Israel’s War Against Palestine: Documenting the Military Occupation of Palestinian and Arab Lands

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Gordon Duff: Israel’s Planned Attack on Iran from Caucasus Base

24 June 2010

Turkey had allowed Israel to use their air space for training because their terrain closely resembled areas of Iran that Israel planned to attack. However, Turkey was unaware that planes involved in this effort were being relocated to forward staging areas in the Republic of Georgia, making Turkey, technically, fully complicit in this planned illegal attack.

Report: IAF helicopters unload equipment ‘meant for attacking a Muslim state’ at Saudi airport

24 June 2010

A semi-official Iranian news agency reported Wednesday that Israel Air Force helicopters recently landed at a Saudi Arabia airport and unloaded equipment intended for attacking targets in a Muslim state. This follows last weekend’s reports of an American fleet passing through the Suez Canal, triggering fears that the US and Israel were preparing for an attack on Iran, with Egypt’s cooperation, the Arabic language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi said.

European MPs to Israel: Lift Gaza blockade completely

24 June 2010

The Council of Europe parliamentarians Thursday called on Israel to completely end its siege of the Gaza Strip, days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered an ease of the land blockade.

PCHR: Continued Ethnic Cleansing and Measures Aimed at Creating Jewish Majority in Occupied Jerusalem

23 June 2010

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns aggressive measures taken by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in East Jerusalem, which are part of a series of measures aimed at ethnic cleansing and creating a Jewish majority in the city.

Swedish blockade of all goods to and from Israel now underway

23 June 2010

A Swedish Dock-workers union week-long blockade of goods to and from Israel is underway. The ongoing nation-wide blockade in Swedish harbors, based on the request of the united Palestinian union-movement, is the Swedish Dockworkers Union’s attempt to contribute to pressuring Israel on: Lifting the blockade on Gaza, and allowing an independent, international investigation of the Israeli boarding of the Freedom Flotilla.

33 Greeks to sue Israeli officials over Gaza flotilla raid

23 June 2010

Group of Greek citizens who took part in Gaza-bound flotilla that was taken over by the IDF last month to sue senior Israeli officials – including Defense Minister Barak, and army chief Ashkenazi.

Belgian lawyers to charge Barak and Livni for war crimes

23 June 2010

Belgian lawyers … working on behalf of a group of Palestinians intend to charge 14 Israeli politicians, including Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni … for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Arad: Palestinian state delegitimizes Israel

23 June 2010

Uzi Arad: “The creation of a Palestinian state remains the choice of many … But in the process, have you failed to notice that the more we lend legitimacy to a Palestinian state, the more it comes at the expense of our own?”

IOA Editor: So much for Netanyahu’s commitment to a Palestinian state, and Obama’s.

EI: Leaked documents show PA undermined Turkey’s push for UN flotilla probe

23 June 2010

This [PA] language would have removed the entire issue from the auspices of the HRC. Taken together, the evidence indicates that the PA was directly involved in trying to dilute and undermine Turkey’s robust position and to protect Israel from accountability.

Amira Hass: To Neutralize

23 June 2010

Israeli police … are sent to the streets of East Jerusalem as enforcers of government and municipal policy. It is that same policy of intentional discrimination that has brought 65% of the 303,429 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem below the poverty line (double the number of poor Jews in the city) and 74% of Palestinian children below that line. The police serve the government that since 1967 has expropriated 24,000 dunams (8,000 acres) of land from Palestinians and over the years has built more than 50,000 housing units on it – for Jews only. Police accompany the bulldozers that demolish homes built, for lack of choice, without permits.

Gisha releases Gaza-WB Safe-Passage educational computer game

22 June 2010

Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement launched the first computer game of its kind in Israel: “Safe Passage” allows the user to experience interactively the restrictions on movement between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank through innovative use of animation, flash documents, video clips and a blog. The game includes an archive of dozens of legal documents.

Easing of siege may have negligible effect on Gaza

22 June 2010

Attorney Sari Bashi, director of the NGO Gisha that closely follows the restrictions on the freedom of movement of persons and goods, says that as far as is known, the “easing” has not included construction materials or raw materials. “Continuing the restrictions on the ability to produce will also limit the [Palestinians] buying power,” she said.

Israel launches spy satellite

22 June 2010

Israel on Tuesday launched a spy satellite from a base in the south of the country, the defence ministry said, with the device reportedly capable of monitoring arch-foe Iran.

Turkish military delegation in Israel for shipment of Heron drones

22 June 2010

A Turkish military delegation arrived Tuesday in Tel Aviv to conclude test-runs in the delivery of four Israeli-made drones, the remaining lot in a 10-UAV deal between Turkey and Israel.

IOA Editor: From the invisible hand of the market to the invisible hand on the trigger. Killings by Made-in-Israel drones to continue.

Haaretz: The silent expulsion

22 June 2010

Citizens of Israel can leave the country for any length of time, and their citizenship and all their rights are theirs in perpetuity. But when it comes to Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, Israel applies draconian regulations whose covert intent is to bring about the expulsion of as many Palestinians as possible from their home city.

Ameer Makhoul: Letter from Israel’s Gilboa Prison

21 June 2010

My story is that the Israeli intelligence, “the Shabak”, assumed something without knowing and without any evidence. I was requested and forced to explain to them in a very detailed way how exactly I did what I didn’t do, ever. In case of any logical problem for them to complete the puzzle, they have the legal tools to fill it in by so-called secret evidence, which my lawyers and I have no legal right to know about.

Amira Hass: Who will be punished for killing civilians in the Gaza war?

21 June 2010

The decision to indict Staff Sgt. S. for killing two women during last year’s war in Gaza has caused a stir. But his lawyer will rightly ask, Why him, and not all the others who killed civilians?

Israel gripped by identity of ‘Prisoner X’

21 June 2010

Dan Yakir, chief legal counsel for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel: “It is insupportable that, in a democratic country, authorities can arrest people in complete secrecy and disappear them from public view without the public even knowing such an arrest took place.”

Arrest of Suspected Mossad Agent Strains German-Israeli Relations

21 June 2010

It is the first arrest worldwide that is directly related to the Dubai murder. German officials in Berlin are outraged that the Mossad apparently obtained a genuine German passport under false pretenses that involved — of all things — a fake story of Nazi persecution.

New bill seeks to outlaw boycott – of both settlements and Israel

21 June 2010

A new bill, the third in a series of proposed laws seeking to restrict the activities of peace activists and human rights organizations in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), has been proposed by a group of Members of the Israeli parliament.

Gideon Levy: The patriot

20 June 2010

No, he is not a villain, the Israeli patriot – he is merely brainwashed and blind. He would like to live in a democracy … But it’s a democracy without most of its mechanisms. He is satisfied with elections and majority rule: The majority will make the decisions, and to hell with the minority.

Bernard Porter: Pariahs Can’t Be Choosers

20 June 2010

Both [South Africa and Israel] certainly needed friends. Settler colonies – which both these were, Israel no less than South Africa – invariably do. Usually their biggest friends are the colonial powers that planted them in the first place, on whom they depend… especially in places overwhelmingly populated by ‘others’, and even more especially when those ‘others’ have been crudely dispossessed. Left to their own resources, such colonies are bound to be terribly vulnerable, with most historical examples… being destroyed as a result.

Made in Israel? Carmel-Agrexco Uner Accusation

20 June 2010

“The Coalition of Women for Peace declares its support for Italian supermarket chains COOP and Nordiconad’s decision to suspend sales of Agrexco produce in their stores, and hopes that more supermarket chains will follow in their footsteps.”

Ram Cohen: How I was summoned to the Knesset

20 June 2010

Those who demand that I prepare students for [military] recruitment should know that my duty is also to tell them that they would enter a territory which was occupied 43 years ago, in which human rights are being shamefully violated on a daily basis by means of our military superiority. In [the] future, these children will have to account for themselves, and they will ask if their school has revealed to them the terrible secret called occupation. Yes, occupation. An occupation, not a liberation, not a return to an ancestral land.

Zvi Barel: Give them an inquiry

20 June 2010

An international inquiry should have a different mandate: to look into how Israel managed to sell its destructive policy to the countries of the world, how they agreed to the jailing of 1.5 million people without a UN resolution. They should look into the international significance of the fact that a member of the UN decides to take such a step, and the international organization that now wants to investigate can’t prevent that step, or forcefully act to cancel it.

Against the Wall – The Art of Resistance in Palestine

20 June 2010

Joe Sacco: “A singular achievement – both a stunning photographic essay of how Israel’s concrete wall has cut into Palestinian land and strangled whole communities and a powerful visual record of how local and international graffiti artists have battered it with their only weapons, paint and spray cans.”

Ahava campaign comes to court

18 June 2010

In France, the campaign to boycott Ahava Dead Sea cosmetics has entered a new phase with boycott, divestment and sanctions advocates taking legal action against the Sephora cosmetics retail chain’s contract with the company.

Gaza convoy activists claim Israeli soldiers using debit cards stolen in raid

18 June 2010

Israeli troops have been accused of stealing from activists arrested in the assault on the Gaza flotilla after confiscated debit cards belonging to activists were subsequently used… Activists say Israel still has possession of at least £1m of goods and cash… Some passports, three of them belonging to British citizens, have still not been returned.

IOA Editor: Loot is traditionally shared by pirates – clearly, also those belonging to the Most Moral Army in the World, to cite General Barak. One can reasonably expect that the passports, confiscated by the State of Israel, are destined for a much more sinister use.

United Methodists Northern Illinois Conference votes to divest from companies profiting from Israel’s occupation

18 June 2010

Divestment is a nonviolent form of economic protest long-used… to encourage companies to end unjust practices. By selling its investments in Caterpillar, General Electric, and Terex, the NIC expresses its commitment to do no harm with its investments and affirms the call of the UMC Book of Discipline to “avoid investments that appear likely, directly or indirectly, to support violation of human rights.”

A letter to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk from the Polish Palestine Solidarity Campaign

18 June 2010

The internationally agreed means to ensure ‘never again’ are the Geneva Conventions and Universal Declaration on Human Rights. These are the principles built by survivors of crimes against humanity, following the massacre, resistance and sacrifice of millions. These are principles that protect people from state violence. These are principles that are deliberately universal and not beholden to political party or ideological doctrine.

Israeli nuclear whistleblower returned to solitary confinement

18 June 2010

Amnesty International has accused the Israeli authorities of subjecting jailed nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by holding him in solitary confinement.

Gaza Flotilla: Demands to Israel Regarding Property

18 June 2010

International statement concerning the legal consequences of the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla on 31 May 2010, with a special focus on the war crime of extensive appropriation of property.

Mark LeVine: The meaning of strangulation – US Senator Schumer and Gaza

17 June 2010

[Schumer's] talk covered several foreign policy issues, including Iran and Israel/Palestine. When the topic turned to the Israeli attack on the Gaza aid flotilla Schumer began by explaining that the “Palestinian people still don’t believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution”. But that is not all, he continued: “They don’t believe in the Torah, in David.”

IOA Editor: In a more-or-less decent society, free of racism, where basic concepts of justice form the foundation of thought and public speech of political leaders – none of this could happen without public apologies and resignation. Not so in the US, guardian of the “Free World” and champion of “Democracy.”

Yossi Melman: Top Palestinian journalist barred from Jerusalem due to ‘security considerations’

17 June 2010

The latest gimmick of the Israeli occupation under the guise of “security considerations” has emerged. The test subject: Nasser Laham, a Palestinian journalist from Bethlehem who is close with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and who advocates peace with Israel.

IOA Editor: Yossi Melman is the Haaretz specialist on Israel’s intelligence services. In recent months, his writing has been turning increasingly more critical of the Occupation authorities.

Jerome Slater: The Education of Peter Beinart – Two Cheers

17 June 2010

Let’s give Barak himself the last word about what really happened during 2000; a few years later he wrote—boasted, actually—that he had given less to the Palestinians—in fact, “not a thing”—than did his predecessor, none other than Benjamin Netanyahu. In short, the major obstacle to a two-state settlement was—and remains—Israel, not the Palestinians, even under Arafat.

Jonathan Cook: Israel’s Palestinian minority thrown into a maelstrom

16 June 2010

Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin: “The Shin Bet is required to thwart subversive activity by elements who wish to harm the nature of the State of Israel as a democratic Jewish State — even if they act by means of democratically provided tools — by virtue of the principle of ‘defensive democracy.’”