emergency appeal on behalf of Palestinians.

UPDATE

BBC staff are expressing their ire still at Mark Thompson’s refusal to broadcast the Gaza humanitarian appeal:

At least three BBC NUJ workplace branches have passed motions calling on the BBC to transmit the Gaza aid appeal. A petition is circulating within the corporation which concludes: “The victims of Gaza deserve the aid appeal like any other victims of humanitarian crises. The conflict they are caught in is as controversial as any other armed conflict in the world and singling them out is what harms the BBC’s reputation of impartiality.”

The latest issue of Ariel, the BBC’s internal staff magazine, carries 10 letters on the BBC’s refusal to air the Gaza appeal – all are critical of the decision.

Some of the choice quotes from staff:

The flaw in this argument is that we are allowing the combatants (or their allies) – in this case Israel – to define whether or not an appeal for aid is legitimate.

The BBC has decided not to broadcast the appeal because it believes impartiality would be at risk. I believe the message the BBC is sending out is clear. And it is not impartial.

The decision not to broadcast the appeal opens the BBC up to justified accusations of bias towards Israel and implies that the people of Gaza only have themselves to blame for what happened.

Posted on

Gaza – a disaster zone thanks to Israel’s colonialism

Edward Jayne gives a cogent overview of Israeli deceptive political strategy aimed at disrupting Palestinian lives and demonising opposition while more territory is acquired for the purposes of a Greater Israel.

Israel is attempting to manipulate regime change in the Gaza strip by controlling aid.

Defense officials said that Israel preferred that all of the money donated to rehabilitating the Gaza Strip be transferred to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, since it could be a way for the Fatah leader to reassert his control over Gaza.

“This is a way for Abbas to get back in control of the Gaza Strip,” one official said. “If he is in charge of the money, Hamas will have to work with him and he will be involved in what happens in Gaza.”

Hamas is starting to make overtures to Fatah supporters:

Hamas called Thursday for reconciliation with supporters of rival Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas but insisted on pursuing resistance against Israel.

The condition appeared to preclude any agreement with Abbas, who seeks a peace deal with Israel and whose moderate Fatah faction was not among the groups that backed the statement by eight Damascus-based radical Palestinian factions including Hamas.

Earlier on Thursday, a senior Hamas official dismissed any reconciliation talks with rival Fatah group.
Sami Khater, a member of the militant group’s Damascus-based branch, said Arab and international donations to reconstruct the war-devastated Gaza should go directly to Hamas and not to rival Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas whose faction rules the West Bank.

Khater said Abbas and his Palestinian Authority cannot be trusted.

…

Palestinian Authority Social Affairs Minister Mahmoud Habbash earlier on Thursday accused gunmen from the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip of hijacking dozens of trucks carrying aid intended for residents reeling from the three-week-long Israeli assault.

Habbash, of the Fatah-led government based in the West Bank, told Voice of Palestine Radio that the trucks were supposed to come under the authority of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Hamas, however, says the supply trucks were dispatched by Arab donors specifically for the Hamas administration in the Strip, and to no other group, to distribute to the people of Gaza.

As a result, on arrival in the Strip the trucks were directed to Hamas warehouses, officials from the Islamist movement said, adding that they have papers from the donor countries showing that the supplies were sent to the Hamas administration.

UN officials have also said that none of its supply and aid trucks have been hijacked or attacked by any armed group inside Gaza.

The story fails to mention that according to Hamas, Abbas’ presidential term ended on the 9th January 09.

Abbas’s supporters however cite a different provision of the constitution which says that presidential and parliamentary elections should be held together, which would extend Abbas’s term to January 2010.

Interestingly, representatives from the two main Palestinian factions were due to meet in Cairo on November 4 08 to try to agree on a national unity government. November 4 was the day Israel breached the cease fire in Gaza. Of course, a national unity Palestinian government would be the last thing Israel wanted – that would be the end of the Israeli divide and conquer strategy.

Chomsky concurs with me in his scholarly analysis of Israeli monstrosity.

Despite the Israeli siege, rocketing sharply reduced. The ceasefire broke down on November 4 with an Israeli raid into Gaza, leading to the death of 6 Palestinians, and a retaliatory barrage of rockets (with no injuries). The pretext for the raid was that Israel had detected a tunnel in Gaza that might have been intended for use to capture another Israeli soldier. The pretext is transparently absurd, as a number of commentators have noted. If such a tunnel existed, and reached the border, Israel could easily have barred it right there. But as usual, the ludicrous Israeli pretext was deemed credible.

What was the reason for the Israeli raid? We have no internal evidence about Israeli planning, but we do know that the raid came shortly before scheduled Hamas-Fatah talks in Cairo aimed at “reconciling their differences and creating a single, unified government,” British correspondent Rory McCarthy reported. That was to be the first Fatah-Hamas meeting since the June 2007 civil war that left Hamas in control of Gaza, and would have been a significant step towards advancing diplomatic efforts. There is a long history of Israel provocations to deter the threat of diplomacy, some already mentioned. This may have been another one.

Possibilities for rehabilitation of Hamas into a peace partner are discussed in ANALYSIS-Gaza truce, Obama fuel talk of talking to Hamas

Seizing on signs that Europe, disturbed by killing and poverty in Gaza and emboldened by change in Washington, might reconsider its ban on contact with the Palestinian Islamists, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal claimed “victory” and said on Wednesday: “I tell European nations … it is time for you to deal with Hamas.”

It is a sentiment that is finding some echo elsewhere, even if a dramatic front-page appeal by leading Israeli writer David Grossman in Haaretz newspaper remains a marginal view in Israel:

“Instead of ignoring Hamas … we would do better to take advantage of the new reality that has been created by beginning a dialogue with them immediately,” he wrote in Tuesday’s piece.

Only dialogue could avert mutual destruction, Grossman said.

Hamas rejects talks that would imply recognition of Israel, though does not rule out all contact. Unlike other Palestinian groups, it has not accepted Israel and wants all its territory, but Hamas leaders have also offered Israel a “long-term truce”.

At a meeting on Wednesday with Israeli officials, EU foreign ministers were asked if they should now speak directly to Hamas. Finland’s Alexander Stubb said cautiously: “It is time to start slowly reflecting how we get all parties round the table.”

“No comprehensive solution can be taken without Hamas.”

“The option of negotiating with Hamas has never been really taken into consideration,” French expert Olivier Roy wrote in an opinion piece in Wednesday’s Saudi Gazette, looking at Obama’s options in the region. “It is time to consider that option.”

ADDITIONAL LINKS

A battle over what happened in Gaza

“We are witnessing a moral corrosion that is destroying everything at a fantastic pace,” said Michael Sfard, a lawyer with Volunteers for Human Rights in Tel Aviv. “We’ve reached a threshold of insensitivity that we had never reached in the past.”

The offensive “on Gaza may be squeezing Hamas, but it is destroying Israel,” Ari Shavit wrote in the left-leaning Haaretz in the days before the operation ended. “Destroying its soul and its image. Destroying it on world television screens, in the living rooms of the international community and most importantly, in Obama’s America.”

Liberating Palestine – some useful ideas for peace from Malaysia

In an unprecedented move, the BBC is refusing to run ads for the DEC campaign for alleviation of human suffering in Gaza – perhaps the DEC could try again with an appeal to save Gaza wildlife, as apparently the lives of humans in Gaza are not counted as important to the BBC.

Prisoner swap deals are on the horizon –

Israel might be prepared to swap hundreds of jailed Palestinians for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been held in captivity in the Gaza Strip for more than two years, senior Israeli officials indicated yesterday.

Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, said yesterday that the Israel Defence Forces’ operation in the Gaza Strip had created “renewed momentum” to strike a deal with Hamas for Shalit’s return.

Hamas officials in Gaza and the West Bank insisted, for their part, that Shalit, who was captured in a cross-border raid, “would not see the light of day” unless Israel agreed to the release of up to 1,400 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel’s Supreme Court has overturned the Central Elections Commision’s decision to exclude two arab parties from the February 10 elections.

This week, the Supreme Court accepted a petition by two Arab Knesset factions – Balad and United Arab List-Ta’al – and overturned the Central Elections Commission’s decision to bar them from running in the upcoming elections. This ruling, which did not ignore the problematic elements of both parties’ platforms, rescued the political system from the disgrace it inflicted on itself and the voting public by disqualifying these slates.

Israel to open Gaza Strip crossing to journalists