Peace and Justice Post

If you only read one book about the United Nations, make sure that it is Samantha Power’s Chasing the Flame biography of Sergio Vieira de Mello. The excellent reviews that it has received here and here actually do not do it sufficient justice. Whatever you think about the UN, the invasion of Iraq or the various humanitarian crises that took place in the 1990s you will learn something from it.

While many people have extremely strong opinions about “humanitarian interventions”, the subject is surrounded by myths and misconceptions. It is a new, and comparatively under-studied, area of work and, although its influence on international relations is clearly growing, it has been subject to very little serious scrutiny.

Power uses Vieira de Mello’s career to tell a much wider story about how the UN has grappled with the humanitarian crises of the last few decades. Vieira de Mello served in the middle of some of the world’s worst conflict zones and he was responsible for making decisions during some of the UN’s most controversial and difficult missions. He defended the concept of humanitarian neutrality during the siege of Sarajevo, when many argued for a tougher line against the Serbs. He also helped to oversee the forcible closure of the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire and Tanzania, which remains one of UN high commissioner for refugees’ most criticised actions in its history.

Continued . . .

Al-Ahram Weekly, 10-16 April, 2008

“All of the Palestinians must be killed; men, women, infants, and even their beasts.” This was the religious opinion issued one week ago by Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, director of the Tsomet Institute, a long-established religious institute attended by students and soldiers in the Israeli settlements of the West Bank. In an article published by numerous religious Israeli newspapers two weeks ago and run by the liberal Haaretz on 26 March, Rosen asserted that there is evidence in the Torah to justify this stand. Rosen, an authority able to issue religious opinions for Jews, wrote that Palestinians are like the nation of Amalekites that attacked the Israelite tribes on their way to Jerusalem after they had fled from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. He wrote that the Lord sent down in the Torah a ruling that allowed the Jews to kill the Amalekites, and that this ruling is known in Jewish jurisprudence.

Rosen’s article, which created a lot of noise in Israel, included the text of the ruling in the Torah: “Annihilate the Amalekites from the beginning to the end. Kill them and wrest them from their possessions. Show them no mercy. Kill continuously, one after the other. Leave no child, plant, or tree. Kill their beasts, from camels to donkeys.” Rosen adds that the Amalekites are not a particular race or religion, but rather all those who hate the Jews for religious or national motives. Rosen goes as far as saying that the “Amalekites will remain as long as there are Jews. In every age Amalekites will surface from other races to attack the Jews, and thus the war against them must be global.” He urges application of the “Amalekites ruling” and says that the Jews must undertake to implement it in all eras because it is a “divine commandment”.

Continued . . .

Antiwar, April 12, 2008

By: BBC on: 10.04.2008

The next UN investigator into Israeli conduct in the occupied territories has stood by comments comparing Israeli actions in Gaza to those of the Nazis

Speaking to the BBC, Professor Richard Falk said he believed that up to now Israel had been successful in avoiding the criticism that it was due.

Professor Falk is scheduled to take up his post for the UN Human Rights Council later in the year.

But Israel wants his mandate changed to probe Palestinian actions as well.

Professor Falk said he drew the comparison between the treatment of Palestinians with the Nazi record of collective atrocity, because of what he described as the massive Israeli punishment directed at the entire population of Gaza.

He said he understood that it was a provocative thing to say, but at the time, last summer, he had wanted to shake the American public from its torpor.

“If this kind of situation had existed for instance in the manner in which China was dealing with Tibet or the Sudanese government was dealing with Darfur, I think there would be no reluctance to make that comparison,” he said.

That reluctance was, he argued, based on the particular historical sensitivity of the Jewish people, and Israel’s ability to avoid having their policies held up to international law and morality.

These and other comments from Professor Falk comments are, if anything, even harsher than the current UN investigator, John Dugard, who himself has been withering about Israel’s actions.

A spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that Israel wanted the UN investigator’s mandate changed, so that he could look into human rights violations by the Palestinians as well as Israel.

If that were not to happen, the Israeli government may consider barring entry to the new UN investigator.

By Tim Franks

By Andy Worthington, AlterNet. Posted April 11, 2008.

Sami al-Haj is a journalist, but one unlike any other. For over six years since December 15, 2001 — when he was seized by Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border while on assignment as a cameraman for the Qatar-based broadcaster al-Jazeera — he has been in a disturbing but unique position: a trained journalist held as an “enemy combatant” on the frontline of the Bush administration’s “War on Terror,” first in Afghanistan, and then in Guantánamo.
The outline of Sami’s story should be familiar to readers; last summer AlterNet published a detailed article by Rachel Morris: “Prisoner 345: An Arab Journalist’s Five Years in Guantánamo,” which made clear how Sami was seized because of the erroneous claim that he had interviewed Osama bin Laden, and the disturbing fact that his many interrogations in Guantánamo have focused solely on the administration’s attempts to turn him into an informant against al-Jazeera, to “prove” a connection between the broadcaster and Osama bin Laden that does not exist. As his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith of the legal action charity Reprieve, noted bluntly and accurately in his book Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantánamo Bay, “Sami was a prisoner in the Bush Administration’s assault on al-Jazeera.”

Continued . . .

Al-Ahram Weekly, 10-16 April 2008

Who is responsible for the looting of Iraq’s national museum, ransacked in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad in 2006? Are the occupation authorities to blame for failing to provide protection on the spot, the Iraqi state for failing to anticipate what would happen or the international community for watching from the sidelines?

The British Museum’s John Curtis has no doubt Iraq’s occupiers must shoulder most of the blame for what he describes as the systematic destruction of the country’s national collections. Doors were kicked down, papers and computer discs removed and files were shredded, all of which suggests a degree of premeditation.

These acts of vandalism appear designed to erase the memory of Iraqi civilisation, and more significantly of the unity that prevailed under the Babylonians, the Sumerians and the Assyrians. Mesopotamia, as an entity, is clearly something we are intended to forget.

A team of British archaeologists visiting the site of the ancient city of Babylonia (or Gate of God), 55km south of Baghdad, was appalled by the destruction wrought by US troops. The ancient road on which Nebuchadnezzar reviewed his army as part of the Babylonian celebrations of the new year had been crushed beneath advancing US tanks. Hills containing unexcavated ruins had been bulldozed. The Americans might want us to believe they are building a new Iraq, but did they really need to destroy the old one?

Continued . . .

Aftenposten, Norway, April 11, 2008

Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu has asked for asylum in Norway for a second time, Norwegian officials said on Friday, but there appears to be little chance it will be granted.

Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu flashes a peace sign during his detention at Tel Aviv’s Magistrate Court in November of 2005. PHOTO: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Related stories:

Politics won over human rights in Vanunu asylum case – 09.04.2008

191 nominees for Peace Prize – 24.02.2006

Vanunu seeks asylum in Norway – 08.10.2004

Vanunu, whom Israeli authorities have prevented from leaving Israel, sent his application directly to Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. His first asylum application to Norway in 2004 was rejected.

“We received it yesterday and it has been sent to the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion, which will handle it,” a spokeswoman for the prime minister’s office said.

Vanunu was convicted of treason and imprisoned for 18 years after informing a British newspaper in 1986 about his work as a technician at Israel’s main atomic reactor. The disclosures cracked the secrecy around the assumed Israeli nuclear arsenal.

Meanwhile, Vanunu answered readers’ questions to newspaper Aftenposten‘s internet edition in real-time on Friday afternoon.

Many of the readers expressed their admiration for Vanunu, while some questioned his motives in uncovering the Israeli nuclear program.

Vanunu replied that his motive was to prevent nuclear war in the Middle East and to “expose secret cooperation between Norway and other European states and the US to help Israel produce nuclear weapons in secret, and the use of atomic weapons in Israel for continued occupation and war in the Middle East.”

Vanunu was released from prison in 2004, but has not been allowed to leave Israel. In 2007, he was sentenced to six months in prison for violating his parole.

Norwegian daily Dagsavisen on Friday cited an Israeli diplomat as saying that giving Vanunu asylum would be considered interference in Israel’s internal affairs and a “sign of the generally anti-Israeli sentiment in Norway”.

Israel neither confirms nor denies having the Middle East’s only nuclear weapons under a policy of “strategic ambiguity.”

Vanunu has been declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

REUTERS/Aftenposten English Web Desk

thepeoplesvoice.org, April 11, 2008

Eileen Fleming

[Jerusalem] On April 7, 2008 Mordechai Vanunu, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee for the last twenty-two years learned that Israel has continued the restrictions against his right to leave the state or to speak with human beings if they are not Israelis.

On April 9, 2008 it was reported that now Norway has joined Sweden, Canada and Denmark in refusing asylum to Vanunu.

Norway’s Bergens Tidende recorded “that Vanunu’s application for asylum in Norway had in fact been approved by the country’s immigration agency UDI (Utlendingsdirektoratet) back in 2004. UDI was overruled, however, by Norway’s center-right government at the time. Political considerations, not least Norway’s efforts to remain on good terms with Israel and the US, were more important than Vanunu’s human rights.” [1]

UDI officials have a mandate to make asylum decisions without political interference. UDI officials had determined that Vanunu qualified for asylum and immigration authorities had determined that his application should be granted.

Israel developed its nuclear program with the help of Norwegian heavy water and between 1976 and 1985; Vanunu was employed as a mid level technician and shift manager at the Dimona nuclear weapons facility underground in the Negev desert where it was utilized.

In 1986, Nuclear Physicist, Frank Barnaby was employed by the London Sunday Times to interrogate Vanunu and review the 57 photos he had obtained at various restricted/secret locations in the Dimona. Barnaby spent three days with Vanunu in London before he was lured and abducted by the Mossad from Rome. Barnaby also attended Vanunu’s closed door trial and was called by the defense to give expert testimony.

Continued . . .

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In case you missed it

Must Watch Video Documentary A hard hitting special report into the “war on terror” Award winning journalist John Pilger. Click to view

Detailed Discussions Were Held About Techniques to Use on al Qaeda Suspects

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG, HOWARD L. ROSENBERG and ARIANE de VOGUE, ABCNews

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of “combined” interrogation techniques — using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time — on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said. Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding. The high-level discussions about these “enhanced interrogation techniques” were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic. The advisers were members of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy. At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft. As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies. Contacted by ABC News today, spokesmen for Tenet, Rumsfeld and Powell declined to comment about the interrogation program or their private discussions in Principals Meetings. Powell said through an assistant there were “hundreds of [Principals] meetings” on a wide variety of topics and that he was “not at liberty to discuss private meetings.” The White House also declined comment on behalf of Rice and Cheney. Ashcroft could not be reached for comment today. Continued . . .