Peace and Justice Post

by MJ Rosenberg, MWC News, April 13, 2011

It becomes more clear every day that Binyamin Netanyahu’s government is terrified by the prospect that the Palestinians are planning to unilaterally declare a state later this year. In fact, it is safe to say that no other proposed Palestinian action has ever shaken up any Israeli government the way that the idea of a unilateral declaration has.

According to Haaretz, Prime Minister Netanyahu is so frightened at the prospect of a Palestinian declaration that he is considering withdrawing Israel forces (not settlers, of course) from the West Bank as an inducement to prevent the Palestinians from acting.

Netanyahu is weighing a withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces troops from the West Bank and a series of other measures to block the “diplomatic tsunami” that may follow international recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders at the United Nations General Assembly in September. Netanyahu’s fear is well-placed.

Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit describes what would follow a unilateral Palestinian declaration:

At that moment, every Israeli apartment in Jerusalem’s French Hill neighborhood will become illegal. Every military base in the West Bank will be contravening the sovereignty of an independent UN member state. The Palestinians will not be obligated to accept demilitarization and peace and to recognize the occupation.

That is true. But it is also true that an internationally recognized Palestinian state, with a flag flying at the United Nations, would level the playing field for negotiations.

Ever since Israeli-Palestinian negotiations began in 1993, they have been fundamentally unbalanced. On one side is the most powerful military power in the Middle East, backed to the hilt by the United States. On the other is a stateless people who control no territory, have no military, and are barely surviving economically.

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By Reuters,  The Raw Story, April 12th, 2011

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian security forces prevented wounded protesters reaching hospitals and stopped medical teams from treating them in two towns during last Friday’s demonstrations, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

Pro-democracy protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s 11-year rule have been shaking the country, known for its heavy-handed security apparatus, for more than three weeks.

Protests after mass Friday prayers have generally been the largest because emergency law, in force since the Baath Partytook power in 1963, bans any gatherings and demonstrations not sponsored by the state.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said 27 people were killed in the southern city of Deraa and one other in the Damascus suburb of Douma on Friday.

“To deprive wounded people of critical and perhaps life-saving medical treatment is both inhumane and illegal,” said Sarah Leah Witson, HRW’s Middle East director.

“Syria’s leaders talk about political reform, but they meet their people’s legitimate demands for reform with bullets.”

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by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News, April 12, 2011

According to the Palestinian Minister of Detainees, a one-day hunger strike was held on Monday to protest the conditions where Palestinian prisoners are being held by Israeli authorities, including medical negligence, prevention of family visits, poor food quality, and the continual imposition of fines on prisoners who, because they are imprisoned, have no means to pay.

Palestinian prisoners (image by press tv)

Minister Issa Qaraqi said that 7,000 Palestinian prisoners participated in the hunger strike. Around 8,000 total Palestinian prisoners, including several hundred children, are believed to be held in Israeli detention facilities. At least 1,000 are being held without charges, in so-called ‘administrative detention’.

As the hunger strike was held inside the detention centers, supporters gathered in several West Bank and Gaza Strip cities in advance of the annual ‘Prisoners Day’, held each year on April 17th, and to call for the release of all Palestinian prisoners – a call which represents one of the three core demands of the Palestinian people, along with a state with Jerusalem as its capital, and the return of Palestinian refugees.

The Arab News website reports that, “Palestinian prisoners [have] held dozens of hunger strikes since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967. Abdulqader Abu al-Fahem was the first Palestinian prisoner to die after 15 days of a hunger strike at the Asqalan prison in 1970. The prisoners Rasim Halaweh, Alial-Ja’fari and Ishaq Maragheh died in the Nafha prison in 1980 after 32 days. The prisoners Anees Douleh and Hussein Obaidat died in 1992 after 15 days.”

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A United Nations diplomat charged with investigating claims of torture said Monday that he is “deeply disappointed and frustrated” that U.S. defense officials have refused his request for an unmonitored visit with Pfc. Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst accused of passing classified material to WikiLeaks.

Juan E. Mendez, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, said his request for a private interview with Manning was denied by the Defense Department on Friday. Instead, he has been told that any visit must be supervised.

Mendez has been seeking to determine whether Manning’s confinement at a military brig at Quantico amounts to torture, following complaints about his treatment and an incident in which the private was forced to strip in his cell at night and sleep without clothing.

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Freedom Flotilla 2, Press Release, OpedNews.com, April 11, 2011

Athens — The Freedom Flotilla 2 Steering Committee met in Athens 9 and 10 April to continue preparations for the upcoming flotilla. Since the last meeting in Amsterdam, Israel has launched an international campaign of incitement against the Flotilla and its coalition members who are participating from around the world.

The Greek Ship to Gaza hosted this international meeting and emphasized that the Greek government has failed until now to pressure Israel to release the two Greek boats hijacked from international waters and held in Israel since 31st May 2010. The Greek Ship to Gaza has complied with all of the roadblocks put into place by Israel in order to bring back its ships, but our efforts have been to no avail.

The Greek government should have pressured Israel to release immediately the ships, as Israel did for the Turkish ships in August, 2010.Now, on the eve of the second Freedom Flotilla 2 voyage, the Israeli government is threatening to attack us again. As occurred last year before the first Freedom Flotilla, Israeli leaders are busy developing an atmosphere of hostility that should leave no doubt as to their intentions if and when they illegally attack this civilian flotilla.

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Bruce Ackerman and Yochai Benkler, The New York Review of Books, April 28, 2011

Bradley Manning is the soldier charged with leaking US government documents to Wikileaks. He is currently detained under degrading and inhumane conditions that are illegal and immoral.

For nine months, Manning has been confined to his cell for twenty-three hours a day. During his one remaining hour, he can walk in circles in another room, with no other prisoners present. He is not allowed to doze off or relax during the day, but must answer the question “Are you OK?” verbally and in the affirmative every five minutes. At night, he is awakened to be asked again “Are you OK?” every time he turns his back to the cell door or covers his head with a blanket so that the guards cannot see his face. During the past week he was forced to sleep naked and stand naked for inspection in front of his cell, and for the indefinite future must remove his clothes and wear a “smock” under claims of risk to himself that he disputes.

The sum of the treatment that has been widely reported is a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against punishment without trial. If continued, it may well amount to a violation of the criminal statute against torture, defined as, among other things, “the administration or application…of… procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality.”

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by Ira Chernus, CommonDreams.org, April 12, 2011

The Arab League will ask the UN to impose a no-fly zone on Gaza, according to its Secretary-General Amr Moussa. “If the Arab League wants a no-fly zone in Gaza is it also talking about missiles that are fired from Gaza on Israeli cities?”, the Israeli government retorted. “About missiles fired at school buses? About mortar shells fired at farms?”

If you get all your news from the U.S. mass media, you’d think that was a perfectly logical response. Every mass media report I’ve seen has Israel attacking Gaza in retaliation for Palestinian attacks. The Palestinians always start it — or so the U.S. mass media tell us, as if it were incontrovertible fact. Even commentators who criticize the disproportionate scale of Israeli attacks typically add, “But of course Israel has the right to defend itself, as any nation would.”

Self-defense? That excuse just doesn’t stand up, for those few who know the facts. The facts are out there, though they’re difficult to find in the fog of media distortion. I was lucky enough to discover “Associated Press Deconstructed,” a project of the very useful website If Americans Knew.

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BBC News, April 11, 2011

Two Bahraini Shia activists who were detained after weeks of anti-government protests have died in police custody.

The interior ministry said Ali Issa Saqer, 31, had died when guards tried to restrain him for “causing chaos”.

Another detainee, Zakaraya Rashed Hassan, 40, had died of sickle cell disease, the ministry added. It was the second such death in a week.

Several Shia activists have complained of being tortured while in custody. The government denies the allegations.

(Warning: Towards the end of the story, there is a photograph of Mr Saqer’s body which viewers may find disturbing).

Bahrain imposed emergency rule last month after weeks of anti-government protests in the tiny Gulf kingdom, where the Sunni monarchy is accused of discrimination against the Shia majority.

The authorities used force to put down the protests, which have left more than 25 people dead.

Rights groups say the government has since detained more than 400 people – including human rights activists, doctors, bloggers and opposition supporters.

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By Ted Newcomen, Socialist Viewpoint, March/April  2011, vol. 11, No. 2

The U.S. “lamestream” media circus has been fulminating about Arab dictatorships killing innocent demonstrators in recent uprisings across the Middle East but has been conspicuously silent about the origins of the weapons used. Although some governments, such as the UK, have recently had second thoughts and are revoking arms licenses to Libya and Bahrain. This includes weapons such as tear gas grenades and other ammunition to suppress demonstrations. Never mind that it’s a bit late to actually affect what’s happening in the street but at least the thought was there!1

The issue has been an ongoing one in the EU since the lifting of the arms embargo back in 2004 with the Belgian courts again stopping arms sales only last year.2

Thirteen months ago the Russians announced a $2 billion deal with the Libyan regime to supply armaments, mainly combat aircraft, tanks, and surface-to-air anti-missile systems.3

In 2008, President Putin visited Libya and cancelled billions of dollars of the nation’s Soviet-era debt in exchange for big new contracts with Russian firms. Prior to this Moammar Gadhafi had visited Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine, all of which had offered to supply Libya with weapons. He said he was also discussing possible arms deals with Britain, France, and Italy, “everyone is trying to offer a better choice,” he said.4

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Editorial,

Weekly Rehbar, Srinagar (Kashmir), April 12, 2011

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