White flags ignored and houses bulldozed with families inside, claim residents
By Fida Qishta in Khuza'a and Peter Beaumont in London
January 18, 2009 "The Observer" -- Israel stands accused of perpetrating a series of war crimes during a sustained 12-hour assault on a village in southern Gaza last week in which 14 people died.
In testimony collected from residents of the village of Khuza'a by the Observer, it is claimed that Israeli soldiers entering the village:
• attempted to bulldoze houses with civilians inside;
• killed civilians trying to escape under the protection of white flags;
• opened fire on an ambulance attempting to reach the wounded;
• used indiscriminate force in a civilian area and fired white phosphorus shells.
If the allegations are upheld, all the incidents would constitute breaches of the Geneva conventions.
The denunciations over what happened in Khuza'a follow repeated claims of possible human rights violations from the Red Cross, the UN and human rights organisations.
The Israeli army announced yesterday that it was investigating "at the highest level" five other attacks against civilians in Gaza, involving two UN facilities and a hospital. It added that in all cases initial investigations suggested soldiers were responding to fire. "These claims of war crimes are not supported by the slightest piece of evidence," said Yigal Palmor, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman.
Concern over what occurred in the village of Khuza'a in the early hours of Tuesday was first raised by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. Although an Israeli military spokesman said he had "no information that this alleged incident took place", witness statements collected by the Observer are consistent and match testimony gathered by B'Tselem.
There is also strong visible evidence that Khuza'a came under a sustained attack from tanks and bulldozers that smashed some buildings to pieces.
Pictures taken by photographer Bruno Stevens in the aftermath show heavy damage - and still burning phosphorus. "What I can tell you is that many, many houses were shelled and that they used white phosphorus," said Stevens yesterday, one of the first western journalists to get into Gaza. "It appears to have been indiscriminate." Stevens added that homes near the village that had not been hit by shell fire had been set on fire.
The village of Khuza'a is around 500 metres from the border with Israel. According to B'Tselem, its field researcher in Gaza was contacted last Tuesday by resident Munir Shafik al-Najar, who said that Israeli bulldozers had begun destroying homes at 2.30am.
When Rawhiya al-Najar, aged 50, stepped out of her house waving a white flag, so that the rest of the family could leave the house, she was allegedly shot by Israeli soldiers nearby.
The second alleged incident was on Tuesday afternoon, when Israeli troops ordered 30 residents to leave their homes and walk to a school in the village centre. After travelling 20 metres, troops fired on the group, allegedly killing three.
Further detailed accounts of what occurred were supplied in interviews given to a Palestinian researcher who has been working for the Observer, following the decision by Israel to ban foreign media from the Gaza Strip. Iman al-Najar, 29, said she watched as bulldozers started to destroy neighbours' homes and saw terrified villagers flee from their houses as masonry collapsed.
"By 6am the tanks and bulldozers had reached our house," Iman recalled. "We went on the roofs and tried to show we were civilians with white flags. Everyone was carrying a white flag. We told them we are civilians. We don't have any weapons. The soldiers started to destroy the houses even if the people were in them." Describing the death of Rawhiya, Iman says they were ordered by Israeli soldiers to move to the centre of the town. As they did, Israeli troops opened fire. Rawhiya was at the front of the group, says Iman.
Marwan Abu Raeda, 40, a paramedic working for the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, said: "At 8am we received a phone call from Khuza'a. They told us about the injured woman. I went immediately. I was 60 or 70 metres away from the injured woman when the Israeli forces started to shoot at me." As he drove into another street, he came under fire again. Twelve hours later, when Rawhiya was finally reached, she was dead.
Iman said she ended up in an area of rubble where a large group of people had sought cover in a deep hole among the debris of demolished houses. It is then, she says, that bulldozers began to push the rubble from each side. "They wanted to bury us alive," she said.
tirsdag den 20. januar 2009
Chomsky: Undermining Gaza
By Sameer Dossani "Foreign Policy In Focus -- January 16, 2009
Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco
DOSSANI: The Israeli government and many Israeli and U.S. officials claim that the current assault on Gaza is to put an end to the flow of Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel. But many observers claim that if that were really the case, Israel would have made much more of an effort to renew the ceasefire agreement that expired in December, which had all but stopped the rocket fire. In your opinion, what are the real motivations behind the current Israeli action?
CHOMSKY: There's a theme that goes way back to the origins of Zionism. And it's a very rational theme: "Let's delay negotiations and diplomacy as long as possible, and meanwhile we'll 'build facts on the ground.'" So Israel will create the basis for what some eventual agreement will ratify, but the more they create, the more they construct, the better the agreement will be for their purposes. Those purposes are essentially to take over everything of value in the former Palestine and to undermine what's left of the indigenous population.
I think one of the reasons for popular support for this in the United States is that it resonates very well with American history. How did the United States get established? The themes are similar.
There are many examples of this theme being played out throughout Israel's history, and the current situation is another case. They have a very clear program. Rational hawks like Ariel Sharon realized that it's crazy to keep 8,000 settlers using one-third of the land and much of the scarce supplies in Gaza, protected by a large part of the Israeli army while the rest of the society around them is just rotting. So it's best to take them out and send them to the West Bank. That's the place that they really care about and want.
What was called a "disengagement" in September 2005 was actually a transfer. They were perfectly frank and open about it. In fact, they extended settlement building programs in the West Bank at the very same time that they were withdrawing a few thousand people from Gaza. So Gaza should be turned into a cage, a prison basically, with Israel attacking it at will, and meanwhile in the West Bank we'll take what we want. There was nothing secret about it.
Ehud Olmert was in the United States in May 2006 a couple of months after the withdrawal. He simply announced to a joint session of Congress and to rousing applause, that the historic right of Jews to the entire land of Israel is beyond question. He announced what he called his convergence program, which is just a version of the traditional program; it goes back to the Allon plan of 1967. Israel would essentially annex valuable land and resources near the green line (the 1967 border). That land is now behind the wall that Israel built in the West Bank, which is an annexation wall. That means the arable land, the main water resources, the pleasant suburbs around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and the hills and so on. They'll take over the Jordan valley, which is about a third of the West Bank, where they've been settling since the late 60s. Then they'll drive a couple of super highways through the whole territory — there's one to the east of Jerusalem to the town of Ma'aleh Adumim which was built mostly in the 1990s, during the Oslo years. It was built essentially to bisect the West Bank and are two others up north that includes Ariel and Kedumim and other towns which pretty much bisect what's left. They'll set up check points and all sorts of means of harassment in the other areas and the population that's left will be essentially cantonized and unable to live a decent life and if they want to leave, great. Or else they will be picturesque figures for tourists — you know somebody leading a goat up a hill in the distance — and meanwhile Israelis, including settlers, will drive around on "Israeli only" super highways. Palestinians can make do with some little road somewhere where you're falling into a ditch if it's raining. That's the goal. And it's explicit. You can't accuse them of deception because it's explicit. And it's cheered here.
DOSSANI: In terms of U.S. support, last week the UN Security Council adopted a resolution calling for a cease fire. Is this a change, particularly in light of the fact that the U.S. did not veto the resolution, but rather abstained, allowing it to be passed?
CHOMSKY: Right after the 1967 war, the Security Council had strong resolutions condemning Israel's move to expand and take over Jerusalem. Israel just ignored them. Because the U.S. pats them on the head and says "go ahead and violate them." There's a whole series of resolutions from then up until today, condemning the settlements, which as Israel knew and as everyone agreed were in violation of the Geneva conventions. The United States either vetoes the resolutions or sometimes votes for them, but with a wink saying, "go ahead anyway, and we'll pay for it and give you the military support for it." It's a consistent pattern. During the Oslo years, for example, settlement construction increased steadily, in violation of what the Oslo agreement was theoretically supposed to lead to. In fact the peak year of settlement was Clinton's last year, 2000. And it continued again afterward. It's open and explicit.
To get back to the question of motivation, they have sufficient military control over the West Bank to terrorize the population into passivity. Now that control is enhanced by the collaborationist forces that the U.S., Jordan, and Egypt have trained in order to subdue the population. In fact if you take a look at the press the last couple of weeks, if there's a demonstration in the West Bank in support of Gaza, the Fatah security forces crush it. That's what they're there for. Fatah by now is more or less functioning as Israel's police force in the West Bank. But the West Bank is only part of the occupied Palestinian territories. The other part is Gaza, and no one doubts that they form a unit. And there still is resistance in Gaza, those rockets. So yes, they want to stamp that out too, then there will be no resistance at all and they can continue to do what they want to do without interference, meanwhile delaying diplomacy as much as possible and "building the facts" the way they want to. Again this goes back to the origins of Zionism. It varies of course depending on circumstances, but the fundamental policy is the same and perfectly understandable. If you want to take over a country where the population doesn't want you, I mean, how else can you do it? How was this country conquered?
DOSSANI: What you describe is a tragedy.
CHOMSKY: It's a tragedy which is made right here. The press won't talk about it and even scholarship, for the most part, won't talk about it but the fact of the matter is that there has been a political settlement on the table, on the agenda for 30 years. Namely a two-state settlement on the international borders with maybe some mutual modification of the border. That's been there officially since 1976 when there was a Security Council resolution proposed by the major Arab states and supported by the (Palestinan Liberation Organization) PLO, pretty much in those terms. The United States vetoed it so it's therefore out of history and it's continued almost without change since then.
There was in fact one significant modification. In the last month of Clinton's term, January 2001 there were negotiations, which the U.S. authorized, but didn't participate in, between Israel and the Palestinians and they came very close to agreement.
DOSSANI: The Taba negotiations?
Yes, the Taba negotiations. The two sides came very close to agreement. They were called off by Israel. But that was the one week in over 30 years when the United States and Israel abandoned their rejectionist position. It's a real tribute to the media and other commentators that they can keep this quiet. The U.S. and Israel are alone in this. The international consensus includes virtually everyone. It includes the Arab League which has gone beyond that position and called for the normalization of relations, it includes Hamas. Every time you see Hamas in the newspapers, it says "Iranian-backed Hamas which wants to destroy Israel." Try to find a phrase that says "democratically elected Hamas which is calling for a two-state settlement" and has been for years. Well, yeah, that's a good propaganda system. Even in the U.S. press they've occasionally allowed op-eds by Hamas leaders, Ismail Haniya and others saying, yes we want a two-state settlement on the international border like everyone else.
DOSSANI: When did Hamas adopt that position?
CHOMSKY That's their official position taken by Haniya, the elected leader, and Khalid Mesh'al, their political leader who's in exile in Syria, he's written the same thing. And it's over and over again. There's no question about it but the West doesn't want to hear it. So therefore it's Hamas which is committed to the destruction of Israel.
In a sense they are, but if you went to a Native American reservation in the United States, I'm sure many would like to see the destruction of the United States. If you went to Mexico and took a poll, I'm sure they don't recognize the right of the United States to exist sitting on half of Mexico, land conquered in war. And that's true all over the world. But they're willing to accept a political settlement. Israel isn't willing to accept it and the United States isn't willing to accept it. And they're the lone hold-outs. Since it's the United States that pretty much runs the world, it's blocked.
Here it's always presented as though the United States must become more engaged; it's an honest broker; Bush's problem was that he neglected the issue. That's not the problem. The problem is that the United States has been very much engaged, and engaged in blocking a political settlement and giving the material and ideological and diplomatic support for the expansion programs, which are just criminal programs. The world court unanimously, including the American justice, agreed that any transfer of population into the Occupied Territories is a violation of a fundamental international law, the Geneva Conventions. And Israel agrees. In fact even their courts agree, they just sort of sneak around it in various devious ways. So there's no question about this. It's just sort of accepted in the United States that we're an outlaw state. Law doesn't apply to us. That's why it's never discussed.
Sameer Dossani, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is the director of 50 Years is Enough and blogs at shirinandsameer.blogspot.com
Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco
DOSSANI: The Israeli government and many Israeli and U.S. officials claim that the current assault on Gaza is to put an end to the flow of Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel. But many observers claim that if that were really the case, Israel would have made much more of an effort to renew the ceasefire agreement that expired in December, which had all but stopped the rocket fire. In your opinion, what are the real motivations behind the current Israeli action?
CHOMSKY: There's a theme that goes way back to the origins of Zionism. And it's a very rational theme: "Let's delay negotiations and diplomacy as long as possible, and meanwhile we'll 'build facts on the ground.'" So Israel will create the basis for what some eventual agreement will ratify, but the more they create, the more they construct, the better the agreement will be for their purposes. Those purposes are essentially to take over everything of value in the former Palestine and to undermine what's left of the indigenous population.
I think one of the reasons for popular support for this in the United States is that it resonates very well with American history. How did the United States get established? The themes are similar.
There are many examples of this theme being played out throughout Israel's history, and the current situation is another case. They have a very clear program. Rational hawks like Ariel Sharon realized that it's crazy to keep 8,000 settlers using one-third of the land and much of the scarce supplies in Gaza, protected by a large part of the Israeli army while the rest of the society around them is just rotting. So it's best to take them out and send them to the West Bank. That's the place that they really care about and want.
What was called a "disengagement" in September 2005 was actually a transfer. They were perfectly frank and open about it. In fact, they extended settlement building programs in the West Bank at the very same time that they were withdrawing a few thousand people from Gaza. So Gaza should be turned into a cage, a prison basically, with Israel attacking it at will, and meanwhile in the West Bank we'll take what we want. There was nothing secret about it.
Ehud Olmert was in the United States in May 2006 a couple of months after the withdrawal. He simply announced to a joint session of Congress and to rousing applause, that the historic right of Jews to the entire land of Israel is beyond question. He announced what he called his convergence program, which is just a version of the traditional program; it goes back to the Allon plan of 1967. Israel would essentially annex valuable land and resources near the green line (the 1967 border). That land is now behind the wall that Israel built in the West Bank, which is an annexation wall. That means the arable land, the main water resources, the pleasant suburbs around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and the hills and so on. They'll take over the Jordan valley, which is about a third of the West Bank, where they've been settling since the late 60s. Then they'll drive a couple of super highways through the whole territory — there's one to the east of Jerusalem to the town of Ma'aleh Adumim which was built mostly in the 1990s, during the Oslo years. It was built essentially to bisect the West Bank and are two others up north that includes Ariel and Kedumim and other towns which pretty much bisect what's left. They'll set up check points and all sorts of means of harassment in the other areas and the population that's left will be essentially cantonized and unable to live a decent life and if they want to leave, great. Or else they will be picturesque figures for tourists — you know somebody leading a goat up a hill in the distance — and meanwhile Israelis, including settlers, will drive around on "Israeli only" super highways. Palestinians can make do with some little road somewhere where you're falling into a ditch if it's raining. That's the goal. And it's explicit. You can't accuse them of deception because it's explicit. And it's cheered here.
DOSSANI: In terms of U.S. support, last week the UN Security Council adopted a resolution calling for a cease fire. Is this a change, particularly in light of the fact that the U.S. did not veto the resolution, but rather abstained, allowing it to be passed?
CHOMSKY: Right after the 1967 war, the Security Council had strong resolutions condemning Israel's move to expand and take over Jerusalem. Israel just ignored them. Because the U.S. pats them on the head and says "go ahead and violate them." There's a whole series of resolutions from then up until today, condemning the settlements, which as Israel knew and as everyone agreed were in violation of the Geneva conventions. The United States either vetoes the resolutions or sometimes votes for them, but with a wink saying, "go ahead anyway, and we'll pay for it and give you the military support for it." It's a consistent pattern. During the Oslo years, for example, settlement construction increased steadily, in violation of what the Oslo agreement was theoretically supposed to lead to. In fact the peak year of settlement was Clinton's last year, 2000. And it continued again afterward. It's open and explicit.
To get back to the question of motivation, they have sufficient military control over the West Bank to terrorize the population into passivity. Now that control is enhanced by the collaborationist forces that the U.S., Jordan, and Egypt have trained in order to subdue the population. In fact if you take a look at the press the last couple of weeks, if there's a demonstration in the West Bank in support of Gaza, the Fatah security forces crush it. That's what they're there for. Fatah by now is more or less functioning as Israel's police force in the West Bank. But the West Bank is only part of the occupied Palestinian territories. The other part is Gaza, and no one doubts that they form a unit. And there still is resistance in Gaza, those rockets. So yes, they want to stamp that out too, then there will be no resistance at all and they can continue to do what they want to do without interference, meanwhile delaying diplomacy as much as possible and "building the facts" the way they want to. Again this goes back to the origins of Zionism. It varies of course depending on circumstances, but the fundamental policy is the same and perfectly understandable. If you want to take over a country where the population doesn't want you, I mean, how else can you do it? How was this country conquered?
DOSSANI: What you describe is a tragedy.
CHOMSKY: It's a tragedy which is made right here. The press won't talk about it and even scholarship, for the most part, won't talk about it but the fact of the matter is that there has been a political settlement on the table, on the agenda for 30 years. Namely a two-state settlement on the international borders with maybe some mutual modification of the border. That's been there officially since 1976 when there was a Security Council resolution proposed by the major Arab states and supported by the (Palestinan Liberation Organization) PLO, pretty much in those terms. The United States vetoed it so it's therefore out of history and it's continued almost without change since then.
There was in fact one significant modification. In the last month of Clinton's term, January 2001 there were negotiations, which the U.S. authorized, but didn't participate in, between Israel and the Palestinians and they came very close to agreement.
DOSSANI: The Taba negotiations?
Yes, the Taba negotiations. The two sides came very close to agreement. They were called off by Israel. But that was the one week in over 30 years when the United States and Israel abandoned their rejectionist position. It's a real tribute to the media and other commentators that they can keep this quiet. The U.S. and Israel are alone in this. The international consensus includes virtually everyone. It includes the Arab League which has gone beyond that position and called for the normalization of relations, it includes Hamas. Every time you see Hamas in the newspapers, it says "Iranian-backed Hamas which wants to destroy Israel." Try to find a phrase that says "democratically elected Hamas which is calling for a two-state settlement" and has been for years. Well, yeah, that's a good propaganda system. Even in the U.S. press they've occasionally allowed op-eds by Hamas leaders, Ismail Haniya and others saying, yes we want a two-state settlement on the international border like everyone else.
DOSSANI: When did Hamas adopt that position?
CHOMSKY That's their official position taken by Haniya, the elected leader, and Khalid Mesh'al, their political leader who's in exile in Syria, he's written the same thing. And it's over and over again. There's no question about it but the West doesn't want to hear it. So therefore it's Hamas which is committed to the destruction of Israel.
In a sense they are, but if you went to a Native American reservation in the United States, I'm sure many would like to see the destruction of the United States. If you went to Mexico and took a poll, I'm sure they don't recognize the right of the United States to exist sitting on half of Mexico, land conquered in war. And that's true all over the world. But they're willing to accept a political settlement. Israel isn't willing to accept it and the United States isn't willing to accept it. And they're the lone hold-outs. Since it's the United States that pretty much runs the world, it's blocked.
Here it's always presented as though the United States must become more engaged; it's an honest broker; Bush's problem was that he neglected the issue. That's not the problem. The problem is that the United States has been very much engaged, and engaged in blocking a political settlement and giving the material and ideological and diplomatic support for the expansion programs, which are just criminal programs. The world court unanimously, including the American justice, agreed that any transfer of population into the Occupied Territories is a violation of a fundamental international law, the Geneva Conventions. And Israel agrees. In fact even their courts agree, they just sort of sneak around it in various devious ways. So there's no question about this. It's just sort of accepted in the United States that we're an outlaw state. Law doesn't apply to us. That's why it's never discussed.
Sameer Dossani, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is the director of 50 Years is Enough and blogs at shirinandsameer.blogspot.com
So, I asked the UN secretary general, isn't it time for a war crimes tribunal?
Mr Ban said it would not be up to him to launch a war crimes tribunal. It was pathetic
By Robert Fisk:
January 19, 2009 "The Independent" -- -- - It's a wrap, a doddle, an Israeli ceasefire just in time for Barack Obama to have a squeaky-clean inauguration with all the world looking at the streets of Washington rather than the rubble of Gaza. Condi and Ms Livni thought their new arms-monitoring agreement – reached without a single Arab being involved – would work. Ban Ki-moon welcomed the unilateral truce. The great and the good gathered for a Sharm el-Sheikh summit. Only Hamas itself was not consulted. Which led, of course, to a few wrinkles in the plan. First, before declaring its own ceasefire, Hamas fired off more rockets at Israel, proving that Israel's primary war aim – to stop the missiles – had failed. Then Cairo shrugged off the deal because no one was going to set up electronic surveillance equipment on Egyptian soil. And not one European leader travelling to the region suggested the survivors might be helped if Israel, the EU and the US ended the food and fuel siege of Gaza.
After killing hundreds of women and children, Israel was the good guy again, by declaring a unilateral ceasefire that Hamas was certain to break. But Obama will be smiling on Tuesday. Was not this the reason, after all, why Israel suddenly wanted a truce?
Egypt's objections may be theatre – the US spent £18m last year training Egyptian security men to stop arms smuggling into Gaza and since the US bails out Egypt's economy, ignores the corruption of its regime and goes on backing Hosni Mubarak, there's sure to be a "compromise" very soon.
And Hamas has had its claws cut. Israel's informers in Gaza handed over the locations of its homes and hideouts and the government of Gaza must be wondering if they can ever close down the spy rings. Hamas thought its militia was the Hizbollah – a serious error – and that the world would eventually come to its aid. The world (although not its pompous leaders) felt enormous pity for the Palestinians, but not for the cynical men of Hamas who staged a coup in Gaza in 2007 which killed 151 Palestinians. As usual, the European statesmen appeared hopelessly out of touch with what their own electorates thought.
And history was quite forgotten. The Hamas rockets were the result of the food and fuel siege; Israel broke Hamas's own truce on 4 and 17 November. Forgotten is the fact Hamas won the 2006 elections, although Israel has killed a clutch of the victors.
And there'll be little time for the peacemakers of Sharm el-Sheikh to reflect on the three UN schools targeted by the Israelis and the slaughter of the civilians inside. Poor old Ban Ki-moon. He tried to make his voice heard just before the ceasefire, saying Israel's troops had acted "outrageously" and should be "punished" for the third school killing. Some hope. At a Beirut press conference, he admitted he had failed to get a call through to Israel's Foreign Minister to complain.
It was pathetic. When I asked Mr Ban if he would consider a UN war crimes tribunal in Gaza, he said this would not be for him to "determine". But only a few journalists bothered to listen to him and his officials were quickly folding up the UN flag on the table. About time too. Bring back the League of Nations. All is forgiven.
What no one noticed yesterday – not the Arabs nor the Israelis nor the portentous men from Europe – was that the Sharm el-Sheikh meeting last night was opening on the 90th anniversary – to the day – of the opening of the 1919 Paris peace conference which created the modern Middle East. One of its main topics was "the borders of Palestine". There followed the Versailles Treaty. And we know what happened then. The rest really is history. Bring on the ghosts.
Copyright The Independent"
By Robert Fisk:
January 19, 2009 "The Independent" -- -- - It's a wrap, a doddle, an Israeli ceasefire just in time for Barack Obama to have a squeaky-clean inauguration with all the world looking at the streets of Washington rather than the rubble of Gaza. Condi and Ms Livni thought their new arms-monitoring agreement – reached without a single Arab being involved – would work. Ban Ki-moon welcomed the unilateral truce. The great and the good gathered for a Sharm el-Sheikh summit. Only Hamas itself was not consulted. Which led, of course, to a few wrinkles in the plan. First, before declaring its own ceasefire, Hamas fired off more rockets at Israel, proving that Israel's primary war aim – to stop the missiles – had failed. Then Cairo shrugged off the deal because no one was going to set up electronic surveillance equipment on Egyptian soil. And not one European leader travelling to the region suggested the survivors might be helped if Israel, the EU and the US ended the food and fuel siege of Gaza.
After killing hundreds of women and children, Israel was the good guy again, by declaring a unilateral ceasefire that Hamas was certain to break. But Obama will be smiling on Tuesday. Was not this the reason, after all, why Israel suddenly wanted a truce?
Egypt's objections may be theatre – the US spent £18m last year training Egyptian security men to stop arms smuggling into Gaza and since the US bails out Egypt's economy, ignores the corruption of its regime and goes on backing Hosni Mubarak, there's sure to be a "compromise" very soon.
And Hamas has had its claws cut. Israel's informers in Gaza handed over the locations of its homes and hideouts and the government of Gaza must be wondering if they can ever close down the spy rings. Hamas thought its militia was the Hizbollah – a serious error – and that the world would eventually come to its aid. The world (although not its pompous leaders) felt enormous pity for the Palestinians, but not for the cynical men of Hamas who staged a coup in Gaza in 2007 which killed 151 Palestinians. As usual, the European statesmen appeared hopelessly out of touch with what their own electorates thought.
And history was quite forgotten. The Hamas rockets were the result of the food and fuel siege; Israel broke Hamas's own truce on 4 and 17 November. Forgotten is the fact Hamas won the 2006 elections, although Israel has killed a clutch of the victors.
And there'll be little time for the peacemakers of Sharm el-Sheikh to reflect on the three UN schools targeted by the Israelis and the slaughter of the civilians inside. Poor old Ban Ki-moon. He tried to make his voice heard just before the ceasefire, saying Israel's troops had acted "outrageously" and should be "punished" for the third school killing. Some hope. At a Beirut press conference, he admitted he had failed to get a call through to Israel's Foreign Minister to complain.
It was pathetic. When I asked Mr Ban if he would consider a UN war crimes tribunal in Gaza, he said this would not be for him to "determine". But only a few journalists bothered to listen to him and his officials were quickly folding up the UN flag on the table. About time too. Bring back the League of Nations. All is forgiven.
What no one noticed yesterday – not the Arabs nor the Israelis nor the portentous men from Europe – was that the Sharm el-Sheikh meeting last night was opening on the 90th anniversary – to the day – of the opening of the 1919 Paris peace conference which created the modern Middle East. One of its main topics was "the borders of Palestine". There followed the Versailles Treaty. And we know what happened then. The rest really is history. Bring on the ghosts.
Copyright The Independent"
95 Palestinian fighters killed in Gaza war
Kilde: http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=82939§ionid=351020202
From the 1194 Gazans officially registered as killed in Israeli attacks from December 27 to January 17, a whopping 1099 were civilians, the Gaza-based Palestinian center for human rights reported on Sunday.
Only 95 of those killed were resistance fighters.
Israel unleashed its Operation Cast Lead on Gaza on December 27 allegedly to halt Hamas from targeting Israel and to destroy the Palestinian resistance group.
The 19th day of the Gaza carnage saw Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni state an objective different from the one echelons in Tel Aviv has previously announced.
Livni claimed that despite the assertions of many officials in Tel Aviv, Operation Cast Lead "was never about destroying Hamas".
"Our aim was to restore our deterrence capability. They will think twice before they dare to fire the next rocket at Israel," she explained.
After 23 days of fighting, Israel announced a unilateral truce without having achieved any of the objectives announced for the attack on the strip.
The Israeli onslaught on Gaza has cost the Palestinian economy at least $1.6 billion.
A governmental report on the war revealed on Monday that Israel reduced some 4,000 residential buildings to rubble and damaged 16,000 other houses during the conflict.
Since the cessation of the hostilities, at least 100 bodies have been recovered from the rubbles. The number of those killed in Israeli attacks has been put at around 1,300, according to the latest statistics.
Nearly 6,000 Gazans have been injured in the attacks.
From the 1194 Gazans officially registered as killed in Israeli attacks from December 27 to January 17, a whopping 1099 were civilians, the Gaza-based Palestinian center for human rights reported on Sunday.
Only 95 of those killed were resistance fighters.
Israel unleashed its Operation Cast Lead on Gaza on December 27 allegedly to halt Hamas from targeting Israel and to destroy the Palestinian resistance group.
The 19th day of the Gaza carnage saw Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni state an objective different from the one echelons in Tel Aviv has previously announced.
Livni claimed that despite the assertions of many officials in Tel Aviv, Operation Cast Lead "was never about destroying Hamas".
"Our aim was to restore our deterrence capability. They will think twice before they dare to fire the next rocket at Israel," she explained.
After 23 days of fighting, Israel announced a unilateral truce without having achieved any of the objectives announced for the attack on the strip.
The Israeli onslaught on Gaza has cost the Palestinian economy at least $1.6 billion.
A governmental report on the war revealed on Monday that Israel reduced some 4,000 residential buildings to rubble and damaged 16,000 other houses during the conflict.
Since the cessation of the hostilities, at least 100 bodies have been recovered from the rubbles. The number of those killed in Israeli attacks has been put at around 1,300, according to the latest statistics.
Nearly 6,000 Gazans have been injured in the attacks.
Gaza rebuild 'to cost billions'
Rebuilding the Gaza Strip after Israel's three-week offensive will cost billions of dollars, the UN has warned.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been left homeless and 400,000 people still have no running water, it says.
The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, is to visit Gaza and southern Israel on Tuesday to assess the situation.
Ceasefires declared by Palestinian militant groups and Israel are holding, and Israeli troops are expected to complete their pull-out later.
Israeli political sources say the military aims to have withdrawn before Barack Obama's inauguration as the new president of the United States at 1700 GMT.
But analysts say big questions remain, such as who will police Gaza's southern border with Egypt and how much power Hamas still has.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he wants troops to leave Gaza "as quickly as possible" and some have already left. Hamas has said it will hold fire until Sunday to give Israel time to withdraw.
Rubble
At a news conference in New York, UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes said hundreds of millions of dollars of aid would be needed immediately to help Gaza's 1.4 million people in the aftermath of the offensive, which ended on Saturday.
Mr Holmes said some neighbourhoods had been almost totally destroyed and many homes reduced to rubble.
Sewage was flowing in the streets, there were huge medical and food needs, and unexploded ordnance was posing a big problem, he said.
While 100,000 people had their water supply restored on Sunday, 400,000 still have no water, he said.
Electricity is available for less than 12 hours a day, and 100,000 people had been displaced, he added.
A total of 50 UN facilities and 21 medical facilities were damaged, he added.
"It may not be very clear who actually won this conflict, if such a concept means anything in Gaza, but I think it's pretty clear who lost and that was the civilian population of Gaza, and to a much lesser extent the civilian population of southern Israel," Mr Holmes told reporters at UN headquarters.
When asked to estimate the costs, Mr Holmes said he could not give exact figures until UN teams in Gaza had completed their assessments, but the likely figure was hundreds of millions, and the overall reconstruction costs would run into billions.
Separately, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said on Monday that 4,100 homes were totally destroyed and 17,000 others damaged during the conflict.
About 1,500 factories and workshops, 20 mosques, 31 security installations and 10 water or sewage pipes were also damaged, it added.
The bureau estimated that the overall physical damage so far amounted to about $1.9bn (£1.4bn), including about $200m (£140m) of damage to infrastructure.
The UN secretary general is due to visit Gaza on Tuesday to inspect the damage and see what assistance can be given. He will also visit the southern Israeli town of Sderot to see the damage caused by rocket attacks from Gaza.
The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Gaza City says Palestinians are meanwhile continuing to search through the rubble of their homes to try to find the bodies of those killed in the conflict.
Many are angry and feel that the world did not do enough when it mattered to stop the violence, our correspondent says.
'Horrific injuries'
Israel called a ceasefire on Saturday, saying it had met its war aims. Hamas later declared its own truce, with one of its leaders claiming a "great victory" over Israel.
Palestinian medical sources say at least 1,300 Palestinians were killed, nearly a third of them children, and 5,500 injured during the conflict. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were killed.
The director of operations for UN aid agency in Gaza, Unrwa, told the BBC that the weapons used by the Israeli military had caused "horrific" injuries to children.
"These are not scratches or bullet wounds, these are kids who are hit by shrapnel in most instances," he said.
Palestinian militant groups in Gaza meanwhile said 112 of their fighters and 180 Hamas paramilitary policemen were killed, according to the Reuters news agency.
Despite the losses, Hamas's military wing warned Israel that it would face more rocket attacks if it did not withdraw from Gaza by Sunday.
"Our arsenal of rockets has not been affected and we continued to fire them during the war without interruption. We are still able to launch them," Abu Obeida, a spokesman for the Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades, told the AFP news agency.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7839075.stm
Published: 2009/01/20 08:22:54 GMT
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been left homeless and 400,000 people still have no running water, it says.
The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, is to visit Gaza and southern Israel on Tuesday to assess the situation.
Ceasefires declared by Palestinian militant groups and Israel are holding, and Israeli troops are expected to complete their pull-out later.
Israeli political sources say the military aims to have withdrawn before Barack Obama's inauguration as the new president of the United States at 1700 GMT.
But analysts say big questions remain, such as who will police Gaza's southern border with Egypt and how much power Hamas still has.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he wants troops to leave Gaza "as quickly as possible" and some have already left. Hamas has said it will hold fire until Sunday to give Israel time to withdraw.
Rubble
At a news conference in New York, UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes said hundreds of millions of dollars of aid would be needed immediately to help Gaza's 1.4 million people in the aftermath of the offensive, which ended on Saturday.
Mr Holmes said some neighbourhoods had been almost totally destroyed and many homes reduced to rubble.
Sewage was flowing in the streets, there were huge medical and food needs, and unexploded ordnance was posing a big problem, he said.
While 100,000 people had their water supply restored on Sunday, 400,000 still have no water, he said.
Electricity is available for less than 12 hours a day, and 100,000 people had been displaced, he added.
A total of 50 UN facilities and 21 medical facilities were damaged, he added.
"It may not be very clear who actually won this conflict, if such a concept means anything in Gaza, but I think it's pretty clear who lost and that was the civilian population of Gaza, and to a much lesser extent the civilian population of southern Israel," Mr Holmes told reporters at UN headquarters.
When asked to estimate the costs, Mr Holmes said he could not give exact figures until UN teams in Gaza had completed their assessments, but the likely figure was hundreds of millions, and the overall reconstruction costs would run into billions.
Separately, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said on Monday that 4,100 homes were totally destroyed and 17,000 others damaged during the conflict.
About 1,500 factories and workshops, 20 mosques, 31 security installations and 10 water or sewage pipes were also damaged, it added.
The bureau estimated that the overall physical damage so far amounted to about $1.9bn (£1.4bn), including about $200m (£140m) of damage to infrastructure.
The UN secretary general is due to visit Gaza on Tuesday to inspect the damage and see what assistance can be given. He will also visit the southern Israeli town of Sderot to see the damage caused by rocket attacks from Gaza.
The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Gaza City says Palestinians are meanwhile continuing to search through the rubble of their homes to try to find the bodies of those killed in the conflict.
Many are angry and feel that the world did not do enough when it mattered to stop the violence, our correspondent says.
'Horrific injuries'
Israel called a ceasefire on Saturday, saying it had met its war aims. Hamas later declared its own truce, with one of its leaders claiming a "great victory" over Israel.
Palestinian medical sources say at least 1,300 Palestinians were killed, nearly a third of them children, and 5,500 injured during the conflict. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were killed.
The director of operations for UN aid agency in Gaza, Unrwa, told the BBC that the weapons used by the Israeli military had caused "horrific" injuries to children.
"These are not scratches or bullet wounds, these are kids who are hit by shrapnel in most instances," he said.
Palestinian militant groups in Gaza meanwhile said 112 of their fighters and 180 Hamas paramilitary policemen were killed, according to the Reuters news agency.
Despite the losses, Hamas's military wing warned Israel that it would face more rocket attacks if it did not withdraw from Gaza by Sunday.
"Our arsenal of rockets has not been affected and we continued to fire them during the war without interruption. We are still able to launch them," Abu Obeida, a spokesman for the Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades, told the AFP news agency.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7839075.stm
Published: 2009/01/20 08:22:54 GMT
fredag den 16. januar 2009
UN Headquarters in Gaza Hit by Israeli 'White Phosphorus' Shells
by Sheera Frenkel and Philippe Naughton
JERUSALEM - The main UN compound in Gaza was left in flames today after being struck by Israeli artillery fire, and a spokesman said that the building had been hit by shells containing the incendiary agent white phosphorus.
Palestinian firemen extinguish a blaze at the UN warehouse in Gaza City. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has told visiting UN chief Ban Ki-moon that Israeli troops had shelled a UN compound in Gaza in response to fire coming from the building. (AFP/Mahmud Hams)The attack on the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) came as Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, arrived in Israel on a peace mission and plunged Israel's relations with the world body to a new low.
Mr Ban expressed his "strong protest and outrage" at the shelling and demanded an investigation, only to be told by apologetic Israeli leaders that their forces had been returning fire from within the UN compound.
"The Israeli forces were attacked from there and their response was severe," Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, told the UN chief, according to a statement released by his office.
"We do not want such incidents to take place and I am sorry for it but I don't know if you know, but Hamas fired from the UNRWA site. This is a sad incident and I apologise for it."
UNWRA, which looks after around four million Palestinian refugees in the region, suspended its operations in Gaza after the attack, in which three of its employees were injured.
Chris Gunness, a UNRWA spokesman, said that the building had been used to shelter hundreds of people fleeing Israel's 20-day offensive in Gaza. He said that pallets with supplies desperately needed by Palestinians in Gaza were on fire.
"What more stark symbolism do you need?" he said. "You can't put out white phosphorus with traditional methods such as fire extinguishers. You need sand, we don't have sand."
The Israeli military has denied using white phosphorus shells in the Gaza offensive, although an investigation by The Times has revealed that dozens of Palestinians in Gaza have sustained serious injuries from the substance, which burns at extremely high temperatures.
The Geneva Convention of 1980 proscribes the use of white phosphorus as a weapon of war in civilian areas, although it can be used to create a smokescreen. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said today that all weapons used in Gaza were "within the scope of international law".
The attack on the UN compound came as Israeli forces pushed deeper into Gaza City and unleashed their heaviest shelling on its crowded neighbourhoods in three weeks of war. At least 15 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli attacks, medical officials said, pushing the death toll up towards 1,100 - a level that Mr Ban described as "unbearable".
It was not clear whether the escalation signalled a new phase in the conflict. Israel has held back from all-out urban warfare in the narrow alleyways of Gaza's cities, where Hamas militants are more familiar with the lay of the land.
Black smoke billowed over Gaza City, terrifying civilians who said that they had "nowhere left to hide" from the relentless shelling.
"I am telling you that Gaza is on fire, everything is under attack. We cannot begin to answer all the calls for help, it is desperate. We cannot reach the people, everyone is trapped and we do not know how to help them," said Doctor Moussa El Haddad at Shifa Hospital.
Maha El-Sheiky, 36, said that she fled her home in the western suburbs of Gaza City two days ago, moving her family into a school in the centre of the city. "We thought it would be safer here. But now there is shelling everywhere. It is schools and mosques and hospitals. We don't know what will be next," she said. "We are hiding, it is in God's hands."
There were reports that the al-Quds hospital in the Tal El Hawa district, Gaza's second-largest, had been shelled, while more than 500 patients were being treated inside.
An explosion also blasted a tower block that houses the offices of Reuters and several other media organisations, injuring a journalist working for the Abu Dhabi television channel.
Reuters journalists working at the time said it appeared that the southern side of the 13th floor of the Al-Shurouq Tower in the city centre had been struck by an Israeli missile or shell. Reuters evacuated its bureau.
Several organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch, said that they were "certain" that Israel was using white phosphorus shells in Gaza. Human rights workers said that the use of phosphorus in the densely populated Gaza City could constitute a war crime.
Israel launched the offensive on December 27 in an effort to stop militant rocket fire from Gaza that has terrorised hundreds of thousands of Israelis. It says that it will press ahead until it receives guarantees of a complete halt to rocket fire and an end to weapons smuggling into Gaza from neighbouring Egypt.
The attack on the UN compound prompted international protests.
Lord Malloch-Brown, the Foreign Office Minister, said that there was "absolutely no excuse" for the shelling, which, he said, reminded him of a similar attack on a UN observation post during the Israeli offensive into Lebanon in 2006.
He told peers: "With over 1,000 people now dead in Gaza, many of them civilians and children, the urgent need for a diplomatic solution is clear. A robust and immediate ceasefire is the only way the current situation in Gaza can be addressed."
William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: "The shelling of the UN Headquarters in Gaza is unacceptable. This undercuts efforts to bring relief to the people of Gaza and is against Israel's own interests. The UNWRA provides food and aid to over a million Palestinian refugees in Gaza.
"The suspension of its operations will bring more misery to civilians. We desperately need a ceasefire by both sides, not further escalation. Both sides must meet their obligations to protect aid workers at all times."
The conflict was also discussed at talks between Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, in Berlin. Aides said that Mr Brown was expected to speak to Mr Ban later today.
Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd.
JERUSALEM - The main UN compound in Gaza was left in flames today after being struck by Israeli artillery fire, and a spokesman said that the building had been hit by shells containing the incendiary agent white phosphorus.
Palestinian firemen extinguish a blaze at the UN warehouse in Gaza City. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has told visiting UN chief Ban Ki-moon that Israeli troops had shelled a UN compound in Gaza in response to fire coming from the building. (AFP/Mahmud Hams)The attack on the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) came as Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, arrived in Israel on a peace mission and plunged Israel's relations with the world body to a new low.
Mr Ban expressed his "strong protest and outrage" at the shelling and demanded an investigation, only to be told by apologetic Israeli leaders that their forces had been returning fire from within the UN compound.
"The Israeli forces were attacked from there and their response was severe," Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, told the UN chief, according to a statement released by his office.
"We do not want such incidents to take place and I am sorry for it but I don't know if you know, but Hamas fired from the UNRWA site. This is a sad incident and I apologise for it."
UNWRA, which looks after around four million Palestinian refugees in the region, suspended its operations in Gaza after the attack, in which three of its employees were injured.
Chris Gunness, a UNRWA spokesman, said that the building had been used to shelter hundreds of people fleeing Israel's 20-day offensive in Gaza. He said that pallets with supplies desperately needed by Palestinians in Gaza were on fire.
"What more stark symbolism do you need?" he said. "You can't put out white phosphorus with traditional methods such as fire extinguishers. You need sand, we don't have sand."
The Israeli military has denied using white phosphorus shells in the Gaza offensive, although an investigation by The Times has revealed that dozens of Palestinians in Gaza have sustained serious injuries from the substance, which burns at extremely high temperatures.
The Geneva Convention of 1980 proscribes the use of white phosphorus as a weapon of war in civilian areas, although it can be used to create a smokescreen. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said today that all weapons used in Gaza were "within the scope of international law".
The attack on the UN compound came as Israeli forces pushed deeper into Gaza City and unleashed their heaviest shelling on its crowded neighbourhoods in three weeks of war. At least 15 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli attacks, medical officials said, pushing the death toll up towards 1,100 - a level that Mr Ban described as "unbearable".
It was not clear whether the escalation signalled a new phase in the conflict. Israel has held back from all-out urban warfare in the narrow alleyways of Gaza's cities, where Hamas militants are more familiar with the lay of the land.
Black smoke billowed over Gaza City, terrifying civilians who said that they had "nowhere left to hide" from the relentless shelling.
"I am telling you that Gaza is on fire, everything is under attack. We cannot begin to answer all the calls for help, it is desperate. We cannot reach the people, everyone is trapped and we do not know how to help them," said Doctor Moussa El Haddad at Shifa Hospital.
Maha El-Sheiky, 36, said that she fled her home in the western suburbs of Gaza City two days ago, moving her family into a school in the centre of the city. "We thought it would be safer here. But now there is shelling everywhere. It is schools and mosques and hospitals. We don't know what will be next," she said. "We are hiding, it is in God's hands."
There were reports that the al-Quds hospital in the Tal El Hawa district, Gaza's second-largest, had been shelled, while more than 500 patients were being treated inside.
An explosion also blasted a tower block that houses the offices of Reuters and several other media organisations, injuring a journalist working for the Abu Dhabi television channel.
Reuters journalists working at the time said it appeared that the southern side of the 13th floor of the Al-Shurouq Tower in the city centre had been struck by an Israeli missile or shell. Reuters evacuated its bureau.
Several organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch, said that they were "certain" that Israel was using white phosphorus shells in Gaza. Human rights workers said that the use of phosphorus in the densely populated Gaza City could constitute a war crime.
Israel launched the offensive on December 27 in an effort to stop militant rocket fire from Gaza that has terrorised hundreds of thousands of Israelis. It says that it will press ahead until it receives guarantees of a complete halt to rocket fire and an end to weapons smuggling into Gaza from neighbouring Egypt.
The attack on the UN compound prompted international protests.
Lord Malloch-Brown, the Foreign Office Minister, said that there was "absolutely no excuse" for the shelling, which, he said, reminded him of a similar attack on a UN observation post during the Israeli offensive into Lebanon in 2006.
He told peers: "With over 1,000 people now dead in Gaza, many of them civilians and children, the urgent need for a diplomatic solution is clear. A robust and immediate ceasefire is the only way the current situation in Gaza can be addressed."
William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: "The shelling of the UN Headquarters in Gaza is unacceptable. This undercuts efforts to bring relief to the people of Gaza and is against Israel's own interests. The UNWRA provides food and aid to over a million Palestinian refugees in Gaza.
"The suspension of its operations will bring more misery to civilians. We desperately need a ceasefire by both sides, not further escalation. Both sides must meet their obligations to protect aid workers at all times."
The conflict was also discussed at talks between Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, in Berlin. Aides said that Mr Brown was expected to speak to Mr Ban later today.
Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd.
Chronology: Which Side Violated the Israel-Gaza Ceasefire?
Chronology: Which Side Violated the Israel-Gaza Ceasefire?
The Bush Administration and The New York Times v. Amnesty International
By Howard Friel
January 14, 2009 "CommonDreams.org" -- -
Introduction
June 18, 2008
Israel has approved a ceasefire to end months of bitter clashes with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza, Israeli officials have confirmed. Under the terms of the truce, which is set to begin Thursday (June 19), Israel will ease its blockade on the Gaza Strip. At the same time, talks to release an Israeli soldier [Gilad Shalit] held by Hamas would intensify, an Israeli official said. Hamas, which controls Gaza, says it is confident that all militants will abide by the truce [by not firing rockets into southern Israel]. The agreement is supposed to last six months. (Emphasis added) ("Israel Agrees to Gaza Ceasefire," BBC, June 18, 2008)
December 28, 2008
"The United States strongly condemns the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and holds Hamas responsible for breaking the cease-fire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza." U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. ("White House Puts Onus on Hamas to End Escalation of Violence," New York Times, December 28, 2008)
December 30, 2008
"Israel must defend itself. And Hamas must bear responsibility for ending a six-month cease-fire this month with a barrage of rocket attacks into Israeli territory." ("War Over Gaza," New York Times editorial, December 30, 2008)
Ceasefire Chronology: (See November 5 and December 28 Entries Below For Direct References to Breaking the Ceasefire)
July 4, 2008
A humanitarian crisis is engulfing Gaza-not the result of a natural disaster but entirely man-made and avoidable. The tightening of the Israeli blockade since June 2007 has left the population, 1.5 million Palestinians, trapped and with few resources. They are surviving, but only just. Some 80 per cent depend on the trickle of international aid that the Israeli government allows in.
In the first five months of 2008 some 380 Palestinians, more than a third of them unarmed civilians and including more than 60 children, were killed by the Israeli army, almost all of them in the Gaza Strip. In the same period 25 Israelis, 16 of them civilians, were killed by Palestinian armed groups.
A ceasefire between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups came into force on 19 June and at the time of writing it looked uncertain. Israeli officials however, insisted that Gaza's border remains sealed so long as Hamas does not release the Israeli soldier they are holding. Some 8,500 Palestinians are detained in Israeli jails. Of these, 900 are from the Gaza Strip, all of whom have been denied visits by their families since June 2007.
Palestinian armed groups in Gaza continue to hold an Israeli soldier, who was
captured in June 2006, and to deny him access to the International Committee of
the Red Cross. ("Gaza Blockage: Collective Punishment," Amnesty International, July 4, 2008)
August 14, 2008
Some 400 Palestinian students may lose their university places and scholarships unless the Israeli authorities allow them to leave the Gaza Strip before the new academic year, which starts in the next few weeks. The students have enrolled to study subjects including law, sciences, business and medicine.
At least 37 of the students have university places and scholarships in Europe and North America, while hundreds of others are due to travel to universities in countries in the Middle East and elsewhere. Several of these students have been denied permission to leave Gaza since last year. ("Freedom of Movement, Right to Education Denied," Amnesty International, August 14, 2008)
August 15, 2008
Amnesty International has described as scandalous the Israeli army's account of firing a tank shell that killed Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana as a "sound" decision. The army reached the conclusion as part of a so-called investigation into the killing of the journalist and three other unarmed civilians, including 2 children, on 16 April 2008.
The army's so-called investigation lacked any semblance of impartiality and Amnesty International called for an independent and impartial investigation into the killing. The organization said that the army's conclusion can only reinforce the culture of impunity that has led to so many reckless and disproportionate killings of children and other unarmed civilians by Israeli forces in Gaza.
Fadel Shana worked for Reuters press agency and was in a car clearly marked as Press. He and his colleague left the car, wearing visible Press flak-jackets and he was killed by an Israeli tank he was filming. The tank fired a shell at Shana, which also hit the civilians, including children, and injured his colleague and others around him. ("Army's So-Called Inquiry into Cameraman's Killing in Gaza a Scandal," Amnesty International, August 15, 2008)
August 22, 2008
With the exception of Karima Abu Dalal (who was finally able to leave Gaza through an exceptional arrangement via the border with Egypt after many months' delay to her treatment for Hodgkin's lymphoma) all the critically ill patients named above are still being denied permission to leave Gaza for treatment abroad.
The Israeli authorities are refusing to allow these and hundreds of other patients to leave Gaza to obtain specialized treatment unavailable in Gaza, for undisclosed and unsubstantiated security reasons. Dozens of patients have died in recent months following delays to, or denials of, permits to leave Gaza. ("Further Information on Medical Concern," Amnesty International, August 22, 2008)
August 27, 2008
With Gaza locked down and cut off from the outside world by a stifling Israeli blockade, 46 peace activists from the world over set sail for Gaza on 22 August to, in their words, "break the siege that Israel has imposed on the civilian population of Gaza..., to express our solidarity with the suffering people of Gaza, and to create a free and regular channel between Gaza and the outside world."
The blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip over a year ago has left the entire population of 1.5 million Palestinians trapped with dwindling resources and an economy in ruins. Some 80 per cent of the population now depend on the trickle of international aid that the Israeli army allows in. This humanitarian crisis is man-made and entirely avoidable.
The Israeli authorities argue that the blockade on Gaza is in response to Palestinian attacks, especially the indiscriminate rockets fired from Gaza at the nearby Israeli town of Sderot. These and other Palestinian attacks killed 25 Israelis in the first half of this year; in the same period Israeli forces killed 400 Palestinians.
However, the Israeli blockade does not target the Palestinian armed groups responsible for attacks-it collectively punishes the entire population of Gaza.
Though a ceasefire between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups has held in Gaza since 19 June 2008, the Israeli blockade remains in place.
Israel has banned exports from Gaza altogether and has reduced entry of fuel and goods to a trickle-mostly humanitarian aid, foodstuff and medical supplies. Basic necessities are in short supply or not available at all in Gaza. The shortages have pushed up food prices at a time when people can least afford to pay more. A growing number of Gazans have been pushed into extreme poverty and suffer from malnutrition.
With the ceasefire holding, the suffering in Gaza has fallen off the international news agenda. However, Amnesty International members continue to campaign, calling:
on the Israeli authorities to immediately lift the blockade, allow unhindered passage into Gaza of sufficient quantities of fuel, electricity and other necessities; and allow those who want to leave Gaza to do so, notably patients in need of medical treatment not available in Gaza and students enrolled in universities abroad, and also to allow them later to return; on Palestinian armed groups not to resume rocket and other attacks on Israeli civilians. ("Trapped: Collective Punishment in Gaza," Amnesty International, August 27, 2008)
August 29, 2008
The Israeli authorities are still denying scores of critically ill patients the authorization they need to leave Gaza for medical treatment that is unavailable in Gaza. Hospitals in Gaza continue to lack vital medical equipment and trained personnel to carry out advanced medical treatment, including many surgical operations and the provision of chemotherapy for cancer patients. Even those patients who are given permission to leave Gaza for treatment are often suffering as a result of delays in receiving exit permits, which contribute to a decline in patient's health and emotional well-being.
Interrogation by the General Security Service
Over the past year, the denial of permits to seriously ill patients has primarily been based on undisclosed security reasons. Some patients from Gaza testified to Amnesty International that they were openly told in interviews with the Israeli General Security Service (GSS) [Israel's counterintelligence and internal security service, also known as Shin Bet] at the Erez Crossing point at the northern border with Israel that they would not receive treatment in Israel unless they become informants for the GSS. As Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel) describes in a recent report, "patients are detained for interrogation at Erez Crossing, and requested either to provide information or to act as collaborators on a regular basis as a condition for permission to exit Gaza for medical treatment."
The report provides testimonies that PHR-Israel has received from a number of patients that demonstrate this practice. According to PHR-Israel, rejection or approval of a patient's request to leave Gaza for treatment almost entirely depends on the GSS who are taking advantage of the vulnerability of patients who have no other means of accessing medical care.
Even patients who already have an exit permit from the authorities to cross into Israel at Erez are being denied permission to leave Gaza after an "unsatisfactory" interrogation. This policy by the GSS of questioning patients in exchange for entry into Israel appears to have become a formal part of the exit procedure for patients and is reportedly discouraging some patients from attempting to leave Gaza in the first place. ("Health Professional Action: Patients From Gaza Are Still Denied Access to Medical Treatment in Israel," Amnesty International, August 29, 2008)
October 16, 2008
The children named above [ages 5 months, 1.2 years, 1.2 years, 1.5 years, 5 years, and 6 years] suffer from serious heart conditions including congenital heart defects commonly known as holes in the heart. All the children need urgent surgery that cannot be provided in Gaza, which lacks both the necessary medical facilities and specialists. The children were due to be operated on by a team of British heart specialists at Makassad Hospital in East Jerusalem during the week beginning 4 October 2008. They were not able to leave the Gaza Strip because the Israeli authorities refused permissions to their mothers/grandmothers to leave Gaza to accompany them. Soheb Wael Alqasas has already missed six appointments for his surgery in recent months because his mother and grandmother were repeatedly refused permits to accompany him to the hospital in Jerusalem.
A team of Italian heart specialists will be conducting a week of paediatric cardiac surgery at the Makassad Hospital from 6 November. It is imperative that the six children are able to attend the Makassad Hospital in time to undergo surgery by the visiting team of specialists. For this to be possible their relatives must be allowed to travel with them to the hospital in Jerusalem. ("Medical Concern," Amnesty International, October 16, 2008)
November 5, 2008
A spate of Israeli and Palestinian attacks and counter-attacks in the past 24 hours could spell the end of a five-and-a-half-month ceasefire. This would once again put the civilian populations of Gaza and southern Israel in the line of fire.
The killing of six Palestinian militants in Gaza by Israeli forces in a ground incursion and air strikes on 4 November was followed by a barrage of dozens of Palestinian rockets on nearby towns and villages in the south of Israel. The Palestinian attacks caused no casualties or damage, but there is a real risk that any further armed actions by either side would risk igniting another deadly campaign.
The ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Hamas last June and has been in force since then. It has been the single most important factor in reducing civilian casualties and attacks on civilians to the lowest level since the outbreak of the uprising (intifada) more than eight years ago.
The ceasefire has brought enormous improvements in the quality of life in Sderot and other Israeli villages near Gaza, where before the ceasefire residents lived in fear of the next Palestinian rocket strike. However, nearby in the Gaza Strip the Israeli blockade remains in place and the population has so far seen few dividends from the ceasefire. Since June 2007, the entire population of 1.5 million Palestinians has been trapped in Gaza, with dwindling resources and an economy in ruins. Some 80 percent of the population now depend on the trickle of international aid that the Israeli army allows in. (Emphasis added) ("Gaza Ceasefire at Risk," Amnesty International, November 5, 2008)
November 14, 2008
The Israeli army has completely blocked the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian aid and medical supplies to the Gaza Strip for more than a week. Very little fuel has been allowed in. Amnesty International urged the Israeli authorities on Friday to allow their immediate passage.
"This latest tightening of the Israeli blockade has made an already dire humanitarian situation markedly worse. It is nothing short of collective punishment on Gaza's civilian population and it must stop immediately," said Philip Luther, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme.
Eighty per cent of the population of Gaza has been dependent on the trickle of humanitarian aid previously allowed into Gaza until Wednesday, 5 November. Industrial fuel, which is donated by the European Union and needed to power Gaza's power plant, has also been blocked, causing a blackout in large parts of Gaza. The United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA), the main UN aid agency, which provides humanitarian assistance to close to one million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, announced on Thursday that its supplies had run out. At the same time, the Israeli authorities have been denying access to Gaza to foreign journalists for a week and a convoy of European diplomats were likewise refused entry on Thursday. "Gaza is cut off from the outside world and Israel is seemingly not keen for the world to see the suffering that its blockade is causing the one and a half million Palestinians who are virtually trapped there," said Philip Luther. The breakdown last week of a five-and-a-half-month ceasefire between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in Gaza has generated a renewed wave of violence. The killing of six Palestinian militants in Israeli air strikes and ground attacks on 4 November prompted a barrage of Palestinian rockets on nearby Israeli towns and villages.
Five other Palestinian militants have been killed by Israeli forces in recent days. Palestinian rocket attacks have continued. No Israeli casualties had been reported until earlier today, when one Israeli was lightly wounded by shrapnel in an attack on the Israeli city of Sderot. ("Israeli Army Blocks Deliveries to Gaza," Amnesty International, November 14, 2008)
November 17, 2008
The impediments faced by Palestinians in Gaza in obtaining access to health care continue to be a cause for serious concern. The Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip has caused a further deterioration in the humanitarian situation, health and sanitation problems, as well as extreme poverty and malnutrition.
With only a few exceptions, the entire population of 1.5 million people are trapped in Gaza. Students are unable to attend university studies and jobs abroad and critically ill patients in need of medical care that is unavailable in local hospitals are often prevented from leaving Gaza. ("Health Professional Action: Crushing the Right to Health," Amnesty International, November 17, 2008)
November 17, 2008
The Israeli army allowed a limited number of trucks carrying humanitarian assistance into Gaza for the first time in two weeks on Monday. However, the long-term nature of the blockade and restrictions on the flow of goods into Gaza has led to a situation where reserves have long been depleted.
"What is necessary, at a minimum, is for Israel to allow regular and unhindered flow of humanitarian aid, medical supplies and other basic necessities into Gaza," said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. ("Israeli Army Relaxes Restrictions on Humanitarian Aid to Gaza," Amnesty International, November 17, 2008)
December 5, 2008
The Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip is having ever more serious consequences on its population. In the past month the supply of humanitarian aid and basic necessities to Gaza has been reduced from a trickle to an intermittent drip. The blockade has become tighter than ever since the breakdown of a five-and-a-half-month ceasefire between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants on 5 November.
"The Israeli authorities might be allowing through enough for the survival of Gaza's population, but this is nowhere near enough for the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza to live with dignity," said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International's researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
As supplies are being further withheld, most mills have shut down because they have little or no grain. People who have long been deprived of many food items now cannot even find bread at times. Reserves of food have long been depleted and the meagre quantities allowed into Gaza are not even enough to meet the immediate needs. Families never know if they will have food for their children the following day.
When people do have food, they generally have no cooking gas or electricity with which to cook it. Last week, less than 10 per cent of the weekly requirement of cooking gas was allowed into Gaza. ("Gaza Reduced to Bare Survival," Amnesty International, December 5, 2008)
December 28, 2008
Amnesty International has called on Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups to immediately halt the unlawful attacks carried out as part of the escalation of violence which has caused the death of some 280 Palestinians and one Israeli civilian since December 27.
This is the highest level of Palestinian fatalities and casualties in four decades of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Scores of unarmed civilians, as well as police personnel who were not directly participating in the hostilities, are among the Palestinian victims of the Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip.
"Such disproportionate use of force by Israel is unlawful and risks igniting further violence in the whole region," said Amnesty International. "The escalation of violence comes at a time when the civilian population already faces a daily struggle for survival due to the Israeli blockade which has prevented even food and medicines from entering Gaza."
"Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, for their part, share responsibility for the escalation. Their continuous rocket attacks on towns and villages in southern Israel are unlawful and can never be justified," Amnesty International said.
This latest Israeli onslaught brings the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces this year to some 650, at least a third of whom are unarmed civilians, including 70 children. In the same period, Palestinian armed groups have killed 25 Israelis, 16 of them civilians, including four children.
The ceasefire effectively ended after six Palestinian militants were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza force on 4 November and a barrage of Palestinians rockets were launched on nearby towns and villages in the south of Israel. (Emphasis added) ("Civilians Must Be Protected in Gaza and Israel," Amnesty International, December 28, 2008)
Howard Friel is coauthor with Richard Falk of Israel-Palestine on Record: How The New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East (Verso, 2007), and with Falk of The Record of the Paper: How The New York Times Misreports U.S. Foreign Policy (Verso, 2004)
The Bush Administration and The New York Times v. Amnesty International
By Howard Friel
January 14, 2009 "CommonDreams.org" -- -
Introduction
June 18, 2008
Israel has approved a ceasefire to end months of bitter clashes with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza, Israeli officials have confirmed. Under the terms of the truce, which is set to begin Thursday (June 19), Israel will ease its blockade on the Gaza Strip. At the same time, talks to release an Israeli soldier [Gilad Shalit] held by Hamas would intensify, an Israeli official said. Hamas, which controls Gaza, says it is confident that all militants will abide by the truce [by not firing rockets into southern Israel]. The agreement is supposed to last six months. (Emphasis added) ("Israel Agrees to Gaza Ceasefire," BBC, June 18, 2008)
December 28, 2008
"The United States strongly condemns the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and holds Hamas responsible for breaking the cease-fire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza." U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. ("White House Puts Onus on Hamas to End Escalation of Violence," New York Times, December 28, 2008)
December 30, 2008
"Israel must defend itself. And Hamas must bear responsibility for ending a six-month cease-fire this month with a barrage of rocket attacks into Israeli territory." ("War Over Gaza," New York Times editorial, December 30, 2008)
Ceasefire Chronology: (See November 5 and December 28 Entries Below For Direct References to Breaking the Ceasefire)
July 4, 2008
A humanitarian crisis is engulfing Gaza-not the result of a natural disaster but entirely man-made and avoidable. The tightening of the Israeli blockade since June 2007 has left the population, 1.5 million Palestinians, trapped and with few resources. They are surviving, but only just. Some 80 per cent depend on the trickle of international aid that the Israeli government allows in.
In the first five months of 2008 some 380 Palestinians, more than a third of them unarmed civilians and including more than 60 children, were killed by the Israeli army, almost all of them in the Gaza Strip. In the same period 25 Israelis, 16 of them civilians, were killed by Palestinian armed groups.
A ceasefire between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups came into force on 19 June and at the time of writing it looked uncertain. Israeli officials however, insisted that Gaza's border remains sealed so long as Hamas does not release the Israeli soldier they are holding. Some 8,500 Palestinians are detained in Israeli jails. Of these, 900 are from the Gaza Strip, all of whom have been denied visits by their families since June 2007.
Palestinian armed groups in Gaza continue to hold an Israeli soldier, who was
captured in June 2006, and to deny him access to the International Committee of
the Red Cross. ("Gaza Blockage: Collective Punishment," Amnesty International, July 4, 2008)
August 14, 2008
Some 400 Palestinian students may lose their university places and scholarships unless the Israeli authorities allow them to leave the Gaza Strip before the new academic year, which starts in the next few weeks. The students have enrolled to study subjects including law, sciences, business and medicine.
At least 37 of the students have university places and scholarships in Europe and North America, while hundreds of others are due to travel to universities in countries in the Middle East and elsewhere. Several of these students have been denied permission to leave Gaza since last year. ("Freedom of Movement, Right to Education Denied," Amnesty International, August 14, 2008)
August 15, 2008
Amnesty International has described as scandalous the Israeli army's account of firing a tank shell that killed Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana as a "sound" decision. The army reached the conclusion as part of a so-called investigation into the killing of the journalist and three other unarmed civilians, including 2 children, on 16 April 2008.
The army's so-called investigation lacked any semblance of impartiality and Amnesty International called for an independent and impartial investigation into the killing. The organization said that the army's conclusion can only reinforce the culture of impunity that has led to so many reckless and disproportionate killings of children and other unarmed civilians by Israeli forces in Gaza.
Fadel Shana worked for Reuters press agency and was in a car clearly marked as Press. He and his colleague left the car, wearing visible Press flak-jackets and he was killed by an Israeli tank he was filming. The tank fired a shell at Shana, which also hit the civilians, including children, and injured his colleague and others around him. ("Army's So-Called Inquiry into Cameraman's Killing in Gaza a Scandal," Amnesty International, August 15, 2008)
August 22, 2008
With the exception of Karima Abu Dalal (who was finally able to leave Gaza through an exceptional arrangement via the border with Egypt after many months' delay to her treatment for Hodgkin's lymphoma) all the critically ill patients named above are still being denied permission to leave Gaza for treatment abroad.
The Israeli authorities are refusing to allow these and hundreds of other patients to leave Gaza to obtain specialized treatment unavailable in Gaza, for undisclosed and unsubstantiated security reasons. Dozens of patients have died in recent months following delays to, or denials of, permits to leave Gaza. ("Further Information on Medical Concern," Amnesty International, August 22, 2008)
August 27, 2008
With Gaza locked down and cut off from the outside world by a stifling Israeli blockade, 46 peace activists from the world over set sail for Gaza on 22 August to, in their words, "break the siege that Israel has imposed on the civilian population of Gaza..., to express our solidarity with the suffering people of Gaza, and to create a free and regular channel between Gaza and the outside world."
The blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip over a year ago has left the entire population of 1.5 million Palestinians trapped with dwindling resources and an economy in ruins. Some 80 per cent of the population now depend on the trickle of international aid that the Israeli army allows in. This humanitarian crisis is man-made and entirely avoidable.
The Israeli authorities argue that the blockade on Gaza is in response to Palestinian attacks, especially the indiscriminate rockets fired from Gaza at the nearby Israeli town of Sderot. These and other Palestinian attacks killed 25 Israelis in the first half of this year; in the same period Israeli forces killed 400 Palestinians.
However, the Israeli blockade does not target the Palestinian armed groups responsible for attacks-it collectively punishes the entire population of Gaza.
Though a ceasefire between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups has held in Gaza since 19 June 2008, the Israeli blockade remains in place.
Israel has banned exports from Gaza altogether and has reduced entry of fuel and goods to a trickle-mostly humanitarian aid, foodstuff and medical supplies. Basic necessities are in short supply or not available at all in Gaza. The shortages have pushed up food prices at a time when people can least afford to pay more. A growing number of Gazans have been pushed into extreme poverty and suffer from malnutrition.
With the ceasefire holding, the suffering in Gaza has fallen off the international news agenda. However, Amnesty International members continue to campaign, calling:
on the Israeli authorities to immediately lift the blockade, allow unhindered passage into Gaza of sufficient quantities of fuel, electricity and other necessities; and allow those who want to leave Gaza to do so, notably patients in need of medical treatment not available in Gaza and students enrolled in universities abroad, and also to allow them later to return; on Palestinian armed groups not to resume rocket and other attacks on Israeli civilians. ("Trapped: Collective Punishment in Gaza," Amnesty International, August 27, 2008)
August 29, 2008
The Israeli authorities are still denying scores of critically ill patients the authorization they need to leave Gaza for medical treatment that is unavailable in Gaza. Hospitals in Gaza continue to lack vital medical equipment and trained personnel to carry out advanced medical treatment, including many surgical operations and the provision of chemotherapy for cancer patients. Even those patients who are given permission to leave Gaza for treatment are often suffering as a result of delays in receiving exit permits, which contribute to a decline in patient's health and emotional well-being.
Interrogation by the General Security Service
Over the past year, the denial of permits to seriously ill patients has primarily been based on undisclosed security reasons. Some patients from Gaza testified to Amnesty International that they were openly told in interviews with the Israeli General Security Service (GSS) [Israel's counterintelligence and internal security service, also known as Shin Bet] at the Erez Crossing point at the northern border with Israel that they would not receive treatment in Israel unless they become informants for the GSS. As Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel) describes in a recent report, "patients are detained for interrogation at Erez Crossing, and requested either to provide information or to act as collaborators on a regular basis as a condition for permission to exit Gaza for medical treatment."
The report provides testimonies that PHR-Israel has received from a number of patients that demonstrate this practice. According to PHR-Israel, rejection or approval of a patient's request to leave Gaza for treatment almost entirely depends on the GSS who are taking advantage of the vulnerability of patients who have no other means of accessing medical care.
Even patients who already have an exit permit from the authorities to cross into Israel at Erez are being denied permission to leave Gaza after an "unsatisfactory" interrogation. This policy by the GSS of questioning patients in exchange for entry into Israel appears to have become a formal part of the exit procedure for patients and is reportedly discouraging some patients from attempting to leave Gaza in the first place. ("Health Professional Action: Patients From Gaza Are Still Denied Access to Medical Treatment in Israel," Amnesty International, August 29, 2008)
October 16, 2008
The children named above [ages 5 months, 1.2 years, 1.2 years, 1.5 years, 5 years, and 6 years] suffer from serious heart conditions including congenital heart defects commonly known as holes in the heart. All the children need urgent surgery that cannot be provided in Gaza, which lacks both the necessary medical facilities and specialists. The children were due to be operated on by a team of British heart specialists at Makassad Hospital in East Jerusalem during the week beginning 4 October 2008. They were not able to leave the Gaza Strip because the Israeli authorities refused permissions to their mothers/grandmothers to leave Gaza to accompany them. Soheb Wael Alqasas has already missed six appointments for his surgery in recent months because his mother and grandmother were repeatedly refused permits to accompany him to the hospital in Jerusalem.
A team of Italian heart specialists will be conducting a week of paediatric cardiac surgery at the Makassad Hospital from 6 November. It is imperative that the six children are able to attend the Makassad Hospital in time to undergo surgery by the visiting team of specialists. For this to be possible their relatives must be allowed to travel with them to the hospital in Jerusalem. ("Medical Concern," Amnesty International, October 16, 2008)
November 5, 2008
A spate of Israeli and Palestinian attacks and counter-attacks in the past 24 hours could spell the end of a five-and-a-half-month ceasefire. This would once again put the civilian populations of Gaza and southern Israel in the line of fire.
The killing of six Palestinian militants in Gaza by Israeli forces in a ground incursion and air strikes on 4 November was followed by a barrage of dozens of Palestinian rockets on nearby towns and villages in the south of Israel. The Palestinian attacks caused no casualties or damage, but there is a real risk that any further armed actions by either side would risk igniting another deadly campaign.
The ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Hamas last June and has been in force since then. It has been the single most important factor in reducing civilian casualties and attacks on civilians to the lowest level since the outbreak of the uprising (intifada) more than eight years ago.
The ceasefire has brought enormous improvements in the quality of life in Sderot and other Israeli villages near Gaza, where before the ceasefire residents lived in fear of the next Palestinian rocket strike. However, nearby in the Gaza Strip the Israeli blockade remains in place and the population has so far seen few dividends from the ceasefire. Since June 2007, the entire population of 1.5 million Palestinians has been trapped in Gaza, with dwindling resources and an economy in ruins. Some 80 percent of the population now depend on the trickle of international aid that the Israeli army allows in. (Emphasis added) ("Gaza Ceasefire at Risk," Amnesty International, November 5, 2008)
November 14, 2008
The Israeli army has completely blocked the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian aid and medical supplies to the Gaza Strip for more than a week. Very little fuel has been allowed in. Amnesty International urged the Israeli authorities on Friday to allow their immediate passage.
"This latest tightening of the Israeli blockade has made an already dire humanitarian situation markedly worse. It is nothing short of collective punishment on Gaza's civilian population and it must stop immediately," said Philip Luther, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme.
Eighty per cent of the population of Gaza has been dependent on the trickle of humanitarian aid previously allowed into Gaza until Wednesday, 5 November. Industrial fuel, which is donated by the European Union and needed to power Gaza's power plant, has also been blocked, causing a blackout in large parts of Gaza. The United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA), the main UN aid agency, which provides humanitarian assistance to close to one million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, announced on Thursday that its supplies had run out. At the same time, the Israeli authorities have been denying access to Gaza to foreign journalists for a week and a convoy of European diplomats were likewise refused entry on Thursday. "Gaza is cut off from the outside world and Israel is seemingly not keen for the world to see the suffering that its blockade is causing the one and a half million Palestinians who are virtually trapped there," said Philip Luther. The breakdown last week of a five-and-a-half-month ceasefire between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in Gaza has generated a renewed wave of violence. The killing of six Palestinian militants in Israeli air strikes and ground attacks on 4 November prompted a barrage of Palestinian rockets on nearby Israeli towns and villages.
Five other Palestinian militants have been killed by Israeli forces in recent days. Palestinian rocket attacks have continued. No Israeli casualties had been reported until earlier today, when one Israeli was lightly wounded by shrapnel in an attack on the Israeli city of Sderot. ("Israeli Army Blocks Deliveries to Gaza," Amnesty International, November 14, 2008)
November 17, 2008
The impediments faced by Palestinians in Gaza in obtaining access to health care continue to be a cause for serious concern. The Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip has caused a further deterioration in the humanitarian situation, health and sanitation problems, as well as extreme poverty and malnutrition.
With only a few exceptions, the entire population of 1.5 million people are trapped in Gaza. Students are unable to attend university studies and jobs abroad and critically ill patients in need of medical care that is unavailable in local hospitals are often prevented from leaving Gaza. ("Health Professional Action: Crushing the Right to Health," Amnesty International, November 17, 2008)
November 17, 2008
The Israeli army allowed a limited number of trucks carrying humanitarian assistance into Gaza for the first time in two weeks on Monday. However, the long-term nature of the blockade and restrictions on the flow of goods into Gaza has led to a situation where reserves have long been depleted.
"What is necessary, at a minimum, is for Israel to allow regular and unhindered flow of humanitarian aid, medical supplies and other basic necessities into Gaza," said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. ("Israeli Army Relaxes Restrictions on Humanitarian Aid to Gaza," Amnesty International, November 17, 2008)
December 5, 2008
The Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip is having ever more serious consequences on its population. In the past month the supply of humanitarian aid and basic necessities to Gaza has been reduced from a trickle to an intermittent drip. The blockade has become tighter than ever since the breakdown of a five-and-a-half-month ceasefire between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants on 5 November.
"The Israeli authorities might be allowing through enough for the survival of Gaza's population, but this is nowhere near enough for the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza to live with dignity," said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International's researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
As supplies are being further withheld, most mills have shut down because they have little or no grain. People who have long been deprived of many food items now cannot even find bread at times. Reserves of food have long been depleted and the meagre quantities allowed into Gaza are not even enough to meet the immediate needs. Families never know if they will have food for their children the following day.
When people do have food, they generally have no cooking gas or electricity with which to cook it. Last week, less than 10 per cent of the weekly requirement of cooking gas was allowed into Gaza. ("Gaza Reduced to Bare Survival," Amnesty International, December 5, 2008)
December 28, 2008
Amnesty International has called on Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups to immediately halt the unlawful attacks carried out as part of the escalation of violence which has caused the death of some 280 Palestinians and one Israeli civilian since December 27.
This is the highest level of Palestinian fatalities and casualties in four decades of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Scores of unarmed civilians, as well as police personnel who were not directly participating in the hostilities, are among the Palestinian victims of the Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip.
"Such disproportionate use of force by Israel is unlawful and risks igniting further violence in the whole region," said Amnesty International. "The escalation of violence comes at a time when the civilian population already faces a daily struggle for survival due to the Israeli blockade which has prevented even food and medicines from entering Gaza."
"Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, for their part, share responsibility for the escalation. Their continuous rocket attacks on towns and villages in southern Israel are unlawful and can never be justified," Amnesty International said.
This latest Israeli onslaught brings the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces this year to some 650, at least a third of whom are unarmed civilians, including 70 children. In the same period, Palestinian armed groups have killed 25 Israelis, 16 of them civilians, including four children.
The ceasefire effectively ended after six Palestinian militants were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza force on 4 November and a barrage of Palestinians rockets were launched on nearby towns and villages in the south of Israel. (Emphasis added) ("Civilians Must Be Protected in Gaza and Israel," Amnesty International, December 28, 2008)
Howard Friel is coauthor with Richard Falk of Israel-Palestine on Record: How The New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East (Verso, 2007), and with Falk of The Record of the Paper: How The New York Times Misreports U.S. Foreign Policy (Verso, 2004)
Things One Sees From The Hague
By Gideon Levy
January 15, 2009 "Haaretz" - --- -When the cannons eventually fall silent, the time for questions and investigations will be upon us. The mushroom clouds of smoke and dust will dissipate in the pitch-black sky; the fervor, desensitization and en masse jump on the bandwagon will be forever forgotten and perhaps we will view a clear picture of Gaza in all its grimness. Then we will see the scope of the killing and destruction, the crammed cemeteries and overflowing hospitals, the thousands of wounded and physically disabled, the destroyed houses that remain after this war.
The questions that will beg to be asked, as cautiously as possible, are who is guilty and who is responsible. The world's exaggerated willingness to forgive Israel is liable to crack this time. The pilots and gunners, the tank crewmen and infantry soldiers, the generals and thousands who embarked on this war with their fair share of zeal will learn the extent of the evil and indiscriminate nature of their military strikes. They perhaps will not pay any price. They went to battle, but others sent them.
The public, moral and judicial test will be applied to the three Israeli statesmen who sent the Israel Defense Forces to war against a helpless population, one that did not even have a place to take refuge, in maybe the only war in history against a strip of land enclosed by a fence. Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni will stand at the forefront of the guilty. Two of them are candidates for prime minister, the third is a candidate for criminal indictment.
It is inconceivable that they not be held to account for the bloodshed. Olmert is the only Israeli prime minister who sent his army to two wars of choice, all during one of the briefest terms in office. The man who made a number of courageous statements about peace late in his tenure has orchestrated no fewer than two wars. Talking peace and making war, the "moderate" and "enlightened" prime minister has been revealed as one of our greatest fomenters of war. That is how history will remember him. The "cash envelopes" crimes and "Rishon Tours" transgressions will make him look as pure as snow by comparison.
Barak, the leader of the party of the left, will bear the cost of the IDF's misdeeds under his tutelage. His account will be burdened by the bombing and shelling of population centers, the hundreds of dead and wounded women and children, the numerous targetings of medical crews, the firing of phosphorus shells at civilian areas, the shelling of a UN-run school that served as a shelter for residents who bled to death over days as the IDF prevented their evacuation by shooting and shelling. Even our siege of Gaza for a year and a half, whose ramifications are frighteningly coming into focus in this war, will accrue to him. Blow after blow, all of these count in the world of war crimes.
Livni, the foreign minister and leader of the centrist party, will be remembered as the one who pushed for, legitimized and sat silent through all these events. The woman who promised "a different kind of politics" was a full partner. This must not be forgotten.
In contrast to the claims being made otherwise, we are permitted to believe that these three leaders did not embark on war for electoral considerations. Anytime is good for war in Israel. We set out for the previous war three months after the elections, not two months before. Will Israel judge them harshly in light of the images emanating from Gaza? Highly doubtful. Barak and Livni are actually rising in the polls instead of dipping. The test awaiting these individuals will not be a local test. It is true that some international statesmen cynically applauded the blows Israel dealt. It is true America kept silent, Europe stuttered and Egypt supported, but other voices will rise out of the crackle of combat.
The first echoes can already be heard. This past weekend, the UN and the Human Rights Commission in Geneva have demanded an investigation into war crimes allegedly perpetrated by Israel. In a world in which Bosnian leaders and their counterparts from Rwanda have already been put on trial, a similar demand is likely to arise for the fomenters of this war. Israeli basketball players will not be the only ones who have to shamefully take cover in sports arenas, and senior officers who conducted this war will not be the only ones forced to hide in El Al planes lest they be arrested. This time, our most senior statesmen, the members of the war kitchen cabinet, are liable to pay a personal and national price.
I don't write these words with joy, but with sorrow and deep shame. Despite all the slack the world has cut us since as long as we can remember, despite the leniency shown toward Israel, the world might say otherwise this time. If we continue like this, maybe one day a new, special court will be established in The Hague.
January 15, 2009 "Haaretz" - --- -When the cannons eventually fall silent, the time for questions and investigations will be upon us. The mushroom clouds of smoke and dust will dissipate in the pitch-black sky; the fervor, desensitization and en masse jump on the bandwagon will be forever forgotten and perhaps we will view a clear picture of Gaza in all its grimness. Then we will see the scope of the killing and destruction, the crammed cemeteries and overflowing hospitals, the thousands of wounded and physically disabled, the destroyed houses that remain after this war.
The questions that will beg to be asked, as cautiously as possible, are who is guilty and who is responsible. The world's exaggerated willingness to forgive Israel is liable to crack this time. The pilots and gunners, the tank crewmen and infantry soldiers, the generals and thousands who embarked on this war with their fair share of zeal will learn the extent of the evil and indiscriminate nature of their military strikes. They perhaps will not pay any price. They went to battle, but others sent them.
The public, moral and judicial test will be applied to the three Israeli statesmen who sent the Israel Defense Forces to war against a helpless population, one that did not even have a place to take refuge, in maybe the only war in history against a strip of land enclosed by a fence. Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni will stand at the forefront of the guilty. Two of them are candidates for prime minister, the third is a candidate for criminal indictment.
It is inconceivable that they not be held to account for the bloodshed. Olmert is the only Israeli prime minister who sent his army to two wars of choice, all during one of the briefest terms in office. The man who made a number of courageous statements about peace late in his tenure has orchestrated no fewer than two wars. Talking peace and making war, the "moderate" and "enlightened" prime minister has been revealed as one of our greatest fomenters of war. That is how history will remember him. The "cash envelopes" crimes and "Rishon Tours" transgressions will make him look as pure as snow by comparison.
Barak, the leader of the party of the left, will bear the cost of the IDF's misdeeds under his tutelage. His account will be burdened by the bombing and shelling of population centers, the hundreds of dead and wounded women and children, the numerous targetings of medical crews, the firing of phosphorus shells at civilian areas, the shelling of a UN-run school that served as a shelter for residents who bled to death over days as the IDF prevented their evacuation by shooting and shelling. Even our siege of Gaza for a year and a half, whose ramifications are frighteningly coming into focus in this war, will accrue to him. Blow after blow, all of these count in the world of war crimes.
Livni, the foreign minister and leader of the centrist party, will be remembered as the one who pushed for, legitimized and sat silent through all these events. The woman who promised "a different kind of politics" was a full partner. This must not be forgotten.
In contrast to the claims being made otherwise, we are permitted to believe that these three leaders did not embark on war for electoral considerations. Anytime is good for war in Israel. We set out for the previous war three months after the elections, not two months before. Will Israel judge them harshly in light of the images emanating from Gaza? Highly doubtful. Barak and Livni are actually rising in the polls instead of dipping. The test awaiting these individuals will not be a local test. It is true that some international statesmen cynically applauded the blows Israel dealt. It is true America kept silent, Europe stuttered and Egypt supported, but other voices will rise out of the crackle of combat.
The first echoes can already be heard. This past weekend, the UN and the Human Rights Commission in Geneva have demanded an investigation into war crimes allegedly perpetrated by Israel. In a world in which Bosnian leaders and their counterparts from Rwanda have already been put on trial, a similar demand is likely to arise for the fomenters of this war. Israeli basketball players will not be the only ones who have to shamefully take cover in sports arenas, and senior officers who conducted this war will not be the only ones forced to hide in El Al planes lest they be arrested. This time, our most senior statesmen, the members of the war kitchen cabinet, are liable to pay a personal and national price.
I don't write these words with joy, but with sorrow and deep shame. Despite all the slack the world has cut us since as long as we can remember, despite the leniency shown toward Israel, the world might say otherwise this time. If we continue like this, maybe one day a new, special court will be established in The Hague.
tirsdag den 13. januar 2009
Kollektivt Akademiker Statement: Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence – it’s a war crime
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence – it’s a war crime
ISRAEL has sought to justify its military attacks on Gaza by stating that it amounts to an act of “self-defence” as recognised by Article 51, United Nations Charter. We categorically reject this contention.
The rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas deplorable as they are, do not, in terms of scale and effect amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self-defence. Under international law self-defence is an act of last resort and is subject to the customary rules of proportionality and necessity.
The killing of almost 800 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and more than 3,000 injuries, accompanied by the destruction of schools, mosques, houses, UN compounds and government buildings, which Israel has a responsibility to protect under the Fourth Geneva Convention, is not commensurate to the deaths caused by Hamas rocket fire.
For 18 months Israel had imposed an unlawful blockade on the coastal strip that brought Gazan society to the brink of collapse. In the three years after Israel’s redeployment from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. And yet in 2005-8, according to the UN, the Israeli army killed about 1,250 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children. Throughout this time the Gaza Strip remained occupied territory under international law because Israel maintained effective control over it.
Israel’s actions amount to aggression, not self-defence, not least because its assault on Gaza was unnecessary. Israel could have agreed to renew the truce with Hamas. Instead it killed 225 Palestinians on the first day of its attack. As things stand, its invasion and bombardment of Gaza amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s 1.5m inhabitants contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law. In addition, the blockade of humanitarian relief, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and preventing access to basic necessities such as food and fuel, are prima facie war crimes.
We condemn the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel and suicide bombings which are also contrary to international humanitarian law and are war crimes. Israel has a right to take reasonable and proportionate means to protect its civilian population from such attacks. However, the manner and scale of its operations in Gaza amount to an act of aggression and is contrary to international law, notwithstanding the rocket attacks by Hamas.
Ian Brownlie QC, Blackstone Chambers
Mark Muller QC, Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales
Michael Mansfield QC and Joel Bennathan QC, Tooks Chambers
Sir Geoffrey Bindman, University College, London
Professor Richard Falk, Princeton University
Professor M Cherif Bassiouni, DePaul University, Chicago
Professor Christine Chinkin, LSE
Professor John B Quigley, Ohio State University
Professor Iain Scobbie and Victor Kattan, School of Oriental and African Studies
Professor Vera Gowlland-Debbas, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
Professor Said Mahmoudi, Stockholm University
Professor Max du Plessis, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck College
Professor Joshua Castellino, Middlesex University
Professor Thomas Skouteris and Professor Michael Kagan, American University of Cairo
Professor Javaid Rehman, Brunel University
Daniel Machover, Chairman, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights
Dr Phoebe Okawa, Queen Mary University
John Strawson, University of East London
Dr Nisrine Abiad, British Institute of International and Comparative Law
Dr Michael Kearney, University of York
Dr Shane Darcy, National University of Ireland, Galway
Dr Michelle Burgis, University of St Andrews
Dr Niaz Shah, University of Hull
Liz Davies, Chair, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyer
Prof Michael Lynk, The University of Western Ontario
Steve Kamlish QC and Michael Topolski QC, Tooks Chambers
ISRAEL has sought to justify its military attacks on Gaza by stating that it amounts to an act of “self-defence” as recognised by Article 51, United Nations Charter. We categorically reject this contention.
The rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas deplorable as they are, do not, in terms of scale and effect amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self-defence. Under international law self-defence is an act of last resort and is subject to the customary rules of proportionality and necessity.
The killing of almost 800 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and more than 3,000 injuries, accompanied by the destruction of schools, mosques, houses, UN compounds and government buildings, which Israel has a responsibility to protect under the Fourth Geneva Convention, is not commensurate to the deaths caused by Hamas rocket fire.
For 18 months Israel had imposed an unlawful blockade on the coastal strip that brought Gazan society to the brink of collapse. In the three years after Israel’s redeployment from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. And yet in 2005-8, according to the UN, the Israeli army killed about 1,250 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children. Throughout this time the Gaza Strip remained occupied territory under international law because Israel maintained effective control over it.
Israel’s actions amount to aggression, not self-defence, not least because its assault on Gaza was unnecessary. Israel could have agreed to renew the truce with Hamas. Instead it killed 225 Palestinians on the first day of its attack. As things stand, its invasion and bombardment of Gaza amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s 1.5m inhabitants contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law. In addition, the blockade of humanitarian relief, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and preventing access to basic necessities such as food and fuel, are prima facie war crimes.
We condemn the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel and suicide bombings which are also contrary to international humanitarian law and are war crimes. Israel has a right to take reasonable and proportionate means to protect its civilian population from such attacks. However, the manner and scale of its operations in Gaza amount to an act of aggression and is contrary to international law, notwithstanding the rocket attacks by Hamas.
Ian Brownlie QC, Blackstone Chambers
Mark Muller QC, Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales
Michael Mansfield QC and Joel Bennathan QC, Tooks Chambers
Sir Geoffrey Bindman, University College, London
Professor Richard Falk, Princeton University
Professor M Cherif Bassiouni, DePaul University, Chicago
Professor Christine Chinkin, LSE
Professor John B Quigley, Ohio State University
Professor Iain Scobbie and Victor Kattan, School of Oriental and African Studies
Professor Vera Gowlland-Debbas, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
Professor Said Mahmoudi, Stockholm University
Professor Max du Plessis, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck College
Professor Joshua Castellino, Middlesex University
Professor Thomas Skouteris and Professor Michael Kagan, American University of Cairo
Professor Javaid Rehman, Brunel University
Daniel Machover, Chairman, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights
Dr Phoebe Okawa, Queen Mary University
John Strawson, University of East London
Dr Nisrine Abiad, British Institute of International and Comparative Law
Dr Michael Kearney, University of York
Dr Shane Darcy, National University of Ireland, Galway
Dr Michelle Burgis, University of St Andrews
Dr Niaz Shah, University of Hull
Liz Davies, Chair, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyer
Prof Michael Lynk, The University of Western Ontario
Steve Kamlish QC and Michael Topolski QC, Tooks Chambers
Israel, Gaza War, Return of “Emboldened Iran,” and Obama
Farideh Farhi - fra bloggen Informed Comment.
A curious pattern characterizes the recent military adventures in the Middle East. Overwhelming and disproportionate force is utilized in the name of at least temporarily popular objective – combating terrorism, preventing WMD proliferation, restoring deterrence, bringing democracy and so on. But once the human costs and efficacy of attacks in terms of stated objectives begin to be questioned, the narrative shifts and the argument for the sustenance of war, refusal of ceasefire, or even the need for “victory” begins to rely on the line that if a certain party or organization in question is not crushed, all the extremist forces in the Middle East led by Iran will be emboldened.
The justification for the continuation of reckless and indefensible violence shifts and the putative objective becomes, above all, to ensure that Iran does not expand its influence in the region as the leader of regional “resistance.” Even if one objected to the initial military foray, it is said, there should be agreement that leaving the mess in the middle and not finishing the job – whatever that means – will lead to the worst of all possible worlds: an angrier crowd that is allowed to survive and cause mischief at the direction of hegemony-seeking Iran. In its latest version, we are told by no less a figure than Israeli president Shimon Peres, “Our goals are clear. We do not want to make Gaza a satellite of Iran.”
I am not going to dwell on the insanity and immorality of violence imposed on a defenseless people based on a future possibility. The callous squander of lives and livelihoods in Iraq, Lebanon, and now Gaza speak for themselves. And, as far as know, no one is claiming that the lengthening of violence in Iraq or Lebanon stopped the presumed process of emboldening Iran.
My bet, like almost everyone else’s at this point, is that whatever the result in Gaza, it will do little to shift the narrative one way or another. There is nothing in the cards that suggest that what has not worked in the past will magically work today.
Hamas as an organization is likely to survive. And in an era in which mere survival against what is perceived to be an uncontrolled Behemoth is considered victory, its fortunes or the fortunes of elements even more bent on “resistance” will rise within Palestinian politics and this will be considered yet another feather in Iran’s – or “the leader of the resistance camp” – cap; a feather Tehran’s bickering leaders will happily or grudgingly accept depending on circumstances and political positions probably with little concern or inability to do much for additional Palestinians who lose lives and are made miserable in their names.
Even if Hamas is dismantled - remember the PLO was also forced to pack its bags once and move to Tunis - there are still others left and a standing, even if presumably weakened Iran, will continue to be a problem. In the midst of an angry region, even the crushing defeat of a foe such as Hamas and sacrifice of a good number of people for the purpose of weakening Iran does not assure a strategic overhaul.
It is true that we are told that such a crushing may help build a better Middle East in which the adversary will be weakened and hence will become more pliant and passive. But common sense tells us that it is difficult for violence to give birth to passivity; not when it is watched in living rooms and squalors alike all over the world and in the Middle East.
But the narrative of emboldened Iran and the need to weaken it by crushing its so-called proxies persists because the picture of a threatening and emboldened Iran is not only necessary for a dysfunctional Israeli polity always in need of leaders showing their martial grit but also for another fight; the fight over how to deal with Iran.
As usual nothing occurs in a vacuum. In all the three countries heavily vested in the drama –Israel, the United States, and Iran – there are folks who for whatever reasons – it really doesn’t matter anymore whether the reasons are justified or not – are ideologically, institutionally, politically, and economically vested in the continuation of animosity.
Call them hardliners, hawks, radicals, demagogues, economic profiteers or ideologues, polarization is to their benefit and each has its own fears, including loss of power. They operate in the midst of societies in which the population is also divided – again for whatever reason - and they are contenders for influence. Theirs is politics of fear, worry, as well as actual and advocated violence. They are not necessarily a united bunch in their respective countries. In fact, in all three countries, the art of bickering has been perfected. But bickering should not be confused with withdrawal and lack of power.
At the same time, in all three polities, there are also a good number of people and leaders who are either tired of ideological thinking or just simply tired of the consequences of never-ending animosity. In Iran, ideologues were set aside for a few years and there is good reason to believe that the kind of politics and foreign policy that was practiced during those years would have had a better chance of lowering tensions in the region after 9/11 had the Bush Administration approached Iran in a more conciliatory manner than it did after the two countries cooperation based on their shared interest in Afghanistan.
But bygones are bygones. What is at hand today is that a reformist or pragmatist is the elected president of the United States backed by a good chunk of American people who have invested in him their hope for re-direction, common sense, and human decency.
For someone like me, an Iranian-American with vested interest in the reconciliation of the two parts of my identity – for mundane reasons such as easier travel and money exchange as well as bigger ones such as fear of a military attack against the rather large family I have left behind - the question is whether trends in the United States will have a better chance at lowering tensions and reducing violence.
The answer obviously rests not in who Obama is - notwithstanding his palpable human decency that has allowed many us to pin our hopes on him - but what he does. It is not the question of goodwill begets goodwill, as George Bush the father once famously said but whether still the most powerful country in the world can lead by setting example and itself becoming less ideological, violent, and insecure at a time of global economic crisis that is bound to get worse; whether the United States can become a more or less competent seeker of solutions or will it remain wedded to and chained by reactive and reactionary institutions and ideas and dysfunctional relationships.
Having watched Iranian politics and foreign policy closely for years, I am convinced that despite all the hurled insults and maneuvering, a change of direction in American foreign policy will impact Iran in significant ways. Iranian leaders of all variety have been sending messages that they are ready to engage in serious conversation about redefining Iran’s role in US’ regional policies. The point they are trying to make is that instead of the attempted pitting of the region against Iran and search for security at its expense, the United States will be better off accepting Iran’s appropriate regional role which should be commensurate with its geographical size, resources, and regional political clout.
Tehran’s reaction to events in Gaza confirm this message and has included a combination of theatrics, genuine expression of sorrow, a bit of diplomacy - much of it with Syria which has a bigger stake in the Israeli-Gaza conflict and Turkey which also has a bigger stake because of its close relations with Israel in the face of a population angered by the Gaza tragedy - and a good dose of wait and see attitude. This is a bed Israelis have made for themselves and they are the ones that have to figure out a way to tidy it. This is why Iran's chief of Islamic Revolution’s Guard Corp (IRGC) rather calmly rules out providing military support to Hamas, saying "Gazan resistance does not need other countries' military help."
Iranian leaders are not stupid. They also worry about Israel being "emboldened.” But generally speaking they think that Israel is digging its own grave by going into Gaza. This is what Iran’s president Mahmud Ahmadinejad means when he says that Israel will wither away in the pages of history; it will fall based on its own contradictions and policies.
Iran's game is one of expression of genuine anger and resentment - it is hard to be from that part of the world and not be angry at what is being seen on television - and playing to the crowd. On this latter front, the real targets are Arab regimes - Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia and not Israel per se. The intent is to use the support for Iran's anti-Israeli position in the Arab street as an instrument in preventing the creation of anti-Iranian front by Arab governments. Iran’s leaders would be stupid and delinquent to only play the wait and see game and ignore the possibility that the Obama administration will essentially follow the Bush Administration policy of trying to pit the region against Iran and search for security at its expense.
But playing to the crowds has its limits, at least inside Iran. People were encouraged to demonstrate and volunteer to be sent to Gaza after supreme leader Ali Khamenei declared that anyone dying for the cause of Gaza will be considered a martyr. But after the demonstrations began to entail attacks of foreign embassies, they had to be told publicly by his representative to the universities to calm down and respect international laws and treaties.
And when volunteers for Gaza sat in Tehran airport and angrily demanded from government officials to be sent to Gaza “to fulfill the leader’s command,” again they were told in no uncertain terms by that their task was conscious-raising and moral support. The supreme leader himself acknowledged Iran’s hands were tied while blessing and thanking the volunteers for their dedication in a simple one liner.
The bottom line message: Palestine is not as important to us as you think. It only becomes important for ideological purposes and in response to what we consider to be attempts that are intended to create regime or territorial insecurity. If you don’t believe us, just compare our energetic behavior and policies in Iraq and Afghanistan – countries of high interest for security reasons – to our rather lackadaisical approach to the Gaza conflict.
Another message: We are not about to let excited crowds run our foreign policy.
As is often the case, the Iranian regime may be over-playing its hands and expecting too much. Perhaps the Bush Administration’s support for the continuation of violence in Gaza is intended as a parting gift to Obama. A crushed Hamas, the thought goes, will weaken Iran’s hand in the impending talks with the Untied States and as such must be accepted as an Israeli gift. Surely the people of Gaza are the not first sacrificed at the altar of geopolitics.
Given the added drop in oil prices and the disaster Ahmadinejad’s presidency has brought to the Iranian economy, the Obama Administration may even be tempted to go further and play hard ball, thinking that a weaker Iran is an Iran that will finally say yes to demands that it has said no to throughout the Bush Administration.
Within this frame, Obama’s new Iran policy will just be a variation of the policies that have been going on for many years. In this new iteration, the presumption is that a little more pressure along with more incentives will do the trick. Perhaps! One can never speak in absolute terms about the future.
But if it doesn't, we will be facing an uglier Iran in the future that is bound to be even more restrictive at home and problematic in the region, indeed risking war. In short, a weakened Iran pressured to do what it does not want to do, in all likelihood, will also be an angrier and more hard-line Iran.
Those of us who advocate some sort of compromise with Iran, based on a process of give and take, do so on the premise that such a compromise will be good for Iran, the United States and ultimately the region because it will have to be based on a process in which broad spectrums of the public and elite in both countries end up being okay with the compromise.
Reaching such an acceptance inside Iran is harder because it is the country under pressure to give in on what its broad public considers a right. Even if Iran's leaders buckle under, without such an acceptance, a group of unhappy trouble makers will continue to exist, constantly intent to undermine the new equilibrium which to them will be mainly a concrete and unhappy manifestation of the American will egged by the Israelis. Were these folks an insignificant member of the Iranian society, in terms of numbers and power, I wouldn't worry. But they are not.
The Obama Administration can continue to ignore this domestic predicament and negotiate in order to put Iran in its place in the same way the Israelis and its American enablers have continued to ignore the Palestinian predicament and reality of occupation and have repeatedly pinned their hope on breaking the Palestinian will to resist.
Or, it can change course. It can seriously begin approaching the region with the objective of solving conflicts, rather than picking fights and sides. It will of course not be easy to go against interests that are vested in conflict. But given the disaster that the Middle East has become, no one is asking for a lot at this point; just a sense that a different kind of approach is being contemplated and hopefully tried.
A curious pattern characterizes the recent military adventures in the Middle East. Overwhelming and disproportionate force is utilized in the name of at least temporarily popular objective – combating terrorism, preventing WMD proliferation, restoring deterrence, bringing democracy and so on. But once the human costs and efficacy of attacks in terms of stated objectives begin to be questioned, the narrative shifts and the argument for the sustenance of war, refusal of ceasefire, or even the need for “victory” begins to rely on the line that if a certain party or organization in question is not crushed, all the extremist forces in the Middle East led by Iran will be emboldened.
The justification for the continuation of reckless and indefensible violence shifts and the putative objective becomes, above all, to ensure that Iran does not expand its influence in the region as the leader of regional “resistance.” Even if one objected to the initial military foray, it is said, there should be agreement that leaving the mess in the middle and not finishing the job – whatever that means – will lead to the worst of all possible worlds: an angrier crowd that is allowed to survive and cause mischief at the direction of hegemony-seeking Iran. In its latest version, we are told by no less a figure than Israeli president Shimon Peres, “Our goals are clear. We do not want to make Gaza a satellite of Iran.”
I am not going to dwell on the insanity and immorality of violence imposed on a defenseless people based on a future possibility. The callous squander of lives and livelihoods in Iraq, Lebanon, and now Gaza speak for themselves. And, as far as know, no one is claiming that the lengthening of violence in Iraq or Lebanon stopped the presumed process of emboldening Iran.
My bet, like almost everyone else’s at this point, is that whatever the result in Gaza, it will do little to shift the narrative one way or another. There is nothing in the cards that suggest that what has not worked in the past will magically work today.
Hamas as an organization is likely to survive. And in an era in which mere survival against what is perceived to be an uncontrolled Behemoth is considered victory, its fortunes or the fortunes of elements even more bent on “resistance” will rise within Palestinian politics and this will be considered yet another feather in Iran’s – or “the leader of the resistance camp” – cap; a feather Tehran’s bickering leaders will happily or grudgingly accept depending on circumstances and political positions probably with little concern or inability to do much for additional Palestinians who lose lives and are made miserable in their names.
Even if Hamas is dismantled - remember the PLO was also forced to pack its bags once and move to Tunis - there are still others left and a standing, even if presumably weakened Iran, will continue to be a problem. In the midst of an angry region, even the crushing defeat of a foe such as Hamas and sacrifice of a good number of people for the purpose of weakening Iran does not assure a strategic overhaul.
It is true that we are told that such a crushing may help build a better Middle East in which the adversary will be weakened and hence will become more pliant and passive. But common sense tells us that it is difficult for violence to give birth to passivity; not when it is watched in living rooms and squalors alike all over the world and in the Middle East.
But the narrative of emboldened Iran and the need to weaken it by crushing its so-called proxies persists because the picture of a threatening and emboldened Iran is not only necessary for a dysfunctional Israeli polity always in need of leaders showing their martial grit but also for another fight; the fight over how to deal with Iran.
As usual nothing occurs in a vacuum. In all the three countries heavily vested in the drama –Israel, the United States, and Iran – there are folks who for whatever reasons – it really doesn’t matter anymore whether the reasons are justified or not – are ideologically, institutionally, politically, and economically vested in the continuation of animosity.
Call them hardliners, hawks, radicals, demagogues, economic profiteers or ideologues, polarization is to their benefit and each has its own fears, including loss of power. They operate in the midst of societies in which the population is also divided – again for whatever reason - and they are contenders for influence. Theirs is politics of fear, worry, as well as actual and advocated violence. They are not necessarily a united bunch in their respective countries. In fact, in all three countries, the art of bickering has been perfected. But bickering should not be confused with withdrawal and lack of power.
At the same time, in all three polities, there are also a good number of people and leaders who are either tired of ideological thinking or just simply tired of the consequences of never-ending animosity. In Iran, ideologues were set aside for a few years and there is good reason to believe that the kind of politics and foreign policy that was practiced during those years would have had a better chance of lowering tensions in the region after 9/11 had the Bush Administration approached Iran in a more conciliatory manner than it did after the two countries cooperation based on their shared interest in Afghanistan.
But bygones are bygones. What is at hand today is that a reformist or pragmatist is the elected president of the United States backed by a good chunk of American people who have invested in him their hope for re-direction, common sense, and human decency.
For someone like me, an Iranian-American with vested interest in the reconciliation of the two parts of my identity – for mundane reasons such as easier travel and money exchange as well as bigger ones such as fear of a military attack against the rather large family I have left behind - the question is whether trends in the United States will have a better chance at lowering tensions and reducing violence.
The answer obviously rests not in who Obama is - notwithstanding his palpable human decency that has allowed many us to pin our hopes on him - but what he does. It is not the question of goodwill begets goodwill, as George Bush the father once famously said but whether still the most powerful country in the world can lead by setting example and itself becoming less ideological, violent, and insecure at a time of global economic crisis that is bound to get worse; whether the United States can become a more or less competent seeker of solutions or will it remain wedded to and chained by reactive and reactionary institutions and ideas and dysfunctional relationships.
Having watched Iranian politics and foreign policy closely for years, I am convinced that despite all the hurled insults and maneuvering, a change of direction in American foreign policy will impact Iran in significant ways. Iranian leaders of all variety have been sending messages that they are ready to engage in serious conversation about redefining Iran’s role in US’ regional policies. The point they are trying to make is that instead of the attempted pitting of the region against Iran and search for security at its expense, the United States will be better off accepting Iran’s appropriate regional role which should be commensurate with its geographical size, resources, and regional political clout.
Tehran’s reaction to events in Gaza confirm this message and has included a combination of theatrics, genuine expression of sorrow, a bit of diplomacy - much of it with Syria which has a bigger stake in the Israeli-Gaza conflict and Turkey which also has a bigger stake because of its close relations with Israel in the face of a population angered by the Gaza tragedy - and a good dose of wait and see attitude. This is a bed Israelis have made for themselves and they are the ones that have to figure out a way to tidy it. This is why Iran's chief of Islamic Revolution’s Guard Corp (IRGC) rather calmly rules out providing military support to Hamas, saying "Gazan resistance does not need other countries' military help."
Iranian leaders are not stupid. They also worry about Israel being "emboldened.” But generally speaking they think that Israel is digging its own grave by going into Gaza. This is what Iran’s president Mahmud Ahmadinejad means when he says that Israel will wither away in the pages of history; it will fall based on its own contradictions and policies.
Iran's game is one of expression of genuine anger and resentment - it is hard to be from that part of the world and not be angry at what is being seen on television - and playing to the crowd. On this latter front, the real targets are Arab regimes - Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia and not Israel per se. The intent is to use the support for Iran's anti-Israeli position in the Arab street as an instrument in preventing the creation of anti-Iranian front by Arab governments. Iran’s leaders would be stupid and delinquent to only play the wait and see game and ignore the possibility that the Obama administration will essentially follow the Bush Administration policy of trying to pit the region against Iran and search for security at its expense.
But playing to the crowds has its limits, at least inside Iran. People were encouraged to demonstrate and volunteer to be sent to Gaza after supreme leader Ali Khamenei declared that anyone dying for the cause of Gaza will be considered a martyr. But after the demonstrations began to entail attacks of foreign embassies, they had to be told publicly by his representative to the universities to calm down and respect international laws and treaties.
And when volunteers for Gaza sat in Tehran airport and angrily demanded from government officials to be sent to Gaza “to fulfill the leader’s command,” again they were told in no uncertain terms by that their task was conscious-raising and moral support. The supreme leader himself acknowledged Iran’s hands were tied while blessing and thanking the volunteers for their dedication in a simple one liner.
The bottom line message: Palestine is not as important to us as you think. It only becomes important for ideological purposes and in response to what we consider to be attempts that are intended to create regime or territorial insecurity. If you don’t believe us, just compare our energetic behavior and policies in Iraq and Afghanistan – countries of high interest for security reasons – to our rather lackadaisical approach to the Gaza conflict.
Another message: We are not about to let excited crowds run our foreign policy.
As is often the case, the Iranian regime may be over-playing its hands and expecting too much. Perhaps the Bush Administration’s support for the continuation of violence in Gaza is intended as a parting gift to Obama. A crushed Hamas, the thought goes, will weaken Iran’s hand in the impending talks with the Untied States and as such must be accepted as an Israeli gift. Surely the people of Gaza are the not first sacrificed at the altar of geopolitics.
Given the added drop in oil prices and the disaster Ahmadinejad’s presidency has brought to the Iranian economy, the Obama Administration may even be tempted to go further and play hard ball, thinking that a weaker Iran is an Iran that will finally say yes to demands that it has said no to throughout the Bush Administration.
Within this frame, Obama’s new Iran policy will just be a variation of the policies that have been going on for many years. In this new iteration, the presumption is that a little more pressure along with more incentives will do the trick. Perhaps! One can never speak in absolute terms about the future.
But if it doesn't, we will be facing an uglier Iran in the future that is bound to be even more restrictive at home and problematic in the region, indeed risking war. In short, a weakened Iran pressured to do what it does not want to do, in all likelihood, will also be an angrier and more hard-line Iran.
Those of us who advocate some sort of compromise with Iran, based on a process of give and take, do so on the premise that such a compromise will be good for Iran, the United States and ultimately the region because it will have to be based on a process in which broad spectrums of the public and elite in both countries end up being okay with the compromise.
Reaching such an acceptance inside Iran is harder because it is the country under pressure to give in on what its broad public considers a right. Even if Iran's leaders buckle under, without such an acceptance, a group of unhappy trouble makers will continue to exist, constantly intent to undermine the new equilibrium which to them will be mainly a concrete and unhappy manifestation of the American will egged by the Israelis. Were these folks an insignificant member of the Iranian society, in terms of numbers and power, I wouldn't worry. But they are not.
The Obama Administration can continue to ignore this domestic predicament and negotiate in order to put Iran in its place in the same way the Israelis and its American enablers have continued to ignore the Palestinian predicament and reality of occupation and have repeatedly pinned their hope on breaking the Palestinian will to resist.
Or, it can change course. It can seriously begin approaching the region with the objective of solving conflicts, rather than picking fights and sides. It will of course not be easy to go against interests that are vested in conflict. But given the disaster that the Middle East has become, no one is asking for a lot at this point; just a sense that a different kind of approach is being contemplated and hopefully tried.
The Time of The Righteous
by Gideon Levy
This war, perhaps more than its predecessors, is exposing the true deep veins of Israeli society. Racism and hatred are rearing their heads, as is the impulse for revenge and the thirst for blood. The "inclination of the commander" in the Israel Defense Forces is now "to kill as many as possible," as the military correspondents on television describe it. And even if the reference is to Hamas fighters, this inclination is still chilling.
The unbridled aggression and brutality are justified as "exercising caution": the frightening balance of blood - about 100 Palestinian dead for every Israeli killed, isn't raising any questions, as if we've decided that their blood is worth one hundred times less than ours, in acknowledgement of our inherent racism.
Rightists, nationalists, chauvinists and militarists are the only legitimate bon ton in town. Don't bother us about humaneness and compassion. Only at the edges of the camp can a voice of protest be heard - illegitimate, ostracized and ignored by media coverage - from a small but brave group of Jews and Arabs.
Alongside all this, rings another voice, perhaps the worst of all. This is the voice of the righteous and the hypocritical. My colleague, Ari Shavit, seems to be their eloquent spokesman. This week, Shavit wrote here ("Israel must double, triple, quadruple its medical aid to Gaza," Haaretz, January 7): "The Israeli offensive in Gaza is justified ... Only an immediate and generous humanitarian initiative will prove that even during the brutal warfare that has been forced on us, we remember that there are human beings on the other side."
To Shavit, who defended the justness of this war and insisted that it mustn't be lost, the price is immaterial, as is the fact that there are no victories in such unjust wars. And he dares, in the same breath, to preach "humaneness."
Does Shavit wish for us to kill and kill, and afterward to set up field hospitals and send medicine to care for the wounded? He knows that a war against a helpless population, perhaps the most helpless one in the world, that has nowhere to escape to, can only be cruel and despicable. But these people always want to come out of it looking good. We'll drop bombs on residential buildings, and then we'll treat the wounded at Ichilov; we'll shell meager places of refuge in United Nations schools, and then we'll rehabilitate the disabled at Beit Lewinstein. We'll shoot and then we'll cry, we'll kill and then we'll lament, we'll cut down women and children like automatic killing machines, and we'll also preserve our dignity.
The problem is - it just doesn't work that way. This is outrageous hypocrisy and self-righteousness. Those who make inflammatory calls for more and more violence without regard for the consequences are at least being more honest about it.
You can't have it both ways. The only "purity" in this war is the "purification from terrorists," which really means the sowing of horrendous tragedies. What's happening in Gaza is not a natural disaster, an earthquake or flood, for which it would be our duty and right to extend a helping hand to those affected, to send rescue squads, as we so love to do. Of all the rotten luck, all the disasters now occurring in Gaza are manmade - by us. Aid cannot be offered with bloodstained hands. Compassion cannot sprout from brutality.
Yet there are some who still want it both ways. To kill and destroy indiscriminately and also to come out looking good, with a clean conscience. To go ahead with war crimes without any sense of the heavy guilt that should accompany them. It takes some nerve. Anyone who justifies this war also justifies all its crimes. Anyone who preaches for this war and believes in the justness of the mass killing it is inflicting has no right whatsoever to speak about morality and humaneness. There is no such thing as simultaneously killing and nurturing. This attitude is a faithful representation of the basic, twofold Israeli sentiment that has been with us forever: To commit any wrong, but to feel pure in our own eyes. To kill, demolish, starve, imprison and humiliate - and be right, not to mention righteous. The righteous warmongers will not be able to allow themselves these luxuries.
Anyone who justifies this war also justifies all its crimes. Anyone who sees it as a defensive war must bear the moral responsibility for its consequences. Anyone who now encourages the politicians and the army to continue will also have to bear the mark of Cain that will be branded on his forehead after the war. All those who support the war also support the horror.
© 2009 Haaretz
Gideon Levy is a reporter and commentator for Haaretz.
This war, perhaps more than its predecessors, is exposing the true deep veins of Israeli society. Racism and hatred are rearing their heads, as is the impulse for revenge and the thirst for blood. The "inclination of the commander" in the Israel Defense Forces is now "to kill as many as possible," as the military correspondents on television describe it. And even if the reference is to Hamas fighters, this inclination is still chilling.
The unbridled aggression and brutality are justified as "exercising caution": the frightening balance of blood - about 100 Palestinian dead for every Israeli killed, isn't raising any questions, as if we've decided that their blood is worth one hundred times less than ours, in acknowledgement of our inherent racism.
Rightists, nationalists, chauvinists and militarists are the only legitimate bon ton in town. Don't bother us about humaneness and compassion. Only at the edges of the camp can a voice of protest be heard - illegitimate, ostracized and ignored by media coverage - from a small but brave group of Jews and Arabs.
Alongside all this, rings another voice, perhaps the worst of all. This is the voice of the righteous and the hypocritical. My colleague, Ari Shavit, seems to be their eloquent spokesman. This week, Shavit wrote here ("Israel must double, triple, quadruple its medical aid to Gaza," Haaretz, January 7): "The Israeli offensive in Gaza is justified ... Only an immediate and generous humanitarian initiative will prove that even during the brutal warfare that has been forced on us, we remember that there are human beings on the other side."
To Shavit, who defended the justness of this war and insisted that it mustn't be lost, the price is immaterial, as is the fact that there are no victories in such unjust wars. And he dares, in the same breath, to preach "humaneness."
Does Shavit wish for us to kill and kill, and afterward to set up field hospitals and send medicine to care for the wounded? He knows that a war against a helpless population, perhaps the most helpless one in the world, that has nowhere to escape to, can only be cruel and despicable. But these people always want to come out of it looking good. We'll drop bombs on residential buildings, and then we'll treat the wounded at Ichilov; we'll shell meager places of refuge in United Nations schools, and then we'll rehabilitate the disabled at Beit Lewinstein. We'll shoot and then we'll cry, we'll kill and then we'll lament, we'll cut down women and children like automatic killing machines, and we'll also preserve our dignity.
The problem is - it just doesn't work that way. This is outrageous hypocrisy and self-righteousness. Those who make inflammatory calls for more and more violence without regard for the consequences are at least being more honest about it.
You can't have it both ways. The only "purity" in this war is the "purification from terrorists," which really means the sowing of horrendous tragedies. What's happening in Gaza is not a natural disaster, an earthquake or flood, for which it would be our duty and right to extend a helping hand to those affected, to send rescue squads, as we so love to do. Of all the rotten luck, all the disasters now occurring in Gaza are manmade - by us. Aid cannot be offered with bloodstained hands. Compassion cannot sprout from brutality.
Yet there are some who still want it both ways. To kill and destroy indiscriminately and also to come out looking good, with a clean conscience. To go ahead with war crimes without any sense of the heavy guilt that should accompany them. It takes some nerve. Anyone who justifies this war also justifies all its crimes. Anyone who preaches for this war and believes in the justness of the mass killing it is inflicting has no right whatsoever to speak about morality and humaneness. There is no such thing as simultaneously killing and nurturing. This attitude is a faithful representation of the basic, twofold Israeli sentiment that has been with us forever: To commit any wrong, but to feel pure in our own eyes. To kill, demolish, starve, imprison and humiliate - and be right, not to mention righteous. The righteous warmongers will not be able to allow themselves these luxuries.
Anyone who justifies this war also justifies all its crimes. Anyone who sees it as a defensive war must bear the moral responsibility for its consequences. Anyone who now encourages the politicians and the army to continue will also have to bear the mark of Cain that will be branded on his forehead after the war. All those who support the war also support the horror.
© 2009 Haaretz
Gideon Levy is a reporter and commentator for Haaretz.
Israel Bans Arab Parties From Election
By JOSEF FEDERMAN
January 12, 2009 -- -JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel on Monday banned Arab political parties from running in next month's parliamentary elections, drawing accusations of racism by an Arab lawmaker who said he would challenge the decision in the country's Supreme Court.
The ruling by parliament's Central Election Committee reflected the heightened tensions between Israel's Jewish majority and Arab minority caused by Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip. Arabs have held a series of demonstrations against the offensive.
Parliament spokesman Giora Pordes said the election committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of the motion, accusing the country's Arab parties of incitement, supporting terrorist groups and refusing to recognize Israel's right to exist. Arab lawmakers have traveled to some of Israel's staunchest enemies, including Lebanon and Syria.
The 37-member committee is composed of representatives from Israel's major political parties. The measure was proposed by two ultranationalist parties but received widespread support.
The decision does not affect Arab lawmakers in predominantly Jewish parties or the country's communist party, which has a mixed list of Arab and Jewish candidates. Roughly one-fifth of Israel's 7 million citizens are Arabs. Israeli Arabs enjoy full citizenship rights, but have suffered from discrimination and poverty for decades.
Arab lawmakers Ahmed Tibi and Jamal Zahalka, political rivals who head the two Arab blocs in parliament, joined together in condemning Monday's decision.
"It was a political trial led by a group of Fascists and racists who are willing to see the Knesset without Arabs and want to see the country without Arabs," said Tibi.
Together, the Arab lists hold seven of the 120 seats in the Knesset, or parliament.
Tibi said he would appeal to the high court, while Zahalka said his party was still deciding how to proceed.
Pordes, the parliament spokesman, said the last party to be banned was the late Rabbi Meir Kahane's Kach Party, a list from the 1980s that advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israel.
January 12, 2009 -- -JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel on Monday banned Arab political parties from running in next month's parliamentary elections, drawing accusations of racism by an Arab lawmaker who said he would challenge the decision in the country's Supreme Court.
The ruling by parliament's Central Election Committee reflected the heightened tensions between Israel's Jewish majority and Arab minority caused by Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip. Arabs have held a series of demonstrations against the offensive.
Parliament spokesman Giora Pordes said the election committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of the motion, accusing the country's Arab parties of incitement, supporting terrorist groups and refusing to recognize Israel's right to exist. Arab lawmakers have traveled to some of Israel's staunchest enemies, including Lebanon and Syria.
The 37-member committee is composed of representatives from Israel's major political parties. The measure was proposed by two ultranationalist parties but received widespread support.
The decision does not affect Arab lawmakers in predominantly Jewish parties or the country's communist party, which has a mixed list of Arab and Jewish candidates. Roughly one-fifth of Israel's 7 million citizens are Arabs. Israeli Arabs enjoy full citizenship rights, but have suffered from discrimination and poverty for decades.
Arab lawmakers Ahmed Tibi and Jamal Zahalka, political rivals who head the two Arab blocs in parliament, joined together in condemning Monday's decision.
"It was a political trial led by a group of Fascists and racists who are willing to see the Knesset without Arabs and want to see the country without Arabs," said Tibi.
Together, the Arab lists hold seven of the 120 seats in the Knesset, or parliament.
Tibi said he would appeal to the high court, while Zahalka said his party was still deciding how to proceed.
Pordes, the parliament spokesman, said the last party to be banned was the late Rabbi Meir Kahane's Kach Party, a list from the 1980s that advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israel.
Israel's War of Deceit, Lies and Propaganda
By Uri Avnery
January 12 "Gulf Times" -- - -Nearly 70 years ago, in the course of the Second World War, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called "the Red Army" held the millions of the town's inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centres.
The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.
Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.
This is the description that would now appear in the history books - if the Germans had won the war.
Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in Israeli media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas "terrorists" use the inhabitants of Gaza as "hostages" and exploit the women and children as "human shields", they leave Israel no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to Israel's deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured.
In this war, as in any modern war, propaganda plays a major role. Almost all the Western media initially repeated the official Israeli propaganda line. They almost entirely ignored the Palestinian side of the story, not to mention the daily demonstrations of the Israeli peace camp. The rationale of the Israeli government ("The state must defend its citizens against the Qassam rockets") has been accepted as the whole truth. The view from the other side, that the Qassams are a retaliation for the siege that starves the one and a half million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, was not mentioned at all.
Only when the horrible scenes from Gaza started to appear on Western TV screens, did world public opinion gradually begin to change.
War - every war - is the realm of lies. Whether called propaganda or psychological warfare, everybody accepts that it is right to lie for one's country. Anyone who speaks the truth runs the risk of being branded a traitor. The trouble is that propaganda is most convincing for the propagandist himself. And after you convince yourself that a lie is the truth and falsification reality, you can no longer make rational decisions.
Falsification
An example of this process surrounds the most shocking atrocity of this war so far: the shelling of the UN Fakhura school in Jabaliya refugee camp.
Immediately after the incident became known throughout the world, the army "revealed" that Hamas fighters had been firing mortars from near the school entrance. As proof they released an aerial photo which indeed showed the school and the mortar. But within a short time the official army liar had to admit that the photo was more than a year old. In brief: a falsification.
Later the official liar claimed that "our soldiers were shot at from inside the school". Barely a day passed before the army had to admit to UN personnel that that was a lie, too. Nobody had shot from inside the school, no Hamas fighters were inside the school, which was full of terrified refugees.
But the admission made hardly any difference anymore. By that time, the Israeli public was completely convinced that "they shot from inside the school", and TV announcers stated this as a simple fact.
So it went with the other atrocities. Every baby metamorphosed, in the act of dying, into a Hamas "terrorist". Every bombed mosque instantly became a Hamas base, every apartment building an arms cache, every school a terror command post, every civilian government building a "symbol of Hamas rule". Thus the Israeli army retained its purity as the "most moral army in the world".
The truth is that the atrocities are a direct result of the war plan. This reflects the personality of Ehud Barak - a man whose way of thinking and actions are clear evidence of what is called "moral insanity", a sociopathic disorder.
The real aim (apart from gaining seats in the coming elections) is to terminate the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the imagination of the planners, Hamas is an invader which has gained control of a foreign country. The reality is, of course, entirely different.
A top priority for the planners was the need to minimise casualties among the soldiers, knowing that the mood of a large part of the pro-war public would change if reports of such casualties came in. That is what happened in Lebanon Wars I and II.
This consideration played an especially important role because the entire war is a part of the election campaign. The planners thought that they could stop the world from seeing these images by forcibly preventing press coverage. But in a modern war, such a sterile manufactured view cannot completely exclude all others - the cameras are inside the strip, in the middle of the hell, and cannot be controlled. Al Jazeera broadcasts the pictures around the clock and reaches every home.
Hundreds of millions of Arabs from Mauritania to Iraq, more than a billion Muslims from Nigeria to Indonesia see the pictures and are horrified. This has a strong impact on the war. Many of the viewers see the rulers of Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian National Authority as collaborators with Israel in carrying out these atrocities against their Palestinian brothers.
If the war ends with Hamas still standing, bloodied but unvanquished, in face of the mighty Israeli military machine, it will look like a fantastic victory, a victory of mind over matter.
What will be seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a blood-stained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for our long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet.
In the end, this war is a crime against Israelis too, a crime against the State of Israel.
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to Counter Punch's book 'The Politics of Anti-Semitism'.
January 12 "Gulf Times" -- - -Nearly 70 years ago, in the course of the Second World War, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called "the Red Army" held the millions of the town's inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centres.
The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.
Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.
This is the description that would now appear in the history books - if the Germans had won the war.
Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in Israeli media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas "terrorists" use the inhabitants of Gaza as "hostages" and exploit the women and children as "human shields", they leave Israel no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to Israel's deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured.
In this war, as in any modern war, propaganda plays a major role. Almost all the Western media initially repeated the official Israeli propaganda line. They almost entirely ignored the Palestinian side of the story, not to mention the daily demonstrations of the Israeli peace camp. The rationale of the Israeli government ("The state must defend its citizens against the Qassam rockets") has been accepted as the whole truth. The view from the other side, that the Qassams are a retaliation for the siege that starves the one and a half million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, was not mentioned at all.
Only when the horrible scenes from Gaza started to appear on Western TV screens, did world public opinion gradually begin to change.
War - every war - is the realm of lies. Whether called propaganda or psychological warfare, everybody accepts that it is right to lie for one's country. Anyone who speaks the truth runs the risk of being branded a traitor. The trouble is that propaganda is most convincing for the propagandist himself. And after you convince yourself that a lie is the truth and falsification reality, you can no longer make rational decisions.
Falsification
An example of this process surrounds the most shocking atrocity of this war so far: the shelling of the UN Fakhura school in Jabaliya refugee camp.
Immediately after the incident became known throughout the world, the army "revealed" that Hamas fighters had been firing mortars from near the school entrance. As proof they released an aerial photo which indeed showed the school and the mortar. But within a short time the official army liar had to admit that the photo was more than a year old. In brief: a falsification.
Later the official liar claimed that "our soldiers were shot at from inside the school". Barely a day passed before the army had to admit to UN personnel that that was a lie, too. Nobody had shot from inside the school, no Hamas fighters were inside the school, which was full of terrified refugees.
But the admission made hardly any difference anymore. By that time, the Israeli public was completely convinced that "they shot from inside the school", and TV announcers stated this as a simple fact.
So it went with the other atrocities. Every baby metamorphosed, in the act of dying, into a Hamas "terrorist". Every bombed mosque instantly became a Hamas base, every apartment building an arms cache, every school a terror command post, every civilian government building a "symbol of Hamas rule". Thus the Israeli army retained its purity as the "most moral army in the world".
The truth is that the atrocities are a direct result of the war plan. This reflects the personality of Ehud Barak - a man whose way of thinking and actions are clear evidence of what is called "moral insanity", a sociopathic disorder.
The real aim (apart from gaining seats in the coming elections) is to terminate the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the imagination of the planners, Hamas is an invader which has gained control of a foreign country. The reality is, of course, entirely different.
A top priority for the planners was the need to minimise casualties among the soldiers, knowing that the mood of a large part of the pro-war public would change if reports of such casualties came in. That is what happened in Lebanon Wars I and II.
This consideration played an especially important role because the entire war is a part of the election campaign. The planners thought that they could stop the world from seeing these images by forcibly preventing press coverage. But in a modern war, such a sterile manufactured view cannot completely exclude all others - the cameras are inside the strip, in the middle of the hell, and cannot be controlled. Al Jazeera broadcasts the pictures around the clock and reaches every home.
Hundreds of millions of Arabs from Mauritania to Iraq, more than a billion Muslims from Nigeria to Indonesia see the pictures and are horrified. This has a strong impact on the war. Many of the viewers see the rulers of Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian National Authority as collaborators with Israel in carrying out these atrocities against their Palestinian brothers.
If the war ends with Hamas still standing, bloodied but unvanquished, in face of the mighty Israeli military machine, it will look like a fantastic victory, a victory of mind over matter.
What will be seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a blood-stained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for our long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet.
In the end, this war is a crime against Israelis too, a crime against the State of Israel.
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to Counter Punch's book 'The Politics of Anti-Semitism'.
PM: Rice left embarrassed in UN vote
The Security Council resolution passed on Friday calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza was a source of embarrassment for US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who helped prepare it but ultimately was ordered to back down from voting for it and abstain, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday.
Rice did not end up voting for Resolution 1860, thanks to a phone conversation Olmert held with US President George Bush shortly before the vote, the prime minister told a meeting of local authority heads in Ashkelon as part of a visit to the South.
Upon receiving word that the US was planning to vote in favor of the resolution - viewed by Israel as impractical and failing to address its security concerns - Olmert demanded to get Bush on the phone, and refused to back down after being told that the president was delivering a lecture in Philadelphia. Bush interrupted his lecture to answer Olmert's call, the premier said.
America could not vote in favor of such a resolution, Olmert told Bush. Soon afterwards, Rice abstained when votes were counted at the UN.
During a visit to the Osem plant in Sderot organized by the Bureau of Economic Organizations, Olmert addressed the state of the war in Gaza, saying that Israel was now at a decisive stage, but had not yet reached the two main goals it set for itself.
"We have no interest in endlessly continuing the campaign. It will stop when the conditions that are essential for Israel's security are met. First and foremost, all terrorist operations against us must stop. The strengthening of the terrorist organizations via the smuggling of war material from Egypt into Gaza must also stop," he said.
"We are dealing with brutal terrorist organizations devoid of the compassion and tolerance which characterize us. The blow that we have inflicted on them is unprecedented in its strength," Olmert added.
In a clear reference to Hizbullah, Olmert said, "We hope that nobody will test either our determination or our resiliency on any other front."
Olmert was accompanied by Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On; Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit; Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai; Manufacturers Association President Shraga Brosh and Histadrut Chairman Ofer Eini.
Ashkelon Mayor Benny Vaknin told The Jerusalem Post his message for Olmert was "not to stop the fire until the threat of rockets is lifted from Ashkelon for years to come."
Vaknin praised the cooperation between the central government and local authorities, adding that he backed a proposal by Sheetrit for a NIS 300 million aid package to the South to help the region deal with reconstruction efforts.
"I will demand the most from the aid package because we received the most rockets," Vaknin added. The mayor proudly noted that a poll of local residents in the city found that 86 percent were satisfied with the municipality's management during wartime.
Military officials told the Ashkelon conference that 800 trucks of humanitarian aid had entered Gaza since the start of Operation Cast Lead, and that Israel had repaired electric and sewage infrastructures in the Strip throughout the fighting.
Rocket attacks were noticeably lower since the start of the war, the military officials said, adding that two weeks ago the rocket attacks numbered in the 80s, while the current number of daily rocket launches from Gaza has plunged to the 20s.
Rice did not end up voting for Resolution 1860, thanks to a phone conversation Olmert held with US President George Bush shortly before the vote, the prime minister told a meeting of local authority heads in Ashkelon as part of a visit to the South.
Upon receiving word that the US was planning to vote in favor of the resolution - viewed by Israel as impractical and failing to address its security concerns - Olmert demanded to get Bush on the phone, and refused to back down after being told that the president was delivering a lecture in Philadelphia. Bush interrupted his lecture to answer Olmert's call, the premier said.
America could not vote in favor of such a resolution, Olmert told Bush. Soon afterwards, Rice abstained when votes were counted at the UN.
During a visit to the Osem plant in Sderot organized by the Bureau of Economic Organizations, Olmert addressed the state of the war in Gaza, saying that Israel was now at a decisive stage, but had not yet reached the two main goals it set for itself.
"We have no interest in endlessly continuing the campaign. It will stop when the conditions that are essential for Israel's security are met. First and foremost, all terrorist operations against us must stop. The strengthening of the terrorist organizations via the smuggling of war material from Egypt into Gaza must also stop," he said.
"We are dealing with brutal terrorist organizations devoid of the compassion and tolerance which characterize us. The blow that we have inflicted on them is unprecedented in its strength," Olmert added.
In a clear reference to Hizbullah, Olmert said, "We hope that nobody will test either our determination or our resiliency on any other front."
Olmert was accompanied by Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On; Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit; Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai; Manufacturers Association President Shraga Brosh and Histadrut Chairman Ofer Eini.
Ashkelon Mayor Benny Vaknin told The Jerusalem Post his message for Olmert was "not to stop the fire until the threat of rockets is lifted from Ashkelon for years to come."
Vaknin praised the cooperation between the central government and local authorities, adding that he backed a proposal by Sheetrit for a NIS 300 million aid package to the South to help the region deal with reconstruction efforts.
"I will demand the most from the aid package because we received the most rockets," Vaknin added. The mayor proudly noted that a poll of local residents in the city found that 86 percent were satisfied with the municipality's management during wartime.
Military officials told the Ashkelon conference that 800 trucks of humanitarian aid had entered Gaza since the start of Operation Cast Lead, and that Israel had repaired electric and sewage infrastructures in the Strip throughout the fighting.
Rocket attacks were noticeably lower since the start of the war, the military officials said, adding that two weeks ago the rocket attacks numbered in the 80s, while the current number of daily rocket launches from Gaza has plunged to the 20s.
Colombia: Secret Documents Show US Aware of Army Killings in 1990s
By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Jan 12 (IPS) - Declassified U.S. documents show that the CIA and former U.S. ambassadors were fully aware, as far back as 1990, that the military in Colombia -- the third largest recipient of U.S. aid after Israel and Egypt -- were committing extrajudicial killings as part of "death squad tactics."
They also knew that senior Colombian officers encouraged a "body count" mentality to demonstrate progress in the fight against left-wing guerrillas. In an undetermined number of cases, the bodies presented as casualties in the counterinsurgency war were actually civilians who had nothing to do with the country’s decades-old armed conflict.
Since at least 1990, U.S. diplomats were reporting a connection between the Colombian security forces and far-right drug-running paramilitary groups, according to the Washington-based National Security Archive (NSA).
In the meantime, the U.S. State Department continued to regularly certify Colombia’s human rights record and to heavily finance its "war on drugs."
The declassified documents were published Jan. 7 by the NSA, a non-governmental research and archival institution located at the George Washington University that collects, archives and publishes declassified U.S. government documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.
NSA’s Colombia Project identifies and secures the release of documents from secret government archives on U.S. policy in Colombia regarding issues like security assistance, human rights, impunity and counternarcotics programmes.
"These records shed light on a policy -- recently examined in a still-undisclosed Colombian Army report -- that influenced the behaviour of Colombian military officers for years, leading to extrajudicial executions and collaboration with paramilitary drug traffickers," says the NSA report released last week.
The secret army report mentioned by the NSA led in late 2008 to the dismissal of 30 army officers and the resignation of Gen. Mario Montoya, the Colombian army chief who long "promoted the idea of using body counts to measure progress against the guerrillas," writes the author of the NSA report, Michael Evans.
In one of the declassified documents obtained by the NSA, then U.S. Ambassador Myles Frechette complained in 1994 about the "body count mentalities" among Colombian army officers seeking to climb through the ranks.
"Field officers who cannot show track records of aggressive anti-guerrilla activity (wherein the majority of the military’s human rights abuses occur) disadvantage themselves at promotion time," said Frechette.
Evans, director of the NSA Colombia Project, states in his report that "the documents raise important questions about the historical and legal responsibilities the Army has to come clean about what appears to be a longstanding, institutional incentive to commit murder."
"But the manner in which the investigation was conducted -- in absolute secrecy and with little or no legal consequences for those implicated -- raises a number of important questions," says Evans, who asks "when, if ever, will the Colombian Army divulge the contents of its internal report?"
The question of extrajudicial killings by the army made the international headlines and drew the attention of the United Nations after a scandal broke out in the Colombian media in September 2008 over the bodies of young men reported by the armed forces as dead guerrillas or paramilitaries.
It turned out that the men had gone missing from their homes in slum neighbourhoods on the southside of Bogotá and that their corpses had turned up two or three days later in morgues hundreds of kilometres away.
Since then, scores of cases of "body count" killings by the army, also known as "false positives," have emerged.
Although the government expressed shock and indignation, evidence soon began to emerge of a pattern that dated back years.
As defence minister under current President Álvaro Uribe, Camilo Ospina, who is now Colombia’s ambassador to the Organisation of American States (OAS), signed a 15-page secret ministerial directive in 2005 that provided for rewards for the capture or killing of leaders of illegal armed groups, for military information and war materiel, and for successful counterdrug actions.
According to the W Radio station, which reported on the secret directive in late October, it could have encouraged extrajudicial killings under a new system, which may include "a mafia of bounty-hunters allied with members of the military."
But in the view of Iván Cepeda, spokesman for the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE), "this is not about an infiltration of organised crime in the armed forces, nor about people who have broken the law. As the NSA report shows, this is an institutional practice that has been followed for decades."
The Defence Ministry directive encouraged the phenomenon by creating a system of incentives that rewards "results" in the form of battlefield casualties, "discounting accepted methods and controls and the observance of human rights and international humanitarian law," he said.
Cepeda also maintained that the activities of far-right death squads and the army’s "body count" killings were connected, and that the military used the paramilitaries to show results.
"The paramilitaries delivered to the army the bodies of people who were supposed members of the guerrillas but who were actually people selectively killed by those (paramilitary) groups," he told IPS.
When the killings became more and more widespread, the armed forces themselves asked the paramilitaries to hide the remains, to keep the country’s homicide rate from soaring any further, paramilitaries who took part in a demobilisation process negotiated with the right-wing Uribe administration have confessed.
The declassified documents demonstrate "that the U.S. military as well as U.S. diplomats and governments have taken a complacent stance towards this kind of practice," said Cepeda.
The declassified records are in line with the results of "Colombia nunca más" (Colombia never again), a monumental effort to document human rights abuses carried out by 17 organisations since 1995.
"’Colombia nunca más’ has created a databank on 45,000 (human rights) violations, including around 25,000 extrajudicial executions and 10,000 forced disappearances, committed between 1966 and 1998," said Cepeda. Colombia’s two insurgent groups emerged in 1964 and the paramilitaries in 1982, although the latter launched a lethal offensive beginning in 1997.
Cepeda told IPS that in the next few months, MOVICE would begin to organise the families of victims of extrajudicial killings, which would culminate in a national meeting to discuss "what routes of documenting the truth and obtaining justice can be followed in an organised manner by the families of the victims of this practice."
The earliest of the declassified documents obtained by the NSA is a 1990 cable signed by then U.S. Ambassador Thomas McNamara, addressed to the State Department and copied to the Defence Department, the U.S. army Southern Command, and the U.S. embassies in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru.
The cable, whose subject line reads "human rights in Colombia -- widespread allegations of abuses by the army," cites reports that an army major "personally directed the torture of 11 detainees and their subsequent execution…carried out by cutting of the limbs and heads of the still living victims with a chain saw."
Referring to the connection between army officers and the paramilitaries, the ambassador stated that many "officers continue to discount virtually all allegations of military abuses as part of a leftist inspired plot to discredit the military as an institution."
In addition, the cable mentions "strong evidence linking members of the army and police to a number of disappearances and murders which took place earlier this year in Trujillo, Valle de Cauca department."
McNamara also mentioned "an apparent June 7 incident of extra-judicial executions."
"The military reported to the press that, on that date, it killed 9 guerrillas in combat in El Ramal, Santander department. The investigation by Instruccion Criminal and the Procuraduria (legal authorities) strongly suggests, however, that the nine were executed by the army and then dressed in military fatigues. A military judge who arrived on the scene apparently realised that there were no bullet holes in the military uniforms to match the wounds in the victims’ bodies, and ordered the uniforms burned," said the ambassador.
As sources told the ambassador, "all of the victims were part of the same family, and one of them, said by the army to have been a guerrilla, was 87 years old." (END/2009)
BOGOTA, Jan 12 (IPS) - Declassified U.S. documents show that the CIA and former U.S. ambassadors were fully aware, as far back as 1990, that the military in Colombia -- the third largest recipient of U.S. aid after Israel and Egypt -- were committing extrajudicial killings as part of "death squad tactics."
They also knew that senior Colombian officers encouraged a "body count" mentality to demonstrate progress in the fight against left-wing guerrillas. In an undetermined number of cases, the bodies presented as casualties in the counterinsurgency war were actually civilians who had nothing to do with the country’s decades-old armed conflict.
Since at least 1990, U.S. diplomats were reporting a connection between the Colombian security forces and far-right drug-running paramilitary groups, according to the Washington-based National Security Archive (NSA).
In the meantime, the U.S. State Department continued to regularly certify Colombia’s human rights record and to heavily finance its "war on drugs."
The declassified documents were published Jan. 7 by the NSA, a non-governmental research and archival institution located at the George Washington University that collects, archives and publishes declassified U.S. government documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.
NSA’s Colombia Project identifies and secures the release of documents from secret government archives on U.S. policy in Colombia regarding issues like security assistance, human rights, impunity and counternarcotics programmes.
"These records shed light on a policy -- recently examined in a still-undisclosed Colombian Army report -- that influenced the behaviour of Colombian military officers for years, leading to extrajudicial executions and collaboration with paramilitary drug traffickers," says the NSA report released last week.
The secret army report mentioned by the NSA led in late 2008 to the dismissal of 30 army officers and the resignation of Gen. Mario Montoya, the Colombian army chief who long "promoted the idea of using body counts to measure progress against the guerrillas," writes the author of the NSA report, Michael Evans.
In one of the declassified documents obtained by the NSA, then U.S. Ambassador Myles Frechette complained in 1994 about the "body count mentalities" among Colombian army officers seeking to climb through the ranks.
"Field officers who cannot show track records of aggressive anti-guerrilla activity (wherein the majority of the military’s human rights abuses occur) disadvantage themselves at promotion time," said Frechette.
Evans, director of the NSA Colombia Project, states in his report that "the documents raise important questions about the historical and legal responsibilities the Army has to come clean about what appears to be a longstanding, institutional incentive to commit murder."
"But the manner in which the investigation was conducted -- in absolute secrecy and with little or no legal consequences for those implicated -- raises a number of important questions," says Evans, who asks "when, if ever, will the Colombian Army divulge the contents of its internal report?"
The question of extrajudicial killings by the army made the international headlines and drew the attention of the United Nations after a scandal broke out in the Colombian media in September 2008 over the bodies of young men reported by the armed forces as dead guerrillas or paramilitaries.
It turned out that the men had gone missing from their homes in slum neighbourhoods on the southside of Bogotá and that their corpses had turned up two or three days later in morgues hundreds of kilometres away.
Since then, scores of cases of "body count" killings by the army, also known as "false positives," have emerged.
Although the government expressed shock and indignation, evidence soon began to emerge of a pattern that dated back years.
As defence minister under current President Álvaro Uribe, Camilo Ospina, who is now Colombia’s ambassador to the Organisation of American States (OAS), signed a 15-page secret ministerial directive in 2005 that provided for rewards for the capture or killing of leaders of illegal armed groups, for military information and war materiel, and for successful counterdrug actions.
According to the W Radio station, which reported on the secret directive in late October, it could have encouraged extrajudicial killings under a new system, which may include "a mafia of bounty-hunters allied with members of the military."
But in the view of Iván Cepeda, spokesman for the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE), "this is not about an infiltration of organised crime in the armed forces, nor about people who have broken the law. As the NSA report shows, this is an institutional practice that has been followed for decades."
The Defence Ministry directive encouraged the phenomenon by creating a system of incentives that rewards "results" in the form of battlefield casualties, "discounting accepted methods and controls and the observance of human rights and international humanitarian law," he said.
Cepeda also maintained that the activities of far-right death squads and the army’s "body count" killings were connected, and that the military used the paramilitaries to show results.
"The paramilitaries delivered to the army the bodies of people who were supposed members of the guerrillas but who were actually people selectively killed by those (paramilitary) groups," he told IPS.
When the killings became more and more widespread, the armed forces themselves asked the paramilitaries to hide the remains, to keep the country’s homicide rate from soaring any further, paramilitaries who took part in a demobilisation process negotiated with the right-wing Uribe administration have confessed.
The declassified documents demonstrate "that the U.S. military as well as U.S. diplomats and governments have taken a complacent stance towards this kind of practice," said Cepeda.
The declassified records are in line with the results of "Colombia nunca más" (Colombia never again), a monumental effort to document human rights abuses carried out by 17 organisations since 1995.
"’Colombia nunca más’ has created a databank on 45,000 (human rights) violations, including around 25,000 extrajudicial executions and 10,000 forced disappearances, committed between 1966 and 1998," said Cepeda. Colombia’s two insurgent groups emerged in 1964 and the paramilitaries in 1982, although the latter launched a lethal offensive beginning in 1997.
Cepeda told IPS that in the next few months, MOVICE would begin to organise the families of victims of extrajudicial killings, which would culminate in a national meeting to discuss "what routes of documenting the truth and obtaining justice can be followed in an organised manner by the families of the victims of this practice."
The earliest of the declassified documents obtained by the NSA is a 1990 cable signed by then U.S. Ambassador Thomas McNamara, addressed to the State Department and copied to the Defence Department, the U.S. army Southern Command, and the U.S. embassies in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru.
The cable, whose subject line reads "human rights in Colombia -- widespread allegations of abuses by the army," cites reports that an army major "personally directed the torture of 11 detainees and their subsequent execution…carried out by cutting of the limbs and heads of the still living victims with a chain saw."
Referring to the connection between army officers and the paramilitaries, the ambassador stated that many "officers continue to discount virtually all allegations of military abuses as part of a leftist inspired plot to discredit the military as an institution."
In addition, the cable mentions "strong evidence linking members of the army and police to a number of disappearances and murders which took place earlier this year in Trujillo, Valle de Cauca department."
McNamara also mentioned "an apparent June 7 incident of extra-judicial executions."
"The military reported to the press that, on that date, it killed 9 guerrillas in combat in El Ramal, Santander department. The investigation by Instruccion Criminal and the Procuraduria (legal authorities) strongly suggests, however, that the nine were executed by the army and then dressed in military fatigues. A military judge who arrived on the scene apparently realised that there were no bullet holes in the military uniforms to match the wounds in the victims’ bodies, and ordered the uniforms burned," said the ambassador.
As sources told the ambassador, "all of the victims were part of the same family, and one of them, said by the army to have been a guerrilla, was 87 years old." (END/2009)
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