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12 sept 2012
US Ambassador Killed: Fingers Pointing at Israel
The murder of the US Ambassador to Libya John Christopher Stevens, due to riots after the offensive film attacking Islam’s Prophet Muhammad has many signs which warrant pointing fingers towards Israel. (Pic. Credit: AFP).
Without hesitation Israel declared through its official media that “Sam Bacile”, 56-year-old author identifies as an Israeli Jew, and he says that he believes that his film will help Israel to expose the flaws of Islam to the world.
At the same time official Israel is concealing information that filmmaker “Bacile” must have served with the Israeli army intelligence. In Hebrew media, “Bacile” presents himself as fluent in Arabic, what is to my knowledge almost exclusive to intelligence operatives in israel.
The media of the State of Israel stated that filmmaker “Bacile” went into hiding on Tuesday after his movie attacking Islam’s Prophet Muhammad sparked angry assaults by Muslims on US diplomatic missions in Egypt and in Libya, where the US Ambassador Chris Stevens became one of four Americans killed in the attack.
What the speaker did not state for foreign audiences was that Israeli zionist intelligence had protected the filmmaker since the beginning and that after having accomplished his mission. He is probably now back in his Israel enjoying full protection in Tel Aviv or Herzliya or somewhere else under a pseudonym.
There are suspicions that “Bacile”, now in Israel, carried a passport with another name. The elements of the Israeli zionist mossad and intelligence customarily carry several falsified passports under different nationalities and names. The suspicion that the film was made not by “Bacile” alone and on his own initiative, but that the whole thing was a premeditated operation of the Israeli zionist intelligence, designed to have exactly the effects it has had until now.
According to this website “the Libyan security forces hired to protect the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya moved Ambassador Chris Stevens to a second building within the consulate, then told the militant crowds where he was”. Libya has been essentially under the control of mossad since Gadhaffi was deposed by NATO-backed terrorists.
The attack on the consulate in Benghazi reminds us of the American-Israeli mossad agent Ilan Chaim Grappelli/Grapel, who was captured in Egypt during the revolution for inciting people to commit acts of violence.
Grapel was a war criminal who participated in the atrocities of the Lebanon “second war” in 2006, a former paratrooper who infiltrated the Egyptian revolutionaries and was causing trouble, inciting his acquaintances to perpetrate criminal acts against police stations and the military, spying on the military and the revolutionaries, photographing people and reporting to the Mossad, distributing money to some Egyptians and recruiting them to cause chaos, to steal and to sabotage public infrastructure in the country. Grapel had also been organizing a series of protest movements and preparing them to disobey orders of the military authorities after the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.
What Grapel did was the same scenario as in Benghazi, Libya. It is more than plausible that israeli elements had infiltrated the angry Libyan masses after showing them the film and incited them to shoot at the American embassy, where Ambassador Stevens and his team were killed. Such “false flag” attacks are the hallmark of mossad, which always play the same dirty games, putting oil on the fire, kindling hatred and inciting the unaware to perpetrate crimes.
Simply said, the offensive film made by an extremist zionist jew from the USA together with an Egyptian Copt served to kindle the flames of hatred in a region where restraint is almost unknown, preparing the terrain for “justifiable” violence.
The murder of the American Ambassador and three of his team was the logical consequence if one takes in account the guidance of the Libyan “security” team hired by the embassy. In sum, all well done, a plausibly deniable operation cooked up in the hellish kitchen of the Israeli intelligence, against their supposedly best friend and nearest ally.
According to what can be read, Ambassador Stevens had previously been a teacher in Morocco, he spoke fluent Arabic; he was very open towards the people and did not host racist prejudice against Arabs. Knowing the Israeli mentality, this may have been enough for him to become hated and ultimately marked as disposable at the zionist jewish-dominated US Department of State.
Another possible background for this operation, also from my knowledge of the Israeli zionist mentality, would be that they don’t know what to do to sow dissent in the Arab world since Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood won the elections in Egypt. This is strange because Morsi can be seen as a US/Western stooge who is ultimately favourable to Israel behind a facade designed to quiet his constituency.
Israel, the country which sickens everybody with their endless bellyaching about “anti-smetism” whenever their crimes are criticized, it is the same country which employs all its energy to think about ways to cause trouble and chaos for other countries and peoples.
The question is: what does israel think to do after this dirty game? It is becoming clear that israel has put this false-flag crime in scene as a cover of another big crime, or that that they want something from the Americans and will try to use this to twist their arm. What could it be that that they want? Is it the war against Iran or there is something else they want to force the USA to do? As of now, their dirty game would appear to have failed, as the whole event reeks of their participation.
Condemnation
We want to express our unqualified condemnation of the provocative film which insulted the religious feelings of Muslims all over the world. We also express our condemnation of the incident in which the American ambassador and three of his team were murdered in Benghazi / Libya at the hands of a group of extremists most probably infiltrated by Israeli operatives, an incident aimed at exploiting the natural anger of the people against such an anti-Islamic film. The anger of the people was misdirected and abused to provoke tragic bloodshed, which has nothing to do with freedom to express ones opinion. We demand that those who provoked and used this conflict be arrested and that they receive fair trials of law for what they did, and in the same way we demand that those who financed the unnecessary film published by “Bacile” be arrested and tried for their part in this atrocity.
US Ambassador Killed: Fingers Pointing at Israel
The murder of the US Ambassador to Libya John Christopher Stevens, due to riots after the offensive film attacking Islam’s Prophet Muhammad has many signs which warrant pointing fingers towards Israel. (Pic. Credit: AFP).
Without hesitation Israel declared through its official media that “Sam Bacile”, 56-year-old author identifies as an Israeli Jew, and he says that he believes that his film will help Israel to expose the flaws of Islam to the world.
At the same time official Israel is concealing information that filmmaker “Bacile” must have served with the Israeli army intelligence. In Hebrew media, “Bacile” presents himself as fluent in Arabic, what is to my knowledge almost exclusive to intelligence operatives in israel.
The media of the State of Israel stated that filmmaker “Bacile” went into hiding on Tuesday after his movie attacking Islam’s Prophet Muhammad sparked angry assaults by Muslims on US diplomatic missions in Egypt and in Libya, where the US Ambassador Chris Stevens became one of four Americans killed in the attack.
What the speaker did not state for foreign audiences was that Israeli zionist intelligence had protected the filmmaker since the beginning and that after having accomplished his mission. He is probably now back in his Israel enjoying full protection in Tel Aviv or Herzliya or somewhere else under a pseudonym.
There are suspicions that “Bacile”, now in Israel, carried a passport with another name. The elements of the Israeli zionist mossad and intelligence customarily carry several falsified passports under different nationalities and names. The suspicion that the film was made not by “Bacile” alone and on his own initiative, but that the whole thing was a premeditated operation of the Israeli zionist intelligence, designed to have exactly the effects it has had until now.
According to this website “the Libyan security forces hired to protect the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya moved Ambassador Chris Stevens to a second building within the consulate, then told the militant crowds where he was”. Libya has been essentially under the control of mossad since Gadhaffi was deposed by NATO-backed terrorists.
The attack on the consulate in Benghazi reminds us of the American-Israeli mossad agent Ilan Chaim Grappelli/Grapel, who was captured in Egypt during the revolution for inciting people to commit acts of violence.
Grapel was a war criminal who participated in the atrocities of the Lebanon “second war” in 2006, a former paratrooper who infiltrated the Egyptian revolutionaries and was causing trouble, inciting his acquaintances to perpetrate criminal acts against police stations and the military, spying on the military and the revolutionaries, photographing people and reporting to the Mossad, distributing money to some Egyptians and recruiting them to cause chaos, to steal and to sabotage public infrastructure in the country. Grapel had also been organizing a series of protest movements and preparing them to disobey orders of the military authorities after the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.
What Grapel did was the same scenario as in Benghazi, Libya. It is more than plausible that israeli elements had infiltrated the angry Libyan masses after showing them the film and incited them to shoot at the American embassy, where Ambassador Stevens and his team were killed. Such “false flag” attacks are the hallmark of mossad, which always play the same dirty games, putting oil on the fire, kindling hatred and inciting the unaware to perpetrate crimes.
Simply said, the offensive film made by an extremist zionist jew from the USA together with an Egyptian Copt served to kindle the flames of hatred in a region where restraint is almost unknown, preparing the terrain for “justifiable” violence.
The murder of the American Ambassador and three of his team was the logical consequence if one takes in account the guidance of the Libyan “security” team hired by the embassy. In sum, all well done, a plausibly deniable operation cooked up in the hellish kitchen of the Israeli intelligence, against their supposedly best friend and nearest ally.
According to what can be read, Ambassador Stevens had previously been a teacher in Morocco, he spoke fluent Arabic; he was very open towards the people and did not host racist prejudice against Arabs. Knowing the Israeli mentality, this may have been enough for him to become hated and ultimately marked as disposable at the zionist jewish-dominated US Department of State.
Another possible background for this operation, also from my knowledge of the Israeli zionist mentality, would be that they don’t know what to do to sow dissent in the Arab world since Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood won the elections in Egypt. This is strange because Morsi can be seen as a US/Western stooge who is ultimately favourable to Israel behind a facade designed to quiet his constituency.
Israel, the country which sickens everybody with their endless bellyaching about “anti-smetism” whenever their crimes are criticized, it is the same country which employs all its energy to think about ways to cause trouble and chaos for other countries and peoples.
The question is: what does israel think to do after this dirty game? It is becoming clear that israel has put this false-flag crime in scene as a cover of another big crime, or that that they want something from the Americans and will try to use this to twist their arm. What could it be that that they want? Is it the war against Iran or there is something else they want to force the USA to do? As of now, their dirty game would appear to have failed, as the whole event reeks of their participation.
Condemnation
We want to express our unqualified condemnation of the provocative film which insulted the religious feelings of Muslims all over the world. We also express our condemnation of the incident in which the American ambassador and three of his team were murdered in Benghazi / Libya at the hands of a group of extremists most probably infiltrated by Israeli operatives, an incident aimed at exploiting the natural anger of the people against such an anti-Islamic film. The anger of the people was misdirected and abused to provoke tragic bloodshed, which has nothing to do with freedom to express ones opinion. We demand that those who provoked and used this conflict be arrested and that they receive fair trials of law for what they did, and in the same way we demand that those who financed the unnecessary film published by “Bacile” be arrested and tried for their part in this atrocity.
- 8 juni 2012
Palestinian Minister Rapes Child in Tel Aviv?
A Palestinian family from Ramallah recently demanded that President Mahmoud Abbas punish his so-called Civil Affairs Minister, Mr. Hussein Al-Sheikh, who they say raped their minor daughter. Minister Al-Sheikh bamboozled the girls’s family and convinced them to accompany him on a journey of recreation to the shores of Tel Aviv, where he raped the girl. The immoral behavior of the minister has caused the understandable resentment and anger of her family, which lives in conservative Palestinian society where girls and women are “punished” with death for even being looked at, what is called “honor killings”.
Minister Al-Sheikh tried to bribe the victim’s family by paying US$ 65 thousand dollars in return for silence, but the family refused the money and insisted to go to President Abbas, who promised to punish the offender. The promise of the President Abbas did not get out from behind the closed doors of the meeting, and the rogue “Minister” Al-Sheikh is still in his position and enjoys impunity. After the incident with the girl, Al-Sheikh raped another woman, this time a married woman. Her husband filed a criminal complaint against the Minister, but the rapist Minister Al-Sheikh remains free.
Minister, Rapist, Criminal. Psychopath?
Palestinian Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad, who receives massive support from USA and EU, covers up these rapes and other horrors perpetrated by his Minister Al-Sheikh. Fayyad also covers up the corruption of his “Minister of Foreign Affairs”, Dr. Riyad Al-Maliki, who embezzled the whole budget of the Ministry for his own pocket and failed to fulfill any of the duties of his position as a minister. From the Cabinet of Fayyad wafts an especially rotten smell, not only because Fayyad is imposed by the US and CIA elements, but also because of widespread ans systemic corruption. It is otherwise not understandable why Fayyad protects the crimes of his Ministers, either it is corruption what unites them, or it is the diktat from the US which wants these criminals to stay in power, because in Palestine nobody wants them.
Minister Al-Sheikh was already known to have raped a number of beautiful Palestinian girls before these lat outrages. He uses his positions to lure young women and girls and then rape them with impunity. Among the girls whom he had raped earlier are several Christian girls. The position of “Minister of Civil Affairs” means that he is the Minister in charge of contact with the Israeli military administration in order to obtain VIP cards for the important figures (fat cats) of the Palestinian authority, travel permits for students, workers, sick people, marrying couples, burial permissions etc.
Everything in Palestine needs a permission issued by the Israeli occupation, and this position and ministry is in charge of going to the israelis to lick arse to get the permissions necessary for society to be able to function. Even President Abbas and his diplomatic staff need travel permits from the Israeli military administration whenever they want to travel abroad or move between the PNA cantons in the occupied territories. As said, the last victim of this Minister is a married woman from Ramallah. Her husband presented a criminal complaint to the Office of President Abbas, but Abbas, another kindred spirit of the israelis, is covering up the crimes of Al-Sheikh.
According to my knowledge Israel nominates the Palestinian Ministers who deal with their military officers, and not the Palestinian Authority. The PNA only offers up a list of names, from which their “security” system, Mossad, Shabak, military intelligence, choose the persons who they want. Al-Sheikh, the current Palestinian Minister of “Civil Affairs”, does not “deal” with an Israeli minister but sits in Beit-Il in the office of some IDF officer (or even a simple soldier) whenever he needs an ID or a travel permit for any Palestinian, and receives (or not) what he comes to ask for, plus orders.
Minister Al-Sheikh has built good relationship with the Israelis since before being a minister because he is a native speaker of Hebrew. Another important factor why Minister al-Sheikh is in his position, is because the israelis, who know of his criminal inclinations, want him there exactly because of that – and this is a recurring theme which can be observed everywhere: the israelis only allow criminals and corrupt people anywhere near them – obviously a deep understanding amond kindred spirits.
In the occupied Palestinian territories, the old Jordanian and Egyptian laws which were issued before 1967 are still being implemented at courts of justice despite nobody wanting them and many efforts to replace them. These inhuman old laws protect rapists of women and minor girls discriminate between men and women. Under these laws, the girls who are subject to rape and are over the age of 15 have no rights, because these laws deal with them not as victims, but as if they had consented to the rape. These inhuman laws were introduced in the Middle East by the French many decades ago and later copied by the Jordanians, before 1967.
Beyond these disgusting laws, the Palestinian Authority and the political fat cats systematically cover up rape, incest and honor killings. A number of PA figures perpetrate such crimes as a pastime and assault women working at their offices. When anyone from the PA or political figures hear about such a problem of rape and sexual abuse, the criminals are not prosecuted. In addition to this, whenever the crime submitted to the court of justice, light sentences are issued against the offender in order to protect them from further prosecution.
Under this criminal regime, the Palestinian community is faced with an increase of “honor killing” of girls and women because of the increase of sexual crimes perpetrated by PA figures who know they remain impune. The PA ignores this issues and responds to it with increasingly brutal suppression against the nation, imposing its power and control by arresting not only the political opposition but anybody who dares to speak out about their crimes.
In more than one case of rape and honor killing, President Abbas and his ministers promised to change the family laws in Palestine to reflect the will of the people and implement justice and equality for women. Actually, he changed several laws which serve the military, his interest and power, but under the laws which concerns the Palestinian family, women are still the subhumans. The promises of Abbas have remained in place because he fears that changing the laws will negatively his ministers, officers, senior officials and employees in power who use the impunity in law and among their peers continue to rape women and harass girls and workers sexually.
The EU finances this disgusting state of affairs with at least EUR 300 Million annually, between direct cash gifts to the PA and moneys given to many people and organizations within who enjoy the rents of nepotism of the PA.
The information on which this is based article was originally published in Palestinian online media, among others Al-Mustaqbal newspaper.
http://fwd4.me/12kC 20 apr 2011, 19:43 , Respect -
Maria 10 juni 2012
For University Students, Jericho Is Now Guantanamo
Jericho jail
The Palestinian National Authority “security forces” (PNA militias) working under the command of USA representative Lt. Gen. Michael Moeller arrested of a number of students of the Birzeit, Hebron and Nablus Universities and the Technical Institute (College of Engineering) in Hebron, they also re-arrested a number of the prisoners released from the Israeli jails, academics and political activists on the wake of their participation in peaceful marches in solidarity with prisoners on hunger strike interned at the prisons of the zionist occupation last Saturday, June 2 2012.
Abed Al-Man, the brother of Zakaria Al-Zubaidi, a Fatah Figure and former leader of Al-Aqsa brigades who was recently jailed by the PNA, described Jericho: “Jericho has become Guantanamo” referring to the US military prison camp at Guantanamo in Cuba, where the United States holds people suspected of being from Al-Qaeda for years without trial. Al-Man added “the idea is to terrorize us. The jewish colonists smash the windows of our cars all the time and then the PNA militias come here, not to protect us Palestinians from the attacks, but to protect the colonists and to arrest and transfer our children to the Jericho jail under the control of the US Gen. Moeller. This is a policy of direct force against us”.
Lt. Gen. Michael Moeller
Anger, depression, complaints and alert dominates the city of Jenin because due to this latest “security campaign” of the PNA against the steadfast Palestinians in the face of the jewish colonists. While these jewish colonists are outlaws and criminals, the traitorous PNA elements accuse us Palestinians of exactly. This is the real tragedy currently happening in Jenin.
According to my sources, the PA has re-arrested, for no reason at all, dozens of the prisoners who were released during the freedom and exchange of prisoners which took place between Israel and Hamas under the Egyptian coordination on past October of 2011. The PNA militias also damaged the property and homes of the ex-detainees while re-arresting them, terrorized their children and families in the same was as happened to the same families during the raids and abduction operations of the jewish occupation.
The same sources stated that the PNA systematically tortures the detainees at its prisons. The PNA does not allow the Red Cross and other human rights organizations to visit the detainees during their detention. The “human rights organizations” working under PNA control in the occupied territories claim that their duties are ONLY to document the Israeli violations of human rights. This is not true. What happens is that they are not allowed to document the PNA atrocities and are afraid to report about the PNA violations of human rights. The price they would incur for exposing the PNA would be to have their organizations closed and their funding, which they receive from zionist-friendly organizations in western countries, disappear.
Among what these PAN-controlled “human rights organizations” did not report was that two detainees, Musab al-Bani Fadel and Rafat Shallaldah Joseph, aged 26, who were subjected to torture, severe beatings and deprivation of sleep, were transferred to a hospital for medical treatment as a result of torture and continued hanging in stress positions. The PNA continues chasing a number of other detainees who were previously released the Israeli prisons and are still free.
These inhuman operations of the PNA are part of the so-called “security coordination” with the occupation of the “state” of Israel, actually not a state but an international criminal organization. The PNA “security” bodies even refuse to release Palestinian detainees who receive judicial court sentences of immediate release.
The arrest and terror campaign implemented by PNA against academics and politicians is called by the PNA “campaign of smiles and hope”. The terrorist operation launched by the PNA “security forces” is run by US Gen. Moeller, who sits in Tel Aviv and has offices at the PA headquarter in Nablus and Jericho. It must be explained that the “PNA security forces” are actually militias of Arabs and Palestinian dregs commanded by Gen. Moeller. He controls these goons, not the PNA criminals. So this USA “security coordinator” mission to the PA is part of secret annexes and agreements signed by the PNA for money.
The PNA will not release further details about its secret agreements to the Palestinian public. The current Moeller-organized campaign of abduction of Palestinian intellectuals is carried out by over 2000 elements of the Presidential Guard and Special Forces of “terrorism combat” of PNA. These forces were all trained in USA, Israel, Jordan and Jericho under the auspices of US and European israel fetishists and criminals.
The Palestinian Authority claims that the implementation of this “security operation” in the occupied West Bank, the so-called “campaign of smile and hope”, aims to “eliminate armed gangs and arrest law breakers”. The facts are that the PNA allegations are false, they are simply lies. There are no criminals among those abducted. The real criminals, armed gangs and law breaker are the PA and the Moeller-controlled militias. The campaign of arrests has affected academics, doctors, engineers, university students and even members of the Palestinian security forces and police, along with elements of the Palestinian resistance with connections to Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Not one of the detainees has anything to do with crimes of any kind as the PNA claims. The PNA elements are just sellout, dictators, collaborators and puppets of US-Israel and Westerns intelligence systems.
The PNA is implementing an American-Israeli plan called “Iron Fist” to suppress all opposition to the Israeli occupation and to take full control and power over the occupied West Bank. The “security plan smile and hope” was initiated by the previous occupier US General Keith Dayton on April 15 2008. The plan was stopped for a while during the past two years and was now revived under the current occupier Gen. Moeller, following the death of the governor of Jenin, Musa Kaddoura, who was shot to death by the resistance for collaboration (the PNA wants everybody to believe that he died of three heart attacks after shooting outside his home). Musa is widely reviled among Palestinians as the worst traitor and sellout associated with the so-called “normalization” with the zionist colonists at the squatter colony of Gilboa. He was linked to the worst projects of collaboration with the colonists of the West Bank known as “Jenin – Gilboa”, which meant expropriation of vast tracts of land in favor of the zionists.
The PNA receives an estimated half a billion dollars in annual “aid” from the United States, aid which is focused on the “security” sector, arming, rehabilitation and training of the PNA militias controlled by General Moeller. The lucre of US investment funds in the West Bank goes directly to the US through contracts given to American companies which have branches in Palestine. Little of the US funds goes to finance the PNA budget deficit and into the deteriorated economy of Palestine. The Palestinian unemployment in the occupied West Bank is over 70% and on top of this the PNA imposes draconian taxes upon small workshops and the subsistence labour of the beggared people who do not know how feed their families.
The mission of the PNA militia is to suppress the Palestinian people, to prevent demonstrations against the PNA, to protect the zionist colonists, to arrest the opposition by use of the methods of dictatorial regimes.
The US regime imposed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the Palestinian people even before the death under suspicious circumstances of the late President Yasser Arafat. The US also imposed “Prime Minister” Salam Fayyad on us, together with the so-called “chief negotiator” Saeb Erekat. These US-imposed elements are all seen as traitors in Palestine. They remain in their positions ONLY because of massive inflow of US funds and brutal violence against the people.
14 aug 2012, 19:51 , Respect -
Maria 30 juli 2012
Israeli Intelligence Escalates Blackmail and Detention of Palestinian Patients
Physicians for Human Rights – Israel – The Israeli intelligence are continuing their policy of blackmailing patients and using the Gaza Strip’s border crossings, over which they exercise absolute control, to arrest Palestinians compelled by humanitarian needs to travel through them. Hence on Sunday, 15 July 2012, the Israeli forces arrested a patient at Erez crossing, after they had called him on a previous occasion for an interview.
According to the information available to the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, on Sunday 15 July 2012, the IOF arrested Rawhi Fouad Qazaz, 43, after he left his house heading for the crossing in the morning hours on Sunday to attend an interview with the Israeli intelligence apparatus, with the aim of obtaining medical treatment at Makassed Charitable Hospital in East Jerusalem. Qazaz suffers from a disorder in the cartilage (meniscus) of his knees). He is married with three children.
According to field investigations, he received a referral from the Palestinian Directorate of Medical Services on 31 May 2012, and obtained an appointment for 6 June 2012 at Al Makassed Charitable Hospital in Jerusalem. He submitted an application to the Office of Health Coordination, which is responsible for arranging Gazan patients’ passage through Erez crossing, on 31 May 2012. He did not receive a reply.
On 12 July 2012 Qazaz received a call from this office telling him to go to the crossing for an interview with the Israeli Intelligence Agency (ISA). In the morning hours on Sunday, he went to the crossing and did not return. At approximately 6:00 pm on the same day, a man introducing himself as from the ISA called Qazaz’s relatives and informed them that Qazaz was being detained at Ashkelon prison for interrogation. He was still in detention as this press release was being published.
The occupation authorities have continued this policy despite a campaign of international condemnation. Reports by the World Health Organization for the period 1 January 2012 – 30 May 2012 state that occupation authorities rejected applications for medical travel from 38 patients, including 14 women, and did not provide a timely response to 199 patients, including 89 women. The number of patients attending interviews with Israeli intelligence at Erez crossing came to 91, 53 of them men and 38 women.
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and Physicians for Human Rights – Israel express their strong condemnation of the detention of Qazaz, a medical patient. They see in this incident a continuation of Israel’s policy of extortion of Palestinian patients and exploitation of their medical suffering, in an abuse which makes clear the extent to which Israel exempts itself from its legal commitments under the rules of international humanitarian law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention. The two organizations also warn of Israeli’s escalation of this policy of extortion. This is the third such case since the beginning of July: during the month to date, the IOF has arrested one patient and a patient escort in two separate incidents.
The two organizations demand that the occupation forces guarantee the patient’s medical treatment. They call on the international community to promptly and effectively intervene to halt Israel’s grave and systematic violations of the rules of international humanitarian law and human rights standards in general, and the right to health in particular.
14 aug 2012, 19:52 , Respect -
Maria 31 juli 2012
EU Critical of Israel’s Human Rights Violations While Strengthening Economic Cooperation
Friday, 27 July 2012, in a statement issued by the EU-Israel Association Council, the EU-Israel Association Council (EU) sharply criticized Israel for a wide range of human rights violations in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT).
Adalah, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I) and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) welcome language in the statement calling for rectification of human rights violations in Israel and the OPT. Among other issues, the statement refers to Israel’s obligation to protect the rights of the Arab-Palestinian minority, stressing the “importance to address it as a core problem in its own right,” and to seek equitable and sustainable solutions with regard to the unrecognized Arab Bedouin villages in close consultation with the communities affected.
Additionally, the statement reiterates EU support for human rights defenders as a “long-established element of the European Union’s human rights external relations policy;” condemns the “excessive recourse by Israel to administrative detention;” and urges Israel “to refrain from actions which may…curtail the freedom of association and freedom of speech [of civil society].” With these statements, as well as its condemnation of Israeli practices in the OPT, the EU has made clear its concern for ongoing human rights violations by the Israeli government.
However, despite recognition of these violations by the EU, the Association Council Statement also indicates that the EU will significantly enhance joint economic activities with Israel: 60 concrete activities in over 15 specific fields.
In the view of the human rights organizations, Adalah, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I) and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI):
“While it is crucial that the EU continue to raise concerns about human rights violations by the Israeli government, the EU statement demonstrates an alarming inconsistency between practice and rhetoric, and we fear that it may only promote additional impunity. The EU has offered Israel improved economic and strengthened bilateral relations, while at the same time expressing strong concern about the deteriorating situation of human rights in Israel and the OPT.
The principles of human rights, deep democracy, and international law are essential for maintaining a coherent EU external relations policy. Mainstreaming these principles in EU-Israel relations and concrete improvements in Israel’s human rights conduct on the groundmuststeerany enhancement of its trade relations with Israel.”
EMHRN-APRODEV Statement ahead of the EU-Israel Association Council Meeting
14 aug 2012, 19:52 , Respect -
Maria 6 aug 2012
Palestinian Officials Pilgrimage to the Auschwitz
I have not heard, ever, that one zionist representative of the Israeli government had laid flowers at Deir Yassin-, Qibya, Kafr Qasem, Dawaymeh, Beit Daras and other towns where zionist jews massacred the Palestinians in 1948 and later, or that they ever visited a Palestinian refugee camp and listened to the explanatins of their victims about the awful reality of living in the exile over 64 years since the Nakbah.
I never heared from any jew even one word of shame for what they did to us or any word asking for forgiveness for their crimes against us. All what I ever heard from jews about the Nakba is that the zionist knesset passed a new Nakba Law that denies the Nakba, hides it, forbids remembering it or thinking or learning anything about it. The knesset actually passed a law that punishes public institutions for any reference to the Israeli occupation of Palestine in 1948 as a catastrophe or “Nakbah”. (Click on pictures to enlarge them).
Contrary to that, I heardoften that so-called “PA” representatives and “ambassadors” visit to the former Nazi camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, so often that I thought that Poland has become a place of pilgrimage for the “Palestinian Authority”, who obviously know on which side their bread is buttered.
I refuse to talk about this history or discuss the draconian European prohibition laws which are surrounding it, but as a Palestinian I strongly reject that Palestinians, or worse even, PA elements visit Auschwitz and assent to this foraneous “tradition” to be imposed on us as Palestinians or to give these stories abeyance in our names. Such PA elements, who claim that they represent us Palestinians, are mostly people whose name nobody had heard before they decided to shame themselves. Therefore, they are a mafia who ONLY represent themselves, their wives and their dirty business making lucre on top of the Palestinian destitution with Israel and a number of intelligence services around the world.
Last July 27, 2012, Ziad Al-Bandak, an adviser to illegitimate Palestinian “President” Mahmoud Abbas visited the Auschwitz camp and laid flowers at a so-called “death wall” and lit a candle at the monument to the camp.
Bandak is one of the biggest Christian fat cats in Palestine who is best known because he knows very well how to suck the blood of Palestinians and steal their salaries at his many private companies. This is the reality of Bandak since before the return of the PLO elements to the occupied territories. I once interviewed Al Bandak at the end of the ninety-eighties. His factory was surrounding by high walls like a castle, several wild dogs were barking at the entrance. He was very generous with – he did not even offer me a cup of coffee while he slurped down his cup during the interview.
Bandak fits well into the Abbas gang, who all seems to have in common being called gangsters and having made their fortunes by treason or otherwise on the back on the Palestinians. The Bandak family owns half of Bethlehem, it is enough for anyone to make a tour in Bethlehem holy city to see the Bandak wealth. Bandak Grand Hotel, Bandak Marble Company, Bandak Furniture Company, Bandak Electromechanical Engineering Co. Ltd.
[Ziad Al-Bandak is an engineer who grew up in Jordan, studied at Germany universities and served as a minister in several Palestinian governments. He served as Minister of Tourism and Antiquities from February 2005 until March 2006. In 2007, he was appointed not only as chairman of the Presidential Committee for Christian Affairs – an advisory body for President Mahmoud Abbas – but also as Minister of Local Government, as part of the 12th Palestinian government led by Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad. Before that he was deputy of the mayor of Bethlehem].
It must be remembered that self-styled “President” Abbas himself has no legitimacy whatsoever. On 9 January 2009, Abbas presidency legally expired according to the constitution, but, as the US-propped-up tin-pot dictator which he is, he holds fast to his title of “president” by force of the militias and death squads around him, which are actually US- and israeli controlled, and by the power to suborn “political allies” which US and Western funds gives him, money funneled to him under the name of “donations” which are supposedly to be used for “humanitarian aid”.
On Sunday October 21 2007, Israeli Ambassador to Poland David Peleg, and the Palestinian representative of Abbas, Khaled Naef Ghazal Soufan, visited the camp of Auschwitz and spent an incredible three hours at the venue in a “joint act of reflection on the holocaust”.
Ghazal, who initiated the visit, said: “I just wanted to express my deep solidarity with the victims of fascism and the crimes (against) the Jewish people and humanity at large,” Ghazal said. “I think the lesson learned from this project motivated us to work for creating peace in the Middle East”. Source: AP /Safsaf
Never did Peleg or any other israeli Ambassadors participate in a commemoration of the Nakba, which is a purely jewish crime perpetrated Israel and which includes not only the atrocities of 1948, but a never ending stream of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, crime against humanity, genocide, mass murder, torture, “medicinal” experiments on prisoners and many other assorted morsels of horror during the last 64 years, expelling the Palestinians from their own homeland in order to establish their zionist “state” of israel on the ruins of ethnically cleansed and destroyed Palestinian cities, and towns.
Palestinian students visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jeruzalem
During Ghazal’s visit to Ausschwitz he said, while his shameful tears fell: “I just wanted to express$$ my deep solidarity with the victims of fascism and crimes against the jewish people and all mankind”. Ghazal was an element of the Israeli Embassy in Poland. He attended as several parties at the zionists embassy as guest. He held a farewell party for his colleague Israeli ambassador Peleg before leaving in post in Poland.
He added: “I think this le$$on motivates us to work for peace in the Middle East”. Following Ghazals wishes, many tons of explosives, phosphor bombs forbidden chemicals were dropped on Gaza where over 1500 Palestinians were killed and thousands injured during the so-called “Operation Cast Lead”, a real crime against humanity, an abject crimes of war.
“Ambassador” Ghazal and minister Al-Bandak had obviously forgotten during their apparently pecuniary auspicious visit to Auschwitz that we the Palestinian people are the last victims of the holocaust, that we the Palestinian people are the victims of fascism and uncounted crimes by the jewish people.
It should be noted that ambassador Ghazal was the right arm of the Palestinian israeli intelligence agent Mohammad Dahan. Theywere both fired by President Mahmoud Abbas last year.
...Read more 14 aug 2012, 20:03 , Respect -
Maria 6 aug 2012
Holocaust Industry and PA Propaganda
It is not enough that the zionists use their holocaust industry to suck the wealth of the world, get 6 sub-marines they received from Germany, get billions from here and there, weapons, commercial relation with the EU which favor israel to the great detriment of EU countries, signing dozens of industry, military, tourism etc. agreements as always only favor israel to the great detriment of its “partners” and which turn the western world and the rest of the community of nations into slaves of israel, but now we find that our crazy psychopaths from the PA, dozens of the traitors complicit to the israeli crimes, have found taste in the holocaust industry while denying the Palestinian genocide at the hands of the jews.
Their dirty job is to be enforcers protecting israeli colonialism while covering the israeli genocide, the israeli crimes against humanity and the israeli war crime by visiting Auschwitz, crying holocaust, laying flowers and lighting candles at Auschwitz.
It seems to be that there would be such conditions that force certain Palestinians to behave as slaves, making pilgrimage to the Auschwitz, crying, nay, screeching holocaust day and night in order to receive some billions from here and a couple of millions from there. Dirty jobs and dirty duties have always been fit for slaves such as these whoring PA fat cats. Funds from the western countries, the EU, USA and its allied Arab countries are the 30 silver coins for the services of these traitors and spies.
Salah Abed el-Shafi, a representative of Abbas to Berlin since 2010 said last 25 June 2012 that Abbas had instructed diplomats to attend commemorations of the holocaust. Abed el-Shafi said, weeping like a paid mourner: “The holocaust is the worst crime in the history of human kind, and we must teach generation upon generation about the holocaust as a terrible event that must never repeat itself. The holocaust is a human tragedy. The jews were the major victim of the Holocaust, but the Gypsies, homosexuals and communists were also victims”, adding that the holocaust is not connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that such a connection should not be made. He said: “We, as Palestinians, must view the holocaust as a human tragedy”.
Abbas abject representative Abed el-Shafi conveniently appears to know nothing about the many massacres in Palestinian history, contrary to his respected father, Haider Abed el-shafi, a well know Palestinian figure from Gaza who was against the corrupted PA. Abed el-Shafi the son conveniently forgot Deir Yassin, Qibya, Kafr Qasem, Dawaymeh, Beit Daras, Saforia, Nahhalin and many other , he forget the latest war crimes and massacres perpetrated by his jewish zionists friends in his own homeland Gaza, while Gazans are forced to live under inhuman conditions and their home has turned into a concentration camp by his jewish zionist friends.
The son of Abed El-Shafi lives in luxury in Berlin and only knows talk about dollars as a former employee at the World Bank, he has learnt well to cry crocodile tears for the holocaust as a representative of Abbas. What the Abed El-Shafi duo does not know or care about is this: we Palestinians are the last real victims of the holocaust. The jews invaded Palestine supposedly because of the holocaust perpetrated in Europe. We have spent decades living a miserable life under the occupation as a result of the European holocaust which Abed el-Shafi and other traitors are crying about day and night.
Abed El-Shafi stated that he also visited the Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald camps. He actually cried that he was never invited to one of the ceremonies that are held yearly in Germany to commemorate the holocaust. He added: “If they would invite me, I would attend.”
I think never any jew cried that he was not invited to a ceremony commemorating the Nakba, which has been turned into parties of dancing and singing under the criminal PA.
Abed el-Shafi and the other Palestinian “representatives” are only agents of the PA conspiracy to destroy Palestine, they live of the illusory power made given to them by US-israeli-western intelligence coalition to protect the zionist jews and their crimes, to end the intifada, to jail any resistance elements and to brainwash the Palestinians in exchange of some billions to build their own interests. That is the real reason why these prostitutes cry the holocaust and visiting Auschwitz like paid mourners
Abed El-Shafi managed to bumble and expose how little the zionists respect him and Abbas and the whole PA while sucking up to his zionist “friend$”, who respect them as little as the average Palestinian, but for other reasons. Instead of shutting up, he tried to soften the fact that the German jews told him to get lost when he tried to brown-nose them. Quote: “the Jewish leadership in Germany has not shown much excitement at the prospect of meeting me and President Abbas”.
Shame on you Salah Abed el-Shafi, you are incompetent. You and your partners in crime should know that the people love treason, but seldom love traitors.
President Abbas had better luck in Vienna last year. He met with jews at Kreisky Forum, who demanded among other things that he admit the rights of a “minority” of jews in the West Bank. They meant by “minority” the violent and often deranged squatting jews who are mostly from the EU and the USA. Abbas also met with jewish extremist leaders in the United States over a year ago, and he also met with his money-givers of the jewish community in Paris and other countries.
14 aug 2012, 20:16 , Respect -
Maria 9 aug 2012
EU Mission Heads visit Communities facing Ethnic Cleansing in Hebron
A group of European Union Heads of Mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah visited today communities facing the threat of demolition and displacement in the Southern Hebron Hills. The objective of this field trip was to gain a first-hand impression of developments in the area, to demonstrate concern at the humanitarian impact of any house demolitions and forced transfer of population, and to express the EU’s commitment to a sustainable future for the Palestinian communities in Area C. During the visit, the group met with Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad at Mufaqara village who briefed them about the PA efforts and work to support the people of this area.
The group started its visit at Jinba community where it met representatives from several communities in Area C and were briefed on recent developments in the Southern Hebron Hills, including the proceedings in the Israeli High Court with regard to communities situated in the designated “Firing Zone 918”.
The intention by the Israeli Ministry of Defence to prohibit permanent residence in the firing zone and thus to evacuate 8 communities (al-Majaz, a-Tabban, a- Sfay, al-Fakhit, al-Halaweh, al-Mirkez, Jinba, and al-Kharuba, all of which have been in existence from before the Firing Zone was declared) would – if upheld by the High Court of Justice – entail the forced transfer of up to 1800 people, contrary to Israel’s obligations as the Occupying Power.
The designation of the area as a live firing zone would thus reduce further the opportunities for Palestinian communities to live and work in Area C and reduce further any potential of economic and social development for the Palestinians in this area of the occupied Palestinian territory. Later on, the group met Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad, at Mufaqarah village. The group reaffirmed to the Prime Minister the strong commitment of the EU for the well being of the Palestinian people in Area C, and particularly those communities under the threat of demolition in the South Hebron Hills.
In the Council Conclusions on the Middle East Peace Process of 14 May 2012, the EU recalled the applicability of international humanitarian law in the occupied Palestinian territory, including the applicability of the fourth Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilians. The EU calls upon Israel to meet its obligations regarding the living conditions of the Palestinian population in Area C, by a policy shift entailing accelerated approval of Palestinian master plans, halting forced transfer of population and demolition of Palestinian housing and infrastructure, simplifying administrative procedures to obtain building permits, ensuring access to water and addressing humanitarian needs. Social and economic developments in Area C are of critical importance for the viability of the future Palestinian state since Area C is its main land reserve.
The EU and its Member States will continue to provide financial assistance for Palestinian development in Area C and expects such investment to be protected for future use. The EU will continue to engage with the Government of Israel to work out improved mechanisms for the implementation of the donor funded projects for the benefit of the Palestinian population in Area C.
Shootout at the Prime Minister's Compound In Ramallah
Ramallah – Kawther Salam – The Palestinian “Prime Minister” Dr. Salam Fayyad and the “President” Mahmoud Abbas have both targeted the Palestinian resistance and the opposition to their power in coordination with the Israeli and US intelligence, jailing and torturing dozens of politician figures, university students, doctors and engineers from Fatah, Hamas and other parties.
Recently the PA murdered a famous Palestinian military figure, Osama Aqel Mansour at the headquarters of the military intelligence.
Aqel was murdered because he knew which elements of the PA were involved in selling several buildings and lands of Palestinian property to the Israeli occupation in Jerusalem and the West Bank. He was was thrown from a window of the military intelligence court just before giving testimony about the names of PA criminal elements.
On last Saturday, August 4 2012, the PA jailers murdered another prisoner, Raed Mahmoud Deeb, 49 years old, at the “Tulkarem center of reform and rehabilitation” (a jail). The criminal acts of the PA have immensely worsened the situation in the West Bank and created huge anger among all Palestinians
Wednesday August 8 2012 – Eyewitnesses reported an exchange of fire between PA police and unknown assailants at Dr. Salam Fayyad’s compound in Ramallah yesterday, but there were no reports of injuries according to the eyewitnesses. PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad was not in his compound during the shooting. He was touring in southern West Bank towns near Hebron
According to the Palestinian eyewitnesses, the exchange of gunfire in the Ramallah lasted around a minute. The Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds said that there had been no casualties. A few minutes after the incident began police were deployed in force, scouring the area for shell casings.
The Al-Quds newspaper reported about the exchange of fire yesterday night. The newspaper posted a picture of the Palestinian Special Forces around the Fayyad compound, but today morning the newspaper deleted the news about the shooting from its website.
According to Reuters, the Palestinian Authority officials declined to comment, citing the sensitivity of the incident, and there was no immediate indication of who was behind the attack.
The shooting occurred on a main thoroughfare clustered with modern government buildings under constant police guard.
Ramallah is the Palestinians’ administrative capital in the West Bank, under limited self-rule by the so-called Palestinian Authority, in territory Israel captured in the 1967 war, and for which Palestinians have long sought statehood.
The Palestinian Authority has launched a security crackdown in the West Bank in recent months, arresting scores of suspects in a security sweep that has sparked anger against PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah-led government.
The crackdown, led by elite presidential guards and the “counter-terrorism” unit, is seen as a determined bid by the Western-backed authority to regain control of key areas and smash armed elements that could challenge its power. Fayyad told Reuters in June 2012 that the operation would be broad-based and long lasting.
- 16 nov 2011
Where Are The EU Sanctions Against Israeli Crime?
While the European Union supports the continuity of the Zionist occupation in Palestine, turning a blind eye to the uncounted crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinian people, the representative of the EU Catherine Ashton, prancing around the middle east as if she was in a model show, continues to pressure the Palestinian Authority in the interest of the occupation, loading the crimes of the holocaust perpetrated in Europe against the jews on the shoulders of the Palestinians shoulders, in order to force them to accept useless negotiations with Israel and lengthening the age of occupation, to give up what remains of the Palestinian land to the zionist invaders.
At the same time, the EU continues to take punitive and restrictive measures against a number of prominent figures, diplomats and certain persons suspected of being close to the Syrian regime since before the outbreak of the Syrians revolution against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.
For example, on February 21 2006, The EU Council released Regulation No. 305/2006 imposing specific restrictive measures against certain persons suspected of involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
The double standards of the EU can be seen in these restrictive regulations, which have increased since outbreak of the revolution. The latest regulation, EU Reg. No. 442/2011, was issued yesterday 14 November 2011, “concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Syria against a new list of Syrians”.
Lawsuit Against The European Union
The famous Syrian lawyer Bassam Sabbagh who was mentioned in this latest EU sanction decree No. 442/2011, issued last Monday, stated that was is ready to file a lawsuit against the European Union because of the sanctions that were issued Monday and mentioned him as a supporter of the Syrian regime.
Sabbagh claimed that the source of information seems to be silly because the role of the lawyer is to defend his clients, and its illegal to prosecute a lawyer who enjoys immunity. He added that he was neither a lawyer nor financial advisor to Syrian businessman, Rami Makhlouf, a cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, what was apparently claimed by the EU.
Sabbagh is a well-known lawyer in the Syrian capital Damascus, who defends his clients from private, local and global companies. He said while speaking to the German Press Agency that “I categorically deny that I am a financial adviser to Mr. Rami Makhlouf, and thus I have no possibility of significant financial assistance to the Syrian regime as was stated in the texts of the EU sanctions”.
Sabbagh said: “It is quite clear that the side that stands behind this information is bankrupt because the list issued contains lots of fallacies. It is strange that such a Resolution based on inaccurate information is released by the European Union, before it has even verified the information. The EU must verify this information before the adoption of Resolutions”. Sabbagh stated that he would file a complaint against the EU, which punished him without any reason. He said: “I will file legal complaint before the international judicial court, because the EU does not have the right to deprive me of my legal immunity”.
The actions of the EU, adopting sanctions against Syria and Syrian citizens on the base of hearsay, must be contrasted with its stance towards Israel. The crimes and the genocidal intent of Israel against Palestinians are a widely known fact, yet there is no atrocity big enough to make the EU implement sanctions against israel. This attitude must change, and Ms. Ashton would do better to understand that implementing tough sanctions against israel, helping to capture and jail the many representatives of israel and their supporters in Europe whose participation in war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity is well documented, will do far more for her standing and credibility than prancing around like a teenager beauty queen aspirant.
Amendments to Council Regulation (EU) No 442/2011
Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1151/2011 of 14 November 2011 implementing Regulation (EU) No 442/2011 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Syria
Council Regulation (EU) No 1150/2011 of 14 November 2011 amending Regulation (EU) No 442/2011 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Syria
Council Regulation (EU) No 1011/2011 of 13 October 2011 amending Regulation (EU) No 442/2011 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Syria
Council Regulation (EU) No 950/2011 of 23 September 2011 amending Regulation (EU) No 442/2011 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Syria
Corrigendum to Council Regulation (EU) No 878/2011 of 2 September 2011 amending Regulation (EU) No 442/2011 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Syria
Council Regulation (EU) No 878/2011 of 2 September 2011 amending Regulation (EU) No 442/2011 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Syria
Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 843/2011 of 23 August 2011 implementing Regulation (EU) No 442/2011 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Syria
Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 755/2011 of 1 August implementing Regulation (EU) No 442/2011 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Syria
Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 504/2011 of 23 May 2011 implementing Regulation (EU) No 442/2011 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Syria
Corrigendum to Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 504/2011 of 23 May 2011 implementing Regulation (EU) No 442/2011 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Syria
Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 611/2011 of 23 June 2011 implementing Regulation (EU) No 442/2011 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Syria.
Council Regulation (EC) No 305/2006 of 21 February 2006 imposing specific restrictive measures against certain persons suspected of involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
http://fwd4.me/0hEX
4 apr 2011, 10:47 , Respect -
Maria 19 nov 2011
The Israeli Policies Amount To Apartheids
Sent by Al-Haq for Human Rights in Ramallah – Operating as a court of the people, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine held its third international session on 5-6 November 2011 in the symbolic city of Cape Town, South Africa.
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine addressed the question of whether Israel’s rule over the Palestinian people could be characterised as a regime of apartheid and found that the Palestinian people are subject to an institutionalised regime of domination.
Al-Haq welcomes the findings of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine as they represent an important step towards mobilising public opinion and putting pressure on decision makers with regard to Israeli practices against the Palestinian people in breach of the prohibition on apartheid.
Following the hearing, the third international session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine concluded that Israel subjection of the Palestinian people to an institutionalized regime of domination manifests itself in varying intensity and forms.
Despite distinguishing between Palestinians living under colonial military rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), who are subject to a particularly aggravated form of apartheid, and Palestinian citizens of Israel, systematically discriminated against across the broad spectrum of human rights, the Tribunal finds that Israel’s rule over the Palestinian people collectively amounts to an integrated regime of apartheid as defined under customary international law.
Prior to the South African session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, Al-Haq presented a written submission on the legal and administrative measures impacting residency rights and the freedom of movement of Palestinians in the OPT.
The testimony focussed on Israel’s institutionalized discriminatory policies that have resulted in the overarching fragmentation of the Palestinian population into sub-groups – West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. These divisions prevent Palestinians from participating in the political, social, economic and cultural life in the OPT, thus impeding their full development as a group.
On the second day of the Russell Tribunal, Al-Haq provided an oral testimony, highlighting the factual restrictions on Palestinians living in the OPT. Today, more than 580 obstacles, such as roadblocks, checkpoints, trenches and road gates, obstruct Palestinian movement within the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. In addition to these restrictions, Palestinians with West Bank IDs are prohibited from entering East Jerusalem without a permit from the Israeli authorities, which is virtually impossible to obtain.
Most of the movement restrictions imposed on Palestinians aim to privilege the over 500,000 Israeli settlers living in settlements established, in contravention of international humanitarian law, throughout the West Bank.
In addition, Al-Haq emphasised the discriminatory policies imposed on Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley, presenting a stark example of segregation between Palestinians and Jewish settlers. The area contains the land and water reserves of the West Bank, but a draconian matrix of Israeli military and administrative measures severely restricts Palestinian access to land and natural resources, including water.
Whereas the over 9,000 Israeli settlers living in the Jordan Valley enjoy uninterrupted water supply for their household consumption as well as large amounts of subsidised water for irrigation, Palestinians have no choice but to buy water, which costs up to 5 times the price paid by households connected to the water network.
All States have a legal obligation under international law to cooperate to bring an end to the illegal situation arising from Israel’s practices of apartheid. Al-Haq urges all States to effectively comply with their obligations under international law, including:
A by exercising pressure on Israel to put an end to the violations; and
B by refraining from recognizing or providing aid and assistance to Israel for its violations of international law.
Read this press release online
http://fwd4.me/0hF9 5 apr 2011, 10:08 , Respect -
Maria 25 mei 2012
A Cowardly Act Against My Mother Helped Discover A Crime
For some time, months, I did not receive calls from home, from my family in Palestine, so I called my Mam yesterday to see what is going on. What she told me was a shocking surprise, the kind of sick idea which only occur to psychopaths when they become scared as their crimes and their betrayals are exposed.
My Mam had been trying to call me for over a month and always my number was dead or she was redirected to a tape saying that this number “is not available”. She became worried and went to several relatives to ask they call me, and also there my number could not be reached. My Mam, who is well beyond the age of 80 years, became scared and started talking to acquaintances even in other cities to ask if they could call me, and for everybody my phone number was unreachable. My poor Mam became convinced that something must have happened to me, that perhaps I had died and nobody had been there to bring me to a decent grave, she went to my sisters, brothers, relatives and together they had been holding prayers and mourning for me.
I spoke to some people about this and found out that what had happened was that the PA, specifically the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology (PTIT), blocked my number so that nobody could call me from anywhere in Palestine. The PTIT, like the whole PA repressive apparatus, is near, geographically and in their hearts, to the israeli occupation administration in Beit Il. They have many motives to do such a thing. I suspect that one motive would be that the Israelis have now included me on one of their death lists, which they regularly hand over to, or compile together with their PA partners in crime to “work on”. Since the PA has no way of getting at me without embarrassing themselves, they did this to at least show their paymasters “good will”. Another probable reason for the PA doing this is because I have exposed many of their crimes to interested readers outside of Palestine.
Some other possible motives of the PA to block my phone number would be
1 – the PNA believes that blocking my number will prevent further contact between Palestinians in the West Bank and me and so limit the information about the reproachable activities of the PNA and its continuous violations of the human rights in occupied Palestine, which is fully under the power of the zionist colonists.
2 – I have filed several criminal complaints against occupation personnel for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the past. There would be pressure from the israelis on the PA to prevent such criminal complaints from being filed in the future, and the PA perhaps thinks that this is an appropriate way to implement the wishes of their employers in Tel Aviv, Brussels and Washington.
3 – Like all tyrants, the PA engages in reprehensible conduct against Palestinians who are not of the liking of their masters, and their record of human rights violations is long and sordid.
The PA regularly jails and tortures people for no reason at all. They re-arrest political prisoners released by the israelis, they have recycled the most disgusting practices of the israeli occupation, like using inhuman pre-1967 Jordanian laws in their corrupt judicial system and military courts to impose strict censorship to jail journalists for “opening their mouth”, to justify “honor”-killings of women and girl, to legalize forced incest, to de-facto relegate women to third-class humans and exclude them from all social- and political activity. Like all tyrants, the PA does this all for profit and for the joy of causing pain to others, but they hide their crimes because they know very well that what they do is deeply wrong. They “think” that by blocking my number they will prevent me or anybody else from speaking to Palestinians in the West bank and finding about their crimes.
I wrote yesterday to Dr. Salam Fayyad and Dr. Saeb Erekat from the PNA about this issue, their reaction was swift and the issue was solved. I told Dr. Fayyad that if they have a problem with what I write they can come to me, but that this is no way of solving problems.
From: K Salam <kawther_salam [at] yahoo [dot] com>
To: “diwan [at] pmo [dot] gov [dot] ps” <diwan [at] pmo [dot] gov [dot] ps>, info [at] levant [dot] ps
Sent: Friday, 25 May 2012, 2:08
Subject: Letter to Minister Salam Fayyad
Dear Minster Dr. Salam Fayyad,
I just notified that your excellency respect the journalists and the freedom of expressions. And since I live in Austria where the rights of journalists are privileged, I want to call your attention that the Palestinian Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology (MTIT) has blocked my handy number (deleted) in the West Bank so that nobody can call me from anywhere in Palestine.
My handy number was blocked by the MTIT on the ground of writing criticism against PA officials. As a Palestinian journalist, a political activist with the Austrian political ruling party ?SPÖ I will be thankful if your ministry solves the problem in peace. I also would be thankful if your ministry writes me whenever they want to say something. I think this would be the right way to communicate with each other, not by way of childish and unhelpful acts like blocking my number. Your Excellency knows that I live in a European country and that I work with Rense Radio in USA, where the laws allow journalists to say everything without any interference from the government.
Greetings to you and my sincere respect and appreciation,
I have motive to think that if I am actually included in an israeli death list as I suspect, this would be the direct result of a declaration which President Abbas made before Austrian President Dr. Fischer during his visit to Vienna last November of 2011. During a reception at the Kreisky House, in my presence and in the presence of people connected to the EU, to the Austrian government, to Bilderberger, President Abbas declared that he was willing “since today” to cooperate with a “committee against incitement against israel”.
Such a declaration means an automatic sentence to harassment, surveillance, jail, torture for political activists, journalists … disliked by the occupation for exercising their fundamental right to political expression and resistance against the illegitimate occupier, israel. This corresponds with the known activity of the PA during the last half year.
This is a very worrying development for me personally. I was much saddened by the pain this childish act from the PA caused to my old mother and the rest of my family, but the future worries me even more. In the past, other thuggish regimes, for example Tunisia, have blocked the phone numbers of dissidents in exile and then proceeded to arrest and torture anybody they thought were in contact with these people. Because of this precedent, I am worried about what could happen to me in future since the PA put me on its target list.
My old sick mother does not know reading or writing, opening a computer or searching in Google about me. When my mother was a small girl, reading and writing was something “Eib”, what means shameful and forbidden for girls. “Eib” is a common Arabic word used ONLY in the Middle East. This word, which is equivalent to heresy, was invented by men and is never mentioned in Islamic Sharia or in the Koran. It is a word inherited with the oral traditions since the old times of the grand-grand-parents and ancestors in the middle ages. This word grew strong and bloomed in the community, it became a most powerful motto and one of the most important “principles” of the modern era in the community of men in the Middle East to curb women. The word “Eib” is used to control women. Nothing is “Eib” for men, nothing they do “Eib”!!!
Commenting on my mother’s harassment by the PA, I can only say that I do not blame my mother in her belief that I was dead, nor I do not blame her to seeking the help of my relatives and neighbours to search for me.
I think that the feelings of my mother and her rights and the rights of all Palestinians are not the exclusive property of the Palestinian Authority and its project based on the foundations of dictatorship and the violation of human rights. The feelings of my mother and her rights are not determined by the decisions of the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology and the so called Palestinian-Israeli “security” coordination.
My sick old mother, who wept during a long month and whose tears found a number of sympathizers, finally found a small child who was able to help her, and to tell her that I am not dead. The older sympathizers were only trying to call me on the phone. Nobody thought about looking in computer. Simply said, my family is a very simple one, people who were never involved in politics in any way. The little boy who helped my mother knows how to use a computer, he searched through Google for the journalist Kawther Salam, and with this he was able to remove the fears of my old mother. The child found my e-mail address, which the PNA has not yet been able to filter.
This child turned into a hero in the eyes of the mother. She asked him if her daughter was still alive, why had she cut her contact by phone?? The child was not able to answer my mother, but he was thinking to write me and to ask these same question.
My mother does not understand media or political science or politics. She does not know anything about the nature of my journalistic work and therefore she does not know what I write or speak or publish and what else I do. Nobody in my family knew until now anything of what I am writing. I choose to write in English in order to make it difficult for this simple family to understand what I am writing. There has been conflict between me and my family, who has no interest in politics, since I was in Palestine, due to my work.
There was always a conflict between me as a journalist and my family, who supported me but who were scared of the problems which my work could bring me. The problems between me and my family increased since yesterday, after I told my mother why she had not been able to call me, that is due to my journalistic work. My family did not understand anything. They could not even imagine that the PA could filter my number. They only thought that I was dead. My family knew that I had been a supporter to the PNA, that I had worked at the PNA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida until the end of December 2002, even after I was expelled from my homeland.
http://fwd4.me/12kn 8 apr 2011, 10:19 , Respect -
Maria 29 mei 2012
The Arabic daily al-Quds from London published today a press release issued on May 27 by DPA
The Arabic daily al-Quds from London published today a press release issued on May 27 by DPA, the German press agency. According to the released information, about 25 pages of documents carrying the official stamp of the intelligence service department of the Palestinian National authority were published by a number of websites. The disclosure of these documents has caused controversy among Palestinian officials and human rights activists because of its contents, which state that the Palestinian intelligence service is involved in an intelligence project aimed at the local and international human rights organizations in Western and Arab countries and around the world.
The allegations about the documents prompted the Palestinian presidency to distance themselves from the spying project and claim that they are “investigating the validity of the documents”. The Palestinian intelligence services are led by Maj. Gen. Majed Faraj.
During the last 48 hours, local news sites have discussed a document which carries the title “The Raised Palestinian Arm”. The News sites revealed that the document is an intelligence, financial and political study that aims to establish an entity controlled by the Palestinian intelligence to penetrate and coopt the work of human rights organizations operating in Western countries in favour of the intelligence service of the Palestinian Authority. This means, the targeted human rights organizations are to be used as bases for the spying activity of the PA in the interest of its paymasters and to cover up the crimes of the PA.
The document states that the project will be implemented through “dozens of offices” supposed to be opened all over the world. The offices will be funded by the PA intelligence national and foreign services of the Palestinian Authority. The document mentions the “Global Network for Rights and Development” as a front for the project.
According to the published document as DPA wrote, the Palestinian intelligence service supervised the preparation of the document through a number of leaders of the intelligence department and in collaboration with the President of the “Global Network for Rights and Development in Geneva“, The document states that the PNA intelligence services will provide the necessary funding for the start of the Foundation during the first years of its work and activity. (Clik on the picture to make it bigger.)
The document proposes the establishment of an entity “competitor to the international institutions of human rights such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and others”. It states that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are internationally respected while they are “tools” in the hands of American, British and European political and security authorities. This last part is true, as HRW is generally known to be a CIA front while AI is a zionist institution with a long standing tradition of never criticizing crimes where this is against zionist interests.
The document emphasizes the importance of establishing an entity controlled by the PA according to the example of other international human rights organizations controlled by western spying services. The PNA intelligence service wishes that the work of the entity will start on Swiss territory in order to “gain respected status” and be very close to “respectable centres of human rights organizations”, although the entity should actually “work from under the table” under the direct control and supervision of the Director of the Palestinian intelligence service, Major General Majed Faraj.
For his part, the Secretary General of the Palestinian Presidency Tayeb Abed El-Rahim said in a statement published in Al Quds newspaper that “Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas decided to form a high commission of inquiry into the documents” after receiving dozens of requests and correspondence by the international human rights organizations and independent national figures asking for that. This is nothing but the usual high-intensity lying of these crooks to try to contain the fallout of the exposure of this indecent activity of theirs.
Abed El-Rahim published a statement at the official Palestinian news agency WAFA actually saying that “His Excellency the President Mahmoud Abbas has nothing to do with such individual decisions taken by the leaders of the security services. Never was he among the people who work to discredit the human rights institutions. He always stood as a honest supporter and a defender to the Palestinian people rights.”
The statement of Mr. Abed El-Rahim was later deleted from the website of WAFA but it had already been taken and published by different newspapers as part of DPA statement. WAFA claimed that “somebody hacked their website and posted the news on behalf of Mr. Abed El-Rahim”. It was clear that nothing was hacked, but rather that they deleted it when it became apparent to the PA how disgraceful they already look.
Click here to see the document
Click here to the source of the document
http://fwd4.me/12kk 14 apr 2011, 10:14 , Respect -
Maria 8 juni 2012
The President Who Can Be Described As A Fat Cat
A few days ago, on May 20 2012 I wrote an Arabic report under the title “Fat Cats Fighting“. With “Fat Cats” I meant both Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a US-EU-Western partner who was imposed as prime minister on us Palestinians still under former President Yasser Arafat and then became President thanks to Arafat’s mysterious death, and Mr. Mohammed Rashid, also known as Mohammed Burhan “Abdi Rashid”, Khaled Salam, an Iraqi Kurd not even a Palestinian who “gained the trust of” of former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s and was his economic adviser, who now has become a “businessman” after escaping from the occupied territories with millions dollars proceeding from taxes paid by Palestinians, from “donations” of western states (their tax-payers money) supposedly to the poor Palestinians Mr. Rashid has a bad reputation since he was President Arafats advisor because of his proximity and friendliness to the elements of the Israeli intelligence (Shabak and Mossad), who administrated a number of his projects.
Mohammed Rashid
Today’s conflict between rival chiselers, Abbas and Rashid, is one where bones are broken and knees capped just like the fantasy battles which we see in mafia films, but with some differences. The conflict is between the Abbas faction, supported by western countries and some powerful beneficiaries of the gouging of the Palestinians from the Fatah movement, renters of Abbas largess financed since years with the millions from European and American tax-payers on the one side, and a faction around Mr. Rashid, who has made off with millions also gouged from Palestinians and moneys pumped into this criminal milieu by western states, backed by a mafia of arms traffickers run by elements of the Israeli Mossad on the other side, is a battle to death, a food fight between predators for money and position, not one of those fake conflicts which take place in mafia movies.
The ongoing war between the Abbas and Rashid factions led to the discovery and publication of a range of crimes which left all Palestinians stunned and bewildered.
Rashid commissioned propaganda against President Abbas through Al-Arabiya TV in which he accused him of having organized the liquidation of President Yasser Arafat as well as of having sold out Mr. Khalil Al-Wazir (“Abu Jihad”), who was assassinated by Israeli intelligence. It is known that during that Mossad crime, Abbas and his bodyguards were in the area, they put the lights of their car off and did not respond when they heard the Mossad commando shooting while inside the building of Abu Jihad. Of course Abbas is not a traitor or involved in the crime, but he was scared and his bodyguards were scared to defend their colleague Abu Jihad, but perhaps, perhaps, Abu Jihad could have survived the attack if Abbas and his goons had not “been scared”. And Rashid is also accusing the president of embezzling “only” $100 million.
In respond to the Rashid allegations on TV, Abbas called on Interpol to arrest Rashid and referred him to the criminal courts for corruption and embezzlement of the funds of the Palestinian people during his presidency of the Palestinian Investment Fund some years ago. He accused Rashid of stealing “hundreds of millions” of dollars.
Today June 7 2012, The Palestinian Corruption Crimes court in Ramallah Thursday sentenced in absentia former director general of the Palestine Investment Fund Mohammad Rashid to 15 years in jail with hard labor and a $15 million fine. Rashid, also known as Khaled Salam, was convicted of embezzlement and money laundering along with Abdul Rahman al-Rashid Najab and Khalid Abdul Ghani Farra.
It is truly delicious to watch while two psychopaths wash each others dirty laundry in public. These mental dwarfs “think” that they are damaging their opponent while in truth they are spilling the beans and letting everybody know everything about all their crimes.
President Abbas knows very well how to get rid of “troublemakers” who spread suspicion about him. Just like he got rid of his enemies, among them the late President Yasser Arafat, Marwan Al-Barghouti, Mohammed Dahlan and others. Today, this President Abbas wants to get rid of Mohammed Rashid. President Abbas, who imposed a blockade on the freedom of speech and expression in Palestine and treats the Palestinian people like a herd of sheep, the President Abbas and who is keen to mislead the Palestinians by hiding the truth about his shady relations and crooked deals with Israel, US and the Western community, the Mahmoud Abbas who has become the richest man in Palestine. The President Abbas whose sons have received billions of dollars looted from Palestine through a multitude of channels, whose whole family are twisting and turning like maggots in a rotten cadaver while looting all the development projects of the Palestinian people and the tax-payers of the West. That is the President Abbas who wants to get rid of a rival who accuses him, probably truthfully, of being an embezzler.
No one dares to ask President Abbas about the the source of the extravagant riches of his family and his sons, no one dares to discuss with him any such “sensible” subject because the “decisions of expulsion” and trumped up accusation are always ready and waiting for anybody who does that.
This regime has committed all kind of crimes against freedom of speech, detained a number of journalists and tried them in sham processes because they dared to report about the corruption of the Palestinian Authority, the ministries and the embassies abroad.
I think that it is time to put dots on the I’s and expose this dictatorial and corrupt regime imposed by USA and the western community on the poor Palestinians. It is not reasonable to keep President Abbas and the group of influential and corrupt people around him in control of everything. They corrupted the judiciary, the ministries, the economy, and the civil society and all its institutions. They stole all the money for reconstruction of Palestine donated from abroad, they stole all the taxes paid by Palestinians, they went on a rampage and then they filled the prisons with Palestinians who dared to express any opinion unkind to these scoundrels.
If the Palestinian journalists were allowed freedom of speech they would report many more details about Abbas and his corrupt regime what was published yesterday about President Abbas’ family. Read the report of Foreign Policy and the links below.
The Brothers Abbas
BY JONATHAN SCHANZER | JUNE 5, 2012
In the wake of the Arab Spring, U.S. leaders have promised to reverse the United States' long reliance on autocratic, unrepresentative leaders who enrich themselves at the expense of their citizens. There's only one problem: Just as top American officials have been making these lofty promises, new details are emerging of how close family members of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, a major U.S. partner in the Middle East, have grown wealthy. Have they enriched themselves at the expense of regular Palestinians -- and even U.S. taxpayers?
Abbas's wealth recently became a source of controversy during the investigation of Mohammed Rachid, an economic advisor to the late Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, in a high-profile corruption probe. Last month, Palestinian officials charged Rachid with siphoning off millions of dollars in public funds; his trial is set to begin on June 7.
According to a former Palestinian advisor, Abbas holds a grudge against Rachid dating back to the peace talks during the waning days of the Clinton era. In that intense period, Rachid was an advocate of working with Israel to find a solution, while Abbas called diplomacy a "trap that was laid for us." Abbas also resented Rachid because he was an Iraqi Kurd -- not even a Palestinian -- who had gained Arafat's trust and was part of his inner circle, while Abbas was on the outside looking in. "There was a huge amount of jealousy," the former advisor said.
With his back up against a wall, Rachid has now fired back at the Palestinian president with claims that Abbas himself has socked away $100 million in ill-gotten gains.
In stalking Rachid, whether or not the charges have merit, Abbas may have opened up a Pandora's box. The conspicuous wealth of Abbas's own sons, Yasser and Tarek, has become a source of quiet controversy in Palestinian society since at least 2009, when Reuters first published a series of articles tying the sons to several business deals, including a few that had U.S. taxpayer support.
Yasser, the elder son, graduated with a degree in civil engineering from Washington State University in 1983 and carries both Palestinian and Canadian passports. According to his biography (where he goes by the alias Yasser Mahmoud), he worked for a variety of Gulf contracting firms from the 1980s until the mid-1990s before returning to Ramallah in 1997 to launch businesses of his own.
Yasser now owns Falcon Tobacco, which reportedly enjoys a monopoly on the sale of U.S.-made cigarettes in the Palestinian territories. According to the Toronto Star, Yasser also chairs Falcon Holding Group, a Palestinian corporate conglomerate that owns Falcon Electrical Mechanical Contracting Company (also called Falcon Electro Mechanical Contracting Company, or FEMC), an engineering interest that was established in 2000 and boasts offices in Gaza, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and the West Bank. This business success has come with a helping hand from Uncle Sam: According to a Reuters report, Abbas's company received $1.89 million from USAID in 2005 to build a sewage system in the West Bank town of Hebron.
According to Yasser's biography, other arms of Falcon Holding Group include Falcon Global Telecommunication Services Company and Falcon General Investment Company, companies about which less is known. Through the Falcon companies, Yasser boasted to an Emirati magazine in 2009 that the companies' revenues total some $35 million per year.
And the Falcon group doesn't even account for everything. Yasser is listed by the New York-based financial information database CreditRiskMonitor.com as the chairman of the publicly traded Al-Mashreq Insurance Company, with 11 offices across the Palestinian territories. The company is valued on the Palestinian stock exchange at $3.25 million.
Finally, Yasser serves as managing director of the First Option Project Construction Management Company, whose website suggests that it does a great deal of public works projects, such as road and school construction, on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. First Option employs at least 15 people in offices in Amman, Tunis, Cairo, Montenegro, and Ramallah. This enterprise also benefited from the U.S. government's financial support: As Reuters reported, First Option was awarded nearly $300,000 in USAID funds between 2005 and 2008.
The president's son is certainly entitled to do business in the Palestinian territories. But the question is whether his lineage is his most important credential -- a concern bolstered by the fact that he has occasionally served in an official capacity for the Palestinian Authority. In 2008, Yasser reportedly visited Kazakhstan as a special envoy, and according to a former Bush administration official, he "regularly accompanies his father on official travel."
Tarek Abbas appears less inclined than his older brother to take part in the political aspect of the Palestinian cause, but is just as ambitious in the business world. His online biography indicates that he followed in the footsteps of his older brother, working in the same Gulf contracting firms, as well as a trading company in Tunis during the early 1990s.
Today, he appears to be a successful entrepreneur. His principal enterprise, Sky Advertising, had 40 employees and earned $7.5 million in sales in 2010. And once again, the firm has worked with the U.S. government: Reuters reported in 2009 that Sky received a modest grant of approximately $1 million in USAID funds to bolster public opinion of the United States in the Palestinian territories.
The younger Abbas is also listed by the Arab Palestinian Investment Company (APIC), as the vice chairman of "Arab Shopping Centers." This is presumably shorthand for Arab Palestinian Shopping Center Company, valued on the Palestine Exchange at $4.2 million. The company, a project of APIC, now has two shopping centers, three supermarkets, and two indoor play facilities in the West Bank.
APIC is an economic juggernaut in the West Bank. In 2010, the company had more than $338 million in revenues. The company lists Tarek Abbas's Sky Advertising on its roster, as well as the Ramallah-based Unipal General Trading Company, where Tarek sits on the board. Unipal, which has 4,500 retail outlets in the Palestinian territories, distributes consumer goods to Palestinians, including products from Philip Morris Tobacco, Procter & Gamble, and Keebler.
Since the Arab Spring began in late 2010 and early 2011, the Abbas brothers have largely dropped out of sight in the West Bank. Where have they gone? According to an article written by Rachid on the staunchly anti-Abbas website InLight Press, the family owns lavish properties worth more than $20 million in Gaza, Jordan, Qatar, Ramallah, Tunisia, and the UAE.
Of course, the Abbas brothers' absence doesn't mean that Palestinians will forget. On a research trip to Ramallah last year, several Palestinians told me that the Abbas family dynasty is common knowledge. However, discussion of the issue rarely rises above a whisper -- thanks to growing fear of retribution by PA security officers, who have apprehended journalists and citizens for openly challenging President Abbas's authority.
At a time when the sons of Arab strongmen are under scrutiny, the questions surrounding the Abbas brothers will not go away. Indeed, the Arab public continues to demand accountability from its leaders -- and the upcoming Rachid trial will only bring this controversy closer to Ramallah.
Page 2
Arafat's moneyman targeted in corruption probe
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The late Yasser Arafat's powerful moneyman is the target of the highest-profile Palestinian corruption probe to date, facing allegations he syphoned off millions of dollars in public funds, the chief investigator said Wednesday.
Anti-corruption campaigners lauded the case against the shadowy former aide, Mohammed Rashid, as a sign of the maturing of the Palestinian political system, although the probe also appeared to be tinged with political intrigue.
Rashid, who has in the past denied wrongdoing, made veiled threats on a website to disclose purported secrets about the rise to power of Arafat's successor, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. And Palestinian watchdogs, while praising growing government vigilance about corruption, expressed concern that such investigations are at times being used selectively to settle personal scores.
The tall, dark-haired Rashid left the Palestinian territories after Arafat's death in November 2004, and his current whereabouts were not immediately known. Rafik Natche, head of the Palestinian Anti-Corruption Commission, said Rashid holds business interests in Jordan, Egypt, Montenegro, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, and that the Palestinian Authority has asked all five countries to freeze his assets and extradite him.
An Iraqi citizen of Kurdish ancestry, Rashid befriended top PLO officials in the 1980s.
From the 1994 establishment of the Palestinian Authority, a self-rule government in parts of the West Bank and Gaza, to Arafat's death a decade later, Rashid was in charge of many of the Palestinian leader's financial dealings. The iconic Arafat was known for a frugal lifestyle, but needed large sums to buy loyalty and allowed corrupt practices by those in his inner circle.
It is not known why Arafat put Rashid, a former journalist without formal business training, in charge of most of his business affairs.
Rashid "came to the Palestinian revolution without a penny in his pocket and became a multimillionaire," Natche told The Associated Press. "Where did he bring his money from? Of course, this is the money of the Palestinian people."
Natche said Rashid is suspected of having taken millions of dollars out of the Palestinian Investment Fund and the PLO's treasury, as well as setting up fake companies in his name and in the names of relatives. "The money and the companies disappeared," Natche said, citing documents.
In comments posted Tuesday on the website Inlightpress, Rashid said he would not respond to the allegations now, but warned that Abbas "made a huge mistake and must suffer the consequences." He did not elaborate. The website, which is believed to be linked to Rashid, announced in a separate section that it would soon run a series of articles by Rashid about the circumstances of Abbas' rise to power.
After keeping a low profile for years, Rashid started drawing attention to himself with a series of interviews that the Arab satellite TV station al-Arabiya began broadcasting last week. Rashid told the station he was asked by Palestinian officials in 2008 to provide documents about the investment fund, and that he told them the documents were at the fund's office. He said he has not been contacted since then.
The first decade of the Palestinian Authority was marked by rampant corruption and official mismanagement. During those years, Rashid "ran a network of financial transactions outside the law and outside the budget," said Azmi Shuaibi, a leading anti-corruption campaigner in the West Bank.
In 2003, the international community, concerned about millions in foreign aid going to waste, asked Palestinian economist Salam Fayyad to supervise Palestinian Authority spending. Fayyad, now the West Bank-based prime minister, is credited with providing greater transparency. However, for years, little was done to go after those suspected of stealing public funds.
Two years ago, Abbas set up the Anti-Corruption Commission and a special court. So far, the commission has handled 85 cases, including those of two Cabinet ministers who were forced to resign, but the court has not yet handed down any verdicts, Natche said.
The commission filed charges of fraud, embezzlement and money-laundering against Rashid on April 30. On May 8, the court urged Rashid through an announcement in a local newspaper to surrender to Palestinian authorities, Natche said. Rashid will be tried in absentia if he cannot be brought to the Palestinian territories, he added.
Shuaibi praised stepped up efforts to go after government corruption, but expressed concern about the way targets for investigation are being chosen. He noted that Rashid is a longtime associate of former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan, who had a falling-out with Abbas last year after seemingly challenging the president's leadership. The connection between Dahlan and Rashid created an impetus "to pursue Rashid as well," Shuaibi said.
"I think the priorities (for investigations) are being set on a personal basis," said Shuaibi. He said he told Abbas that "we have concerns that the issue is being handled in a way of settling personal scores." Shuaibi said Abbas told him all suspicions were being investigated.
Officials in Abbas' office declined comment. Natche said anyone can approach the commission with information about alleged corruption, but acknowledged that most of his leads come from government agencies.
Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian commentator, said Arafat's continued popularity made it difficult for investigators for some years to launch a probe against Rashid. But enough time has passed since Arafat's death, Kuttab said, adding that "there is a strong public sentiment against corruption."
Abu Mazen: Had Camp David Convened Again, We Would Take the Same Positions (part 1)
Abu Mazen: Had Camp David Convened Again, We Would Take the Same Positions (part 2)
Corporate
Canadian links us to Palestinian political elite
USAID contracts with firms headed by Abbas's sons
Falcon Electro Mechanical Contracting Co.
EXCLUSIVE-Firms run by President Abbas's sons get U.S. contracts
Corporate
Yasser is listed by the New York-based financial information database CreditRiskMonitor.com as the chairman of the publicly traded Al-Mashreq Insurance Company, with 11 offices across the Palestinian territories. The company is valued on the Palestinian stock exchange at $3.25 million.
website suggests that it does a great deal of public works projects, such as road and school construction, on behalf of the Palestinian Authority
at least 15 people in offices in Amman, Tunis, Cairo, Montenegro, and Ramallah
FACTBOX - USAID contracts with firms headed by Abbas's sons
http://fwd4.me/12kf.