Author: ISM Media Group

Free Gaza Movement: Dignity ship leaves Gaza with Palestinian students

(GAZA PORT, GAZA – 11 December 2008) – The Free Gaza Ship “Dignity,” departed from Gaza International Port at 22:10 hours, Thursday 11 December. Aboard the ship were eleven Palestinian students who had been denied exit by Israel to attend their universities abroad. Over 700 students are currently trapped in Gaza, unable to obtain permission from Israel to continue their education.

Accompanying the students are two British academics, Jonathan Rosenhead and Mike Cushman, of the London School of Economics and the British Committee for Universities for Palestine (BRICUP), an organization of UK-based academics responding to Palestine’s Call for an Academic Boycott of Israel.

According to Rosenhead and Cushman, “As academics we are particularly pleased to be traveling on the Dignity on this mission to enable at least some of the hundreds of students trapped in Gaza by the Israeli siege to get out and take up their places at universities round the world. This siege is an affront to any idea of academic freedom or human rights. How can anyone justify preventing young people from fulfilling their potential and learning how to serve their community more fully?”

In an act of nonviolent defiance to the ongoing Israeli Occupation of Palestine, the Free Gaza Movement has been running civil resistance ships to Gaza for several months. This voyage is the fourth such trip, helping to reunite families, and delivering medical supplies, mail, and international humanitarian and human rights workers to besieged Gaza.

Free Gaza spokesperson Ewa Jasiewicz stated that, “Though we carried in a ton of medical supplies and high-protein baby formula on our ship, our mission in Gaza was not to provide charity, but to give our solidarity to the people of Palestine, break the silence of the world over this continuing calamity, and physically break through the blockade of Gaza in an act of direct resistance against the siege. In the end, the oppression and humiliation of Occupation assaults the humanity of both occupier and occupied and cannot and must not be tolerated any longer.”

For over two years, Israel has imposed an increasingly severe blockade on Gaza, dramatically increasing poverty and malnutrition rates among the 1.5 million human people who live in this tiny, coastal region.

Osama Qashoo, another Free Gaza spokesperson, explained their success by saying that, “the sea passage to Gaza is open. Our fourth mission was a quick response to Israel denying earlier attempts by Libya, Qatar and by Palestinians from 1948 to also break through the siege. We hope that other nations, civil society organizations, and activists around the world will learn from our experience, be strategic in their planning, and not let Israeli threats and aggression stop them from coming to Gaza. Freedom of movement and of education, and to live in peace is everyone’s right.”

The Daily Star: Israeli court frees Jewish settler filmed shooting Palestinians

By AFP

To view original article, published by The Daily Star on the 11th December, click here

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: An Occupied Jerusalem court Wednesday freed a Jewish settler who shot at Palestinians from point-blank range in the Occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

Zeev Braudeh from the settlement of Kiryat Arba on the city’s outskirts turned himself in to police on Saturday after video footage released by a human-rights group showed him firing at a group of Palestinians.

Two Palestinians were wounded by the gunfire and Braudeh was lightly injured after a Palestinian crowd threw stones at him after the colonist shot at them.

The judge ordered the immediate release of Braudeh and criticized Israeli police for failing to arrest any of the Palestinians defending themselves from the gunfire.

“Police are treating Palestinian behavior in this incident extremely light-handedly,” the ruling said. “We can not take part in this blatant discrimination.”

However the state prosecution also filed an indictment against Braudeh on charges of aggravated assault in connection with the shooting incident.

Last Thursday, a mob of Jewish militants went on the rampage in Hebron and across the Israeli-occupied West Bank in retaliation for the eviction by police in line with a High Court order of some 250 settlers from an occupied Hebron house.

During the Israeli riots following the eviction, the colonists – who had for weeks after the ruling thrown stones at and harassed local Palestinians, often in front of Israeli soldiers and police – set fire to Palestinian homes and fields, fired weapons at them, damaged cars and other property as well as desecrating Mosques and Muslim graves.

Braudeh was one of the few arrested by Israeli authorities.

Human-rights organizations have long decried the discriminatory double standards employed by Israel while dealing with Jews on the one hand and Muslims and Christians on the other. Israeli violence is dealt with kids’ gloves by the authorities, who physically restrain perpetrators or, in some cases, use tear gas or batons. Meanwhile, Palestinian protesters – even those demonstrating peacefully – face live ammunition, rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and armored bulldozers, among other methods.

Also Thursday, Israel adamantly rejected accusations by the UN monitor of human rights in the Palestinian territories that the Jewish state is committing a “crime against humanity.”

UN expert on human rights Richard Falk had discredited himself by the accusations, which were related to Israel’s nearly 18-month blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.

“The credibility of this expert has suffered a major blow with this announcement, which consists more of anti-Israel propaganda than truth,” spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP.

Israel began a crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip, where roughly half of its 1.5 million residents depend on international aid for survival, after Hamas won legislative elections deemed fair and democratic by international observers in 2006. Following the Islamists ousting of Fatah from the territory in what many have described as a pre-empting by Hamas of an impending US-backed Fatah offensive aimed at clearing Gaza of their rivals, Israel further tightened the noose.

Various UN and EU officials, along with scores of humanitarian and human-rights workers, have described the siege as “collective punishment of a civilian population,” an act illegal under international law that the Fourth Geneva Convention defines as a war crime.

According to the terms of an Egyptian mediated cease-fire in June, Israel was to lift the blockade if Hamas reigned in militants retaliating for Israeli attacks. However, while Hamas virtually halted rocket fire emanating from Gaza, the Jewish state did not honor its commitment.

However, the truce was honored by Hamas until Israel invaded the territory on November 4 with troops and tanks in an offensive that killed seven Palestinians. The shattering of the agreement by Israel prompted Gazan fighters to resume attacks on the Jewish state.

Israel has used the return of violence to completely seal off the enclave, including from international humanitarian aid, except for a handful of exceptions. UN officials have dismissed as a pretext the Israeli reasoning that rocket fire forces the crossings to be closed, noting that in past times of far worse violence, humanitarian aid was always allowed in.

Falk had earlier called on the UN to make an “urgent effort” to “protect a civilian population being collectively punished by policies that amount to a crime against humanity.”

He also suggested the International Criminal Court investigate the situation and consider prosecuting Israeli civilian and military leaders.

“Such a flurry of denunciations by normally cautious United Nations officials has not occurred on a global level since the heyday of South African apartheid,” Falk said.

“And still Israel maintains its Gaza siege in its full fury, allowing only barely enough food and fuel to enter to stave off mass famine and disease.”

Israel on Tuesday allowed some 70 trucks filled with humanitarian aid and fuel supplies to enter the territory of 1.5 million people, an action immediately dismissed by United Nations officials as woefully inadequate.

Meanwhile, Israel allowed on Wednesday the transfer of $25 million into Gaza to pay wages of civil servants amid warnings that the imposed liquidity crisis resulting from the blockade could bring down the besieged territory’s banks.

But the sum fell short of the $63 million that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said were necessary to pay Palestinian Authority employees.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak authorized the transfer of 100 million shekels ($25 million) from banks in the Occupied West Bank to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, his office said.

The transfer was to come following a “personal request” by Fayyad and Stanley Fischer, the head of Israel’s central bank, “in view of the severe cash crisis in Gaza.”

A Palestinian treasury official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the transfer has not yet been made but that it should take place on Thursday.

Palestinian Economy Minister Kamal Hassuneh said that the $25 million was insufficient to pay the salaries of government employees.

“We need $70 to $75 million for salaries. And we need to transfer this amount every month, not just one time,” he told AFP.

The Palestinian Authority headed by President Mahmoud Abbas continues to pay the salaries of some 70,000 civil servants in the impoverished Gaza Strip. – AFP, with The Daily Star

IMEMC: Kouchner reverses Morgantini’s decision in the European Parliament

By Justin Theriault

To view original article, published by the IMEMC on the 9th December, click here

BRUSSELS, December 9, 2008 – Despite the scathing remarks by European Parliament (EP) Vice-President last week, in regards to Israel’s human rights abuses and incessant disregard for International law and Geneva Conventions, today, the EP’s 27 foreign ministers voted unanimously to upgrade EU foreign relations with Israel.

Last week, after being denied a vote altogether by EP Vice-President, Luisa Morgantini, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tzipi Livni, decided to do some more lobbying with the EP’s foreign ministers, but in particular Bernard Kouchner of France, who currently sits as the EU’s rotating president.

“At one point, she asked everyone else in the room to leave so that she could speak with Kouchner privately. During that conversation, the two agreed that there would be no linkage, but the EU would issue a separate statement stressing the need to continue the final-status talks.” It seems obvious, although difficult to actually find a formal report on the powers of EU President, that Kouchner overrode Morgantini’s earlier decision to hold Israel accountable to international law before a vote would take place in order to “upgrade” EU-Israeli relations.

“The two also agreed that the EU would not officially adopt the action plan for the peace process, which France had formulated, but would instead leave it as a mere proposal. The plan, first reported in Haaretz last week, stated that the EU would, inter alia, press Israel to reopen Orient House, the PA’s former headquarters in East Jerusalem.” Not only is Israel not accountable for it’s severe breaches of international law, it can now table the earlier peace process, formulated by France, as simply a mere proposal.

The burning question here is:

What exactly did Livni and Kouchner discuss in their private meeting?

Last week Morgantini declared, after suspending the vote to upgrade EU-Israeli relations, that:

“Finally this vote is positive for us Europeans, who are showing to ourselves and to the entire world that respect for human rights and the achievement of justice are not an abstract declaration of principles.”

In light of Kouchner’s reversal of Morgantini’s decision, and the unanimous vote by all 27 foreign ministers of the EP, the European Union is now sending a slightly different message: That the rule of law and the application of justice, when applied to Israel, is indeed an “abstract declaration of principles”. They are sending a clear message that Israel can effectively continue to terrorize Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with impunity, while enjoying”upgraded” relations with the EU.

This decision will, most likely, result in outrage across the Arab World.

Demonstration in Hebron after two members of the Jabari family arrested following settler attacks on their house

At around 3 o’clock on Monday afternoon, the first day of Eid al-Adha, Israeli forces seized two members of the Jabari family from their home under charges of stone throwing.

The soldiers brought security camera tapes from the nearby the illegal Quiryat Arba settlement supposedly showing the two throwing stones along with two members of the settlement as “witnesses”. Fadi Jabari, 20 and Mohammed Jabari, 22, live directly across from the recently evicted Rajabi occupied house and over the past months have suffered tremendously from settler attacks on their home and families. In recent attacks they have had part of their home torched, their windows completely smashed and have each been injured by both rocks and assault.

Settlers attacking the Jabari family house

The police and army present during the multiple settler attacks did nothing to help the family protect themselves, in fact they often shot tear gas into and around their home. Both men have been treated for the effects of extreme exposure to the toxic gas. Mohammed has two small children, each under the age of two, to protect. None of this information was taken into account when apprehending the two Palestinians.

Local outrage in response to the arrests pushed the community around the Jabari house to hold a demonstration on Tuesday afternoon at the police station where the two are being held. The peaceful demonstration of 50 Palestinians and internationals was quickly dispersed by the authorities within the station, who violently attacked and detained three Swedish demonstrators from the International Solidarity Movement.

The demonstrators held signs proclaiming that the real criminals were the violent settlers who injured dozens of Palestinians in the days leading up to and following the eviction of the illegally occupied Rajibi house, not the two Jabari men who were only protecting their homes and children from the rampage that left large parts of their land torched and their house damaged.

Members from all of the Palestinian families in the neighbourhood around the Jabari home came to the demonstration today to show their solidarity with the two men and their family. The members of the community have banded together in many situations to protect one another from their violent settler neighbors.

The goal of today’s demonstration was to ensure that the arrests of these two men did not happen silently, that while all of the world was still watching they would see that illegal and arbitrary arrests of Palestinians by the Israeli authorities are commonplace in the West Bank and that the mass settler attacks on Palestinians that were seen on Thursday afternoon still has not ended.

The two men are currently still being held with no word of a trial or release date.

Free Gaza Movement: “We’re back!” – Fourth successful voyage breaks through siege of Gaza

(GAZA, 9 December 2008) – The Free Gaza Movement ship “Dignity” successfully broke through the Israeli blockade for the fourth time since August, arriving in Gaza Port at 2:45pm, Tuesday 9 December. The ship carried one ton of medical supplies and high-protein baby formula, in addition to a delegation of international academics, humanitarian and human rights workers. Three earlier missions made landfall in Gaza in August, October, and November through the power of non-violent direct action and civil resistance. The Free Gaza ships are the first international ships to reach the Gaza Strip in over 41 years.

Ewa Jasiewicz, a Free Gaza organizer, journalist, and solidarity worker, pointed out that, “Tomorrow is International Human Rights Day, and it’s high time the world turned its rhetoric on human rights into reality. We mounted this mission to give our solidarity to the people of Palestine and to highlight the strangulating conditions Israel causes in besieged Gaza. The inhumane effects of this siege threaten to stunt an entire generation – both in terms of physical and mental growth due to malnutrition, terrorization by bomb attacks, incursions and the use of sonic booms – but also in terms of the generation of students which have won places at academic institutions around the world but cannot fulfill them, and those undermined on the ground in Gaza by a lack of food, medicine, electricity, materials, and the peace and space to make use of them in.”

For over two years, Israel has imposed an increasingly severe blockade on Gaza, dramatically increasing poverty and malnutrition rates among the 1.5 million human people who live in this tiny, coastal region. The World Bank recently warned that the entire banking system in Gaza may soon collapse resulting in “serious humanitarian implications.” Already, over eighty percent of Gazan families are dependent on international food aid in order to feed their children.

Lubna Masarwa, another Free Gaza organizer and the current delegation’s leader, pointed out that, “The Palestinians of Gaza don’t need charity. What they need is effective political action that changes their lives and ends the Occupation. We can’t bring electricity to Gaza on our boats. We can’t import freedom of movement or safety. But we can get into Gaza and we are intent to keep coming. We will come again and again and again until the world breaks its silence and we shatter this siege once and for all.”