| By Daud Abdullah, Al Jazeera, Dec 18, 2009
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David Miliband, the UK’s foreign secretary, has apologised to his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, after the humiliation and embarrassment caused by the issuing of a warrant for the arrest of Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli foreign minister.The arrest warrant was issued over Livni’s suspected war crimes role during Israel’s war on Gaza, but was later withdrawn after she cancelled her visit to London. Miliband also promised to begin work immediately to change UK laws to ensure that no such warrants would be issued for Israeli officials in the future. As an added sweetener to the act of contrition, Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, also personally called Livni to assure her she would always be welcomed to visit the UK. All of this is easier said than done. Already there is a huge outcry in Britain over the mere thought of changing UK laws or reneging on treaty obligations simply to protect Israeli officials involved in the serial breach of international law. In their deluded fantasy the Israelis claim that the judicial order in London will seriously impair bi-lateral relations between London and Tel Aviv, jeopardise the Middle East peace process and undermine Britain’s image in the region. Historic Middle East role
What a gross distortion. Britain’s historic relationship and role in the Middle East is unquestioned. Even though it has on many occasions acted against the national interests of the people of the region and the Palestinians in particular, it would be wishful thinking to suggest that it could be excluded from future negotiations.Instead of being eternally grateful to Britain for creating their state in Palestine, Israeli officials are today attempting to bite the very hand that fed them. To claim that Britain is in trouble or would be the loser because of the court order is disingenuous. Actually, the only losers are those who planned, commissioned and executed the war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip. They are the ones in hot water, so to speak, and the greatest service Brown could make on behalf of universal jurisdiction is to leave them to stew in it. These sentiments were expressed by his former cabinet colleague Clare Short, a member of the Labour Party and an independent MP, while addressing a conference organised by the Palestinian Return Centre, in London. A former minister for international development, Short said the crimes committed in Gaza during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead last year marked a defining moment in the conflict. She criticised how Israel has undermined the international system by its cavalier breach of conventions and established norms in an apparent attempt to tell the world that there are special laws for certain states and that it is a state above the law. She derided the hypocrisy of those who seek to prosecute Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, while at the same time they refuse and obstruct efforts to investigated and prosecute Israeli criminals. Violations of international law The groveling apology to Israel, after the British ambassador was summoned for a reprimand by the Israeli foreign ministry, is the type of reaction expected from a banana republic, not from Great Britain. Should the foreign secretary entertain Lieberman, a Jewish settler himself and a resident of Nokdim, a West Bank settlement considered illegal under international law? What a contradiction. The official policy of the UK government is that all settlements in the lands occupied in 1967 are illegal and violate UN Security Council resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention. It is poignant to point out that Livni’s father and mother were regarded as “terrorists” by the British Mandate authorities in Palestine in the 1940s and were both captured and locked up. Under Article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Britain still has an obligation to “to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts”. What is at stake in this imbroglio is the independence of the British judiciary, an institution that for hundreds of years has been a source of national pride and emulated by many nations. It is for this reason there is anger and outrage over the government’s declared intent to succumb to Israel. The implication, of course, is the fear that in future Britain would not be able to lay any claim to be a bastion and guardian of international law. The rhetoric of ‘rule of law’ will run hollow if there was any change of the law for no other reason except to protect war criminals who happen to be members of the club. Compelling evidence
It must be recalled that these laws came into being because of the Nazi war crimes and crimes against humanity. Only last month there was great satisfaction and hubris when John Demjanjuk was brought before a German court more than 60 years after allegedly committing his crimes.The message was clear: that war crimes and crimes against humanity are so repugnant that they must not go unpunished. The case against the Israeli minister and her accomplices was made not by Richard Goldstone only. A number of independent reports including the report of Independent Fact-Finding Committee on Gaza to the Arab League, the Martin Commission report to the UN secretary-general on attacks on UN premises, and reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights and the National Lawyers Guild, all support the conclusion that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed by the Israeli military in its Operation Cast Lead. It was because of this compelling evidence that a British judge issued the warrant for Livni’s arrest. To present the matter as if it were a malicious witch hunt is simply beside the point. Surely it would be a travesty of justice if what occurred in Gaza was not investigated and prosecuted. Peace in the region has remained elusive precisely because of this failure to be even-handed in the application of international law, always at the expense of Palestinian rights. If Palestinians do not have recourse to the law, one wonders what other options are left to them when their legitimate grievances are ignored. Daud Abdullah is the director of the Middle East Monitor, an independent media research institution founded in the United Kingdom to foster a fair and accurate coverage in the Western media of Middle Eastern issues and in particular the Palestine Question. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy. |
Posts Tagged ‘Israel’
‘The UK is not a banana republic’
December 18, 2009
For Palestinians, Every Day Is Kristallnacht
December 17, 2009by Paul Craig Roberts
“Settlers attack West Bank mosque and burn holy Muslim books” was a London Times headline on December 11, 2009.
These attacks, together with the demolition of Palestinian homes, the uprooting of Palestinians’ olive groves, the innumerable checkpoints that prevent Palestinians from accessing schools, work, and medical care, the Israeli Wall that denies Palestinians access to the land stolen from them, and the isolation and blockade of the Gaza Ghetto, are part of the Israeli government’s policy of genocide for the Palestinians.
The Israel Lobby has such power over America that even former President Jimmy Carter, a good friend of Israel, is demonized for using the polite term–apartheid–for the genocide that has occurred over the decades during which American “Christian” preachers, together with bought-and-paid-for politicians, justified Israel’s policy of slow genocide for Palestine.
Israelis who still have a moral conscience–a small part of the population–endeavor to use moral protests against the inhumanity of the Israeli government. Israelis Jeff Halper and Angela Godfrey-Goldstein lead the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD), a non-violent, direct-action group established to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories.
Under international law an occupier by military force is forbidden to steal the occupied land. The US, however, has protected Israel’s violation of international law for decades by vetoing UN resolutions. Israel has been able to steal Palestine from the Palestinians, because the US government used its power to prevent Israel from being held accountable under international law.
In March 2003 American citizen Rachel Corrie stood in front of an Israeli bulldozer, made by Caterpillar and sent to destroy a Palestinian home. Her courageous act of defiance was regarded as an annoyance, and she was run over and murdered by the Israeli bulldozer operator. Israel suffered no consequences for its murder of an American citizen who had a moral conscience.
In the Israeli-controlled American media, we hear endlessly that Palestinians are terrorists who strap on explosives in order to kill innocent Israelis and who terrorize Israeli towns by firing rockets into them. One look at the maps above is enough to make clear who the real terrorist is. The success of Israeli propaganda in the face of totally obvious facts damns the ignorance and unconcern of the American people.
The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, which also has a moral conscience and is intelligent to boot, wrote on December 4, 2009: “Every appointee to the American government must endure a thorough background check by the American Jewish community.” Haaretz notes that any American that the President of the United States proposes for an appointment to his government is subject to the approval of the Israel Lobby, which can blackball appointees at will.
Haaretz gives the example of Charles Freeman, whom President Obama intended to appoint as head of the National Intelligence Council. The Israel Lobby proved, again, that it was more powerful than a mere American President and prevented the appointment, citing Freeman’s “anti-israel leaning.” In other words, because Freeman was not an overboard apologist for Israel’s crimes he was unacceptable to the Israel Lobby.
Haaretz reports: “The next attempt to appoint an intelligence aide, in this case, former Republican senator Chuck Hagel, also resulted in vast criticism over his not having a pro-Israel record.” The Israel Lobby has blocked Hagel’s appointment by President Obama. Hagel doesn’t want to start a war with Iran for Israel’s benefit and was blackballed by Morton A. Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America. Hagel, it seems, “refused to sign a letter calling on then-president George Bush to speak about Iran’s nuclear program at the G8 summit that year.”
Now it is a Jewish daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Hannah Rosenthal, whose appointment to head the US Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, an office that is another indication of America’s puppet state status, is under attack. Rosenthal was the head of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs during 2000-2005. Her black mark came from serving on the advisory board of the J Street Lobby, a recently-formed American Jewish organization formed in opposition to AIPAC’s murderous militarism.
The Israel Lobby’s opposition to Hannah Rosenthal shows that no moral person can survive the Israel Lobby’s blackball.
The US, “the world’s only superpower,” has no independent voice in Middle Eastern affairs. The real power rests in the hands of the settler thug, Avigdor Lieberman, Deputy Prime Minister of Israel and Minister of Foreign Affairs. This is the man who controls the Obama government’s Middle East policy. Lieberman forced the “all-powerful President of the US, Barack Omama,” to rescind his order to Israel to halt the illegal settler settlements on occupied Palestinian land. Obama was given the bird and submitted to his master.
Macho Americans who prance around as if they owned the world are nothing but the puppets of Israel. The US is not a country. It is a colony.
Peace must begin with the plight of Palestine’s refugees
December 8, 2009Sixty years after the UN moved to address the fate of the dispossessed, we need to accept that the injustice endures
Karen Abu Zayd, The Guardian/UK, Dec 8, 2009
Sixty years ago today the United Nations general assembly voted into existence a temporary body known as UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. UNRWA’s task was to deal with the humanitarian consequences of the dispossession of some three-quarters of a million Palestine refugees forced by the 1948 Middle East war to abandon their homes and flee their ancestral lands. Just two decades later, the six-day war generated another spasm of violence and forced displacement, culminating in the occupation of Palestinian territory. Today, anguished exile remains the lot of Palestinians and Palestine refugees. The occupation of Palestinian land persists, there is no Palestinian state, and the human rights and fundamental freedoms to which Palestinians are entitled under international law do not exist.
The Vanunu Opera and Christmas 2009
December 7, 2009
It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings is a proverb that means do NOT assume the outcome of something-such as a sports game-until it has finished.
The proverb originated from Richard Wagner’s opera suite Der Ring des Nibelungen in its last part, Götterdämmerung, when the fat lady/the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, delivers an aria that lasts nearly ten minutes and ends the drama.
Thirty-three years ago, Mordechai Vanunu began listening to Wagner, a 19th century German composer [who wrote both music and libretto for every one of his works] because, “Opera inspires me, it gives me strength. When I was twenty-two I stopped listening to pop; The Beatles, Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan. I like challenges and began listening to opera. It builds skyscrapers in my mind. Opera is nutrition for the brain. Opera enlarges and develops the brain. Opera speaks to my brain…Every morning I am in my room until eleven listening to opera. I find ways to enjoy myself as my way of resistance. I transform anger into positive energy.”
Vanunu told me that during my last visit to occupied east Jerusalem in June 2009. At that time he was also walking 2 ½ hours a day to the checkpoints he is denied the right to cross that lead to Bethlehem and Lazarus’ Tomb. Vanunu had also been playing coed volleyball and having dinner weekly with his friends from the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Old City, where he became a member three years ago and has attended both the English and German services because he liked the music. Shortly thereafter, he quit meeting reporters as well as foreign supporters.
Three weeks after my visit, while back in Israeli High Court, Vanunu learned he was again denied the right to leave the state for another six months, which literally is up on December 21, 2009.
Whether out of boredom with the topic or weariness, Vanunu finally committed to refrain from speaking of Israel’s nuclear program during the July 6, 2009 Supreme Court trial while President Dorit Beinish, claimed his “case is still generating great interest, like any other security-related case. The media’s attention he gets is proof of that.” [1]
There is no proof to back up that judge’s claim and in fact, the media’s silence has worked to collude in the injustices Vanunu has endured, for he has been demonized in Israel and remains largely unknown in America. However, the Media’s negligence has conspired to help create an iconic hero for proponents of the abolition of nuclear weapons and supporters for human rights united on the Internet and so, until Israel allows Vanunu the right to full freedom, the human interest in-and the disseminating of-his drama will grow and be spread on the world wide web.
When I met Vanunu in 2005, I was in the midst of writing my first book, but it was not until 2004, when I began researching for it, did I first come across his name. In the Chapter: Thanksgiving Eve, 1987 from KEEP HOPE ALIVE, I wrote:
“I have yet to read or heard a word from the American press about Vanunu who had worked in a very compartmentalized position in the secret underground Dimona nuclear research center in the Negev. The nuclear plant had a sign outside claiming it was a Textile factory and it seems that when Vanunu finally realized he was involved in the horrific work of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, he shot two rolls of film inside of the restricted areas. Seems security was very lax and this low level tech was able to obtain the keys in the shower room that opened the doors to what Israel has not admitted to…Vanunu quit the job and leaves Israel and carried around the undeveloped film for nearly a year as he traveled throughout Europe. He ended up in Sydney, Australia and converted to Christianity.
“A few weeks after he shared his story with a British reporter…Vanunu and the reporter returned to London, and while the London Times was verifying his story, Vanunu mysteriously disappeared. The photos proved the fact that Israel had become a major nuclear power, but not a word has been heard from my government or press!
“The Sunday Times reports this incredible news that Israel’s underground plutonium plant has material for two hundred nuclear warheads of advanced design, but not a word have I read about it or heard from the US media! It makes me wonder about all the iron curtains the media and government have raised as a shield from the truth.” [2]
Governments get away with mayhem and murder whenever the media fails or is prevented from doing their job; to investigate and report the truth, no matter how ugly or brutal.
Jewish extremists defy Tel Aviv on settlements
December 1, 2009Middle East Online, First Published 2009-12-01
The settlers adhere to radical ideologies and are extremely violent
Radical Israeli settler leaders vow to resist the government’s West Bank settlement freeze.
TEL AVIV – Radical Israeli settler leaders vowed on Monday to resist the government decision to impose a temporary ease on illegal West Bank settlement building after months of pressure from the United States.
Prominent extremist settler leaders held an emergency meeting at which it was decided to bar government construction inspectors from the settlements, they said in a statement.
PM Netanyahu’s three-card trick
November 27, 2009Scarcely had Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu unveiled Israel’s latest fraudulent “far-reaching step towards peace” than US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leapt forward to welcome it.
Netanyahu spouted the usual rhetoric about a “historic peace agreement to finally end the conflict,” knowing that his offer lacked honesty and integrity.
And Clinton gave it the White House seal of approval, aware that it had no chance of being acceptable to the Palestinian people’s negotiators and, equally, that it fell short of Barack Obama’s earlier demand that Israel freeze all construction projects on the occupied West Bank.
Since Netanyahu gave this demand the bum’s rush, Clinton has repackaged it as a vacuous call for “restraint.”
And, as if sharing a scriptwriter, Netanyahu passed off his 10-month partial halt to housing construction as evidence of Israeli government restraint.
As so often with heavily touted Israeli initiatives, there is a lot less to this offer than meets the eye.
First, it does not apply to east Jerusalem, which was captured in the 1967 war with the rest of the West Bank. Tel Aviv has unilaterally and illegally declared the annexation of east Jerusalem, together with several settlements to the east of the city, with the intention of designating a unified Jerusalem as Israel’s “eternal” capital.
Not even the most abject Palestinian supplicant could accept such a negotiating precondition.
Second, whereas most people might believe that halt equals stop, in Israel’s lexicon, halting construction signifies no such thing.
It means not starting any new projects over and above those dozens that have already been either begun or authorised.
Nor does it apply to the building of synagogues and schools, which are essential elements of Israel’s ethnic-cleansing strategy.
Despite the fraudulent nature of Netanyahu’s three-card trick, Clinton categorised it as helping to “move forward toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
She also echoed Netanyahu’s reference to Israel’s racist goal of a “Jewish state,” which would put the current 20 per cent Arab minority in legal jeopardy.
Whatever the excitement in Washington, no Palestinian representative regards the Netanyahu plan as a starter.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat suggested that it had more to do with placating the US president, pointing out: “At the end of the day, Netanyahu needs to make peace with us, the Palestinians. He doesn’t need to make peace with Americans.”
Hamas dismissed it as a “cosmetic step,” designed to restart “pointless negotiations.”
Many Palestinians have been increasingly critical of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his handpicked but never ratified prime minister, the US-educated economist and former senior World Bank official Salam Fayyad.
This, together with Obama’s failure to achieve a settlement freeze, has led the authority to call on West Bank residents to boycott large supermarket chains that stock Israeli products.
Palestinian Economy Minister Hassan abu Libdeh estimates that illegal Israeli settlements currently have a 15 per cent share of the Palestinian market and is determined to implement an already existing law that bans the sale of settlement produce.
According to Stop the Wall co-ordinator Jamal Juma, “if the Palestinian Authority insists on implementing this decision, it means the authority will participate in boycotting one-third of the Israeli products that come to the West Bank.
“The decision will allow Palestinians to say: ‘No to the occupation, we are not going to pay for the bulldozers that destroy our houses and for the bullets that kill our people’.”
And President Abbas is pressing all Arab countries to cancel their business ties with French companies Veolia and Alstom, which are involved in the construction of a Jerusalem-based light railway through the West Bank.
He announced this at a press conference organised by the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, which is made up of several non-governmental organisations.
Abbas’s chief of staff Rafiq Husseini lambasted Arab countries, chief among them Saudi Arabia, that continue to work with the two companies, accusing them of “not fulfilling their duties” despite repeated requests by the Palestinians and from the Arab League.
Alstom has several Saudi contracts, including one to build a railway to Mecca.
It is illustrative that even Abbas, who has announced his impending retirement, is sufficiently disillusioned with the US administration and the road map to throw his weight behind the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).
These developments give additional importance to next Saturday’s trade union conference, organised by colleges union UCU, for BDS supporters to discuss practical implementation in the light of the resolution carried at this year’s TUC annual conference in September.
With speakers of the calibre of Omar Barghouti of the Palestinian BDS committee, former South African intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils, Congress of South African Trade Unions international secretary Bongani Masuku, Dr Ilan Pappe of Exeter University and Palestine Solidarity chairman Hugh Lanning, this conference could be vital in putting mass pressure on Israel.
PA: UN wants Israel to admit secret prison
November 24, 2009
Ma’an News Agency, Nov 22, 2009
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Ramallah – Ma’an – The UN has sent an official request to Israel to admit the existence of secret prison camp 1391, dubbed in the press “Israel’s Guantanamo Bay,” according to the Palestinian Authority minister of prisoners affairs.Minister Issa Qaraqe told a news conference in Ramallah on Saturday that the UN had asked the Israeli government in a letter to officially acknowledge that the facility. Human rights experts with the United Nations Committee Against Torture questioned Israeli officials about the facility in may when the country came up for a regular review under a treaty obligation, Reuters reported.
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Peace and Justice Post 
Jimmy Carter: Gaza must be rebuilt now
December 19, 2009Jimmy Carter, The Guardian/UK, Dec 19, 2009
It is generally recognised that the Middle East peace process is in the doldrums, almost moribund. Israeli settlement expansion within Palestine continues, and PLO leaders refuse to join in renewed peace talks without a settlement freeze, knowing that no Arab or Islamic nation will accept any comprehensive agreement while Israel retains control of East Jerusalem.
US objections have impeded Egyptian efforts to resolve differences between Hamas and Fatah that could lead to 2010 elections. With this stalemate, PLO leaders have decided that President Mahmoud Abbas will continue in power until elections can be held – a decision condemned by many Palestinians.
Even though Syria and Israel under the Olmert government had almost reached an agreement with Turkey’s help, the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejects Turkey as a mediator on the Golan Heights. No apparent alternative is in the offing.
The UN general assembly approved a report issued by its human rights council that called on Israel and the Palestinians to investigate charges of war crimes during the recent Gaza war, but positive responses seem unlikely.
In summary: UN resolutions, Geneva conventions, previous agreements between Israelis and Palestinians, the Arab peace initiative, and official policies of the US and other nations are all being ignored. In the meantime, the demolition of Arab houses, expansion of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and Palestinian recalcitrance threaten any real prospect for peace.
Of more immediate concern, those under siege in Gaza face another winter of intense personal suffering. I visited Gaza after the devastating January war and observed homeless people huddling in makeshift tents, under plastic sheets, or in caves dug into the debris of their former homes. Despite offers by Palestinian leaders and international agencies to guarantee no use of imported materials for even defensive military purposes, cement, lumber, and panes of glass are not being permitted to pass entry points into Gaza. The US and other nations have accepted this abhorrent situation without forceful corrective action.
I have discussed ways to assist the citizens of Gaza with a number of Arab and European leaders and their common response is that the Israeli blockade makes any assistance impossible. Donors point out that they have provided enormous aid funds to build schools, hospitals and factories, only to see them destroyed in a few hours by precision bombs and missiles. Without international guarantees, why risk similar losses in the future?
It is time to face the fact that, for the past 30 years, no one nation has been able or willing to break the impasse and induce the disputing parties to comply with international law. We cannot wait any longer. Israel has long argued that it cannot negotiate with terrorists, yet has had an entire year without terrorism and still could not negotiate. President Obama has promised active involvement of the US government, but no formal peace talks have begun and no comprehensive framework for peace has been proposed. Individually and collectively, the world powers must act.
One recent glimmer of life has been the 8 December decision of EU foreign ministers to restate the long-standing basic requirements for peace commonly accepted within the international community, including that Israel’s pre-1967 boundaries will prevail unless modified by a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians. A week later the new EU foreign policy chief, Baroness Catherine Ashton, reiterated this statement in even stronger terms and called for the international Quartet to be “reinvigorated”. This is a promising prospect.
President Obama was right to insist on a two-state solution and a complete settlement freeze as the basis for negotiations. Since Israel has rejected the freeze and the Palestinians won’t negotiate without it, a logical step is for all Quartet members (the US, EU, Russia and UN) to support the Obama proposal by declaring any further expansion of settlements illegal and refusing to veto UN security council decisions to condemn such settlements. This might restrain Israel and also bring Palestinians to the negotiating table.
At the same time, the Quartet should join with Turkey and invite Syria and Israel to negotiate a solution to the Golan Heights dispute.
Without ascribing blame to any of the disputing parties, the Quartet also should begin rebuilding Gaza by organising relief efforts under the supervision of an active special envoy, overseeing a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and mediating an opening of the crossings. The cries of homeless and freezing people demand immediate relief.
This is a time for bold action, and the season for forgiveness, reconciliation and peace.
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Tags:demolition of Arab houses, destruction of Gaza, East Jerusalem, Golan Heights, Israel, Israeli settlement expansion, Palestinians, PLO leaders, President Jimmy Carter, President Obama's suggestions, rebuilding of Gaza, war crimes in Gaza
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