After delays and unscrupulous attempts to keep him out of the US, Omar Barghouti is finally allowed into the US for his speaking tour to promote his new book, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights.
Omar comments on BDS, the current Israeli onslaught in Gaza, US complicity and the overall Middle East scene.
We’re seeing a not just sea change in Arab diplomacy after the departure of Mubarak, the dictator of Egypt. First we saw the U.S. veto against its own position for decades that Israel’s colonial settlements are illegal and an obstacle to peace. The U.S. had to veto that, because there was no longer Mubarak to do its dirty work. If Mubarak were still around, he would have pressured the Palestinians to pull this out of the Security Council and not to embarrass the U.S. So the U.S. had to vote against its own position and to stand in this little dark corner with Israel facing the entire world community. So we’re seeing here some change, some real change, in the tone of the Arab League and of the Arab officials towards the Palestinians. Absolutely, a no-fly zone is more justified than ever over Gaza. Why should it be over Libya only, and Israelis, as an occupying power, continue to bomb Gaza with U.S. weaponry, F-16s and U.S. missiles?
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Israel is feeling this complete imbalance in its so-called Arab neighbor. So, Israel is losing that cover, and this is extremely important for our movement. And it has given a boost to the Palestinian nonviolent movement, especially in the form of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. We saw a lot of growth around the world.
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In the last year or so, especially after the attack on the flotilla, we’ve seen a very steep rise in cultural boycott of Israel. So we’re connecting this with the cultural resistance on the ground. It’s not just that the Palestinians are continuing to produce culture to counter Israel’s occupation and apartheid, but we’re also calling on performers, musicians, theater directors, and so on, not to perform in Israel, as they did during the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.
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The BDS movement is based on international law and universal principles of human rights. We have Israeli partners. We have many faith communities, many trade unions supporting the movement now. It has really grown drastically, and this is why it’s worrying Israel, because it has not yet developed a weapon to counter this simple nonviolent movement. It’s not a centralized, dogmatic kind of movement. It doesn’t have a very difficult agenda. It’s a basic, liberal, decent agenda based on human rights that any person can join. And many people have been joining.
Omar Barghouti : “People have rights, and when we say we want to end Israel’s multitiered system of oppression…we must immediately, in the same sentence, say people have equal rights in every formal way” . Author, activist and professor Sarah Schulman has been involved with the Palestinian queer movement, emphasizing that their struggle is deeply tied to the struggle to end the occupation.
Fight to rescind the Goldstone report reaches the US Congress : the evil ziolobby in the US attempts to quash the evidence of war crimes. This is possibly an indication of the fear by which this report is held by the ziolobby. Fortunately, the UN is not subject to this sort of outrageous bullying and the UNGA may take this as further incitement against it and react in the opposite manner to which the ziolobby intends. I’m hoping for a Uniting for Peace resolution which will permit Israel and its scumbag US accomplice to be thwarted by ICC action regardless of US power.
‘According to Ros-Lehtinen, the initiative will “make it U.S. policy to demand that the UN General Assembly revoke and repudiate the Goldstone Report and any UN resolutions stemming from the report, and will refund to U.S. taxpayers their share of the costs for the report and its follow-on measures.”’
“They know very well that we’ll hit public institutions and have even instructed students to continue attending school,” he said, adding, “How ironic that while their kids continue to attend school, they keep firing rockets deep into Israeli territory.”
Goldstone’s community in Johannesburg summoned Goldstone to a meeting with the Jewish Federation at which communal leaders essentially indicted Goldstone for being a traitor.
As our southern towns continue to come under heavy fire, Israel must respond disproportionately until normalcy and calm are reestablished and our waning deterrence has been restored
Where exactly is the extremism with this vision that is “rooted in a century-old history of civil, non-violent resistance against settler colonialism, occupation and ethnic cleansing”? The extremism is more likely to be found in the anti-BDS propaganda, comparing this unarmed resistance to the Nazi boycott of Jews in 1930’s, whereby “dehumanizing them…is a vital step on the way to genocide”.
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Australia’s bipartisan loyalty to Israel is apparently in question when the Greens gain the balance of power in the Senate in three months. Is this because the major parties need to save face with Israel or Australia?. Over 100 Australian leaders have ‘graduated’ from the Rambam Israel Fellowship, including Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Alexander Downer and Bill Shorten. The six day program is engineered by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. By their own admission, the Rambam organisers have declared that “for the money we invest in, you can’t ask for better results”.
The latest vilification of the BDS campaign is yet another example of a return on this investment.
The AIJAC organisation which pays for the Rambam hasbara fellowships which 100 pollies etc have been on is a private organisation which doesn’t disclose its funding. Sourcewatch says:
‘The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) is a right wing lobby group based in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. On its website and in the media, AIJAC often claims to represent the Australian Jewish community, stating that it “represents the interests of the Australian Jewish community to government, media and other community groups and organisations.” [1]. In reality, it is a small, privately funded think tank which represents no one but its own small membership.
AIJAC describes itself as a think tank, however it does not do original research, and focuses mostly on political lobbying. It has been described as “an aggressive, no holds barred, privately funded, political lobby group. It is variously described as “the only effective organisation that lobbies for Israel”, a “Melbourne based pro-Zionist think-tank”, “Zionist propagandists”, “contentious”, but not a body, according to the President of the New South Wales Board of Deputies, “that is in any elected or democratic sense representative of the community”. ‘
‘AIJAC’s website states that it is “associated with” the American Jewish Committee’
“The Pratt Foundation was established in 1978 by Richard and Jeanne Pratt with the shared vision of supporting charitable enterprises and adding value to philanthropy. The Foundation is now one of the largest private sources of philanthropy in Australia. In the words of its mission statement, it aims “to enrich the lives of our community” and, in the words of Jeremiah, it works to fulfil this aim in a spirit of “kindness, justice and equity”.” [1]
“Through the Pratt Foundation, Visy donates over $10 million to a wide range of causes.”
The Israeli government is clever in using settlers. They are trying to say that Hebron is important for religious history, but what I hear from settlers is that it is a step towards taking Nablus, Ramallah, and the entire West Bank. Hebron is a frontline. If they succeed here in their campaign of ethnic cleansing under the banner of religion, they will move on to new goals.
Reading from a Wikileaks document, Finkelstein revealed that Israeli officials privately announced to an American representative that Israel planned to bring Gaza’s economy to the brink of collapse.
“There never has been, is not, and never will be a peace process,” Finkelstein said. “Rational people don’t judge by words, they judge by outcomes and results. Truthfully, it is an annexation process that uses peace as a facade.”
But when Israel supporters whine about the “anti-Israel climate on campus”, let’s not forget that the only groups with money to take out full-page ads are Israel advocates.
For the people of Libya, there can be no quick fix. Not only will the post-invasion Libyan state lack the means to defend its sovereignty externally, a post-invasion Libyan government will need to accommodate a highly fractured society through patient coalition-building, if Libyan society is not to disintegrate into an Afghan-style civil war.
That necessary work will have to be political, not military. For that work to begin, the first prerequisite is an end to the NATO invasion and a ceasefire.
‘the attack the NSW Greens have endured is not simply about discrediting the third force in Australian politics – although that certainly is one of the aims. This campaign of slander is, more broadly, an attempt to intimidate anyone even thinking about taking a principled anti-racist stance against Israel.
The right’s unwavering devotion to Israel’s cause is not, as they claim, a function of their support for freedom and democracy, but a reflection of their unquestioning support for Western domination of the Arab world. For that reason at least, supporters of Palestine need to stand firm against the ravings of the pro-Zionist right.’
Wikileaks Links
#Wikileaks @ioerror harassed & detained at airport AGAIN by CBP who say ‘You remember 9/11? That’s why!’ #US #fascism #policestate #
@ioerror Of course, I was again denied access to my lawyer, again denied information on my “random” screening, and I missed my connecting flight. #
@ioerror While asking questions, they located Gene Sharp books about authoritarianism and obedience. Apparently, something some passengers lack. #
@ioerror When I discussed my detainment with one of the officers, before I’d missed my flight, I was told that I was making it harder on myself. #
@ioerror The actual interactions with the border guards are certainly becoming less and less pleasant. The CBP agents in Texas also served in Iraq. #
@ioerror Needless to say, I do not actually believe that Americans are safer because Agent Rodriguez and his buddies were Army snipers in Iraq. #
The Israeli onslaught on the people of Gaza is following an analogous trajectory as that before the full scale massacre of Operation Cast Lead. Perhaps spurred tactically by Goldstone’s unfortunate recent statements, Israeldeliberately instigated and fuelled the new attack on the defenceless people in Gaza who subsist in the largest open air prison in the world, under brutal military occupation for 44 years and now besieged for nearly 1,400 days. 52% of Gaza’s population are children. Perhaps Gaza should disguise itself as a yellow bus.
After the Izzin Al Qassam brigade fired an anti-tank missile into a school bus, claiming they thought it was a military vehicle, Israel had its chance to justify its previous violence and provocations as well as to play into its tactical victimhood posture, already primed by blaming Palestinians for the Itamar murders and Jerusalem bus bomb despite no culprits having been found. Hamas has offered cease fires twice, and both offers have been contemptuously rejected by Israel. Israel, as with Operation Cast Lead, seeks a macabre ‘blood quota’ from the defenceless citizens of Gaza, over whom the Israeli Public Security Minister has declared an official state policy of collective punishment – there is “no immunity for anyone in Gaza.”
Despite Israel having conducted continuous previous provocations, it has utilised the bus incident, raining a deluge of strikes on Gaza which have killed at this point nearly 20 people:
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, issued a sharp warning to Hamas and other groups. “The attack on the children’s bus was crossing a red line. Heaven help those who try to hurt and murder children,” he said.
Yet Israel has been killing Palestinian children with impunity for 63 years.
Like most privileged groups, Israeli zionists consistently feel it is others, Palestinians, who should change and that violence, including acts prohibited by international law, is a legitimate tool to force the required change. Then the zionist elite expect Israel to be ‘liked’ and respected by those whom they cast as lesser beings and repress brutally. However, oppressed Palestinians don’t necessarily dislike anyone on an individual basis. The oppressed people would just like the oppression and violation of their rights to end. Israel on the other hand, pursues policies of collective punishment and a strategy of expansionism and belligerence. The Palestine Papers reveal how Israel consistently stretches out and sabotages the fake ‘peace process’ with impossible offers and intransigence, while illegal ziocolonists nibble away at the West Bank and East Jerusalem with impunity and encouragement, tacit and overt, from the Israeli regime, further entrenching existing apartheid.
Occupied people have the right, affirmed in the 4th Geneva Conventions, to resist their Occupiers. Recognising that no other methods have led to liberation, Palestinian people called in 2005 for non-violent boycotts, divestments and sanctions in order to obtain their just human and political rights Please help rightsless Palestinians end the occupation and attain the rights most of us take for granted in our own lands by answering their call. Only when oppression and injustice to the indigenous Palestinian people has ended will the violence also stop.
Palestinian resistance declared cease-fire that starts at 11 pm Gaza time but it was one-sided, Israel didn’t oblige instead they responded by continuous shelling and air raids.
They re-raided the border line between Gaza and Egypt. Egyptian local news sources reported that a shell fell on a land inside Egyptian Rafah but with no reported injuries.
All dead and injured in Gaza were civilians.
Huge power outages took place in Khan Younis and Rafah after Israel’s heavy shelling on Gaza, many power lines and converters were damaged.
Explosions, sporadic fire and Israeli warplanes were heard till 3 am of April the 8th.
It looks like the upcoming days will bring more assaults and attacks.
Following the attack, the Israel Defense Forces quickly retaliated and launched both land and air strikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, the IDF spokesperson said, killing a 50-year-old man and wounding five others.
Defense Minister, Ehud Barak ordered the army to respond quickly and said he held the Hamas militant group, which rules Gaza, responsible for the violence. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack.
The strike came following several weeks of tension and mutual attacks along Israel’s border with the Hamas-ruled Strip, with Israel Defense Forces aircraft striking smuggling tunnels in southern Gaza earlier Thursday.
On Tuesday, IDF tanks fired at and killed an armed Palestinian approaching the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel on Tuesday, as three mortar bombs exploded in Israeli soil.
The incident took place after an IDF force spotted an armed Palestinian near the Erez crossing at the Strip’s north, later directing tank fire to the spot. No injuries were reported from among the soldiers.
On Saturday, IDF planes struck a vehicle travelling at the south of the Gaza Strip, killing three Hamas operatives, one of them a top commander in Hamas’ military wing.
An IDF Spokesperson stated that the three men were members of a terrorist cell that was “planning to kidnap Israelis over the upcoming Jewish holiday of Passover” in Israel and in the Sinai Peninsula, a popular spring tourist destination for Israelis.
The Palestinian Ma’an news agency identified the three as Isma’il Labad and his brother Abdullah from Ash-Shati’ refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, and military commander Muhammad Ad-Dayah from the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City.
Ad-Dayah, 33, is considered to be a top Hamas military official. As a child he participated in the first intifada, later serving as the bodyguard of former Hamas chief Abdel Aziz Rantisi. Ad-Dayah also lost one of his eyes during an attempted mortar attack on a nearby settlement.
Hamas vowed vengeance against Israel in a statement Saturday, describing the strike as a crime and “serious escalation” of the recent violence, and vowed that Israel would “bear all the consequences.” The militant group also called on the U.S. to stop the flow of financial aid to Israel.
Prior to the attack, Palestinian militants have fired rocket salvos into Israel, reaching as far as the major southern city Be’er Sheva, and Israel has carried out a series of air strikes.
RT @avinunu: Mahmoud, aged 10, was murdered by Israel on Mar 22, earlier in its deliberate escalation of Gaza violence http://is.gd/6PrIsb Violence erupts across Gaza border
The fire from Gaza on Thursday began a few hours after Israel’s air force bombed sites which it said were smuggling tunnels in the northern Gaza Strip, said Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharanot. Palestinian sources reported that four people were injured in those stikes.
Bethlehem-based Ma’an News Agency said three of the overnight air strikes hit the southern Gaza Strip – one in the Yebna refugee camp, a second in the Barazili neighbourhood and a third hit tunnels near the Salah Ad-Din district. The fourth hit an area east of Gaza City, said Ma’an.
@Omar_Gaza: Breaking: New martyr in Gaza khaled Al Dibari 23 4m Rafah #Gaza, total= 4 dead 30+ injured. #
“Many of those wounded [have] moderate to light [injuries]. More than ten of the wounded are children. In the southern city of Rafah, Israeli shelling hit a mosque and caused the injury of 14 persons, including women and children. Israeli shells also hit an ambulance, wounding two crew members,” Adham Abu Silimiya, spokesperson for the ambulance service in Gaza, told The Electronic Intifada.
Israeli air strikes struck residents’ homes in eastern Gaza, a government building in northern Gaza and underground tunnels in southern Gaza.
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The Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was in retaliation for Israel’s 1 April extrajudicial killing of three Hamas members in Gaza.
The U.S. State Department condemned the bus attack, and expressed concern about use of advanced anti-tank weapons against civilians.
“We condemn the attack on innocent civilians in southern Israel in the strongest possible terms, and on-going rocket fire from Gaza,” the statement read. “There is no justification for the targeting of innocent civilians and those responsible for these terrorist attacks should be held accountable.”
“We are deeply about concerned about reports that indicate the use of an advanced anti-tank weapon in an attack against civilians.”
A group of American Jewish lawyers is preparing a civil lawsuit against Richard Goldstone for libel, but when and where it will be filed has yet to be determined.
The proposed class action lawsuit was initiated by Likud MK Danny Danon, as reported by The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. He discussed the idea in conversation with American attorneys during a recent visit to the United States. It would demand that Goldstone publicly apologize to the State of Israel and pay a symbolic amount of damages for the accusations he made in his UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict report.
Hamas is no angel, they receive NO sympathy from me. But they appear to be much more efficient than Israel at not killing civilians using makeshift rockets and suicide bombings even though Israel is using state of the art U.S weaponry. Perhaps Israel should get some pointers from Hamas on how to avoid civilian deaths. And as far as I know Hamas hasn’t prevented freedom of movement or the oportunity to have a future for Israeli civilians. Funny how opinions can change. It’s like magic
On 12 November 2009 the embassy reported the views of the general responsible for Gaza and southern Israel, Major General Yoav Galant, that Hamas needed to be “strong enough to enforce a ceasefire”.
He told the Americans: “Israel’s political leadership has not yet made the necessary policy choices among competing priorities: a short-term priority of wanting Hamas to be strong enough to enforce the de facto ceasefire and prevent the firing of rockets and mortars into Israel; a medium priority of preventing Hamas from consolidating its hold on Gaza; and a longer-term priority of avoiding a return of Israeli control of Gaza and full responsibility for the wellbeing of Gaza’s civilian population.”
Rudd, who last month completed an exhaustive tour of the Middle East, including a visit to Israel, Jordan and two visits to Egypt, speculated the region’s future looked rocky.
He warned observers must keep watch on how some of the countries currently transitioning to democracy use that democracy.
“If a political movement uses a democratic process to obtain political power then extinguishes democracy once having obtained power and resorts to undemocratic means to exercise that power – that is what we must be mindful of across the Middle East,” he said.
He also noted Egyptian opinion polls had set Amr Moussa, a man who is not known as a friend to Israel, as frontrunner in the presidential elections.
Rudd, though, was guarded in his assessment of Moussa’s stance towards the ongoing presence of a Jewish State in the region.
“It is important that we work to understand what policies he would bring to bear in relation to Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the future of the Middle East peace process,” the Foreign Minister said.
The king said he was pleased with the developments in the peace process.
He also revealed to the ambassador that he had instructed his public information minister to stop referring to Israeli in official statements of the kingdom as the “enemy” or the “Zionist entity.”
Monroe asked the Bahraini king whether he would agree to have trade relations with Israel. According to the telegram, the king thought it was too early and that the matter would have to wait until after a Palestinian state was established.
According to the leaked documents, in one instance, Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin offered American counterparts, the organization’s stance on the sensitive subject of Israeli Arabs; many of whom “have taken their liberties too far.”
According to the leaked cables, Diskin said that some in the Israeli-Arab public see themselves as Arabs and Muslims first and Israeli citizens last. He also criticized the Arab MKs, saying they were “flirting with the enemy.”
The Shin Bet chief allegedly said that “(…) these people don’t spread Israel’s democratic values and principles, and abuse their diplomatic immunity.” He also attributed the problem to Palestinian refugees who return to Israel and “brought bad ideas” with them.
This time, Israel intends to exact a very heavy price from Hamas, as the State of Israel and IDF have no solution that would fortify civilian transportation in the Gaza region. The only immediate solution is deterrence – and deterrence can only be achieved via plenty of fire.
This time, officials will not accept a Hamas request for a lull via secret channels of UN officials in the area, as happened in the past. In the coming days, the cannons, missiles, tanks, jets and rockets will do the talking, until the blood quota is filled.
Israel versus Judaism Since the existence of Zionism, one constant trend of thought has been the direction of Weizmann, Greenbaum, Sharett, Ben Gurion, Ehrenpreisz, Kastner, Stephen Wise, the councils in the ghettoes and the rescue committees of the free world: The only yearning was for the State. The people as a whole, or a segment thereof, were merely the means for the realization of a “homeland”. Whoever did not serve this purpose might as well have not been created. Ziobots Invade Facebook Palestinian factions resume firing homemade shells into Israel, causing no injuries
The speculation in The Australian on this issue about some difference between myself and my fellow senators was false and misled its readers.”
Senior journalist for The Australian Matthew Franklin has hit back, complaining that the Greens had not replied to a number of questions sent to Senator Brown’s office.
“We had priorities and you didn’t figure,” Senator Brown responded.
Franklin asked Senator Brown: “With all respect, why is it when we put questions to your office you never answer them?”
But Senator Brown insists the Greens do answer the questions: “We answer them in written form so they won’t be misrepresented.
“We’ve got a great respect for the media in Australia, but The Australian doesn’t help keep that respect in order. The rest of the media does.”
In reply to another question from Franklin about the Greens’ attitude to Israel, Senator Brown referred to an Australian editorial which called for the “destruction” of the Greens.
“If The Australian wants to continue this vendetta in its aim of the destruction of the Greens editorially, then maybe it should look at the moral quality of the activities of its colleagues in News of the World in London,” Senator Brown said.
“I might ask News Limited if it can reassure readers that that sort of eavesdropping doesn’t occur and hasn’t occurred in Australia.”
As the feisty news conference drew to a close, Senator Brown challenged representatives of The Australian to a debate.
“Anytime, anyplace, anywhere. I’m very happy to take you on,” he said.
“Really, you should get over it. Grow up a bit. Get on to issues that Australians are interested in. You’re not doing yourselves much good.”
Franklin declined to take a call from ABC News Online.
Ms. McGowan Davis said that the Government of Israel refused to cooperate with any aspect of what it called the “Goldstone process” and expressed gratitude to the Palestinian Authority for the extensive cooperation provided throughout the term.
Ms. McGowan Davis went on to say that Israel had dedicated significant resources to investigating over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza, but given the scale of this undertaking, much remained to be accomplished. There was no indication that Israel had opened investigations into the actions of those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw Operation Cast Lead as called for by the Fact-Finding Mission report.
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With regard to the de facto authorities in Gaza, the Committee acknowledged that they had made efforts to provide specific information concerning criminal investigations into alleged human rights violations committed by their security forces. However, there had been no investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.
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During the interactive dialogue speakers said that Israel had not cooperated with the Committee nor had it allowed access by its members, and some expressed dismay at the utter disrespect by Israel of its obligations and the total disregard to the resolutions of the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly.
EU: Concerning the report of the Committee, the European Union continued to be concerned that the functioning of Israel’s military justice systems did not fully meet the criteria of independence and impartiality. The lack of transparency regarding the different stages of the investigations had not allowed all victims to have access to existing judicial mechanisms.
The Goldstone Report documents eleven incidents where the Israeli military directly targeted civilians. Four other fact-finding missions underscore these findings: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, and the National Lawyers Guild.
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To date, the Independent Committee of Experts, chaired by New York Judge Mary McGowan Davis, has reviewed the domestic investigations process twice, and both times it found Israel’s investigations to be inadequate.
Erekat is unsatisfied with the outcome of Goldstone’s attempted qualifications:
Regardless of what may have been his best intentions, Goldstone has negligently, one hopes not deliberately, undermined the laws of armed conflict and emboldened those states, like Israel, who believe that it is a surmountable nuisance.
Interestingly, Goldstone’s ‘retraction’ (according to Arutz Sheva, he couldn’t sleep at night because of the “Jewish reaction”), has followed the above-mentioned interactive dialogue. It may also be significant that the Israeli regime claims it has only recently realised it can be indicted to the ICC for its war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Operation Cast Lead massacre through the invocation of the Uniting for Peace Resolution 377 in the United Nations General Assembly. Perhaps though, Goldstone’s backdown may in fact influence outraged UN members in the opposite direction than which the Israeli regime would prefer. Curious too is the inclusion of the Itamar murders, phrased in such a way that Hamas might be implicated, in Goldstone’s Op Ed. Since when does Israeli media publish stories about murders in the US, unless they involve Israelis?
According to Bell, Goldstone insisted at the debate that all the investigations showed that, thus far, the facts were as they were reported. “Later on he apologized and said there may be people who would disagree with what he said, like Professor Bell” said Bell, quoting Goldstone.
Bell told Haaretz that, in his opinion, the whole experience of the last few months – where Goldstone has heard what many people have to say about him and his report – “caught up with him.”
A further Ynet oddly phased report says the New York Times refused to publish Goldstone’s op ed – was this because the NYT had already published a story about Goldstone’s harassment last year and folks might have joined too many dots? or does the NYT have additional information it could bring to the table? since when doesn’t the NYT publish hasbara?
A source close to Goldstone stated that in the past few days the judge had approached the editor of the New York Times opinion pages requesting to post the article he wrote in the paper – and was told his article was rejected.
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Dr. Alon Liel, a friend of Goldstone’s from his days as a Foreign Ministry representative in South Africa, went a step further and said that Goldstone has “been through hell” and that has contributed to his decision to publish a letter of regret.
“He was being constantly harassed, received threatening letters, and was forced to change his phone number and email addresses,” Liel said. “When Israel decided to boycott him, it was an overwhelming insult.’I’m a Jewish judge, a respected Zionist – and Israel doesn’t trust me?’ He was a broken man.
“I’m not saying that the threats he received and the hell he went through are what made him publish his article, but there is no doubt in my mind that it influenced his decision.”
UPDATES
Elise Hendrick exposes Israel’s intentional crimes which Goldstone has attempted to make disappear, and notes that Israel itself admitted its intentionality of committing war crimes.
Indeed, it is clear from the Report that the most criminal of Israel’s attacks on Gaza, the white phosphorus bombardment of a UN field office and fuel depot where civilians were taking refuge and two hospitals, were intentional by Israel’s own admission.
Ali Abunimah considers the probability that Goldstone’s distancing himself from the United Nations Fact Finding Commission assists in a lead-up to another massacre by Israel of people in Gaza.
International complicity also continues to send Israel a clear message that its impunity is guaranteed. The Obama administration’s recent veto of a UN Security Council resolution that merely restated US policy on Israel’s settlement construction in the West Bank was one sure sign that Israel still has a blank check from the United States.
Tragically, the biggest contributor to renewed confidence in Israel that it could once again get away with murder in Gaza, may be Judge Richard Goldstone himself. Israeli leaders have seized on his apologetic 1 April op-ed in The Washington Post as vindication and proof that Israel never committed war crimes in Gaza, and was the victim a “blood libel,” as Jeffrey Goldberg, former Israeli occupation army volunteer and The Atlantic blogger put it.
While Goldstone was clearly trying to appease Zionists who subjected him to an intense campaign of personal vilification and ostracism his article did not in fact repudiate one single concrete finding in the report that bears his name.
Over in the US empire, the State Department slavishly brays joy at Goldstone’s supposed recantation. How many US politicians and public servants have actually read the United Nations Fact Finding Mission Report, one has to wonder?
Israel’s new Dahiya Doctrine for Lebanon with intentional targeting of civilians under the false justification that military installations are located therein is exposed in the Daily Star.
But his words carry no weight whatsoever: he wrote the piece to the Washington Post as a person, while the Goldstone Report is an official report sanctioned by the UN. There is a big difference. Of course, this lousy man who has a history of white supremacy while he worked as a judge in South Africa (yes, he saw the light about racism, years later like all white supremacists) did not accept to take his job unless he is allowed to the investigate possible war crimes by the Palestinian victims. If this man was around during the holocaust, he would not have accepted to investigate Nazi war crimes without having a mandate to investigate war crimes of concentration camp survivors.
South African jurist Richard Goldstone said Tuesday that he did not plan to seek nullification of his highly critical U.N. report on Israel’s 2008-2009 offensive in the Gaza Strip and asserted that claims to the contrary by Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai were false.
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“As appears from the Washington Post article, information subsequent to publication of the report did meet with the view that one correction should be made with regard to intentionality on the part of Israel,” the judge said. “Further information as a result of domestic investigations could lead to further reconsideration, but as presently advised I have no reason to believe any part of the report needs to be reconsidered at this time.”
‘It is therefore regrettable that the Israeli government and many in the media have portrayed Goldstone’s op-ed as a retraction of everything in the 575-page report. “The one point of light,” Gabriela Shalev, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, said of Goldstone’s op-ed, “is that if we have to defend ourselves against terror organizations again, we will be able to say there is no way to deal with this terror other than the same way we did in Cast Lead.”’
‘”Our Palestinian people feel shocked and angered regarding the European vote on Friday, March 25, 2011 in the 16th term of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva,” the letter said.
EU representatives voted against a resolution which started a process that could lead allegations of war crimes during Israel’s 2008-2009 war on Gaza to the International Court of Justice.
“We were expecting a European position that supported the resolution,” the letter added.
While member nations of the UNHRC passed the motion, Palestinian officials denounced “the fact that the majority of European countries did not vote in favor of the resolution.”‘
In particular, Amnesty International has called on the General Assembly to consider the Fact-Finding Mission’s report at its 66th session starting in September 2011, and submit the report to the UN Security Council with a recommendation that the latter body consider referring the situation to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). This recommendation was also included in a resolution passed by the Human Rights Council on 25 March 2011.
Amnesty International also urged the ICC Prosecutor to seek a legal determination from the Pre-Trial Chamber on whether an investigation could be launched on the basis of a 2009 declaration by the Palestinian Authority accepting the Court’s jurisdiction over crimes committed on the Palestinian territories. Finally, we have consistently called for national authorities of other states to exercise universal jurisdiction over war crimes committed during the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict, just as we urge states to exercise universal jurisdiction over war crimes in other conflicts where the domestic authorities are unwilling or unable to act.’
and re Israel’s massacre of the Sammouni family:
‘Justice Goldstone’s op-ed mentions only one of these incidents, an Israeli attack on 5 January 2009 which killed 21 members of the al-Sammouni family, which is the subject of an ongoing Israeli military investigation. Assessing whether specific Israeli attacks on civilians during the conflict were deliberate is extremely difficult because the Israeli military has not released the evidence that would allow independent parties to evaluate its conclusions. Amnesty International has not argued that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) targeted Palestinian civilians “as a matter of policy”, but rather that IDF rules of engagement and actions during the conflict failed to take sufficient precautions to minimize civilian casualties. Justice Goldstone’s recent comments do not dispute this assessment.’
‘The report is an officially approved United Nations document, and Goldstone is but one among four authors.
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He thus adopts the Israeli position that any misdeeds during the Gaza assault were caused by individual deviants, not by policies or rules of engagement ordered by military leaders.
Yet the original report never accused Israel of widespread deliberate attacks on civilians, and thus Goldstone retracted a claim that had never been made. Most of its essential findings remain unchallenged.
Goldstone’s newfound confidence in the Israeli military’s self-investigations is inexplicable. The Goldstone Report itself concluded that they “do not comply with international standards of independence and impartiality.” Another body of U.N. experts led by retired New York Supreme Court Justice Mary McGowan Davis found, “there is no indication that Israel has opened investigations into the actions of those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw Operation Cast Lead.”
Hence nothing should impede the progress of the Goldstone Report through the United Nations system, including, ultimately, to the International Criminal Court. Israel’s impunity from international law must end not only to provide justice to its victims – but also to promote durable peace in the Middle East.’
Israeli Soldiers Admit to War Crimes in Gaza War.
Following the recent “revolutions” in the Arab world, Ilan Pappe, historian, answers questions from Frank Barat, coordinator of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine. (russelltribunalonpalestine.com/?en/?)
“Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel’s War Against the Palestinians” by Ilan Pappe and Noam Chomsky (edited by Frank Barat) is out now.
is this an April Fool’s joke or really Richard Goldstone backing off the findings in his report? Goldstone has proved once more that zionists obfuscate to protect Israel from proper scrutiny of its crimes. By sanitising his report and repudiating his original, correct thoughts that Israel had committed war crimes, whilst whining about undue attention to Israel in the UN, Goldstone is either consiciously or unconsciously giving the zionists a green light to continue more of its disgusting atrocities and possibly initiate another massacre. Speaking of undue attention in the UN, should every murder of an Israeli be a matter for concern in the UNHRC as Goldstone suggests with the Itamar murders? So who really wrote Goldstone’s op ed? come on hasbaroids, own up. The inclusion of the unrelated Itamar murders is a dead giveaway.
Over two years since the fighting in Gaza has ended it is clear that neither Israel nor Hamas is going to conduct credible investigations into the charges leveled against them by the UN fact finding mission. The experts’ report summarized:
The Committee heard the respective parties’ claims that their systems have established mechanisms to ensure accountability and justice. Yet, after listening to victims, witnesses and human rights organizations, it is clear that the needs of victims are not being adequately addressed.
For this reason, it is obvious that it is now time to follow-up on the recommendation of the Goldstone Report and refer the case to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to conduct a proper legal investigation.
“Everything we said was proven to be true. Israel did not willfully harm civilians,” Netanyahu explained, adding, “Israel’s investigating authorities are worthy, while Hamas investigated nothing. The fact that Goldstone withdrew his conclusions must lead to the retraction of the report once and for all.” ‘
We are further concerned that the government of Israel has not sought to implement the recommendations from the 2003 Or Commission to tackle discrimination against Israel’s Arab community, or the 2008 Goldberg Commission, which recommends recognising most of the remaining unrecognised Bedouin villages. The demolition of Bedouin houses and villages continues.
‘Former Foreign Ministry director-general Alon Liel, speaking on Channel 10 Sunday, said he is a friend of Goldstone and that the retired Jewish judge “couldn’t sleep at night” because of Jewish reaction to his scathing report against Israel. “The Jewish reaction definitely influenced him to write his op-ed in The Washington Post,” Liel stated. “He added that his daughter Nicole’s reaction also had an impact on him.”‘
‘The Hamas de facto administration has completely failed to prosecute perpetrators of crimes under international law. As detailed below, Israel’s Military Advocate General has indicted four soldiers on criminal charges in three different incidents relating to the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict. Given the scale and gravity of the Israeli violations identified in the report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict headed by Justice Richard Goldstone,3 Amnesty International concludes that two years after the conflict, the Israeli authorities have also failed to prosecute suspected perpetrators of crimes under international law.’
‘But I do think that the op-ed raises questions that could easily be laid to rest were Judge Goldstone to make explicit his views on whether Israel has discharged its obligation. In the original op-ed, he wrote.
Indeed, our main recommendation was for each party to investigate, transparently and in good faith, the incidents referred to in our report. McGowan Davis has found that Israel has done this to a significant degree.
Is a “significant degree” a “sufficient degree”? According to McGowan Davis, no. According to Judge Goldstone in the Bill Moyers interview, an internal IDF investigation would not be sufficient’
In his op-ed, Goldstone wrote that Israel’s own investigations (see below) “indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy”. This in particular has been seized on as an indication that a core element of the Report has been ‘retracted’.
This is misleading. The Report never claimed that Israel set out to intentionally murder civilians, but said that Cast Lead was “deliberately disproportionate” and intended “to punish, humiliate and terrorize”. Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, has been making this point on Twitter. He commented, that the “crime of indiscriminate warfare” – not “deliberate killing” – was indeed “state policy”, and that there had been “no retraction” on that part.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that there was an attempt to bar Richard Goldstone from attending his grandson’s bar mitzvah in Johannesburg. While a Jewish group in South Africa had threatened to stage a protest if Mr. Goldstone attended the event, they did not attempt to prevent him from attending the celebration. He attended the celebration without incident.
Justice Arthur Chaskalson, who served with Judge Goldstone on South Africa’s Constitutional Court, said the threats “reveal a level of bigotry and intolerance meant to shut down any diversity of opinion.”
He said he hoped his friend would reconsider — and come anyway.
Late last month the UN’s Human Rights Council, which set up the fact-finding mission, recommended that the General Assembly refer the Goldstone Report to the Security Council – the decisive stage in moving it to the International Criminal Court.
It is expected that the US, which has consistently opposed such a referral, will block the report’s progress to the ICC – further embarrassing Washington after its recent veto at the UN of a Palestinian resolution against Israeli settlements.
History shows us that rebellions armed by the United States and Britain are ethically and morally bankrupt. Have we forgotten about the Contras of Nicaragua, the Mujahedeen of Afghanistan and the Cuban dissidents of Miami? These are the ‘freedom fighters’ we support and arm to the teeth, but what happens when they kill their own people? All part of the struggle for that Great Western Democracy they have been fighting towards for so long, I suppose?
According to Voltairenet.org, the popular revolt which took seed in Benghazi, Libya last month had been planned by France’s secret services since November 2010. At the time, France drew the United Kingdom into its scheme as a partner, which now explains the earnest push with which both countries have exerted over action for a no-fly zone over Libya to help rebel forces. When the United States became involved in these discussions, it threw in its own objectives which included a counter-revolution in the Arab World as well as AFRICOM’s landing on the continent.
Just goes to show as ever – never trust a smiling imperialist.
Quote for the Day from @AboriginalOz: #ChampagneRacism Europeans have Nations. Africans and Indigenous peoples have Tribes. #
“We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is a Jewish, state here…Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages…There is not a single community in the country that did not have a former Arab population.” Israeli leader, Moshe Dayan, quoted in Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi’s “Original Sins.”
Noted from the figures below the story, that Israel imports 4 times the goods to Australia than Australia exports to Israel.
Let’s reduce our unhealthy trade balance!
I see the unnamed ‘An Israeli embassy spokeswoman’ has ‘urged the Greens to engage in dialogue rather than support boycotts, suggesting such a path would embolden radicals.
“Those who are behind the policy of singling out Israel through a boycott are clearly showing their true colours,” she said. “The whole boycott program strengthens the radicals in a lot of ways.
“A lot of people who support the boycotts have never read the BDS charter which states Israel should be just a one-state country.
“It does not support negotiations at all.”
This unnamed mossad agent needs to read the BDS resolution which doesn’t state Israel should be a one-state country. In Australia generally, compliance with international law is only an issue if the US says it is. And it ‘s Israel’s continued building of illegal settlements & #Occupation which make one state inevitable, not BDS.
My comment passed through the Australian’s gatekeeper:
‘The BDS resolution called for by Palestinian people who have suffered 63 years of dispossession of their lands and 44 years of brutal military occupation does not say “Israel should be just a one-state country”. The remarks by the “unnamed Israeli embassy spokeswoman” are lies. EVERYONE should read the resolution here – bdsmovement.net – to understand how politicians and public are being duped against supporting Palestinian justice and rights against a system of apartheid which leading South African anti-apartheidists say is worse than that of white South Africa. Compliance with international law is NOT radical. “These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people`s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by: 1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall 2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and 3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.”‘
Asked how many children and parents were awaiting deportation in the new holding cells set up at Ben-Gurion Airport, the official said, “I don’t know, and I don’t know that we’re going to give out that information.”
During the interview, though, the official said “dozens” had been in the cells.
It once seemed as though BDS could strengthen the hand of those Israeli Jews who favoured a period of consolidation around a 1967-variant Palestinian ‘state’. This is no longer the case.
For as long as Palestinians are calling for BDS, their request has to be honoured. But the revolutions sweeping the Arab world contain the whisper of a potentially new strategy for Palestinian liberation. More accurately, it is the rebirth of an older strategy that many thought dead and buried: mass action by progressive, democratic and secular forces across the Middle East to liberate all peoples of the region.
On this Land Day, perhaps supporters of the Palestinian cause outside the region can dare to dream of ways in which we can help catalyse that process.
Libya foreign minister who just defected in London, suggesting he is man of “acumen” and intellect who we can work with. “He is Western-educated… and is seen as a strong supporter of re-engagement with the West…. Kussa is the rare Libyan official who embodies a combination of intellectual acumen, operational ability and political weight.”
True, the last time you famously did something about it, the man for whom you went to bat (and whom you got a retrial and an eventual acquittal by reminding the world of how he was railroaded) threatened to sue you for using his life story without permission. But in this case you don’t have to write a song. You don’t even have to sing a song. What you have to do is simply NOT sing – at least not in Israel.
Mr Merkel said the forcible removal of Aboriginal children from their families had roots in the eugenics movement of the 1930s. Informing that policy, he said, was a view that Aboriginal children with any trace of white blood were “savable” by virtue of being not entirely aboriginal.
In his articles, Mr Merkel said, “Bolt has taken us back to that view of Aboriginality”.
Mr Merkel claimed the case was not about free speech, as had been argued in some corners. Nor was it about Bolt’s right to hold the views he expressed in his articles. Rather it was about whether Bolt had acted in good faith in balancing the expression of those views with the offence and hurt they were likely to cause.
“The Holocaust started with words and ended in violence,” Mr Merkel said.
Within-gender analysis shows that 78 percent of female victims (n=87) of homicide in 2007–08 were killed by an offender with whom they shared a domestic relationship. This was not the case for
of male victims who were actually more likely to have been killed by an acquaintance or stranger (n=92, 84%) than by someone with whom they shared a domestic relationship (n=57, 35%).
