Kawther Salam – Human Rights: Nails in the Coffin of Israel
By Kawther Salam • Dec 19th, 2008 at 8:39 • Category: Human Rights, Israel, Newswire, Palestine, ZionismThe Jewish State of Israel considers itself above the laws and has imposed a blockade on any criticism against its violations of the International laws, of its barbaric Apartheid regime and of its many crimes against humanity, by the UN human rights organizations and members of the International community.
The representatives of this so-called "state" lose control each time any criticism against them, as small and innocuous as it may be, arises here or there. Each time they are criticized according to international laws and agreements to which Israel has acceded, and which in part were even redacted with help of representatives of Israel, these saints of the "unique and aloof" morality of their state give themselves the right to punish, to lambast the international organizations and their representatives, instead of accepting punishment or even mild criticism from these organizations which constitute the forum for the representatives of a great part of humanity.
The representatives of the Israeli occupation regime reacted arrogantly after the Human Rights Council of the UN in Geneva unanimously released a list including 99 recommendations at the end of a two-day review of Israel's record on human rights last Tuesday 9 December 2008. The council urged Israel to take 99 step to end its violations of human rights, including to lifting the blockade on the Gaza Strip, freeing Arab detainees, and to allowing international observers to enter Palestine.
Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann
The media of Israel "reported" that Miguel d'Escoto had supposedly prevented Israels ambassador to the United Nations to speak during a plenary session of the Assembly. Mr. d'Escoto described the Israeli allegation as "offensive and slanderous", and his spokesman said that the accusation hurled by the representatives of Israel at the United Nations were "an aggressive and unconvincing lie which can also be described as an irresponsible fabrication".
Earlier, the State of Israel, perpetrator of innumerable war crimes and crimes against humanity, took revenge against the Special Rapporteur of the UN for Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Richard Falk. Mr. Falk was denied entry to the occupied Palestinian territories through Israel, and when he came nonetheless, he was arrested on past Sunday 14 December 2008 at Ben Gurion Airport, and deported to Geneva on Monday 15 December 2008. The result of the arrest and deportation of Mr. Falk came as a result of his criticism of Israel, its flagrant crimes against humanity and the many violations of the international law in Gaza and the West Bank.
Richard A. Falk
Professor Falk called the International Criminal Court in The Hague to investigate the situation in Gaza, and to determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza blockade should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law. Mr. Falk broke the omertá of the international community which until now covers all Israeli crimes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, and because of this he was unjustly arrested, humiliated and deported by Israel. His intervention is all the more remarkable and courageous because Mr. Falk is himself a Jew.
What Israeli leaders have failed to understand is that each murder, each mistreatment of any Palestinians, each humiliation at a checkpoint, each incursion of their death squads, each of the 13.000 Palestinians in their gulag, each time one of their ministers calls for even more destitution and crimes against Palestinians, each new illegal settler in my homeland … is at the same time a nail in the coffin of the project Israel.
Israel is now like a big ship with a broken engine, advancing only with whatever impulse it has left. What will happen when the ship stops? And, will it stop first, or will it crash into something ugly ahead? Whatever lays ahead, the power to decide its fate is not in the hands of Israel anymore, despite all its military might an all its bought and paid for "friends".
Kawther Salam is a Palestinian journalist. She had a career of over 20 years working for various newspapers and TV stations in Palestine. She forced to live in the Exile in Vienna since 2002.
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War is over when nobody shows up to fight it, and Israeli 12th graders are among the leaders in the dismantling of the occupation.
Yesterday, 20,000 letters in support of the Shministim, which means “twelfth-graders” in Hebrew, were delivered to the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv in support of the conscientious objectors who refuse to join the IDF.
The Shministim are Israeli youth of conscience who refuse to serve in the Israeli Army because it is the force that enforces Israel’s 40+-year occupation of indigenous Palestinians.
The first Shministim letter was sent to Prime Minister Golda Meir. In 2008 alone, one hundred youth have signed the following letter, which cost them a jail term in an Israeli military prison, ranging from 21 to 28 days. For those who refuse to wear the military uniform, they are punished with solitary confinement.
The Shministim Letter of 2008:
We, high-school graduate teens, declare that we shall work against the Israeli occupation and oppression policy in the occupied territories and the territories of Israel. Therefore we will refuse to take part of these actions, which are being done under our name as part of the IDF.
Our refusal comes first and foremost as a protest on the separation, control, oppression and killing policy held by the state of Israel in the occupied territories, as we understand that this oppression, killing and routing of hatred will never lead us to peace, and they are all contradictory to the basic values a society that pretends to be democratic should have.
All the members of this group believe in developing the value of social work. We are not refusing to serve the society we live in, but are protesting against the occupation and the ways of actions which the militaristic system holds as it is today- crushing civil rights, discriminating on a racial base and acting opposing international laws.
We oppose the actions taken in the name of the “defense” of the Israeli society (Checkpoints, targeted killing, apartheid roads-available for Jews only, curfews etc.) that serve the occupation and exploitation policy , annex more conquered territories to the State of Israel and tramples the rights of the Palestinian population in an aggressive manner. These actions serve as a band-aid covering a bleeding wound, and as a limited and temporary solution that will accelerate and aggravate the conflict further.
We expostulate the plundering and the theft of territories and source of income to the Palestinians in exchange to the expansion of the settlements, reasoning to defend Israeli territories. In addition, we oppose any transformation of Palestinian cities and villages to ghettos without minimal living conditions or income sources enclosed by the separation wall.
We also protest the humiliating and disrespectful behavior of the military forces towards Palestinians in the West Bank; violence towards demonstrators, public humiliations, arrests, destruction of property regardless to any safety or defense needs, all of which violate global human rights and international law.
The wall and blockades surround the Palestinian Territories and serve as a halter around the Palestinian’s neck. The soldiers who commit crimes under the patronage and protection of their commanders reflect the image of the Israeli society; a destructive and surprising society that is incapable of accepting its neighboring nation as a partner and not as an enemy.
In order to hold an effective dialogue between the two societies, we, the well-established and stronger society, have the responsibility of establishing and strengthening the other. Only with a more socially and financially established partner could we work towards peace rather than one-sided retaliation acts. Rather than supporting those citizens who have hope for peace, the military cast sanctions and pushes more and more people towards acts of extreme violence and escalation.
We hereby challenge every citizen who wonders if the military's policy in the occupied territories is conducive to the progression of the peace process, to discover by himself/ herself the truth and to lift the veil which distorts the reality of the situation; to verify statistical data; to look for the humane side in him/her and in the society which stands in front of him/her, to disprove the myths that were routed within us regarding the necessity of the IDF's in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, and to stand up against every action which he finds irrational and illegal.
In a place were there are humans, there is someone to talk to. Therefore, we ask to create a dialogue that goes beyond the power struggle, the retaliation and one-sided attrition actions; to disprove the "No Partner" myth, which is leading to a lose-lose situation of an ongoing frustration, and to move to more humane methods.
We cannot hurt in the name of defense or imprison in the name of freedom; therefore we cannot be moral and serve the occupation.
Signed
Members of the Shministim Letter 2008.
TO SIGN:
http://december18th.org/
After these conscientious objectors serve their sentence, they are once again drafted. When they refuse a second time, they face the same sentence, and there is literally no end to the number of times these forward thinking youth will return to jail as an act of conscience and courageous dissent from a country that has not kept its very own words:
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel:
"it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." – May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel
IMAGINE when Israel keeps its very own words.
And isn't it wonderful in this season of miracles that Jewish children are among the leaders of the way leaders must be led if there is ever to be security for Israel and justice for Palestine.
This is very heartening, Eileen. We must not lose hope, nil desperandum!
The UN is the biggest criminal organization and the jewnazi state of Israhell as well as the genocide of the Palestinians are both the UN's products. Only a fool could place hope in this criminal organization that has been set up to serve the policies of the jewnazified US and its allies. The same can be said of the ICC in the Hague. Btw, did Richard Falk really CALL the ICC in The Hague to do those things? In his report he writes only: "it would (sic!) seem (sic!) mandatory for the International Criminal Court to …"
@Eileen Fleming,
imho that group is a totally unimportant little part of the contemporary Israhelli society, which consists of "Israhellis"(ie Jewnazis, the (great)children of of those who proclaim(ed) themselves as "proud Zionists"), who have been brought up in jewnazi families, in jewnazi schools, with jewnazi ideology. And I don't find much revolutionary in that letter either: no mention of the right of return for the Palestinians, no return of illegally seized land, no reparations – only a more "humane" mask on the criminal jewnazi colony's face.
So no wonder that there are so many -mostly Jewish I suspect – signatures to that petition. (Of course nothing comparable can be found eg. for the case of the Palestinian prisoners). Compare this to the number of those Jews who agree with Gilad Atzmon in:
http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/12/14/radio-interview-with-gilad-atzmon
Quite a difference I'd say…
Thank you 3bancan for clarifying this point, yes indeed it's true that MOST "peace-loving" zionists not only DON'T acknowledge our basic human right of RETURN to our STOLEN homeland, but also REFUSE the Arab peace initiative which give the thieves 80% of Palestine!
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Poll: Most Israelis oppose leaving West Bank for Arab world's recognition
Last update – 17:55 16/12/2008
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1047226.html
By The Associated Press
Two-thirds of Palestinians support a plan that offers Israel full recognition from the Arab world in return for withdrawing from occupied territory, and nearly two-thirds of Israelis oppose it, according to a survey released Tuesday.
The poll also indicated that a majority of Israelis and Palestinians support an extension of a truce between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers. The truce, which has become increasingly shaky in recent weeks, expires on Friday.
The Arab League's peace plan was first proposed in 2002. In recent weeks,
President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have tried to revive the idea. Israel's official position is that the plan can be a basis for negotiations, but it objects to some aspects of it, including the prospect of Palestinian refugees being resettled in Israel.
Last month, Abbas ran ads telling Israeli newspaper readers they would win recognition from 57 Arab and Islamic countries if Israel withdraws from all the territories it occupied in the 1967 Mideast War.
According to the survey, 61 percent of Israelis oppose the trade-off and 36 percent support it. Among Palestinians, 66 percent support the idea and 30 percent oppose it.
The poll showed there's greater support among Israelis for a proposal that would see Israel withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza but keep some Israeli settlements in less than 3 percent of the West Bank. That land would be swapped for an equal amount of Israeli territory.
That is the general framework discussed in peace talks in the 1990s and again since negotiations have been renewed over the past year.
Forty-six percent of Israelis support and 48 percent oppose that plan. Among Palestinians, 54 percent back the plan and 44 percent oppose it.
The poll also indicates that 49 percent of Israelis and 57 percent of
Palestinians want U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to become more involved in solving their conflict.
The survey was conducted jointly by the Harry S Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah. The Israeli pollsters questioned 600 people, with an error margin of 4.5 percentage points. The Palestinian survey included 1,270 respondents and had an error margin of 3 percentage points.
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A society of thieves, liars and murderers
A demonic society par excellence
Having a few good apples in a box of rotten apples will not help change the rotten box
The only way to save the good apples is to rescue them and place them in a different box
To save their souls, they have to do what good Jews -like Gilad Atzmon, and Ilan Pappe- did:
ABANDON the hellish society of zionism, and GIVE BACK the STOLEN land of PALESTINE to the NATIVE OWNERS
.