Palestine

Stand up for Peace in the Middle East and Against the Pro-War Policies of AIPAC!

On May 3-5, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) will hold its annual convention in Washington DC to rally its supporters to
push the U.S. government to support the Israeli government without conditions. AIPAC is advocating an aggressive approach to Iran;
supporting Israel's continuing to siege on Gaza and its refusal to cooperate with a UN investigation into violations of international law;
and backing the Israeli government’s refusal to engage in substantive peace negotiations with the elected Palestinian leaders.

It's time to expose AIPAC’s pro-war stance and take a stand in favor of human rights and international law. Join CODEPINK and other groups in DC May 2-5 in a variety of activities planned throughout the convention. E-mail for more information.

Schedule of Events:

Physicians offer chilling account of Gaza atrocities
By Marc Abizeid | Daily Star Lebanon

Listen to this article

Renowned Chinese-English physician Dr. Swee Ang gave a moving testimony on Saturday of Israel's destruction in the Gaza Strip as witnessed in her recent trip to the tiny Palestinian enclave. "Cluster bombs, deliberate assassinations of whole families that they would line up and shoot," Ang said as she listed a number of acts committed by Israel during its 22-day assault on Gaza in December and January that left over 1,400 Palestinians dead.

"The Israelis would wait until the ambulances got the wounded and then attack them, killing and injuring the drivers," she continued.

Israeli Use of Palestinians As Human Shields
By Stephen Lendman

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights is a Gaza-based Palestinian NGO mandated "to promote, protect and prevent violations of human rights in general, and economic, social and cultural rights in particular, to provide effective aid to those victims of such violations, and to enhance the quality of life of the community in (Gaza's) marginalized sectors."

It monitors and documents violations, provides legal aid and advocacy, and helps Gazans on "fundamental issues such as basic human rights, democracy, and international humanitarian" matters. It also produces reports and publications on its work.

Recognizing the Jewish State of Israel
What are the consequences of Israel’s newest demand for recognition on the Palestinian people and prospects for peace?
By Abu Yusef from occupied Palestine | Palestine Monitor | 19 April 2009

Here in Palestine, we have been utterly confused as to why Israel has publicly backtracked from the Annapolis Peace Process over the last weeks, in the midst of overt US pressure to continue the broken negotiations.

We understand that parties like Shas, Likud, Israel Beitenu and others in the coalition do not want to achieve any meaningful peace, and that in fact they want only to extend the Israel’s civilian and military reach into the occupied Palestinian Territories…so why would they be adverse to what had taken place since Annapolis? If anything they should be the ones eagerly promoting a return to the process, while the Palestinians should be running for the hills.

After all, since Annapolis:

• Not one of the over 6 million Palestinian refugees from abroad has been granted the right of return to either Israel or the occupied Palestinian Territories.
• Gaza, while disengaged from by Israel in the civilian sense, remains occupied and controlled by Israel in every other way imaginable.
• The number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails has increased to over 11,000.
• The Judaization of East Jerusalem has continued full bore with the destruction and seizure of hundreds of Palestinian homes.
• The illegal annexation Wall has continued to grow in the occupied Palestinian Territories despite its condemnation in international and Israeli courts.
• The settlement enterprise not only continued throughout 2008, it increased dramatically. Tenders for new construction increased by 550% (!), and a whole 55% of these were designated for construction even beyond the illegal annexation Wall.
• The system of checkpoints and movement restrictions, by which Palestine is turned in to a series of isolated cantons, have increased dramatically throughout 2008, and are set to increase ever more according to the promises of Israel’s Avigdor Liebermann.

Nobel laureate accuses Israel of 'ethnic cleansing' | Yahoo! News

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Nobel peace laureate Mairead Maguire on Tuesday accused Israel of "ethnic cleansing" policies in annexed east Jerusalem, where the municipality plans to tear down almost 90 Arab homes.

"I believe the Israeli government is carrying out a policy of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians here in east Jerusalem," said Maguire, who won the 1976 Nobel prize for her efforts at reaching a peaceful solution to the violence in Northern Ireland.

"I believe the Israeli government policies are against international law, against human rights, against the dignity of the Palestinian people," she said at a news conference.

It was held in a protest tent erected by residents of east Jerusalem's Silwan neighbourhood where 88 Arab homes are under demolition orders.

The Aftermath of the War on Gaza and Israeli Elections: Problems and Prospects Facing Palestinian/Israeli Peace - Issue Paper
By Yousef Munayyer | ADC

Executive Summary | Link to complete paper

The War on Gaza ‐ The 22‐day war on Gaza did not move the conflict closer to resolution. After the war the imbalance of threats remains the same. HAMAS was able to launch rockets on the last day of the war and Israel maintains the ability to prevent food and fuel from entering the strip and can bombard it at will. The end result will undoubtedly have to be a negotiated agreement based on the security needs of both sides and for this to work it must be evenhandedly mediated and verified by third parties. 

West Bank Situation ‐ As recently as this month the State of Israel announced plans for the major expansion of settlements in the West Bank. The establishment and expansion of settlements, still illegal under international law, continues unabated, striking at the very heart of Palestinians distrust of the State of Israel. Throughout the peace process settlements have continued to be built or expanded and have created the perception among Palestinians that Israel is only interested in talking about a two‐state solution without genuinely being willing to craft the necessary policies to make it a reality.. Land confiscation and home demolition continues in sensitive areas like East Jerusalem while a separation wall and checkpoints continue to make freedom of movement nearly impossible. 

Palestinian Leadership Issues ‐ Since the death of Yasser Arafat divisions in Palestinian politics have continued to grow. Erupting in bloody conflict in the summer of 2007, the growing dispute between HAMAS and FATEH has left the internationally recognized Palestinian leadership in a week and illegitimate position. Recently conducted public opinion polling shows that the war on Gaza seems to have exacerbated the Palestinian crisis of legitimacy and calls into question the ability of President Mahmoud Abass to govern or negotiate a lasting peace. Many elected representatives in the Palestinian Legislative Council continue to be held by Israel as political prisoners. 

Israel Leadership Issues ‐ The recent elections in Israel, which have lead to a new government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have brought the right wing of the Israeli political spectrum to power. Netanyahu’s previous record as Prime Minister, the platform positions of the empowered right wing parties, and statements of party officials during the campaign period indicate that the policies of the next Israeli government is not supportive of the two state solution within the framework of pertinent UN resolutions. The US government should ensure that the upcoming Israeli government publically declares its support for such a solution and that the latter takes tangible steps to enact it. 

U.S. boycotts racism conference, says it 'singles out' Israel | CNN

The United States is boycotting a U.N. conference on racism next week over a document that "singles out" Israel in its criticism and conflicts with the nation's "commitment to unfettered free speech," the U.S. State Department said Saturday.

The Obama administration made the decision not to attend the Durban Review Conference in Geneva "with regret," a State Department statement said.

Two months ago, the administration had warned that it would boycott the conference if changes were not made to the document to be adopted by the conference. In recent weeks, discussions over the document have fueled several revisions, but the changes to the language didn't meet U.S. expectations, the statement said.

Israel rejects U.S. plan for Palestinian state
By Dion Nissenbaum | Miami Herald

In a direct challenge to President Barack Obama's commitment to rejuvenate moribund Mideast peace talks, Israel on Thursday dismissed American-led efforts to establish a Palestinian state and laid out new conditions for renewed negotiations.

Leaders of Israel's hawkish new government told former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, the special U.S. envoy, that they aren't going to rush into peace talks with their Palestinian neighbors.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he would require Palestinians to accept Israel as a Jewish state in any future negotiations - a demand that Palestinians have up to now rejected, Israeli government officials said.

Man who says he is former AIPAC member puts up billboards decrying Gaza as monstrous inhumanity | Mondoweiss

I keep braying that Gaza is a watershed moment in American political life and American Jewish life.

The billboard is one of ten being put up in New Mexico by an Albuquerque-based grassroots org (the Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel).

The group looks to be multicultural, and led by two Jews, Lori Rudolph and Rich Forer. Forer says that he is a former member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) who has been shaken from ideological slumbers in the last couple of years by the Israeli New Historians.

He has learned that Jewish schoolchildren are "grossly misinformed" about the conflict and are taught to demonize Palestinians. Gaza was a "monstrous act of inhumanity," he continues, and Israel must act sincerely to restore the dignity to both peoples.

Monstrous act of inhumanity, that is the takeaway phrase. I believe anyone can be a member of AIPAC; but Forer's epiphany is evidently sincere, and symptomatic of a change in the American Jewish relationship to Israel that AIPAC will have to reckon with.

Investigating Israeli War Crimes in Gaza
by Stephen Lendman

Independent investigations and convincing testimonies, on both sides, provide compelling evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. It's time to hold the guilty accountable.

In February, the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights showed conclusively how Israel violated core international law principles by indiscriminately attacking civilians in spite of IDF claims such instances were justified.

Amnesty International accused Israel of war crimes and called on the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has a long record of acting as an imperial agent even while at times fulfilling its mandate "to protect the human rights of people around the world....stand with (them) and uphold political freedom (by) bring(ing) offenders to justice."

U.S. shipped 989 munitions containers to Israel week before Gaza invasion | Australian Herald

A week before Israel launched an aerial bombing campaign on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the U.S. military shipped 989 20-foot containers of munitions, each weighing 14,000 tonnes, to Israel.
In the dying days of the Bush administration, and a week before Israel launched an aerial bombing campaign, followed by a land invasion of the Gaza Strip, the U.S. military shipped 989 containers of munitions to Israel.

Each container was 20-feet long with a total estimated net weight of 14,000 tonnes. The shipment reportedly reached Israel last month at Ashod, 40 kiometres north of Gaza. The huge arsenal of munitions will replenish those expended in the Gaza War.

According to Amnesty International in the UK, the shipment included white phosphorous.

by Linda Milazzo

Mid-afternoon on Wednesday, driving along a street in the West San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, I saw this man lying on the parkway of the road. 

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Today would have been Rachel Corrie's 30th birthday.

'Gaza wears a face of misery'
By Adam Makary | al Jazeera

Philip Rizk, 27, a freelance journalist and blogger who has been reporting from Gaza since 2005, was taken by Egyptian security forces after a pro-Palestinian rally in Cairo on February 6.

He was released a few days later without being charged.

While in Gaza, he filmed The Palestinian Life, a documentary highlighting non-violent means of resistance against the Israeli occupation.

The film is premiering at the London International Documentary Festival on April 4. Here are excerpts from an interview Rizk gave to Al Jazeera shortly before the film’s debut.

Obama team readying for confrontation with Netanyahu
By Aluf Benn | Haaretz

In an unprecedented move, the Obama administration is readying for a possible confrontation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by briefing Democratic congressmen on the peace process and the positions of the new government in Israel regarding a two-state solution.

The Obama administration is expecting a clash with Netanyahu over his refusal to support the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Israel on Trial
By GEORGE BISHARAT, NY Times

CHILLING testimony by Israeli soldiers substantiates charges that Israel’s Gaza Strip assault entailed grave violations of international law. The emergence of a predominantly right-wing, nationalist government in Israel suggests that there may be more violations to come. Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians also constituted war crimes, but do not excuse Israel’s transgressions. While Israel disputes some of the soldiers’ accounts, the evidence suggests that Israel committed the following six offenses:

• Violating its duty to protect the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. Despite Israel’s 2005 “disengagement” from Gaza, the territory remains occupied. Israel unleashed military firepower against a people it is legally bound to protect.

UN Official Pleads for Opening of Gaza Borders
By Louis Charbonneau | Reuters

The top U.N. aid official in the Gaza Strip urged Israel on Friday to ease restrictions on the flow of goods into the conflict-torn territory, saying they were "devastating" for the people.

"It's wholly and totally inadequate," John Ging, head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, said about the amount of goods Israel permits into the territory, where some 1.5 million Palestinians live.

"It's having a very devastating impact on the physical circumstances and also the mindset of people on the ground," he said.

Israel says it has opened Gaza's border to larger amounts of food and medicine since its December-January offensive against Hamas militants who control the Palestinian enclave and were firing rockets against Israeli towns.

By AFP

GENEVA (AFP) — Former international prosecutor Richard Goldstone will lead a human rights probe into violence during Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip three months ago, the United Nations said Friday.

"It is in the interest of all Palestinians and Israelis that the allegations of war crimes and serious human rights violations related to the recent conflict on all sides be investigated," Goldstone said in a statement.

The 47-member UN Human Rights Council voted by a large majority on January 12 to set up the probe into "grave" human rights violations by Israeli forces against the Palestinians.

"I am confident that the mission will be in a position to assess in an independent and impartial manner all human rights and humanitarian law violations committed in the context of the conflict which took place between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009," said Council president Martin Uhomoibhi.

Israel's Illegal Annexation of East Jerusalem
by Stephen Lendman

So says a confidential EU report revealed on March 7 by The London Guardian's Rory McCarthy. It accuses Israel "of using settlement expansion, house demolitions, discriminatory housing policies and the West Bank (Separation) barrier as a way of 'actively pursuing the illegal annexation' of East Jerusalem." More still, including restrictive permits, "closure of Palestinian institutions," and various other ways to "increase Jewish presence in" the city, "impede Palestinian urban development, and separate East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank" incrementally to annex it.

It says plans are now accelerated and have undermined the Palestinian Authority's (PA) credibility as well as weakened support for peace. It calls "Israel's actions in and around Jerusalem....one of the most acute challenges to Israeli-Palestinian peace-making (yet) have limited security justifications." In addition, they're illegal.

Israel Abandons Gaza Probe
Compiled by Jason Ditz | AntiWar.com
Military Dismisses Reported Killings as "Hearsay"

The Israeli military announced today that they are abandoning the investigation stemming from public testimony by several veterans of the Gaza invasion who reported the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians by military personnel and extremely lax rules of engagement.

In response to President Obama's Nowruz overture, Iranian officials said: words are nice, but that what Iran is looking for is concrete changes in U.S. policy. Remarkably, such Iranian statements were presented in much of the U.S. press as evidence that Iranian officials aren't interested in improving relations. Another interpretation is at least plausible: Iran is looking for concrete changes in U.S. policy.

Treating a request for changes as an insult would make sense if we agree to assume that the U.S. is congenitally incapable of making concrete changes in U.S. policy towards Iran. But of course, that's not true at all. On the contrary, the U.S. finds itself like a kid in a candy store, confronted by so many choices for concrete policy changes to improve relations with Iran that one hardly knows where to begin. Here, by way of example, are twelve steps the U.S. could take to improve relations.

Pro-Zionism: Defending the Indefensible
by Stephen Lendman

This article responds to a March 15 Los Angeles Times Judea Pearl one headlined: "Is anti-Zionism hate?" Pearl teaches computer science at UCLA, is the father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation. It was "formed....to continue Danny's mission and to address the root causes of this tragedy in the spirit" of the man it represents, including "uncompromised objectivity and integrity....and respect for people of all cultures...."

Some of its honorary board member belie this purpose:

• former president Bill Clinton, an unindicted war criminal and backer of neoliberal plunder;
• Elie Wiesel, a shameless self-promoter, "Holocaust" exploiter, and apologist for the most outrageous Israeli crimes;
• Jordan's Queen Noor, wife of King Abdullah II, who, like his father Hussein, rules with dictatorial police state powers; and
  

Courage of Conscience Speaking Tour Combatants for Peace: Israel and Palestine

WHEN: Friday March 27th 7:30-9:30 PM

WHERE: St. Columbia's Episcopal Church 4201 Albemarle St. NW DC 20016 - One block from the Tenleytown Metro.

Former Soldier, Former Fighter - Yaniv Reshef and Bassam Aramin.

Israeli Yaniv Rashef, whose home is range of Gaza missiles, was a soldier in a sabotage unit of the Israeli Army - and chose to fight no more.

Palestinian Bassam Aramin served seven years in jail for planning an attack against Israeli soldier - and chose no more violence. Just two years ago, Bassam lost his daughter to an Israeli soldier's rubber-coated bullet. Their movement, Combatants for Peace, numbers over 600 former Israeli soldiers and former Palestinian fighters, working together without revenge to build justice, peace, and a playground in memory of Abir Aramin.

Incriminating Evidence of Israeli War Crimes in Gaza
by Stephen Lendman

Throughout its history, Israel has willfully and repeatedly committed crimes of war and against humanity, always with impunity. Yet under customary legal standards and norms (including Geneva, Hague, the UN Charter, S.C. and G.A. resolutions), it's lawless, a serial abuser, a threat to the region and humanity, mostly as an oppressive occupier. Attacking Gaza is the latest episode in its six-decade reign of terror satisfying the definition of genocide against defenseless Palestinian civilians. This article covers more evidence from some disturbing but unsurprising newly published information.

Terror in the Holy Land
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7r82O7chy8

Message of Peace from Gaza
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8KTQnkV91w

Grassroots in Gaza
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FktlrF-n7N8

Murder on the beach
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY-nr5Z9Toc

UN relief Center in Gaza
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH30klsosRw

Viva Palestina leaves Gaza
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k62CYrXopE

Jabylia destroyed by American Bombs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hds-BwP9kHc

Rachel Corrie's Father in Gaza
://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGYKAbPXkh8

America Funded Murder on the Beach in Gaza
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8xiHFfErWc

Traditional Dancing in Palestine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqGN95TwEUw

Palestinian Breakdancer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGE7DL4sXcM

Yummy pies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KrkVD8YVgk

Zionist Gunboat Threatens Gazan Fishermen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU6CY1h02rA

IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot at Gaza Rescuers, Note Says
by Amira Hass | Haaretz

"Rules of Engagement: Open fire also upon rescue," was handwritten in Hebrew on a sheet of paper found in one of the Palestinian homes the Israel Defense Forces took over during Operation Cast Lead. A reservist officer who did not take part in the Gaza offensive believes that the note is part of orders a low-level commander wrote before giving his soldiers their daily briefing.

One of the main themes in news reports during the Gaza operation, and which appears in many testimonies, is that IDF soldiers shot at Palestinian and Red Cross rescuers, making it impossible to evacuate the wounded and dead. As a result, an unknown number of Palestinians bled to death as others cowered in their homes for days without medical treatment, waiting to be rescued.

The bodies of the dead lay outside the homes or on roadsides for days, sometimes as long as two weeks. Haaretz has reported a number of such cases, some of them as they happened. The document found in the house provides written proof that IDF commanders ordered their troops to shoot at rescuers.

The sheet of paper entitled "Situational Assessment" was found by a field researcher of The Palestinian Center for Human Rights in the home of Sami Dardone's family in Jabal al-Rayes, east of Jabalya. The extended Dardone family lives in about 40 homes in this neighborhood, built on a hilltop. Some of the homes were taken over by the army to house troops during the offensive and to serve as sniping positions, or for shooting in general.

Col. Wright: "Incredible Crime Committed on Gaza"

Col. Ann Wright, US Army, Ret., and a former high ranking U.S. Diplomat, just returned from Israeli Occupied Gaza. She said: