Netanyahu 2002: Iraq has Centrifuges ‘the size of Washing Machines’ to Produce A-Bomb

UN Special Rapporteur: “Blockade of Gaza denies Palestinians humanity and dignity.”

UN Special rapporteur in the occupied Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, yesterday denounced Israeli policies and practices in Gaza, describing them as “a deliberate policy of collective punishment which is legally indefensible and morally reprehensible. It is aimed at denying Palestinians humanity and a life with dignity. The blockade of Gaza must be lifted entirely and immediately.”

Falk continued by stating that “It is appalling that 300,000 Gazans seek to survive on less than $1 per day, deprived of their basic human rights and a life in dignity. UNRWA report aptly concludes that the Israeli blockade ‘deliberately impoverishes so many and condemns hundreds of thousands of potentially productive people to a life of destitution.’ To this end, the deliberate policy of humiliation and degradation is only aimed at punishing the entire civilian population trapped in the Gaza Strip.”

Occupation 101

The Palestine Papers

The biggest leak of confidential material in the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict is shedding new light on the status of the peace talks. Over the next couple of weeks the British newspaper The Guardian will break stories based upon the leakage. This may prove to be very interesting. Be sure to follow the developments on either The Guardians homepage or on Al Jazeera.

Jonathan Cook om mediebias i Israel/Palæstina-konflikten.

Den britiske journalist Jonathan Cook, som har skrevet ganske omfattende om Israel/Palæstina konflikten, har skrevet et længere essay i hvilket han redegør for medier-nes bias i dækningen af konflikten. Den lange version (27 sider) kan læses her. Den korte version kan læses her.

UN Resolutions Against Israel, 1955-1992.

UN Resolutions Against Israel, 1955-1992.

Resolution 106: "...‘condemns’ Israel for Gaza raid"

Resolution 111: "...‘condemns’ Israel for raid on Syria that killed fifty-six people"

Resolution 127: "...‘recommends’ Israel suspend its ‘no-man’s zone’ in Jerusalem"

Resolution 162: "...‘urges’ Israel to comply with UN decisions"

Resolution 171: "...determines flagrant violations’ by Israel in its attack on Syria"

Resolution 228: "...‘censures’ Israel for its attack on Samu in the West Bank, then under Jordanian control"

Resolution 237: "...‘urges’ Israel to allow return of new 1967 Palestinian refugees"

Resolution 248: "...‘condemns’ Israel for its massive attack on Karameh in Jordan"

Resolution 250: "...‘calls’ on Israel to refrain from holding military parade in Jerusalem"

Resolution 251: "...‘deeply deplores’ Israeli military parade in Jerusalem in defiance of Resolution 250"

Resolution 252: "...‘declares invalid’ Israel’s acts to unify Jerusalem as Jewish capital"

Resolution 256: "...‘condemns’ Israeli raids on Jordan as ‘flagrant violation"

Resolution 259: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s refusal to accept UN mission to probe occupation"

Resolution 262: "...‘condemns’ Israel for attack on Beirut airport"

Resolution 265: "...‘condemns’ Israel for air attacks for Salt in Jordan"

Resolution 267: "...‘censures’ Israel for administrative acts to change the status of Jerusalem"

Resolution 270: "...‘condemns’ Israel for air attacks on villages in southern Lebanon"

Resolution 271: "...‘condemns’ Israel’s failure to obey UN resolutions on Jerusalem"

Resolution 279: "...‘demands’ withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon"

Resolution 280: "....‘condemns’ Israeli’s attacks against Lebanon"

Resolution 285: "...‘demands’ immediate Israeli withdrawal form Lebanon"

Resolution 298: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s changing of the status of Jerusalem"

Resolution 313: "...‘demands’ that Israel stop attacks against Lebanon"

Resolution 316: "...‘condemns’ Israel for repeated attacks on Lebanon"

Resolution 317: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s refusal to release Arabs abducted in Lebanon"

Resolution 332: "...‘condemns’ Israel’s repeated attacks against Lebanon"

Resolution 337: "...‘condemns’ Israel for violating Lebanon’s sovereignty"

Resolution 347: "...‘condemns’ Israeli attacks on Lebanon"

Resolution 425: "...‘calls’ on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon"

Resolution 427: "...‘calls’ on Israel to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon’

Resolution 444: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s lack of cooperation with UN peacekeeping forces"

Resolution 446: "...‘determines’ that Israeli settlements are a ‘serious obstruction’ to peace and calls on Israel to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention"

Resolution 450: "...‘calls’ on Israel to stop attacking Lebanon"

Resolution 452: "...‘calls’ on Israel to cease building settlements in occupied territories"

Resolution 465: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s settlements and asks all member states not to assist Israel’s settlements program"

Resolution 467: "...‘strongly deplores’ Israel’s military intervention in Lebanon"

Resolution 468: "...‘calls’ on Israel to rescind illegal expulsions of two Palestinian mayors and a judge and to facilitate their return"

Resolution 469: "...‘strongly deplores’ Israel’s failure to observe the council’s order not to deport Palestinians"

Resolution 471: "...‘expresses deep concern’ at Israel’s failure to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention"

Resolution 476: "...‘reiterates’ that Israel’s claims to Jerusalem are ‘null and void’

Resolution 478: "...‘censures (Israel) in the strongest terms’ for its claim to Jerusalem in its ‘Basic Law’

Resolution 484: "...‘declares it imperative’ that Israel re-admit two deported Palestinian mayors"

Resolution 487: "...‘strongly condemns’ Israel for its attack on Iraq’s nuclear facility"

Resolution 497: "...‘decides’ that Israel’s annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights is ‘null and void’ and demands that Israel rescind its decision forthwith"

Resolution 498: "...‘calls’ on Israel to withdraw from Lebanon"

Resolution 501: "...‘calls’ on Israel to stop attacks against Lebanon and withdraw its troops"

Resolution 509: "...‘demands’ that Israel withdraw its forces forthwith and unconditionally from Lebanon"

Resolution 515: "...‘demands’ that Israel lift its siege of Beirut and allow food supplies to be brought in"

Resolution 517: "...‘censures’ Israel for failing to obey UN resolutions and demands that Israel withdraw its forces from Lebanon"

Resolution 518: "...‘demands’ that Israel cooperate fully with UN forces in Lebanon"

Resolution 520: "...‘condemns’ Israel’s attack into West Beirut"

Resolution 573: "...‘condemns’ Israel ‘vigorously’ for bombing Tunisia in attack on PLO headquarters

Resolution 587: "...‘takes note’ of previous calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and urges all parties to withdraw"

Resolution 592: "...‘strongly deplores’ the killing of Palestinian students at Bir Zeit University by Israeli troops"

Resolution 605: "...‘strongly deplores’ Israel’s policies and practices denying the human rights of Palestinians

Resolution 607: "...‘calls’ on Israel not to deport Palestinians and strongly requests it to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention

Resolution 608: "...‘deeply regrets’ that Israel has defied the United Nations and deported Palestinian civilians"

Resolution 636: "...‘deeply regrets’ Israeli deportation of Palestinian civilians

Resolution 641: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s continuing deportation of Palestinians

Resolution 672: "...‘condemns’ Israel for violence against Palestinians at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount

Resolution 673: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the United Nations

Resolution 681: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s resumption of the deportation of Palestinians.

Resolution 694: "...‘deplores’ Israel’s deportation of Palestinians and calls on it to ensure their safe and immediate return

Resolution 726: "...‘strongly condemns’ Israel’s deportation of Palestinians

Resolution 799: "...‘strongly condemns’ Israel’s deportation of 413 Palestinians and calls for their immediate return.

Source: Paul Findley’s Deliberate Deceptions (1998, pages 192-4). This number only covers resolutions passed from 1955 through 1992

Memo For Obama

For: the President-Elect, Mr. Barack Obama.

From: Uri Avnery, Israel.

The following humble suggestions are based on my 70 years of experience as an underground fighter, special forces soldier in the 1948 war, editor-in-chief of a newsmagazine, member of the Knesset and founding member of a peace movement:

As far as Israeli-Arab peace is concerned, you should act from Day One.

Israeli elections are due to take place in February 2009. You can have an indirect but important and constructive impact on the outcome, by announcing your unequivocal determination to achieve Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Syrian and Israeli-all-Arab peace in 2009.

Unfortunately, all your predecessors since 1967 have played a double game. While paying lip service to peace, and sometimes going through the motions of making some effort for peace, they have in practice supported our governments in moving in the very opposite direction. In particular, they have given tacit approval to the building and enlargement of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian and Syrian territories, each of which is a land mine on the road to peace.

All the settlements are illegal in international law. The distinction sometimes made between “illegal” outposts and the other settlements is a propaganda ploy designed to obscure this simple truth.

All the settlements since 1967 have been built with the express purpose of making a Palestinian state – and hence peace - impossible, by cutting the territory of the prospective State of Palestine into ribbons. Practically all our government departments and the army have openly or secretly helped to build, consolidate and enlarge the settlements – as confirmed by the 2005 report prepared for the government (!) by Lawyer Talia Sasson.

By now, the number of settlers in the West Bank has reached some 250,000 (apart from the 200,000 settlers in the Greater Jerusalem area, whose status is somewhat different.) They are politically isolated, and sometimes detested by the majority of the Israel public, but enjoy significant support in the army and government ministries.

No Israeli government would dare to confront the concentrated political and material might of the settlers. Such a confrontation would need very strong leadership and the unstinting support of the President of the United States to have any chance of success.

Lacking these, all “peace negotiations” are a sham. The Israeli government and its US backers have done everything possible to prevent the negotiations with both the Palestinians and the Syrians from reaching any conclusion, for fear of provoking a confrontation with the settlers and their supporters. The present “Annapolis” negotiations are as hollow as all the preceding ones, each side keeping up the pretense for its own political interests.

The Clinton administration, and even more so the Bush administration, allowed the Israeli government to keep up this pretense. It is therefore imperative to prevent members of these administrations from diverting your Middle Eastern policy into the old channels.

It is important for you to make a complete new start, and to state this publicly. Discredited ideas and failed initiatives – such as the Bush “vision”, the Road Map, Annapolis and the like – should by thrown into the junkyard of history.

To make a new start, the aim of American policy should be stated clearly and succinctly. This should be: to achieve a peace based on the Two-State Solution within a defined time-span (say by the end of 2009).

It should be pointed out that this aim is based on a reassessment of the American national interest, in order to extract the poison from American-Arab and American-Muslim relations, strengthen peace-oriented regimes, defeat al-Qaeda-type terrorism, end the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and achieve a viable accommodation with Iran.

The terms of Israeli-Palestinian peace are clear. They have been crystallized in thousands of hours of negotiations, conferences, meetings and conversations. They are:

13.1 A sovereign and viable State of Palestine will be established side by side with the State of Israel.

13.2 The border between the two states will be based on the pre-1967 Armistice Line (the “Green Line”). Insubstantial alterations can be arrived at by mutual agreement on an exchange of territories on a 1:1 basis.

13.3 East Jerusalem, including the Haram-al-Sharif (“Temple Mount”) and all Arab neighborhoods will serve as the capital of Palestine. West Jerusalem, including the Western Wall and all Jewish neighborhoods, will serve as the capital of Israel. A joint municipal authority, based on equality, may be established by mutual consent to administer the city as one territorial unit.

13.4 All Israeli settlements – except any which might be joined to Israel in the framework of a mutually agreed exchange of territories - will be evacuated (see 15 below).

13.5 Israel will recognize in principle the right of the refugees to return. A Joint Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, composed of Palestinian, Israeli and international historians, will examine the events of 1948 and 1967 and determine who was responsible for what. Each individual refugee will be given the choice between
(1) repatriation to the State of Palestine,
(2) remaining where he/she is living now and receiving generous compensation,
(3) returning to Israel and being resettled,
(4) emigrating to any other country, with generous compensation.
The number of refugees who will return to Israeli territory will be fixed by mutual agreement, it being understood that nothing will be done that materially alters the demographic composition of the Israeli population. The large funds needed for the implementation of this solution must be provided by the international community in the interest of world peace. This will save much of the money spent today on military expenditure and direct grants from the US.

13.6 The West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip constitute one national unit. An extraterritorial connection (road, railway, tunnel or bridge) will connect the West Bank with the Gaza Strip.

13.7 Israel and Syria will sign a peace agreement. Israel will withdraw to the pre-1967 line and all settlements on the Golan Heights will be dismantled. Syria will cease all anti-Israeli activities conducted directly or by proxy. The two parties will establish normal relations between them.

13.8 In accordance with the Saudi Peace Initiative, all member states of the Arab League will recognize Israel and establish normal relations with it. Talks about a future Middle Eastern Union, on the model of the EU, possibly to include Turkey and Iran, may be considered.

Palestinian unity is essential for peace. Peace made with only one section of the people is worthless. The US will facilitate Palestinian reconciliation and the unification of Palestinian structures. To this end, the US will end its boycott of Hamas, which won the last elections, start a political dialogue with the movement and encourage Israel to do the same. The US will respect any result of democratic Palestinian elections.

The US will aid the government of Israel in confronting the settlement problem. As from now, settlers will be given one year to leave the occupied territories voluntarily in return for compensation that will allow them to build their homes in Israel proper. After that, all settlements – except those within any areas to be joined to Israel under the peace agreement - will be evacuated.

I suggest that you, as President of the United States, come to Israel and address the Israeli people personally, not only from the rostrum of the Knesset but also at a mass rally in Tel-Aviv’s Rabin Square. President Anwar Sadat of Egypt came to Israel in 1977, and, by addressing the Israeli people directly, completely changed their attitude towards peace with Egypt. At present, most Israelis feel insecure, uncertain and afraid of any daring peace initiative, partly because of a deep distrust of anything coming from the Arab side. Your personal intervention, at the critical moment, could literally do wonders in creating the psychological basis for peace.

This article was published in the current issue of the progressive Jewish-American monthly TIKKUN.

Vedrørende Israels kollektive afstraffelse af palæstinenserne

No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly and severally responsible.

Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907, Article 50

No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

Pillage is prohibited.

Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.

Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949, Part III : Status and treatment of protected persons, Section I : Provisions common to the territories of the parties to the conflict and to occupied territories, Article 33

Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.

Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949, Part III : Status and treatment of protected persons, Section III: Occupied Territories, Article 53

Ovenstående er en ment som et supplement til følgende artikler:

The poor and the sick suffer as Israel cuts power to Gaza
Palestinian water authority: 40% of Gazans lack running water
The Lessons of Violence