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Posts Tagged ‘Gaza’
Wide condemnation over UN Gaza report delay
October 5, 2009
Nuclear-armed Israel slams non-nuclear Iran
September 25, 2009Middle East Online, Sep 25, 2009
Hypocrisy personified
UN-defying Israeli hardliner slams nations that did not walk out on Ahmadinejad’s speech.
UNITED NATIONS – Hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly Thursday that Iran’s alleged quest for nuclear weapons was the greatest danger the world faces, in what observers say is an untrue hypocritical remark.
Nuclear-armed Israel is the only country in the Middle East that actually has nuclear weapons.
Although Israel was created by a UN resolution over 60 years ago, it is known for its defiance of the international community, especially when concerning UN resolutions on it’s illegal occupation of Arab land.
Goldstone Commission Gaza Conflict Findings and Reactions
September 22, 2009by Stephen Lendman, Dissident Voice, September 21, 2009
On April 3, 2009, a UN press release stated:
The Human Rights Council (HRC) today announced the appointment of Richard J. Goldstone….to lead an independent (four-person) fact-finding mission to investigate international human rights and humanitarian law violations related to the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip…. The team will be supported by staff of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights…. Today’s appointment comes following the adoption of a resolution by the Human Rights Council… to address ‘the grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip.
Established by the UN General Assembly on March 15, 2006, the HRC’s 47 member states are “responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe.”
As a former South African Constitutional Court justice, Goldstone is a respected jurist. He also served as chief prosecutor for the Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunals and is a Hebrew University board member. As a Jew, he promised to be fair and even-handed, and “hope(s) that the findings… will make a meaningful contribution to the peace process… and will provide justice for the victims.”
Hamas: don’t renounce capital
September 22, 2009
WARNING: Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh
Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh has warned Palestinian National Authority (PNA) officials not to “renounce Jerusalem or the refugees” during Tuesday’s three-way meeting with the presidents of Israel and the US.
Speaking on Sunday at a ceremony in a Gaza City stadium marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Mr Haniyeh said: “No-one has the right to give up on Jerusalem or the Palestinian refugees. From Gaza, from a place of strength, we say we will not relinquish our rights.”
Following Publication of Report of the UN Fact Finding Mission on Gaza: Israeli War Criminals to Trial/Court!
September 21, 2009Michael Warschawski, Alternative Information Center, Sep 16, 2009
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| Israeli Defense Minister, Ehud Barak.
Publication of Report of the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict is an important step, on condition that it is followed up. This is important, first and foremost, for international public hygiene: during two decades of neo-conservative rule in the United States, we were witness to a joint effort of the White House and Israel to annul the norms of international law. Here we can recall the stupid comment of George W. Bush. Bush, in the framework of the global war on terror, argued it is essential to annul the limitations placed by the Geneva Conventions on combatants. And Israel, already in the early 1970s, decided that the Fourth Geneva Conventions are not applicable to the occupied Palestinian territories. |
Disgrace in The Hague
September 18, 2009Gideon Levy, Haaretz/Israel, Sept 17, 2009
There’s a name on every bullet, and there’s someone responsible for every crime. The Teflon cloak Israel has wrapped around itself since Operation Cast Lead has been ripped off, once and for all, and now the difficult questions must be faced. It has become superfluous to ask whether war crimes were committed in Gaza, because authoritative and clear-cut answers have already been given. So the follow-up question has to be addressed: Who’s to blame? If war crimes were committed in Gaza, it follows that there are war criminals at large among us. They must be held accountable and punished. This is the harsh conclusion to be drawn from the detailed United Nations report.
For almost a year, Israel has been trying to argue that the blood spilled in Gaza was merely water. One report followed the other, with horrifyingly identical results: siege, white phosphorous, harm of innocent civilians, infrastructure destroyed – war crimes in each and every report. Now, after the publication of the most important and damning report of all, compiled by the commission led by Judge Richard Goldstone, Israel’s attempts to discredit them look ludicrous, and the empty bluster of its spokespersons sound pathIsatic.
So far they have focused on the messengers, not their messages: the researcher for Human Rights Watch collects Nazi memorabilia, Breaking the Silence is a business and Amnesty International is anti-Semitic. All cheap propaganda. This time, though, the messenger is propaganda-proof. No one can seriously claim that Goldstone, an active and ardent Zionist, with deep links to Israel, is an anti-Semite. It would be ridiculous.
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Although there were some propagandists who actually tried to use the anti-Semitism weapon against him, even they knew this was farcical. One had to hear the moving interview that Goldstone’s daughter Nicole gave to Razi Barkai on Army Radio Wednesday, to understand that he is in fact a lover of Israel and its true friend. She spoke, in Hebrew, of the mental anguish her father experienced and of his conviction that, had he not been there, the report would have been much worse. All he wants is an Israel that is more just, she explained.
Neither can anyone doubt his legal credentials, as a top-level international jurist with an impeccable reputation. The man who found out the truth about Rwanda and Yugoslavia has now done the same regarding Gaza. The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague is not only a legal authority, he is also a moral authority; therefore complaints about the judge won’t hold water. Instead, it is time to look closer at the accused. Those responsible are first and foremost Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Gabi Ashkenazi. So far, incredibly, none of them has paid any price for their misdeeds.
Cast Lead was an unrestrained assault on a besieged, totally unprotected civilian population which showed almost no signs of resistance during this operation. It should have raised an immediate furor in Israel. It was a Sabra and Chatila, this time carried out by us. But there was a storm of protest in this country following Sabra and Chatila, whereas after Cast Lead mere citations were dished out.
It should have been enough just to look at the horrendous disparity in casualties – 100 Palestinians killed for every Israeli – to shake the whole of Israeli society. There was no need to wait for Goldstone to understand that a terrible thing had occurred between the Palestinian David and the Israeli Goliath. But the Israelis preferred to look away, or stand with their children on the hills around Gaza and cheer on the carnage-causing bombs.
Under the cover of the committed media, and criminally-biased analysts and experts – all of whom kept information from coming out – and with brainwashed and complacent public opinion, Israel behaved as if nothing had happened. Goldstone has put an end to that, for which we should thank him. After his job is done, the obvious practical steps will be taken.
It would be better for Israel to summon up the courage to change course while there is still time, investigating the matter genuinely and not by means of the Israel Defense Forces’ grotesque inquiries, without waiting for Goldstone. Olmert and Tzipi Livni must be brought to pay for their scandalous decision not to cooperate with Goldstone, although at this point that is spilled milk. Now that the report is on its way to the ICC and arrest warrants could soon be issued, all that remains to be done is to immediately set up a state inquiry commission in order to avert disgrace in The Hague.
Perhaps next time we set out to wage another vain and miserable war, we will take into account not only the number of fatalities we are likely to sustain, but also the heavy political damage such wars cause.
On the eve of the Jewish New Year, Israel, deservedly, is becoming an outcast and detested country. We must not forget it for a minute.
UN: Israel ‘deliberately’ attacked Gaza civilians
September 16, 2009Middle East Online, Sep 16, 2009
‘Violations of humanitarian law and human rights law’
‘Strong evidence’ of Israeli ‘willful killing’, torture, extensive destruction of property in Gaza.
UNITED NATIONS – A UN report Tuesday accused both Israel and the Palestinians of committing “war crimes” in the Gaza Strip, but particularly slammed Israel’s use of disproportionate force in the conflict.
The damning report found Israel violated international humanitarian law during its assault on the Gaza Strip eight months ago.
The four-member probe panel “concluded that actions amounting to war crimes and possibly in some respect crimes against humanity were committed by the Israel Defense Forces,” the head of the UN probe, former international prosecutor Richard Goldstone, told reporters.
Rocket firing by Palestinian resistance groups also amounted to war crimes “and may amount to crimes against humanity,” a seven-page summary said.
But only four paragraphs of the summary were devoted to Palestinian violations, and Goldstone, appointed in April to lead a broadened human rights probe into the Gaza violence, was more sharply critical of Israel.
Gaza: Fighting for the Right to Walk
August 29, 2009
Gaza’s troubles have somehow been relegated, if not completely dropped from the mainstream media’s radar, and subsequently from the world’s conscience and consciousness. Weaning the public from the sadness there conveys the false impression that things are improving and that people are starting to move on and rebuild their lives.
But nothing could be further from the truth. Since the conclusion of Israel’s war last year, the Palestinian Ministry of Health declared that 344 Gaza patients have reportedly been added to the swelling number of casualties.
Peace and Justice Post 
Falk: The PA betrayed its own people
October 8, 2009Richard Falk
Uruknet.info, , October 7, 2009
GAZA, (PIC) — Richard Falk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that that the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah betrayed its own people at a moment when the international community was so close to endorse Goldstone’s report accusing Israel of war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
“The Palestinians have betrayed their people, this was a moment when finally the international community endorsed the allegations of war crimes and it would have been an opportunity to vindicate the struggle of the Palestinian people for their rights under international law and for the Palestinian representatives in the UN themselves to seem to undermine this report is an astonishing development,” he told al-Jazeera.
The UN official, however, said that the report, despite being delayed, is still very important because it exposed the inadequacy of Palestinian representation at the international level and will encourage groups supporting the Palestinian struggle to continue their efforts in this regard.
For his part, member of the central committee of the popular front for the liberation of Palestine Kayed Al-Ghoul said that delaying the vote on Goldstone’s report is a sin committed by Mahmoud Abbas, demanding him to apologize for this wrongdoing before the Palestinian people.
Ghoul stressed that this apology is a necessary step to stop the negative repercussions and to hold accountable all Palestinian officials who were responsible for what happened.
In the same context, PA official Sa’eb Erekat told Al-Jazeera satellite channel on Tuesday that the PA in Ramallah is responsible for delaying taking action on Goldstone’s report, alleging that there was a misunderstanding of the PA position.
Erekat during his talk to the channel appeared to be trying to absorb the popular anger towards the PA astonishing position against Goldstone’s report.
Senior Fatah leader and former Palestinian ambassador to Egypt Nabil Amr held Abbas on Monday in remarks on the same channel fully and directly responsible for what happened in Geneva and called on him to stop fabricating excuses.
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Tags:Gaza, Goldstone’s report, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority, Richard Falk, war crimes report
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