One of the disturbing features of the persistent use of torture by many countries in conflict situations around the world is the role some doctors play in condoning it…. [Dr Ruchama Marton, head of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel] was thinking about what some regard as the very unsatisfactory situation in Israel.
Human Rights
There is an internal document that has not been leaked, or perhaps has not even been written, but all the forces are acting according to its inspiration: the Shin Bet, Israel Defense Forces, Border Police, police, and civil and military judges. They have found the true enemy who refuses to whither away: The popular struggle against the occupation.
Construction on the 100-foot-deep steel wall began a few weeks ago, but the Egyptian government didn’t publicly acknowledge the project until the weekend. Officials defended the effort against accusations that it was an affront to Palestinians by the government of President Hosni Mubarak, which opposes Hamas, the militant group ruling Gaza.
Hundreds of Palestinians have rallied in the Gaza Strip near the Egyptian border to protest against Egypt’s construction of a steel wall aimed at blocking smuggling tunnels to Gaza.
I am a Palestinian refugee, from the village of Fallujah which lies between Gaza, Hebron and Asqalan. I’ve never been allowed to visit Fallujah… I lived the next four years under constant fear of arrest by the Israeli military, because that would have resulted in almost certain deportation to Gaza, and isolation from my family.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat on Thursday rejected municipal recommendations and cut funding for a toddler health-care center in East Jerusalem, while approving aid to a similar center in a Jewish neighborhood.
US agency co-operating with Palestinian counterparts who allegedly torture Hamas supporters in West Bank.
After answering questions from Israeli security employees regarding her work and the film festivals in which she had taken part, [documentary film director Sahera Dirbas] was asked to enter a separate room for continued questioning, where a female security guard demanded she remove all her clothing.
Make no mistake, not a single conflict of contemporary times has been resolved, no durable peace achieved, unless and until the voices of the victims of those conflicts were heard, their losses acknowledged and redress found to injustices they experience.
Over 1,000 delegates from 42 countries have signed up to participate in the December 31 Gaza Freedom March that will mark the one-year anniversary of the Israeli invasion and call for an end to the siege that has brought 1.5 million people to the edge of disaster.
Israeli security agents held a Palestinian patient for three weeks without charge, interrogated him repeatedly and offered access to hospital care if he agreed to become an informant, the Guardian has learned.
The population of the Gaza Strip is facing an acute cooking gas shortage this winter, after a unilateral Israeli decision in October to permanently close the sole oil and gas terminal between the coastal Palestinian territory and the Jewish state.
A majority of Israelis seem to get by just fine with the occupation, while B’Tselem is met with suspicion and accused of treason. Despite this, over the years in which targeted assassinations, smart bombs, closures, checkpoints, detentions without due process, lack of running water, poverty and a separation fence five minutes from Kfar Sava have all become routine, B’Tselem has continued to undermine the passion for denial, and to defend the rights of Palestinians and thus also the image of Israeli society.
If not for B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, the State of Israel would look different today. The occupation might have been even crueler, or just as cruel, but we certainly would look different. In its 20 years of existence, this important human-rights organization may not have succeeded in changing reality, but at least it has made it possible for us to know what that reality was.
For years, Israel has developed an entire industry of institutionalized voyeurism. It is a bureaucratic apparatus employing high technology, which not only enhances its methods of control, but also manufactures justification for that control to persist. Israeli society warmly embraces these professional voyeurs and their explanation that their work stems from “security demands.”
IOA Editor: See also Jonathan Cook’s: Israeli spies ‘infiltrate’ Johannesburg airport.
“Apartheid” is a word bomb akin to “lynching” or “untouchables.” It explodes upon the page, ripping the scabs off the wounds of state-enforced segregation in South Africa, a system that ended only in 1994… We have used the word “apartheid” to describe Israel’s system of rule over the Palestinians with eyes wide open to the incendiary quality of the term… Our purpose in making this comparison is not to shock… Rather, we seek… to stare hard, cold realities in the face and to participate in the discussion about how to transcend them without compounding the loss and dislocation they have already caused.
“I would suggest that time has come for Israel to look at the allegations not only of the killing and injuring of so many civilians but also the collective punishment meted out to the people of Gaza by the substantial destruction of the infrastructure, and particularly the food infrastructure of Gaza. The debate should continue, not attempt to be silenced.”
“We have been under enormous pressure and tremendous attacks, some of them very personal, as have been the attacks against Richard Goldstone with really vituperative language used to describe him: obsequious Jew, self-loathing Jew and all the rest of it.”
“The Israeli occupation impacts on the lives of Palestinian women at every juncture. From sexual harassment and assault, discriminatory treatment of Palestinian female prisoners to being forced to give birth at Israeli checkpoints,” Dima Nashashibi from WCLAC told IPS.
