The legitimate call to boycott Israel comes from over 170 groups from Palestinian civil society, because despite scores of UNSC and UNGA resolutions (other countries are invaded by the US & Co. for breaking even 1 UNSC resolution), and the failure of the disingenuous ‘peace process’ which serves as cover for Israel to steal more Palestinian land, Israel has not amended its appalling criminal behaviour. In fact, the currrent regime has passed three more discriminatory laws in the past week or so to add to more than 30 existing such laws whilst tightening the illegal siege, which constitutes collective punishment, on the people who inhabit the open air prison that is Gaza once more and committing its customary panoply of human rights violations throughout the West Bank.
Palestinian people are guaranteed justice and rights under international law, yet Israel denies them these, with the collusion of the US and its sycophantic subalterns like Australia, the UK and Canada. Boycotts, divestments and sanctions are a grassroots, global, non-violent means of specifically targeting the institutions and organisations which support the illegal Israeli occupation and apartheid regime because all other methods have failed to attain Palestinian people’s just rights.
A partial settlement boycott is insufficient, because Israel’s crimes are not only those of occupying and stealing Palestinian land in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, but also consist of denying Palestinian Israelis full equal rights and refusing to recognise the right for Palestinian refugees to return to their lands although this right is supported by a raft of international laws and UN resolutions.
From the filthy tactics used on Greens candidates, Goldstone and others (see the Masada and other hate lists) and initiatives like those afore-mentioned, it’s clear that human rights defenders are putting themselves on the line to protest against this extremist, unrepentant regime and its ongoing crimes. By its own actions and actions of those who support its impunity and injustices, the Israel regime delegitimises itself.
“this is a reality that has been in existence since 1948 and [these soldiers should not be indicted] just as they never thought to put Ehud Barak or Danny Yotam on trial when they were photographed on the wing of a plane while stepping on the body of a terrorist [1972, AP].”
He chastised the military establishment for their handling of the situation, saying that a decades-old practice is falling on the backs of a few soldiers. He added that these are “good soldiers, and this is a job for the head education officer.”
that the judge was ready to work to have the UN report withdrawn. He has demanded a public correction from Yishai. After a response from Yishai was not immediately forthcoming, Goldstone issued another statement opposing the rescission of his commission’s report.
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Despite Foreign Ministry efforts to issue a correction, Yishai delayed a response several hours and ultimately released a short statement correcting the record after midnight.
Around 1:30 A.M., Goldstone, who was in California, was informed of Yishai’s statement, but he had already gone to the media denying Yishai’s earlier remarks and saying that he had never discussed the report in his conversation with Yishai. A Foreign Ministry source said the spat with Yishai will make it much harder for Israel to get Goldstone to approach the United Nations regarding its stance on Cast Lead.
This stance by the Australian government is also out of step with Australian public opinion. We are being very poorly represented on this question. An online survey by Research Now of 1021 Australians last year, by Griffith University researchers Eulalia Han and Halim Rane, showed: “The majority (55%) understand the Israel-Palestine conflict to be about ‘Palestinians trying to end Israel’s occupation and form their own state’.”
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Where governments refuse to act, the onus passes to a responsible citizenry, to continue to explain the issues, and to take our own action where appropriate, including through local councils and political parties.”
The ferocity of the response to Fiona Byrne (for Marrickville
Council’s BDS stand) and now the attacks on Ms Rhiannon, are a clear reflection of the effectiveness of the BDS strategy. Those with a vested interest in the Occupation are evidently threatened by these exemplary women and their principled stand.
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?
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 U.N. subsidiary organs and bodies. We must do to Israel what the U.N. 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 U.N. 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 U.N. 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 United States government has never been an honest broker from well before the very outset of these negotiations in 1991. Rather, the United States 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 U.N. 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 of the UN Charter 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 offences against the Palestinian people.
In the JPost story, ex-UN Israeli ambassador Gabriela Shalev says:
If the Palestinians can gain General Assembly recognition for statehood under a “Uniting for Peace” resolution, she warned, “it would be a real obstacle… not just a public relations setback. This would seek to impose on us some kind of Palestinian state.”
It is made clear again that, as the Palestine Papers highlighted, Israel is terrified of the concept of a Palestinian state, despite all its protestations of being a genuine partner in peace processes aimed at producing one, though not the sort of state which Palestinian people would like, nor one with sovereign powers, but rather a tripartite bantustan system.
So what do the zionists want? Patently, the default position – to continue expansionism as long as possible while pretending to be honest ‘peace partners’ – expansionism as ever is zionists’ primary strategy, tactic and aim, to take all the land, to drive out and dispossess as many Palestinians as possible while making life discriminatory and uncomfortable for Palestinians who remain on their indigenous land, the same as zionists have been doing for more than 63 years.
Now Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak is warning of even tougher action.
“Israel will not tolerate these terror attacks and we will not allow terror to rise once again,” he said.
At a joint press conference in Ashdod with US defence secretary Robert Gates, Mr Barak said Israel had no choice but to respond to the latest violence.
But he is yet to reveal the timing or nature of the response.
Mr Gates says the violence is all the more reason to reopen the peace process which collapsed late last year.
“There is a need and an opportunity for bold action to move toward a two-state solution,” he said.
Despite the escalation, Hamas does not seem to want large-scale clashes yet. The organization actually has good reasons to believe that Israel is the one heating up the southern front. It began with a bombardment a few weeks ago that disrupted the transfer of a large amount of money from Egypt to the Gaza Strip, continued with the interrogation of engineer and Hamas member Dirar Abu Sisi in Israel, and ended with last week’s bombing of a Hamas training base in which two Hamas militants were killed.
It is noteworthy that Hamas has not fired at Israel over the past two days, even after four Palestinian civilians were killed by errant IDF mortar fire on Tuesday.
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s office said yesterday that Haniyeh had phoned the secretary general of Islamic Jihad, Abdallah Ramadan Salah, in Damascus. Pundits in Gaza said Haniyeh asked Salah to stop the escalation, for which Islamic Jihad is mainly responsible.
With Gaddafi perched on a massive stockpile of gold, enough to pay his troops and buy more for years, the prospect of a quick end to the west’s assault on Gaza seems remote despite Gate’s intonations that the campaign will slow in the next few days.
The gold reserves are believed to have been moved from the central bank in the capital, Tripoli, to another city such as Sebha in the south, which is near Libya’s African neighbours Chad and Niger, after fighting broke out, the Times reported.
While bankers told the Times that international banks or trading houses were unlikely to buy any gold believed to be from Libya, Colonel Gaddafi may find buyers in Chad or Niger.
Senior figures in Washington have also emphasised that the coalition is barred by the UN from attempting to hit Gaddafi; the issue is sensitive because of fears that talk of toppling the regime could alienate Arab supporters of the action.
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The controversy was sparked when Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, signalled that Gaddafi could be a “legitimate target”. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, also left open the possibility in a BBC interview yesterday.
But Gen Richards, speaking after a meeting of ministers and military chiefs on Libya, was adamant that Gaddafi could not be targeted. Asked if it could happen, he replied: “Absolutely not. It is not allowed under the UN resolution and it is not something I want to discuss any further.”
In an emergency Commons debate, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said any military action had to be consistent with the UN mandate, but stopped short of ruling out an attack on Gaddafi under any circumstances.
He said: “Targets must be fully consistent with the UN Security Council resolution. We choose our targets to stop attacks on civilians and to implement the no-fly zone. But we should not give a running commentary on targeting.”
Sir Menzies Campbell, former Liberal Democrat leader, said: “Neither the resolution nor international law would justify the specific targeting or, in truth, assassination of Colonel Gaddafi. But if he were engaged in direct control of military occupations contrary to the resolution, and the command and control centre in which he was to be found were the subject of attack, then he would be a legitimate target.”
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Last night, the Government won clear backing for the military action, with 557 supporting the involvement of UK forces, and 13 MPs voting against.
A ComRes poll last night for ITV found that public support for the action in Libya is lukewarm, with only 35 per cent believing it was right for the UK to take action against Gaddafi forces and 53 per cent saying it would be unacceptable for British personnel to risk death or injury.
In 2005, the UK licensed the sale of £29.5m worth of “military transport aircraft” to the colonel; and in 2009 and 2010 licensed the sale of “bombing computers” and “military aircraft ground equipment” too.
In addition, between 2005 and 2007, sales of armoured all-wheel drive vehicles, armoured personnel carriers, night vision goggles and water cannon got the go-ahead.
The biggest shipments (and most alarming ones, given how Gaddafi’s forces are repressing the population) suggest that the exports didn’t even help boost British manufacturing. In 2007, for example, a job lot of “anti-riot shields, body armour, anti-riot guns, crowd control ammunition, smoke ammunition, tear gas/irritant ammunition, smoke hand grenades & CS hand grenades” were licensed for export to Libya by British businessmen. The materials, however, were from Serbia.
In 2005, a £41m package of battlefield weapons, including heavy machine guns, armour for tanks, day and night sights for weapons and military image intensifier equipment, originally from the Ukraine, was also licensed.
The oddest export, however, was licensed between July and September last year when the Foreign Office approved the sale of what it describes as “spacecraft”. Perhaps this offers a possible way out for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s Mad Dog chum.
WESTERN Cape high court judge Siraj Desai and former intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils have come out in support of a Holocaust survivors’ South African campaign for a boycott of Israel.
Speaking at a dinner in Cape Town on Sunday night, Hajo Meyer, an 86-year-old Jewish scientist and a survivor of Nazi Germany’s Auschwitz concentration camp, called for a concentrated cultural and academic boycott against Israel.
Investigator Richard Falk says settlement expansion, consequent evicting of Palestinians ‘intolerable’ : The “continued pattern of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem combined with the forcible eviction of long-residing Palestinians are creating an intolerable situation” in the part of the city previously controlled by Jordan, he said.
This situation “can only be described in its cumulative impact as a form of ethnic cleansing,” Falk declared.
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Israel declines to deal with Falk or even allow him into the country, accusing him of bias against the Jewish state.
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In his speech, Falk said he would like the Human Rights Council to ask the International Court of Justice to look at Israeli behaviour in the occupied territories.
This should focus on whether the prolonged occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem had elements of “colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing inconsistent with international humanitarian law,” the investigator declared.
Maintaining a revolutionary position in the present Libyan scenario is like walking in a minefield. One cannot applaud imperialists with their undeniable record of ruthless manipulation in pursuit of control of the world’s energy resources nor the violent tyranny of Gaddafi and bevy of Western puppet dictators which infest nations which often hold treasures coveted by mercantilists. In the Financial Times, Roula Khalaf reminds us of the recent history of the Libyan revolution and warns of the impact of Gaddafi’s manipulations across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA):
But as the international coalition steps up its attacks on Libyan forces, Muammer Gaddafi is single-handedly, and tragically, transforming the image of the Arab spring, taking the region back to what we have long been used to, a combination of bloody conflict and foreign intervention.
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It is important to remember that Libyans began their protests peacefully, marching across the country to demand Col Gaddafi’s departure. They were forced to take up arms to confront a crackdown using every military tool in Col Gaddafi’s arsenal. As army officers broke away and sided with the rebels, and ammunition depots were raided, the stand-off veered towards civil war.
It was also the rebels themselves who were the first to call upon the world community for assistance, specifically asking for a no-fly zone to protect the cities and towns that were under their control. And it is only grudgingly that a coalition has been formed, with the US a late-comer to the game, and everyone insisting that any military operation required Arab backing.
Navy Vice Adm. William E. Gortney underlined that strikes are not specifically targeting the Libyan leader or his residence in Tripoli. He said that any of Gadhafi’s ground forces advancing on the rebels were open targets.
But NBC Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski today knocked down the talk that what is going on militarily is a “huge coalition effort.” Here’s what he said in a remarkable segment this morning:
“Despite the White House attempts to make this look like it’s a huge coalition effort — obviously it required coalition political support — but for now the U.S. military is not only in the lead but conducting almost all military operations, with only minor participation from the French, as you mentioned, even British fighters over night. There’s a U.S. commander. And even this morning I talked to senior military officials, when I asked them how soon will the U.S. turn over the command to the coalition — and the indication is the U.S. military is in no hurry to do that.”
A refugee crisis – another cruel human toll consequent of war – is mounting:
As of 19 March, IOM and UNHCR estimated that at least 320,423 people have fled Libya, and approximately 8,578 remain stranded at the Libyan borders with Tunisia and Egypt.
And in Palestine, Israel’s foul oppression and collective punishment continues with a green light from the West, with opposition leader Livni calling for a repetition of the vile Cast Lead operation against the people of Gaza. Israel has cut a main power line in Gaza. The apartheid state has also admitted holding Gazan electrical engineer Abu Sisi.
Abu Sisi, 42, and a father of six, disappeared from a train while travelling between Kiev and the eastern city of Kharkiv on the night of February 18-19.
The engineer’s wife Veronika said she had been told by train attendants that her husband had been taken away by two men posing as officers of the Ukrainian secret service,
He is being held at Shikma prison in Ashkelon, according to a Ukrainian delegate at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees cited by Israeli media.
Hamas condemned the abduction and demanded the engineer’s release.
“This kidnapping violates international law and Ukraine’s sovereignty. It is further proof of the contempt of the (Israeli) occupation for the international community,” spokesman Sami Abu Zohi told AFP.
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RT @avinunu: Iraq was devasted by weeks of intensive bombing in 1991 and Saddam held on for 12 more years, despite crippling sanctions. #
The new MI unit will monitor Western groups involved in boycotting Israel, divesting from it or imposing sanctions on it. The unit will also collect information about groups that attempt to bring war crime or other charges against high-ranking Israeli officials, and examine possible links between such organizations and terror groups.
