John Ging, head of the United Nation’s Relief and Work Agency “UNRWA”, demanded the international community to lift the siege on the Gaza Strip through the provision of a sea route and sending ships to break the siege… “We recommend the world to send ships to the shores of Gaza, and we believe that Israel would not stop these vessels because the sea is open…”
Human Rights
This morning at 3:10 a.m. [6 May 2010], Israeli Security Agency (ISA) agents accompanied by Israeli police raided Ameer Makhoul’s family home in Haifa and arrested him. Mr. Makhoul is a human rights defender and serves as the general director of Ittijah – The Union of Arab Community-Based Associations and as the Chairman of the Public Committee for the Defense of Political Freedom in the framework of the High Follow-up Committee for the Arab Citizens of Israel.
IOA Editor: See also Ameer Makhoul: Israel’s repression of its Palestinian citizens unites us in struggle
UPDATE: Welcome, again, to the many new readers from “The Only Democracy in the Middle East” who cannot read this story in local media due to Israeli censorship — yet another Shin-Bet-initiated, court-approved gag order. Please come back to read more about the Occupation and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and all matters the Israeli government tries to prevent you from knowing. (9 May 2010)
The only democracy in the Middle East is perhaps unique, but it’s doubtful if it’s the real thing. Results of a poll published in Haaretz yesterday reflect what has been known for a long time: a combination of ignorance, a basic lack of understanding and a fascist mood. An ill and dangerous wind is blowing toward a government that is threatened with collapse.
More than half of Jewish Israelis think human rights organizations that expose immoral behavior by Israel should not be allowed to operate freely, and think there is too much freedom of expression here, a recent survey found.
IOA Editor: Very important. The unveiling of Israel’s ‘democratic’ facade – by Jewish, and democratic, Israeli scientists.
Finkelstein concludes that Gaza was not a war but a massacre, “like shooting fish in a barrel”. Israel maintained undisputed control of the air, carrying out 3,000 sorties virtually unhindered. Amnesty International could not find cases where civilians were caught up in crossfire, because there wasn’t a single battle during the 22-day assault: “‘Most of the time it was boring,’ one soldier confirmed to Amnesty, ‘there was supposed to be a tiny resistance force upon entry, but there just wasn’t'”.
Issa Qaraqi, PA minister of prisoner affairs: “It is inhumane what they are doing. He has no connection to Gaza, no relatives there, nothing,” claim[ing] Israel was implementing a new set of military orders that critics fear could lead to mass deportations from the occupied West Bank.
Richard Falk: “a wide range of violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law could be linked to actions carried out by the Government of Israel under these Orders, with particular gravity in the event that young persons become victims of their application.”
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the implementation of two death sentences in the Gaza Strip this morning. These death sentences were carried out without the ratification of the Palestinian President. PCHR reiterates that the ratification of death sentences is an exclusive right of the President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) under the Code of Criminal Procedures.
Gaza-born Palestinian living on WB: ‘The Israeli order will destroy our lives. We will live as if we live in a huge prison even if we are not deported to Gaza. No one would dare to leave the city or to go from town to town afraid of the Israeli checkpoints. Who would keep his/her job in this unstable situation’.
I have… criticized Israel for punishing the population of Gaza by imposing a blockade that restricts the flow of food, medicine, and fuel to subsistence levels, or worse. Such a blockade is a flagrant form of collective punishment prohibited by Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. I believe that Hamas should be treated as a political actor, that the blockade should be terminated immediately, and that the UN should insist on the end to the blockade as a condition of Israel’s normal participation in the activities of the Organization.
Recent poll reveals steep rise in racist views against Arabs in Israel; many participants feel hatred, fear when overhearing Arabic, 75 percent don’t approve of shared apartment buildings. Over half of the Jewish population in Israel believes the marriage of a Jewish woman to an Arab man is equal to national treason, according to a recent survey by the Geocartography Institute.
Norman Finkelstein: “Goldstone did not perform the role of the Jewish liberal… which is to be anguished, but no consequences. And all of a sudden Israeli liberal Jews are discovering, hey, there are consequences for committing war crimes. You don’t just get to walk into the sunset and look beautiful. They can’t believe it. They are genuinely shocked. ‘Aren’t our tears consequences enough?’ Aren’t our long eyes and broken hearts consequences enough?’ ‘No,” he said, ‘you have to go to the criminal court.’”
IOA Editor: Read Chris Hedges’ Is America ‘Yearning for Fascism’?
“I thought they would kill me. I became very scared and wet my pants. I could not shout or say anything because I was too afraid… He pushed me towards the small corridor in front of the bathrooms. He began shouting at me and speaking a language I did not understand… There were two bags in front of me. I grabbed the first one as he stood one and a half meters away. I opened the bag as he pointed his weapon directly at me. I emptied the bag on the floor. It contained money and papers. I looked at him and he was laughing. I grabbed the second bag to open it but I could not. I tried many times but it was useless, so he shouted at me. He grabbed my hair and slapped me very hard across the face.”
IOA Editor: No matter how this indictment turns out, or whether the IDF finds it politically convenient to sacrifice two soldiers for the sake of international propaganda — “the most moral army in the world,” etc. — this is a testimony to the IDF’s actual behavior: one of thousands of rarely told stories that emerges more than a year after the crimes were committed.
MK Dov Khenin (Hadash): “We have come here today to say clearly that human rights do not end at the borders of Jaffa. We demand that residents of Jaffa receive equal rights, be treated decently by the authorities, especially the police.”
UPDATE: Ajami co-director ahead of the Oscars: I don’t represent Israel
Ajami co-director Scandar Copti on Sunday said that he does not represent Israel, hours before his film competes for the best foreign film Oscar at the Academy Awards, Army Radio reported. “I am not Israel’s national team and do not represent her,” Copti reportedly said… “The film technically represents Israel, but I don’t represent Israel. I cannot represent a country that does not represent me,” he said… (Haaretz – 7 March 2010)
Eighty percent of the people in Gaza are essentially dependent on outside food aid, either from UNWRA or the World Food Program. Not because there isn’t food in the shops – there is – but they can’t afford it, or they can’t afford enough of it because any livelihoods that there were, any jobs that there were outside the government have effectively disappeared. Most private businesses have been destroyed, essentially by the blockade – bulldozed – and the rest finished off by Cast Lead.
Reut says the campaign is the work of a worldwide network of private individuals and organizations. They have no hierarchy or overall commander, but work together based on a joint ideology – portraying Israel as a pariah state and denying its right to exist.
IOA Editor: Conveniently, Israel’s ‘experts’ equate criticism of Israeli actions — mostly, directly connected to the Occupation, and the Occupation itself — for which Israel has deservedly earned the title “pariah state,” with denial of its right to exist. This is an old Hasbara trick: You criticize us, you’re really saying Israel has no right to exist. Left out of the discussion is “The right to exist as what?” As an occupying state? An Apartheid state? The term “delegitimization campaign” is actually turned on its head: It is the Israelis who are attempting to delegitimize their critics by calling them “delegitimizers,” trying to blur the distinctions between “delegitimizers” and anti-Semites, consistent with old Israeli propaganda practices: If you criticize us, and you’re not Jewish, you’re an anti-Semite. (And if you are Jewish, you’re sick – afflicted by “self-hate,” etc. See Ur Shlonsky’s recent email exchange on the Academic Boycott.) Those of us old enough have heard this some four decades ago.
The IOA is proud to be a very small part of the “worldwide network… [having] no hierarchy or overall commander…” We steadfastly reject the Occupation and strongly criticize Israel’s long record of violations of international law.
It could be expected that a country that has ruled another nation for many years would show tolerance toward manifestations of unarmed protest against the occupation and its ills… The suppression of public protest under the transparent guise of protecting state security does not augment Israel’s international standing. Such a policy gives a bad name to “the only democracy in the Middle East.”
Michael Sfard: “I am embarrassed to say that the investigation team did not even go to Ni’ilin, the scene of the shooting… If a Jewish man had been shot and wounded, there is no doubt that the entire village would be under curfew and Israel would do everything possible to investigate.”
“A female combat soldier needs to prove more…a female soldier who beats up others is a serious fighter…when I arrived there was another female there with me, she was there before me…everyone spoke of how impressive she is because she humiliates Arabs without any problem. That was the indicator. You have to see her, the way she humiliates, the way she slaps them, wow, she really slapped that guy.”
Spelman College girls are still “nice” but not enough to keep them from walking up and down, carrying picket signs, in front of two supermarkets in the heart of Atlanta. They are well-mannered, but this is somewhat tempered by a recent declaration that they will use every method short of violence to end segregation.
IOA Editor: In these days of Apartheid Walls and resistance to military occupation, it is both interesting and inspiring to read Howard Zinn’s account of protesting segregation in the South.
