Peace and Justice Post

Andy Worthington, uruknet.info, January 25, 2011

My thanks to an eagle-eyed supporter for pointing out that, on January 11, the Voice of the Cape radio station in South Africa interviewed Elaine Whitfield Sharp, the lawyer for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist whose 86-year sentence in a New York courtroom last September — for allegedly trying and failing to shoot at her US captors in Afghanistan, and her imprisonment in Carswell, a notorious psychiatric facility in Texas — have seemed to her supporters to crown, in a typically lawless, brutal and overblown manner, the long story of her presumed detention in a US-run “black site” for five years and four months before her alleged reappearance in Afghanistan, the encounter with US soldiers that prompted her rendition to justice in the US, and her trial last year in which all mention of her missing years was suppressed. I have written at length about Dr. Siddiqui’s case before, and encourage anyone interested in her story to check out my archive of articles, and also to visit the website of the Justice for Aafia Coalition, and I’m delighted to add Elaine Whitfield Sharp’s interview with Voice of the Cape radio (cross-posted below, with minor corrections), because of her open declaration that Dr. Siddiqui was not a terrorist, and that, after her capture in Karachi in March 2003, by Pakistani forces and the CIA, she was “taken to some off-site country — a third-world nation, possibly Jordan or Afghanistan — where she was detained for five years in a black site or secret prison. Here she was forced to create documents to incriminate herself to support what we see in this war on terror. She was then dumped in Afghanistan with a bag that conveniently had incriminating documents.” Continues >>

Newly leaked documents reveal series of concessions made to Israel by PA negotiators; East Jerusalem offer was rejected as it didn’t include settlements deeper in West Bank.

Barak Ravid, Haaretz, January 24, 2011

Palestinian negotiators secretly agreed to concede almost all Jewish areas of East Jerusalem to Israel, the Guardian newspaper and Al-Jazeera TV reported on Saturday. As many as 1,600 Palestinian documents on peace talks with Israel, obtained by Al Jazeera TV and given to the Guardian, covering more than a decade of exchanges, provide a unique look into the breakdown of the peace process.

The biggest leak of confidential documents in the history of the conflict has revealed that Palestinian negotiators secretly agreed to accept Israel’s annexation of all but one of the neighborhoods, Har Homa, built in East Jerusalem.

This was one in a series of concessions made to Israel by Palestinian negotiators in an effort to move closer to independent statehood. The documents give the impression of a weakened Palestinian Authority and growing desperation among its leaders because of impasses in talks and the growing strength of Hamas.

Continues >>

By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON, Counterpunch, January 25, 2011

Many people told them so — told them, meaning told the United States and Israel and even the overeager Palestinian leadership, that the Oslo agreement in1993 wasn’t fair, that it made too many demands of the Palestinians and virtually no enforceable demands of Israel; that the United States, no honest broker or neutral mediator, was looking out only for Israel’s interests and cared nothing for Palestinian concerns; that the peace process breakdown at Camp David in 2000 was not the fault of the Palestinians but was the responsibility of President Clinton and his “Israeli lawyer” advisers for representing only Israel’s needs; that while Clinton demanded Palestinian concessions, he was winking at Israel’s steady expansion of settlements and land grabs in Palestinian territory; that Clinton’s two successors did the same.

Many analysts told them that hopes for a genuine two-state solution died in the 1990s — indeed, were never realistic — because Israel, with U.S. knowledge and support, was swallowing Palestine, eating the pizza they were supposed to be negotiating over, as many Palestinians have said.  But no one in power in the United States or the international community or in the media listened.

Continues >>

Over a million children are taken out of school every year to pick cotton in dreadful – often fatal – conditions

The Independent, Jan 24, 2011

• Massive new leak lifts lid on negotiations
• PLO offered up key settlements in East Jerusalem
• Concessions made on refugees and Holy sites

• Israel spurned offer of ‘biggest Jerusalem in history’
• Palestinian leaders weak – and increasingly desperate
• The story behind the Palestine papers

• Seumas Milne and Ian Black, Middle East editor,
• The Guardian, Jan 23, 2011

The Palestine papers reveal the offer of concessions by Palestinian peace negotiators on areas such as the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount holy sites in Jerusalem. Photograph: Awad Awad/AFP/Getty ImagesThe biggest leak of confidential documents in the history of the Middle East conflict has revealed that Palestinian negotiators secretly agreed to accept Israel‘s annexation of all but one of the settlements built illegally in occupied East Jerusalem. This unprecedented proposal was one of a string of concessions that will cause shockwaves among Palestinians and in the wider Arab world.

A cache of thousands of pages of confidential Palestinian records covering more than a decade of negotiations with Israel and the US has been obtained by al-Jazeera TV and shared exclusively with the Guardian. The papers provide an extraordinary and vivid insight into the disintegration of the 20-year peace process, which is now regarded as all but dead.

Continues >>

Svært mange har møtt Kopreitan med sin ombygde barnevogn på Karl Johan. Han hadde et brennende fredsengasjement, og solgte buttons og plakater med klare budskap. Ikke minst i kampen mot atomvåpen.

Kopreitan var en av de første som satte kampen mot apartheid på den politiske agendaen. I 1964 stormet han, sammen med 50 ungdommer, tennisbanen på Madserud for å stoppe tennislandskampen mellom Norge og Sør-Afrika. Han ble senere dømt for sivil ulydighet, men aksjonen skapte internasjonal oppmerksomhet. En demonstrasjon mot Vietnam-krigen på Eidsvoll på selveste 17. mai skapte også oppmerksomhet.

Politikk

På 60-tallet var han leder for Sosialistisk Ungdomsforbund (SUF), og senere ble han partisekretær for moderorganisasjonen Sosialistisk Folkeparti.

På slutten av 60-tallet oppsto det en splittelse der maoistene i ungdomspartiet sto mot moderpartiet. Kopreitan prøvde å lage et tredje alternativ, men trakk det korteste strået, og forsvant dermed ut av partipolitikken.

Etter bruddet med Sosialistisk Folkeparti ble han aktiv i Folkebevegelsen mot norsk medlemskap i Fellesmarkedet (EEC). Han fikk æren for å ha bygget opp organisasjonen til en omfattende folkebevegelse.

Nei til atomvåpen

Ole Kopreitan vil likevel først og fremst bli husket for sin innsats som leder for organisasjonen Nei til Atomvåpen. Han har vært aktiv i organisasjonen fra stiftelsen og fram til nå.

Han har vært organisasjonens ansikt utad og organisatorisk leder innad, og var sist på jobb i Nei til Atomvåpens lokaler torsdag. Kopreitan deltok også i internasjonale fora for atomnedrustning og var de frivillige organisasjonenes representant i FNs nedrustningsprogram.

I 2002 ble aktivisten tilkjent 60.000 kroner i erstatning og oppreisning fordi han var blitt utsatt for ulovlig overvåking. Innsynsutvalget konkluderte med at den ulovlige overvåkingen hadde funnet sted i 22 år.

Samme år fikk han Zola-prisen, utdelt av Foreningen til fremme av sivilt mot.

Ole Kopreitan ble født 19. september 1937 i Stavanger. Han vokste opp på Hitra og utdannet seg til lærer ved Sagene lærerskole, men praktiserte aldri som lærer.

Editorial,

Morning Star Online,   January 21, 2011

Email

Blair suggested to the Chilcot inquiry that he had disregarded attorney general Lord Goldsmith’s initial legal advice on the planned invasion of Iraq because it was “provisional.”

However, the then prime minister didn’t simply ignore the advice given. He stood it on its head.

Blair stood up in Parliament giving a position diametrically opposed to what Goldsmith had told him. He justifies that now by saying that he was convinced that the attorney general would come round to his view once he knew the full facts.

Both Blair and Goldsmith are at fault for their refusal to take international law seriously.

Blair was hell-bent on backing George W Bush’s invasion plan, irrespective of international law, while Goldsmith allowed himself to be browbeaten into changing his advice and is only now blowing the gaff on Blair’s criminal behaviour.

Continues >>

Jesse Rosenfeld and Joseph Dana,The National, Jan 12, 2011

Never believe the Israeli army killed an unarmed civilian until it’s officially denied. This paraphrasing of Mark Twain’s “never believe anything until it has officially been denied,” should become a mantra for journalists operating in the Middle East.

It is a point reinforced recently by the death of a West Bank Palestinian resident, Jawaher abu Rahmah, who died from tear gas exposure during the recent demonstration against Israel’s separation wall and land annexation in the village of Bil’in.

It has become an almost predictable pattern: a Palestinian civilian is killed during a demonstration or Israeli military incursion and the evidence and witness testimony clearly demonstrates Israeli culpability. Then, military sources give farfetched and contradictory statements that become the central focus in Israeli and American media reports.

Jawaher, the 36-year-old sister of Bassem abu Rahmah – who was killed in 2009 from a high-velocity Israeli tear-gas canister fired directly at his chest – was seen by demonstrators, family members and the ambulance driver that took her to hospital, experiencing asphyxiation from a large amount of tear gas. Immediately following her death on January 1, quotes from unnamed Israeli military personnel began saturating the pro-Israel blogosphere. Statements ranging from claims that she was not at the protests and had cancer, to her being released from the hospital and later dying at home moved seamlessly from unvetted blogs to the headlines of Israeli dailies, and then into the main focus of news coverage in the American press.

Continues >>

by Tom McTague, Daily Mirror, January 22, 2011