Richard Falk: Joint Declaration on International Law & Gaza & Final List of Endorsers

August 2, 2014

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Richard Falk,  Global Justice in the 21st Century, August 2, 2014

The International Community Must End Israel’s Collective Punishment of the Civilian Population in the Gaza Strip

As international and criminal law scholars, human rights defenders, legal experts and individuals who firmly believe in the rule of law and in the necessity for its respect in times of peace and more so in times of war, we feel the intellectual and moral duty to denounce the grave violations, mystification and disrespect for the most basic principles of the laws of armed conflict and of the fundamental human rights of the entire Palestinian population committed during the ongoing Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. We also condemn the launch of rockets from the Gaza Strip, as every indiscriminate attack against civilians, regardless of the identity of the perpetrators, is not only illegal under international law but also morally intolerable. However, as also implicitly noted by the UN Human Rights Council in its Resolution of 23 July 2014, the two parties to the conflict cannot be considered equal, and their actions – once again – appear to be of incomparable magnitude.

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Iran’s supreme leader calls on Muslim world to arm Gaza

July 30, 2014
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Nasir Khan: The Arab rulers have American and Israeli rulers as their guardians and protectors. In return they do what US and Israel tell them to do. But any occasional word of sympathy by the Arab rulers for the people of Gaza who are being slaughtered mercilessly by Israel are only a public relations stunt meant to deceive domestic and Muslim audiences and a cover-up about their real masters and partners. To expect them to arm the Palestinians against a barbaric Zionist war-machine seems unrealistic. That’s the truth in a nutshell.
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http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/07/khamenei-asks-muslim-countries-arm-gaza.html#
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Author Arash Karami Posted July 29, 2014
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During his Eid al-Fitr address July 29, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spent a considerable portion of his speech discussing the war in Gaza. He condemned Israel and called the attacks on Gaza “genocide.”

 In response to calls by Western nations to disarm Hamas, Ayatollah Khamenei said, “What do you mean, disarm? They have a few missiles to briefly defend themselves against the enemy.” He said the West wants to disarm Hamas so that “Whenever the Zionists want they can attack, light any fire, and [Gazans] would not even be allowed to defend themselves.”

He continued, “The president of America issued a fatwa that the resistance must be disarmed. Yes, it’s clear, you want this [minimal] attack in response to all of these crimes not to happen. We say the opposite. All of the world, especially the Islamic world, has a responsibility: whatever it can do to equip the Palestinian people.

 

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ISRAEL’S LATEST WAR ON GAZA

July 28, 2014

Nasir Khan, July 28, 2014

I don’t know how to offer my Eid greetings to the millions of people who are hungry, homeless and are victims of wars, violence, oppression and discrimination.

At this time, Israeli war on Gaza is in the third week. Israeli propaganda and American military, political and diplomatic support for Israel have been instrumental in presenting a totally distorted picture of the Palestine-Israel conflict. By using deceptive tactics and disinformation, they have succeeded in isolating the Palestinians and misleading the world public opinion about the reality of the Israeli occupation and expansion in the occupied territories. As a result, the victims are still being portrayed by the western imperial governments and the right-wing mainstream media as the aggressors who are threatening the security of Israel! So the powerful aggressor and occupier has become a victim while the powerless, dispossessed and marginalised Palestinian victim has become a threat to the ‘security’ of Israel!

1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza, who have been under the brutal Israeli blockade for the last seven years, are again being killed indiscriminately by Israeli aerial bombardment, ground forces and naval gunships. Once again, Israel has calculatedly been busy destroying and pulverising their houses, smashing the infrastructure and public utilities in the besieged enclave. Israeli armed forces with their overwhelmingly superior military force and advanced weapons are reducing Gaza to rubble from which it may not recover in the years to come. If the Israeli occupation and blockade will continue as now then any chances of rebuilding Gaza are zero.

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Richard Falk: Palestinian Recourse to the International Criminal Court: The Time has Come

July 21, 2014

 

Richard Falk, Global Justice in the 21st Century, 21 July 2014

 

(Prefatory Note: “Palestine’s Dilemma: To Go or Not to Go to the International Criminal Court” was published on July 13, 2014 on the website of Middle East Eye, a site I strong recommend to all those with an interest in Middle East issues; this post represents a somewhat revised text, but within the framework of the original; the political plausibility of invoking the Inteernational Criminal Court to investigate allegations of criminality directed at Israel increases with each passing day.)

Ever since this latest Israeli major military operation against Gaza started on July 8, there have been frequent suggestions that Israel is guilty of war crimes, and that Palestine should do its best to activate the International Criminal Court (ICC) on its behalf. The evidence overwhelmingly supports basic Palestinian allegations—Israel is guilty either of aggression in violation of the UN Charter or is in flagrant violation of its obligations as the Occupying Power under the Geneva Convention to protect the civilian population of an Occupied People; Israel seems guilty of using excessive and disproportionate force against a defenseless society in the Gaza Strip; and Israel, among an array of other offenses, seems guilty of committing Crimes Against Humanity in the form of imposing an apartheid regime in the West Bank and through the transfer of population to an occupied territory as it has proceeded with its massive settlement project.

Continues >

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Hamas seeks the end of Israeli occupation, nothing more

July 20, 2014

 

Nasir Khan, July 20, 2014

There are many people who are just repeating the deceptive and misleading Zionist propaganda that has been the stock-in-trade of the Israeli rulers against Hamas that it wants the destruction of Israel?

In reality, Hamas is not the threat; it is Israel that has been a constant threat and aggressor since 1948. Hamas is a freedom-seeking organisation. It stands for the end of the Zionist occupation that has lasted for so long but sees no end of it in sight. It asks for an end to further Israeli expansion in the occupied land.

Just take a look at the map of the West Bank and see what has happened there since 1967. Practically hundreds of illegal settlements have been established and extreme fanatic settlers put in there who constantly terrorise the Palestinians still living there.

Now Israel has started a new war, a new slaughter in the Gaza Strip with a view to destroy any resistance to its occupation by Hamas. It is Israel that is destroying all those who challenge its occupation.

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Israeli war on Gaza is to crush Fatah-Hamas unity and any resistance to Israeli occupation

July 19, 2014

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Nasir Khan, July 19, 2014

There are many people who think that Israel has invaded Gaza in response to the rockets from Gaza. But there is more to this scenario then many casual readers know. Therefore I present a brief account of what happened. After the killing of three young ultra-rightist Jewish settlers by some unknown people and the burning alive of a Palestinian youth by the Zionists, the Netanyahu government accused Hamas of the killings. This Hamas categorically denied and declared that such accusations were totally unfounded. Hamas had nothing to do with the killings; it also condemned such killings because it was apprehensive that the Israeli government would use it an excuse to unleash terror in the West Bank and also Gaza. That’s exactly what happened.

Israeli police and army started a large-scale crack down on all members and sympathisers of Hamas in the West Bank. They also killed many Palestinians during these operations. As a reaction to the victimisation of its members by Israel, some resistance-fighters from Gaza fired rockets into Israel without causing much damage or death. There is no credible evidence that one Israeli citizen was killed by the rocket fire. As expected by many political observers Israel used firing of rockets from Gaza as a casus belli for a full scale aerial bombardment indiscriminately that was followed by a ground invasion. But what are the real reasons for Israeli war on Gaza? One prime reason is to strike at the Palestinian unity government that the two factions Fatah and Hamas had formed after the collapse of the US charade of peace talks between the parties.

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Israel’s war on the Palestinian people in Gaza

July 15, 2014
Editor’s remarks: The army of Israeli war-mafia has killed more than 200 Palestinians, injured thousands and has methodically destroyed and is destroying the houses and infrastructure of Gaza mercilessly. In return, the Palestinian resistence has managed to inflict one casualty on an Israeli citizen. As far as I am concerned I am deeply unhappy over the ongoing situation and also deeply sad over the loss of life of any human being whether Palestinian or Israeli. But the political, economic strangulation and siege of Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank must end. Israel should stop its war of aggression on Gaza and stop its brutal oppresion of the people of Palestine. Merely because Israel has the support of the United States for whatever it does against the Palestinians and in the Middle East is not a justification to kill and destroy a captive people. This is total madness.
Nasir Khan, Editor
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By Ben White, iajv99 / July 14, 2014

Israel is hitting Palestinian civilians, and it is hitting them hard. To even speak of a ‘war’ risks confusion. This is not a clash or a conflict, a tit-for-tat cycle or tribal tussle. This is an anti-colonial revolt

Israel is at war with the Palestinian people. More accurately, Israel is writing a new, brutal chapter in its ongoing war against the Palestinian people, a horror story stretching back decades, and, appallingly, with more pages to be written.

As of now, the Israeli military has killed 100 Palestinians, and wounded an estimated 680, figures that continue to rise. OCHA, a UN body, reported at 15:00 local time Thursday that 58 civilians were among the dead, including 11 women and 21 children. The headline in today’s Daily Telegraph: ‘Half of Gaza’s dead ‘are women and children”. OCHA also recorded 70 destroyed homes, with 342 housing units destroyed or severely damaged overall.

On Thursday, an unnamed IDF official told Israeli media that strikes on the Gaza Strip were being conducted at a rate of one attack every four and a half minutes. The source also claimed that when “Gaza residents see the great damage to the Strip”, it “will speak for itself”. Collective punishment then, wrapped and packaged as ‘self-defence’.

Continues >>

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Gaza is burning and the Arabs sit and watch

July 14, 2014
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Dr Mohammed Al-Misfer, MEM, Monday, 14 July 2014 
Dr Mohammed Al-MisferDr Mohammed Al-Misfer

There have been many times when oppressed people resisting their oppressors gain international solidarity for their cause as public opinion sways in their favour. They embody bravery as they continue to resist against their enemies. We saw this pattern manifest itself in Vietnam when the people struggled against the biggest superpower in the world. The Vietnamese demonstrated how they turned to each other for support when the northern city of Hanoi stood as a beacon of light for its counterpart Saigon in the south. Soon after, the southern Vietnamese people embodied the spirit of resistance and achieved all of their goals.

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When it comes to the Palestinian case, the situation is entirely different, for in the Gaza Strip (Southern Palestine) we see true armed resistance being engaged in the battle against the Zionist enemy, which is armed with the most sophisticated weapons and is using all of its power and influence throughout the world to frame this conflict as it sees fit; it is from this that the Palestinian people in Gaza can find no escape. Gaza is burning and its natural supporters, the Arabs of the region, sit and watch. The Palestinian Authority under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, based in the West Bank city of Ramallah (which we can consider here to be the northern region of Palestine), should be the biggest advocate for its people in Gaza. And yet, all we here are murmurs and useless statements being made here and there.

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Jeremy Corbyn: Who mourns for the Palestinians?

July 3, 2014
 Morning Star, July  3, 2014

A one-sided response to the killings of three Israeli settlers ignores the Palestinians’ ongoing oppression, says JEREMY CORBYN MP

“NOTHING can justify these abductions and murders, which we again condemn. Those responsible must be brought to justice … but justice will not be served by Israel seeking revenge by imposing collective punishment, or committing other violations of Palestinians’ rights.”

Thus said Philip Luther of Amnesty International in response to the murder of three Israeli settlers in Palestine. However, retribution is very much the order of the day, as has been widely reported around the world.

Palestinian residents in Shuafat, an Arab suburb of Jerusalem, told Reuters they had seen a teenager forced into a vehicle outside a supermarket on Tuesday night. They identified him as 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khudir.

A few hours later his body, partly burned and bearing marks of violence was found abandoned on the outskirts of the city. In response to this, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on all sides not to take the law into their own hands.

A strange choice of words as TV screens all around the globe showed the bombing and burning of Gaza in Israeli air strikes supposedly targeting Hamas positions, despite having no evidence that Hamas had been involved in the abduction of the teenagers.

Netanyahu calls for respect for the rule of law while his government indulges in collective punishment and has been condemned as such in respect of the Geneva Conventions for past incursions and bombings in Gaza.

Continues >>

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The Holy Month of Ramadan 2014

June 29, 2014

Nasir Khan, June 29, 2014

My greetings to all Muslims and other believers on the start of the holy month of Ramadan. We learnt at school that Satan is chained during this holy month, unable to do any usual mischiefs or mislead any good Muslim. That was good to know. Possibly, this referred to that Satan who has been around from the beginning of the universe. But there are still many people who call themselves Muslims but are doing exactly the opposite of what Muslims or other human beings should do. They are killing each other on sectarian grounds, misusing the name of God and Islam to unleash violence upon innocent people in various countries. This is so in case of the indoctrinated and misguided Muslims. Many so-called Muslim rulers are also doing the same by patronising and fanning such anti-human violence and hatred for their own political ends. In my view, these actions and crimes are the actions of Satanic forces and the followers of the Satanic forces. These actions have nothing to do with the forces of good and humanity.

‎كل عام وأنتم بخير To all Muslim brothers and sisters‎

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