- Israeli War Criminals in Jenin & Lebanon
The right place for the war criminals is jail. Leaving war criminals free is a big threat against the security of the international society, and they are a grave danger to their own societies.
The International lebanon_a Criminal Court was established to deal with exactly these criminals. Let us work together to bring these criminals to justice. Let us work together to push the International Criminal Court to fulfill it's duties and to play an active roll in ridding the planet of this grave kind of criminality.
Here are some more names of Israeli soldiers who participated in war crimes during Operation Defensive Shield from April 3 to 21 of 2002 in Jenin.
The former OC Central Command, Maj-Gen. Yitzhak Eitan gave awards to these criminals for their war crimes and crimes against humanity in Jenin, which left large sectors of the Palestinian population of that city homeless, and where about 500 were massacred by the IOF. These Israeli war criminals received an appreciation medal from their regional commander for the crimes which they committed.
Colonel Fuad Halhal, the IOF officer in Jenin during during Operation Defensive Shield, a former Military officer in Hebron, a druze.
Fuad Halhal Maj. (res.) Baram Segev.
Senior Warrant Officer Richard Awizrat.
Capt. Tomer Tsiter
Sgt. Shenior Alfassi
Sgt. Ron Margalit
Maj. Nimrod Aloni
Capt. Alon Madanes
Capt. Ron Vardi
Capt. Kfir Cohen
Capt. Ofir Levy
Anyone having additional information about these individuals, please email me.
Here are some names of Israeli war criminals who participated in the Major General Yishai Barso-called second war against Lebanon in 2006. These criminals were awarded for their crimes by the IDF Chief of the General Staff, Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, and Maj.-Gen. Yishai Beer, the former President of the Court of Appeals of the Israeli Forces and now a lecturer at Hebrew University in the occupied Jerusalem.
Col. Miki Edelstein Nahal Brigade Commander.
Yehuda David from Nahal Brigade's Battalion 931, he also participated in Operation Defensive Shield in Nablus in 2002.
Lt. Erez Ramati, Nahal Battalion 931. Ramati, 31, from Kochav Yair, is still the doctor of Battalion 931.
Staff Sgt. Michael Hibner, Nahal Battalion 931, death squad unit.
Staff Sgt. Amichai Avraham, a combat soldier from the elite Egoz unit
Staff Sgt. Steven Friedland, born in Houston, Texas, made aliyah to Jerusalem staff-sgt-steven-friedlandwith his family in 1995. He participated in the second war against Lebanon in 2006 and he received an award citation of valor as a recognition for his service in the Second Lebanon War crimes.
Friedland completed his military service in the IOF in October 2007 serving as a commander and teacher for the Intelligence unit. Currently, he is in Melbourne, Australia working for the Masorti (conservative) movement.
Maj. Ro'i Klein.
(8:20) The Face of a Hero
Sgt. Avichai Yaakov.
Capt. Hanoch Daube.
sergeant-yoni-binyamin-asraf_aLt. Anton Syomin.
Sergeant Yoni Binyamin Asraf, served as a gunner in the reconnaissance battalion of the Paratroop Brigade during the war in Lebanon.
Sergeant (res.) Rotmensch, 23, is from Beit Aryeh.
Sergeant (res.) Eliran Iluz, 24, is a resident of Even Yehuda.
The Israeli Death Squad war criminals
Nitai Okshi, a company commander who murdered several Palestinians at the Israeli concentration camp checkpoints surrounding Gaza.
Major General David Ben-Ba'shat, Israeli Navy Head of Public Relations, department of the IDF Spokesman.
Lieutenant Colonel Ofer Vinter (or Winter), is the commander of the lt-erez-ramati reconnaissance battalion of the Givati infantry brigade, which has been at the forefront of the IOF offensive activity in the Gaza Strip in the past few years. Winter is a war criminal who operated in Gaza in 2004.
He headed the worst of Operation Orange Iron in the Al Namsawi neighborhood in Khan Youniss were a quarter of a million citizens suffered from electricity and water shortages. Four bulldozers razed houses and shelters in the camp, forcing several families to gather near the hospital.
In December 18, 2004, the forces of Lieutenant Colonel Ofer Vinter and tanks supported by helicopter gunships rolled into Khan Yunis refugee camp and israeli-lebanon_second_warkilled six Palestinians.
Lieutenant Colonel Ofer Vinter and his troops also participated in operation Cast Lead in Gaza. The war criminal commander Ofer Vinter also participated in dozens of infiltration operations to murder civilians on Palestinian territory. Winter is a illegal colonist who studied at the academy which was established in the illegal colony of Eli in the northern West Bank at the end of the 1980s. Winter is suspected to be a German citizen.
If you have any more information about these individuals, or about others involved in any way in perpetrating grave crimes against Palestinians, please Email me.
Hello,
I thought I would e-mail you and let you know how much I enjoy reading your blogs online. I first saw them on Rense.com and now read them everyday. The events in Gaza are just heartbreaking, and most Americans just bury their heads and ignore what is being done their. If the IDF has a problem with Hamas, they should fight Hamas, but attacking civilians is not only illegal, it is utterly immoral in any culture. What is being carried out there is nothing less than the removal of a people by genocide. It reminds me of what the European settlers did to my mothers ancestors here in America.
Anyway, thank you for posting light in a darkened internet. Yes, some pictures are graphic, but the truth can be ugly and needs to be told. If we are subjected to old photos of Nazi crimes, is it not fair to show the same today,despite who does it? I am sure that some Zionist will be screaming colorful names at me , but I call murder for what it is. Take care and keep the light coming.
Sincerely,
Ricky
Ocala,Florida USA
http://bit.ly/bvQKuH
17 oct 2010, 17:47 , Respect -
Maria 19 apr. 2010
Israeli Soldier Burns Palestinian Teacher With Cigarette
Say and repeat: Yasser Arafat is a son of a bitch. The israeli soldier from the so-called border police insisted that a Palestinian teacher from Hebron should say that. The Palestinian teacher was caught and harassed by the IDF soldier while he was on his way back home. The teacher refused the order of the IDF. He did not repeat the sentence which the IDF thug insisted that he must say. Why should the Palestinian do that? The IDF order is illegal. Absolutely, it is a nazi humiliation. But such orders are normal, business as usual, under the grave crimes of the Israeli occupation in Palestine.
The criminal IDF thug applied the burning end of his cigarette to the teacher's chest. The lit cigarette burned two holes in the teacher's shirt and left a scar on his chest.
This crime was not perpetrated by fascists or nazi soldiers, and the victim was not one of the privileged jews in EU. The crime was perpetrated on April 8 2010 by a nazi IDF jew. The victim was a civil Palestinian teacher who lives in his Hebron. The IDF military commander of Hebron is the war criminal Lt. Col. Udi ben Muha, or Udi ben Moha', who in the past contributed to the ethnic cleansing of the north of Gaza and along the Palestinian-Egyptian border, and he has also implemented other measures which correspond to the definition of genocide and crimes against humanity in the Geneva conventions. Under such a criminal, any soldier feels encouraged to perpetrate crimes.
This crime was not the first or the last crime under the criminal regime of the Israeli occupation in Palestine. This crime is part of the daily Palestinian life under the Zionist jewish occupation. The occurrence of such crimes is every day and hour in the city of Hebron, and in all the Palestinian cities, towns and at the so-called military checkpoints in the West Bank. The crime of burning a Palestinian youth with a cigarette or forcing them to drink the urine of the IDF soldiers and forcing them to repeat their antisocial, immoral phrases is part of the zionist occupation regime which is aimed at forcing the Palestinian citizens to leave their homes in the heart of the city of Hebron in West Bank.
This kind of crime repeatedly happened under the former IDF military commander like
Gadi Shamni, Baruch Najjar http://bit.ly/icBd6L ,
Yigal Sharon, http://bit.ly/gg4dJf
Dror Weinberg, http://bit.ly/eB1ALm
Baruch Goldstein,
Amnon Cohen, http://bit.ly/hpEltA
Yehuda Fuchs, http://bit.ly/ftlbd8
Noam Tibon, http://bit.ly/f2fnxk
and other leaders of the IDF commanders, and under the current criminal IDF commanders
Udi ben Moha and http://bit.ly/gwRvW8
Aviv Feigel.
One of the most terrible stories of abusive treatment was the incident involving about 24 Palestinian youths who had violated the curfew in Hebron and received their punishment from the hands of the Israseli border Police unit called Shmark Fuhl. The soldiers had cursed the youth, spit on them, beaten them, and forced them to sing humiliating ditties: Hoto Al-hummous al Al-Fuhl, ana baheb abos teez le shmark fuhl, which translates into English as put humous on bean, I love to kiss the border police buttocks. The border police brought their Palestinian prisoners bottles filled with urine to drink, and everybody was forced to sing and drink. This happened 1996, when occupied Hebron was under the authority of Colonel Baruch Naggar. Read the full article in English http://bit.ly/gyKeiZ .
According the Christian Peacemaker Team member Ms. Paulette Schroeder: Every day teachers and students from many schools in the Hebron area must pass through several checkpoints on their way to and from school. These checkpoints most often cause problems for a number of teenage male students and at unpredictable times for teachers and younger students. Detentions of these students and teachers at the checkpoints cause loss of school time and a disruption in the classes when the students or teachers are late.
CPT received a very disturbing report from one of the teachers on April 6. While this teacher was returning through the checkpoint back to his home, an Israeli Border Policeman (military soldier) stopped him at the Ibrahimi Mosque checkpoint and insisted that he repeat the phrase: Yasser Arafat is a son of a bitch. The teacher refused this order so the policeman applied his burning cigarette end to the teacher's chest. The lit cigarette burned two holes in the teacher's shirt and left a scar on his chest.
After twenty more minutes of detention, the policeman released the man.
http://bit.ly/evO9S1
21 oct 2010, 18:20 , Respect -
Maria 4 dec 2010
When Imprisoned Women Cry In The Dark
When prisoned women cry the injustice of the prison wards, the darkness of the prison, the inhuman treatment, diseases, solitude and oblivion in the middle of the dark, then the mercy of heavens turns into a curse on the prison and the wards. The death there never is gloating, but in the death of prison wards is a lesson of wisdom. It is the JUSTICE OF HEAVEN.
Yesterday, more than 40 israeli prison wards were burnt to death after the bus which carried them to the Damon prison was amid the blaze which broke out on Mount Carmel in Haifa, in the north of Israel. Another 25.000 were evacuated from their homes. The cause of this largest wildfire in Israel (the land stolen from the Palestinians) history, is the curse of the devil arisen from the Damon prison, where Israel held about 16 Palestinian women as political prisoners and more 450 Palestinian workers who had entered Israel in search of work without a so-called travel permit.
The Damon prison was built in 1953 as a store for tobacco. The building of the prison keeps a high degree of moisture, as it was designed to save the tobacco leaves. In the year 2000, the prison was closed because of the insalubrious conditions which are detrimental to the health for human beings. However, the Israeli government re-opened the unhealthy prison in 2001, one year after having closed it.
The about 450 Palestinian prisoners which include about 16 women as political prisoners are distributed in three sections. In one of them the Israeli occupation holds the prisoners under the age of 18 years. Another ward in the prison is for the criminal Israeli women who were involved in crimes of murder, trafficking drugs, and immoral activities.
The Damon prison is described as the worst prison known in the history of the Zionist occupation and occupiers. The facilities are very old and filled with mold and humidity, the water given to the prisoners is not clean and has yellow color, and is considered as unfit for human consumption.
Since after the second Lebanon war in 2006, the Israeli military set up a military base and some small mock-up villages similar to Hezbollah towns in the south of Lebanon in the middle of the bush where the fire broke out. The army trains thousands of its troops in this place in preparation for a coming invasion of Lebanon.
As a result of the fires, the army evacuated its military equipment from the bushes since yesterday night. They closed the area for journalists while they were transferring their equipment out of the area. A big possibility suspected by many is that the IDF set the fire on purpose in order to later get its hands on the area, where many Arab villages exist until today. Another possibility is that the radical settlers who are against the presence of the Arab villages set the fire.
http://bit.ly/hnrQfk
26 oct 2010, 00:56 , Respect -
Maria 10 dec 2010
The Israeli Culture Of Drinking Urine
Issa Qaraqe'e, the Palestinian Minister of Detainee Affairs, revealed that Israeli soldiers urinated on two Palestinian minors who they had kidnapped, then jailed, forced to drink urine from a toilet, tortured and filmed while they were completely naked.
Minister Qaraq'e said that lawyer Hibah Masalhah visited the kids Mohammed Tariq Abed El-Latif Mekhemar, 13 years old, and Mohammad Naser Ali Ridwan, 13 years old, at the Rimonim prison. After her visit she stated that the Israeli occupation soldiers had forced both kids, Mekhemar and Radwan, residents of Beit Ur in the district of Ramallah, to drink the urine from the toilet. The soldiers then urinated on their faces while laughing and mocking them, another soldier shot pictures of the kids while they were naked.
Hibah Masalhah
Attorney Masalhah who met the kids in the Rimonim prison added that the children were arrested by the Israeli border police (an IDF unit of criminals and drugs dealers who are mostly Druze) near the apartheid wall in the village of Beit Ur (where they live) on Route No. 443, in July 2010.
The IDF soldiers beat the children harshly, using guns and kicking them with their military boots on all over their bodies, then covered their eyes, tied them up and transferred them to a jewish colony near the village of Beit Ur. Masalhah said that the IDF soldiers took the children to a toilet and placed them naked in one room and put the air conditioner on cold.
The children told their lawyer Masalhah that the IDF soldier did not give them water and food, and when they asked for water, the IDF urinated over their faces and ordered them to open their mouths to drink. They then forced them to drink the water in the toilet seat and took some pictures.
Issa Qaraqe'e
The children spent two days naked in the toilet room at the squatter colony without food and water and they forced repeatedly to drink urine during their staying. They were forbidden from sleeping or putting their clothes on.
On the third day, the kids were transferred from the toilet at the Benjamina colony (Beit Il military base) where they were interrogated from 10 at night until 3 in the morning and after that they were transferred to the Ofer military jail, where they spent three months before being transferred to the Rimonim jail.
The lawyer stated that the children are suffering deep psychological stress due drinking the urine of the IDF and being filmed naked while the soldier were urinating over their faces and bodies.
It should be noted that many stories have been released in the past about IDF soldiers forcing Palestinian youths to drink their urine. In Hebron, the IDF soldiers stationed on Palestinian rooftops were urinating and dropping their feces in water tanks.
Several families were infected with typhoid as a result; I know personally from the Jaber and Abu Monshar families which were infected with typhoid after drinking water contaminated with IDF feces and urine, and many more cases were related to me.
This disgusting story is not an isolated incident. 15 years ago, 10 years ago, 8 years ago I reported about such incidents in Hebron. I was told in Hebron stories where soldiers would take the sandwiches from children going to school or from workers and return them with after having shat into them.
Others have reported about similar stories from all over Palestine. When they israel destroyed Jenin in 2002, the soldiers defecated and urinated into photocopiers, printers, computers, such behavior is also known from house invasions and the destruction of public and private premises throughout Palestine. Most of the squatter colonies release their untreated waste water onto Palestinian fields and villages what has as a result that the groundwater is contaminated in most of the West Bank.
These disgusting stories repeat so often that it becomes obvious that drinking urine and eating feces is an important part of jewish culture. Where did these israeli soldiers, who are all boys and girls from jewish families, learn to defecate into water tanks, into office equipment, on food, learn this, if not at home, where the culture is jewish? Why would all the squatter colonies let their waste water run untreated onto Palestinian villages and fields if it was not their culture to swim in fecal matter?
Israel espouses jewish customs and heritage, and obviously all these European jews want to teach us their culture, their custom of swimming in fecal matter, of eating feces and drinking urine. I can only say that all Palestinians find this jewish culture and heritage plain disgusting. It would be better if they kept their sickening culture to themselves and their shit-eating friends in the USA and elsewhere, for example by serving feces and urine at the receptions of their embassies.
A night of Occupation in Hebron
This clip shows 4 sequences: A night in the house of Nazeeha, a widow in Hebron, with the noise made by the soldiers on her rooftop. Part of this sequence is about 3 in the morning; A statement by the IDF Commader for Hebron, Ygal Sharon, a short sequence with Moshe Ya'alon, and a sequence with Nazeeha showing the garbage which the soldiers leave around her house day after day, night after night. This clip was taken from the Israeli documentary film "Hebron - City without Mercy", which I helped to organize.
http://bit.ly/glgenv
27 oct 2010, 18:30 , Respect -
Maria 1 febr 2011
Israeli Death Squads to Infiltrate Egyptian Protests
The office of israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered their counterpart in the Egyptian government, Omar Suleiman, also head of Egyptian intelligence, to send death squad units, the groups of militant zionist murderers who wear Arab civilian clothes also known as mistaaravim, to infiltrate the protesters in Egypt in order to assassinate the leaders of the opposition and the revolutionary movement who take part in the protests against the dictatorial regime of Hosni Mubarak and his thugs.
The israeli hebrew newspaper Maariv revealed yesterday that high-level officials in the office of Benjamin Netanyahu carried out in recent days a series of phone calls with Suleiman and advised him about the urgent necessity of security coordination on several issues between Israel and Egypt. The newspaper added that the prevention of smuggling weapons through the tunnels on Egypt's border to the Gaza Strip was only one issue among others which the officials discussed.
The Quds Press agency, quoting Israeli sources, said that the jewish zionist state had offered General Omar Suleiman, now appointed vice-President of the Republic of Egypt by dictator Mubarak, to put all potential resources at his disposal to protect the regime in Egypt, including the implementation of the specific operations to pre-empt the popular revolution, and asked him to work together to prevent what they called smuggling weapon to the Gaza Strip.
Quds Press added that an official in the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that they had called Suleiman on Sunday 30 January 2011 and expressed their concern about the situation in Egypt, offering him the resources of the Israeli intelligence to implement special operations to end the protests.
The Israeli source added that Netanyahu and Suleiman had discussed possible ways to secure the border of Egypt with the israeli jewish entity. The Israeli Prime Minister offered Suleiman to put the possibilities of the zionist entity at his disposal if he felt that his regime was in danger.
On the other hand, US government representatives called Egyptian officials several times to discus the issue of Israels security concerns at the common border of the Sinai peninsula. After those calls, Egypt redeployed thousands of soldiers to the Sinai Peninsula to protect the so-called Israeli security with the consent of Israel, to bolster security in the face of protests demanding the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, which has spread throughout Egypt.
According to the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel signed in 1979, the Sinai is a demilitarized area. But the jewish state demands that Egypt deploy its forces in the region whenever they need them to protect zionist entity. In 2005, when Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza, Egypt deployed its forces in the Sinai for the first time after the signing of the so-called peace treaty in order to protect the border between Gaza and Egypt.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, accompanied by more than half of her government, arrived today 1 February 2011 in Israel to discuss the issue of Israeli security and the wishes of israel for any new government which may declared in Egypt in light of the Egyptian revolution against the current regime, they declared that the world must force Egypt to continue abiding by the decrepit peace treaty signed in 1979. US ex-ambassador to Egypt, Frank Wisner, returned to Cairo to meet senior Egyptian officials and to discuss the Israeli security issue and its demands, and the possibility of a transfer of power in Egypt to a pro-US and pro-Israel regime in the wake of crisis gripping Egypt since a week.
Today, over 8 million million protesters demonstrated in Cairo's Tahrir Square, and other cities against President Mubarak and his regime. The demonstrators called on Mubarak to give up power, to go away, to go to hell, and to leave the nation to allow for the start of a new era of democracy in the Middle East. They chanted the nation wants to execute the president and they hanged a doll a doll as a symbol of Mubarak at Tahrir's Square. At the same time several, hundreds of thousands demonstrated in Alexandria, Suez, Mansoura, Damnhour, Arish, Tanta and El-Mahalla el-Kubra against Mubarak. The demands of all protesters were the same, and that Mubarak should give up power and leave.
Also, several thousands of Egyptians, Arabs and other foreigners demonstrated in countries around the world in support to the demands of the Egyptian people
http://bit.ly/dMRjQ8
27 oct 2010, 18:31 , Respect -
Maria Aharon Zeevi-Farkash war criminal
Amir Abulafia war criminal
Amir Shimon Eshel war criminal
Major General, Head of the Planning Directorate, 04/04/59
Amnon Shahak war criminal
Adam war criminal
Almog war criminal
A Cohen war criminal
ariel karo war criminal
Brigadier General, Head of Field Intelligence Corps, 01/01/65
ariel rifkin war criminal
Sergeant Major, 601 Assaf engineering Battalion, Heavy Engineering Team Work manager (D-9 operators) 19/07/79
assaf brit war criminal
Captain (Reserve) Golani Reconnaissance Battalion, Squad Commander, 07/11/1979
Avi Bnayahu war criminal
Brigadier general, Military Spokesperson, 11/07/77
avi mizrachi war criminal
Major General, Commander of the Ground Forces, 26/12/57
28 oct 2010, 00:55 , Respect -
Maria EU-Israel and The Loss of The Human Rights
Where are the human rights in the European-Israeli agreements? Is the Israeli occupation human?
Are crass daily violations of human rights in Palestine, the blockade, p19siege, starvation, murders, incarcerations, demolitions, the construction of squatter colonies, the theft of the dead and their organs, the jailing of their bodies, human?
Are the Israeli practices in the Gaza Strip, in Jerusalem, Hebron and in each other city, town and village in Palestine not crass violations of the human rights, and the EU-Israel agreements, which explicitly names human rights as a condition for its continued existence?
Which are the guarantees adopted by the European signatories to p19this agreement with Israel? Where is the Israeli compliance with the terms of this agreement?
Is the sale of products from squatter colonies populated by deranged criminals, which explicitly contravenes the spirit and letter of the EU-Israel agreement, human?
It is a shame and utter disgrace that Europe keeps quiet about the violations of the human rights in Palestine, of the crass violation and disrespect shown by Israel for all national and common laws in Europe. I think that Europeans deserve politicians who enforce their own Laws and Agreements, people who do not allow criminals to dictate to them how to manage their own affairs.
Below is what the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza sent me by e-mail about the Legal Action to enforce Human Rights Conditions in EU-Israel Association Agreement.
See the European Convention On Human Rights. Please right for the European Union and ask them where are the human rights which are mentioned in their convention. http://bit.ly/dApv3e
Legal Action to enforce Human Rights Conditions in EU-Israel Association Agreement
Clare Short MP and the European Campaign to End the Siege of Gaza have launched a legal action to require the European Union to uphold the human rights conditions entrenched in the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
The action was launched in a letter sent to President Barroso http://bit.ly/9hGHkG and Javier Solana, http://bit.ly/ciRzD0 the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, spelling out the way in which the Treaty conditions are being breached and the way in which international law applies. The case is being taken forward on behalf of the complainants by Public Interest Lawyers of 8 Hylton Street, Birmingham.
The Commission has been given 28 days to reply to the detailed p19case outlined in a 15 page letter which spells out the fact that under the EU-Israel Association Agreement, the EU has clear obligations in the light of Israel's violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The case made is that the EU is failing to meet these obligations.
In the letter it is argued that Palestinian, Israeli and International Human Rights organizations have concluded in numerous reports and studies that Israel's actions in Operation Cast Lead intentionally and systematically disregarded and violated both international humanitarian law and international human rights law.
Furthermore the combined reports delivered to the UN including p23that of Richard Falk, charged with investigating the human rights situation in Palestine found several breaches of law in Operation Cast Lead. The Special Rapporteur on Poverty discussed reports that during the military intervention Israel deliberately obstructed the work of humanitarian personnel leaving the poor without basic medical, food and other services in violation of both international humanitarian law and human rights law.
The case presented outlines the position of the International Court of Justice and the UN http://www.icj-cij.org/ with respect to the countless violations, amongst which include the acquisition of territory by force, obstructing the self determination of the Palestinian People and many other peremptory norms.
In pointing to EU's obligation in the face of so many reports and MIDEAST ISRAEL PALESTINIANS statements of the highest authority in international law, it states that Under the Geneva convention The EU must not only insure that its own comply with human rights: it also requires it to base its relations with Israel on the mutual respect for human rights . Thus where Israel persistently violates human rights and the EU does not take appropriate steps against Israel it will be in breach of article 2 of the Geneva Convention. http://bit.ly/a4WpIP
Maintaining the status quo in the EU-Israeli Association Agreement, which makes Israel, EU's biggest trading partner is improper and more importantly it is justiciable. The letter points towards specific steps which the European Community is required to take under the agreement where Israel is in breach of Article 2 of the Geneva Convention.
In recognition of its obligations it calls upon the Commissioner to meet its obligations and further provide detailed description of its actions in fulfilling its obligations.
Clare Short said today I and many others have tried through our p23parliaments to require our governments to comply with international law, without success. We now hope legal action will require compliance. It is my firm belief that the only way to peace is to require Israel to comply with international law and that this is in the interests of all parties. The European Commission and member states are failing in their duty to uphold the conditions of our own treaty with Israel and to use these requirements to obtain long term peace and justice.
http://bit.ly/bt9nWF
28 oct 2010, 00:57 , Respect -
Maria Confrontation With PA Commissioner At UN
During a Palestinian-Palestinian confrontation, between me and Dr. Nabil Shaath, the member of the Central Committee of the Fatah and its commissioner of international relations, who delivered a speech at the UN on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Dr. Shaath was not able to give a short answer to my question of about the so-called security coordination between the Palestinian Authority and the DCO office of Israel, in which the Palestinian security system is ONLY used for jailing Palestinians and protecting the terrorist jewish colonists and their zionist project in Palestine.
The speech of Dr. Shaath delivered on that day was interspersed with inane laughter was not right for the place and the occasion. It can only be described as clowning and demagoguery that did not rise to the level of responsibility for the Palestinian which is expected from someone in the position which Shaath occupies.
Mr. Nabil Shaat described the miserable situation of the Palestinian Authority and how President Mahmoud Abbas and his cabinet are not able to move between their cantons spread here and there in the West Bank without asking for permission from the Israeli occupation. He also described the difficulties which the PA faced during the so-called peace negotiation with Israel. Dr. Shaath was complaining and laughing at the same time, mixing between serious issues and his silly jokes during his official speech at the UN. He decried the miserable situation which the PA accepted and brought to themselves and their nation.
The image of the Palestinians which Dr. Nabil Shaath presented in his speech described the Palestinians as those who are powerless in facing the Israeli occupier regime. I told Dr. Shaath that the Palestinians are not weak as he described and that we would be able to do lots of things if the PA freed our hands. I demanded from him that the Palestinian Authority should stop its farce of the so-called security coordination with Israel, a spying mission in which the PA officials are turned into spies at the hands of the Israeli occupation and the Americans secret service.
I said: I am happy because there are not many diplomats with us in this room so they do not hear what I want to tell you Dr. Shaath. We as Palestinians are able to do lots of things; I request and demand that you to stop your security coordination with the Israeli war criminals, and stop protecting them. This is the only thing that makes us Palestinians weak. I also ask you to stop jailing the Palestinian politicians and resistance. I see that your coordination with the Israeli war criminals ONLY puts you in the weak position. The Israeli occupation is using your authority to capture and to jail the Palestinian resistance.
Again, I demand that you stop this kind of criminal coordination and see how Israel and the US will react. It is really horrible what you are doing in Palestine. You are continuing to deal with them from the position of a weak partner, while we are strong and those people who you meet and kiss in Ramallah headquarters are all war criminals. They came to my apartment to try to murder me where I live in Vienna because I am not listening to you or controlled by them. I am ashamed and bored of all what you are doing in Palestine. Over 23 years of negotiations with the Israeli occupation and all what we received is NOTHING. Don't you have another qualified negotiator instead of Mr. Saeb Erikat who has stayed in his place as a negotiator since 23 years?
The Irresponsible Answers And Confusion:
With loud laughter Dr. Shaat answered to my intervention that it was better if I continued photographing instead of talking. Ambassador Zuheir Al-Wazeer also intervened and said to me you are a good photographer, and you make excellent photos. His nervous laughter clearly reflected his confusion. Shaath replied to my confrontation with words which completely lacked any sensitivity and were totally off the subject. He mixed between things and caused himself to become involved into a confrontation with the Consul of the Republic of Syria, Mr. Jamal Agha, who was present at the event.
Shaath said that he understood well my argument, and then engaged in minute-long rambling: but once the people decides to go in a military actions they go, but when they do not want to go to a military action they do not free the people to do so. This is not what Fatah is doing in the West Bank, but also what Hamas is doing in Gaza. You can't allow people to shoot rocket when you are not ready to continue a fight against the Israeli occupation, like what happened in Gaza in 2009. You can't allow people to go on their own and fight Israel in West Bank while there is a decision not to go to a military fight now, and if you are a Syrian you do the same at the Golan Height, and you do not allow people to go to the border to make war against Israel while the Syrian are not ready to do it.
You can't allow the Egyptian to go the border to fight with Israel if you are not ready for that. You do not allow the Lebanese to go to the border to fight with Israel when there is no decision to do so, even Hezbollah will arrest and jail the people if they go to border to fight with Israel without a decision of going to a military fight.
I understand you that we have enough people at the Israeli Jails, and that we do not want to act like them and to put the Palestinians in Palestinian jails or the Syrian in Syrians jails. We have enough people at the Israeli Jails. I understand you but that is not really all about, there are two things which have to be considered, first: we do not want any political prisoners in Palestinian jails in Gaza and the West Bank. And second, we do not want the people to take the matter in their hands and to decide that they want to go to make war when their people are not really ready to fight that war.
In Gaza 25% of the homes are destroyed, and 50,000 Palestinians were injured, and 14 hundred were killed, and the Israelis if they decided to attack Gaza again, they can destroy the whole of Gaza if Hamas did not stop the people in jail who want to shoot on the Israelis, and this is the same in the West Bank, we have decided that this is not the right time to go in full military confrontation with the Israelis. We did that for 27 years plus 6 years of Intifada. All together 33 years we did the military confrontation with Israel, and now we are not ready for that. Because of this reason we decided to go in a popular struggle against Israel.
I answered: But you are still jailing the popular resistance Mr. Shaath, and you are protecting the Israeli occupation instead of your people, the Israelis continue killing, jailing and invading our towns and cities, humiliating the people, destroying their property under you supposed full protection, so who will protect me and the Palestinians.
This long answer of Dr. Shaath was off topic. I just asked him to stop the so-called security coordination with the Israeli occupation and to use this paper as a pressure on Israel in order to stops its arrogance in dealing with the Palestinians who they treat miserably, even in small things like that President Mahmoud Abbas needs a travel permit from the occupation whenever he moves from his basement to another Palestinian canton or to so-called peace negotiations.
I also demanded from him to stop jailing the Palestinian politicians. Dr. Shaath is a big liar and the Palestinian jails are full of politicians and political activists, not of army. Even Sheikh Dr. Tayseer Al Tamimi, the former head of the Islamic judges, was fired by President Mahmoud Abbas on the 7 th, of June 2010 from his position after he delivered a speech about Al-Aqsa mosque, in which now all religious speakers are forbidden to talk about under the new instructions of so called incitement against Israel issued by the Palestinian Authority.
In Palestine there are no borders which Shaath should protect from a military war. There are cantons, ghettoes, and small jails where all Palestinian are humiliated by both the Israeli occupation and the PA puppets. During the 33 years which Shaat mentioned, there was no military war against Israel, there was ONLY resistance struggle against the Israeli occupation, which was taken up by the PLO and the people directly affected by the Israeli crimes. Either Dr. Shaat did not know what he was speaking, or he was sick and confused.
Confrontation with the Consul of the Republic of Syria
His irresponsible answer leads to a confrontation with the consul of the Republic of Syria, Mr. Jamal Agha. He told Dr. Shaath: Please do not speak on behalf of others. I am from the Syrian Republic and I do not accept that you speak on behalf of us. Thank you. The Syrian consul said that Syria does not jail their resistance, (meaning the Syrians from the Golan Heights who have been robbed from their possessions by jewish squatters who are supported by israel and several European countries). This was what the consul understood from the irresponsible ramblings of Dr. Shaath answering to my simple and clear request.
Dr. Shaath tried to clarify to consul Agha what he said about the Golan Height in his answer to my question. He turned the things upside down in his clarification, which is recorded on video, (the Palestinian Embassy does not want me to publish it). The Syrian Consul actually understood well what had been said. Dr. Nabil Shaath had said EXACTLY what the Syrian Consul had understood.
It should be noted that Dr. Nabil Shaath did not attend the formal session of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, just like many Ambassadors from Arab countries whose presence would have been welcome. Dr. Shaath was present at the informal event which took place during the morning at the UN Rotonda, where he gave a brief speech and then left for lunch. He arrived over one hour late to the formal ceremony in the UN conference center and proceeded to mix things up.
My impression is that Dr. Shaath does not understand or care much about the situation of Palestine because he is travelling most of time, or residing in Egypt where the problems far away. As a Palestinian I feel offended that Dr. Shaat, who formerly occupied the position of foreign minister of the PA, and currently the commissioner of international relations of Fatah, dishonors us by arriving late to an important occasion involving dignitaries from the nations which support us. Equally, I am consternated that he would call our resistance struggle against the occupation a military war and speak of borders which do not exist. I wonder if it is appropriate for him to continue representing Palestine to the outside world.
http://bit.ly/gFZnZr
28 oct 2010, 00:58 , Respect -
Maria 30 oct 2010, 00:05 , Respect -
Maria 11 dec 2010
Accuser of WikiLeaks Founder Absconded in Palestine
According to Palestine daily newspapers, http://bit.ly/hNRvaf Anna Ardin, also known as Bernardin, one of the two Swedish women who accused Julian Assange of rape, is now in the Palestinian town of Yanun near Nablus in the north of the West Bank and close to the Israeli apartheid wall. The Palestinian town is a center for international groups opposed to the Israeli apartheid wall. Yanun is a village under israeli siege since many years, because of its location and because of the vocal opposition of the inhabitants to the apartheid wall. Click on the picture to see it bigger.
The Palestinian newspapers reported yesterday that Bernardin had reached the occupied West Bank in an attempt to help and search for a peace settlement between the Palestinians and Israelis. The newspapers added that, according to news published in Stockholm, that the rape allegations against Assange began to crumble after it appeared that one of the two women who accused Assange, Anna Ardin, was not cooperating with the prosecution. In the meantime, many facts indicative of foul play in this case have been uncovered and also questionable personal relations of Ms. Ardin/Bernardin relating to her political activity.
Mr. Assange on his part is alleged by associates to have entered into a secret agreement with israel no documents inconveniencing israeli interests have been published until now.
According to comments made by Palestinians regarding the presence of the Swedish woman among them in Yanon, those who can not make peace with themselves first will not be able to help the Palestinians build peace with Israel. Regarding the presence of Ardin/Bernardin in Palestine, it was also remarked that Palestine has become a place frequented by everyone under the pretext of supporting the prospects for peace and the Palestinians.
Although we appreciate the efforts of the volunteers who come to support our nation and stand with us against the apartheid wall, it has become difficult for us to know who are the real supporters of peace and who are the infiltrators and intelligence agency plants among the peace activists who come to live and work among us in order to spy on our people and the peace movement in support of Israel and the foreign intelligence services.
If Anna Ardin/Bernardin has a dubious background as has been convincingly suggested about her in relation to the Assange case, then it would be better that she leaves Palestine alright. In this case I concur with my compatriots from Yanon that it would be better if Ms. Ardin/Bernardin returns to her home in Sweden and puts her personal affairs in order.
http://bit.ly/g3p7rS
31 oct 2010, 02:06 , Respect -
Maria page 1-3
European Diplomats Draft Demands Jerusalem Protection
The European draft report quoted below recommends the imposition of punitive measures against Israel as a protest of its regime of continuous building of colonies (settlements) in the occupied territories and Jerusalem and the continued demolition of Palestinian houses. Among the EU recommendations: Deployment of EU observers in the places of settlement construction and demolitions, dealing with East Jerusalem as capital of a future State of Palestine, and re-open PLO offices in Jerusalem. The report drafted by representatives of European missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah, most of them in the rank of consul, was recently submitted to the European Union demands from the EU to tighten the steps to protest against Israel and is the continuation of a document by European consuls submitted about a year ago.
Mr. Fritz Eidlnger
The full text of the European report was sent to me by Mr. Fritz Eidlnger http://bit.ly/hRnahJ , General Secretary of Society of Austro-Arab Relations http://bit.ly/dPav7T and is re-published below. See report as (PDF EU report on Jerusalem Dec 2011). http://bit.ly/gF8g0b
EU HEADS OF MISSION
Cover Note
Considering the EU's commitment to the two-state solution with an independent, democratic, contiguous and viable Palestinian state, comprising the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza, living side by side in peace and security with the State of Israel;
Considering the developments in East Jerusalem and in particular the progressive separation of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, as demonstrated by the Jerusalem Report;
Considering the urgent need to address the situation in conformity with the EU position, in accordance with international law, that the acquisition of territory by force or the threat of the use of force is inadmissible;
Considering the EU Council Conclusions of 8 December 2009;
The Heads of Mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah herewith submit to the PSC the Jerusalem Report 2010 (Annex 1) and for discussion a series of recommendations to reinforce EU policy on East Jerusalem (Annex 2):
The Heads of Mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah recommend:
* - A more active and visible implementation of EU policy on East Jerusalem.
* - Using meetings with Israeli authorities to give a clear and consistent message on East
Jerusalem.
* - Appropriate follow-up to the submissions.
* - Mandating HoMs in Jerusalem and Ramallah to continue the work to reinforce the EU policy on East Jerusalem.
[Annex 1]
EU HEADS OF MISSION REPORT ON EAST JERUSALEM
JERUSALEM AND THE PEACE PROCESS
Palestinian boy urinates of fear being grabbed by israeli special forces in Jerusalem.
1. Jerusalem is one of the most complex issues to be addressed in any peace process. The city embodies the essence of the conflict: territory, nationhood and religion. Since its occupation and annexation by Israel (illegal under international law and not accepted by the international community), the increasing integration of East Jerusalem into Israel has left Palestinian neighborhoods ever more isolated. Israel is, by legal and practical means, actively pursuing its annexation by systematically undermining the Palestinian presence in the city. A recent Israeli law requires a two-thirds majority in the Knesset or approval in a referendum for withdrawal from occupied East Jerusalem. Moreover, the past year has again seen a further deterioration of the overall situation in East Jerusalem. If current trends are not stopped as a matter of urgency, the prospect of East Jerusalem as the future capital of a Palestinian state becomes increasingly unlikely and unworkable. This, in turn, seriously endangers the chances of a sustainable peace on the basis of two states, with Jerusalem as their future capital.
2. The continued expansion of settlements, restrictive zoning and planning, ongoing demolitions and evictions, an inequitable education policy, difficult access to health care, the inadequate provision of resources and investment and the precarious residency issue have not only serious humanitarian consequences, they undermine the Palestinian presence in East Jerusalem. The interlinked Israeli policies and measures continue to negatively affect East Jerusalem's crucial role in Palestinian political, economic, social and cultural life. This has contributed to the increasing separation between East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank and Gaza. The wider political consequences of the above measures are of great concern. Over the past few years the changes to the city have run counter to the peace process. Attempts to exclusively emphasize the Jewish identity of the city threaten its religious diversity and radicalise the conflict, with potential regional and global repercussions. The interest of safeguarding the religious, historical and symbolic values of Jerusalem goes beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This EU HOMs Report on East Jerusalem aims to provide an update on the situation in the city and policy recommendations.
page 2-3
EU POLICY
IDF chasing women at a checkpoint at the entrance of Jerusalem.
3. EU policy regarding East Jerusalem is based on the principles set out in UN Security Council Resolution 242, notably the inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by force. In accordance with international law, the EU regards East Jerusalem as occupied territory and has never recognised the Israeli 1980 Basic Law (Jerusalem, Capital of Israel) which annexed Jerusalem as Israel's complete and united capital and modified the city's municipal borders. This is in line with UNSC Resolution 478 in which the Security Council decided not to recognise this Basic Law and other actions that seek to alter the character and status of Jerusalem. The resolution also calls upon all UN Members that had established diplomatic missions in Jerusalem to withdraw such missions from the Holy city. The EU considers Jerusalem as a final status issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and opposes any measures that would prejudge the outcome of peace negotiations, such as actions aimed at changing the status of East Jerusalem.
4. In conferences held in 1999 and 2001, the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention reaffirmed the applicability of the Convention to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and reiterated the need for full respect for the provisions of the said Convention in that territory.
5. In 2004, the EU acknowledged the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. While the EU recognises Israel's security concerns and its right to act in self-defence, its position coincides with the ICJ Advisory Opinion according to which the sections of the barrier route which run inside the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, together with the associated gate and permit regime, violate Israel's obligations under international law.
6. The Council conclusions of 8 December 2009 reaffirm the longstanding EU policy. According to the Conclusions, the EU will not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties. The EU has never recognised the annexation of East Jerusalem and states that if there is to be a genuine peace, a way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states. The EU has repeatedly urged the Government of Israel to immediately end all settlement activities in East Jerusalem which the EU considers illegal under international law and calls on the Israeli government to cease all discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in East Jerusalem
SETTLEMENTS
7. The demographic factor is a central element in Israeli policy. In 1967, Israel extended its jurisdiction over East Jerusalem. At the same time, by adding some 70 km² it redefined the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem. Today, some 924 000 people live within these municipal boundaries, of which around 30 percent are Palestinian. It has been a stated aim in official planning documents to prevent the Palestinian population from becoming more than 30 percent of the municipality's total population.
Successive Israeli governments have pursued a policy of transferring Jewish population into the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law. In East Jerusalem 35 percent of the land has been expropriated for state land. Only citizens of Israel or those legally entitled to claim Israeli citizenship (i.e. Jewish) can buy property built on state land. As a consequence, out of a total of more than 500 000 settlers in occupied Palestinian land some 190 000 Israeli settlers today live in settlements inside East Jerusalem. Between 2001 and 2009, 37 percent of all settlement housing units in the occupied Palestinian territory were located in East Jerusalem.
8. In 2003, Israel committed under the Roadmap to reach a permanent agreement that would include a negotiated solution on the status of Jerusalem and to freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth. The Israeli government reaffirmed its Roadmap commitment to a settlement freeze at the Annapolis conference in 2007. In November 2009, the Israeli government announced a 10-month settlement moratorium (expiring at the end of September 2010) which resulted in a partial freeze of construction of new settlement housing units in occupied Palestinian territory. However, based on Israeli claims that the Jerusalem municipality constitutes Israeli territory, the commitment to stop settlement activity has never been interpreted by the Israeli government as applying to East Jerusalem. For several months during the first half of 2010, a decrease of settlement activity in East Jerusalem has been noted. Since the end of the moratorium, however, renewed settlement activity has taken place.
9. There are two kinds of settlements in Jerusalem:
* a) Small settlement buildings or compounds established by ideologically motivated settlers predominantly in the Old City and the Historic Basin. By establishing these settlements in the midst of Palestinian neighbourhoods the settlers are creating new facts on the ground by attempting to prevent a division of the city, taking advantage of the so called Clinton parameters (i.e. an understanding that neighbourhoods that are Jewish will become Israel and those that are inhabited by Palestinians will become part of a Palestinian state).
* b) Israeli Government initiated Jewish neighbourhoods built on land occupied by Israel in 1967. These settlements can be divided into two rings outer and inner which squeeze East Jerusalem and separate Palestinians from the city.
Settlements in the Old City Historic Basin
10. The Old City and its immediate environs to the south and east are commonly referred to collectively as the Historic Basin. This area includes the Palestinian neighbourhoods of Silwan, Ras al- Amud, At-Tur, Wadi al-Joz and Sheikh Jarrah and contains the majority of the historical and holy sites of Jerusalem. These are Palestinian residential areas, but since the occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, the land has progressively fallen under the control of various pro-settlement Jewish organisations. Today, it is estimated that around 5000 settlers live in the area. The focus of the settler organisations has included settlement activity related to excavation of archaeological sites, services for tourists and recreational facilities. In spite of the fact that these activities are often being implemented by private organisations, such as Ataret Cohanim and El'ad (see archaeology section), they still form part of an overall pro-settlement strategy, the realisation of which is facilitated by the Government of Israel as well as the Jerusalem municipality.
11. The strategic settlement push is made evident through the continued expansion of settlement activities around and within the Historic Basin. This creates a settlement continuum, comprised by a swath of smaller settlements, public parks, archaeological sites and tourist complexes along the eastern and southern wall of the Old City. These activities effectively encircle and contain the Historic Basin, cut off the territorial contiguity between the Palestinian neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem and the Old City and separate the Muslim and Christian holy places from the rest of East Jerusalem.
12. Various methods are used to strategically gain control of Palestinian properties: through the Absentee Property Law, on the basis of claimed Jewish ownership (pre-1948), or through the purchase from the owners. As a consequence, land and property have gradually fallen under the control of various private settler organizations, often with state support. Documents released in early November 2010 point to irregularities in the way that Israeli state-seized land was passed to settlement organisations without the proper tender processes and due diligence. This raises questions over the extent of influence settlement organisations enjoy inside the relevant authorities. At the same time, under Israeli law Palestinians are precluded from reclaiming pre-1948 property in Israel or in West Jerusalem.
13. Moreover, private Israeli settler organisations have continued to take over property within the Old City where today the number of Jewish settlers is estimated at around 4000. These settlers presently occupy property in all quarters of the Old City. Often these properties are wedged tightly in between existing Palestinian dwellings (sometimes settlers will occupy individual apartments in buildings also inhabited by Palestinian families). The close proximity between settlers and Palestinians in the Old City only adds to the considerable tension that already exists in the area. In July 2010, settlers seized a two-storey house in the Muslim quarter, thereby displacing several Palestinian families. In Sheikh Jarrah, preparations for building activity are in place on the Shepherd's Hotel site. In March 2010, building permits were issued for 20 new housing units on the site.
14. In January 2010, the Municipality approved construction permits for 24 new apartments in four buildings in the private settlement of Beit Orot on the Mount of Olives. There are currently 14 families and 80 yeshiva students living in the settlement which is in the middle of a Palestinian neighbourhood. In the neighbourhood of Ras al-Amud, renovation and construction work started for 14 new apartments in the old Police Station, although the permits have not yet been issued. The plan is to expand the nearby settlement of Ma'ale Zeitim from 60 housing units to more than 200 by incorporating this new site.
15. Concerns remain about the Open Spaces project, which foresees, inter alia, in the establishment of a sequence of gardens and parks around the Old City, running through Palestinian neighbourhoods. The plan risks furthering limit Palestinian construction and living space in East Jerusalem.
The Inner Settlement Ring
Israeli border police officers wearing gasmasks at the Kalandia checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem.
16. The inner ring comprises large government-initiated settlements within the Israeli-defined municipal boundary of Jerusalem. They are home to approximately 190 000 Israeli settlers. Wedged in between East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, these settlements in combination with the barrier effectively cut Jerusalem off from the rest of the West Bank.
17. As from November 2010, administrative planning procedures for settlement activity in East Jerusalem have resumed very intensively. Four new town plan schemes (the first since March) have been approved for public review, altogether for 1 275 new housing units in the settlements Ramot and Har Homa and 625 in Pisgat Ze'ev. The expansion of Har Homa, in particular, implies the further completion of the inner ring as it foresees housing units outside the already built-up area. Also in November 2010, the Israeli authorities advanced East Jerusalem settlement construction by issuing tenders for the construction of 238 housing units in the settlements of Ramot and Pisgat Zeev. An additional 479 tenders were issued for construction in Har Homa, Gilo, Pisgat Ze'ev and East Talpiot (on the basis of plans approved prior to 2010). Finally, the implementation of a controversial construction project to build four new hotels, with 1 400 rooms in No-Man's Land near Talpiot was revived in early July (but has been temporarily shelved following international protest).
The Outer Settlement Ring
18. The outer ring consists of settlements outside Jerusalem's municipal boundary but largely on the west side of the barrier. These settlements further isolate Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. They include the three main settlement blocks: Giv'at Ze'ev, Ma'ale Adumim and the Gush Etzion bloc, home to approximately 100 000 settlers.
19. Concerns remain about areas that have been designed for further settlement expansion, such as the E1 area (situated between Jerusalem and the Ma'ale Adumim settlement). In this area, there is a longstanding plan to build a new settlement with 3 500 units for around 14 500 settlers. The plan includes an industrial park, a police station, large-scale infrastructure, commercial development and recreational facilities. In 2008, the police headquarters of Judea and Samaria moved to E1. The implementation of the E1 project would not only divide the West Bank into a northern and a southern part but also, by establishing contiguity between the settlements and Jerusalem, be the final step to geographically cutting off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.
ARCHAEOLOGY
20. A clear example of government involvement in settlement activities in the Historic Basin is the outsourcing of archaeological undertakings to private Israeli pro-settlement organisations. The use of archaeology as a politico-ideological tool in the Wadi Hilweh area just south of the Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif (often referred to as the City of David area) is a source of increasing concern. According to historic accounts, biblical Jerusalem originated in this area some 3 000 years ago and the place has been the subject of numerous archaeological excavations throughout the last century.
21. The management of the various archaeological sites in Wadi Hilweh/City of David has now been largely placed in the hands of a pro-settlement Jewish NGO by the name of El'ad. Over the years this organisation has successfully obtained an increasing amount of government funding for its archaeological undertakings. The organisation has entered into a partnership with the Israel Antiquities Authority which is paid directly by El'ad to physically carry out the excavations without Palestinian involvement or international oversight. Furthermore, with the support of the Jerusalem municipality, El'ad has been successful in securing a contract from the Israel Nature and Parks authority to manage an archaeological visitors park in Wadi Hilweh/City of David. Consequently, not only the excavation, but also the presentation of the archaeology of ancient Jerusalem has been outsourced to El'ad.
22. This has resulted in a strong monopolisation of the historical narrative, exploiting the biblical and Jewish-Israeli connotations of the area while effectively disenfranchising Arab/Muslim claims of historic-archaeological ties to the very same place. The overarching purpose of such a pre-programmed approach to the presentation of archaeological evidence in the area seems to be a concerted effort to utilize archaeology to enhance a claimed historic Jewish continuity in Jerusalem, thereby creating a historic justification for the establishment of Jerusalem as the eternal and undivided capital of Israel.
page 3-3
PLANNING, DEMOLITIONS AND EVICTIONS
23. The planning regime of the Jerusalem municipality remains a source of concern as it places severe restrictions on the building of Palestinian housing in East Jerusalem. Many Palestinians live under the threat of having their house demolished and being evicted, adding to the existing tensions. These restrictions result in a housing shortage in East Jerusalem and regular demolitions of Palestinian-owned structures.
24. According to the planning regime, 13 percent of the land in East Jerusalem is currently zoned for Palestinian construction (compared to 35 percent which is allocated for Israeli settlements). Only within this 13 percent, which is already densely built upon, Palestinians have the possibility of obtaining an Israeli-issued permit to build, repair or maintain their homes and livelihood-related structures. Administrative requirements, however, make it extremely difficult for Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem to obtain such permits. In addition, the procedures take several years and usually entail a prohibitive cost.
25. Over the past years Palestinians have received fewer than 200 building permits per year. Based on the population growth, permits for 1 500 housing units annually would be necessary to cover the housing needs.
26. As a consequence of the restrictive planning regime, there is an acute housing shortage in East Jerusalem. In addition, Palestinian houses are overcrowded and in a bad condition. The planning regime poses a difficult dilemma for Palestinian families: they have the choice between migrating outside the municipal area of Jerusalem (and losing their residency status) or building without the necessary building permit. According to UN OCHA, at least 32% of Palestinian structures in East Jerusalem lack such a permit, putting approximately 88 000 Palestinians at risk.
27. Buildings constructed without a permit are considered illegal by the Israeli authorities who issue demolition orders against them. Unofficial sources estimate that up to 1 500 illegally built residential buildings in East Jerusalem currently have demolition orders against them. In the course of this year, UN OCHA recorded the demolition of 50 Palestinian-owned structures in East Jerusalem, thereby affecting over 250 people (half of whom are children). Families are not only fined for having constructed their houses without a permit, they can also be charged for the costs of the demolition. As a means to avoid such fines, some Palestinian families are carrying out so-called self-demolitions (estimated at 6 this year).
28. The Jerusalem municipality acknowledges the planning crisis in East Jerusalem. The city's new planning policy for East Jerusalem, presented in December 2009, aims at a significant expansion of the number of floors and of the building ratio with regard to the approved plan, many solutions for adding residential units in the area, and a response to the existing hardship. According to some planning experts, however, the new policy will not cause any significant progress in the densely populated and poorly-maintained Palestinian neighbourhoods.
29. The take-over of Palestinian property is often associated with the eviction of Palestinian residents. Throughout 2010 there have been 3 cases where Palestinians have been forcibly evicted, two in the old city, one in Jabal Mukabber. In these cases, the properties have been taken over by Israeli settlers or settler organisations under police protection. These evictions have affected approximately 70 people this year. In Sheikh Jarrah, over 60 Palestinians lost their homes over the past years and an estimated 500 remain at risk of forced eviction, dispossession and displacement in the near future.
RESIDENCY STATUS
30. Restrictive measures continue to apply in relation to the ID and residency status of Palestinians from East Jerusalem. Following the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, Palestinian residents of the city have been given the civil status of permanent residents of Israel. This status gives them the right to live in Jerusalem and work in Israel without the need for a special permit. To retain this status residents are forced to regularly prove that they adhere to the strict criteria that demonstrates Jerusalem is the centre of their life. If they fail to convince the Israeli authorities their status is revoked and they lose their right to reside in the city. Between 1967 and mid-2010, some 14 000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem have had their status revoked. Unlike Israeli citizenship, permanent residency is not automatically passed on to non-Jewish children, who only receive permanent residence under certain conditions. This leads to difficulties in the registration of children where one parent is a Jerusalem resident and the other is from rest of the West Bank or Gaza Strip with the Jerusalem Centre for Socio-Economic Rights estimating that there are as many as 10 000 unregistered children in East Jerusalem. The inability to become registered makes it very difficult for these children to access basic education, health and other social services. Around 5 500 children in school age are not registered and therefore do not attend school.
31. As permanent residency is not automatically transferred through marriage, a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem who marries a Palestinian from the West Bank or Gaza Strip, and wishes to reside in the city with his/her spouse must apply for family unification. Applications for family reunification and ID cards and identification for children and spouses involve a long, expensive bureaucratic process. In 2003, Israel introduced the Nationality and Entry into Israel Law which disproportionately impacts residents of East Jerusalem, under which they are forbidden from family unification not only with their spouses, but also with their children.
32. In June this year, the Israeli authorities invoked breach of loyalty to the state of Israel in order to withdraw the residency rights for three members of the Palestinian Legislative Council as well as for a former Palestinian Minister of Jerusalem Affairs.
ACCESS AND MOVEMENT
33. The route of the separation barrier and its associated permit regime continue to have a serious humanitarian, social and economic impact on Palestinian life. It continues to sever the connection between East Jerusalem and the wider West Bank and between Palestinian communities in East Jerusalem itself.
34. The construction of the separation barrier in East Jerusalem, which started in 2002, continued throughout 2010. In the area around the Jerusalem municipality, the barrier measures around 168 kilometres, of which only 3 percent runs along the 1967 Green Line. The main reason behind this deviation is the integration of 12 Israeli settlements (and space for their future expansion).
35. The route of the barrier changes the de facto boundaries of Jerusalem and, in some cases, runs through the middle of densely populated Palestinian neighbourhoods. As a consequence, a number of Palestinian communities (such as Kafr Aqab and Shu'fat) within the Jerusalem municipal boundary find themselves on the West Bank side of the barrier. These communities need to cross checkpoints to access the health, education and other services to which they are entitled as residents of Jerusalem. The barrier also affects 16 West Bank localities which are trapped on the Jerusalem side of the Barrier. These communities face uncertain residency status, impeded access to basic services and fear of displacement.
36. In April this year construction of the barrier around the Palestinian village of Al Walaja resumed. The construction works have led to the confiscation of land and the uprooting of trees. Once completed, the barrier will completely encircle the village (which will only be accessible through a tunnel) and cut off farmers from much of their agricultural land.
37. Palestinians who do not have residency rights in East Jerusalem or do not have Israeli citizenship need a permit to enter Jerusalem. Access for those Palestinians granted permits is restricted to three out of the 14 barrier checkpoints: Qalandiya, Gilo and Zaytoun. The permit is difficult and time consuming to obtain and is subject to a number of conditions, e.g. a time limit or a ban on driving a car or staying overnight. West Bank ID holders with permits for Jerusalem or Israel must enter and exit through the same checkpoint and risk having their permits revoked if this is not complied with. Permits are suspended during security closures and often during Jewish holidays.
EDUCATION
38. Inadequate numbers of classrooms, the substandard condition of existing facilities and several access restrictions have a severe impact on the educational sector in East Jerusalem. Many students fail to complete the secondary cycle and the drop-out rate is much higher than in West Jerusalem. Palestinian students face serious difficulties in reaching educational services, reporting longer journeys and delays in getting to educational facilities. The same holds true for students from Jerusalem who wish to attend a school on the other side of the separation barrier.
39. The East Jerusalem school system continues to have a shortage of approximately 1 000 classrooms; only 39 new classrooms have been built recently. Planning restrictions hinder the construction of new school facilities and some schools are threatened by demolition and sealing orders. Due to this shortage, children often study in overcrowded, makeshift classrooms in facilities that are not built for educational purposes and that lack libraries or even playgrounds. The Israeli NGO ACRI estimates that 50 percent of East Jerusalem classrooms were unsuitable or substandard in 2009. East Jerusalem students are also disadvantaged with regard to financing of education. According to the Jerusalem municipality, students attending primary schools in East Jerusalem receive only one fourth of the budget that students in other parts of the city receive. Only some 20 percent of the general municipal education budget is spent in East Jerusalem.
HEALTH
40. While East Jerusalemites on the Jerusalem side of the separation barrier have the possibility to enjoy Israeli health insurance and access to adequate health care, those Jerusalem residents caught on the West Bank side of the barrier regularly have their right to appropriate health-care denied.
41. Furthermore, key secondary and tertiary care which is not available in the West Bank or Gaza, including treatment for diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease, are only provided for by East Jerusalem's hospitals (non-governmental). West Bank Palestinians, who make up about 60 percent of all admissions to these hospitals, require permits to enter Jerusalem for treatment. Patients needing emergency treatment available only in Jerusalem are especially affected by the delays caused by the Israeli access restrictions. General closures of checkpoints by Israeli authorities further impede access to the East Jerusalem hospitals for treatment as, except for emergency cases, other medical access permits become temporarily invalid; there were a total of 50 days of general closure in the 12-month period ending in March 2010.
42. Since 2008 all permit-holding medical personnel, excluding doctors, who live in the West Bank are only allowed to cross through the three main checkpoints (Qalandiya, Gilo and Zaytoun). Only doctors continue to have a special stamp on their permits allowing them to use any checkpoint to reach East Jerusalem. These further access restrictions result in long delays and impede the efficient functioning of hospitals and the delivery of quality health-care services.
43. East Jerusalem hospitals are prohibited by the Israeli Ministry of Health from importing medical equipment and medicine from the West Bank creating supply and logistical problems for the hospitals and resulting in higher costs. Furthermore each hospital has a quota for the number of new staff they can employ from the West Bank. Trainee medical personnel also require access to the hospitals in order to complete their studies (and therefore meet the future needs of health sector staffing) and some 90 percent of these students are from the West Bank. In June 2010 a number of these students were denied renewal of their permits by the Israeli authorities.
44. Though East Jerusalemites are included in and contribute to the Israeli health system their access to health care is also restricted by the security requirement for Israeli ambulance staff to enter Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem only under police escort. Requests for the dispatch of ambulances regularly result in unnecessary, and potentially life-threatening, delays for Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem.
ECONOMY
45. The economic situation in East Jerusalem remains a major source of concern. The barrier continues to have a particularly adverse impact on the traditionally strong trade links between the West Bank and East Jerusalem. There are, for instance, restrictions on the import of dairy products and vegetables from the West Bank to East Jerusalem. A recent draft law aims at forbidding Palestinians to work as tour guides. This would not only deprive visitors of a Palestinian perspective on Jerusalem but also represent a significant cut in income for Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
46. While Palestinians constitute approximately 30 percent of the population in Jerusalem, approximately 10 percent of the municipal budget is spent in Palestinian areas. The provision of services in East Jerusalem by the Jerusalem Municipality is inadequate. Palestinian areas are characterized by poor roads, little or no street cleaning, limited sewage systems and an absence of well maintained public spaces, in sharp contrast to areas where Israelis live (in both West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem settlements).
47. Poverty figures in East Jerusalem are far higher than in other areas of the city. According to data published by the National Insurance Institute, 75,3 percent of Palestinian adults and 83,1 percent of Palestinian children in East Jerusalem live below the poverty line. Over 95 000 children in East Jerusalem are estimated to live in a permanent state of poverty.
TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE
48. A number of completed or ongoing infrastructure projects contribute to the Israeli control over occupied East Jerusalem. A tramway/light rail will connect Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem with the centre in West Jerusalem. Its construction has continued throughout 2010 and is scheduled to be completed within the coming months. The first line of this tramway will pass through the Palestinian neighbourhood of Shu'fat and touch the southern border of Beit Hanina.
49. A separated and inferior set of roads for Palestinians is being set up around Jerusalem. A series of bypass roads, to the east of Jerusalem, are currently being built and will connect Palestinian neighbourhoods outside of the separation barrier north and south of Jerusalem. The apparent purpose of the Israeli authorities for these roads is to secure so-called transport contiguity for Palestinians living in the north and the south of the West Bank, who are in fact already denied travelling from Ramallah to Bethlehem through East-Jerusalem. It is intended that one of the main roads linking Hizma to Az Zayyem will have restricted access by a further Israeli checkpoint in Anata (north of Ma'ale Adumim). It is separated by a wall from a parallel road reserved for Israeli vehicular use only, which connects the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim to Jerusalem.
50. At least two other roads are currently under construction: the first one is Route 20, a lateral bypass road that will create a direct link between road 443 (west of Ramallah) and Pisgat Zeev. It will be reserved for Israelis and Palestinian residents of Jerusalem. The second one is an additional access road south of Ma'ale Adumim, reserved for Israeli use only and aiming at facilitating traffic and access to Ma'ale Adumim. Land confiscations for another bypass road for Palestinian traffic have taken place south of the Ma'ale Adumim/E1 area. The cumulative effect of this new road grid will further restrict Palestinian traffic in the Ma'ale Adumim/E1 area. Bedouin communities, who are disregarded in the planning process, have already been displaced from this area.
PALESTINIAN INSTITUTIONS
51. In 1993 the then Foreign Minister of Israel in a letter to his Norwegian counterpart acknowledged the importance of Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem, adding that their activities would not be hampered. In 2001, however, Israel decided to close most of these institutions. The Roadmap required Israel to reopen the institutions whilst the EU, in its December 2009 Council conclusions, also called for the reopening of Palestinian institutions.
52. Nonetheless, Israeli authorities continue to renew the order of closure of numerous institutions every six months (the latest on the 25 July, extending the closure for another six months as of the 9 August 2010), basing its decision on claims that the institutions are affiliated to the Palestinian Authority and, therefore, in violation of the Oslo Agreements. This development contributes to undermining the role of Jerusalem as an engine and centre of Palestinian society.
53. The institutional and leadership vacuum in East Jerusalem created by the prolonged closure of those institutions, in particular that of the Orient House, which functioned as the PLO focal point in East Jerusalem, remains a key concern. Palestinian politicians active in Jerusalem are subject to repressive measures by Israel. This void continues to seriously affect all spheres of life of Palestinians in East Jerusalem (political, economic, social and cultural) and foster a growing fragmentation of society at all levels, the isolation of communities and a weakened collective sense of identity. Equally worrisome is the general sense of neglect felt by many Palestinian East Jerusalemites and the absence of Palestinian state-sponsored institutions and secular organisations, as they allow more space for Islamic extremist organisations to extend their influence.
ACCESS TO RELIGIOUS SITES
54. Jerusalem is a city of significant importance to the three monotheistic religions and the location of many of their most sacred sites. Access restrictions and closure regimes, however continue to impede visits by Christian and Muslim religious worshippers to some of their holy sites, located in Jerusalem/the Old City, throughout the year. The restrictions are typically tightened during religious holidays. During the month of Ramadan, many Muslims cannot observe their prayers at the mosque of their choice, notably at the Al Aqsa Mosque. This was again the case in 2010, when access for Palestinians with West Bank IDs was restricted to men over 50 and women over 45 and boys and girls under 12. Men between 45 and50 and women between 30 and 45 had to apply for special permits. This implies that 40 percent of the West Bank population was denied access to Friday prayers. However, it should also be noted that the functioning of checkpoints around Jerusalem during the Ramadan period was more orderly than in the past.
55. In 2010 Israeli authorities again invoked security reasons to intensify the restrictions on the access of Christian pilgrims to the Old City during the Holy Fire Ceremony of Christian Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday. Similar restrictions are not put in place for the Jewish population during their religious holidays. Furthermore, many believers of the Christian and Muslim faiths, for various reasons, face difficulties in obtaining or extending visas, including for visiting clergy. Members of churches and religious communities as well as volunteers working for them requesting long term visas are typically subject to long, complicated and opaque procedures.
THE HARAM AL-SHARIF/TEMPLE MOUNT
56. Developments at the Haram al-Sharif, or Temple Mount, are significant in several respects they are a cause of tension locally between the various communities, but also receive attention globally, such as the large demonstrations by Muslims whenever they perceive the Muslim position in Jerusalem to be undercut. For this reason, this site is one of the most sensitive in Jerusalem and therefore, any event happening on it or around it is likely to have serious repercussions.
57. In 2010, the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount area continued to see heightened tension and inflammatory actions which led to riots and demonstrations in Palestinian neighbourhoods. Repeated provocative visits of the Haram area by Jewish radical political and religious groups, which continue to occur during 2010, are highly problematic. On several occasions Israeli forces entered Al Aqsa Mosque and confronted stone-throwing Muslims. The perceived threat to religious places promotes rumors which in turn can lead to violent encounters between the various groups.
58. The disputes regarding various construction projects (e.g.archeological tunnels, recent plans to alter of the Western Wall plaza) serve as examples of a lack of consensus-building by Israel around those projects in sensitive areas of the city. Work on the Mughrabi Gate has proven a particular example of this in 2010. The Waqf, the Islamic body responsible for the Haram al-Sharif compound, has expressed concern regarding the construction by the Israeli Authorities, without their agreement, of a new bridge to replace the collapsed ramp leading to the Mugrabi Gate. Work on the Mugrabi Gate, the passageway between the Wailing Wall Plaza and the Temple Mount / Haram al Sharif, started again in September after the Jerusalem District Court's decision to authorize the work. The Waqf believe that the damage caused to the ramp is negligible and could be fixed without replacing the whole structure. They suspect this may be used as an opportunity to undertake new excavations under the ramp or as seemed to be originally planned (prior to the Court's ruling against it) to expand the area of the Wailing Wall Plaza. A new plan for the Mughrabi Gate, revealed in November this year, seems to be less far-reaching in the sense that it does not include any expansion of the Plaza. The Waqf, however, was again not consulted in the process.
[Annex 2]
Reinforcing the EU policy on East Jerusalem
The submissions made by Heads of Mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah 2010 are largely congruent with those of 2009. Keeping in mind the sensitivity of the situation in Jerusalem, they have been drawn up in a spirit that aims to maintain the possibility of a two-state solution as set out in numerous statements by the EU, not least the Council Conclusions of 8 December 2009. They thus remain valid, but have been adapted and updated reflecting the situation as set out in this year's report highlighting specific actions aiming to maintain the Palestinian social fabric in East Jerusalem on a political, cultural and economic level.
A. East Jerusalem as the future Palestinian capital
* 1) In conformity with the objectives of the Strategic Multi-sector Development Plan for
* East Jerusalem, promote a coordinated approach and a coherent Palestinian strategy towards East Jerusalem.
* 2) Promote the establishment of a PLO focal point/representative in East Jerusalem.
* 3) National or Europe Day events to be held in East Jerusalem (when suitable at Palestinian institutions).
* 4) EU missions with offices or residences in East Jerusalem to regularly host Palestinian officials with senior EU visitors.
* 5) Avoid having Israeli security and/or protocol accompanying high ranking officials from Member States when visiting the Old City/East Jerusalem.
* 6) Prevent/discourage financial transactions from EU MS actors supporting settlement activity in East Jerusalem, by adopting appropriate EU legislation.
* 7) Compile non-binding guidelines for EU tour operators to prevent support for settlement business in East Jerusalem (e.g. hotels, bus operators, archaeological sites controlled by pro-settler organisations etc).
* 8) Ensure that the EU-Israel Association Agreement is not used to allow the export to the EU of products manufactured in settlements in East Jerusalem.
* 9) Raise public awareness about settlement products, for instance by providing guidance on origin labelling for settlement products to major EU retailers.
* 10) Inform EU citizens of financial risks involved in purchasing property in occupied East Jerusalem.
B. Reopening of Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem
* 1) Highlight the reopening, as stipulated in the Road Map, of Palestinian institutions in high level meetings with Israeli representatives, as well as in the EU and Quartet discussions and statements.
* 2) Host Palestinian Jerusalem civil society events in cultural offices, consulates and diplomatic residences until institutions are reopened.
* 3) Explore the use of Palestinian institutions to promote joint EU-PLO interests.
C. Economic and social rights of the Palestinian population
* 1) Provide assistance to ensure that Palestinians are included in the development of urban master-plans in East Jerusalem in order for i.e. Palestinian housing needs to be met.
* 2) In high level meetings, stress the EU%u2019s serious concerns regarding inadequate emergency services, e.g ambulances, fire fighting and policing for all residents in East Jerusalem.
* 3) Coordinate, fund and support projects in East Jerusalem.
D. Religious and cultural dimension of the city
* 1) Support and encourage inter-faith dialogue in Jerusalem.
* 2) Encourage Arab countries to acknowledge the multicultural dimension of Jerusalem, including its Jewish and Christian heritage.
* 3) Engage in informing (e.g. web sites etc) EU citizens undertaking visits on the politica situation in East Jerusalem.
* E. Strengthen the role of the European Union
1) Enhance local coordination between Quartet actors for input into policy making and decisions.
* 2) Ensure EU presence when there is a risk of demolitions or evictions of Palestinian families.
* 3) Ensure EU presence at Israeli courts cases on house demolitions or evictions of Palestinian families.
* 4) Ensure EU intervention when Palestinians are arrested or intimidated by Israeli authorities for peaceful cultural, social or political activities in East Jerusalem.
5) Operationalise the EU policy on bringing high level visitors to sensitive sites (e.g. separation barrier etc).
* - on logistics for high level visitors (e.g choice of hotel, change of transport East/West)
* - on contacts with the Jerusalem Mayor and on refraining from meeting Israeli officials in their East Jerusalem offices (e.g. in the Israeli Ministry of Justice etc)
* - on information sharing on violent settlers in East Jerusalem to assess whether to grant entry into the EU.
http://bit.ly/hhZPEB
1 nov 2010, 19:09 , Respect -
Maria Idan Tal Wants To Burn My Family
The E-mail below was sent from the so-called Israel, the Jewish Agency, the fraud State established by an illegal promise over the land of Palestine authored in 1917 by Arthur James Balfour, a rapacious British conservative politician and statesman.
The sender of the e-mail is an IDF soldier Idan Tal, who wanted to make himself important by bullying and taking part in bloody massacres, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity which the Zionist organization israel commits against the Palestinian people since over 63 years of Nazi zionist occupation of the Palestinian homeland.
In the threat that Idan sent me threatens to burn my family. It is herewith returned to him and to his zionist state, his words are nothing but rubbish which will not shake one hair on my head, it only serves to expose him and all the israeli garbage as what they are.
From Idan Tal Sat Jan 8 21:42:48 2011
X-Apparently-To: kawther_salam [at] yahoo [dot] com via 67.195.13.221; Sat, 08 Jan 2011 13:42:49 -0800
Received: from 127.0.0.1 (EHLO mail-qy0-f180.google.com) (209.85.216.180)
by mta1147.mail.sk1.yahoo.com with SMTP; Sat, 08 Jan 2011 13:42:49 -0800
Received: by mail-qy0-f180.google.com with SMTP id 29so18537712qyk.18
for <kawther_salam [at] yahoo [dot] com>; Sat, 08 Jan 2011 13:42:48 -0800 (PST)
Sat, 08 Jan 2011 13:42:48 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.229.186.10 with HTTP; Sat, 8 Jan 2011 13:42:48 -0800 (PST)
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2011 23:42:48 +0200
Message-ID: <AANLkTim3MzN80+nhdFn-AGXYzgG7H4jfj_D3fHGTG3CJ [at] mail [dot] gmail [dot] com>
Subject: hey
From: Idan Tal <idantal1 [at] gmail [dot] com>
To: kawther_salam [at] yahoo [dot] com
next time you be coming to israel give me some heads up, so i'll burn you're fucking family alive you fucking sharmota bitch
http://bit.ly/eMla4z
9 nov 2010, 17:06 , Respect -
Maria A Cold-blooded Execution
From left: Lt. Col. Guy Hazut, Major General Avi Mizrahi, Brig. Gen. Nitzan Alon, and Brig. Gen. Yoav Polly Mordechai.
Troops of the Israeli occupation war criminals Lt. Col. Guy Hazut, , Major General Avi Mizrahi, Brig. Gen. Nitzan Alon, and Brig. Gen. Yoav Polly Mordechai, murdered in cold blood the elderly Palestinian Omar Salim al-Qawasmi, 66, at dawn of last Friday. They smashed his head to pieces while he was sleeping in bed in his house at Haret Al- Sheikh in the center of Hebron. Lt. Col. Hazut, the so-called military brigadier of the IDF in Hebron was with his bloodthirsty death squads when they murdered Al-Qawasmi. This war crime was perpetrated during the raid on the house of Al-Qawasmi where a political leader, one of six Palestinians who had been released from the PA jail the day before, rented an apartment in the first floor of the victim's house.
Sobheye al- Qawasme's, the victim's wife, said that she did not know how the IDF soldiers broke into their home. I was praying at dawn when that the IDF soldiers broke into our house. I don't know how they opened the door. Suddenly I saw the soldiers closing my mouth and pointing their guns to my head. I was shocked. I asked them, What are you doing? They ordered me to shut up and took me to another room under threats of shooting me in head. My paralyzed child was also in this room and very frightened.
I saw many soldiers break into the room where my husband was sleeping. I heard bombs and several shots inside the room. When the occupation soldiers left, I went to the room, I saw that the head of my husband was broken and smashed into several pieces, his brain was out, and his blood was spilled in bed. He was swimming in a pool of blood.
During the IDF raid, they arrested the neighbor of Al-Qawasmeh, Wael Mahmoud Said al-Bitar, a Palestinian activist who was one of six political prisoners released by the Palestinian jailers on the previous day. Al- Bitar lives with his family in a rented apartment in the first floor of the same house of Al-Qawasme.
Security Coordination and a Cold-blooded Execution
Omar Salim al-Qawasmi, 66, a victim of the commonaders seen in the picture
Five of the political activists had been jailed at the Jericho prison during so-called security coordination between the traitors of the PA and the occupation after some jewish colonists were killed in September 2010 near Bni Neam village near Hebron. The prisoners were tortured and denied family visits. They went on hunger strike for over 45 days, demanding to be moved to Hebron so that their families could visit them. The Palestinian media was censored by the PA and did not report about the hunger strike and the deteriorated health of the prisoners.
Finally, a campaign of spying between the Palestinian security and the Israeli occupation, in which the PA decided to release the political activists (a trick) so that the IDF war criminals could proceed to arrest or execute them. During the campaign between the Israeli war criminals and their friends, PA traitors, the prisoner's interrogation files were submitted to the Israeli occupation. On last Thursday the Palestinian authority implemented the first part of their deceptive campaign and released the prisoners.
Sobheye al- Qawasme's, the victim's wife is shocked in her bed room.
The dirty mission was implemented by the PA, whose officials who stated on Thursday that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had ordered the release of the six prisoners after direct appeal from the Emir of Qatar and because the president wanted to end this issue of the political prisoners once and for ever.
The Palestinian security organization at jail forced those prisoners who were released and their families to sign a pledge according to which they bear responsibility for their own safety after their release.
This dirty act of treachery between the PA and the colonial israeli zionist occupation, President Mahmoud Abbas and his traitors used the arrest of the activists who were released and then arrested by the Israel as a justification to keep three thousand more political activists in jail, among then teachers, engineers, doctors, professors, youths and elderly. The PA in all seriousness claims that the jailing of political activists is some kind of protection from the Israeli occupation.
Hamas accuses the PA of jailing and torturing 3000 of its elements at its prisons, which previously were jails of the occupation. On the other hand, Fatah accuses Hamas of arresting its political elements in the Gaza. Fatah issued a statement warning of the risk of death threats to the lives of its militant activists who went on hunger strike in centers of torture of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
It must also be noted that the Committee of the Palestinian Prisoners Relatives, a group of relatives of the abductees in the prisons of the Palestinian Authority in the occupied territories in the West Bank, released a statement accusing Mr. Majed Faraj, chief of the General Intelligence of the Palestinian Authority, which is under the authority of President Mahmoud Abbas, of calling the wives of the prisoners to his office and abusing them sexually and extorting sexual favors from them in exchange of promises to release their husbands or commuting the sentences issued against them by military courts, or for permission to visit the husband.
I was direct witness of one such case and I know that it is usual procedure by PA police or jail officers to extort sexual favors from relatives of prisoners, especially if the women are young and beautiful.
Fatah appealed in a statement issued in the second of this month for the intervention of Palestinian national groups, personalities, independent Palestinians, and human rights and international organizations to put an end to the repressive measures against the political activists in the centers of torture belong to Hamas and asked them to work to release them all.
Fatah stated that six of its activists had entered a hunger strike since three days, claiming that the prisoners already suffered poor and deteriorated health conditions as a result of torture and the daily violations of their rights at the centers of torture affiliated to Hamas.
Fatah stated that Hamas is fully responsible for the lives of their detainees. Fatah added that the detainees fall under the risk of double death, as a result their deteriorated health due to torture and the continued hunger strike, in addition of leaving them held in places which could be bombed at anytime by the Israeli occupation.
It is truly disgusting to see to what level the PA has learned the arts of whining and lying from their jewish masters. It is disgusting to see the abject levels of betrayal of these brown-nosers who have no compunction in setting up a situation where it people get murdered. With the murder of Omar Al-Qawasmeh by Hazut and his henchmen, it has become clear that the PA has become more jewish than the jews, more zionist than their zionist masters, and equally devoid of humanity and honor.
http://bit.ly/gdv0w0
9 nov 2010, 17:08 , Respect -
Maria German Government Directly Involved the Gaza War Crimes
Fritz Edlinger
I recently had occasion to speak with Fritz Edlinger, the Secretary General of the Society for Austro-Arab Relations in Vienna. Edlinger was born in 1948, and he completed his secondary school in 1964 in Vienna. He studied history and political sciences at the University of Vienna. Fritz Edlinger has often been smeared as anti-Semitic and attacked verbally by others due his support for the rights of Palestinians. Some Austrians see Fritz Edlinger as a Palestinian more than an Austrian.
During our interview Edlinger criticized Fatah and the PA. He said: I think that the problem is the bad of Fatah, they are already bad in the policy of issues, and they work for the Israelis, and there are even people who said that in the preparation of this war there were Palestinians giving at least technical and logistical support to the Israelis, telling them which places they should attack and this and that. This is something which is unacceptable.
If there is any future for Fatah, they must eliminate these people who are in fact traitors. These traitors are paid by the Israelis and the Americans to do bad things, the most callous jobs, and this is something important: if these people are still present after the next so-called congress of Fatah in any position, then forget about Fatah, said Edlinger.
Also criticized the European countries, saying that the German government supplied Israel with submarines, and that they gave them for Israel for mostly free. That means that the money of European and German tax payers is used to give weapons for free to Israel. This is absolutely unacceptable in that sense.
Fritz Edlinger
Edlinger said, that there is direct involvement of some European governments, because this is on the level of the governments. He added: there are very few European governments which might be ready to criticize the Israelis. There is no unity among the European governments, specially the strong and big ones who are on one side, and I would say that the German government is directly involved in these acts and they are directly to be blame, to say the least, of being complicit of the war crimes of the Israelis.
The Israeli intentions are very simple and very clear to me, the intentions of the Israeli leadership, in the Kadima and labor parties. There is a very strong consensus among the Israeli parties when it comes to the Palestinian case. There is no major difference between Labor party and Likud, as both parties don't want to have a fair and legal solution to the conflict in the Palestinian occupied territories. They just want to have a kind of management of the conflict, but according to their own rules. They want to define any kind of political solution, they want the Palestinians to be always under control and they never, ever, will accept from their heart and in free will a fair and independent solution, said the Austrian political activist and Secretary General of the Society for Austro-Arab Relations in Vienna, Fritz Edlinger, during a friendly interview in his office last week.
He commented on the scandal of the biggest companies which supply Israel with sophisticated weapons: They got more of the most sophisticated weapon system in the world. Nuclear power, nuclear bombs, and they have the most sophisticated and modern weapon. We saw it in Gaza, where new modern sophisticated weapons were used. I think that Gaza was a kind of experimental field to test new weapons. I think that the Americans have Iraq, Afghanistan to exercise the new weapons, but the Israelis used Gaza to test new weapon. This is a shame, and this is a crime of all the countries and the companies involved in supplying this kind of modern weapons. This is inhuman, and this is a crime.
Edlinger described the Israeli occupation officers and the teams who control the movement of the human beings at the borders as stupid ones who just want to demonstrate their strength and superiority by asking stupid questions to the people who want to access to Palestine.
Here is the whole interview with Fritz Edlinger.
Q: Who is Fritz Edlinger? How did the Jewish community and the Israeli Ambassador in Vienna, react to his debates, speeches and his support for the Palestinians?
Edlinger: I am working since 30 years in support of Palestinian rights. I started being interested in the Palestinians in the early 1970, when I was a young socialist in Austria, and close to Bruno Kreisky, the chairman of the socialist party at that time. He caused me, like other young people of that generation, to have an interest in the Middle East.. Starting at that time I visited Israel, and also Palestine. When I first visited Palestine my ideas changed dramatically. I still remember my first visit to Israel. It was shortly before the six day war in 1967. At that time, all the Europeans and even the leftists were pro-Israel. We all admired Israel for what they did to build their country, for making the desert bloom. I visited Israel as a young socialist, and I even worked there in a Kibbutz.
Q: In which Kibbutz? I interrupted him.
Edlinger: became a bit nervous of my question, as if his mind refused to remember the Israeli Kibbutz, and he answered my question: don't ask me about the name of the Israeli Kibbutz, I really don't know, it was in the center of Tel Aviv inside the green line, for sure it was inside the green line.
Obliged to Transit Israel
Since there is no possibility to go directly to Palestine, and since everything is under the Israeli control, I was obliged to transit Israel.
Edlinger said: Shortly after my first visit to Israel, I went for the second time, and soon my opinion changed. I didn't like the whole attitude of the Israelis. I see how they used the militant, the aggression, and they were even racists. I changed my ideas. And soon I decided to visit Palestine.
He added: my third visit was to Palestine. Since then and until now I just transit Israel. I don't visit Israel any more. But since there is no possibility to go directly to Palestine, I have to transit Israel. This is the way I really look at it. Palestine is surrounded by Israel and everything is under the Israeli control. I have many friends in Palestine. I know what I am talking about it. This is in contradiction to what many people here talk about the Middle East. I know exactly what they are talking about. For example, when I am traveling in West Bank, I feel like the Palestinians, not like the Europeans with their European passports, and whenever we reach the Israeli military checkpoints I feel exactly what it means for the Palestinians to be stopped and to be checked, because in the worse case it could mean being killed, in another case it could mean going to prison or being put in administrative detention.
I now see with the eyes of the Palestinians since hundreds of times, even before and during the first Intifada, I sneaked into the Gaza Strip illegally with other Palestinian friends who were not allowed to go there. I know exactly the mentality and the way of the Israeli oppression, and I know exactly the way of the persecution of the Palestinians due to my visits under the Israeli occupation. This is my way to look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to know what going on there.
The secretary general of Jewish community in Vienna stated about him: Edlinger is immoral, he is not up to our high standard of ethic and morality, but Edlinger received this statement as a compliment.
According to Fritz Edlinger, the secretary general of Kultusgemeinde, the Austrian Jewish Community in Vienna people who always refuse to debate in public with him, had commented in writing, in the context of an invitation to a lecture of llan Pappe: we don't need Mr. Edlinger because ethically he is not on our level. We say he is an anti-Semite because of his criticism against Israel he is an anti-Semite, and we don't want to discuss with him because he is immoral, he is not up to our high standard of ethnic and morality.
Edlinger added I don't complain about what the Jews say, I have enough invitations for lectures. In a certain way I find it positive that the Jews refuse to debate with me, because this is a sign of weakness, this is sign that they are afraid of discussing, debating in public with people like me. They are afraid to lose a public debate, or maybe they are not so convinced that their argument are the rights ones. So I put this in a positive way, I don't complain. I just complain about the double standards of the Austrian and European journalists, how they write, and how they report. I am not complaining that the jewish zionists are boycotting me because it's clear that I am not their friend, and I have a very critical position on what they and the Israeli government are doing. And when they said we don't want to debate with Mr. Edlinger, I find that this is a compliment.
The Stupidity of the Israeli Intelligence
Q: How did the Israeli occupation treat you when you accessed the borders during your visit to Palestine?
Edlinger: The Israeli Intelligence demonstrated their strength and superiority by asking stupid questions.
when anybody passes the borders of Israel, he must pass through some Israeli measures, they ask many questions where are Since I had this ceremony on the borders, or on the bridge or in Tel Aviv airport hundreds of times I could make the interviews myself because I know exactly what the Israeli intelligence are going to ask me. They have procedures, they have standard questions, where are you going, why, why did you book your ticket two days before your flight, and have you got a present from anybody before leaving etc.
These questions are in fact stupid, because if you want to identify terrorists, you will not identify anybody by asking these questions. It's so easy to know what is behind it, so there are two ways to handle this. Sometimes I handle it the easy way and I give them the answers they want, and then I pass in a few minutes. For instance one time I was tired, angry and I had time when I passed through the bridge. I gave them the wrong answers, and this took me four hours. Just on the second or third question they asked me where are you staying? I said in Ramallah. They asked Why you are staying in Ramallah? I said: Because most of my friends are living there. They asked: Who are your friends, and whom you are going to meet?
Through these question they want to make me mention names of somebody. I answered them it's not your business, it has nothing to do with my security, whatever. I refused to give them any answer. But they repeat the question again and again and again, then the supervisor came. And at the end I refused to answer the question. Then the boss gave me my passport but after four hours. I told him if this is going to happen in any European airport or border to any average Israeli citizen, the next day all your papers, the Jewish papers in the whole world will have the headline of rising the anti-Semitism in Europe. Don't think that. He looked at me and didn't say any word, he just gave me my passport and say go.
Psychopathic Israeli Intelligence
It was really ridiculous, but it was at the same time I discovered on this line, left and right to me there were too persons, young and old man, obviously the father born as a Palestinians and the son, those one was German and the other was Swiss, so they had European passports, obviously the father was born in Palestine and the son was born in Europe, when I arrived they were there before the Intelligence door, and when I left they were still there, they just kept them there. They did not ask them any questions, they just left them there. It's kind of psychological harassment. This is the main function of this kind of treatment at the border. I think they want to humiliate the Palestinians. It's not about security, it's about demonstration of strength, of superiority. This they have to done to all the Palestinians, and if they have the feeling if he is a European or American or even jew sometimes, who is pro-Palestinians, they treat him in the same way to demonstrate we are the bosses here, we control everything, and you have to play the game according to our rules or we send you back.
The Austrian Media is pro-Israel
Q: How you evaluate the role of the Austrian media and diplomats in how they depicted the Israeli crimes during past December and January ? Why did the local media take a very negative stance towards the Palestinians during this massacre, as compared with, for example, the media in Spain, UK, and elsewhere?
Edlinger: I just complain about the double standards of the Austrian and the European journalists, how they write, and how they report. I want to tell you something. Today I am going to write a small comment in the Kurier newspaper. I think it was mentioned for the third time that an Israeli tennis player was refused to participate in a tournament at the contest at Doha in Qatar. It was even today mentioned in the Kurier as a commentary. I really want to write for them. I will tell them if you want to inform the public about the jews, then you have to mention how many hundreds the Israelis do not allow to enter Israel or Palestine without any reasons, every year.
I think that Europeans, among them members of International solidarity movements, and they are many, for instance Marwan Abado, our Austrian-Palestinian-Lebanese singer, was refused to enter at the airport and they kept the airplane captain for two days in the Tel-Aviv airport, and they did not give him any reasons. They just told him you are refused to enter Israel. So if somebody is complaining that a tennis player is not allowed participate in a tournament or to enter any Arab countries, they should mention that Israel is intentionally not allowing any people who they imagine are pro Palestinians to enter Israel and Palestine. This is the fact , so it should not be just blaming Arab countries who don't want Israelis.
Mary Was not Virgin and Jesus Did not Walk on Water!
Lior Shlein
Q: Did you hear that the Austrian media or news have mentioned anything about the insults against Christians by insulting Mary and Jesus in a show of Lior Shlein in Channel 10 of the Israeli TV ?
Edlinger: No, I did not hear anything in the Austrian TV, radio or newspapers. Nobody reported one word over these Israeli insults. What was it?
Mary and Jesus were mocked in a late-night television show on Channel 10, in program in which Lior Shlein sarcastically denied Christian traditions, that Mary was a virgin and that Jesus walked on water. Mary was described as an unwed mother who got knocked up at 15 by a classmate. Jesus was too fat to have walked on water, in fact he was so fat he was ashamed to leave the house, let alone go to the Sea of Galilee with a bathing suit.
Edlinger said that this is part of the double standards. In principle, the Austrian media is pro-Israel in their reporting. I want to finalize this by stating that whenever I have heard any debate in Austria or in Europe, I feel more and more that the Austrian media are hesitant and very cautious to interview me, or to invite me for TV or radio. The Israeli ambassador and the jewish community here, most of them in the mean time, refuse to debate with me. The last time was in Graz. The ambassador said that he did not want to attend because of my presence.
The Palestinian State and the Israeli Control
Q: Do you think that there is any future to build an independent Palestinian State in Palestine?
would say that 90 percent of the Knesset parties don't want to have a real, independent Palestinian State, the Israeli plan is to keep control of the Palestinians Israel humiliated Abu Mazen and the Arab leaders, they forced them to accept the Israeli domination, they made them accept that there never will be a real, fair solution, they made them accept to take what the Israelis are ready to give them, and this made Hamas stronger
Edlinger: The Israeli intention is very simple and very clear to me. For me there is a very strong consensus among the Israeli parties when it comes to the Palestinian case. So I don't see any major difference between Labor party and Likud. They just don't want to have a fair, legal solution of the conflict. They just want to have a kind of management of the conflict but according to their rules. They want to define any kind of political solution, they want to be always in control and never, ever, will they accept from the heart or out of their will a fair independent solution.
This is consensus. I would say for sure that 90 percent of the Knesset don't want to have a real, independent Palestinian state, not even in the 1967 borders. Palestine with shared and free access to the neighboring Arab countries, and if you read all the Israeli plans, you will find that they still want control over the Palestinians. They want to control the Jordan Valley, they want to control the border to Egypt in the south. There is no intention at all among the political leadership in Israel to have a fair solution. And they managed with American support and a little bit of European support to split the Palestinians. So this was the big achievement after Oslo, the way how they treated the Arab part and the leadership of the PLO at that time.
I think that Israel humiliated them. They humiliated the Arab part and specially Abu Mazen and his leadership after that. They forced them to accept the Israeli domination, they made them accept that there never will be a fair solution, they made them accept to take what the Israelis are ready to give them, and this made Hamas stronger.
The surprising victory of Hamas in the PLC elections was a surprise even to Hamas themselves, who never expected to be 2/3 in the PLC. This is a result of that, it was not an election for Islamism. It was mainly a protest against the way how the PLO and Fatah is dealing with the Israelis, and about the un-democratic and corrupt way in which they behave, and a rejection for the Israeli-American project.
Bad Guys in Gaza and Good Guys in Ramallah
Israelis define it like that, we have good guys in Ramallah who accept our domination, and the bad guys sitting in Gaza and in prison and wherever, who are not ready to accept an unjust and in principle unfair attitudes in the negotiations.
Edlinger: Now the game of the Israelis and Americans is to split Palestinians, to divide them and to say OK, there are bad guys in Gaza, we don't accept them, we just boycott them, and we try to deal with them according to what Mr. Netanyahu said during the last days, our aim is to eliminate Hamas and their rule in Gaza. That was his intention, and he tried this in 22 days of the war, because they eliminated almost 1400 people physically. This is one side of the coin of the boycott. So the Israelis define it like that, we have good guys in Ramallah who accept our domination, and the bad guys sitting in Gaza and in prison and wherever, who are not ready to accept unjust and in principle unfair attitudes of negotiation. This is the problem, and this is the background for all the boycotts and sanctions against Gaza, because they want to demonstrate we will fight you till the end and if you don't give in you will be physically eliminated.
Mohammad Dahlan, The Bad Fatah Guy in Gaza
Mohammad Dahlan
Q: Do you think that the Palestinian Authority is responsible for the in Gaza blockade by signing the border agreements of 2005 with Israel? Do you think that Fatah is involved in the Gaza situation?
Edlinger: There is something else where the PA Fatah fell into the Israeli trap. There is one name who is responsible for this policy of Fatah, this is Mohammad Dahlan. So part of Fatah is even fighting Hamas since they are there political competitors, and I wouldn't blame all of Fatah. For sure there are many who were against what Dahlan tried last year, because the coup of Hamas was not a coup. The coup of Hamas as we know from many articles, was to prevent Dahlan from making a coup against the Hamas government, so the problem is the bad people of Fatah, they are already bad for the policy, and they do the job for the Israelis, and there were even people who said that there were Palestinians involved in the preparation of this war, they were giving at least technical and logistical support to the Israelis, telling them which places they should attack and this and that. This is something which is unacceptable.
If there is any future for Fatah, they must eliminate these people, who are in fact traitors. These traitors are paid by the Israelis and the Americans to do bad things, the most callous jobs. And this is something: if these people are still present in any position in Fatah, even after the so-called next congress of Fatah, then forget about Fatah.
coordination meeting between idf and pa security officials
This is something I am very sorry about. Because, as I mentioned, I am really fighting and working for the Palestinians since more than 30 years, and I am really sad, and nobody from the Palestinian heroes who got killed, thousands and ten thousands during the previous years, would like to see that people who are Palestinians, who are high ranking officials in the PA or Fatah are really working closely together with the Israelis to spy on their own people and finally to kill their own people. This is something which is unacceptable, and this is something the Israelis, with this American support, achieved by separating the Palestinians into good guys and bad guys. I am really not with Hamas, I am with the Palestinian unity. This unity is the best chance for success against the Israelis and the Americans, because as long as the Palestinians are not united, the Israelis and the Americans will play with them, and they will continue playing for years.
Europe Boycotted the Unity Government of the PA
Q: You are talking about the Palestinian unity, but as I remember the Europeans boycotted the previous coalition government of the PA, so the protest against the Palestinian unity came from Europe, or what did you say about that?
Edlinger: I criticized the Europeans, who all the time said that the unity government of the PA would have to accept the right of co-existence, to refuse terror and you%u2026I answered them OK let us talk. I don't accept terrorism, I don't like killing children, but then you have to put the same questions in the same seriousness to the Israelis. You have to ask them %u201CDo you accept Palestine in a defined size within defined borders, and say I accept the State? First, do you refuse any kind of terrorism which the Israelis are perpetrating every day? They kill Palestinians everyday. This is exactly the double standard which and I am really sorry about, even I say, as a European I feel a shame that the European politicians and leaders do not realize that they fell into a trap which was put in place by the Israelis and the by the Americans.
The Destroyed Infrastructure of the European Projects in Gaza
Q: Do you think that the EU must ask for restitution from Israel for the destruction of the public infrastructure which they had previously financed in Gaza, or should they cut the restitution for the destroyed infrastructure from the generous yearly donations which they send to Israel?
Edlinger: We demand this since many years, the European Union has lots of bilateral agreements with Israel, and in many of these agreements there are human rights clauses, and since many years we have said OK, make agreements with Israel but if there are any human rights violations, look in your agreement, you have a clause, and then execute this and say OK, you violate the human rights, so therefore we cancel this treaties, we boycott you as long as the human rights are violated by the Israeli government. The European Union is not doing this.
Right now there is a report demanded by Amnesty International, at least there are serious crimes committed by the IDF and the Israeli army, and they demand boycott on the weapons side. I think that many European countries, the German, the French, the British the big European powers, sell weapon to the Israelis. Sometimes they don't even sell them. The Germans, for instance, there is this famous cases of German submarines, they gave them to Israel mostly for free. That means that the European and German taxpayers money is used to give weapon for free to Israel. This is absolutely unacceptable. In that sense there is a direct involvement of some European governments in the crimes against the Palestinians, because this is on the level of the governments. This is not on the level of the EU.
This is on the level of the governments, and I would say that the German government is directly involved in these acts, and they are directly to be blamed to be at least accomplices of the war crimes of the Israelis. Nothing is done because the European government are not there, there are very few European governments who might be ready to criticize the Israelis, but there is no unity among the European governments, specially the strong ones, the big ones, they are one-sided. And that's the problem. And we, especially as Europeans, we shouldn't stop to criticize these governments, to blame them and to call for actions. I think that just now, after this Gaza massacre, that sanctions against Israel are justified, and that the European Union is not doing anything. And this is really petty, and even for us as pro-Palestinian people and groups in Europe, this is something which we failed to achieve because our position is a minority position.
The Gaza Blockade and Nuclear Bombs to Israel
Q: The International community, among them all European countries, are willfully forgetting the 1,5 million Palestinians jailed in Gaza under conditions of a concentration camp, while everybody is talking about what kind of measures can be implemented in order to stop delivering weapon to Hamas, but at the same time they ignore the grave crimes of Israel. What do you think about that?
Edlinger: They also forgot to talk about the weapon deliveries to Israel. Even if we are talking about what kind of weapon Hamas get, they get simple rifles. The Israelis get more, and they get the most sophisticated weapon systems in the world. So for example the nuclear bombs. They have the most sophisticated modern weapons. We see it in Gaza: new modern sophisticated weapons. I think that Gaza was a kind of experimental field to test new weapons. I think that the American have Iraq, Afghanistan to exercise their new weapons, but the Israelis used Gaza to test their new weapons. This is a shame, and this is a crime of all the countries and companies being involved in supplying this kind of modern weapons. This is inhuman, and this is crime, and this has to be addressed, and to be criticized, and the most accurate way is to have complete sanctions of sales to Israel. This is the minimum request I have after the last events in Gaza.
The Future of Gaza
Q: What will happen tomorrow in Gaza, and who will stop this situation?
Edlinger: I am very pessimistic because I don't see any progress. From Israel you don't expect anything, but even worse activities. I think that the new government will make it even more complicated, and the Americans, they talk a little bit better now, but that's all. The Europeans, as usual, are just paying but doing nothing. And the other point is the Arab side. The problem in not only a split in Palestine, but also a split in the Arab league. It was really a shame to see two weeks ago two parallel meetings, a conference in Qatar and another one in Kuwait, and some people are not going to Doha because Qatar has a position which is not acceptable to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Just saying that we have an Arab peace initiative and the Israelis should comply with the Arab peace initiative is not enough, because the Arab peace inactive is something of a nice tale. We have in fact no unified Arab position.
Edlinger also sent a sincere offer to the Arab Leaders: I think that the Arabs and the Palestinians should clearly come to a position to say We don't accept this political split among the Palestinians. We don't accept that outsiders like the Israelis and the Americans to apply their criteria about who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. We want one unified position for the Palestinians, one unified leadership where all political groups are represented, that means even Hamas, Jihad, who have to come to be members of the PLO, and to become members of a unified government, and then we need a new election immediately, a presidential election is already past due time, because since the beginning of January there is legally no president in Palestine.
The Body of the PLC
Edlinger strongly criticized the International and Arab silence about the jailing of the members of the PLC by the Israeli occupation. He said that, in connection to the PLC, the Palestinian Legislative Council, nobody at all is mentioning anymore that almost 50 percent of the elected PLC members are still in the Israeli prison. I think that even many people in Europe don't know this any more. They hear about Marwan Barghouti and others, but nobody knows that the Israelis arrested the elected members of PLC and not just one or two, but almost 40, and they are still in prison without a single court case, without a single accusation, just because they were from Hamas this was enough to put them in prison. We must try to bring the Palestinian house in order. We need one unified house which reflects the majority of the Palestinian people, and a new president. Even the Arabs must try to come together and present themselves and their ideas to the world and to the Americans in a unified way, and they should not play pro American Arabs and boycotting the other ones. There is enough to do internally in the Arab league and in Palestine. It is also important to demonstrate to the Israelis, the Americans and to the Europeans, even to the friends, that Arabs are serious and they want to fight for their rights.
The Palestinian Community in Vienna
Q: You know the Palestinian community in Vienna, you have lived and worked with them in the past and today. How you evaluate the role of this community today?
Fritz Edlinger sighed deeply before answering the question. The depression showed clearly on his face he is not satisfied on the Palestinian situation in Vienna. He said: you are living in Austria and you know better than me how the Arabs, especially the Palestinian society, works here in Vienna. In fact that, what you have in the international scale with the Palestinians, you have here in Austria. I think that they are strongly divided. They are divided politically and they are divided personally. Sometimes I have the impression that personal rivalries and problems are more important than the political issues. And at the end you don't have any serious, widely accepted persons who speak for the Palestinian community here.
The situation of the Palestinians in Vienna was better in the seventies and in the early eighties. At that time Hamas did not exist, and there were some left groups from PLO and Fatah, but at that time you had spokespeople here, and you had a community somehow reconciled and unified. Now you have groups of Fatah people, and you have bigger and more active group from of Islamic people, and then you have another big group of former Fatah people, who are not that young anymore, who in their sixties or even older. Most of these people were the founders of the Fatah fraction in Austria, but they are now completely against Fatah and what Fatah stands for now. And that is the problem, that another big group of Palestinians here in Austria don't want to have anything to do with the Islamists, and they are also doing nothing. They have almost completely retreated into private life. Sometimes you see them in the demonstrations, but they don't organize themselves, they just sit together privately and complain.
http://bit.ly/hRnahJ
9 nov 2010, 17:10 , Respect -
Maria The Screams of A Child Abducted by Monsters
Mahmoud Al Abbasi, 10 years old
The picture below shows two Israeli soldiers from the so called border police unit capturing Palestinian child Mahmoud Al Abbasi, 10 years old from the East of the occupied city of Jerusalem, on January 21 2011.
Please try to find an answer to the questions below by writing to the so-called Israeli Embassy in your country and to the Israeli occupation spokespersons (their e-mail addresses are below), and to your elected representatives.
Do you think that the soldiers seen in the picture below belong to the human race? Do you think these are soldiers or monsters? Do you think that capturing and terrorizing children is a war crime? What descriptions that can be given of a state which feels powerful when its soldiers terrorize children? What would you do if your son was the child who cries and screaming between the steel hands of these monsters?
What do you do if you knew that your tax money was being used for the benefit of the monsters in the pictures above and below?
Did you know that the Defence for Children International http://bit.ly/hW5RWr in Palestine sent out on January 6 2011 an appeal concerning the jailing of three children, http://bit.ly/e9Cu3X Muslim Mosa Ode, age of 10, Adam Mansour Al-Rishiq, age of 7, and Imran Mohammad Mansour 11, who were jailed by the monsters in the picture above and their colleagues?
Imran was jailed after being run over by a criminal settlers in Jerusalem.
Muslim O. On 18 October 2010, a 10-year-old boy from Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem, reported having being grabbed and beaten by three men in civilian clothes and taken to the Al-Mascobiyya interrogation centre for questioning. Under Israeli law, a child below the age of 12 should not be interrogated.
Mohammad G. On 25 October 2010, a 12-year-old boy from Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem reported being grabbed and beaten by a policeman on his way to school and then taken to the Al-Mascobiyya interrogation centre for questioning.
Adam R. On 24 November 2010, a seven-year-old boy from Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem reported being beaten by soldiers on his way to school. The experience has made Adam fearful of leaving his home.
The Israeli embassy in your country: (list of Israeli diplomatic missions worldwide). http://bit.ly/gzsNgj
IDF spokesperson e-mails:
[email protected],
idf.deborahgrau@gmail .com
idfnewsdesk @gmail .com
idfnadesk@gmail. com
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idf.centcom@gmail. com
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http://bit.ly/iipebX