Israel in action

"The Method" in Netanyahu’s madness: Israel rules out non-violence

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 17:17:21 PDT

It was an Arab legislator who made the most telling comment to the Israeli parliament last week as it passed the boycott law, which outlaws calls to boycott Israel or its settlements in the occupied territories. Ahmed Tibi asked: “What is a peace activist or Palestinian allowed to do to oppose the occupation? Is there anything you agree to?”

The boycott law is the latest in a series of ever-more draconian laws being introduced by the far-right. The legislation's goal is to intimidate those Israeli citizens, Jews and Palestinians, who have yet to bow down before the majority-rule mob.

Look out in the coming days and weeks for a bill to block the work of Israeli human rights organisations trying to protect Palestinians in the occupied territories from abuses by the Israeli army and settlers; and a draft law investing a parliamentary committee, headed by the far-right, with the power to veto appointments to the supreme court. The court is the only, and already enfeebled, bulwark against the right's absolute ascendancy.

The boycott law, backed by Benjamin Netanyahu's government, marks a watershed in this legislative assault in two respects.

First, it knocks out the keystone of any democratic system: the right to free speech. The new law makes it illegal for Israelis and Palestinians to advocate a non-violent political programme -- boycott -- to counter the ever-growing power of the half a million Jewish settlers living on stolen Palestinian land.

As the Israeli commentator Gideon Levy observed, the floodgates are now open: "Tomorrow it will be forbidden to call for an end to the occupation [or for] brotherhood between Jews and Arabs."

Equally of concern is that the law creates a new type of civil, rather than criminal, offence. The state will not be initiating prosecutions. Instead, the job of enforcing the boycott law is being outsourced to the settlers and their lawyers. Anyone backing a boycott can be sued for compensation by the settlers themselves, who -- again uniquely -- need not prove they suffered actual harm.

Under this law, opponents of the occupation will not even be dignified with jail sentences and the chance to become prisoners of conscience. Rather, they will be quietly bankrupted in private actions, their assets seized either to cover legal costs or as punitive damages.

Human rights lawyers point out that there is no law like this anywhere in the democratic world. Even Eyal Yinon, the naturally conservative legal adviser to the parliament, assessed the law’s aim as stopping a “discussion that has been at the heart of political debate in Israel for more than 40 years”. But more than half of Israelis back it, with only 31 per cent opposed.

The delusional, self-pitying worldview that spawned the boycott law was neatly illustrated this month in a short video "ad" that is supported, and possibly financed, by Israel's hasbara, or propaganda, ministry. Fittingly, it is set in a psychiatrist's office.

A young, traumatised woman deciphers the images concealed in the famous Rorschach test. As she is shown the ink-splodges, her panic and anger grow. Gradually, we come to realise, she represents vulnerable modern Israel, abandoned by friends and still in profound shock at the attack on her navy's commandos by the "terrorist" passengers aboard last year's aid flotilla to Gaza.

Immune to reality -- that the ships were trying to break Israel's punitive siege of Gaza, that the commandos illegally boarded the ships in international waters, and that they shot dead nine activists execution-style -- Miss Israel tearfully recounts that the world is "forever trying to torment and harm [us] for no reason". Finally she storms out, saying: "What do you want - for [Israel] to disappear off the map?"

The video -- released under the banner "Stop the provocation against Israel" -- was part of a campaign to discredit the recent follow-up flotilla from Greece. The aid mission was abandoned after Greek authorities, under Israeli pressure, refused to let the convoy sail for Gaza.

Israel's siege mentality asserted itself again days later as international activists staged another show of solidarity -- this one nicknamed the "flytilla". Hundreds tried to fly to Israel on the same day, declaring their intention to travel to the West Bank. The goal was to highlight that Israel both controls and severely restricts access to the occupied territories and to Palestinians.

Proving precisely the protesters’ point, Israel threatened airlines with retaliation if they carried the activists and it massed hundreds of soldiers at Ben Gurion airport to greet arrivals. Some 150 peaceful protesters who reached Israel were arrested moments after landing.

Echoing the deranged sentiments of the woman in the video, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, denounced the various flotillas as "denying Israel's right to exist" and a threat to its security.

In reality, however, the surge in flotilla activity reflects not an attack on Israel but a growing appreciation by international groups that Israel is successfully sealing off from the world the small areas of the occupied territories left to Palestinians. The flotillas are a rebellion against the Palestinians’ rapid ghettoisation.

Although Netanyahu's comments sound delusional, there may be a method to the madness of measures like the boycott law and the hysterical overreaction to the flotillas.

These initiatives, as Tibi points out, leave no room for non-violent opposition to the occupation. Arundhati Roy, the award-winning Indian writer, has noted that non-violence is essentially "a piece of theatre. [It] needs an audience. What can you do when you have no audience?"

Netanyahu and the Israeli right understand this point. They are carefully dismantling every platform on which dissident Israelis, Palestinians and international activists hope to stage their protests. They are making it impossible to organise joint peaceful and non-violent resistance, whether in the form of boycotts or solidarity visits. The only way being left open is violence.

Is this what the Israeli right wants, believing both that it will confirm to Israelis’ their paranoid fantasies as well as offering a justification to the world for entrenching the occupation?

Netanyahu appears to believe that, by generating the very terror he claims to be trying to defeat, he can safeguard the legitimacy of the Jewish state -- and destroy any hope of a Palestinian state being created.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25675

Israel admits it covertly canceled residency status of 140,000 Palestinians

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Fri, 13 May 2011 13:22:36 PDT

Document obtained by Haaretz reveals that between 1967 and 1994 many Palestinians traveling abroad were stripped of residency status, allegedly without warning.
By Akiva Eldar

Israel has used a covert procedure to cancel the residency status of 140,000 West Bank Palestinians between 1967 and 1994, the legal advisor for the Judea and Samaria Justice Ministry's office admits, in a new document obtained by Haaretz. The document was written after the Center for the Defense of the Individual filed a request under the Freedom of Information Law.

The document states that the procedure was used on Palestinian residents of the West Bank who traveled abroad between 1967 and 1994. From the occupation of the West Bank until the signing of the Oslo Accords, Palestinians who wished to travel abroad via Jordan were ordered to leave their ID cards at the Allenby Bridge border crossing.
check - Baz Ratner - January 11 2011

Israeli soldier checks Palestinians' identification.
Photo by: Baz Ratner

They exchanged their ID cards for a card allowing them to cross. The card was valid for three years and could be renewed three times, each time adding another year.

If a Palestinian did not return within six months of the card's expiration, thier documents would be sent to the regional census supervisor. Residents who failed to return on time were registered as NLRs - no longer residents. The document makes no mention of any warning or information that the Palestinians received about the process.

Palestinians could still return in the first six months after their cards expired, or appeal to an exemptions committee.

The Center for the Defense of the Individual said yesterday it knew that a clear procedure was in place, but the details and the number of Palestinians denied their right to return remained classified. A former head of the Civil Administration in the 1990s was surprised to hear of the procedure when contacted by Haaretz.

Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. (res. ) Danny Rothschild, who served as coordinator of government activities in the territories from 1991 to 1995, said he was completely unaware of the procedure, even though it was in use during his term. "If even I wasn't told of the procedure, one may infer that neither were residents of the occupied territories," he said.

The Central Bureau of Statistics says the West Bank's Palestinian population amounted to 1.05 million in 1994, which means the population would have been greater by about 14 percent if it weren't for the procedure.

By contrast, Palestinians who immigrated from the West Bank after the Palestinian Authority was set up retained residency rights even if they did not return for years.

Today, a similar procedure is still in place for residents of East Jerusalem who hold Israeli ID cards; they lose their right to return if they have been abroad for seven years.

Palestinians who found themselves "no longer residents" include students who graduated from foreign universities, businessmen and laborers who left for work in the Gulf. Over the years, many of them have started families, so the number of these Palestinians and their descendants is probably in the hundreds of thousands, even if some have died.

Also, several thousands Palestinians with close links to the Palestinian Authority were allowed to return over the years, as did a number of Palestinians whose cases were upheld by the joint committee for restoration of Palestinian ID cards. As of today, 130,000 Palestinians are listed as "no longer residents."

Among them is the brother of the Palestinians' chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat. Erekat's brother left for studies in the United States and was not allowed to come back; he still lives in California.

Erekat told Haaretz he had learned from his brother's experience, and when he himself left for studies abroad, he made sure to visit home from time to time so as not to lose his right to return.

The regulation's existence was discovered by the Center for the Defense of the Individual by pure chance, while it was looking into the case of a West Bank resident imprisoned in Israel.

The Civil Administration told the prisoner's family his ID card was "inactive." After a request for a clarification, Israel's legal adviser for Judea and Samaria said this was a misapplication of a certain policy by the census supervisor in the occupied territories.

The adviser added that three residents were mistakenly defined as no longer residents while in prison or in detention, and that their residency had now been restored. He wrote that their status had been changed not because of a policy but because of a technical error, without any connection to their imprisonment.

The Center for the Defense of the Individual said that "mass withdrawal of residency rights from tens of thousands of West Bank residents, tantamount to permanent exile from their homeland, remains an illegitimate demographic policy and a grave violation of international law."

It noted that an unknown number of Gaza residents had lost residency rights in a similar manner, but that the exact number was still a secret the center vowed to uncover. "The State of Israel should fix the ongoing wrong at once, restore residency rights to all affected Palestinians and allow them and their families to return to their homeland," the center said.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-admits-it-covertly-canceled-residency-status-of-140-000-palestinians-1.360935

Israel's Assault on Human Rights

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Tue, 10 May 2011 15:53:51 PDT

This, you are probably thinking, cannot happen in the United States. Such practices are common in China, North Korea and Syria, but not in liberal democracies that pride themselves on the basic right to freedom of expression.
In the United States students can of course access human rights websites, no matter where they surf from. But in Israel, which is also known as the only democracy in the Middle East, human rights websites as well as the websites of some extreme right-wing organizations cannot be accessed from Ben-Gurion, the country’s only international airport.
If this attack on freedom of expression was merely an isolated incident, one might be able to conclude that it was a mistake. Yet the restriction of human rights websites is actually part of a well-orchestrated assault carried out by the current government and legislature against Israel’s democratic institutions, procedures and practices. A spate of anti-democratic bills, now in the process of being ratified in the Israeli Knesset, render it a crime to support any ideology that poses alternatives to conservative interpretations of Zionism, such as support for the notion that Israel should be a democracy for all its citizens.
In early January forty-one (versus sixteen) Knesset members voted in favor of a proposal to establish a parliamentary inquiry commission into the funding of Israeli human rights organizations. MK Fania Kirshenbaum, who submitted the proposal, accused human rights groups of providing material to the Goldstone commission, which investigated Israel’s 2008-09 Gaza offensive.
Considering that the funding of all human rights organizations in Israel is made public each year and scrutinized by the state auditor, the idea of creating a parliamentary commission to inspect their income is merely a smokescreen. The parliamentary commission’s actual goal is to intimidate Israeli rights groups and their donors and, as a result, stifle free speech.
MK Kirshenbaum said as much when she accused the rights organizations of being “behind the indictments lodged against Israeli officers and officials around the world.” The majority of Knesset members supporting Kirshenbaum’s proposal wish to deter human rights organizations from making use of international human rights law and universal jurisdiction. They thus want to deprive Israeli rights groups of their most basic tools, the tools deployed to criticize rights-abusive policies. They might not oppose human rights groups, but they certainly do not want human rights work. In their myopic minds, the problem is not Israel’s unethical practices, but the organizations that reveal them.
The ongoing delegitimization of those watchdogs of democracy—human rights NGOs, the press and public intellectuals—is leading Israel down a steep and slippery slope. The next time someone travels through Ben-Gurion airport, he or she might not be able to access the websites of Israeli rights groups like Physicians for Human Rights and B’Tselem, not because they have been blocked, but because the organizations have been shut down.
The question Kirshenbaum and her supporters need to ask themselves is what kind of countries attack their own human rights organizations? The answer is straightforward.

http://www.israelsoccupation.info/article/israels-assault-human-rights-0

Israel's new laws promote repression

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Tue, 10 May 2011 15:18:04 PDT

"Bad laws," Edmund Burke once said, "are the worst sort of tyranny."

The millions of people who have been protesting - from Tunis, Egypt and Libya, to Bahrain, Yemen and Syria - appear to have recognised this truism and are demanding the end of emergency law and the drafting of new constitutions that will guarantee the separation of powers, free, fair and regular elections, and basic political, social and economic rights for all citizens.

To put it succinctly, they are fighting to end tyranny.

Within this dramatic context it is also fruitful to look at Israel, which is considered by many as the only democracy in the Middle East and which has, in many ways, been an outlier in the region. One might ask whether Israel or not stands as a beacon of light for those fighting tyranny.

On the one hand, the book of laws under which Israel's citizenry live is - with the exception of a handful of significant laws that privilege Jews over non-Jews - currently very similar to those used in most liberal democracies, where the executive, legislative and judicial powers are separated, there are free, fair and regular elections, and the citizens enjoy basic rights - including freedom of expression and association.

Israel's double standard

However, on the other hand, the Israeli military law used to manage the Palestinians are similar to those deployed in most Arab countries, where there is no real separation of powers and people are in many respects without rights. Even though there has been a Palestinian Authority since the mid-1990s, there is no doubt that sovereignty still lies in Israeli hands.

One accordingly notices that in this so-called free and democratic country, there are in fact two books of laws, one liberal for its own citizenry and the other for Palestinians under its occupation. Hence, Israel looks an awful lot like apartheid or colonialism.

But can Israel's democratic parts serve as a model of emulation for pro-democracy activists in the neighbouring Arab countries?

The answer is mixed - because as Arab citizens across the region struggle against tyranny, in Israel there appears to be an opposite trend, whereby large parts of the citizenry are not only acquiescent but have been supportive of Knesset members who are drafting new legislation to silence public criticism and to delegitimize political rivals, human rights organizations, and the Palestinian minority. The idea is to legally restrict individuals and groups that hold positions at odds with the government's right-wing agenda by presenting them as enemies of the State.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel recently warned that the laws promoted by the Knesset are dangerous and will have severe ramifications for basic human rights and civil liberties. The association, which is known for its evenhanded approach, went on to claim that the new laws "contribute to undemocratic and racist public stands, which have been increasingly salient in Israeli society in the past few years".

New wave of repressive laws

Here are just a few examples of approximately twenty bills that have either been approved or are currently under consideration.

• The Knesset approved a new law stating that organisations and institutions that commemorate Nakba Day, "deny the Jewish and democratic character of the State", and shall not receive public funds. Thus, even in the Arab schools within Israel, the Nakba must be erased. So much for democratic contestation and multiculturalism.

• Another new law states that "acceptance committees" of villages and communities may turn down a candidate if he or she "fails to meet the fundamental views of the community". According to ACRI, this bill intends to deny ethnic minorities' access to Jewish communities set up on predominantly public lands. So unless the new Arab pro-democracy movements want to base their countries on apartheid-like segregation, this is also not a law to emulate.

• The Knesset has approved a bill that pardons most of the protesters who demonstrated against Israel's withdrawal from Gaza. Although legislation easing punitive measures against persons who exercise their right to political protest is, in principle, positive, this particular bill blatantly favours activists with a certain political ideology. This does not bode well for the basic notion of equality before the law.

• An amendment to the existing Penalty Code stipulates that people who publish a call that denies the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state shall be imprisoned. This extension of the existing law criminalises political views that the ruling political group does not accept. It is supported by the government and has passed a preliminary reading. Burgeoning democracies should definitely shy away from such legislation.

• There is currently a proposed bill to punish persons who initiate, promote, or publish material that might serve as grounds for imposing a boycott. The bill insists that these people are committing an offence and may be ordered to compensate parties economically affected by that boycott, including fixed reparations of 30,000 New Israeli Shekels (US$8,700), without an obligation on the plaintiffs to prove damages. This bill has already passed the first reading.

• Finally, a bill presented to the Knesset in October would require members of local and city councils, as well as some other civil servants, to pledge allegiance to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

Democracy for a few

There is a clear logic underlying this spate of new laws; namely, the Israeli government's decision to criminalise alternate political ideologies, such as the idea that Israel should be a democracy for all its citizens.

Hence, one witnesses an inverse trend - as the Arab citizens in the region struggle for more openness and indeed democracy, toppling dictators and pressuring governments to make significant liberal reforms, the Israeli book of laws is being rewritten so as to undercut democratic values.

Israelis celebrating the state's 63rd birthday should closely examine the pro-democracy movements in Tahrir, Deraa and across the Arab world. They might very well learn a thing or two.

Neve Gordon is the author of Israel's Occupation and can be reached through his website.http://www.israelsoccupation.info/

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/201151094314585794.html

Netanyahu Fails In Bid To Lobby Allies Into Rejecting Unity Deal

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Sat, 07 May 2011 05:11:42 PDT

The US, Italy, Britain and France have refused to rule out negotiations with the unity Hamas-Fatah government despite intensive lobbying by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

Representatives of the respective governments declined to reject the unity deal between Fatah and Hamas as requested by Netanyahu on his current trip to Britain and France. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton yesterday avoided giving any definite statement on the matter saying that the Obama administration “are going to be carefully assessing what this actually means, because there are a number of different potential meanings to it, both on paper and in practice”.

However Secretary Clinton reaffirmed the US administration's need for Hamas to renounce violence and recognise Israel as a Jewish state. Similarly France, Italy and Britain have refused to rule out negotiations but echoed Secretary Clinton’s statement that any new government needed to recognise the Jewish character of Israel.

The current trip by the Israeli PM was originally designed as a means of lobbying European allies against supporting a unilateral decleration of statehood by the PA in September. However Netanyahu has instead used it to encourage government leaders to reject the recent Hamas-Fatah reconciliation process.

Questioned as to his opinion of a potential recognition of a Palestinian state based on pre 1967 borders by the United Nations in September, Netanyahu replied “can there be an automatic majority in the UN? The answer is yes. They can say the earth is flat and pass it”.

Talks between Palestinian and Israel representatives broke down last September when Palestinian leaders withdrew due to a resumption of Israeli settlement activity in what would be a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders

Dozens Wounded By Israeli Army in Silwan

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Sat, 07 May 2011 04:46:44 PDT

Palestinian medical sources in occupied East Jerusalem reported Friday that dozens of residents were injured after Israeli soldiers and policemen attacked a protest in Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem. Two homes caught fire after soldiers fired teargas bombs into them.

Jawad Siyam, head of the Wadi Hilwa Information center, reported that the protest started following Friday Prayers, near the protest tent in Silwan.

The tent was installed months ago to protest Israeli illegal home demolition policy and settlers’ takeover of Palestinian homes.

Local youth placed trash cans in the streets, and burnt tires to prevent the army and the police from reaching them.

Some youth also hurled stones at settlers’ vehicles causing damage to the front windshield of one of the vehicles.

Clashes also took place in Al Ein Street, while some protestors torched a warehouse used by the settlers. Soldiers fired dozens of gas bombs causing fire to a home that belongs to Asaliyya family.

Clashes also took place in Al Thoury, Ras Al Amoud, and Batn Al Hawa; sixteen residents were wounded by rubber-coated metal bullets fired by the Police, while dozens of residents were treated for the effects of teargas inhalation.

Also, the home of Eid Haddad was burnt when the police fired teargas bombs into it, and his family received treatment for teargas inhalation.

Local youth responded by hurling a Molotov cocktail at a military post installed on the rooftop of a residential building in Batn Al Hawa.

Furthermore, an Israeli court decided to keep Suad Shiokhy in detention until next Monday after the prosecution claimed "having a secret file against her".

Shiokhy, a local resident of Wadi Hilwa, was kidnapped last Monday at dawn after she was violently beaten and attacked by the soldiers.

Her family said they intend to file an appeal to the Israeli High Court as charges were never filed against her.

In Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, soldiers and policemen attacked the weekly nonviolent protest as the residents, Israeli and international peace activists marched and chanted against the Israeli occupation, settlements and the Annexation Wall.

http://www.imemc.org/article/61192
http://uruknet.info/?p=m77488

We Went to War for Israel

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 23:47:57 PDT

A War by Deception Extra See war by Deception 2011 here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTx5R67slS0
sorry about the subtitles they are not on the DVD. I made a 2 and a half hour film without them.

The defense industry makes money off of ANY conflict so why Iraq. Because there were a threat to Israel. We could have bought the oil for FAR less than what it cost to steal it. Big oil did not create ANY of the lies that lead to war, and yet PNAC wrote ALL of them. This was a war for and by Israel. Even the invasion priority #1 was to take out the Western portion of Iraq the only place with range of hitting Israel. Zelikow admits as much that the war was for Israeli interest.

Israel admits kidnapping operations manager of Gaza's only power plant

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 01:39:05 PDT

Israel admitted this week that it was behind the abduction of the operations manager of Gaza's only power plant, who disappeared more than a month ago while travelling on a train in Ukraine.

Israeli officials confirmed in a statement that Mr Dirar Abu Sisi, 42, was being held in Israel's Shikma prison, near Ashkelon, after a judge partially lifted reporting restrictions late on Sunday. However, the explanation for Mr Abu Sisi's abduction and detention are still covered by the gag order, which has been extended by a judge for 30 days.

The whereabouts of Mr Abu Sisi, an engineer, had been the subject of intense speculation since he disappeared on February 18 travelling on a train to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

Suspicions that he might have been kidnapped and taken to Israel were first raised by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees earlier this month. Mr Abu Sisi's family and the Israeli human rights group Hamoked contacted Maksim Butkevych, the Commissioner's spokesman in Ukraine, who demanded the Ukraine investigate his "violent abduction'

A few days after his disappearance, Mr Abu Sisi's wife, Veronika, a Ukrainian national, in statements to the media, accused the Israeli spy agency Mossad of seizing him to extract information that could be used to disable Gaza's power station in a future confrontation with the enclave's Hamas rulers. Israel bombed the plant during its three-week assault on Gaza in the winter of 2008, causing widespread blackouts in the territory.

Mr Abu Sisi's family also suggested another reason why Israeli might consider him a high-value target. They say he had recently developed methods of reducing the plant's dependency on high-grade diesel fuel, which Gaza buys from Israel. Hamas officials, in January, said the station's turbines had been modified to work on regular diesel, which is cheaper and can be smuggled in through tunnels from Egypt.

Mr Abu Sisi was in Ukraine to apply for citizenship so the couple could emigrate with their six children, his brother said. "He was desperate to leave Gaza and take his children to Ukraine away from the Israeli bombs and attacks. How could he be a threat?".

According to Veronika, her husband had encountered problems at an interior ministry office in the city of Kharkiv earlier on the day of his disappearance. Officials there had briefly refused to return his passport.

So far Ukraine has kept a low profile on the incident/

During an official visit to Israel last week the Ukrainian prime minister, Mykola Azarov, said the circumstances around Mr Abu Sisi's disappearance were still confusing.

"We don't have clear information right now... I don't want to imagine that such things are carried out on the soil of a friendly state," the prime minister said in an interview with the Israeli daily Haaretz.

Jonathan Cook, The National, Mar 23, 2011

Israel Okays more settlements in WB

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 01:01:57 PST

Tel Aviv has moved to approve a plan to construct hundreds more illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.

"The ministerial committee responsible for settlements had decided to build several hundred units at Gush Etzion, Maale Adumim, Ariel and Kyriat Sefer" in the West Back, announced the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Sunday statement, AFP reported.

The move would further complicate the stalled talks between Israeli and the Palestinian Authority officials.

Early this month, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics said that the illegal settlement construction in the occupied West bank has climbed sharply in the past five months.

The data, released by the bureau on Saturday, indicates that the Israeli regime started over 114 settlement units during the 10-month construction freeze Tel Aviv announced in November 2009.

The 114 units, the construction of which began during the so-called freeze have now been completed, as well as over 1,175 other units that started constructing before the partial moratorium, which excluded al-Quds (Jerusalem).

The data also reveals that construction of over 427 housing units has begun since the expiration of the freeze in late September.

The figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics are, however, based on partial information and do not cover a reportedly dramatic rise in illegal construction in West Bank outposts, which are not officially documented.

It does not include caravans and tents that are often placed in illegal outposts in order to settle in the land, either.

Israel's insistence to resume its West Bank settlement construction projects -- deemed by the international community as illegal -- prompted Palestinian Authority negotiators to walk out a new round of US-sponsored direct talks.

Palestinians have repeatedly voiced concern about Israel's efforts to wipe out the Islamic and Palestinian identity of the occupied territories, East al-Quds in particular, to effectively render the establishment of a future Palestinian state unfeasible.

DB/MB
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/169636.html

Israeli settlers shoot Palestinians in WB

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 19:55:48 PST

Armed Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank have shot two Palestinian men, critically wounding one of them, the mayor of a Palestinian village says.
Dozens of armed Israeli settlers invaded Beit Ummar near Hebron village on Friday and started shooting at houses, hitting two youths working on land nearby, mayor of the village Fawzi Sabarna said.

Palestinian medical sources named those wounded in the incident as relatives 17-year-old Yusef Ikhlil and 19-year-old Murad Ikhlil.

Yusef Ikhlil, who was shot in the head, is on a life support machine at Al-Ahly hospital in Hebron while Murad Ikhlil was admitted to the same hospital with a gunshot wound to an arm.

In another incident on Thursday, residents of Yitzhar settlement clashed with some 70 Palestinian villagers, who were protesting the construction of illegal settlements on their lands, Ma'an news agency reported.

The Israeli settlers opened fire on the protesters killing 19-year-old Udai Maher Qadous who was hit in the chest, according to Palestinian eyewitnesses.

The Palestinian victim was transferred to Rafidiyeh Hospital in Nablus, where he succumbed to internal bleeding triggered by several gunshots he had suffered to his chest, Palestinian medical officials said.

Israel has been persistently proceeding with the construction of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

The United Nations has repeatedly condemned Israel for defying international calls to halt its settlement construction activities.

http://www.presstv.com/detail/162370.html

Israel rejects Rudd's call for nuclear inspections

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 11:17:12 PST

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman yesterday rejected Kevin Rudd's call that its nuclear facility should be subject to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Standing alongside Mr Rudd during a press conference in Jerusalem, Mr Lieberman said what was important was not whether any country was a member of the Non- Proliferation Treaty but that it was responsible.

He made it clear Israel did not regard any such inspection as necessary as it was a responsible country "and we have proved this for many years".

Mr Rudd, in an interview with The Australian this week, had said Israel's nuclear facility should be subject to inspection by the IAEA.

The comment shocked Israeli officials, who could not recall an Australian minister suggesting that their facility at Dimona should be subject to inspection.

Mr Rudd had said: "Our view has been consistent for a long period of time, and that is that all states in the region should adhere to the NPT, and that includes Israel. And therefore their nuclear facility should be subject to IAEA inspection."

Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
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But Mr Lieberman said yesterday: "I think that we have a very clear position -- we are a very responsible country and a responsible government and we have proved this for many years."

He said in his view, the question was not the NPT but whether a country and its government was responsible or not.

"Iran joined with the NPT and is part of the NPT and we see every day cheating and many attempts to waste time (allowing in inspectors) and, of course, they're part of the NPT but the reality is completely different."

While Mr Rudd had made his comment in an interview in Cairo, in Jerusalem yesterday he softened his position, saying Australia recognised Israel's "unique security circumstances".

He concentrated much more on Iran's nuclear program than Israel's. Mr Rudd said Australia was "deeply concerned" about Iran's nuclear weapons program and while its stated aim was nuclear energy for civilian purposes, it found itself in defiance of provisions of the NPT.

"Therefore Iran has obtained from us and from other countries . . . universal condemnation, secondly sanctions and thirdly, in the case of Australia, autonomous sanctions over and above those which are required under the UN Security Council," he said.

"Iran's nuclear weapons program and nuclear program in general represents a fundamental threat to security across the wider region.

"On the question of other regional states, including Israel, the position of the Australian government has long been reiterated by governments of both political persuasions in Australia that all states, including Israel, should become accessories to the NPT and its associated obligations.

"We recognize . . . Israel's unique security circumstances . . . but in terms of our fundamental position on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as it applies to this region . . . all states should be in, including Israel."

Source - http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/israel-rejects-rudds-call-for-nuclear-inspections/story-e6frg6nf-1225971760385

Israel accused of "kidnapping" seven Irish citizens

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:15:13 PDT

Ireland's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheal Martin, has accused Israel of "essentially kidnapping” seven Irish citizens who were aboard the Gaza bound aid flotilla.

Heavily armed Israeli commandos raided the flotilla in the early hours of yesterday morning while they were still in international waters.

Up to 16 humanitarian passengers were shot dead by the Israeli commandos, and another 50 people are reported injured.

The UN Security Council has formally requested that Israel immediately release the ships and civilians from custody.

Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the Security Council that Israel's actions were "tantamount to banditry and piracy. It is murder conducted by a state."

The seven Irish citizens detained include members of the Free Gaza Movement's Irish affiliate, The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Shane Dillon is being deported while Dr Fintan Lane and Fiachra O Luain were contesting their deportation orders and will be brought before a court within the next 72 hours.

An Australian tourist travelling on an Irish passport is also being detained and two naturalized Irish citizens that are originally from Libya are also being detained. An Irish-Polish activist is also being detained by Israel.

Eftaima Najjair, wife of the detained Irish passport holder, Al Mahdi Alharati, said she was shocked by Israel's actions.

“We have no information so I’m afraid that he might be injured. We thought there would be no risk in taking part in the flotilla,” said Najjair.

Minister Martin has criticized the Israeli authorities for denying the Irish detainees any access to the Irish ambassador.
Ireland has had a strained relationship with Israel since Israel assassins used Irish passports to murder a Hamas official in United Emirates, last year. Source

Israeli settlers evict Palestinian family from their home of 70 years

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:09:52 PDT

sraeli settlers took over a Palestinian home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem's Old City today, evicting about 45 members of an extended family which has occupied the building for more than 70 years.

The settlers claimed to have documentation to prove they had purchased the building from the owners. The Palestinian tenants, who have been fighting attempts to evict them for many years, were challenging the takeover in court.

A police spokesman said the Israelis had entered the home "based on documents claiming that they owned the property".

According to Mohammed Kirresh, 22, a member of the Palestinian family, "Jewish people and Israeli soldiers with weapons" came at 2am, when most of the family was at a wedding.

He said the family, which had rented the property since 1936, had won two previous court cases challenging eviction orders. He claimed the Israelis had broken furniture and damaged belongings. Source

Israel's Next War: Today the Gaza Strip, Tomorrow Lebanon?

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:45:21 PDT

In the Middle East, it is widely believed that the war against Gaza is an extension of the 2006 war against Lebanon. Without question, the war in the Gaza Strip is a part of the same conflict.

Moreover, since the Israeli defeat in 2006, Tel Aviv and Washington have not abandoned their design to turn Lebanon into a client state.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, in so many words, during his visit to Tel Aviv in early January that today Israel was attacking Hamas in the Gaza Strip and that tomorrow it would be fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon.[1]

Ehud Olmert and Nicolas Sarkozy

Lebanon is still in the cross-hairs. Israel is searching for a justification or a pretext to launch another war against Lebanon.

Washington and Tel Aviv had initially hoped to control Beirut through client political forces in the March 14 Alliance. When it became apparent that these political forces could not dominate Lebanon politically the Israeli military was unleashed on Lebanon with a goal of bringing about the ultimate downfall of Hezbollah and its political allies. [2] Areas where support for Hezbollah and its political allies were strongest saw the harshest Israeli attacks in 2006 as part of an attempt to reduce, if not remove, popular support for them.

After the 2006 war, the second Israeli defeat in Lebanon, Washington and Tel Aviv with the help of Jordan, the U.A.E., Egypt, and Saudi Arabia started arming their clients in Lebanon to wield an internal armed option against Hezbollah and its allies. In the wake of both the short-lived internal violence between the Lebanese National Opposition and the March 14 Alliance and the Doha Accord, which was reached in Qatar on May 21, 2008 as a result of the failure of this internal armed option against Hezbollah and its allies, the Israeli-U.S. objective to subdue Lebanon has been dramatically impaired.

A "national unity government" was formed in which the Lebanese National Opposition — not just Hezbollah — hold veto power through one-third of the cabinet chairs, including that of the post of deputy-prime minister.

The objective in Lebanon is "regime change" and to repress all forms of political opposition. But how to bring it about? The forecast of the 2009 general-elections in Lebanon does not look favourable for the March 14 Alliance. Without an internal political or armed option in Lebanon, which could result in the installation of a U.S.-sponsored "democracy," Washington and its indefictible Israeli ally have chosen the only avenue available: a military solution, another war on Lebanon. [3]

Crossing Arms III: Israel Simulates a Two-Front War against Lebanon and Syria

This war is already in the advanced planning stage. In November 2008, barely a month before Tel Aviv started its massacre in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military held drills for a two-front war against Lebanon and Syria called Shiluv Zro’ot III (Crossing Arms III).[4]

The military exercise included a massive simulated invasion of both Syria and Lebanon. Several months before the Israeli invasion drills, Tel Aviv had also warned Beirut that it would declare war on the whole of Lebanon and not just Hezbollah.[5]

Israel's justification for these war preparations was that Hezbollah has grown stronger and become a partner in the Lebanese government since the Doha Accord. The latter was signed in Qatar between the March 14 Alliance and the Lebanese National Opposition. It is worth noting that Hezbollah was a member of the Lebanese coaltion government prior to the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon.

No doubt, Tel Aviv will also point to Hezbollah's support of Hamas in Gaza as another pretext to wage under the banner of combating Islamic terrorism a pre-emptive war on Lebanon. In this context, Dell Lee Dailey the head of the counter-terrorism section of the U.S. State Department, had told Al-Hayat in an interview that an Israeli attack on Lebanon was "imminent" as part of the fight against terrorism. [6]

Blitzkrieg in the Making

Tel Aviv has been mapping a large-scale blitzkrieg against Lebanon as a whole, which includes an immediate land invasion. [7] Just before the Israeli massacre in the Gaza Strip started, Israeli officials and generals had promised that no Lebanese village would be immune from the wrath of Israeli aerial bombardments, regardless of religion, sect, and/or political orientation. [8]

In substance, Tel Aviv has promised to totally destroy Lebanon. Israel has also confirmed that in any future war against Lebanon, the entire country rather than Hezbollah will be the target. In practice, this was already the case in 2006’s Israeli aerial attacks on Lebanon. [9]

The Jerusalem Post quotes Brigadier-General Michael Ben-Baruch, one of the individuals who oversaw the invasion drills, as saying, "In the last war, we fired to disrupt Hezbollah activity," and, "The next time we will fire to destroy." [10]

In the wake of Israel's 2006 defeat, the Israeli government admitted that its "big mistake" was it exercised restraint rather than attacking Lebanon with the full strength of its military. Israeli officials have intimated that in the case of a future war against the Lebanese that all civilian and state infrastructure will be targeted.

Beirut’s New Defence Doctrine: A Threat to Israeli Interests and Objectives to Control Lebanon

Why is Lebanon in the cross-hairs again?

The answer is geo-political and strategic. It is also related to the political consensus process and the upcoming 2009 general-elections in Lebanon. Following the formation of a unity government in Beirut under a new president, Michel Suleiman (Sleiman), a new proactive defence doctrine for the country was contemplated. The objective of this defence doctrine is to keep Israel at bay and bring political stability and security to the country.

President Michel Suleiman

At the "National Defence Strategy" dialogue, held by the 14 Lebanese signatories of the Doha Accord, all sides have agreed that Israel is a threat to Lebanon.

In the months prior to the Israeli military campaign against Gaza, important diplomatic and political steps were taken by Beirut. President Michel Suleiman accompanied by several cabinet ministers visited Damascus (his first bilateral state visit; August 13-14, 2008) and Tehran (November 24-25, 2008).
Read More at Source - http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11800

Israel to build 2,700 settlement units when alleged freeze ends next month

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 18:24:27 PDT

NAZARETH, The Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported Monday that there are plans to build 2,700 housing units in West Bank settlements as soon as the nominal settlement freeze ends next September.

The newspaper also noted that the Israeli municipal council in occupied Jerusalem will approve next week a plan to build 60 settlement units north of occupied Jerusalem.

It quoted heads of settlements as saying that they started to process legal documents necessary for the resumption of settlement expansion on September 27.

A report issued by B'Tselem, a human rights organization, said that the settlements in the West Bank have tripled since the signing of the Oslo agreement in 1993.

The report revealed that the Jewish settlements effectively control nearly 42 per cent of the West Bank while the Israeli government still encourages settlers to move to settlements, the thing which prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state.

B'Tselem said the settlements, a major stumbling block in now-stalled peace talks, have resulted in extensive Israeli human rights violations against the Palestinians.

It said Israeli treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank was reminiscent of the old apartheid regime in South Africa and called on Israel to stop granting incentives to Israelis to move to settlements, and to dismantle them.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk

Burning Conscience: Israeli Soldiers Speak Out

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 20:45:13 PDT

lies damned lies and israeli propaganda

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 07:13:51 PDT

Following Israel's murderous attack on the Freedom Flotilla taking humanitarian aid to Gaza, it is hard not to conclude that sections of the media in Britain and other Western countries have been desperate to find ways to justify the crime. On the BBC and Sky News, a frequent argument has been that Israel feels "isolated" by the international community and is in a "war" situation, and therefore feels that it has to take extraordinary measures to defend itself. To shore up this argument, these media outlets have, once again, repeated two tired fabrications; Hamas is committed to Israel's destruction and Israel's blockade of Gaza was imposed in response to Hamas rocket attacks.

The reality is, of course, very different. Israel is not isolated by the rest of the world. On the contrary, unlike, say, Iran and Syria (and before 2003, Iraq) in the Middle East, Israel has not been subject to sanctions in any way by the international community. It remains the largest recipient of US financial, political and military aid, despite the much-hyped rift between the Obama administration and the right-wing Netanyahu government and was recently co-opted to the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development with the blessing of the European Union Nations. Nor is Israel in a war situation. None of Israel's Arab neighbours pose a military threat to its existence and two of them, Egypt and Jordan, have full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state; Egypt cooperates actively with Israel in the siege of Gaza.

Israel's blockade of Gaza is usually said to have started in June 2007, when Hamas took control of the territory after pre-empting a coup by a faction within political rivals Fatah, but Israel had been limiting the movement of goods and people into Gaza long before that. The rockets fired from Gaza are not a threat to Israel and are not the reason for the blockade. Israel conducts frequent and deadly raids into the Gaza Strip and the rockets are fired in response to these raids. These rockets are very basic and inaccurate, capable of causing limited damage; they are very rarely lethal and are the only "serious" weapon available to a desperate people who have been brutalised by Israel for years. What about the claim that Hamas is committed to Israel's destruction? Hamas has offered Israel an open-ended ceasefire if it withdraws from the West Bank and lifts the blockade of Gaza; Israel has refused. The very fact that this "hudna" has been offered is de facto recognition of the state of Israel.

It is still not known exactly how many fatalities there were during Israel's assault on the flotilla. Most news reports claim that nine or ten of the passengers were killed by the Israeli commandos, but other sources suggest that the figure could be as high as nineteen. Israel has imposed an information blackout designed to make sure that only its version of events comes out. As part of this "hasbara" campaign, the Israeli military issued a grainy black and white video, labelled helpfully, showing some of its soldiers being attacked with iron bars and chairs, with one being thrown from one deck to another, as they stormed it from their helicopters. This film has been played without comment on Sky News, the BBC and other channels. In addition, Israeli claims that the activists were carrying knives and stun grenades on their ship have been taken at face value and reported without comment all too frequently. The Israelis would have us believe that helpless commandos were attacked by unarmed "terrorists" masquerading as activists and the main news channels in Britain and other countries have been more than willing to repeat this message.

In this way, the murder of at least nine unarmed people by soldiers armed to the teeth is made to look natural and justifiable. The Israeli video is so surreal and unbelievable that it is barely worth commenting on. Apart from the fact that there is another, better quality video of an announcement made by an activist to his fellow passengers telling them not to resist because there is nothing they can do against the Israelis' live ammunition, suffice to say that Israel has used this tactic before. During the war on Gaza, in order to justify its attacks on civilians, the Israeli army posted videos of rockets being loaded or fired, which later turned out to be faked. Even if we suppose that the latest "attack" video is authentic, isn't it natural for people under attack to defend themselves? And yet the activists are being portrayed as thugs, hooligans and terrorists for doing so.

Israel has called the Freedom Flotilla an "Armada of Hate" and said that the activists on board are linked with Hamas, al-Qaeda, and "global jihad"; again, these absurd claims have been taken at face value by sections of the media. The Turkish humanitarian organisation, IHH, which has played a leading role in the flotilla, has been smeared in the Daily Telegraph as a front organisation for al-Qaeda, without any evidence being proffered. This charitable society operates legally around the world apart from Israel where it is banned, as are many other legitimate charities which support Palestinians in the midst of a desperate humanitarian catastrophe; no credible evidence is ever provided for these bans. They are seen by many as just another tool used by Israel to deny Palestinians much-needed aid.

The same DailyTelegraph story mentions that the flotilla has been endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the British Green Party MP Caroline Lucas. On board the flotilla were the Swedish bestselling author Henrig Mankell, the former United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Dennis Halliday and the founder of Northern Ireland's "Peace People", Mairead Corrigan Maguire. Did the Telegraph bother to ask why all these people endorsed and took part in a project organised by IHH if it was indeed an al-Qaeda front organisation?

One very important aspect has been played down amidst all this hostile media coverage - the dire need of the people of Gaza for the items on board the ships of the flotilla. Among other things the flotilla carried cement, building materials, school supplies and medical equipment. The admittedly limited quantity of aid on the convoy would still have been of immense value to the people of Gaza. The homes and buildings that Israel destroyed in its December 2008 assault on the territory are still in ruins because Israel has since blocked the import of building materials. In fact, there is a long and arbitrary list of items that cannot be imported: pencils, computers and other educational items, for example, are banned, as are many food items, such as canned fruit. The volume and category of goods permitted to be imported into Gaza are kept at a level low enough to create poverty, malnourishment and suffering but not too low to create a humanitarian catastrophe that will make Israel look bad in front of the cameras. Despite this, the statement by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman that there is "no humanitarian crisis in Gaza" and that Israel is allowing thousands of tons of food and equipment in has been reported without comment. The organisers of the Freedom Flotilla have also been criticised by some for not accepting Israel's offer to unload their ships in Ashdod so that the Israelis can deliver their cargo "through the usual channels". They were, of course, supposed to believe that the same "channels" which have made the people of Gaza suffer for so many years would suddenly and willingly help to alleviate that suffering.

http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/articles/europe/1098-lies-damned-lies-and-israeli-propaganda

UK Jewish MP: Israel acting like Nazis in Gaza

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Mon, 31 May 2010 07:11:59 PDT

UK Jewish MP: Israel acting like Nazis in Gaza

If Americans Knew What Israel Is Doing! VIDEO WAS CENSORED!

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Mon, 03 May 2010 13:02:20 PDT

Those who want to suppress the facts have dishonestly contacted YouTube and claimed that the video "If Americans Knew What Israel Is Doing!" was a Terms of Service Violation. The video is clearly NOT a TOS violation. You can see why they don't want you to see it. The user "rbdevon4" was a smartass contacting me with this message: "You have violated YouTube terms of use policy with your anti-Semitic hate videos. You must remove them IMMEDIATELY! Thank you for your cooperation." Soon after that, he and his buddies succeeded in getting my video removed.

U.S. support of Israel puts America at risk and it is immoral and unjust. If Americans knew what Israel was actually doing they would not support it in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is the goal of If Americans Knew to provide full and accurate information on this critical issue, and on our power -- and duty -- to bring a resolution.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

The fact is from November 1947 to May 1948 the Zionists were already on the offensive and had already attacked Arabs. In the months before Israel was declared, the Zionists had driven 300,000 non-Jews off their land. In the months before Israel was declared, the Zionists had seized land beyond the proposed Jewish State.
See:
http://www.representativepress.org/IsraelHistory.html

The Israeli government's Foreign Ministry is involved in efforts to influence public opinion on the Internet. Israel's Foreign Ministry orders Internet propagandists, so called "trainee diplomats," to skew online polls and public forums to conform with the Israeli line.
http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2006/07/zionists-manipulate-public-forums-on.html
http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-is-wrong-with-israel.html

Israel police uncovers organ trafficking ring in north

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:01:01 PDT

Israel, April 8, (Pal Telegraph) Police on Tuesday arrested six men suspected of being involved in an organ trafficking ring in northern Israel. Among the suspects are an IDF reserves brigadier-general and two lawyers.

The department for fraud and misappropriation in northern Israel has been conducting an undercover investigation which began following a complaint by a 50-year-old woman from Nazareth, who replied to an advertisement in Arabic offering 100,000 dollars for a kidney.

The woman underwent medical examinations to ensure a match, and she was then flown a country in Eastern Europe where they extracted her kidney. The woman said that when she returned to Israel, she did not receive the money promised to her. Police say they have since received similar complaints.
Police also said that during the investigation they uncovered a large, very well-organized industry of organ trafficking. The ring includes organ traffickers, agents, and lawyers.

"The ring is operating throughout Israel and not only in the north, and appeals to the public through local media and internet," a police official said. "The organ traffickers somehow receive details about potential transplant candidates and they offer them their services," he said.

The investigators said that the traffickers usually demand around 120,000 dollars for a kidney transplant. While the donors, the majority of which are in serious financial troubles, are taken advantage of and receive around 10,000 dollars. Some of them get even smaller sums, and some do not receive any money at all.

The donors sign a contract and fill out fraudulent affidavits claiming a family connection between the donor and the recipient - a requirement in the countries where the surgeries take place.

Afterwards, the donors undergo medical examinations where they are categorized by blood types and other medical conditions, and are then flown to countries in Eastern Europe, the Philippines, and Ecuador.

There, the donors undergo surgery to extract their kidney, and shortly afterwards return to Israel without any medical documentation, many times suffering from medical complications.

During the investigation, police found out that a number of transplant candidates were on their way abroad to undergo surgery. Police located the donors and informed them that they were victims of fraud. Some of the donors were located at Israel's Ben-Gurion airport, right before their departure.

http://www.paltelegraph.com/hot-topic/5351-israel-police-uncovers-organ-trafficking-ring-in-north

Barak: Israel won't be pressured into signing nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 15:26:17 PDT

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Wednesday that Israel would not be pressured into signing the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, stressing that unlike other countries, Israel had never threatened to destroy another nation.

"There is no room to pressure Israel to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel has never threatened to annihilate other nations and peoples, while today Iran, and also Syria, Libya and Iraq in the past, all of whom signed this treaty, have systematically violated its stipulations while explicitly threatening Israel's existence," Barak said during a memorial service for fallen Israel Defense Forces soldiers at the Defense Ministry.

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These days," he went on to say, "the threats against Israel have not ceased. Facing these threats is a strong army, ready and prepared, with the entire Israeli people behind it."

On Tuesday, United States President Barack Obama urged all countries, including Israel, to sign the international nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT.

"Whether we're talking about Israel or any other country, we think that becoming part of the NPT is important," Obama said. "And that, by the way, is not a new position. That's been a consistent position of the United States government, even prior to my administration."

Israel operates a policy of 'nuclear ambiguity,' refusing to neither confirm nor deny possessing atomic weapons - but has not signed the treaty and is believed by analysts to posses between 200 and 300 nuclear warheads.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1163071.html

Israeli Mossad Involvement In The 911 WTC Attacks

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:00:04 PDT

I always asked How can two planes take down seven building ?? and no one has given me an answer yet, and for some reason to some that is not odd at all.

9 11 was over looked and there was a goal after that was ment to be achieved thats why a proper investigation was never really fullfilled, secret hands behind the screens playing death games as the world watchs.

Israeli Mossad Involvement In The 911 WTC Attacks

Attack on Berkeley divestment bill dishonest and misleading

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:57:21 PDT

Falestin Under Occupation: Attack on Berkeley divestment bill dishonest and misleading

Subscribe to Falestin Under Occupation by Email

Lawsuit challenges Israel's discriminatory citizenship definition

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:59:44 PDT

A group of Jews and Arabs are fighting in the Israeli courts to be recognized as "Israelis," a nationality currently denied them, in a case that officials fear may threaten the country's self-declared status as a Jewish state.

Israel refused to recognize an Israeli nationality at the country's establishment in 1948, making an unusual distinction between "citizenship" and "nationality." Although all Israelis qualify as "citizens of Israel," the state is defined as belonging to the "Jewish nation," meaning not only the 5.6 million Israeli Jews but also more than seven million Jews in the diaspora.

Critics say the special status of Jewish nationality has been a way to undermine the citizenship rights of non-Jews in Israel, especially the fifth of the population who are Arab. Some 30 laws in Israel specifically privilege Jews, including in the areas of immigration rights, naturalization, access to land and employment.

Arab leaders have also long complained that indications of "Arab" nationality on ID cards make it easy for police and government officials to target Arab citizens for harsher treatment.

The interior ministry has adopted more than 130 possible nationalities for Israeli citizens, most of them defined in religious or ethnic terms, with "Jewish" and "Arab" being the main categories.

The group's legal case is being heard by the high court after a district judge rejected their petition two years ago, backing the state's position that there is no Israeli nation.

The head of the campaign for Israeli nationality, Uzi Ornan, a retired linguistics professor, said: "It is absurd that Israel, which recognizes dozens of different nationalities, refuses to recognize the one nationality it is supposed to represent."

The government opposes the case, claiming that the campaign's real goal is to "undermine the state's infrastructure" -- a presumed reference to laws and official institutions that ensure Jewish citizens enjoy a privileged status in Israel.

Ornan, 86, said that denying a common Israeli nationality was the linchpin of state-sanctioned discrimination against the Arab population.

"There are even two laws -- the Law of Return for Jews and the Citizenship Law for Arabs -- that determine how you belong to the state," he said. "What kind of democracy divides its citizens into two kinds?"

Yoel Harshefi, a lawyer supporting Ornan, said the interior ministry had resorted to creating national groups with no legal recognition outside Israel, such as "Arab" or "unknown," to avoid recognizing an Israeli nationality.

In official documents most Israelis are classified as "Jewish" or "Arab," but immigrants whose status as Jews is questioned by the Israeli rabbinate, including more than 300,000 arrivals from the former Soviet Union, are typically registered according to their country of origin.

"Imagine the uproar in Jewish communities in the United States, Britain or France, if the authorities there tried to classify their citizens as 'Jewish' or 'Christian,'" said Ornan.

The professor, who lives close to Haifa, launched his legal action after the interior ministry refused to change his nationality to "Israeli" in 2000. An online petition declaring "I am an Israeli" has attracted several thousand signatures.

Ornan has been joined in his action by 20 other public figures, including former government minister Shulamit Aloni. Several members have been registered with unusual nationalities such as "Russian," "Buddhist," "Georgian" and "Burmese."

Two Arabs are party to the case, including Adel Kadaan, who courted controversy in the 1990s by waging a lengthy legal action to be allowed to live in one of several hundred communities in Israel open only to Jews.

Uri Avnery, a peace activist and former member of the parliament, said the current nationality system gave Jews living abroad a far greater stake in Israel than its 1.3 million Arab citizens.

"The State of Israel cannot recognize an 'Israeli' nation because it is the state of the 'Jewish' nation ... it belongs to the Jews of Brooklyn, Budapest and Buenos Aires, even though these consider themselves as belonging to the American, Hungarian or Argentine nations."

International Zionist organizations representing the diaspora, such as the Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Agency, are given in Israeli law a special, quasi-governmental role, especially in relation to immigration and control over large areas of Israeli territory for the settlement of Jews only.

Ornan said the lack of a common nationality violated Israel's Declaration of Independence, which says the state will "uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of religion, race or sex."

Indications of nationality on ID cards carried by Israelis made it easy for officials to discriminate against Arab citizens, he added.

The government has countered that the nationality section on ID cards was phased out from 2000 -- after the interior ministry, which was run by a religious party at the time, objected to a court order requiring it to identify non-Orthodox Jews as "Jewish" on the cards.

However, Ornan said any official could instantly tell if he was looking at the card of a Jew or Arab because the date of birth on the IDs of Jews was given according to the Hebrew calendar. In addition, the ID of an Arab, unlike a Jew, included the grandfather's name.

"Flash your ID card and whatever government clerk is sitting across from you immediately knows which 'clan' you belong to, and can refer you to those best suited to 'handle your kind,'" Ornan said.

The distinction between Jewish and Arab nationalities is also shown on interior ministry records used to make important decisions about personal status issues such as marriage, divorce and death, which are dealt with on entirely sectarian terms.

Only Israelis from the same religious group, for example, are allowed to marry inside Israel -- otherwise they are forced to wed abroad -- and cemeteries are separated according to religious belonging.

Some of those who have joined the campaign complain that it has damaged their business interests. One Druze member, Carmel Wahaba, said he had lost the chance to establish an import-export company in France because officials there refused to accept documents stating his nationality as "Druze" rather than "Israeli."

The group also said it hoped to expose a verbal sleight of hand that intentionally mistranslates the Hebrew term "Israeli citizenship" on the country's passports as "Israeli nationality" in English to avoid problems with foreign border officials.

B Michael, a commentator for Yedioth Aharonoth, Israel's most popular newspaper, has observed: "We are all Israeli nationals -- but only abroad."

The campaign, however, is likely to face an uphill struggle in the courts.

A similar legal suit brought by a Tel Aviv psychologist, George Tamrin, failed in 1970. Shimon Agranat, head of the high court at the time, ruled: "There is no Israeli nation separate from the Jewish people. ... The Jewish people is composed not only of those residing in Israel but also of diaspora Jewries."

That view was echoed by the district court in 2008 when it heard Ornan's case.

The judges in the high court, which held the first appeal hearing last month, indicated that they too were likely to be unsympathetic. Justice Uzi Fogelman said: "The question is whether or not the court is the right place to solve this problem."

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11187.shtml

Israel has Breached Peremptory Norms of Humanitarian Law

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 20:13:23 PDT

Phil Shiner, Supervisor of Public Interest Lawyers, United Kingdom, said during the panel discussion on the Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People that the Advisory Opinion was extremely helpful as it had identified three different pre-empting norms Israel had breached, explaining that peremptory norms or jus cogens norms were actions recognized in international law that no State was ever permitted to commit, such as genocide, slavery and denial of the right to self-determination.The opinion was crystal clear that Israel was in breach of international law and set out the obligations of third States.

He said that customary international law was part of the common law of the United Kingdom and part of the jurisdiction of other European States. He had unsuccessfully brought two cases to Court where the United Kingdom was in violation of international law through, for instance, permitting the sale of arms to Israel, which had then been used in the Gaza offensive, and suggested that civil society, should identify EU States where legal actions in that regard could be brought.

The EU-Israeli Association Agreement is also in breach of jus cogens norms, as the Agreement includes a provision which says that relations between parties must be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles. That clause requires parties to respect customary international law and the principles of the United Nations Charter which prohibits acquisition of territory by force. He was working on a court challenge in that regard and suggested that what was being done in the UK could be done elsewhere.

Watch video at Source