My journalistic sources stated that other murdered women were taken by their criminal relatives, the perpetrators, to hospitals where these crimes were registered as natural death and other fabricated reasons. In all these cases, the Palestinian Authority covered up the crimes because of the interference of the relatives of the victims, who work in the institutions of the Palestinian National Authority and its security systems.

These dangerous statements about the victims of “honor killings” under the Palestinian National Authority have set a record of “honor killings” when compared with what happened under the Israeli occupation and before Abbas.

The Palestinians believe that the reason for the high numbers of “honor killings” has to do with the policies of the Palestinian Authority and the exploitation of the women who work in its institutions, women who are abused sexually by superiors and co-workers, putting their lives in big danger due to the tradition of honor killings in traditional Palestinian society.

The Palestinian newspapers report only one or two miserable sentences about such crimes. Al-Quds, the largest newspaper, usually publishes reports such as the following examples: "In the town of Tubas, a woman (A-KH) of age 36 was found murdered under mysterious circumstances, the body was found near the squatter colonist Mikhola near Tubas"; "In Tarqumiya near Hebron, a woman (K-A) of age 24 was found dead under mysterious circumstances"; "The body of D-S of age 37 from the village of Burkin near Jenin was found in a well"; "The woman (W-G) from Hebron was found dead, the preliminary investigations show that she killed herself".

The Palestinian Authority applies the Jordanian Penal Code in the West Bank towns. The Jordanian law is considered as a discriminatory law, it reduces the penalty for the murderer when he perpetrates his crime under the pretext of "issues of honor".

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas promised last year that he would change this shameless law by the International Women's Day of 2010. But it is seems to be that President Abbas has swallowed his words, as he didn’t change the law. The International Women's Day passed and there were over 13 women murdered in Palestine under the presence of the PA. Abbas and friends just don't care.

See more photos.

Vienna – Kawther Salam – March 8 2010, International Women’s Day.

March 8 is a major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women, but also it is a day to remind the governments which have enacted more laws that violate women's rights, that they must review these laws, which for example allow the labor offices to force these women into contracts where the labor of women is sold cheaply, 690 Euro monthly for a 45 hour week, far under the level of poverty, and 30% of their salary is deducted once the women are rented out, according to what I was told. These "contracts" and the how these women (and men) are bullied into them correspond to the definition of forced labor set forth in the Forced Labour Convention of 1930, ratified by Austria on 07.06.1960. Quote:

For the purposes of this Convention the term "forced or compulsory labour" shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily. Click here to read the law.

The convention states some explicit exceptions of this definition, such as military service and community services in certain qualified cases, but the kind of activity to which these people are forced have nothing to do with these stated exceptions.

In Vienna, unemployed women (and also men) are bullied by the labor office into "contracts" with companies which in turn rent them out to anybody needing a cheap worker. It is not clear if the bad deal of these women forced into virtual slavery has to do with labor laws which have been passed by the governments of the European Union in the wake of the economic crisis that swept global markets and led to the continuing collapse in the domestic and international economy, or if has to do with changing the statistical data about unemployment in Austria in order to make them look more favorable to the government. In any case, if these assumptions are right or wrong, the Austrian laws forbid forced labour. The Austrian penal code deals with slavery, forced labour and similar crimes in sections 104 to 106 in the chapter about "Human Trafficking".

On the basis of the Austrian laws, but also taking in account the expectations of citizens, it is very important to raise this issue at the International Women's Day, regardless of whether raising this issue will be satisfactory or unsatisfactory to the concerned authorities. We insist on raising the women issue in several successive reports, until it reaches the ears of the authorities, who will hopefully introduce changes and solutions in the best interest of the people.

Based on what I have been told and personally seen, I must ask if the labor offices have been turned into business projects which effectively sell the labour of women to other companies, and very cheap.

• Is the labour office forcing women back under the reign of feudal lords and slavers?Are the psychological pressure and the overt threats against women brought into such relations, such as the threat to terminate unemployment or welfare benefits, as done by the employees at the labor office and these companies every day against women, in line with Austrian laws and the aspirations of a democratic society?
• Can it be "legal" to force an elderly lady who obviously is incapable of work due to constant shaking of all her body into "work" for one of such companies?
• How can one qualify the threat to terminate benefits because a woman announces a visit to the doctor?
• Are the methods of psychological pressure and threatening women to cut their allowance of subsidy implied by labor workers against women in accordance with the laws of Austria? Which are the provisions of Austrian law on the prevention of transfer of women and citizens into forced labour relations?

In light of the data available to me, the labor office force threatens women with withholding benefits if they dare to protest against being bullied into "labor" relations in certain companies under the pretext helping them to look for work – these "measures" are always represented as "courses" where people are supposed to learn how to find work, as I know from many conversations. The labour office usually rejects to the wishes of women to choose a profession or line of work which they think suits them best, and instead they are "made" saleswomen, nail polishers and hairdressers, to be rented out.

I was greatly disappointed when I visited one such company which runs a program to process women over 50 sent to them by the labour office. One of the women I saw there was a woman over 60, all her body was trembling, she had to cough whenever she moved. I asked an "instructor" what kind of work they would find for this woman. I also asked her for her opinion about selling women in the work market?

This sick woman was a client of the social office, as, according to the new laws, the social office now submits their clients to the work office to "help them look for work", and the labour and welfare offices work together. In most countries of the world, even the undeveloped countries, there is a separation between the employment (labor) offices and the offices of social affairs, for very obvious reasons, but in Austria, and apparently the EU the situation is different. In the EU the social cases, the sick people and the elderly are under threat to have their benefits withheld if they do not do whatever the labour offices want from them.

During a visit to another company which holds such "courses", I saw some of the bums usually standing around at Karlsplatz, a meeting place for the bums and drug addicts of the city, clearly not labour office clients. I wonder what kind of work these people will able do, but the presence of people who are obviously unable to work hints at another problem which I have been told in my conversations, but which I can not confirm: corruption and collusion between these companies and government officials to milk the social and employment welfare system.

In this company the "clients" are allocated to do small work according to the whims of the company. At the beginning of the interview, the "instructor" asks the client which work they would like to do? After that, the client is told that they can’t offer them this kind of work, and then pressure and bullying begins, and continues until the "client" chooses whatever work they are offered, usually selling, cleaning, menial office work and other similar occupations. The "instructor" never forgets to remind the attendants that they will file a negative report about them if she or he does not do whatever they are told, "chooses" whatever they are "offered". People are "asked" to sign a paper, under threat of a negative report or course.

According to what I was told, people are pooled for a month after signing their "agreement" with the company, and they are "trained" during this time to do menial work. After this, the company which runs the program starts renting them out. The only obvious "benefit" to the government is that people who are in such programs are not considered as unemployed, but are still financed by the office of labour. This changes (falsifies ?) the statistics significantly. As of February 2010 there were about 400.000 people officially registered as unemployed in Austria, and about 82.000 of these persons were in such programs. It appears that welfare clients, people who are traditionally classified as unemployable for various reasons, are being included in such programs with the intension of "bettering" the long-term unemployment statistics.

For the people who are included in such programs, their personal situation is such that they are forced for up to 8 months into a pseudo-labour relation where they are pooled with others for 45 hours per week at 690 Euro monthly, and, if they are rented out, 30% of the salary is deducted, as my sources told me, an income far under poverty level, which is set at about 950 Euros monthly for a working week of 38,5 hours in Austria. I could not understand what economic sense it makes to the government to falsify its unemployment statistics by forcing people into such programs, as the full costs for these women and men are still being born by the government. According to my information, people in such programs are kept for the first 30 days as "course participants", and are thereafter run as employed in the employment statistics, while still being paid in full from the unemployment or social money of the government. If a woman in such a pool completes the 8 months without having been rented out, she will automatically return to labour office, probably only to be included in the next pooling program.

If a woman included in such a program can be rented out, it probably means that they will be paid at under market prices, what gives no incentive to the "renter" to keep her in his employ beyond the end of the pooling program, what also means that the woman will also find her way to the labour office. Based on the observation that the participants forced into such pooling programs are actually paid by the government, the official statistic of only 400.000 unemployed can be assumed to be far lower than the real number of people unemployed in this country, because this is a category of people who are neither in "courses" nor "unemployed" proper.

For the companies running these programs, the benefit seems obvious. According to what I was told, they get to cut for themselves the difference between 690 Euros (what is paid to the clients) and about 900 Euros, and it is possible that they are paid a sum on top of that. I understand that in Austria such pooling and pseudo-capacitation programs are run by a few big companies, what assures them handsome profits based solely on the number of people unemployed. A very simple calculation would indicate that running such a pooling program with 1.000 participants can leave net profits of about 120.000 Euros per month.

Another important factor in the revenue stream of such companies, which are widely called parasites ("Schmarotzerfirmen") by Austrians, seems to be corruption. Even without leveling the accusation of activities which would qualify legally as corrupt, their activity is questionable at best as the deteriorating labour statistics demonstrate. Still, a case which became widely known in the Austrian corporate media is the now-defunct company "Venezia", which was caught in a scandal which implicated ministerial employees in transferring funds to this company for non-existent invoices.

I was told in personal conversations that in the case of courses of German for foreigners (all foreigners must by law attend German courses in Austria), most legitimate language institutes have no chance of getting contracts from the government, as these contracts are given to a few big companies, and this has to do with what I understood to be a "60:40" arrangement, meaning a 40% kickback. I understood from the person who told me this that it was general knowledge among institutes offering language courses. I am not in a position to confirm this information.

Some questions are:

• Are women (and men) led into forced labor in companies which work for the labour office?
• Which is the relationship between the labor office and these companies beyond the formal contract?
• Who are the owners of those companies?
• Are they from circles closes to politicians, political parties in power and employees in the labor offices and ministries?
• Have any of these companies achieved positive results towards ending the problem of unemployment?
• Does the labor office use these companies to falsify the statistical data about unemployment, or can this charge be easily refuted with verifiable information?
• How exactly would such a falsification of statistics happen if it was true?
• Is the falsification of unemployment statistics a violation of any law?
• Why has the Austrian corporate media avoided these issues until now, instead opted for running a show which suggests that everything is well?

The answers for these questions will be followed in a future article.

I was told by acquaintances that I should abstain from writing this report as it would bring nothing at best, and that it could even bring me troubles. I think that it is important to report on these issues because women (and men) should not be treated like garbage in a country which presents itself as a civilized, democratic country, because always women are those who suffer the most from deteriorated social conditions, because I believe that not only citizens but also the government should act according to the law, anywhere. I find that this is an issue so big and important that the mass media, which have far more resources than I, should have a deep and abiding interest in bringing some clarity into this issue, which is not only about women rights, but also about human rights and democracy.

What disturbs me is not the risk to me; any action against oppression is taken knowing there are personal risks.  What disturbs me is that this has an effect on my family and thousands of friends around the world who care (and some of it unpredictable).  My 76 year old mother asks on the phone that I not go back and that I work in the US for a while, a very painful suggestion for a mother to make about her only remaining son near her!  I try to assure her that I have done nothing wrong and will not leave her…but she brings up many examples of people who also did not do any violence and were arrested, imprisoned, and their families had to go through a lot.

A friend who heard about this stated I have nothing to worry about, that this was to hassle me to get us to stop being active. Another lost sleep trying to figure out what we can do.  I assure her that I will carry on with my speaking tour as planned and that this will blow over one day. The song “we shall overcome someday” comes to mind.

But I am not different from hundreds of others.  Israel is cracking down on all popular/civil resistance activities in Palestine because:

• 1) there is no armed resistance now.
• 2) Civil resistance is escalating and portending a new powerful uprising.

Israel’s repression of dissent reinforces in our minds the importance of civil resistance and that there is a price to pay for it.  Over 30 activists were arrested in Bilin over the past year, many others in Ni’lin, Al-Ma’sara and elsewhere.  The repression reveals the bankruptcy of the Zionist regime and its excessive paranoia that will IMHO eventually lead to its demise.  It is paranoia inherent in the philosophical underpinnings of the ideology.  That ideology embraced by a subset of Jews (Zionism) simply teaches that “we are God’s chosen people, He gave us this land, we cannot go wrong when behaving against the Goyim especially those who happen to be here when we arrived to reclaim and cleanse our lands, and International law and human rights laws do not apply to us.”

It is self-destructive delusions that are inculcated during early education and perpetuate the myths of uniqueness.  It leads to the kind of behaviors that are now difficult to hide (the ethnic cleansing of 1948 was only a beginning). But even some Israelis are shedding these mythologies and joining the struggle. In the end, we will live together despite all this repression.

I have to consider various options in terms of responding to this particular event. If you have any advice, I would appreciate it.  My initial thought is that we should intensify our work for peace and human rights in this critical and historic period: write to the media, the politicians, neighbors and anyone who would listen.  Below is an action call for March 30th (Land Day) which I urge you to heed.  We can’t be neutral on a moving train and there are times whether in the US in the 1950s and 1960s or in South Africa under apartheid, when silence was indeed complicity in crime.

I asked these questions during the presentation of the “International Narcotics Control Board 2009 Annual Report” held at Presseclub Concordia in Vienna on 24 February 2010. The conference was organized by the UNIS Information Service in a number of major cities around the world. In Vienna, many journalists attended the Press conference. Prof. Sevil Atasoy, President of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) presented the report. Maher Nasser, director of UNIS, briefed the attendants shortly while opening the session.

Prof. Atasoy answered my question saying that the root of the drug problem is that the human beings sometimes need a tool to confront the problems of life. “Human beings have always been using something, for example a plant to chew. The issue is that we must reduce this demand. Therefore we must say that it’s enough to reduce this need for drugs. We can’t say that drugs are an economic problem. We can’t say that it is a problem of open borders. Everywhere, persons can have access to some of this material, and we must teach the people how to cope with stress and life without using drugs. The NGOs should teach people how to cope with life”.
Prof. Atasoy warned during her presentation that the use of so called "date-rape drugs" is on the rise. The INCB report raises the alarm about new psychoactive substances which are easier to obtain and under less stringent international controls.

The UNIS office released a statement by the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa, who said during a debate in the Security Council on global threats against international peace and security: “We must break the vicious circle between insecurity and under-development”. Costa also stated that “instability attracts crime, and crime deepens instability”, and he added “in a chain reaction, humanitarian crises follow, development is stalled, and peacekeepers are deployed”.

The report of UNIS in which they summarize the INCB annual report and the UNODC warnings is below.

INCB Warns of an Increase in the Use of "Date-Rape Drugs"

VIENNA, 24 February UNIS – The "date-rape drug" phenomenon is evolving rapidly, as sexual abusers attempt to circumvent more rigorous drug controls by using substances not restricted by the international drug conventions. Stricter control measures by governments, in close cooperation with the pharmaceutical industry, have been effective as reports about the misuse of Flunitrazepam have become rare. This benzodiazepine sold under the brand name Rohypnol was once so commonly misused for sexual assault that it was called the "date-rape drug". In its Report, INCB calls on all governments to implement the pertinent Resolution 52/8 from March 2009 of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs to combat the misuse of pharmaceutical products to commit sexual assault as soon as possible and to be vigilant about the worrying increase in "date-rape drug" abuse.

Prevention of Drug Abuse

Society has to give urgent attention to preventing drug abuse, the Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board said, underlining the need for more actions and commitment. Measures to prevent and reduce drug abuse by people who are either not using or not seriously involved with drugs – so-called primary prevention – are the focus of the first chapter of the Report.

"Preventing drug abuse is a crucial area of demand reduction. Primary prevention encompasses measures taken to prevent and reduce drug use in populations that are either not using or not seriously involved with drugs," said INCB President, Professor Sevil Atasoy. "There is good reason for society to give concerted attention to preventing drug abuse. Even a single early drug using experience can result in serious consequences, such as unintentional injury, overdose or arrest."

The Report calls on governments to re-establish the place of primary prevention alongside secondary prevention as well as on policy makers to establish a clear focal point for primary prevention. As primary prevention by governments alone will not suffice, there needs to be collaboration with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and others.

INCB President Atasoy says: "Partnerships with civil society need to be forged at all levels, locally, nationally and internationally to ensure scarce resources are applied as efficiently as possible and to increase effectiveness in reducing the prevalence of drug use." With limited resources, governments should pay attention to both young people who are not using or occasionally using drugs and to those using drugs frequently, underlines the Report.

Growing Problem of Prescription Drug Abuse

The Report says that abuse of prescription drugs has become a major concern in some countries. A greater number of people are abusing such drugs, even than those abusing heroin, cocaine and MDMA ("ecstasy") put together in some countries. High profile celebrity deaths have shed light on the dangers of prescription drug abuse in 2009. Abuse of such drugs has been spreading over the world in recent years and INCB is calling for more awareness of this 'hidden' problem.

Prescription drug abuse needs to be tackled urgently in order to stop its further spreading and to prevent more fatal incidents amongst celebrities and others. The INCB recommends governments to either prohibit or closely control the sales of internationally controlled substances by Internet pharmacies and telephone call centers, in order to close down the illicit supply channels.

New Processes, Routes and Substances Used by Criminal Networks to Manufacture Drugs

Highly organized and powerful criminal networks are using new processes, routes and substances to keep drug manufacturing operations alive, warns the INCB. In the face of stricter controls of chemicals, traffickers are finding new ways to fuel their illegal exploits and are still able to obtain the chemicals they need from legal trade channels.

The demand for methamphetamine precursors has had serious repercussions throughout the Americas, where some governments are making major efforts to free their countries from the grip of powerful criminal organizations. As the Report indicates, the power of such networks is linked to the vast wealth generated by illicit drug manufacture, particularly of methamphetamine.

INCB is helping governments to efficiently exchange data on trade, diversions and seizures. Together with the INCB online system for pre-export notifications, the international collaborative initiatives and operations have resulted in more effective monitoring of suspicious transactions and the identification of trafficking trends and networks. Improved exchange of intelligence information has yielded significant results in targeting the diversion of chemicals.

Hundred Years of Drug Control, Major Landmark in International Cooperation

The year 2009 marked a century of multilateral drug control efforts which started when the International Opium Commission was convened in Shanghai, China, in February 1909. International drug control has evolved considerably over hundred years. A series of multilateral drug control agreements were concluded, leading up to the adoption of the three international drug control treaties that are the current framework for action in international drug control. To pay tribute to the achievements in international drug control, a special section of the Annual Report of the INCB is devoted to the commemoration of the convening of the International Opium Commission, which was held on 26 and 27 February 2009 in Shanghai, China.

At this landmark event, Professor Hamid Ghodse, then INCB President, recalled the spirit of the original Shanghai Conference, which met when the opium trade was very lucrative, generating millions of dollars in revenues. The challenges that the international community faces were important such as the under-utilization of narcotic drugs for medical purposes, Professor Ghodse said, adding that "Governments and the international community as a whole have to find a way to tackle them, bearing in mind the principles of shared responsibility, the sovereignty of nations, the territorial integrity of States and the need to address the world drug problem in a balanced and integrated manner."

Regional Highlights

The Report highlights major trends in drug abuse and trafficking, region by region, around the globe. After years of increasing cocaine trafficking from South America through West Africa to Europe and to a lesser extent to North America, there was a decline in seizures of cocaine since 2008 and no large seizure in 2009 at all. However, smuggling remains a serious problem and contributes to increasing drug abuse in West Africa.

Drug trafficking has become a major security threat in Central America and the Caribbean and has an impact on the increasing drug abuse and homicides linked to organized crime. While measures taken by the Mexican Government, including the deployment of military troops, have resulted in the disruption of drug trafficking operations throughout North America, organized criminal groups have expanded their control over drug trafficking operations throughout the continent. Mexican drug cartels have expanded their control to cover the entire supply chain for illicit drugs, from shipment from South America to distribution in the United States. In South America, the total potential manufacture of cocaine of the region decreased and constitutes the lowest output since 2003, due to a significant decrease in Colombia.

After tremendous progress in East and South-East Asia in the past, countries in the region faced setbacks in reducing illicit opium poppy cultivation in 2008. Trafficking in methamphetamine and illicit manufacture of MDMA ("ecstasy") also increased. Seizures of amphetamine-type stimulants in South Asia show that trafficking in the substances may be increasing in the region. India has emerged as one of the main sources of drugs sold through illegal Internet pharmacies, where orders placed abroad are dispatched to buyers using courier and postal services, which have became a common means of smuggling drugs abroad. After peaking in 2007, illicit cultivation of opium poppy and the illicit production of opium in West Asia decreased in 2008 and 2009.

A decline in the abuse of cannabis and cocaine has been observed in the United Kingdom and Spain. The abuse of cocaine is stable or declining in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, but increasing in France and Ireland. Likewise, the abuse of amphetamines and MDMA ("ecstasy") is stabilizing or decreasing in Europe. In Denmark, Spain and, to a limited extent in the United Kingdom, drug users are replacing those drugs with cocaine. Europe remains the largest market for cannabis resin. Spain accounts for the largest total amount of global seizures of cannabis resin.

The demand for MDMA ("ecstasy") in Australia has increased in recent years. The smuggling of pharmaceutical preparations containing pseudoephedrine into New Zealand has been rising significantly. In spite of closer regional cooperation to address drug control issues, the low rate of accession by States in Oceania to the international drug control treaties and the geographical proximity of the region to illicit drug manufacturing in South-East Asia make the region more vulnerable to drug trafficking.

Organized Crime Deepens Humanitarian Crises, Warns UNODC

VIENNA, 24 February (UN Information Service) – “We must break the vicious circle between insecurity and under development,” said the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa, at a debate in the Security Council today on global threats against international peace and security. “Instability attracts crime, and crime deepens instability,” said Mr. Costa. “In a chain reaction, humanitarian crises follow, development is stalled, and peacekeepers are deployed,” said Mr. Costa. To illustrate the problem, UNODC issued a report on Crime and Instability: case studies of transnational threats. The report focuses in particular on the impact of drug flows (cocaine and heroin), as well as piracy around the Horn of Africa, and minerals smuggling in Central Africa.

To reduce vulnerability to trans-national threats, Mr. Costa underlined the need for development and security: “But we cannot just throw money or troops at this problem, we also need law enforcement.” He underlined the need for States to make more effective use of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime which was adopted a decade ago. Parties to the treaty, also known as the Palermo Convention, will meet this October in Vienna to review implementation.

Mr. Costa called for more intelligence-sharing and vigilance to fill the “black holes” where criminals operate with impunity: “There are many blank spots on our radar screens and our ignorance about what goes on has deadly consequences,” he warned. He highlighted the recent discovery of a fleet of cargo planes bringing cocaine into West Africa and the Sahel. “What is shocking is that most major discoveries of illicit activity are being made by accident,” said Mr. Costa.

Mr. Costa said that a change in attitude is essential in order to tackle transnational threats. “It is time to regard intelligence-sharing as a way of strengthening sovereignty, not surrendering it,” said the head of UNODC. “When police stop at borders while criminals cross them freely, sovereignty is already breached – it is surrendered to those who break the law,” he said. He therefore called for regional networks to monitor flows, share intelligence and carry out joint operations.

Since criminals are motivated by money, the way to increase their risks and reduce their benefits is to go after their assets. Mr. Costa therefore urged Member States to strengthen measures against corruption and money-laundering. To illustrate the massive profits made by crime he said: “One line of cocaine snorted in Europe kills one square metre of Andean rain forest, and buys 100 rounds of AK-47 ammunition in West Africa. Multiply this by 850 tons of cocaine per year and you see that is a bigger mismatch than David versus Goliath.”

Because of the cross-cutting nature of organized crime, Mr. Costa called for a system-wide response, like putting criminal justice into the mainstream of all relevant UN operations, and holding periodic debates on the threat posed by organized crime to stability.

A Presidential statement issued during the debate made a number of recommendations on how to strengthen the response of Member States and the United Nations to transnational threats.

• Will the mossad get rid of the elements of the death squad after the assassination of Mahmoud Mabhouh in Dubai?
• How will the mossad deal with their problems?
• What would they use to get rid of the elements which participated in the assassination of al-Mabhouh?
• Will it be a mass culling, will they be killed in a soft and merciful way, or will it be a messy butchery?
• Will the bodies of these people be disposed by them, dropping them from airplanes into the ocean, or will they become part of the fundaments of yet to be built bridges?

Whatever happens, the Dubai 11 and all other people who participated in any capacity in this botched assassination must count on being killed if they do not surrender to or are not captured by the security forces of another nation. Regardless of what intentions the mossad has towards these elements, they are finished, and, even if the manage to evade capture, their refuge in Israel will be only temporary at best, until the pertinent decisions are taken.

Interpol on Thursday issued arrest notices for 11 suspects – six listed with British passports, three Irish, one French and one German – wanted by Dubai for the killing.

Now that they have been put on the wanted list of Interpol, that their faces are known, and that Dubai has stated that their retina prints taken at Dubai airport and other details will be published, they represent a giant liability to the Zionist regime of Israel. They are publicly known carriers of secrets, presumably in the know of many terrorist deeds of the mossad around the world. Their disposal will become an inevitable consequence, even a priority, to protect the secrets of global terrorism practiced by the mossad.

Meanwhile, the Dubai Police continues revealing new information relating to the murder of Mabhouh. They stated that the British, French, German and Irish authorities expressed during contacts with Dubai officials their strong displeasure because of the fact that the passports of their nations were used to enter Dubai and perpetrate this crime. Experts of the Dubai Police said that "the technology of recording retina prints at the airport will help to identify the perpetrators of the crime in Dubai, as it is difficult to hide or falsify this imprint, even if the person has surgery to change their face". The videotape distributed by the Dubai Police about the perpetrators of the al- Mabhouh murder shows that all of them passed through the airport, which uses records retina prints.

Palestinians elements supporting Mosssad

• Why did the Dubai Police not show the photos of the two Palestinians who were arrested in the wake of the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai?
• Why did the police not publish the names of the Palestinian suspects?
• Is it because they are elements connected to the Palestinian National Authority?

Last week, the Dubai police stated that had they had arrested two Palestinians among 18 suspects in the al-Mabhouh assassination, but they have not yet identified the two Palestinians or revealed their pictures.

Instead, the leader of Hamas, Mohammad Nazzal, announced the names of Palestinian detainees who were involved in the assassination of al-Mabhouh besides the Israeli death squad. He named them as Ahmed Hassanein, a former member of the Palestinian Intelligence Service, and Anwar Shuhaiber, a former officer in the Palestinian Preventive Security Forces. Both are former members of the PA security forces with links to Mohammed Dahlan of Fatah. Hamas claims that the senior Fatah official visited Dubai after these elements were arrested in order to try to persuade the Dubai authorities to release their operatives.

The Palestinian detainees are suspected of providing the mossad death squad with logistical aid, including renting cars and hotel rooms for them. According the Chief of the Dubai police, the Palestinians met the commander of the mossad death squad in a shopping center.

The spokesman of the Jordanian government, Nabil al-Sharif, revealed last Monday that Jordanian authorities handed these two Palestinians to the Dubai authorities. The detainees were caught by the airport security after their arrival at Amman airport.

Meanwhile, Mahmoud al-Zahar called on the West to forbid Israel from using their land to enter Arab countries and kill Palestinians. He said: "If the West allows the Zionist enemy to turn its land into land where Palestinian Muslims are murdered, or leave from it to Arab countries to assassinate our people, then we will confront them as God compels us too: 'One evil for another'", he said at a sermon in a Gaza mosque Friday.

While all the consequences and the scandal in the wake of this crime are still developing, it is noteworthy to mention that the Reut Institute, an extremist think tank which advises the Israeli regime, has recently released two the executive summaries of two reports (see here)  and (here) which deal with the increasing "deligitmization" which the zionist entity suffers (which of course can't be explained). It is funny to note that among their "policy options" they write

"18 – Relationship-based diplomacy with elites and 'influentials' – An effective barrier against delegitimization is a network of personal relationships. Working within identified hubs, Israel should aspire to maintain thousands of personal relationships with political, financial, cultural, media, and security-related elites and influentials."

Now that Israel is successfully in the process of affirming its image of an obnoxious cry-baby and leg-humping hyena, a liability to anybody who has anything to do with them, one can't help but smirking while asking where these thousands of "personal relationships" are to come if not from among people who are ignorant of their own best interests.

Kawther Salam

• Are the European countries involved in the crimes of the Israeli Mossad?
• Are there any secret agreements between various European countries and Israel which puts the international terrorism and assassinations of Israel above the law?
• Is Israel a legitimate state, or is it in fact just a zionist terrorist organization which is responsible for more crimes than anybody could recall, including many murders, the trafficking of human being organs, drugs, theft on an industrial scale, weapons smuggling, genocide etc. in many parts of the world?

It is in the interest of European countries to explain to their people what is legitimate or illegitimate in their relationship with Israel. It is important that the EU clarifies to the people the reasons for the special exceptions which their countries grant to the zionist organization and the Israeli Mossad death squads, exceptions which are contrary to written laws of all countries.

It is not reasonable that people wake up suddenly to learn that their documents and identities have been stolen in order to commit crimes of international terror in another State, and that the States of Austria, Britain, France, Germany and Ireland seem to be involved in the atrocity, judging by their muted reactions, which bely any interest in solving the crime.

An important question which arises is: Why did the Israeli Mossad choose Austria and not another EU country as a center in the management of its latest terrorist assassination carried in Dubai?

Was this mere coincidence, or are there "exceptions" accorded to the Mossad, for example in a secret agreement or protocol signed between Austria and Israel?

What are the reasons for the psychological comfort of the Mossad death squad, which made it feel that Austria was a best place for coordinating their international terrorism crimes?

The Israeli Mossad has a long history of desecrating the laws of many European countries, where they have committed many assassinations using fake passports and sometimes real ones. About 350,000 Israelis hold double citizenship and have EU and Israeli passports at the same time. The zionists of Israel have received logistical support from all the European countries in which the Mossad death squads have committed their crimes, in the current case as well as in past cases. This support was very clear when one observes the security which the governments of the EU provided to the coordination team, covering up their crimes and allowing them to move freely in their territories. At the very least, it is very difficult to believe that the various intelligence agencies did not know what was going on in their respective territories, and it is also very difficult to believe that it was not possible until now to identify people involved when pictures and phone numbers of the murder team have been published.

Let us open once again the Mossad death squad assassination of Dr. Fathi al-Shikaki, founder of the Islamic Jihad Movement, on October 26 1995 in Malta. There is no significant difference between the assassination of al-Shikaki 15 years ago and the assassinations of Mohammed Mabhouh in Dubai on January 20 2010. In both terrorist strikes the Mossad used fake passports.

Dr. al-Shikaki, who resided in Damascus, traveled to Malta in October 1995, on his way to Libya. The Israeli death squad followed him to Malta while using faked passports. They waited a long time for him at the airport. The death squad members were moving freely around the airport of Malta, speaking on their mobile phones and asking about reasons for the delay of the flight. Al-Shikaki arrived at the Malta airport using a wig and a different name ("Ibrahim Shawish"). The Mossad agents were not able to identify him easily. Finally one of them spotted him sitting alone. Al-Shikaki was sitting alone and waiting for his airplane to Libya. After one hour he left.

On October 26 1995, al-Shikaki returned to Malta where he had to stay one night. At 11:30 he went out for shopping. He entered Marks & Spencer and bought some things, got out and continued walking. The death squads were following him on motorcycle, and al-Shikaki did not realize it. The motorcycle approached al-Shikaki, the person behind the driver took a silenced pistol from his pocket and shot Shikaki three times in the head, they then left the stolen motorcycle and Malta. The cell which assassinated al-Shikaki was called "Kisaria", and the general who issued the assassination was Yitshaq Rabin. The unit "Kisaria" was dismantled after their failure in Jordan on September 25 1997 to assassinate Khaled Mishal, the Hamas leader.

Here is a list of assassinations by Mossad death Squad in Europe
Wael Adel Zuaiter was assassinated in Rome on Oct. 17 1972.
Hussein Ali Abu al-Khmer was assassinated in Cyprus on April 6 1973.
Bassel Rauf al-Kais was assassinated in Paris on April 6 1973.
Mahmoud Abu Daieh was assassinated in Paris on June 28 1973.
Mahmoud Walad Saleh was assassinated in Paris on Feb. 2 1977.
Said Hamami was assassinated in London on Feb. 2 1978.
Ezz al-Din al-Kalak was assassinated in Paris on Aug. 3 1978.
Ibrahim Abed al-Aziz was assassinated in Paris on Dec. 15 1979.
Samir Tokan was assassinated in Cyprus on Dec. 15 1979.
Zuheir Mohsen was assassinated in France on July 26 1979.
Josef Mubarak was assassinated in Paris on Feb. 18 1980.
Majed Abu Sharar was assassinated in Rome on Oct. 9 1981.
Naim Khader was assassinated in Brussels on Dec. 7 1981.
Mohammad Taha was assassinated in Germany in 1982.
Kmal Hasan abu Dalo and Nazeh Matar were assassinated in Rome on June 26 1982.
Fadel Sad Anani was assassinated in Paris on July 23 1982.
Ma’amon Imresh al-Sghaier was assassinated on Aug. 20 1983 in Athens.
Jamel Abed al-Khader Abu al-Rob was assassinated on Dec. 22 1983 in Athens.
Hnna Meqbel was assassinated in May 13 1984 in Nicosia.
Khaled Ahmad Nazzal was assassinated on June 9 1986 in Rome.
Monther Jode abu Ghazale was assassinated on Oct. 21 1986 in Athens.
Mohammad Hasan Behias and Mohammad Basem Hamdi were assassinated on Feb. 14 1988 in Limassol.
Marwan al- Kayali was assassinated on Feb. 14 1988 in Limassol.

The public prosecutor of the State Security Court ordered the detention of Mahadin and al-Tal after a group of retired army personnel filed a lawsuit accusing them of "offending the armed forces and betraying their blood."

The journalists were arrested after they made statements during television talk shows aired separately by two stations, whereby the two men questioned the legality of Jordan's collaboration with the US intelligence services in Afghanistan. The debate addressed the issue of the Jordanian suicide bomber, Homam Balawi, who blew himself up at a US forward base in Khost, Afghanistan, on last December 30, killing seven CIA agents and his Jordanian handler.

Until now the regime-controlled media in Jordan is characterizing the presence of their intelligence operatives in Afghanistan as a "humanitarian mission", and forbids the family of Dr. Khalil bin Hammam bin Mellal Balawi from mourning their son.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate has not had an election for nearly 20 years, Mr. Naim Tubasi has headed the PJS for at least 16 years, and the PJS has been de-facto inactive for about the last 12 to 14 years. The membership in the syndicate has been a more or less honorary issue, but it has always welcomed Palestinian journalists from all political factions and stayed away from politics as it was seen by all members strictly as a professional group. But, suddenly during the last 10 days or so, it was imperative for the Fatah to install over 60 of its own people.

• What would happen, or what would be lost, if the PJS elections were postponed for two, three months or even half a year if this delay is in the interest of journalists and the PJS assembly?
• What prompted the former intelligence chief Tawfiq Al-Tirawi and Presidential General Secretary Al-Tayeb Abed Al-Rahim for holding of the PJS congress and elections and ignoring the demands of the journalists and the civil society organizations?
• Which is the purpose of the presidential secretary general and former intelligence chief that he needs to urgently hold elections in the PJS?
• Why do men in the business of power, politics and repression like Tawfiq Al-Tirawi and Al-Tayeb Abed Al-Rahim, who have no relation to journalism, need to stick their nose into the elections of Palestinian journalists?
• Why are the PA and Fatah deliberately politicizing the PJS? Is this in the interest of the journalists and journalism, Palestine, the civil society or the PA?
• Has any journalist dared to ask Mr. Al-Tirawi and Abed Al-Rahim these questions?
• Would they have been tortured if they had asked?

Last Friday 5 February 2010, the General Assembly of the PJS was convened in the Salim Effendi hall next to the El-Bireh municipal building and very close to the center of downtown Ramallah. The meeting was held despite calls from various institutions to postpone the meeting, and the elections.

On 29 Jan 2010 Aidan White, Secretary General of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), issued  a press release calling for unity among the Palestinian journalists ahead of the congress of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS), and called for the postponement of the congress scheduled to be held on 5th February 2010, in order to allow journalists to put in place a structure acceptable to all, which will guarantee an open and inclusive process leading to a unifying congress.

On 2 February 2010 the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) “apologized for not participating in the supervision of elections of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate scheduled to be held on 05 February 2010". Mr. Raji Sourani, Director of PCHR, sent his apology in the form of a letter, in response to an invitation previously sent by the PJS asking the PCHR to participate in the supervision of the Syndicate’s elections. Sourani added that they had followed the reactions towards elections in the PJS closely and that they adhered to the stance of the IFJ, which calls for deferring elections for some time.

Sourani expressed the hope that the PJS gives consideration to calls from inside and outside the Union for deferring the elections. However, the PCHR stressed that these elections "should be transparent and should represent all journalists. This step should be considered the basic foundation of the Syndicate, so that it does not only represent and serve journalists, but also constitutes a basic component of Palestinian civil society, helping in the resolution of our national questions”. Under the current circumstances, PCHR said in this statement, it could not help tp supervise these elections unless they would be delayed: “it would not be able to participate in the supervision of elections because supervision is part of a more comprehensive process and a series of procedures, which were not observed by the Centre".

On 3 February 2010 the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights sent a letter to the PJS to thank them for inviting the Centre to monitor their elections, and apologize for declining their request. Al Mezan asserted that elections and the electoral system for the PJS must be accepted by journalists: "Elections are a delicate process. Any defect in any of its stages could affect the results. Therefore, Al Mezan does not view with favor that it was invited to monitor only one of these stages, which is the voting stage. This would not allow Al Mezan to give an objective assessment as to the integrity of this election process.

Al Mezan believes that, like the presidential and legislative elections, for the Syndicate elections to be fair and democratic, there must be agreement between the involved parties. Such agreement could foster the credibility and integrity of the PJS, and also strengthen its role in Palestinian society; including promoting and defending democracy and liberty. It will also enable it to defend the press and journalists from government interference".

For its part, the Palestinian NGO Network launched an initiative to find a compromise to resolve the dispute surrounding the PJS elections.  The NGO initiative requires postponing the elections for a maximum period of two months, and the elections to be conducted after this period in accordance with the rules which had been enacted for the PJS elections in 1999. During the postponing period of the two months, a selection of a professional committee must work on the examination of the old PJS memberships and the acceptation of new members.

On 3 Feb. 2010 a meeting was held between Mr. Al-Tayeb Abed Al-Rahim and the former PJS secretary general Naim Al-Tubasi. Mr. Abed Al-Rahim demanded that Al-Tubasi must not stand for election and announce his "unwillingness" before the PJS assembly on the next 4 Feb. 2010 "in order to withdraw the other member of PJS council to nominate themselves in the new elections". This will be in the interest of Fatah which will be able to impose their own candidate for the PJS General Secretary and council. Abed Al-Rahim offered Al-Tubasi to take a job in one of the PA ministries or embassies. Abed Al-Rahim showed Al-Tubasi a written and a signed order by President Mahmoud Abbas in which he was ordered to not run for the PJS elections!
What a farce that Abu Mazen, supposedly a head of state, would get himself involved into quarrels around a professional organization in order to force the nomination or withdrawal of a certain candidate?

• Who could be the new general secretary which Abbass, Abed Al-Rahim and Al-Tirawi want to appoint?
• If Mr. Naim Tubasi was so horrible and failed in his duties as general secretary of the PJS, then how can we understand the offer of Abed Al-Rahim to Mr. Tubasi to take instead the position of an ambassador or a minister of the PA?
• What does this mean? Corruption or disregard for Palestine and the Palestinians?
  
• Are all presidential affairs and appointments managed in the same way?
  
• How many PA employees, paid by EU aid, are engaged in the same way as this "offer" of Mr. Abed Al-Rahim?

On 4 Feb. 2010, one day before the PJS congress, the Fatah central committee, the Fatah executive committee, many representatives from the PA military officials held a meeting with about 500 Palestinian journalists at the Palestinian security academy headed by Tawfiq Al-Tirawi in Jericho.

• The question is why was the meeting held at the security academy in Jericho?
• Is there a shortage of civil institutions in the West Bank and Ramallah?
  
• Is there no shame and disgrace to meet journalists at the security academy, where of course they will be intimidated?
• Which are the relations between the security, intelligence and PA men in power and the Palestinian journalists? Where are the institutions of civil society which we dream to build?

During the meeting Mr. Al-Tirawi sat in the middle of the first row, surrounded by PA officials, body guards and other security. My colleagues told me that he was seen looking with suspicion, frightening and intimidating the speakers. How could they express their opinions freely?

Mr. Abd Al-Rahim made a long political speech before PJS attendance. His speech was very long, about 45 minute, so that most of the attending journalists went out to have a coffee. This speech was published in full in the daily newspapers, not because it was so interesting, but because all the daily newspapers are in way or another paid and controlled by the PA.

At the same time, these same newspapers avoided even one word about the farce of organizing the meeting of the PJS assembly at the security academy. And also, no word was published about the chaos in the wake of the announcement by Mr. al-Tirawi that the central committee of Fatah would choose and impose the names of new candidates of Fatah into the PJS.

According to my sources, Mr. Al-Tirawi stated that the central committee of Fatah will impose their candidates, and that the coming general secretary of the PJS has also been decided to be somebody close to Mr. Abd Al-Rahim.

After the farcical meeting between Abed Al-Rahim and Al-Tirawi was over, another meeting was held with the other factions of the PLO, namely the Democratic Front and the Popular Front for Palestine Liberation. Al-Tirawi used all tactics to convince both parties to participate in a consolidated list on the basis of a quota for the factions instead of the proportional representation stipulated in the by-laws of the PJS.

This "clever" system (actually standard procedure in fascist dictatorships) was adopted by Al-Tirawi and other fat cats inside the PLO to enable them at once to kick out "undesirable" (independent) journalists and insert various straw-men into the PJS. This politization of the PJS will not "renew and cleanse" the syndicate as the Fatah ostentatiously proclaim, but rather to bring it to a standstill.

On 5 Feb 2010, the Salim Effendi hall was filled with assorted fat cats from the power, national security, intelligence, military and security guard businesses and their thugs, intermingling with the PA representatives and their own stable of Fatah and PLO associated journalists who came to face the independent candidates. On behalf of President Mahmoud Abbas, a speech was delivered by Mr. Abdel Rahim, followed by a speech delivered by the PLO executive committee member Abu Ismail, followed then a speech delivered by Bassam Zakarneh from the Palestinian trade union of Fatah. Finally Naim Tubasi read the administrative and financial reports, which were approved by raising hands.

The attendants to the congress selected the Conference Committee, headed by Mr. Riad Al-Hasan, the director of government agency "Wafa" and with members Yahia Barakat, an employee of the PA-controlled Palestinian Satellite Channel, Maher Shalabi, a Palestinian who is Director of the Dubai satellite channel, Abed Allah Siyam, an employee of the PA, the so called Palestinian Deputy Mayor or Governor of Jerusalem, an illusory position since all of Jerusalem is under occupation.

The Committee members immediately approved various amendments to the PJS by-laws imposed by the central committee of Fatah. They then adopted by the Mediator Council, consisting of 63 broker members, who function as "representatives" of whatever professional members of the PJS, and have the power of control, surveillance, assessment and evaluation of the work of the Secretariat. The council will also elect the Chairman of the PJS, the Secretary General and the Council of PJS (Secretariat) consisting of 21 members, all this "without undue interference” from the PJS assembly members.

This will make sure that a “Secretary General” of the PJS will be imposed by entities operating outside of the PJS. The former PJS general secretary Naim Al-Tobassi said that the "Mediator Council” will be comprised of 21 members inserted by Fatah (the people outside of the PJS). Al-Tobassi stated that all the PJS candidates are imposed by Fatah as well the new general secretary too.

The conference committee imposed new by-law just five minutes before the elections started. Accordingly, the committee announced that the persons who have the right to vote in the election "are required to vote on all 63 candidates, or to vote for all members of the group", and that anyone who violates this resolution will have his vote cancelled.

On 7 Feb 2010, the leadership of the PJS elections declared that the list of the Palestine Liberation Organization (National Unity) had won the overwhelming majority of seats in the Board of PJS administrative council. The head of the PJS congress, Riad Al-Hasan, stated during a press conference in Ramallah that the rate of participation in elections among those with the right of membership had been over 80 percent. The new Mediator Council, which does not dare to override any decision of Al-Tirawi and the central committee of Fatah, will vote for the PJS council (21 members) according to the vision of the Fatah central. The general director of the PJS will then be imposed by the Central committee of Fatah, and the PJS will be declared an official organization of the PLO. The final result of the PJS elections shows that Fatah has won over Fatah. There were no other groups to contend against Fatah in the PJS. Actually, Fatah expelled the independent journalists from the PJS at the last moment before the elections.

Mr. Tawfiq Al-Tirawi even added to the "National Unity" block some names of journalists from the Gaza Strip, who never had anything to do with this block, nor were able to attend. According to this "new" PJS configuration, the West Bank journalists should not vote in favor of journalists who they don’t know and are from Gaza. A colleague of mine told me that it was planned that journalists from Gaza should vote for the candidates from Gaza and the journalists from the West Bank should vote only for the candidates from the West Bank, but at the last moment everything changed and the PJS congress committee forced the journalists to vote for one block.

Call Upon the IFJ – As a reaction to the PJS elections, the Journalists Assembly, an independent journalist group in Palestine, described the PJS elections as a robbery on the freedom of opinion and speech. The Assembly issued a statement in which they "thanked everybody (journalists and organizations) in Gaza and the West Bank who refused to be a false witness to the abduction of the political and democratic principles which took place with the PJS elections". The director of the Assembly had been member of the board of the PJS. The statement of the Assembly called on the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the parent organization of the PJS, and the Federation of Arab Journalists, to not dealing with the product of these illegitimate and illegal "elections" which account to a robbery of freedom of opinion and expression.

Other independent journalists said that the procedures followed in the PJS elections, "have nothing to do with the work and actions of a journalistic syndicate and instead are a stab in the back of each and every Palestinian Journalist". The independent journalist Fathi Sabbah rejected the results of the PJS election.

He said that the results lack in professional standards and due process, and he called for the abolition of all the consequences of these "farcical elections" and instead to begin a dialogue to restore cohesion to the Palestinian journalist corps. He confirmed that the independent journalists will respond to these illegitimate elections and resort to the judiciary and to constant pressure through sit-ins, information and address to the relevant organizations and Federations, particularly the Arab Federation of Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists, (IFJ).

The journalist Guevara Budeiri, Al-Jazeera correspondent, disapproved of the exclusion a large segment of the Palestinian journalists, the colleagues in Gaza, and denying them the right of participate in the PJS elections.

Tariq Al-Kayal said that the interference of Tawfiq Al-Tirawi was "in the interest" of the PJS. He commented that all parties should respect the new PJS configuration and to hold the elections on schedule. He added that the Al-Tirawi interference was "not political", that it is merely part of his work because he is in charge of the national organizations file at the PLO. Al-Kayal said that Al-Tirawi "deserves respect and we should thank him for his positive and honorable intervention". Al-Kayal also commented of the failure of the independents in the PJS elections, saying that "they failed because of their negative attitudes. We offered them ten seats to contest the elections with the PLO bloc, but they refused and decided to contest the elections by themselves". He described the results of the elections saying "the results were positive and very satisfactory". He thanked Al-Tirawi and Hani al-Hasan and all the members of the conference committee for their help.

Zakariah Al-Talmas, a member of the former PJS council, said that the announcement of the names of the successful candidates from Gaza is "reprehensible, ridiculous and a scandal, which causes vomiting to everybody". He added that "10 names which were declared winners in the elections were not even members in the PJS, others did not have the requisite 5 years of membership in the PJS, and others did not run in the elections, or do not work as journalists".

January 31 2010 – On past 20 January, Mohammad Al-Mabhouh was assassinated in a hotel in Dubai by Mossad people holding EU passports. According to the press, four to seven Israeli Mossad death squads assassinated Al-Mabhouh in his hotel room at the Al-Bostan, Rotana hotel in Dubai. The Mossad injected Al-Mabhouh with a drug which leads to a heart attack. They made copies of all documents he had, and then left his room after hanging a sign on the door with the words "Please do not disturb."

One day before the assassination of Al-Mabhouh, the Israeli infrastructure minister, an extremist squatter, and an organizer of the destruction of the Palestinian houses in Jerusalem and the West bank, Uzi Landau, left the neighboring Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Uzi Landau had been in Abu Dhabi from January 15 to 19, 2010.

The Abu Dhabi regime invited the Israeli squatter and terrorist Landau to attend the conference of the agency of renewable energies, which was held in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Minister Landau entered Abu Dhabi with a team of mossad death squads who were with him under the pretext of being his security attachment. It appears that the people posing as Landau's security attachment were involved in organizing the murder of Mohammad Al-Mabhouh in the neighboring State of Abu Dhabi.

Meanwhile, the information office of the government in the United Arab Emirates said that the Dubai police was able to identify the suspects who killed the Hamas leader, saying they all hold European passports. The Mossad operatives had left Dubai earlier, before the discovery of the crime.

The state of Dubai is involved in the assassination of Al-Mabhouh in one way or other, at the very least by appeasing and encouraging the usual terrorism of Israel by participating in the “normalization” of it relations with Israel and allowing an Israeli representative in its territory, as well as allowing freedom of movement to Israelis on its territory, while at the same time Israel does not respect the sovereignty of any Arab country, and puts Israeli interests ahead of the interests of all nations and people, Arab or not.

Israeli news stated that the Mossad death squad interrogated Al-Mabhouh in his hotel room before killing him, and that they returned with "precious information" attained following Al-Mabhouh's interrogation, what most likely means that they tortured him to death if that is not a cover story for a murder in cold blood.

Questions which need answers from the European Governments

• Which is the European country which violated international law and gave the Mossad passports for the commission of this murder in another country and violating its security?
• Is it Germany, the same European country which has recently gifted Israel with German U212 submarines built fully at the expense of German taxpayers? Among all European countries, Germany is the prime suspect in this sordid crime, as it is known that it the Mossad was always given German passports in the past. I think that giving the Mossad passports is a crime not only against us Palestinians, but against the people of the nation who gave them the passports as well.
• Is it reasonable that while “fighting” against so-called terrorism, or actually national liberation and self-determination movements, states engage in aiding and abetting, financing and in the commission of international terrorism and in the violation of the borders and the security of another country?
• How does international law deal with the European state which is involved in such crimes of international terrorism, and in violating the security of other countries?

Whatever European country that gave the Mossad it’s own passports or allowed Israel to forge its passports and use them for committing terrorist crimes in another state, is involved in the terror crime itself, and the officials of that state must be treated in accordance to the provisions of international law relating to the crimes of international terrorism.

After the funeral of Al-Mabhouh in the Al-Yarmuk Refugee Camp south of Damascus, Khaleed Mash’al said "we will avenge this man. If you [Israel] were happy to assassinate a great man who bravely defeated your soldiers, then this happiness is going to pass”.

In early January 2010, On Earth Peace, an agency of the Church of the Brethren reported that the executive director Bob Gross was detained and deported by Israeli authorities when he arrived at the Tel Aviv airport as part of a Christian peacemaking delegation meant to build connections with Israelis and Palestinians who are working for a non-violent resolution to their conflict.

The deportation of Mr. Gross is not the first and it will not be the last. It also has nothing to do with terrorism or the security of Israel, but it has to do with the daily crimes of genocide committed by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinians in their own homeland, cities, towns and villages in the West Bank. It is all about the crimes which the Israeli occupation does not want the international delegations to see or to report about.

Mr. Gross stated in an interview which he gave to me by Email that he had previously visited Palestine and Israel on April 2002, November 2004, January 2006, and January 2008.

According to on Earth Peace report, the deportation of the executive director of On Earth Peace is part of a pattern of excluding from Israel any visitor who seeks peace and security for both Palestine and Israel. This has the effect of blocking peacemaking efforts by churches and other groups, and sets back the hopes of a constructive Middle East peace.

The full text of an interview with Director Bob Gross is below.

Q: Have you ever been visited Palestine and Israel before that?
Gross: Four times before, April 2002, November 2004, January 2006, January 2008.
Each time I was with a Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation. In 2004, 2006, and 2008, I was the delegation leader. In those trips, we were in Jerusalem, East Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, and the South Hebron Hills. We met with Israeli, Palestinian and international peacemakers, and with Palestinian families, as well as one Israeli couple.

Q: Would you describe your trip since you were stopped by the Israeli customs officer and until your deportation?
Gross: I probably would not have been stopped at passport control, except that I was travelling with my colleague, who was to co-lead the delegation with me.  Her name is not Alice Bartlett, but she has asked that her real name not be used so that any publicity about this trip will not affect her later efforts to travel in the Middle East. She is Egyptian-American, and has an Egyptian last name.  For this reason alone, she and I were stopped and asked to wait for questioning rather than being allowed to enter Israel.

We were made to wait in a room in the arrival hall of the Tel Aviv airport, and we were each questioned separately for 5-10 minutes.  Then we waited for an hour or so, then my colleague was questioned again for about 30 minutes.

Later they took us to find our checked bags, and searched both our checked and carry-on bags very thoroughly, and searched us with very close body searches (with clothes on).

After 9.5 hours, they called my colleague in and told her they were not going to allow her into Israel, and would ban her for 10 years.  A few minutes later they called me in, and asked me for names of my Palestinian and Israeli contacts.  I would not give them any names.  They also said that I would need to sign a paper saying that I would not enter the "Palestinian territories" while in Israel.  I did not sign this paper.  So they denied entry for me also, with a 10-year ban.  They took photographs and electronic fingerprints of each of us, and took us to gather our bags to wait for being moved to the jail.  However, it was another two hours — 12 hours in all — before they took us to the jail.

Q: How did they treat you? How was the comportment of the israeli officers in general and towards you?
Gross: They treated us OK.  They were not harsh and did not mistreat us, but they exercised complete control and authority, treating us sometimes as if we were a nuisance, sometimes as if we were dangerous, sometimes as if we were dishonest.

Q: How many hours did the Israelis “investigate” you?
Gross: 9.5 before deciding to deport us.

Q: What kind of questions did they ask you?
Gross: Always the first question was, "What is the purpose of your visit to Israel?"
We answered that question truthfully, but briefly, and they seemed to know there was more we were not saying.
I was asked where I had travelled in Israel/Palestine on my earlier visit, and what I did.  As I said above, in the last interrogation they asked for my contacts names and information.
I don't know all of the questions my colleague was asked, because we never had a chance to talk about what we each had been asked without being overheard, so we did not talk about that while we were being held.

Q: Which was the silliest question, and what did you answer?
Gross: Maybe it was when they said I should give them the names of some of my contacts in Israel and Palestine, so they could call them and ask whether I should be trusted.

Q: How did you spend your night at the Israeli airport jail?
Gross: I was in the cell from 5 pm to 5 am.  There was one other prisoner there, also being deported.  He was Muslim, from Morocco, and had lived and worked in the Netherlands for many years.  He was denied entry simply because of who he was, it seemed.

We talked some, and I slept some in the evening, since I had spent two nights on air-planes by that time, and was tired.  They brought us some kind of sandwich and tea for supper.  As it happened, my cell-mate snored very loudly, and so it was hard to sleep that night.  I slept only a little, and then got up and prepared to leave.  Just walked back and forth, looked out the windows, sat on the bed, and waited.

Q: Would you explain me your feelings during your stay in jail?
Gross: I was concerned for my colleague, who was in a different cell, and so I could not talk with her. I was relieved to be out of the waiting and to know what their decision was, even though it was for deportation.

Q: How many people do you think were illegally jailed in Israel at the same time with you?
Gross: One additional person was brought in after midnight, so there were three of us in my cell, and there was one person in the cell with my friend.  I don't know how many others.

Q: Did you sign any papers during the investigation, or before your deportation?  What did you sign exactly? What was the justification given by the Israelis for your deportation?
Gross: I don't remember signing anything.

Q: Which was your reaction when they notified you of your deportation? What did you say or ask?
Gross: I was not surprised, and I did not ask anything.  I was not willing to agree to their terms, and so I knew they would not allow me in.

Q: What is your message for Israel after this tragic deportation?
Gross: Israel will not be made secure by expelling persons who seek peace and security for both Palestine and Israel.

On 20 January 2010, the Christian Peacemaker Teams wrote: [Note:  Christian Peacemaker Teams delayed the publication of this release until after the CPT delegation had safely left Israel.]

On the weekend of 2-3 January, Israeli security officials denied entry to Bob Gross, executive director of On Earth Peace, and Alice Bartlett* after holding and questioning them for more than twelve hours. The two had come into Israel four days before a CPT delegation they were scheduled to lead arrived, in order to set up appointments and make further plans for the delegation's twelve days in Palestine and Israel.  After locking up Gross and Bartlett in Ben Gurion's airport jail for the night, the Israeli authorities deported the two back the United States and barred them from entering Palestine or Israel again for ten years.

The remaining thirteen delegates arrived safely in Jerusalem on Wednesday, 6 January 2010.  A member of the At-Tuwani team took over leadership of the delegation for the next twelve days.

This fifth annual Middle East delegation co-sponsored by On Earth Peace and Christian Peacemaker Teams is, according to the delegation's blog, an immersion in the realities of the current moment in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What are those realities? A non-violent movement is on the rise, again; this week, over a thousand international activists attempted to enter into Gaza from Egypt, bearing humanitarian and medical aid. A separation wall continues to be built by Israel, dividing Palestinian families and communities and taking Palestinian land. Israelis live in fear of suicide bombers. Many Palestinians who live under blockade and military occupation continue eking out daily life without access to safe water, medical care, or basic foods. Some Israelis and Palestinians who are weary of decades of bloody conflict are creating non-violent pathways to resolving the situation.

From his home North Manchester, Indiana, Bob Gross reflected on the interrogation and deportation experience. "During our time being held with Israeli security, we saw many other people coming under additional questioning as well.  Almost all those pulled aside were people of color.  Most were of Arab and African descent. We're clear that Alice's Egyptian heritage as well as her photographic documentation of Palestine via the internet were motivating factors in their decision to deport us. In addition to this racism, there is also the Israeli government's fear of anything that seems to value Palestinian equality or human rights, which means that those of us who are committed to non-violent peacemaking are considered a threat."

In the last year, the Israeli government has made entering Palestine and Israel increasingly difficult for internationals.  Two full-time CPTers from the At-Tuwani team were denied entry this autumn.

On January 6 2010, seven Egyptian Coptic Christians were executed in cold blood, and fifteen more were wounded. Two of the wounded died from their grave injuries on the second day after the massacre. This crime took place when three Egyptian terrorists criminals opened fire towards the Coptic worshippers in southern Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi, as they came out of their Church after the celebration of the Coptic Christmas Eve midnight mass at 11.15 PM. According to several eyewitnesses, the intention of the perpetrators had originally been to assassinate Bishop Kirollos, but when the terrorists failed in their mission to hunt down the Bishop, they turned round and started shooting at the Christian congregation instead.

The Egyptian authorities promptly declared that they arrested the perpetrators of Nag Hammadi crime. They presented names and photos of three well known criminals, who had repeated security crimes at the police. Until here the news about the crime and the criminals was shown in the local and international media.

What the Egyptian authorities stated and did was not just and fair. It was not fair to the truth and to the families of the victims. The terrorist crime is far bigger than what newspapers wrote and what the public heard in the media. The crime is bigger than what the Egyptian authorities said in relation to the arrest of the three criminals. No Egyptian believes the statements of the government. The criminals who were caught by the authorities were known to the government, but these criminals had no own interest in the Coptic massacre, in murdering some young people. They had no interest in religion. All what they were interested in was drugs, eating and drinking, rather than going to the mosque or the church. These criminals were never seen praying anywhere. None of them had interest in religion or political affairs, and the Egyptian Copts are not so naïve to believe the statements of the authorities.

In fact, the Egyptian security (secret police) threatened Coptic Bishop Kirollos to change his statements about the Nag Hammadi massacre. Coptic sources stated that Bishop Kirollos received threats against his people and his Church after he told the local media that he had called the police before celebrating Christmas Eve. He asked them to send him some plainclothes police officers in order to protect the celebration of the midnight Christmas mass, after he explained the necessity for the presence of civil police among the celebrators.

Bishop Kirollos stated that he had been told that he would receive a Christmas “present”. He understood this announcement of a “present” as an open threat against him and his community, and on that Christmas day, a car was seen following him, what caused him to call the police several times, but they sent nobody to attend the ceremony. Also, no government or local officials came to extend their Christmas greetings to the Bishop and his community, what was a tradition practiced in all previous years. The Bishop ended the Christmas ceremony earlier than usual this year, but the bullets turned the happiness of the Coptic congregation into bloody sorrow.

The talk within the Egyptian Coptic community is of a premeditated and organized crime. They suspect that the Egyptian authorities, the government, the security system, the Ministry of Justice and members of the national ruling party are behind this terrorist attack. The families of the Coptic victims all suspect that the governor of Nag Hammadi is involved in the crime, and they openly accuse him. The governor is a Christian, but he is an employee of the government, and he defends the absence of his security men at the Coptic Christmas celebration.

According to Copts, the governor said: “I am working on behalf of the Peoples Party and its parliament members, and I took my decisions on their behalf”.

Since the massacre of a Christian Priest together with his wife and daughter and another 13 others during the "Al-Zawye Al-Hammra’a” (english “Red Corner") massacre back in 1981, 160 crime against Christians, among them assault, theft, setting fire to houses and shops, kidnapping and raping of Christian girls, have been recorded at the police and with the justice authorities, but in none of these cases the court has ruled against a single perpetrator. In Egypt the Coptic girls are kidnapped and declared their loyalty to Islam after marrying Muslims. The Christian are not allowed to build Churches. There is a clear incitement against Christians and their culture at the Islamic mosques.

I heard Copts talking during the TV program “Cairo Today”. The speakers were very angry: they all blamed the Egyptian authorities for the terrorist incident, and also for the deteriorated situation of the Christians in Egypt. They indicated that the responsibility for the Coptic massacre in Nag Hammadi lays squarely at the feet of the Government. The Coptic speakers also stated that the security man who was killed during the massacre had not been present in any official task, but rather that he had been spending the evening together with a friend in the area, and that he was present, and shot, by coincidence.

Engineer Michael Muneer, Chairman of the Security council of  the “Yad be Yad” organization in Egypt (english “hand by hand”), said that while governor of Nag Hammadi declared in public that the security situation in the town was “quiet and stable”, actually Christian shops, houses, fields were burnt, and a woman, Alice Constantine, had died because of a violent confrontation in the town. He added that, while the number of dead Copts increased in Nag Hammadi, the houses and shops of Christians were burnt, the representative of the ruling National Democratic Party, Ibrahim Al-Ghol, stated that the massacre happened “as a natural reaction to the previous attacks on the honor of a Muslim girl”.

Mr. Muneer also stated that the security beat harshly 50 young Christians and arrested them. They were demonstrating in protest of the massacre. In contrast, the police did not arrest the people who burnt the houses, shops, motorcycles and other property of christians. He added “The people who were arrested are mercenaries. They do not have any capacity which shows that they were thinking and planning to commit such a crime. They have nothing to do with the revenge for the honor of a Muslim girl who was harassed some moths ago, as they do not reside in the city where that crime occurred. If they were actually interested in taking revenge, there was a great deal of revenge taken at the time of that problem, but they were not among the revengers”.

Mr. Muneer also stated that one of the criminals who were caught has a direct relation to a member of the People’s Council (Egyptian parliament), and that is also known to work for a well-known businessman. He wondered how such a person, who is registered as a dangerous criminal with the police could have a friendship with a member of the ruling party and work with important businessmen. Mr. Muneer concluded his speech demanding that the Attorney General must find out the true motives which led to the occurrence of the massacre, and who was responsible for instigating it.

Dr. Sharif Dos, one of the speakers for the Coptic community in the media, a Member of the Higher Committee for Al-Maadi churches in Cairo, stated that the Nag Hammadi massacre is one among a series of incidents of mass terror against Christians in Egypt.

There are 160 assaults against Christians, such like burning their houses, shops and fields, burning down or vandalizing of Churches after the Friday prayers. At Mosques, the religious preachers regularly incite Muslims against Christians. He added  "The security of Christian venues is never taken seriously, for example, to prevent such crimes as the assaults after the Friday prayers.

He added that, after Nag Hammadi, they will not accept the civil reconciliation law (which makes use of intermediaries) as a solution for this crime. They want to know who the real criminals are, and they expect that the government fully implements the criminal laws.

During a Parliament session, MP Georgette Qlini, who had gone to Nag Hammadi to hear from the victims families, was seriously attacked by her colleagues at the Parliament. They interrupted her speech after they heard the first sentence, in which she exposed the lies of the governor of Nag Hammadi and the facts about the pogroms in the town of Bahjora after the crime, during which many shops and houses of Christians were burnt. Qlini described the horrific situation of the people living there.

She stated that the governor (who had been with the secret police before) said in his reply to her question about why the police had not protected the people after the first shot by the terrorists, taking in consideration that the church yard where the crime occurred is very small (about square 600 meters) and that there had been a big chance to catch the killer. The governor answered that “everyone was confused when they heard the shooting”. Qlini asked the governor, “have you ever been shocked and confused while you were in official tasks, in your previous work as a police officer?”

MP Georgette Qilini demanded the dismissal of the Governor of Qena. MP Ali Atwa, one of the members of the ruling National Democratic Party. He responded by saying "Your talk makes incites trouble, but we are here for Egypt"

MP Georgette Qlini who demanded the dismissal of the Governor of Qena.

MP Qilini answered: What did you say? Do you come here to support the governor, as you were his former colleague in the security? Meaning that the speaker is a former police officer, just like the governor. She added ”I wish that you would support your colleagues in the Parliament in the same way like you support your former colleagues from the police”.

I see this terrorist attack against Copts during the Christmas, and all the attacks before, as shame in the face of President Husni Mubark and his security system, who are not willing or not able to protect their own citizens from terrorism. I conclude my report with my questions below. If you have answers for any of my questions, please be aware to keep silence, otherwise your name will be in the black list of the Egyptian secret police.

• Who is the head of the sedition and terrorism in Egypt? Is it the Egyptian government and its racist regime, which sheds Egyptian blood, or perhaps the mercenary criminals who were arrested in the wake of the Coptic massacre in Nag Hammadi on January 6, 2010?
• Who are the real terrorist and criminals? Is it Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his ruling party, or the criminal bullies who were paid by people belonging to the Egyptian ruling party, or is it the Egyptian secret police, who threatened Bishop Kirollos and demanded that he change his testimonies about the horrific crime against his own people, or is it the governor of Nag Hammadi?
• Where were the Egyptian security men, who were seen heavily armed when protecting the Israeli Jews during their stays and mass prayers in Egypt last month? Were they at the Rafah border together with the CIA experts, building and protecting the genocide wall in order to protect the income and power of Mubarak in Egypt? Is the security of Israelis more important than the security of the Egyptian people?
• What is the difference between the followers of the American Zionist terrorist Baruch Goldstein, who murdered 29 Palestinian worshippers inside the Ibrahimi Mosque on February 25, 1994, and the corrupt Egyptian ruling party, who hires criminal thugs to assassinate the innocent Christians worshipping God at Christmas Eve mass in Nag Hammadi on January 6, 2010?
• Where were the Egyptian intelligence officers who could have hindered the Nag Hammadi massacre, why were they unable to detail enough personnel to protect the Copts, when Egypt is known as a police state ruled by the secret service, where there are police at every street corner? Were they all busy spying on the opponents of the succession to his father of Mr. Jamal Mubarak, or were they busy providing security for Shlomo, Ehud, Itzik …?
• Did the Egyptian security establishment, the military, police, and intelligence organizations, all fail to protect the Copts of Egypt, or is the blood of Egyptians cheap for all criminals and the terrorists when they support of the Mubarak regime?
• Does the Egyptian ruling party bully its weak citizens? Why has Egypt become giant the scene of crime, poverty, illiteracy, extremism and racism under the ruling regime, after it was a state of science, civilization and culture where the problems between different groups and minorities were few and far in between?
• Were the security people of Hosni Mubarak all busy with the shooting of Ahmad Shaba’an by friendly fire of his Egyptian friends at the border of Genocide at the entrance of Gaza?
• Did the Egyptian government ask that Israel hand them over the terrorists who murdered in cold blood 16 Egyptian soldiers and wounded ten others in the past five years, while they were protecting the security of the Israeli border ?
• Why did Hosni Mubarak not say a word when the soldiers Subhi al-Najjar, age 21, Mohamed Abdel Fattah, aged 22, and Amer Abu Bakr Amer, aged 22, all three belonging to his Central Security, were murdered by Israeli tank fire on the morning of Thursday, September 18 2004?
• Why did the Mubarak regime not say one word when Ahmed Issa was shot near the border in Sinai, or when the soldier Milad Ahmed Hamida was shot, or when the policeman Gharib Mohamed Ahmed was shot in the heart, or when the Egyptian citizen Ayed Suleiman Musa, age 32, was shot near the Kfar Salem crossing on May 21 2008?

20 December 2009, by: Johann Funk, she is the vision of innocence, peering up into the dull eyes of a soldier towering over her.  She can only be four or five years old.  Black slacks with a green striped short skirt fanning out beneath her short black jacket indicate that she is a kindergarten student.  She strains to hand the backpack, which is half her length, up to the soldier who orders her to stop.  He systematically opens every zipper and plunges his hands into each pocket before handing the backpack back.  It slumps to the ground.

The little girl carefully closes the zippers and with considerable effort slings the backpack onto her back; the young soldier, who has moved on to the next search, has already forgotten her.  She stumbles as she hurries to catch up with her friends.  This encounter is a significant part of her education under the Israeli occupying power, which seeks to clip her fragile wings.

I feel helpless, angry and sad all at once.  What can I do?  I observe, I document, I report but it is not enough, it is never enough to change significantly the severity of the occupation, let alone to end it.  I rationalize that what I do is part of a larger struggle but this answer is never completely satisfying.

My angel at Qitoun Checkpoint is still dehumanized as an enemy, invisible to international geopolitics, despite my feeble efforts.  All I can do is reflect, pray and enter into the suffering God must experience when he sees what is done in his name for the sake of Israeli settlers in Hebron.

Checkpoint, by: Johann Funk

thirty Palestinians
huddle behind razor wire
against an icy December storm
workers from Israel
returning for eid al adha
shivering for five long hours
soldiers in combat gear
clutching stacks of identity cards
handing them back like candy

Occupation Illuminates the Incarnation of Jesus, by: Paulette Schroeder, 20 December 2009.

It strikes me as strange that in the midst of soldiers, guns, checkpoints, detentions, humiliations, in the face of the Occupation and all its flagrant dehumanization of the Palestinians, I have come to see the Occupation’s spotlight illuminating the beauty of Jesus’ Incarnation.  Call it a curious cause and effect.

The Occupation degrades, pushes the vulnerability buttons in human nature: anger, rage, intense sadness, a temptation to hopelessness, a fierce need to survive, and to protect.

The Incarnation, on the other hand, celebrates life, lifts up human nature, elevates all that is possible for human beings to be for the other: service, sacrifice for the welfare of the other, thinking well of oneself, and of one’s body with all its amazing functions including its eyes into the world.

The joyous proclamation of our Christian Incarnational faith makes all that is truly human both beautiful and profoundly holy. Jesus enjoyed his humanity and upheld the dignity of all.  He experienced and preached about everyday aspects of life: the birds, the flowers, bread, wine, and sickness.

I shall be here in the West Bank for Christmas this year. The contrasts I see intensify my desire to work diligently to undo Occupation through media, through friends, through writing. The reality here pushes me to celebrate passionately, to give generous thanks for Jesus, Emmanuel. This real Incarnational faith sustains, leads all Christians to live life abundantly, to work for justice and to open the doors for those denied their humanity.

The charges relate entirely to the Gaza massacre committed between December 2008 and January 2009 by Israeli troops under the command of Ehud Barak, and the whole allegation of crimes in the letter to the prosecutor consists of the so-called “Goldstone Report” itself, and it names as witnesses the members of the commission, judge Goldstone and his colleagues, as well as their interview partners.

At the time when these charges were being presented, the news that an arrest warrant had been issued against Tzipi Livni in the UK had not yet transcended; this only became known in the evening hours, and as of today 15 December, it appears that the Austrian authorities have not taken action against Barak. This could have different grounds. First, the situation of Livni and Barak are different: whereas Livni currently has no function in government, Barak is currently defense minister and vice-premier; secondly, Austria is still apprehended in the notion that they have a political and moral duty to ensure the security of Israel, whatever Israel does and probably at any cost to Austria, because of understandable yet irrelevant historical facts, third, England has implemented the Rome Statute of the ICC as a national law, whereas this is not the case in Austria yet. Ultimately the main reason why Austria has not taken action in this case might be the almost absence of public discourse around the crimes of Israel, a situation which will most probably evolve to the better.

At the same time, the governments who still support "negotiations" or a "two-state solution" should disabuse themselves of the notion that Israel, with its genocidal and racist to the extreme posture is in any way a partner for negotiations of any kind, be this with us Palestinians or any other party. The experience of over 60 years of occupation has shown that Israel consistently conducts all negotiations in bad faith, and that speaking with them is a fruitless endeavour. It is time for other approaches in order to solve the problems which they have caused during the last 6 or 7 decades.

I see the arrest warrant against Livni as a first step in the right direction, and would very much greet that in the future the discussion around Israel and its unrelenting criminality was less based on misguided notions of “moral duty” and much more on enacted national and international laws, which is what makes out states of law everywhere.

The complete text of the charges are here (PDF, German).

Ban Ki-moons Concern and 62 Years of Nakba,

Israel Criticized Sharply at the UN in Vienna

Journalists rarely write about what is goes on in the offices of the United Nations in New York and elsewhere in the world. Rarely are the United Nations affairs discussed in public. This giant and luxurious bureaucracy surrounds itself with a veil of mystery. This Institution remains unknown to the public, and it continues to keep a veil of privacy over what goes on in their offices. A list of prohibitions control its staff. Nobody is allowed to talk, or to give any information about this institution. The United Nations press office teams, operate under these prohibitions and protocols, which are similar to the military censorship laws which I experienced in the office of the military occupation censorship in Beit Agron in Israel.

When I attended a training course in the practice of journalism at the UN Press Office in New York, under former Secretary General Kofi Annan, doing useless journalistic work and receiving a high salary from them, I understood what it means to be a journalist working at the luxurious UN offices. With this and that, I am not against the UN, but I would like to ask some questions related to the UN solidarity events with Palestinian people which I attended in Vienna on December 1 2009.

* Why did the United Nations office in New York ban the President of the International Progress Organization (IPO) from participating in the “Annual Observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” in Vienna after this NGO had been participating in the event with a representative for the last 29 years here in Vienna?

* Are there logical reasons behind the dismissal of IPO? Is it due to the conflict between the NGOs, or is it because the representative of this NGO used references to international laws and treaties in his speech of last year, in which he denounced the war crimes of Israel, and its continuous violations of human rights and the international laws and accords?

* Are zionists and other pro-Israel conspirators inside the UN controlling which politicians are allowed to give speeches and forcing or censoring the contents of their presentations during the United Nations solidarity events and sessions of solidarity with the Palestinian People?

* Is the solidarity with the Palestinians at the UN a meaningless political show?

* How does the United Nations explain the withdrawal of Antonio Maria Costa, the UNOV General-Director, minutes after the start of the solidarity event with the Palestinian people, even before listening to representatives of Palestine, the League of Arab States, the Non-Aligned Movement, and others during this supposed solidarity event with us Palestinians? * Is this a new joke of solidarity or is it a deliberate show of disregard to the event and the attendance, or is it part of the farce taking  place in the offices of the United Nations in the absence of press and journalists?

On December 1 2009, I participated in the “Annual Observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People”, an event which was held at the office of United Nations in Vienna. I went to the UN event with a good will as a Palestinian and a journalist who had been forced to leave her homeland by the zionists occupation in August 2002. Since I arrived in the hall where the event was held, the small number of participants in the event called my attention. Last year there had been a larger number of representatives taking part. I saw many empty places, with the names of Arab and other countries, and many empty places without names. There were no journalists representing the media in the hall. The presence of NGO’s could be counted with the fingers of one hand!!

What is wrong? I asked myself, then prepared my camera and took my right place.

The event was lead by H.E Mr. Mohd Arshad Bin Manzoor Hussain, Permanent Representative of Malaysia to the United Nations, who opened this official part of the solidarity event. A statement of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon was read by Mr. Antonio Maria Costa, Director-General of the United Nations office in Vienna, and then H. E. Dr. Friedrich Stift, representative of Austria as the host country, read a brief. Mr. Costa left the event immediately after this brief, before the representatives of Palestine, Arab countries or NGOs could deliver their statements.

Signs of resentment and discontent were clear on the faces of participants in the event. The statement of the Non-Aligned Movement was read by Ms. Norma Goicochea Estenoz, permanent representative of Cuba, on behalf of the permanent representative of Egypt and the representative of the Chairman of NAM. I saw signs of discontent seemed clear on the face of the Cuban ambassador with the departure of Ambassador Antonio Costa, and his not listening to the speech.

The departure of Mr. Antonio Maria Costa from the solidarity event, immediately after reading the speech of Ban Ki-moon, and the speech of  H. E. Dr. Friedrich Stift was a clear gesture of disregard towards all the attendees, speakers, the event, and the solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The act of Mr. Antonio Maria Costa was not acceptable to the attendants. The issue of Palestine, and this solidarity event, are not a show in the theater, or a crooked press release from the press office of the UN.

I think that Mr. Antonio Maria Costa would have stayed a whole day and night without a murmur if the solidarity event had been with the “State of Israel”, this zionist institution which has obviously subverted and occupied the offices of the United Nations in the same way as they are occupying Palestine.

The issue of Palestine does not deserve the disdain and disregard ostentatiously put to display by Mr. Costa, and which is shown by all United Nations organizations, whose representatives obviously could not care less about the continued and grave violation of many Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, the continuous violation of the international law, of  international humanitarian laws and accords, by the zionist Israeli occupation.

Yesterday, Prof. Dr. Hans Koechler, President of the International Progress Organization (IPO), an international NGO associated with the United Nations Department of Public Information, sent me an e-mail in which he said that it is the responsibility of the Arab member states of the United Nations to find out why the UN administration has decided not to inform or invite the media as well as international non-governmental organizations. The E-mail of Mr. Koechler is quoted below.

Vienna, 3 December 2009
P/RE/22012

Dear Ms. Salam,

We have received your news releases re. this year's event on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

It is worthy to note that this year, for the first time since the year 1980 (!), the United Nations Office did not send either an invitation or notification about the event. We actually thought that the event had been cancelled or that the tradition of Palestine Day commemoration might have been discontinued by the UN.

It is the responsibility of the Arab member states of the United Nations to find out why the UN administration has decided not to inform or invite the media as well as international non-governmental organizations.

Since 1980, the International Progress Organization has delivered the speech on behalf of international NGOs accredited at the United Nations at least half a dozen times, at the New York headquarters as well as in Vienna. It requires an explanation why the UN administration suddenly has fallen silent and has cut co-operation with NGOs in this matter.

With best regards

Prof. Dr. Hans Koechler
President
International Progress Organization
Kohlmarkt 4, A-1010 Vienna, AUSTRIA
Tel. +43-1-5332877
Fax +43-1-5332962
http://i-p-o.org

pres@i-p-o.org

In 2008, the UNIS published an invitation to this event on their website. The invitation was seen and read at the UN web on November 6 2008.

I asked Mr. Mikulla if the United Nations solidarity event with the Palestinian People had been turned into a secret in this year 2009. I asked him if the United Nations forbids the Palestinians themselves, pro-Palestinian persons, interested people and NGOs in Vienna from the participation in this solidarity event with the Palestinian people, and whether their activities take place only between the UN team and specific politicians who are not in any way linked to Palestine and to the Palestinian cause.

I also told him that I would report about their “solidarity” event and post my reports to the UN head-quarter in New York. Mr. Mikulla was not happy to hear my questions. He was polite and a bit more friendly after I told him that I am a journalist, but he had no specific answers. He stated that the exact day of the event was delayed from Nov. 29 2009 to Dec. 1 2009 and that the Embassy of Palestine is in charge of distributing the invitations to the solidarity event of this year. Mr. Mikulla did not answer my questions, and he stayed evasive throughout the conversation. He said that he didn’t have answers and that he would answer to my e-mail when “the persons who are in charge of the event in the United Nations” gave him further information about that. I have received nothing from him or anybody else until today.

From: inquiries <inquiries@un.org>
To: K Salam <kawther_salam@yahoo.com>
Sent: Sun, December 6, 2009 6:43:58 PM
Subject: Thank you for your inquiry.Greetings from the Public Inquiries Team.

Thank you for your message which has been received at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Best regards,
Public Inquiries Team
United Nations
Department of Public Information

I called the Palestinian Ambassador, Dr. Zuheir Elwazer, and I asked him more questions. He stated that the event had been delayed until Dec. 1 2009, because 29 December was on a weekend, and 28 December is Eid Al-Adha. He said that the Palestinian Embassy had distributed 350 invitation, but that the NGOs were to be invited by the United Nations.

Dr. Elwazer stated that the participation of IPO had been excluded by the UN office in New York, who intervened via phone so that the speech for the NGOs should be held by Mr. Fritz Edlinger instead. He added: “according to what Mr. Fritz Edlinger said, the NGO office at the UN in New York called and invited him the give the speech of the NGOs at the solidarity event for Palestine. Mr. Edlinger himself received his invitation very late from the UN office in Vienna. We were obliged to call the UN office to remind them to send Mr. Edlinger the invitation, we left them a message on the answering machine. Mr. Edlinger received the invitation only 24 hours before the event”.

Other people also said that they received the invitation to the solidarity event from the Palestinian Embassy very late. Among them was somebody who expressed his anger, he said “the Embassy should know that we are not jobless so that we can participate in the event without organizing our appointments. At least we should receive the invitation two weeks before the event”.

During the Palestine solidarity event itself, Mr. Fritz Edlinger gave an a wonderful interesting and emotional speech based on the facts on the ground in Palestine. His speech moved everybody. Edlinger is well known among the Palestinian and Arab communities in Vienna, he is seen as very pro-Palestine and he does more than the Palestinian themselves for the Palestinian cause. Note: I will publish the speech of Mr. Edlinger as soon as possible.

Prof. Dr. Hans Koechler is also an excellent speaker on the Palestine issue. He understands the international laws, accords and treaties, furthermore he knows what is going on in the kitchen of UN, in the EU, and with other political groups related to Palestine. The speeches and opinions of Prof. Dr. Koechler are very special and based on international laws. He exposed the scandalous violations of the international laws and double standards of the European politicians and the UN with their silence about the violations of Israel of all laws and peace agreements which have been signed under the observance of the international community, which continue supporting the genocide and the crimes of Israel in Palestine.

During the previous UN solidarity event with Palestinians held on Nov. 27 2008, Prof. Dr. Koechler gave an excellent speech, which made the representatives of some countries unhappy, especially those who support Israel and who participated in the solidarity event to whine that the Palestinian resistance uses stones and describes them as “terrorists”. The strong speech of Prof. Dr. Koechler, in which he exposed the western politicians and the Israeli war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, shocked the puppets of Israel present at the event and made them very angry. This must be the reason behind banning Prof. Dr. Koechler from the solidarity event of this year. The friends of Israel in the headquarter of the UN have influence over everybody. Read the speech of Prof. Dr. Hans Koechler, which ended his participation at the UN solidarity event with Palestinians.

The approaches of Mr. Koechler and Mr. Edlinger to the Palestinian issue are very different. While Mr. Edlinger has an emotional and personal approach to the issue, Mr. Koechler sees it more from the point of view of laws and treaties, of the framework of international law. Both approaches to our issue are valid and must be recognized and respected, and we Palestinians are certainly grateful to all persons and organizations of all religions and nationalities who have selflessly engaged in our defense.

That the UN would exclude the IPO from the Palestine Solidarity event of this year, apparently because of the protest of the zionists, can only be qualified as unacceptable behavior.

How can the UN, which supposedly has a peace mission, engage in discrimination between supporters of a just peace for Palestinians?

The UN has already done enough damage through its irresponsible handling of the issue over decades, and the exclusion of an NGO from a UN event just because perpetrators do not like to be reminded of laws sanctioning their crimes is certainly not what one would expect from an organization which supposedly serves as a forum for all nations and supposedly holds up certain laws and treaties regarding how nations are supposed to behave.

Following the Issue of “Annual Observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” of 2008 at the UN in Vienna, I found that Gabriela Shalev, who received her post as Israel ambassador to the UN on 3 September 2008, sent a protest against the speeches of the participants and the Petition for Palestine which I directed to the UN Secretary General and handed at that time to Mr. Costa and other diplomats who participated in the event last year of 2008 in Vienna.

The Palestinian Authority “PA” covered up the news that on last Friday 20 November 2009, the Israelis arrested five senior Palestinian intelligence officers near the town of Salfit in the north of the West Bank which is under it’s power, among them the regional intelligence commander for Salfit, Mohammad Abdel Hamid. The Palestinian Authority also hushed up the fresh news of the Israeli arrest on Nov. 21 2009 of three Palestinian security officers in the north-east of Qalqilya in the West Bank. The detainees are Ayoub Mohammed Khaled and Mohammad Fayez Shamasneh, from the PA national security forces, and Anwar Aziz Mustafa, from the military police, and two members of Fatah, Jihad Abdel-Halim Shamasneh and Nour Aziz Beda.

According Palestinian eyewitnesses, these persons did not defend themselves during the arrest by Israeli occupation soldiers.

Military sources said that the Palestinian National Authority forbids their security elements from using their weapons in self defense when they are arrested or mistreated by the israelis, or when these invaders assault and ransack Palestinian towns or cities. The sources confirmed that the Palestinian security forces are controlled by the PA agreements which they signed with Israel, which forbid the PA from using their weapons against Israel.

Today, at late time, the Palestinian Authority confirmed the arrest of their forces and claimed that Israel released the five officers of the General Intelligence Service.

The PA claimed that the arrest of its officer was the first time in about three years and that they were apparently made on the backdrop of an investigation being carried out by the General Intelligence Service against a Palestinian who is suspected of collaborating with Israel. According to the same news, talks and meetings were being hold between the PA and Israel in efforts to release the Palestinian security officers.

Contradicting Palestinian sources revealed additional details about the circumstances of the Palestinian officer’s arrest. According to these news, US general Keith Dayton was  personally involved in passing security information to Israel which led to the arrest of the Palestinian officers. The sources condemned the farce of the traitorous PA regime in dealing with the Israeli occupation and the lack of will and ability to protect the Palestinian people and its forces.

The Israeli Public Prosecution in the Magistrate's Court of Tel Aviv – Jaffa imposed a serious indictment against the Israeli MK (member of the Knesset), Mohammad Barakeh, a Hadash representative. The court accused Barakeh of assaulting police and soldiers on four different occasions over a period of two years since 2005. The indictment was signed by 21 officers, among them Druze Officer Joseph Hammoud from Israeli Al-Morouj police station, who gave testimony against MK Barakeh in the court which is expected to sentence the Arab-Israeli MK to prison if he is found guilty.

The Israeli criminal authorities have trumped up the following charges against MK Mohammed Barakeh:

The first accusation: attacking, in April 2005, an Israeli criminal soldier from the “Metsada” death squad unit, who was holding an automatic machine gun, trying to strangle him from behind and preventing him from arresting a Palestinian peace demonstrator who was standing in his own land in the village of Bilin, which Israel has declared as a closed military zone after they stole most of it’s lands for building the ILLEGAL APARTHEID WALL, which the UN has declared as illegal and must be removed, the wall which has turned the life of the Palestinian citizens who live in this village in the occupied territories into a complete disaster.

According the trumped up charges of the Israeli authorities, Barakeh participated in a protest against the “security barrier” which means the ILLEGAL APARTHEID WALL at Bil'in on April 28, 2005. When a soldier arrested one of the demonstrators, Barakeh allegedly choked him with his right hand and struck the soldier's hands with his left, and shouted to nearby demonstrators, "free him, free him."

Under the Israeli criminal laws, assaulting a soldier performing his “duty or function”, carries a maximum sentence of five years.

According to the international laws, treaties and the Geneva Conventions, of which Israel is a signatory in bad faith, the practices of the IDF soldiers at Bilin are war crimes perpetrated in the context of a genocide.

The second accusation: MK Barakeh is accused of insulting a police officer by shouting: "you are violent and you will pay dearly for this” while he was trying to arrest his son, a minor, during their participation in a demonstration against the second Lebanon war in Tel Aviv, on August 5 2006.

For this one SILLY accusation this so-called a democratic country, the penal laws could put Barakeh six months in jail.

“Notice that the IDF soldiers and Israeli Police call Palestinian women and men with obscene words, like “mother fucker”, “whore” and etc, they spit in the face of Palestinians, urinate over their heads at the checkpoints of harassments “military checkpoints”. In many cases the Palestinians are forced to drink the IDF urine under sever torture.

The third accusation: MK Barakeh is accused of assaulting a right-wing Israeli activist photographer, Yitzhak Hananya and striking him in the ribs and shoulder after Hananya insulted left-wing activist Uri Avnery On July 22 2006, while taking part in a PEACE demonstration against the criminal war in Lebanon. Barakeh said that he ORALLY asked the right-wing extremist to stop his provocations toward the demonstrators, and he did not use aggression or exercise violence towards him.

For this accusation the Israeli laws could sentence Barakeh to two years in jail.

Notice that the IDF has murdered many Palestinian detainees, the same like what happened during the last IDF criminal attack in Gaza, where hundreds of detainees where murdered by the IDF after they were captured alive.

The fourth accusation: the Israeli prosecutor accused Barakeh of obstructing the work of an Israeli police and trying to prevent the arrest of the Secretary General of the Democratic Front, the lawyer Ayman Odeh, during a demonstration in Nazareth, in July 2007. The demonstrators were protesting against the visit of war criminal “Defense Minister” Ehud Barak.

Barakeh is also accused of throwing (ORALLY) insults at a police officer and calling him the "MAD”, “CARAZY you idiot. What are you doing?” and preventing him to do his duty, (of arresting a LAWYER). These charges are very serious in the so called Israeli laws.

For this accusation, the Israeli laws could sentence Barakeh of three years.

Adalah, the Legal Center in Israel, as well as 200 Arab lawyers who volunteered to defend the MK Mohammad Barakeh, are going to send a message to the world that the accusations against Barakeh are all of a political nature.
Another eight international delegations, representing the communist parties in France, Greece, Cuba, China and other countries, went to Israel in order to coordinate an international campaign of solidarity from around the world in condemnation of the Israeli repression and it’s political trial against the MK Barakeh.

MK Barakeh sees the indictments as fabrications against him. They are all planned in advance, in an attempt to neutralize him after his political field actions to protect the rights of Arabs in Israel disturbed them.

Barakeh stated that that the indictment was politically motivated and that the Israelis wanted to criminalize purely him for political and legitimate events. Barakeh added that his political participation and activities are part of his duties as a representative of the public in Israel. He stressed that the Israeli police were the aggressors against the demonstrators in all cases, "the habitual use of excessive force by the Israeli police and military is known, the scenes of Israeli-initiated brutality when the demonstrators are Arab citizens are nothing new, and this aggression is even more frequent and brutal when the peace demonstrators are in the occupied territories.

Barakeh said that the Israeli authorities portray him as a “RAMBO” in front of their large army, in order to enlarge the lies. He added: “I am ready for that, I am ready to go to jail, and I will not hide myself behind parliamentary immunity. I am not afraid of prison, and life behind bars is included in my calculations”.

Notice that “Israel”, the Zionist organization, jailed hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Palestinians in their jails since 1948 and until today, among them minors, women, elderly, disabled. They also jailed hundreds of Palestinian bodies after they stole and harvested  their organs.

The 25th annual conference of the Arab medical doctors in Europe and the 21st annual conference of the Union of the Austro-Arab medical doctors and pharmacists, held at the Modul Hotel in Vienna, was turned to a political demonstration against the Israeli occupation and its criminal policies against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on its first day on October 30, 2009. The conference participants strongly criticized the deal of the European countries with the Israeli criminals and the lack of accountability of Israel in accordance with international laws and conventions which they all have signed.

This criticism against the EU came during a speech delivered by Fritz Edlinger, the Secretary General of the “Society for Austro-Arab Relations” in Vienna, who was present as a guest of honor at the conference. Edlinger documented with pictures and reports the crimes committed by the occupation in the Gaza Strip during his meetings with many Palestinian victims and families affected in Gaza. Edlinger saw the destruction of infrastructure of all vital projects, economic, agricultural, social institutions, health and education sectors, next to the Israeli crimes against humanity. The Israeli crimes in Gaza led to permanently disablement of thousands of Palestinians and killed thousands more of civilians, most of them were children, women, and elderly people.

Edlinger spoke about how the representatives of the European Union deal with the Israeli crimes against humanity. He exposed an official letter send by Human Rights Lawyers from the UK on the 1 September 2009 to Francisco Javier Solana, High Representative for the common Foreign and Security and Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union. The letter accused the European Union of complicity with the crimes of the Israeli occupation and violation of international laws and human rights and demanded the explanation of the negative attitude towards the Palestinian victims, most of whom were civilians. The letter also demanded explanations from Solana and at the same time asserted their right to sue the European Union in the case of failure to respond to their letter.

Edlinger criticized the answer of Solana to the letter of the lawyers. He said it was an irresponsible and stupid response which confirms the complicity of the European Union with the Israeli crimes, what in itself  is considered as a grave crime and a flagrant violation of the European laws and international treaties, agreements and laws.

Mr. Edlinger sent me a copy of the letters between the lawyers and Javier Solana. Please click on the pictures to make them bigger and read the correspondence as PDF files

Lawyer letter as PDF
Javier Solana response as PDF

See more photos.

“You are a terrorist, you are not welcome in the land of Palestine”. A Palestinian from the Hamdan family shouted these words in the face of Tony Blair, Quartet Representative for “Peace” in the Middle East, when he arrived at the Iron Cage at the entrance of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. A bodyguard of Tony “the poodle” Blair overwhelmed the angry Palestinian when he approached phony Tony, and dragged him several meters away.

Palestinian eyewitnesses said that the citizen, who shouted in the face of Tony Blair, was subjected several times to attacks by the Israeli occupation soldiers in the heart of city of Hebron, just as all the Palestinian people who live in the heart of the old city are subjected to regular attacks from the IDF and the Jewish criminal squatters as part of their daily life. The heart of the old city of Hebron, turned under the Israeli occupation into a concentration camp closed by iron gates controlled by the IDF occupation.

The visits of Tony Blair to the Palestinian towns are frowned upon by the Palestinian public opinion, he is not welcome in our land and in our cities. The PA media coverage does not show this fact, because the visits of Tony Blair are part of the dirty “politics” of the PA.

Tony Blair, this so-called  “Quartet Representative” for “Peace in the Middle East” is a war criminal culpable massive war crimes against Iraq, who is culpable for the mass murder of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and the increased violence in Iraq, that many women in that country are forced to turn to prostitution in order to sustain themselves.
The government of Tony Blair was always with the Zionists, and the only peace which he want for us is the peace of the cemetery.

The wretched smile which appeared at the face of the wretched war criminal Tony Blair after the Palestinian man told him the truth “Your are terrorist, and you are not welcome in Hebron”, showed clearly that the message arrived, but the words which oozed from his fetid mouth of Blair, that blight upon all humanity, were a clear lie designed to cover up his criminality: he seriously stated that “the protest incident should not be viewed as a reflection of sentiment of the local public”. What does this sack of excrement know about public sentiment, in Palestine or even in his home England.

Blair also stated, probably to himself, that most Palestinians and Israelis “want to resolve the conflict peacefully", and added "frankly, the protests are not going to solve the conflict and bring peace, but only the negotiations will be able to achieve that". As a Palestinian, I'd suggest that he shove his bad-faith negotiations and his artless, moronic statements where the sun does not shine.

These statements are lies, and the incident is a reflection of the Palestinian public opinion. The presence in Palestine of criminal psychopaths like Tony Blair, Keith Dayton, Jake Walles and others like them, is not welcome by the majority of Palestinians. They are the guests of ONLY the PA, as a part of their criminal and traitorous project of renouncing the national rights of Palestinians, what is as futile as it gets, because nobody in the PA has the legitimate right to “negotiate”, or renounce, anything in the name of the Palestinians.

Of course Tony Blair himself did not live in Hebron for 42 years of occupation, and the illegal and bad-faith “negotiations” which he mentioned as the only way of peace is the only reason which has brought the current deteriorated situation to Hebron. The blocked military iron doors, the closure of the Palestinian shops and the streets and the expansion of the Jewish squatter colonies all came under these so-called “peace negotiations”. What the war criminal Tony Blair said is a bunch of lies, clear to everybody who lives in Hebron and in other occupied Palestinian cities and towns.

And lies is the only thing which will ever get out of the mouth of a psychopath in the employ of the lord of the flies.

Instead of explaining that which he knows nothing about, namely the Palestinian national sentiment, it would be better for everybody if phony Tony explained which was the nature of his relation with Thomas Hamilton, and which were the exact grounds why he ordered the issue of a D-Notice around the publication of Operation Ore results. I am sure many Englanders would find these things more than interesting. And on that note, it would be better if this miserable leaves Palestine for ever.

On Friday October 9 2009, the Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Quds published a statement of the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), Karen Koning AbuZayed in which she announced the discontinuation of some important activities of the UNRWA, such as scholarships for Palestinian students.
According to Al-Quds, the statement of Koning came during a political interview which she gave to the “Middle East Report” from London. According to Koning: “the UNRWA has a financial deficit estimated at $100 million, and that the UNRWA does not get a sufficient budget to cover its emergency activities”. (Click on pictures to make them bigger).

Koning said that “what most concerns us in the UNRWA is that we are not getting enough money to cover our activities such as education and health care”. She added: “At the end of this year we have deficit of $17 million. We hope that our contacts during the General Assembly in New York will fill the gap and help us to go ahead until the end of the year”. AbuZayed  expressed her deep concern about next year, 2010, as the year will start “while we do not have anything”.
Questions Marks

As a comment on the announced discontinuation of some important activities of the UNRWA, such as scholarships for Palestinian students, I would like to ask the the UNRWA Commissioner-General, Karen Koning AbuZayed, some questions:

• Where is the OPEC grant (US$1.2) of 1 July 2009 which the Commissioner-General which she personally accepted and received from the OPEC Fund as a donation towards a new scholarship fund for talented Palestinians?
• Where is the OPEC grant of  1 July 2009 which she herself accepted from the OPEC Fund for International Development for a microfinance fund towards supporting the private business sector of Palestinian Refugees through a micro-finance scheme (PALFUND) which reached (US$10) million?

“Justified” Corruption at UNRWA

On 1 October 2009, Al-Nahar News from Deir Al-Balah in Gaza reported that Mr. Ramadan Al-Omari of the Comptroller General unit of UNRWA decided to leave his post after serving for more than thirty years in the position. Mr. Al-Omari sent an open letter to the Commissioner General of UNRWA, her deputy, and to all members of UNRWA Board, in which he revealed some aspects of corruption and misappropriation of funds and the budget of the UNRWA.

Al-Omari said that "the US$ twenty-five million budget of the UNRWA for the years 2010 / 2011 were spent without tangible returns for the Palestinians”. He added: "Most of that money has gone to consultants working in the UNRWA and for the employment of more than 15 international staff which were not needed, each one contracted with a salary of not less than one hundred thousand dollars (US$100.000) a year”.

Mr. Al-Omari criticized the work of UNRWA, which has recently adopted very questionable methods in terms of style, in terms of organizational development, and in the terms of making decisions. He said that “such developments have created  an imposed upon us an international staff which we do not need”. He also stated that the UNRWA decisions are taken within a circle of agency managers who form a closed group, de-facto conspiring with each other, who have neither connection to nor interest in the Palestinians, and who take their decisions without consulting with the other responsible managers in the UNRWA work. Al-Omari was perplexed by how the UNRWA gives unlimited powers to the Director of Human Resources Management, taking in consideration any other input from within the organization or outside.

Al-Omari pointed to the main of contention that led to his resignation, which was related to the recent abolition by the higher UNRWA administration of the committees of human resources and contracts, in implement their plans without referral to the advice and review by these committees, which had been high regulatory powers within the agency.
Al-Omari said “the UNRWA wasted huge amounts of money on the so-called summer games in Gaza. This budget would have been enough to rebuild dozens of schools which were destroyed by the Israeli occupation during recent years”.

Karen Koning Denies

For her part, Karen koning, the UNRWA Commissioner-General, said that the statements and allegations of Mr. Al-Omari are wrong, different and far away of the truth. She added: "It is unfortunate that the Al-Omari letter was circulated (passed) to the press”. Koning considers that the open letter of Al-Omari is “damage to the Palestinian refugees and the UNRWA”. But her statement appears to be the usual “blame the victims” tactic used by psychopaths. See Koning denial as (PDF)

Al-Omari Replies to the Denial of Koning

Dear Karen,

Thanks for forwarding to me your message to the Management Committee members and for copying me on your letter to the HQ staff, both dated 4 September 2009. To a large extent the substance of both letters is the same and, therefore, I would like to address the two in this brief response, and to copy same to all addressees. Please note that I do not want to enter into a protracted exchange, but the way both letters were drafted for your signature indicates a lot of window dressing and a distraction from the real issues.

• In this regard, I notice that in both letters you have chosen to ignore my comments in paragraphs six and seven of the open letter regarding the critical issues of “hiring friends and former colleagues” and the practice of “favoritism and marginalization” respectively. I blame no body for ignoring them, as I know none would have any defense in addressing these management lapses.
• It is with regret that your reference in both letters to my “disagreement with the reform process” is incorrect and is out of context. I was, and remain, a big supporter of any reform process. I would very much be in support of the change to the better and not just the change for the sake of change as many of the OD activities have transpired to be. You may wish to recall that it was me who spearheaded the transformation of the Agency’s budget to a programme based budget since the beginning of the year 2000. You will also recall the more recent comment of the ACABQ which praised UNRWA’s budget to the extent that it was suggested to be used as a model by other UN organizations.
• It is also with regret that the statement in respect of the “Comptroller’s assertion that consultants have been hired to perform tasks that could have been easily undertaken by UNRWA staff, ……. that the majority of the OD Budget goes towards the salary of new staff whom we are proposing for absorption into the UN Regular Budget” (the last sentence in the fifth paragraph of your letter to the MC members), is misleading and does not address the issue as discussed with you in person. I regret that I have to be more direct and explain. The example I referred to in paragraph six of my open letter regarding the use by HRD of a friend/former colleague consultant to perform a study on the retirement benefits in the area of operations where the consultant’s work ended with a report containing data about the retirement benefits in the region without giving any suggestions or recommendations as to how the various retirement schemes could be summed up to produce an UNRWA specific retirement system that would be compatible with the practice of the host authorities. You may wish to note that this useless study has cost the Agency $ 21,266.32 (doc 0-8AFV004095 refers) for work that was done in a month’s time. This is exactly what I meant with my earlier statement that the same task could have been easily undertaken by a local staff member from amongst the all competent ones in the Division of Compensation and Management Services.
• In connection with the above the OD, in my view, has become a job creation programme for international staff. It so far employs sixteen international staff members, the actual cost of whom is, so far, some $ 4 million. It also involves the hiring of international consultants, the cost of whom is so far another $ 4 million! It is with sadness that I report that the cost so far paid to the local staff hired under the OD is only $ 133,000.
• It is true that the OD is separately funded and that the General Fund money is not used for its activities, yet, I have to clarify, as you will appreciate, that donors have very limited funds to give to UNRWA against the various budget lines; hence any funding to the OD would certainly negatively affect the funding to the General Fund. Moreover, having the OD separately funded should not justify spending such funds on activities that do not produce any benefits to the Organization.
• It is with regret that the OD defenders keep using the Gaza Field initiatives of the “Schools of Excellence” and the “Education Recovery Plan” as successes for the OD. You will agree with me that credit should go to where it belongs. These two initiatives were exclusively initiated and implemented by the GFO management totally independent from the OD, and that they are funded from the Field’s own resources, mainly the Emergency Appeal budgets. The fact that they coincided with the OD should not give any credit to the OD process itself.
• Before I conclude, and by the way I still have a lot more to say, I want to ask you a question again on what basis the leading consultant of the OD said in the June QMC that “half of those around this table may not be here by this time next year”. Was this said in vacuum? Or it resulted from the “close” discussions within your inner circle? What else I need to say to further prove the existence of the closed circle management approach that has been prevailing for the last few years?
• Finally, concerning your statement that my open letter contains “unsubstantiated accusations”, I believe the best judge here is to have an independent review of the issues raised with the objective of making the facts clear to the Agency’s management and staff, the host authorities, and the refugee community at large. Read the letter in Arabic as (PDF)
  

Regards,
Ramadan

Contradicting UNRWA Policies in Palestine

Recently, the UNRWA, which until now did not find it necessary to teach the Palestinians the ir own history, the history of 61 years of Catastrophe, the “Nakba”, and which keeps its schools in Palestinian refugee camps in Palestine and in the Diaspora in a miserable state, decided to teach the Holocaust to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Why must the Palestinians learn about the Holocaust at the UNRWA schools, while the UNRWA did never teach these children about their own history of Nakba, and the daily genocide which they live since 61 years under the Zionists occupation? Is the purpose of the defalcation of funds from the UNRWA by the cronies of Koning related to this travesty?

The shameful and contradicting standards of the UNRWA in the sector of education has brought about a huge reaction of anger in Palestine. On 1 July 2009 I asked the Commissioner-General, Karen Koning AbuZayed, personally:

• Who is responsible for the eliminating the teaching of the Palestinian Nakba, the genocide of the Palestinians, from the curriculum of study of Palestinian children in schools and UNRWA?
• Why does the UNRWA not teach the Palestinian children their own history in its schools in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan refugee camps? And which are the aims of the UNRWA in cultivating this ignorance of the Palestinian history in its schools?

Koning, who obviously considers teaching about the Nazi genocide during the second world war, which interests nobody in Palestine, to be a part of a “human rights” curriculum, did not answer my questions, she said anything, and continued squeezing her hair. She even turned off my tape recorder, which was in front of her on the table.

Austria/ Palestine/ Occupied Territories:

At around 11AM, Fuad Mahmoud Nayef Turkman, aged 17, was killed before the eyes of his brother, relatives and colleagues inside the schoolyard of the “Izz al-Din al-Qassam” school in Yabad, after an Israeli military jeep broke into the school shooting tear gas and then proceeded to deliberately run over one of the students, Fuad, and pulling him more than 25 meters out of the school before the eyes of the horrified pupils.

The school secretary, Mr. Omar Ahmed Al-Kilani, said that while students were present in the school yard, an Israeli military Jeep broke through to the entrance of the school yard, and proceeded to terrorize the students, throwing bombs and running over Fuad Mahmoud Nayef Turkmen (17 years) before the eyes of his colleagues.

Several students fell unconscious after breathing the tear gas, and they were transferred to hospital for medical treatment. Some students collapsed after seeing the criminal murder of their colleague; among them was his Mahdi, who had a nervous breakdown.

Mohammed Nayef, Turkman’s uncle, who is a teacher at the same school, said that he saw the Israeli military jeep break into the school yard driving fast towards a group of students. The jeep ran over "Turkman" with all four wheels, and then backed up and drove over him again and pulled him about 25 meters. He added that the IDF soldiers did not allow them to get to Fuad for about 15 minutes. The victim was transferred to the hospital in Jenin, but he died soon after his arrival.

[The town of Yabad is south-west of Jenin in the West Bank, which is nominally under the control of the Palestinian Authority and its “security” groups, which are lead and directed by the American Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton].

It should be noted that the illusory governor of Jenin, Kaddoura Musa, and the Police chief, “colonel” Yosef Ezril, as well as “colonel” Radi Asede, the regional commander of Jenin, together with “colonel” Ibrahim Ramadan, the director of the “Alternative Security Service”, all disappeared and hid in their basements, as usual, during this last terrorist incident of the Israeli army invading a boys' school, murdering a teenage student for no reason at all, beyond the sick psyches of these Israeli boys in uniforms.

Here is a link to the original article.