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By Khalid Amayreh in occupied East Jerusalem, uruknet.info, July 2, 2009
This week, Peres participated in an interfaith conference in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan , where he had the audacity to lecture delegates representing the world’s major religions on peace, human dignity, moral ethics and religious tolerance. During his speech, Peres, whose country carried out a virtual genocide in Gaza only six months ago, urged believers to show respect toward those who differ with them. |
Herb Keinon and AP, The Jerusalem Post, July 2, 2009
Israel privately heaved a sigh of relief Thursday at the election of Japan’s Yukiya Amano to replace Mohamed ElBaradei as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
New director general of the IAEA, Japan’s Yukiya Amano, is seen after his election in Vienna, Austria, Thursday.
Photo: AP
The relief comes both because the tenure of ElBaradei, with whom Israel has had a rocky relationship, is about to end, and because Amano beat out South Africa’s candidate, Abdul Samad Minty.
While officially Israel had no comment on the development, privately, government sources said Amano was Israel’s preferred candidate.
He is a rarity, even among that most endangered of species, the Israeli peace activist. Born in Basra to an Iraqi Jewish family, Ezra Nawi lives on the modest wages he earns as a plumber. As such, he comes from the same background which generates the hardline views in Israel. So he was speaking to his own kind when he told laughing border police who had just demolished Palestinian Bedouin shacks that all they would leave behind was hatred. Not content with the Bedouin shacks, the prosecuting authorities are now trying to demolish Mr Nawi’s life by threatening him with a prolonged stay in prison. His arresting officers claim that the non-violent resister had assaulted them – although the alleged assault was not included in their original statements. The whole incident (barring the alleged assault, of course) was caught on film, but the presiding judge believed the police. The sentencing was delayed on Wednesday because so many supporters turned up in court, some bearing a petition with 15,000 signatures. Mr Nawi is asking a bigger question of his countrymen: who is perpetrating the greater violence? Is it people like him, or is it a state which bulldozes Palestinian shacks while protecting the homes of South Hebron settlers which the rest of the world considers illegal? As Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu trade in the semantics of a settlement freeze, it falls to a humble plumber to focus the world’s attention on the routine brutalities of occupation.
By Ezra Nawi | ZNet, July 1, 2009
Source: The Nation
[The author is going to prison–for peacefully resisting settler and army violence against West Bank Palestinians and the illegal expropriation of their land.]
My name is Ezra Nawi. I am a Jewish citizen of Israel.
I will be sentenced on the first of July after being found guilty of assaulting two police officers in 2007 while struggling against the demolition of a Palestinian house in Um El Hir, located in the southern part of the West Bank.
Of course the policemen who accused me of assaulting them are lying. Indeed, lying has become common within the Israeli police force, military and among the Jewish settlers.
After close to 140,000 letters were sent to Israeli officials in support of my activities in the occupied West Bank, the Ministry of Justice responded that I “provoke local residents.”
This response reflects the culture of deceit that has taken over all official discourse relating to the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The ‘Spirit of Humanity’ sets sail for Gaza (Free Gaza Movement)The Free Gaza Movement announced in a press release on Tuesday that its boat The Spirit of Humanity had been intercepted by the Israeli navy while en route from Cyprus to the Gaza Strip to deliver humanitarian supplies to the Palestinian people.
The people of Gaza have suffered under an Israeli siege and a three-week military assault code-named Operation Cast Lead that began on December 27 last year.
Israel has been heavily criticized by human rights groups for its actions during that campaign, which included indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets and the use of white phosphorus as a weapon, forbidden under international law.
The Israeli navy intercepted the boat, named the Arion but dubbed The Spirit of Humanity by its passengers, boarded it, and then forcibly directed it to Ashdod, Israel.
Sky News,9:00am UK, Thursday July 02, 2009
Israel has been accused of killing hundreds of unarmed Palestinian civilians and destroying thousands of houses in their recent offensive along the Gaza strip.
Amnesty found 300 children and hundreds of unarmed civilians died in the conflict
The first in-depth human rights report on the three-week conflict in Gaza said Israel’s attacks amounted to war crimes.
Amnesty International first accused Israel of breaching the laws of war shortly after the fighting ended on January 18.
And it said “disturbing questions” remain about why high-precision weapons “killed so many children and other civilians”.
The group called on Israel to publicly pledge not to use artillery, white phosphorus and other imprecise weapons in densely populated areas.
And it urged Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers to stop rocket fire against Israeli civilians.
Remnants of an Israeli airstrike
In addition, Amnesty accused Israeli forces of using Palestinians as “human shields”, and regularly denying civilians from getting medical care and humanitarian aid.
The pattern of attacks and the high number of civilian casualties “showed elements of reckless conduct, disregard for civilian lives and property and a consistent failure to distinguish between military targets and civilians and civilian objects”, the 117-page report read
More than 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, were killed during the offensive, according to Gaza health officials and human rights groups.
Israel said the death toll closer to 1,100 and says the vast majority of the dead were militants, though it has refused requests to provide a list of the dead.
Amnesty found some 300 children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians were among the dead.
Amnesty International’s report was based on physical evidence and testimony gathered from dozens of attack sites in Gaza and southern Israel during and after the war.
By Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler | Inter Press Service
JERUSALEM, Jun 30 (IPS) – The concerted effort of international human rights activists to rein in violations of laws of war was given a major impetus when Human Rights Watch researchers presented a report Tuesday on the unbridled use by the Israeli military of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCLAV), commonly known as drones, during Israel’s 22-day assault on Hamas in Gaza at the beginning of the year.
Entitled ‘Precisely Wrong’, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report focuses on six cases of Israeli drone-launched missile attacks in which 29 Palestinian civilians, eight of them children, were killed. Based on cross-referenced eyewitness accounts corroborated by doctors, as well as ballistics and forensic evidence collected on the attack sites, the report asserts that “in none of the cases did HRW find evidence that Palestinian fighters were present in the immediate area of the attack at the time.
Peace and Justice Post 
Saudis give nod to Israeli raid on Iran
July 5, 2009The Sunday Times/UK, July 5, 2009
Earlier this year Meir Dagan, Mossad’s director since 2002, held secret talks with Saudi officials to discuss the possibility.
Continued >>
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Tags:Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran, Israel, Mossad, Saudi airspace, Saudis
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