Category: In the Media

Key Dutch party: sanctions against Israel if it thwarts peace

Cnaan Liphshiz | Ha’aretz

12 April 2009

The Netherlands must impose economic sanctions against Israel if the new government in Jerusalem thwarts the peace process with the Palestinians, the Dutch Labor party said last week.

Members of Labor, which is a member of government as the country’s second largest party, said they intended to write a manifesto on the matter to the foreign minister, Maxime Verhagen, from the centrist ruling CDA party, who is largely seen as a staunch supporter of Israel.

In an interview for Radio 1, Labor’s Martijn van Dam said his party insisted that Verhagen and the European Union take “concrete” action that demands Israel accept Hamas as a partner for dialog. Van Dam also lamented the Netherlands and the European Union’s decision to blacklist Hamas.

Van Dam went on to call Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman “an extremist who is on the brink of racism,” adding: “This is not a government with much prospect for peace.”

Responding to calming statements attributed to Verhagen concerning Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government, van Dam said: “The only one who thinks that the positions of the [new] Israeli government will not have any consequences is Maxim Verhagen.”

Discussions on the matter between the cabinet and Labor’s representatives in parliament are expected to continue this week.

Amnesty International urges Obama to halt further exports to Israel

Ma’an News Agency

11 April 2009

The United States sent a massive new shipment of arms to Israel despite evidence that US weapons were misused against civilians in the Gaza attacks, Amnesty International revealed on 1 April.

The human rights organization said about 14,000 tons worth of arms and munitions sent to Israel on the Wher Elbe, a German cargo ship chartered and controlled by the US Military Sealift Command, docked and unloaded its cargo on 22 March at the Israeli port of Ashdod, about 25 miles north of Gaza.

Amnesty called on US President Obama to suspend future arms shipments to Israel until there is no longer substantial risk of human rights violations.

The Pentagon confirmed the successful unloading of the ship, which left the United States for Israel on 20 December, a week before the start of Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

According to the Amnesty report, the ship carried 989 containers of munitions, each of them 20 feet long with a total estimated net weight of 14,000 tons.

“Legally and morally, this US arms shipment should have been halted by the Obama administration given the evidence of war crimes resulting from military equipment and munitions of this kind used by the Israeli forces,” said Brian Wood, arms control campaign manager for Amnesty International. “Arms supplies in these circumstances are contrary to provisions in US law.”

Amnesty International has issued documented evidence that white phosphorus and other weapons supplied by the United States were used to carry out serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes in Gaza. The human rights organization provided comprehensive details on munitions used in the fighting in a 37-page briefing paper, Fueling Conflict: Foreign Arms Supplies to Israel/Gaza, in February.

Asked about the Wehr Elbe shipment, a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed to Amnesty International that “the unloading of the entire US munitions shipment was successfully completed at Ashdod [Israel] on 22 March.” The spokesperson said that the shipment was destined for a US “pre-positioned ammunition stockpile” in Israel.

Under a US-Israel agreement, munitions from this stockpile may be transferred to the Israeli military if necessary. A State Department official told Amnesty that Israel’s use of US weapons during the Gaza conflict is under review and efforts are being made to ensure that Israel complied with US law. A conclusion has not yet been reached.

“There is a great risk that the new munitions may be used by the Israeli military to commit further violations of international law, like the ones committed during the war in Gaza,” said Wood. “We are urging all governments to impose an immediate and comprehensive suspension of arms to Israel, and to all Palestinian armed groups, until there is no longer a substantial risk of serious human rights violations.”

“The United States government now has ample evidence from the Gaza attacks indicating that the arms it is sending to Israel have been misused to kill and injure men, women and children and to destroy hundreds of millions of dollars of property. It can no longer send weapons to Israel while ignoring these facts,” said Curt Goering, senior deputy executive director, Amnesty International USA, who was in the region during the Gaza crisis.

The United States was by far the largest supplier of weapons to Israel between 2004 and 2008. The US government is also due to provide 30 billion US dollars in military aid to Israel, despite the alleged misuse of weaponry and munitions in Gaza and Lebanon by the Israeli military. President Obama, according to published reports, has no plans to cut the billions of dollars in military aid promised to Israel under a new 10-year contract agreed in 2007 by the Bush administration. This new contract is a 25 percent increase, compared to the last contract agreed by the previous US administration.

Amnesty International has documented suspected war crimes committed by the Israeli military and by Palestinian armed groups in Gaza. On 15 January, Amnesty International called on all governments to immediately suspend arms transfers to all parties to the Gaza conflict to prevent further violations being committed using munitions and other military equipment.

Four injured and dozens suffered teargas inhalation during International Children’s Day demonstration in Bil’in

Bil’in Popular Committee

10 April 2009

Following Friday prayers in Bil’in today, residents held a protest against the wall and settlement building. A group of children from the village were at the front of the protest holding Palestinian flags and banners remarking International Children’s Day. Some banners said “It’s our right to live safely”, “The wall kills our hopes and dreams”, “Settlements and the wall leave us with no future”. There were also pictures of children with the caption “Wanted by the Israeli occupation for resisting the wall”.

The protest began in the center of the village and was joined by international and Israeli activists. The demonstration headed towards the Apartheid Wall, which is built on Bil’in’s land. An Israeli army unit had been stationed behind the wall since early morning and prevented the crowd from going through the gate. The army fired tear gas canisters to disturb the crowd, causing dozens to suffer gas inhalation, and they injured four young’s, one of them journalist his name Mohammed Muhesen working in AP, Kubi from Israel, Abdullah Aburahma, and Adeeb Aburahma.

On the other hand, the Israeli army, which is at the wall, arrested two children from Bil’in : Wajdy Ali Shehada Abu Rahma (16 years) and Hamouda Emad Hahmouda Yassin (16 years). They have beat them and then leave them near the village of Qatana after midnight, where they have access to the city Ramallah, and then arrived in the village on foot early in the morning, and this is came within the suffering of the Palestinian children by the Israeli soldiers, which coincides with the Children’s Day. For this the Popular Committee for wall resistance in the village they intervention of human rights organizations in general and children’s rights in particular, to stop the violence from the soldiers that they injured or arrest, or beat them and intimidate them and leave them in areas far from their homes after midnight.

Protest ROM decision to display stolen antiquities

Oakland Ross | The Star

11 April 2009

The Dead Sea scrolls, confiscated from East Jerusalem during Israel’s 1967 military invasion and occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, are coming to Toronto. The move is part of Israel consul general Amir Gissin’s official “Brand Israel” campaign that attempts to ‘rebrand’ apartheid Israel beyond its systematic repression of the Palestinian people.

Since 1967, hundreds of thousands of precious artifacts have been illegally removed by the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA), Israeli soldiers, and illegally operating antiquities dealers from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. These removals of the joint cultural heritage of the region are in direct contravention of at least four international conventions or protocols on the treatment of illegally obtained cultural goods.

Please stand up and let the ROM know that you do not accept the right of museums to display illegally obtained artifacts stolen from occupied territories. The history of such theft and dispossession is a sad legacy of colonial history that Canada and its museums have also been complicit in. It is time to begin reversing this legacy by canceling the current exhibit in accordance with the precepts of international law and refusing to allow the ROM to be politicized for the rebranding of an apartheid state.

For more information please contact the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid at: endapartheid@riseup.net

SUGGESTED LETTER:

Dear Mr. William Thorsell:

I am writing to express my concern about the ROM’s decision to host the Dead Sea scrolls in cooperation with the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA). Since its foundation, the IAA has repeatedly contravened international agreements, protocols and conventions on the proper and ethical handling of cultural artifacts and has been complicit in the systematic dispossession of the Palestinian people.

As you are certainly aware, the transfer of the Dead Sea scrolls from the occupied West Bank into the custodianship of the IAA was effected under military duress and violates international legal norms regulating the handling of cultural goods that are the heritage of humanity. Such removals are part and parcel of a longstanding stripping and transfer of cultural goods from the occupied territories by the IAA, Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and independent and illegally operating local antiquities dealers.

I am also concerned that the ROM’s Distinguished Lecture Series is hosting a number of scholars that have been complicit in the IAA’s aforementioned violations of international law. Such violations have been committed in the interest of forwarding a narrow nationalistic agenda and do nothing towards fostering an environment for a just and lasting peace in the region. This Lecture Series is being organized without the input of prominent Palestinian scholars in the region or of scholars critical of the ways in which the IAA has mishandled the joint cultural heritage of the region.

Finally, the Canadian Jewish News has noted that Israeli consul general in Toronto Amir Gissin’s “Brand Israel attack arsenal” includes the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition. The aim of the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s Brand Israel campaign, is to shift the attention away from Israel’s systematic violations of international humanitarian law by presenting a more ‘benign’ vision of Israel to a Canadian public increasingly wary of Israel’s war-crimes and apartheid policies towards the Palestinians.

I urge you to stand in solidarity with the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement internationally – launched by Palestinian civil society in the summer of 2005 – that seeks to peacefully put pressure on the Israeli government to end its abuses of international law. Taking a clear and principled position that emphasizes the ROM’s commitment to international law and to the fostering of consensual methods of international cooperation can only strengthen your institutions standing. Anything else would be an abdication of responsibility to the Palestinian communities most adversely affected by Israeli policies of dispossession, occupation and racial discrimination – policies exemplified in the recent history of the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves.

Sincerely,

________________

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Our pause in Cairo Airport

Laila El-Haddad | A Mother from Gaza

8 April 2009

We have been stuck in Cairo airport for nearly a day now. We are neither being allowed entry or exit by Egyptian authorities, who insist that as long as Rafah Crossing is closed, they are under strict orders not to allow Palestinians in.

This is despite a signed letter of consent I received personally from the Egyptian consul-general in Washington the day of my travel from the US.

To quote the Egyptian officials here in the airport “so sue him”.

I tried to plead that it was not my fault Egypt was in the way of my home- that if I could,I’d parachute in; that i simply wanted to go back home.

For now, we wait and sleep on the roach ridden floors of the transit hall as our own “Borders” film (a classic Syrian satire by iconic actor Dreid La7am about a man who is stuck between the borders of two fictional countries who speak the same language) unfolds.

We cannot return to the US b/c my visa has expired and I was planning on renewing it in Beirut where I was to meet up with Yassine after my Gaza stay.

And we are not beig allowed entry to Cairo because Rafah is closed.

No one seems to have an answer, other than what’s was told to me this morning. No one knows where my file is or what is going to happen. I have an off again on again wifi signal, and trying my best to keep updates on twitter @gazamom.

The only certainty is uncertainty.