Is Peace Out of Reach?

Thank You 60 Minutes and CBS! Finally, a true glimpse of what is occurring in the Holy Land.

Bob Simon reports...

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Israelis 'shot at fleeing Gazans'

"Israel" is deliberately targeting civilians. No lies can change this.

From the BBC:

"The Israeli army was saying: 'This is the Israeli Defence Forces, we are asking all the people to leave their homes and go to the school. Ladies first, then men.'

"We decided to send the women first, two by two," he said.

"The army was about 15 metres (50 feet) away from the house or less. They shot her in the head," he said.

Another family:

"They told us you all have to go to the centre of the town, where the school is.

"We put the women first, and we put our children on our shoulders, with white bandanas on their heads.

"When we were walking, with the women first, they saw soldiers and they started to shout to them, to tell them 'we have children, we have children'. They started to shoot us. My aunt was killed with a bullet in her head."

"We have tried to leave the house during the three-hour humanitarian ceasefire, but we got shot at," he said.

Complete Article

Red Cross Prevented from Reaching Victims

Notice how Mark Regev, the Israeli spokesman, insisted on talking about Hamas rather than addressing the question. Alex Thomson, the reporter, notices this and keeps him on topic.

Well done.

The Myth of the Rubber Bullet

The Collective Punishment of Gaza

UN expert: Palestinian "terror" inevitable result of occupation

interesting read from Haaretz..

A report commissioned by the United Nations suggests that Palestinian terrorism is the inevitable consequence of Israeli occupation and laws that resemble South African apartheid - a claim Israel rejected Tuesday as enflaming hatred between Jews and Palestinians.

The report by John Dugard, independent investigator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the UN Human Rights Council, will be presented next month, but it has been posted on the body's Web site.

In it, Dugard, a South African lawyer who campaigned against apartheid in the 1980s, says "common sense ... dictates that a distinction must be drawn between acts of mindless terror, such as acts committed by Al-Qaida, and acts committed in the course of a war of national liberation against colonialism, apartheid or military occupation."

"While Palestinian terrorist acts are to be deplored, they must be understood as being a painful but inevitable consequence of colonialism, apartheid or occupation," writes Dugard, whose 25-page report accuses the Israel of acts and policies consistent with all three.

He cited checkpoints and roadblocks restricting Palestinian movement to house demolitions and what he terms the Judaization of Jerusalem.

"As long as there is occupation, there will be terrorism," he argues.

"Acts of terror against military occupation must be seen in historical context," Dugard says. "This is why every effort should be made to bring the occupation to a speedy end. Until this is done, peace cannot be expected, and violence will continue."

Israel's UN ambassador in Geneva slammed Dugard's analysis.

"The common link between Al-Qaida and the Palestinian terrorists is that both intentionally target civilians with the mere purpose to kill," Itzhak Levanon said. "The fact that Professor Dugard is ignoring this essential fact, demonstrates his inability to use objectivity in his assessment."

"Professor Dugard will better serve the cause of peace by ceasing to enflame the hatred between Israelis and Palestinians, who have embarked on serious talks to solve this contentious situation."

Dugard was appointed in 2001 as an unpaid expert by the now-defunct UN Human Rights Commission to investigate only violations by the Israeli side, prompting Israel and the U.S. to dismiss his reports as one-sided. Israel refused to allow him to conduct a UN-mandated fact-finding mission on its Gaza offensive in 2006.

The report will be presented next month at the 47-nation rights council's first regular session of the year. The new body has been widely criticized - even by its founder, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan - for spending most of its time criticizing one government, Israel's, over alleged abuses.

Link to Article

Collective Punishment

Checkpoints Not a Joke, Mr. President

Palestinian Women Forced to Give Birth at Home

Pregnant Palestinian women in Azzun Atma, a village near Qalqiliya encircled by the security fence, prefer to take up residence outside of the town in the later stages of their pregnancy for fear that they will be prevented from crossing the fence to get to the local hospital when they go into labor.

The IDF checkpoint which separates the village from the rest of the West Bank is not manned during the night and thus women who go into labor are unable to reach the local hospital.

In the last year, some 20 out of the 33 pregnant women from the village relocated to outside of Azzun towards the end of their third trimesters.

Hanan Yakoub, one of the few women who took the chance of staying in the village in her ninth month asked: "How am I, at 40 years of age, expected to give birth in a car? Where is your mercy? At my age it isn't easy to give birth, and certainly not in a car."

Complete Article

EU, US Criticise "Israel" Settler Plan

After the "negotiations for peace" at Annapolis, the apartheid state revealed a new settler plan which would build 300 new ILLEGAL homes in occupied Jerusalem.

The agreements at Annapolis state that both parties should work towards abiding by the Road Map to Peace drafted by the US. The road map clearly states that the apartheid state should SEIZE all illegal settlement activity.

The EU and US made rare criticisms of this plan, but they will fall on deaf ears.

Obviously, the apartheid state doesn't want peace.

Complete Story

Note: The settlements are illegal under international law.

West Bank settlements 'expanding'

Peace Now published a report stating that the apartheid state is still active in expanding it's illegal settlements. "Israel" openly makes promises to seize construction, but behind the scenes continues.

"Israel" does not want peace, it wants all of Palestine.

Construction is continuing in dozens of Jewish settlements in the West Bank despite Israel's pledge to freeze their expansion, an campaign group has said.

Peace Now says Jewish population growth is three times higher in the area occupied in 1967 than in Israel itself.

Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are deemed illegal under international law.

Israel had pledged to stop their construction as part of internationally-backed peace efforts.

Complete Story

Google Earth Provides Bird’s Eye View of "Israeli" Reactor

can't pretend to not have nukes anymore..

Courtesy of: ConflictBlotter

Complete Story

Palestinian Child Prisoners

It is illegal under international law to hold child prisoners.

This from "the only democracy in the middle east"

Snipping Away at Apartheid

Europeans: Release Palestinian Ministers

45 Members of the European Parliament, from different politicalgroups, have decided to express their solidarity towards the 45 Palestinian colleagues imprisoned by Israel, and called for their immediate and unconditional release.

All the 45 MEPs stood up symbolically in the plenary, right before thebeginning of the debate with Mr. Solana on the situation on the MiddleEast, representing the 45 Members of the Palestinian Legislative Council detained in the Israeli jails in a clear violation of the international legality.

"Each of us, MEPs, is deeply concerned about the imprisonment of thePresident and of 1/3 of the Members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, democratically and legitimately elected by the Palestinian people", MEPs said in their declaration.

Through this initiative, MEPs want to strongly condemn these arrests by the Israeli Army, but also remind the anniversary of the beginningof the Israeli military occupation in the Palestinian territories, which is during 40 years exactly today.

"We are deeply worried not only for the plight of the 45 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council but also for the near 11000 Palestinian political prisoners currently imprisoned by the Israeli Army, without a true process and often brutally abducted by the Israeli soldiers."

"40 years of military occupation are enough: now it's urgent to implement a political solution of the conflict, based on "two Peopleand two States" and it's necessary that the Palestinian Legislative Council could continue its activity, instead of preventing its work because of the check points, the arrests, the summary killings kept on by the current Israeli policy of military occupation", concluded LuisaMorgantini.

MEPs participating to the initiative:

Adamou Adamos, Andria Alfonso, Aubert Marie-Hélène, Auken Margarete,Beer Angelika, Brepoels Frieda, Bourzai Bernadette, Bowis John,Carnero Gonzàlez Carlos, Cohn-Bendit Daniel, Davies Chris, De BrúnBairbre, De Keyser Véronique, Demetriou Panayiotis, De RossaProinsias, Evans Jill, Flautre Hélène, Gottardi Donata, GuerreiroPedro, Hammerstein Mintz David, Isler-Béguin Marie-Anne, KasoulidesIoannis , Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou Rodi, Locatelli Pia Elda, LucasCaroline, Madeira Jamila, Matsakis Marios, McMillan-Scott Edward,Menendez Del Valle Emilio, Meyer Pleite Willy, Morgantini Luisa,Napoletano Pasqualina, Patrie Béatrice, Portas Miguel, Purvis John,Resetarits Karin, Romeva i Rueda Raül, Roure Martine, Saïfi Tokia,Savi Toomas, Sudre Margie, Svensson Eva-Britt, Toussas Georgios,Triantaphyllides Kyriacos, Wurtz Francis.

'Sailing to Gaza'

A group comprised of about 50 internationals is sailing to the Gaza Strip in an attempt to visit the most densely populated area in the world. Israel withdrew from Gaza and left it under the control of the Palestinian Authority, but yet it controls every one of its entrances.

A member of the group, Greta Berlin:
"We tried to enter Palestine by ground. We tried to enter by air. Now we are going to go by sea.

We must do everything we can to bring to the world's attention to the fact that Israel's military blockade is causing death to the people of Gaza.

Israel has no right to prevent us from going. So we're going. International law says that we have the right to visit Gaza. Remember, in July 2005, when Israel told the entire world that Gaza was no longer occupied? If it's no longer occupied, why shouldn't we go?"

'According to international law, the waters of Gaza for all 40 kilometers of its coast belong to the Palestinians, and Israel has no right to control those waters. Even the Oslo agreements state that the coast of Gaza belongs to the people who live there.'

Click Here For More Information

Note:

One of the internationals embarking on the trip is Hedy Epstein, a Holocaust survivor who recently gave a lecture at UCI during the MSU's "Holocaust Memorial Week."

The week was dedicated to the remembrance of the many Holocausts that have occured throughout history. Hedy Epstein enlightened us about the European Holocaust, Imam Abdel Aleem Musa lectured on the African Holocaust, and Professor Ward Churchill ended the week discussing the American Holocaust.

"Israel" Using Human Shields

Violating International Law is nothing new for the Apartheid State of "Israel"...

U.N. envoy likens "Israeli" actions to Apartheid

some more "bold" statements from the UN human rights envoy...


U.N. envoy likens Israeli actions to apartheid

Israel calls South African's comments and report 'unreservedly biased'

Updated: 12:46 p.m. PT March 22, 2007

GENEVA - A United Nations human rights envoy on Thursday likened Israeli treatment of Palestinians in occupied territory to apartheid, and said its settlement policy amounted to colonialism.

South African lawyer John Dugard warned Western states they would never rally support among developing nations for effective action against perceived abuses in Sudan's Darfur, Zimbabwe and Myanmar unless they tackled the plight of Palestinians.

"This places in danger the whole international human rights enterprise," he told the U.N. Human Rights Council, a Geneva-based watchdog agency.

Dugard, special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said restrictions on movement and separate residential areas gave a sense of "deja vu" to anyone with experience of apartheid.

"Of course there are similarities between the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territory) and apartheid South Africa," he told the council.

But Israel, which Dugard has regularly confronted since taking up his appointment in 2001, dismissed the statement and his regular report to the Council as "one-sided, highly selective and unreservedly biased".

"The resort to inflammatory and inciteful language does nothing to contribute to the process of constructive dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians," said Israel's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Itzhak Levanon.

Dugard said Gaza was an imprisoned society, with the situation in the West Bank little better.

"Settlers, largely unrestrained by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), subject many Palestinians to a reign of terror — particularly in Hebron," he said.

He said some 500,000 Israeli settlers were now living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories seized by Israel during the 1967 Middle East War.

"Apartheid and colonialism are contrary to international law," he said.

UN: Implement Right of Return

another call from the UN demanding the right of return of the 5 million plus refugees forcibly expelled from their lands, but it will fall on deaf ears because "Israel" is above international law...this will unfortunately pass just like the numerous resolutions before it...


UN committee: Israel should let Palestinians return to their land
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent

A United Nations committee has called on Israel to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their property and land in Israel and to ensure that the bodies responsible for distributing property, such as the Jewish National Fund, not discriminate against the Arab population.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination made the recommendation in its concluding observations released Friday, in response to a report Israel submitted on the matter. Representatives of a number of human rights groups appeared before the committee, including Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which presented objections to the official Israeli position.

The report recommends that Israel scrutinize its policy in a number of areas. Among them, it recommends that "the state party ensure that the definition of Israel as a Jewish nation state does not result in any systematic distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin." The committee also said it "would welcome receiving more information on how [Israel] envisions the development of the national identity of all its citizens."

The committee's deliberations were made in the framework of overseeing the implementation by various countries of the provisions of the UN's International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination. Israel has been a signatory to the convention since the late 1970s, and should submit a report every two years. However, it has not done so for nine years.

The appearence before the committee of the human rights organizations, which also included B'Tselem (the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) and Ittijah (the Union of Arab Community Based Organizations in Israel), is part of an increasing
trend to fight Israeli policies in international forums. Adalah said some of the information provided to the committee came from its international advocacy department assigned to UN committees.

The committee also noted a number of positive developments, among them the ministerial appointment of Raleb Majadele and the High Court decision on the petition of the Ka'adans, an Israeli Arab couple, to buy land in the community of Katzir.

Israelis 'use girl as human shield'

Footage of 11-year old girl used as human shield during invasion of Nablus...

Israelis 'use girl as human shield'

Israeli soldiers have used an 11-year-old Palestinian girl as a "human shield" during an operation against fighters in the West Bank last week, an Israeli human rights group has said.

The Israeli army on Thursday said it was checking the information from the B'Tselem group, which monitors Israeli actions in the occupied territory.

B'Tselem said the girl, Jihan Daadush, told its interviewers that Israeli soldiers had entered her family home and questioned her and her relatives about the location of armed men who had fired at them during the raid.

'I was afraid'

The soldiers, she said, threatened to arrest her unless she led them to a nearby house.

"[A soldier] ordered me to go towards the house," B'Tselem quoted the girl as saying.

"Three soldiers walked behind me. When we reached the house, there were a lot of soldiers. The soldiers ordered me to go inside the house and I went inside."

B'Tselem said Jihan told them the soldiers asked about the rooms of the house. There was no mention in the report of whether troops found fighters inside.

The girl said two soldiers then returned her home.

"[One of the soldiers] told me, 'Thank you, but don't tell anyone,'" the girl said, according to B'Tselem.

"I was afraid they would kill me or put me in jail. I am still afraid the soldiers will invade the city again and take me away."

Shot dead

B'Tselem said evidence it had collected from the girl and other Palestinians with similar experiences indicated that the soldiers feared the houses they searched hid armed militants or that explosives had been planted in them.

It said the "human shields" was given tasks that "undoubtedly included an element of danger and it seems clear that the soldiers were aware of this".

B'tselem also said the army had used a 15-year-old Palestinian boy and a Palestinian man for a similar purpose during the five-day raid in Nablus.

During the incursion, troops shot dead a Palestinian civilian who had observed the raid from his rooftop.

Soldiers also detained 11 suspected fighters.

The Israeli army ended the operation on March 1.

Israeli law bans the military from using people as human shields.