Haitham Manna' – From Tutu to Goldstone
By Guest Post • Oct 18th, 2009 at 13:37 • Category: Features, Israel, Newswire, Palestine, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, War, Zionism
Translated from Arabic by Saja
On September 2008 South African Bishop Desmond Tutu’s fact-finding delegation submitted to the Human Rights Council its latest report on the Israeli shelling of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip in 2006, which led to the death of nineteen civilians. At a press conference in Geneva, Tutu denounced the siege of the Gaza Strip and said it was one of the most pressing concerns influencing the Beit Hanoun bombardment victims at that time.
The delegation, which was appointed by the Human Rights Commission, stated that the absence of a persuasive Israeli excuse for what had taken place in Beit Hanoun lead the delegation to the possible conclusion that the bombardment was a war crime. It recommended that Israel compensate the victims. Israeli delegate Aharon Leshno-Yaar commented as follows before the Council:
“The report presented today will take its place in the vast library of UN reports on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The resolution that it will spawn will take its place on the lost list of one-sided resolutions that this Council has passed against Israel so far.”
On that day, the Arab Committee for Human Rights and Palestinian NGO’s demanded presentation of the issue before international courts. However, due to American pressure in the last days of the Bush administration and a weak European stance, the Tutu report entered the United Nations’ archive as the Israeli delegate had expected – with no follow-up or accountability whatsoever.
One year later, I sat in the upper balcony of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, observing and listening to various delegations discussing the Goldstone report, the best report submitted to the Human Rights Council since its establishment on March 15, 2006. On his left was another judge from South Africa, the Honorable Navanethem Pillay. To his right was the committee that accompanied him on this difficult and sensitive journey, Hina Jilani, Professor Kristen Chinkin and Colonel Desmond Travers.
It did not occur to me that the Israeli delegate would call the Goldstone report a “shameful report”, or that the committee chair would not call to order. It was unfortunate that the “ex-partner” in “Human Rights First”, Michael Bosner, adopted the Authority’s language and defended “human rights last” in his speech. As he spoke about the children of Gaza and the existence of a double standard, it sounded as if Gaza’s children were a superpower.
We, a group of citizens of the world, have been gathered since January 2009 in an international coalition to denounce the absence of accountability, support the internationalization of Palestinian non-governmental demands for the filing of claims with the International Criminal Court, and to activate criminal prosecution in the Middle East. Lack of accountability has made war a legitimate method of political work per the law of the jungle. We know the extent of independence the Ramallah-based Palestinian authority enjoys. We have seen with our own eyes how Israel has destroyed Palestinian infrastructure in over forty years of occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and how it has denied Palestinians the ability to sustain themselves due to the ongoing war on the environment, industry, agriculture, commerce and humanity.
International justice must restore people’s faith that Israel cannot remain above law and accountability and that it cannot, even for petty electoral reasons, transgress upon everything in the name of self-defense. It was cautious optimism, but we were certain that there were more than thirty votes in favor of the Goldstone report when we were shocked by the Palestinian Authority’s request that its delegate in Geneva postpone voting on the report for six months. I saw much anger as I headed at noon on 2/10/2009 to the Aljazeera studio in Montparnasse in the French capitol. “I feel like I’ve been poisoned. Nobody has the right to tamper with the victims’ right to justice,” “Abu Mazin, let international justice defend your people.” I received hundreds of messages and phone calls from the Palestinian territories, both Gaza and Ramallah; Hamas and Fatah; and from several Palestinian and Arab human rights organizations. Within seven days, an intifada (uprising) of Palestinian human right against the postponement decision was launched in addition to marches and demonstrations in Palestinian cities, daily rallies for the victims and overall discontent on part of human rights organizations and civil resistance. There was also debate within the circles of Palestinian decision-making regarding peaceful resolution and absence of accountability and the symbolic role that the Human Rights Council played, and the importance of the Goldstone recommendations. For the first time in its history, the Human Rights Council and international justice became at the forefront of mainstream Arabic media until the Palestinian Authority succumbed before the demands of the human rights movement and the “International Coalition to Prosecute War Criminals”: “a Human Rights Council urgent session, a special United Nations session, to pursue the Palestinian case before the International Criminal Court immediately.” The Palestinian Minister of Justice arrived in Paris on Monday morning and we met in order to proceed in three directions: The Hague, Geneva and New York.
A Palestinian committee for investigation was formed and I immediately submitted my testimony. Progress was made towards international recognition of what had taken place by parties keen to give international justice a voice in a world that had become a jungle ruled by the powerful following years of secret prisons, Guantanamo and arbitrary laws. But again, an over-cautious optimism, as the Israeli Prime Minister said on the evening of Monday 12/10/2009 that Israel is above punishment and that “self defense” and the “Jewish character of the state” are existential Israeli issues. He said he would refuse jurisdiction over any Israeli who defended Israel and that he would do everything in his power to prevent the Goldstone report from returning to the Human Rights Council. This language transformed war crimes and crimes against humanity to legitimate methods for self defense. It is the major product of violence in the Middle East. It obstructs the creation of a broad civil current that defends peace. Peace is a word that has been stripped of all meaning by agreements, from Oslo to Washington. On the day Oslo was signed, there were about one hundred thousand settlers in the West Bank. Today there are over a quarter million. There were around 22 checkpoints. Today there are 600 checkpoints. The apartheid wall didn’t exist, and resources of self-sustenance for Palestinians citizens were three times as high as today. In the collective memory, Oslo is a disaster for the Palestinian and his national and citizenship aspirations. What peace, Mr. Nobel for Peace, if you cannot stop settlements? What peace when the British Foreign Secretary considers the Israeli war a democratic decision by a democratic state? What peace when European Union countries have refrained from voting to form an investigation delegation, a mere delegation to investigate the murder of 1,400 Palestinians, three quarters of whom were civilians? We are before a western ethical crisis. These countries, which teach daily lessons on the independence of the judiciary and human rights and the importance of accountability, stand naked at Israeli checkpoints, incapable of demonstrating even minimal credibility. International justice in Belgium retreated before Sharon. In Spain, it retreated before the generals of “Operation Cast Lead”. We have no idea where else in the aging continent (as Rumsfeld calls it) it will retreat. Has the Israeli war criminal become stronger than judicial buildings that are over two centuries old? This is the question before judicial, national, regional and international institutions today.
Haytham has lived in exile since 1978 (he was allowed to go back to Syria in 2003). He is an anthropologist and physician specialized in psychosomatics and sleeping and waking disorders.
He is the author of more than thirty books and was the editor of the Short Universal Encyclopedia of Human Rights. He has been an activist for human rights since 30 years.
He is the spokesman for the Arab Commission for Human Rights, which he co-founded.
See full CV and bibliography here
Articles by Haytham Manna at Tlaxcala
ALSO AVAILABLE IN ARABIC ON TLAXCALA: http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8979&lg=ar
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Hatham Manna, From Tutu To Goldstone depicts the work of one situated where his talents can blossom for peace.
To recognize the vital importance of standing firm against crimes against human rights laws and their jurisdictions is to invest in the narrow path of the law to bring justice to the disenfranchised and oppressed in Palestine.
The United Nations Human Rights Council is a very good idea and ideal at an important time in human history.. Denouncing illegality in national affairs is a role that is difficult , if not nearly impossible to assume without causing conflict. In the case of Israel's direct defiance of the Nuremberg Principles upon which convictions of their holocaust were born, is to say the least a contradiction in terms.
Why would fledgling state Israel, with all of her warts and now greatly maligned criminality, support an erosion of principles that insure it's own national complexion and sovereignty into the next century and beyond?
Israel chooses the path of separatism, Jews in national population are to be the norm and non Jews excluded on the basis of their inherent :Jewishness" is the issue.In expanding the borders, never clearly defined, Israel says, in action, that it is narrowing the boundaries of Palestine to expand the boundaries of Israel against the Geneva Conventions edicts and against the Nuremberg principles on the basis of precedent set by other non compliant invasion forces which resulted in illegal occupation, the United States being unnamed but none the less primarily the target of this accusation. Israel is pronouncing it's displeasure at being singled out, a responsible claim, on the surface. What is irresponsible about this claim is the implication, and included in the report, that the USA is both culpable and aiding and abetting said crimes and commonly responsible to investigate such crimes and preclude their being perpetrated ongoing and in the future.
The accusations of Israel that the US has a more broad and more violent and destructive presence and therefore more dangerous general effect on human rights is not lost on the committee I assure Mr Netenyahu.
However, what is pressing today, more so than in the past, is Israel insistence that it is justified to break the rulings of the NPT by shielding it's operations from compliance and inspections of the INRC while threatening aggressive and illegal destruction of Iran's compliant facilities for enrichment. The obviously deranged thought process and use of scurrilous accusations and bias as a case for aggression is frightening to say the least to many now engaged in various venues of trade, diplomacy and cultural exchange hampered by unrest and instability always centered on the middle east with Israel as the main protagonist and the USA as facilitator and hegemony. Both military, security and press, media output has been destructive in many ways to the exchange of reform ideals by responsibly thoughtful groups and parties intent on healing what Israel is obviously still intent on making exponentially worse.
What limit would a wolrd of witness put on Israeli hubris if none whatsoever, given it's current belligerence and intransigence in it's responsibilities as a world partner and nation? Where will accountability come from if not forced by dissent, as legal as it can possibly get, the Goldstone report demands a sincere reply from Israel's every hall of governance in civil and military affairs. Why would Israel risk a greater rebuke and further sanctioning when a simple acknowledgment and sincere investigation would do much to set things straight and put Israel on more stable legal footing to make peace with justice as it's foundation, not hubris.
In forcing the US/Israeli hand on Abbas and making his decision discredit him to his people, the methodology of these two gangster nations is clear, they are torturing poor Palestine to death and making the UN Human Rights Council watch? Think again.
[...] by Haitham Manna', Palestinian think tank [...]
[...] Source: Palestine Think Tank [...]
[...] From Tutu to Goldstone. By Haitham Manna 2009 October 18 by kanan48 Via: Palestine Think Tank. [...]
[...] Haitham Manna' (Translated from Arabic by Saja) - Palestine Think Tank - 18 October [...]
Thank you Dr. Mana’a. Thank you for your persistence to follow justice no what are the difficulties. Thank you for putting the Ramallah leadership to shame. Thank you for pursuing justice when the Palestinian leadership sitting in Ramallah tried to bargain the blood of thousands of victims for some financial and personal gains and promises from America and Israel to pursue “peace negotiations” since negotiations with Israel is not only a mean but an end of itself to a Palestinian leadership that failed at every thing and is doing all it can to continue with the job started by Arafat to negotiate to the end, until there is no more Palestine. Thank you for exposing the lies of Ramallah leadership and its representatives in Geneva and New York certainly in Ramallah. And yes, we are for Goldstone and we are for bringing Hamas to trial if it also means bringing Abbas, Saeb and Abed Rabou friends Barack, Livni and Olmert to trial. Yes, both Israel and the Palestinians have to learn that when it comes to killing and murdering civilians all have to face justice. However it is very unlikely that any Israeli war criminals will ever face trial. Israel will liquidate and assassinate judges and prosecutors alike until such time there is no one left to take on Israel and its crimes… excellent efforts. I am sure the Palestinian delegation and leadership have few things to learn. Now we would like you to pursue war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by many of the Arab countries. Special Note: Abbas good friend and negotiating partner Olmert announced at his speech in Chicago that Jerusalem will always be united and under Jewish rule. It is clear that Abbas never even dared to raise the issue of Jerusalem with his masters in Tel-Aviv, or unless Abbas agreed for Ramallah to be East Jerusalem.
When it comes to dealing with war criminals and their accomplices, I can only paraphrase Mao:
Let 1,000 Red Army Fractions bloom!
And, for good measure, throw in a few hundred Weather Underground Organizations for those averse to actually killing the scum.
The American Governments "special relationship" with Israel, is at the root of much evil.
Because the USA has NOT been an honest broker for justice the "peace process" has never been much more than photo ops and paper work that sits on shelves.
The international community is the body that must leading US in the way to end the Israeli Palestinian conflict which was rooted in 1947 by the UN Partition Plan and entrenched in 1967 by Israel's military occupation of the indigenous people of the so called holy land-which is in pieces-bantustans!
The 23 days of Israel's attack on the people of Gaza was fueled by US-supplied weapons paid for with US tax dollars. We the people who pay taxes in the USA provide $30 billion annually to Israel which has consistently misused U.S. weapons in violation of America's Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts.
Imagine how many American citizens could receive basic health care with that!
During the 23 days of Israeli assault on Gaza, "Washington provided F-16 fighter planes, Apache helicopters, tactical missiles, and a wide array of munitions, including white phosphorus and DIME. The weapons required for the Israeli assault were decided upon in June 2008, and the transfer of 1,000 bunker-buster GPS-guided Small Diameter Guided Bomb Units 39 (GBU-39) were approved by Congress in September. The GBU 39 bombs were delivered to Israel in November (prior to any claims of Hamas cease fire violation!) for use in the initial air raids on Gaza. [1]
In a 71-page report released March 25, 2009, by Human Rights Watch, Israel’s repeated firing of US-made white phosphorus shells over densely populated areas of Gaza was indiscriminate and is evidence of war crimes.
"Rain of Fire: Israel’s Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza," provides eye witness accounts of the devastating effects that white phosphorus munitions had on civilians and civilian property in Gaza.
"Human Rights Watch researchers found spent shells, canister liners, and dozens of burnt felt wedges containing white phosphorus on city streets, apartment roofs, residential courtyards, and at a United Nations school in Gaza immediately after hostilities ended in January.
"Militaries officially use white phosphorus to obscure their operations on the ground by creating thick smoke. It has also been used as an incendiary weapon, though such use constitutes a war crime.
“In Gaza, the Israeli military didn’t just use white phosphorus in open areas as a screen for its troops," said Fred Abrahams, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report. "It fired white phosphorus repeatedly over densely populated areas, even when its troops weren't in the area and safer smoke shells were available. As a result, civilians needlessly suffered and died." [Ibid]
During the 23 days of attack on Gaza, the UN Security Council, Amnesty International, International Red Cross, and global voices of protest rose up and demanded a ceasefire, but both houses of Congress overwhelmingly endorsed resolutions to support a continuation of Israel’s so called "self defense."
The US is the largest arms supplier to Israel and under a Bush negotiated deal with Israel; the US also agreed to provide another $30 billion in military aid to Israel over the next decade.
It is way past time to change course from seeking SECURITY in imperialism and militarism when over 2.5 billion people on our planet exist on less than $2.00 a day and over 15,000 babies and young children die daily because of malnutrition and substandard or nonexistent health care!
The 42 years of Military Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and disregard of democratic and human rights values and justice by the USA government –also by Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Congo, Honduras, Haiti, Syria, Myanmar, Iraq, Russia, Pakistan, and China to mention a few-is at the root of INSECURITY for all!
I conclude with a paraphrase of John Lewis' March on Washington Speech taken from Walking With the Wind:
For the first time in 61 years this nation is being awakened…We are now involved in a serious revolution. This nation is still a place of cheap political leaders who build their careers on immoral compromises and ally themselves with open forms of political, economic and social exploitation…which side is the federal government on?
The revolution is at hand, and we must free ourselves of the chains of colonialism, imperialism and militarism.
The nonviolent revolution is saying: We will not wait!
To those who have said, "Be patient and wait," we must say that "patience" is a dirty and nasty word. We cannot be patient for Gaza Palestine will never be freed gradually. We want their freedom, and we want it now!
We all recognize the fact that if any radical social, political and economic changes are to take place in our society, the people, the masses, must bring them about. In the struggle, we must seek more than civil rights; we must work for the community of love, peace and true sister-brotherhood.
Our minds, souls and hearts cannot and will not rest until freedom and justice exist for all people.
The revolution is a serious one. All of us must get in the revolution. Get in and stay until true freedom comes, until the revolution is complete.
We won't stop and by the force of our demands, our determination and our numbers, we shall splinter the empire into a thousand pieces and put them back together in the image of God and democracy.
We must say, "Wake up, America. Wake up!!! For we cannot stop, and we will not be patient."
1. http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/9-us-arms-used-for-war-crimes-in-gaza/
Eileen Fleming,
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
Eileen Fleming: We the people who pay taxes in the USA provide $30 billion annually to Israel which has consistently misused U.S. weapons in violation of America's Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts.
Aaron Aarons: When the United Snakes provide IsraHell with these weapons, all factions of the U.S. ruling class know what they will be used for. The laws that E.F. mentions are just for show.
E.F.: Imagine how many American citizens could receive basic health care with that!
A.A.: Imagine how many United Snakes citizens actually would receive any health care with that money if it weren't given to the Zionists. (Hint: I think it was an Arab mathematician who invented the number '0'.)
The United Snakes spends about $1,000,000,000,000 on its killitary. Even if Israel does get $30 billion, it's a drop in the bucket. Of course, we should oppose any U.S. financing of the Zionist entity, as we should oppose its financing of the Egyptian dictatorship, and we should oppose every cent of U.S. military spending. But lets not spread illusions that U.S. capitalism isn't providing health care because of its financing of IsraHell or its military spending. U.S. capitalism isn't providing health care because dominant sections of capital don't consider it in their interests to do so. If they did, they would find the money.
Current trends seem to suggest that the future of Israel will be that of a binational state. While this is not something most Israelis want, even many conservative Israelis have concluded it may be inevitable.
http://watching-history.blogspot.com/2009/10/israel.html
Thank you Haytham Manna for your article.
I think back to the horror and terror of Cast Lead as live pictures were relayed to us in the UK by Al Jazeera and Press TV. This photograph taken from the banner at the top of this website sums it up – the grief on the beautiful face of the mother and the injured face of her little one. I believe that she had other children who were killed.
http://rsrc1.bubbleshare.com/media/01/12/2d/ce/5ee0adb0ea9229f1e5818b67fa71ff8ee90b77bf/580×435/image018_580×435.jpg
You are quite correct about the craven apologist for Israel, our Foreign Secretary, Miliband who has 100 relatives in the 'gallant little state'. Brown of course, like Bliar before him, is the Patron of the UK JNF.
~~~~~
Note to Mary Rizzo – I notice that Bubbleshare who provide your banner photos is closing down on 15th November and they say on their site that all photos etc will be lost after that date. Will that affect PTT?
Women of Hamas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqAWGHzzoQ0&NR=1&feature=fvwp
sorry
The above link was meant for another article